The Croaking Frog - Chapter 1 - Dry pond blues
Posted: July 10th, 2017, 2:02 pm
Preface:
The Journey begins... Pseudacris temporarily wakes up in a tragic state of mind and body to find his life slowly slipping away. Beneath the brutal sun and lost in a wasteland of waterless habitat, he attempts to recollect the broken distorted memories of his short time on earth. Follow this tragic hero through the harsh battle before him as he attempts this pure and noble deed of saving his clan from sure extinction and the others mired in the muck.
I'm having some issues with the video playing. The cartoon is in 1080 HD quality, but the auto setting for YouTube wants to play it in 480p. Then jumps back in forth between 240p - 480p making some scenes look blurry. Could just be a problem with my wifi... You should probably watch it in either 480p (with the auto setting off) or in 720p (with the auto setting off). Looks good in full screen. Let me know what you think! All critiques are welcome... good or bad! Enjoy... and thanks for watching!
Artwork
I originally wanted to make the characters more authentic looking to the herps we are all familiar with here in California. Similar to Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher. However, some characters required too much detail that wouldn't work for certain scenes due to proportional size requirements. When small, they looked like a squished jumbled mess. So, I had to make some hard decisions to make the characters more acceptable in an animated world. Having one character with lots of detail and others with less, creates an unbalance disturbing to the eye. So, unfortunately changes had to be made. However I did take the liberty of sampling colors from photos of these animals to get a more authentic aspect to each of them.
This project was originally canned... A few years back, I went out and bought an art tablet thingy with a pen that you pug into a laptop and draw directly onto the screen. I quickly realized I couldn't do the detail I originally wanted. The accuracy was horrible and couldn't keep up with my hand. It would take years to draw all the frames. So, that was it... not doing it. Project canned. Then at the beginning of the year, I stumbled across a cellphone app called FilpaClip. A simple free app that allows you to draw and create simple animations with your thumbs on a touchscreen phone. So, I started messing around with it and realized the frog project was now possible... I went out and bought a 9.6" Galaxy TAB, downloaded the app to it, and began drawing away. I had all of the scenes and episodes already finished, with storyboards. So, I basically just picked up where I left off. More than 95 % of the animation was done with my thumbs and figures and I ended up buying a stylus pen which proved to be nearly useless except for fine detail requirements.
Music
I had a lot of music already written that was basically sitting on the shelf collecting dust. Some dating all the way back to high school when I first started writing music. I realized a lot of the material could be transferred into a froggy theme and supported the emotion of certain scenes. A lot of changes still had to be made... for instance, a song about my mother's sadness now could be used to express the sadness of a character in the story. I've always admired lyric writers who can write lyrics that can be widely interpreted in a more poetic form of writing. I've always strived to incorporate that in my own song writing. Interpretation of the lyrics is more of an expression of the listeners own opinions as opposed to forcing the opinions of the writer. I bought cheap weird and obscure instruments to create a strange and interesting froggy vibe... including a $100 fretless bass and a set of wooden guiro's. With bass and acoustic guitar, I tried to imitate the sounds of croaking and hoppy jumping rhythms as much as possible. Everything was recorded on a Tascam pocket recorder in my apartment. So, the sound quality is only as good as I could afford. I didn't want to spend too much time mixing the songs, because I have sooooo much else to do, considering I'm doing everything myself. Still... a lot of the music sounds pretty good and I'll include a list of episode tracks and unused tracks at the bottom of the post. They sound better from the Soundcloud page.
Video Editing
I get bored easily lol I've never been able to do one hobby, forever. I'd do art for a few months... then skateboard and learn some new tricks... then roll my ankle or sprain a wrist and end up picking up an acoustic and writing a couple songs... then back to art for awhile. Things get stale and I need a break from it to regain the excitement of doing it. After skateboarding became a thing I could never do professionally and something that threaten my ability to show up to work each day because of possible injuries (and an orthoscopic shoulder surgery), I started making videos. I still had a few of my little brothers friends who skated and ended up making a series of skateboarding videos for them. With some lame sections of myself included while they filmed during resting breaks lol (If you don't skate and practice, you lose it...) Each video was synchronized to music and required fine splitting of video clips. It also got me familiar with basic movie editing software like Windows Movie Maker, which I used to create all of the sk8 videos. So, I already had a good understanding of how to go about making an animated film. I knew I would be limited... however, I could do enough to tell the story.
I looked into a few different animation studios for my laptop and ran into the same problem I did with the art tablet thing. It would take way too long to produce anything... I had no idea how to navigate through them and I'd have to search through youtube videos on how to operate and do everything. Not only that, but the visual of the workspace was that boring light grey color and didn't have any interesting shapes balanced out in proportion to the size of my laptop screen. Keep in mind, I'll be staring at this workstation for hours as I edit. No way could I do this project with an uninspiring visual display. So, I decided not to go with an animation studio and instead went with Camtasia. It sucks for what I'm doing and the customer service guy who I've talked to a couple times says, "sorry you're on your own...you've already done more with this studio that we thought was possible" when he's hooked up live and viewing my laptop screen to help me trouble shoot problems. However, it's a nice feeling to be doing something new instead of copying other peoples ideas or following directions and that's refreshing, I guess. Also, I can accomplish what I need to do in half the time.
What does this have to do with field herping...?
That's actually a very good question. I was asked a few years back, when I posted a couple of the first drawings and/or songs, "what does this have to do with field herping?" Field herping inspired this. After taking a long break from setting out to catch snakes, aside from the occasional unintentional encounter... I got back into it around 2010. Learning new things and being reconnected with the little unliked and unwanted critters, brought back an old enthusiasm to get involved. How can I contribute to field herping...? How can I apply my skills in a different way that others already haven't. This video might not be for the diehard herper... honestly, I don't know. But, it definitely was made for the people who don't really care about the animals or never really thought about them. I hope to encourage awareness and new interest within the people who drive over snakes crossing roads, simply because they never thought that snakes crossed roads and aren't looking at the road while driving... they are looking up ahead. This video may lead them back here or to some other forum where they can learn about these amazing creatures. Not only that... YOU are the audience! Who else in this crazy ass world has any interest about watching a frog cartoon??
Chapter 1 Songs
Theme Song - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/s ... ideo-theme
Sympathy of a Drought - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/s ... -a-drought
Dry Pond Blues - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/dry-pond-bluse-1
Dreamscape - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/dreamscape
Dry Pond Blues - End credits jam - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/d ... redits-jam
Unused songs & tracks
Curriculum - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/a ... s-curricul
Frog Shade by the Marsh - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/f ... -the-marsh
The Salamanders Journey Up the Mountain - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/t ... e-mountain
Frog Voice Practice - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/f ... e-practice
The Day the Water Turned to Mud - Acoustic & harmonica version - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/t ... ca-version
The Day the Water Turned to Mud - Electric feedback version https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/t ... ck-version
The Journey begins... Pseudacris temporarily wakes up in a tragic state of mind and body to find his life slowly slipping away. Beneath the brutal sun and lost in a wasteland of waterless habitat, he attempts to recollect the broken distorted memories of his short time on earth. Follow this tragic hero through the harsh battle before him as he attempts this pure and noble deed of saving his clan from sure extinction and the others mired in the muck.
I'm having some issues with the video playing. The cartoon is in 1080 HD quality, but the auto setting for YouTube wants to play it in 480p. Then jumps back in forth between 240p - 480p making some scenes look blurry. Could just be a problem with my wifi... You should probably watch it in either 480p (with the auto setting off) or in 720p (with the auto setting off). Looks good in full screen. Let me know what you think! All critiques are welcome... good or bad! Enjoy... and thanks for watching!
Artwork
I originally wanted to make the characters more authentic looking to the herps we are all familiar with here in California. Similar to Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher. However, some characters required too much detail that wouldn't work for certain scenes due to proportional size requirements. When small, they looked like a squished jumbled mess. So, I had to make some hard decisions to make the characters more acceptable in an animated world. Having one character with lots of detail and others with less, creates an unbalance disturbing to the eye. So, unfortunately changes had to be made. However I did take the liberty of sampling colors from photos of these animals to get a more authentic aspect to each of them.
This project was originally canned... A few years back, I went out and bought an art tablet thingy with a pen that you pug into a laptop and draw directly onto the screen. I quickly realized I couldn't do the detail I originally wanted. The accuracy was horrible and couldn't keep up with my hand. It would take years to draw all the frames. So, that was it... not doing it. Project canned. Then at the beginning of the year, I stumbled across a cellphone app called FilpaClip. A simple free app that allows you to draw and create simple animations with your thumbs on a touchscreen phone. So, I started messing around with it and realized the frog project was now possible... I went out and bought a 9.6" Galaxy TAB, downloaded the app to it, and began drawing away. I had all of the scenes and episodes already finished, with storyboards. So, I basically just picked up where I left off. More than 95 % of the animation was done with my thumbs and figures and I ended up buying a stylus pen which proved to be nearly useless except for fine detail requirements.
Music
I had a lot of music already written that was basically sitting on the shelf collecting dust. Some dating all the way back to high school when I first started writing music. I realized a lot of the material could be transferred into a froggy theme and supported the emotion of certain scenes. A lot of changes still had to be made... for instance, a song about my mother's sadness now could be used to express the sadness of a character in the story. I've always admired lyric writers who can write lyrics that can be widely interpreted in a more poetic form of writing. I've always strived to incorporate that in my own song writing. Interpretation of the lyrics is more of an expression of the listeners own opinions as opposed to forcing the opinions of the writer. I bought cheap weird and obscure instruments to create a strange and interesting froggy vibe... including a $100 fretless bass and a set of wooden guiro's. With bass and acoustic guitar, I tried to imitate the sounds of croaking and hoppy jumping rhythms as much as possible. Everything was recorded on a Tascam pocket recorder in my apartment. So, the sound quality is only as good as I could afford. I didn't want to spend too much time mixing the songs, because I have sooooo much else to do, considering I'm doing everything myself. Still... a lot of the music sounds pretty good and I'll include a list of episode tracks and unused tracks at the bottom of the post. They sound better from the Soundcloud page.
Video Editing
I get bored easily lol I've never been able to do one hobby, forever. I'd do art for a few months... then skateboard and learn some new tricks... then roll my ankle or sprain a wrist and end up picking up an acoustic and writing a couple songs... then back to art for awhile. Things get stale and I need a break from it to regain the excitement of doing it. After skateboarding became a thing I could never do professionally and something that threaten my ability to show up to work each day because of possible injuries (and an orthoscopic shoulder surgery), I started making videos. I still had a few of my little brothers friends who skated and ended up making a series of skateboarding videos for them. With some lame sections of myself included while they filmed during resting breaks lol (If you don't skate and practice, you lose it...) Each video was synchronized to music and required fine splitting of video clips. It also got me familiar with basic movie editing software like Windows Movie Maker, which I used to create all of the sk8 videos. So, I already had a good understanding of how to go about making an animated film. I knew I would be limited... however, I could do enough to tell the story.
I looked into a few different animation studios for my laptop and ran into the same problem I did with the art tablet thing. It would take way too long to produce anything... I had no idea how to navigate through them and I'd have to search through youtube videos on how to operate and do everything. Not only that, but the visual of the workspace was that boring light grey color and didn't have any interesting shapes balanced out in proportion to the size of my laptop screen. Keep in mind, I'll be staring at this workstation for hours as I edit. No way could I do this project with an uninspiring visual display. So, I decided not to go with an animation studio and instead went with Camtasia. It sucks for what I'm doing and the customer service guy who I've talked to a couple times says, "sorry you're on your own...you've already done more with this studio that we thought was possible" when he's hooked up live and viewing my laptop screen to help me trouble shoot problems. However, it's a nice feeling to be doing something new instead of copying other peoples ideas or following directions and that's refreshing, I guess. Also, I can accomplish what I need to do in half the time.
What does this have to do with field herping...?
That's actually a very good question. I was asked a few years back, when I posted a couple of the first drawings and/or songs, "what does this have to do with field herping?" Field herping inspired this. After taking a long break from setting out to catch snakes, aside from the occasional unintentional encounter... I got back into it around 2010. Learning new things and being reconnected with the little unliked and unwanted critters, brought back an old enthusiasm to get involved. How can I contribute to field herping...? How can I apply my skills in a different way that others already haven't. This video might not be for the diehard herper... honestly, I don't know. But, it definitely was made for the people who don't really care about the animals or never really thought about them. I hope to encourage awareness and new interest within the people who drive over snakes crossing roads, simply because they never thought that snakes crossed roads and aren't looking at the road while driving... they are looking up ahead. This video may lead them back here or to some other forum where they can learn about these amazing creatures. Not only that... YOU are the audience! Who else in this crazy ass world has any interest about watching a frog cartoon??
Chapter 1 Songs
Theme Song - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/s ... ideo-theme
Sympathy of a Drought - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/s ... -a-drought
Dry Pond Blues - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/dry-pond-bluse-1
Dreamscape - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/dreamscape
Dry Pond Blues - End credits jam - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/d ... redits-jam
Unused songs & tracks
Curriculum - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/a ... s-curricul
Frog Shade by the Marsh - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/f ... -the-marsh
The Salamanders Journey Up the Mountain - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/t ... e-mountain
Frog Voice Practice - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/f ... e-practice
The Day the Water Turned to Mud - Acoustic & harmonica version - https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/t ... ca-version
The Day the Water Turned to Mud - Electric feedback version https://soundcloud.com/user-336035423/t ... ck-version