Posted by tjparsons on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 7:36pm
Many years ago, fifteen to estimate to the best of my ability, there was this weirdo that worked at a rapidly going out business grocery store in Woodstock, Virginia. Between customers he would advance a foot or so of blank register tape, write down notes, observations or draw designs for ideas. After work he would drive home, open up a shoe box and throw the ideas inside (fuel a project another day). Eventually he came to pull out every tape that he wrote upon and proceeded to organize the cryptic data according to subject. The drawings and designs would be firmly placed between cellophane sheets of a photo album to be scanned into a computer. Over the course of two short years he had enough ideas for 5-6 screenplays, a few novellas, and ample material left over countless character designs. Years went by and these notes were attempted to be interpreted by OCR programs (common for converting text to type) to no avail. However, each drawing had to be meticulously scanned into the computer one by one and tweaked, edited, and so forth.
He was stuck in his old ways until years later, much like the story of Rip Van Winkle he awoke to a future that took him by surprise: not to mention the fact that he found himself to be TJPARSONS. In this future and all of its endless possibilities for media artists its good to know that companies are experimenting with peripherals that help directly input ideas digitally into a computer. Upon financing and receiving my new studio computer, I decided it was time to attempt to bring myself into this future.
I bought a Wacom: Bamboo model. A wacom is a device that uses a drawing tablet (hooked through usb) with a wireless pen device to to interpret in real time drawings, sketches, and drawings into a computer. This is done most popularly through Photoshop. However technology is also there to interpret handwriting into type.
The verdict is still out on this product but it has been fun so far. I have found that in most instances it feels more natural than clumsily dragging a mouse across the screen then attempting to draw or augment digital photography.
It was a little hard to get used to because circles are kind of as hard to draw as they were on an etch-e sketch (remember the etch-a-sketch?). It may be due to the fact that pixels are square (or maybe rectangle depending). The picture above was the first attempt at drawing with the Wacom. And upon having an epiphany in a local Walmart (kind of a odd place to have an epiphany because I can't stand the place) I decided to attempt to design some of the graphics for this very site in kind of a beat down sketch fashion (see no budget film school). I figured practice a little, but at least do something worthwhile.
The practical side of the Wacom acquisition was to speed up the storyboarding process, digital effects, digital mats, and character/set designs. Up until now I had to storyboard them out on paper, scan them, color correct them, re-size them, then save and reorganize them. Now you just open Photoshop, use your storyboard template and add a transparent layer, and save immediately with a corresponding number and name. The picture files can then be renamed and organized through windows and with just a click or two on any computer: You may chose to see the storyboard in the form of a slide-show... or even better import them into your editing program to bridge the gap between things that are not filmed or composted yet ( scenes yet to be shot or digital/ special effects that need to be added).
At between $40.00 and $80.00 typically, can you really afford not to at least try this? Well I guess that's only if you are truly serious about media design.
Thanks for dropping by,
TJPARSONS
