Mittens gets into organised crime!

Mittens & Snowdrop episode 3 is online.

KAPOW!

We’re back in 2001 again. The Matrix was still a new movie. Bullet time was still somewhat cool. 3D graphics online were unthinkable.

This animation was pretty much a big collection of references, jammed together around a fancy bit of 2D animation pretending to be 3D. Can you spot all the film references in here?

Something that I'm seeing, converting these old animations to YouTube, is just how much work it took to wrangle the layer system into recreating filmic shots like pans, pulls, or even little firing-explosions from a gun barrel. Everything is embedded, layered, reused, pulled and pushed, and generally a pain in the arse to work with if you've not looked at the animation file for over 20 years!

In a funny way, I'm getting more and more respect for younger me, for being able to create so much with such simple systems. There's something to be said for working with limits - it forces creative problem solving.

As I'm writing this (in 2024) there's a huge rise in AI generation of content online. I think there will, eventually, be huge benefits for having AI solve menial tasks for us, but there's also the risk that we lose patience for the struggle of making things that are 'okay' before we get to 'good'. Why bother to learn a hard tool, if AI can immediately solve everything?

Looking back at the work I did half a lifetime ago, I can see the fight I had with the tools, my early efforts with learning the craft of writing, pacing, and cinematography, and so on. It's good to see where I was, where I've come to, and it gives me optimism for the road ahead. I'll keep on learning. I hope you all do too.

For the old Matazone folks: yes, Little Goth Girl will arrive on here eventually, as will Samurai Lapin. I'm working my way through the backlog slowly.

Until next time, go be excellent to each other, here’s the video!