Think

Subject:	The End!
Time:	11:17 pm.
Mood:	accomplished.

I guess this is my last entry!

Mr. Burns said I could hand my journal in on Monday instead of Friday, which is good because...well...I didn't have it ready then. I also wanted some feedback from him, but he was busy Friday and I had phone problems Saturday, so I'm hoping all is well!

I've been working on my movie this weekend, and it's coming along well. I may have it done for Tuesday, though it's a long shot. I definately am going to try to put in some kind of music for it though.

I've got a job interview or something tomorrow with my Uncle's company, because he was nice enough to see if he could find a job for me. Hopefully that won't take too long and I can spend the whole night working on it.

Tuesday morning I've got to pick up a school laptop first period and Mr. Ingber is going to work with me to get everything for my presentation set up, whichs means I am not going to be able to change anything or do any work on it Tuesday night, which is fine by me ;)

Then Wednesday is my presentation, and I'm going to see about my mom calling me in for 5th period so I have time to set up and such.

I am definately feeling pretty confident about this. What I'll probably do Tuesday is practice my presentation and such and make sure the timing is good.

This weekend was alot of fun, and I'm definately glad that is it almost summer. I've only got WISE, my math final, and a final project for Economics to worry about, as well as a party thing I am setting up for the 17th, because I am a nerd and I don't want to go to prom.

Tomorrow morning I'll root around in my room for all the stuff I am sticking in with my journal so I can make copies for the three copies of my journal. I also need to figure out how I am putting all the journals together O.o() Eh, I'll worry about it in the morning -_-

So my WISE journey has been...pretty adventurous. From being super confident, to being super super depressed and scared, to now I'm feeling pretty sure about it. I may not have accomplished all my goals, but I've definately learned alot about myself and my habits. I've learned where alot of my bad habits lie and what I need to do about them.

Actually, I think that this project has helped me realize that if I want anything about myself to change for the better, the only way it's going to happen is if I just stop making excuses, grit my teeth, and get up and do it. A good example of this is my exercise routine. I used to go to the gym maybe once a week, if I was diligent. Now I go nearly every day, and if I have extra time I go swimming as well. The only way I can do it though is if I just say "To hell with it!", get up and GO, instead of saying I don't feel so good, I have too much work to do, whatever. I just need to learn how to be like that with EVERYTHING!

It is late, so I am just going to wrap this up, and put it in my word document, and call it a night.

It's been fun WISE homies, and I hope that this journal has been at least mildly entertaining, and if not, that's too bad for you, isn't it :P Well life can't always be entertaining, what do you think I exist to relieve your boredom? Well, only boring people get bored, so that's that!

THE END!! (Well, not until Wednesday, but you know what I mean!)

Comments: Add Your Own.

Time:	10:08 am.
Mood:	victorious.

Hooray! I just wanted to share my triumph. I've only been working for an hour so far, and already I've had a breakthrough and discovered the reason for past mistakes. Take that Free-Transform Rotation Axis!!

Comments: Add Your Own.

Time:	2:34 pm.
Mood:	hopeful.

Today I moved all of my journal so far to a MSWord Document, changed the font, made it all Double Spaced, and checked all the spelling and such. So far it is 51 pages long, not including the articles and such I have to add in! (Not to mention this entry!)

It is Memorial Day Weekend, and I'm planning on doing about 3 hours a day. I've already got my three hours for today, so I am content there. Tomorrow I'm going to start hacking my way through that movie. If Bill Gates could hack whatever that OS he stole into Q-DOS in one night, then I can finish this movie in 2 weeks.

I am in a much better place emotionally than I have been in the past two weeks. I've been having alot of problems with my friends, which have (hopefully) been settled.

I've also been working on finding a job, and I got a call the other day about a job which I thought I had been turned down for. Last night was actually my orientation, and not only did I get a job, but they want me to be a Lead, which is like the Captain of a team, and that means I get paid $1.25 more if I pass the tests to become one.

However, this new job means that the week of the 6th (yes, my presentation is that Wednesday) is not only the week that the store opens, it is also the week that I have to put in 20 hours training, and I also have to train the other Crew members >_<

And that is not all folks! The 6th is also my placement test for the Calculus class I am supposed to be taking at RCC. And there is more! The class starts on the 7th! I am not sure how that works exactly, and I haven't actually recieved any papers about taking the class, and I checked the RCC website and that class is closed out ::sigh::

That whole week is just going to be insane, but I'll find a way to deal with it.

I spoke to Ms. O'Hagan and Mr. Ingber - they were both really helpful, and I am getting the same laptop on the 7th first period to install the program on it and to check my files. Then I have to pick up the laptop the next day at 5 or 6th period. I have to speak to Mr. Shepard about maybe me getting out of that class - or having my mom excuse me -_- I have alot to set up.

I am actually feeling pretty confident about this. It helps to think that there is only one full week of school left. I have alot of stuff going on right now, but it's more exciting than anything else. Let's just hope I am up to the task!

Comments: Add Your Own.

Time:	8:13 pm.
Mood:	productive.

Hello hello again!

The past couple of days have been pretty uneventful. I spoke with Mr. Burns - he was obviously less than pleased. However, he wasn't too mean, for I think he understood that I was already shamed. He basically told me he wouldn't read my journal until I had copied and pasted it into word -_- Thanks Burnsey, I did go to all the trouble to set up this online journal :P Oh well, I suppose it really was only a convienence to myself. Probably tomorrow or Thursday I'll take care of that, because I haven't been feeling very well today.

In other news, I am very excited for two reasons! My presentation preparation is pretty much DONE!

What I have left to do:
-Get sound for audience participation
-Talk to Mr. I about him using his account to download Macromedia Flash onto a school laptop
-Move journal to Word, print out 3 copies (I am doing this at school - I am SO not crazy enough to print it all on my beleaguered deskjet)

The other reason I am happy is because I've got less than 20 hours left to complete! Wahoo! That is no sweat baby! I am looking forward to Memorial Day Weekend, as I feel it will give me some time to work on this, seeing as I haven't got much else to do. The only other classes I'm worried about are AP Art/Photography and Topics in Calc - I've got my Calc Final a few days after my presentation, so hopefully I'll have enough time to review -_-

In other news, there is only one full week of school left before my graduation! That is crazy folks! I have been counting the hours down since fifth grade, no kidding.

Well, that's about all I've got to report for now. The days are going by quickly, but I am not too worried!

Comments: Add Your Own.

Time:	5:48 pm.
Mood:	shamed.

Okay, so a little bit to report today.

Finished the Flash Tutorial - Audience Participation portion of my project. What I'll do is I'll explain layers, frames, etc etc, then I'll have a member of the audience come up and "add keyframe" and then move the "D" image into place. Then I'll thank them, and I'll show how to use one of the cool flash capabilities "transform" for the text fading in.

I NEED to remember to ask Margaret if I can borrow her microphone and driver. That is ESSENTIAL!

Today I saw Mr. Burns for the first time in a few weeks -_- Frankly, I was surprised when he scheduled me, just because I've been somewhat...lax...in meeting with him. I am going to see him at least twice a week until my presentation date now. I do feel bad that I wasn't more responsible, and though I don't really have an excuse, I never really had anything to talk to him about. Everything was going well, and he is sometimes seems very short with me when I talk to him, and I feel like I'm wasting his time. And now, despite my desire to actually work with him, of course he is busy with other presentations. In general, it was just a dumb mistake on my part and if and when you read this Mr. Burns, I'm sorry.

Tomorrow, I'm going to try and get my outline typed up. I'm not meeting with Mr. Burns until after school Monday, so I want to have as much of my presentation finished by then as possible. I know my plan was originally to have it finished by today, but well, life has it's own plans, doesn't it?

Also, here is something I was thinking about:

Dear WISE Diety-Like-Pantheon,

I think it would make more sense to hold WISE in the first semester, because I don't know about anyone else, but when the sun is shining and the flowers are bright and the shade from the trees dapples the fragant grass, the LAST thing I feel like doing is sitting in my usually very chilly house and working on this dang project.

Love, Christine.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Time:	10:37 pm.
Mood:	cheerful.

A Review of Monsters Inc and Pixar Animations

Monsters Inc. is about a city of monsters, living in a world paralell and connected to ours through the closets of children. Their city is powered by the screams of children, and the organization of Monsters Inc. is the company that collects the Screams. However, despite their dependence on children, to the citizens of Monsteropolis, children are the most toxic of creatures, or so they believe. That's why, when the small girl "Boo" manages to escape into the city, it is up to the giant hairy Sullivan, master scarer, and his one-eyed partner Mike to not only save Boo, but all human children from having all their screams sucked out of them by some greedy monsters.

Monsters Inc brings a number of new tools to the table. One of the main characters, J Sullivan, voiced by John Goodman, is a 8-foot-tall monster, covered in shaggy blue hair. Pixar developed spanking new software to animate the 2,320,413 hairs on Sully's body. This leads to an amazingly realistic effect in several scenes, such as a close up of Sully in bed with the morning sun hitting his fur, and when Sully crashes into a mound of snow during a snowstorm and his snow covered fur ripples in the artic wind.

However, Pixar is not only exploring new techniques as far as technology goes. They have also come up with the most orginal storylines that Disney has seen in years. In a decade laden with sequels and flops, and their children's channel swiftly increasin live-action shows as animated series dwindled, Disney Pictures was hurting for new animation material. While Disney has always strived to emulate the fairy tales and moral lessons of past years, Pixar is creating new tales from scratch, bringing a contemporary style to stories about teamwork, friendship, and standing up for what's right.

Pixar, which made it's debut with the 1995 movie Toy Story about toys that come to life when their owner leaves the room. It was the first fully computer-generated full-length feature film. The images required 800,000 hours generation time on a RenderFarm consisting of 87 2-CPU SparcStation 20's, 30 4-CPU Sparc-Station 20's and a SparcServer 1000. In the ensueing years, they have created several more movies, including A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles.

However, in recent developments, Pixar declined to renew it's contract with Disney, and it's last film with the parent company, Cars is currently in production. There is an increasing chance that Pixar will rejoin Disney, thanks to the retirement of Disney CEO Michael Eisner and his succession by Robert Iger, but it is still a slim chance as there is talk of having Iger's elevation overturned, in part because "the Disney board failed to conduct a fair and open search for a successor".

Whatever the future of Pixar may be, it can be assured that they will continue to produce pictures of quality and content that hasn't been seen in the animation industry in a decade.

Sources:
imdb.com
pixar.com
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may2005/nf20050512_7481_db042.htm

I had seen A Bug's Life and Toy Story before I saw Monsters Inc. While they were both very good, they were never close to my favorite movies. When I heard about Monsters Inc, I refused to see it in theatres, because I believed it was going to be very very stupid. It wasn't until I watched my sister's DVD of the film in a fit of boredom that I fell in love with the movie. The sheering ingenuity of the film's graphics and storyline made me want to learn to create such lifelike images.

Also, Pixar's stories have a gentleness to them that Disney's have lost in recent years. They don't feel a need to put pop-culture references in just to entertain the adults or older children watching - they let the story speak to all audiences, letting each individual connect to the characters without waving around flashy gimmicks. They also don't sacrifice the plot just to show off their animation techniques - they let the audience discover it on their own. Case in point - the generator used to produce the effect of Sully's fur. Of course, if you've seen the movie five billion times like I have, you would recognize The Puffball, an early test of the fur generator in the form of a monster that looks like a giant hairy puffball with tentacles who appears throughout the film.

But it was with Monsters Inc that my love for computer animation began. And as much as I loath sequels, I pray everyday that they will make a Monsters Inc 2.

It's my fondest wish to do an internship in either my sophmore or junior summer of college at Disney or Pixar. What I would like to do is perhaps intern at Disney World in Florida for the summer of my sophmore year, then move to interning at Pixar the summer of my Junior year, when I may have more of the skills I will need to work with their equipment.

I'm planning on researching those internships in the next few weeks, because it's something I'm really passionate about. I visted Disney World during Thanksgiving break in 2005, last fall. I've been to Disney World countless times as a child, but it had been years since my last visit. Seeing it as an adult, and as an engineer and programmer, I was honestly floored by what I witnessed. Everything about the place is completely managed - there is not a single crack or seam in the illusion that they create, and they have a complex system of failsafes to guarantee both the safety and the entertainment of tourists. I can't imagine what kind of rigousous selection process and training I would have to go through to be an Intern there, let alone an Imagineer.

Imagineers are a very special group of people at Disney who are in charge of basically the entire operation, from creating the illusionary worlds that you walk through, the authenticity of attractions and props, to running and maintaining the whole operation. If Disney studios are failing, Disney Attractions is going as strong as ever they have.

So Thursday was Kat Bomeo's presentation. Her's was very well done, and it gave me a better idea of the structure of mine, and I saw how I could improve upon both my ideas and her format. I'm not too nervous, but I will still not feel very secure until I've got all this stuff done.

In case you hadn't noticed, today I watched Pixar's Monsters Inc, as well as about half of the Special Features DVD - mostly the stuff about animation and the storyboards and things pertaining to the production of the film. Monsters Inc was the movie that made me love computer animation, as you can read above.

I still have some work to do on that though. I'll definately put some hours in tomorrow on some more research, and I'm going to try and finish up my animation for the participation part by Monday.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Time:

4:00 pm.

Ok, lots of stuff to update today.

I found out yesterday that my presentation date is June 8th at 11:15. This is actually great for me. I figure I can have my hours done if I put in at least 2 hours a day every day from now until then, which is easy peasy. I've already got more than half of my time for today done, so, by the time I've finished updating this, that'll be my two hours :D

I'm feeling a little more confident about my presentation. At the rate I'm going, and with the exorbitant amount of time I've got between now and then, I will be very well prepared as far as the presentation itself goes. I plan to have all my presentation materials as well as my government research part finished by next friday, except for the letter to the publishers of the book, which will take probably up until the time of my presentation, and then I'll just stick that in at the last minute. And if I stick to that deadline, I'll have alot of time to work on my project more. Now that AP's are over, I feel a little less stressed out.

Also, I just got over a number of traumas that occured at the same time. The physical trauma included having 5 wisdom teeth (yes FIVE) removed on the same day, then having allergies hit me like I was a watermellon at a Gallegher show, and then also having Dry Socket, which is what happens when the clots don't form properly after having your wisdom teeth pulled. It basically means that the bone of your jaw is exposed to the air and whatever enters your mouth, which is painful to begin with, and it also affects your inner ear, which means I feel like I've got an ear infection and I've been all off balance and nauseus. Then Monday night I had strange hallucinations thanks to the medication I took for the pain and was awake until 4 am stuck in sleep paralysis (your body creates some kind of hormone while you are in one of the stages of sleep to stop you from moving around as you dream. If you wake up but the chemicals are still in your blood - like if you awake from a nightmare - then you are unable to move for about 10 to 15 minutes while the chemicals stabilize) and dreaming that I was 30 feet tall.

The emotional traumas are best left to my more private journals, but let's just say that teenagers create drama no matter where they go.

And mental traumas...ick. YOU try missing a week of Topics in Calculus and still feel like you belong in that century >_<

Tomorrow is our last day of WISE, and I've got a check up with my oral surgeon to make sure things are finally healing right, so I'll already have the 84 minutes from class, but I think I'll take a day off and watch Pixar's Monster's Inc, and write a review up about it, as well as some of my feelings on Pixar. I'll also dig up some articles about flash and CA and write reviews about those as well.

Today I worked on the Audience Participation part of my Presentation. It's going to be a simple animation of a face saying "Hello! Welcome to my WISE Presentation!". I'm also going to see if I can borrow a friend's microphone to record it. The audience participation bit is where I'll have someone come in and add the last frame of the mouth moving.

Basically, the way I am doing the moving mouth is a common technique in CompAni. A good example of it is in the television show South Park. They basically have all the characters made as blanks, without eyes or mouths, and as the expressions and shapes of their mouths change, they pull up a generic "syllable" shape and stick it on top. Of course, that's a very callous way of describing it, but I'm assuming that neophytes are reading this, and not animators ;) So today I basically just worked on making the images of the "syllables", and felt like an idiot posing for the facial expressions, using my monitor as a mirror. What I need to do still is look up how to import images from the hard drive into flash. I'm going to guess that it's very simple. I might even be able to "copy+paste", but I'd rather look it up than waste time screwing around with it.

Okay, that's really all I've got to put in it. I did speak to someone else the other day who is doing an independent study. I forget exactly who it was, but she agreed with me about how freakin hard it is to get hours, since we don't have a set time and day to drive to our "placement". Good to know there are other people suffering out there with me ;D

Comments: Add Your Own.

Time:	5:40 pm.
Mood:	sick.

Okay, I'm going to type up here the outline that Mr. Arietta and Mr. Burns gave us for our presentation, and then I'm going to type up what I'm actually going to be doing.

What Should a Presentation Have?
- Opening Remarks
- Why WISE?
- Why your topic?
- Your Experience
- Discuss your placement
- Discuss your role at the placement
- Research Discussion
- Connect research to experience
- Visual Demonstration
- What did I learn?
- About the topic
- About myself
- Plans for the future
-Thank yous

Materials
- Handout
- Coverpage
- outline

Requirements Prior to Presentation
- 3 copies type journal in library - 3 DAYS PRIOR TO
- Journal Must Include
- Annotated bibliography
- Time Log
- Entries that proved evidence of research

***And here is what I'm planning for my presentation***

An Adventure in Flash - A Journey Started But Never Really Past the Half Way Mark
- Opening Remarks

- I chose WISE for a number of reasons. The main one was I felt it might help prepare me for the amount of work I could expect in college. I am the first to admit that I am a procrastinator. But I really felt that this was a project I could become passionate about.
I also chose WISE because I have always enjoyed learning things. Reading and aquiring new knowledge has always been something that gave me energy, so I believed that this experience would be similar.

- I chose to do an independent study in Flash Animation because computer generated animation is what I plan to do for a career. I love animation and with the recent development and popularity of CGI, I thought it would be interesting to learn some of the basics.

- Your Experience
- I was unfortunately unable to procure a placement. While attempting to find a nearby animation studio, I learned that the majority of animation studios are in one of four places; California, England, Japan, and Australia. Also speaking to people to deal with animation majors in college, a great deal of them like to do semesters abroad in Australia. I'm sure it's not because of the beaches and the tropical climate. I also looked into finding a placement with either Disney or Pixar, two well-established animation firms. Pixar is also located in California, and both companies only accept interns that have completed two semesters of college, so I am seriously considering spending the summer of my Freshman year as an intern at Disney World in Florida. I am beginning to do some research as to the requirements for that recently, as I feel I would be a good candidate for this.

- I will admit that I had a very hard time with this project. There were a number of factors to that, the biggest one being merely the difficulty of the material. Macromedia Flash MX 2004 is the software I used. While it does provide a number of innovations to make animation easier, I was unprepared for the bulk of information that I needed to understand in order to use the program. I had never learned any of the earlier programs, and so it was rather like throwing a baby in a swimming pool - only this baby happened to drown.
I was completely at a loss once I got into some of the techniques. I was literally teaching myself from a book, with no human companion even remotely familiar with the software. I had originally chosen a mentor who, if he had not been familiar with the material, he might have known someone who could aid me, but that mentor backed out sometime in December before the program started.
Another contributing factor was the large scale equipment failure I had during February. The software itself caved as my free trial period ended, and I also had a number of other technological failings, which effectively stole a month's worth of work time.
I think that that was when I began to flounder. Mr. Burns is an excellent mentor, but what I really needed was the guidance of someone familiar with the subject. I feel that this is still something I want to learn in college, but perhaps in a more structured environment where I'll have the answers to questions I may have immediately.
- Research Discussion
- I researched copyright laws. Extrapolation goes here.
- Visual Demonstration
- What did I learn?
- I learned that sometimes all the software in the world makes things harder than they have to be. If my project hadn't been "Computer Animation with Flash", I probably would have broken down and just done flipcards. I did learn alot of the basics of flash though, and it also gave me an insight into some other imaging software I have.
- Visual presentation: My visual presentation will have two parts:
- First I will give a demonstration of how some flash basics work. I will have some thing prepared for this: What will happen is a face will be made to say "Welcome to WISE!". I will have a volunteer add the last syllable of the mouth in.
- Second will be a showing of the pathetic length of my movie.

- I learned that I still have a long way to go before I am a motivated and focused individual. This project has allowed me to view alot of my own shortcomings in a different light - as well as what I need to do to fix those. Short comings.
- My plans for the future remain the same - to do a double major in Computer Science and Studio Art. However, nothing is ever set in stone, and if I find in the future that another path suits me, I'll decide then what to do.
-I'd like to thank Mr. Burns for being my mentor, and Mr. Arietta for being my mentor when Mr. Burns wasn't there. Also, thanks to Peter for listening to my rantings about Flash and helping me with the software.

***

Work plan for this week:
Monday:Today I've done this, and I'm going to work on putting together the first part of my visual presentation.
Tuesday: Continue working on the visual presentation
Wednesday: Flesh out actual Presentation En Total
Thursday: Make outline of Presentation, coverpage, (rest of the handout, basically)
Friday: See what needs to be done

Things I must remember to do:
MAIL IT
Get Presentation date
See Mrs. Thompson and Mr. Ingber about presentation date and about needed software
Spell check recent entries

Comments: Add Your Own.

Time:

12:51 pm.

Okay, here is the work I've done on copyright laws. My sister just got a new job so she is going to be working during the week and she needs the computer today. I'm going to get as much work done as possible before she comes and asks for it. I'm going to work on the "Audience Participation" portion of my presentation. Maybe later if I need a break i'll start roughing out an outline of what I'm going to do during my presentation. Blah.

I.) Copyright Laws in the United States

A.) What is a Copyright?
A Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to authors of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works. Material not protected by copyright (or otherwise protected) is available for use by anyone, without the author's consent. On the other hand, an author of a copyrighted work may prevent others from copying, performing or otherwise using the work without the author's consent. Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the following:
· To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords;
· To prepare derivative works based upon the work;
· To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
· To perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works;
· To display the copyrighted work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work; and
· In the case of sound recordings, to perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
· In addition, certain authors of works of visual art have the rights of attribution and integrity as described in section 106A of the 1976 Copyright Act.
B.) What are the requirements to get a copyright?
The way in which copyright protection is secured is frequently misunderstood. No publication or registration or other action in the Copyright Office is required to secure copyright. Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is "created" when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. "Copies" are material objects from which a work can be read or visually perceived either directly or with the aid of a machine or device, such as books, manuscripts, sheet music, film, videotape, or microfilm. "Phonorecords" are material objects embodying fixations of sounds (excluding, by statutory definition, motion picture soundtracks), such as cassette tapes, CDs, or LPs. Thus, for example, a song (the "work") can be fixed in sheet music (" copies") or in phonograph disks (" phonorecords"), or both.
If a work is prepared over a period of time, the part of the work that is fixed on a particular date constitutes the created work as of that date. Publication is no longer the key to obtaining federal copyright as it was under the Copyright Act of 1909. However, publication remains important to copyright owners. The 1976 Copyright Act defines publication as the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display constitutes publication. A public performance or display of a work does not of itself constitute publication.
C.) How flexible are copyright laws?
“Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances.”
D.) What constitutes breaking copyright?
Using a copyrighted work without authorization may allow the owner to bring an infringement action. There are circumstances under the fair use doctrine where a quote or a sample may be used without permission. However, in cases of doubt, the Copyright Office recommends that permission be obtained.
E.) What does the law do to people who break copyright laws?
Generally the only action that can be taken against someone who breaks copyright law is for the holder of the copyright to bring suit against the breaker. Then it is up to the court to decide whether the fair use act has been violated and to determine punishment – usually in the form of a fine. Jail time is not common for those who break copyright.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Time:

2:47 pm.

Ok. Got the first two/three parts done. Here are some sources, so I don't lose the links:

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wci
http://www.legalzoom.com/law_library/copyrights/registration.html

Comments: Add Your Own.

Time:	9:07 am.
Mood:	sleepy.

Okay, so here is my plan for getting information on copy right laws today (Sorry, this website doesn't allow for indentation):

I. Copy Right Laws in the United States
A.) What is a Copy right?
B.)What are the requirements to get a copyright?
C.)How flexible are copyright laws?
D.)What constitutes breaking a copyright law?
E.)What does the law do to people who break copyright laws?

The last three questions are kind of important to me, mainly because I am not sure if I am breaking any copyright laws or not. I tried calling the publishers again friday and they were, as I expected, closed. Tomorrow I'm going to send that letter out and try calling again.

Okaaay. Here we go. Gonna type up my findings in a word document and then put it up in here.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Time:	3:52 pm.
Mood:	artistic.

So today I've been working on a couple of things. First off, I've been doing some research at New Grounds a website that showcases flash animations. Here are some of the things I looked at there.

This movie is really a collection of a couple of different works by different artists who all made short animations to follow the theme of "5 shades of blue" meaning they only used 5 shades of blue to animate, and "water" meaning all their movies had water. This one had a lot of different ways of animating water in it and I'll have to remember it in case I ever need it :D

I also watched the latest installment of the "You Are A F***ing Moron" (YAAFM) series. Narrated by a weird purple...monster, it talks about how stupid some celebrities are and why. It's actually a really intelligent political commentary about how we raise up people to god-like status when the people really are worst than the average human being. Be warned - there IS ALOT of foul language, and the content is not for kids - especially since the latest installment features 50 cent. Zipper Fish (the guy who makes YAAFM) has also done episodes about Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, and Jessica Simpson has been done twice, because apparently people didn't believe him the first time. I think that this is a really interesting way of displaying opinions, as opposed to ranting about celebrity behavior in the news or in magazine articles - it's something that doesn't take alot of time and holds the audience's opinion. Animation can be such a powerful message-relaying device - when used properly.

Finally, I watched the Introitus for "Broken Saints". This is done in a very different style than most animations. Usually, animations will be pretty low-quality graphics that move in complex ways. These are very beautiful complex graphics that are animated very simplistically. It is very reminiscent of comic books, and even uses the comic book style of Narration and Dialogue, IE: Boxes and Bubbles to represent what is thought or spoken. The audio is also really nice, and punctuates the tone of each part.

I'm going to take a short break from working and then I'm going to get back into the research and do some looking into on Copyright laws in the US for the government part. Before I start looking, I'll put an outline here of what I intend to look into, just to keep myself focused. :D

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Time:	7:25 pm.
Mood:	drained.

Ok, so owing to circumstances out of my control, I was unable to call the publisher both yesterday and today. Believe me, I am more dissapointed with myself than you know.

So, tonight the plan is to get in two hours of work on my movie, fill out that form, copy it tomorrow in school so I have a copy, and mail it out. Then call the publisher, though I really doubt they will be open on a friday. Oh well.

Yeah. But, I figure if I get in 2 hours of work a night, I will be okay on hours, because usually on sundays I get in more time, and I'm not going out this saturday so I will def work on it then. Like has just been kind of crazy lately, with colleges, and the past two days have just not been pleasant. Don't really want to go into it here, but let's just say I am looking at owing my mom at least $2000 for various things just from the past two weeks. Yeah.

There's nothing I can do about it except accept responsiblity. I'm going to work out on paper later how much I owe her and figure out a payment plan. I'll try to pay her $50 to $75 dollars out of my paycheck at least everytime I get it. Of course, I need to get a job first, but I am working on that so, yeah.

That's something I've been trying to focus on lately. I joined this program to try and teach myself not to procrastinate so much, but it really hasn't been happening. I'm really just dissapointed and annoyed with myself for being just a royal screw-up at life. I've been trying hard the past few days to attempt to sort out my priorities and just DO THINGS instead of procrastinating and making excuses.

Blah. Okay. So yeah. I'm going to eat dinner and like, hardcore do some programming now.

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Time:

1:55 pm.

Okay, I tried calling today, but the office I wanted was closed, so I'll try again tomorrow. :)

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Time:	12:36 pm.
Mood:	accomplished.

Ok, so according to RandomHouse.com, the website of Random House publishers, in order to get permission to reproduce the work, I need to write to them. Here's is what their website says:

# Since many requests require research, please submit your request as early as possible. It takes approximately 3-5 weeks to receive a written response to your request.

# Your request should be as complete as possible. Please provide the following information:

* Title and author of the book from which you wish to reprint
* The imprint (Random House, Knopf, Broadway, Dell, etc.)
* ISBN (the number which appears on the back cover above the bar code)
* The exact material you wish to reprint. Please provide copies of our material in context as well as the page numbers on which this material appears in our book.
* Title and publisher of your book, proposed date of publication, price and print run, format (hardcover, softcover, E-book, etc).
* Territories of distribution for which you require permission (US, US and Canada, world, etc.)
* A self-addressed stamped envelope would be appreciated

They have a form on their website for requesting permission. I'm going to print it and fill it out and include a copy of it here, for posterity.

Ooh, it also says here:

For dramatic performance, film/television, translation, and reprint rights, please call the Random House general information number at 212/782-9000 and request to be connected to the subsidiary rights department of the specific imprint.

I will try calling there in a little bit, around 2 PM because right now they may be out to lunch.

OKAY. Well, that was a productive day :D

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Time:	11:26 am.
Mood:	accomplished.

Okay! So today I really don't feel like working on the actual movie, because I've got another project I am working on right now, which I'll talk a little about below, and so instead I'm going to do some research on Copyright laws as far as books and movies go and whether I am violating any ^_^()

Also, I'm going to type up some reviews of news artcles I've got about flash. Yay!

Okay, so this is really really irrelavent, but since no one reads this anyways, I am going to talk about a project I'm involved in with some friends that I am really excited about.

I play a game called World of Darkness. What that is is a sort of Extended StoryTelling game, where a couple of people sit around a table and orally act out a story. All the players have Characters, except for one person who is the Story Teller.

The Job of the Storyteller is to basically play all the Non-Person-Characters and to describe what happens, the environment, etc.

The story takes place in this time period, only it is much darker and scarier. There are vampires, werewolves, and in a few months, there will be mages (wizards) too. It's not satanic or anything weird like that. It's just pretending. It's like writing a story with your friends where each person controlls one character.

So, my Storyteller, a great friend of mine who goes by the moniker of Nocks, had this great idea (GREAT) to design and construct and entire CITY. Each of us in the group will be in charge of different sections each week and then we put them all together. Our eventual goal is to have a REAL working CITY laid out and described in book form, and then chip in and get a couple copies made. :D

And I've been working on the Vampire Royalty, and it's really hard but I'm enjoying it. It's going to be really difficult to make up the economics and such, but maybe I will try to get some extra credit from Ms. Andrews. I am sure it is not often that her students say "Hey! I made a working city!"

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Time:

8:55 pm.

Today I tried to get some work done but my head just wasn't in it. The second I hit a major snag (will probably take about a half an hour to fix it) my brain just shut down.

I'd try working on it again now, but as usual my friggin deaf mother is sleeping on the couch with the tv blasting and I can barely hear myself think. It's really annoying, just because she's got a tv upstairs but she INSISTS on staying down here, ESPECIALLY when she knows I have work to do.

Not a good day.

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Time:

9:19 pm.

Today I spent sometime researching at www.newgrounds.com, which is a website for flash animations and games. I was trying to get some ideas about how to do the rain for the next scene. Here are some of the options I came up with:

1.) Individual layers for each rain. YEAH RIGHT.
2.) Have two layers with the rain on both of them in different patterns and just keep switching back and forth - I think this will have the best effect.
3.) Have one layer with the rain on it and keep moving it down over the other layers. Not sure exactly how I would get this work.

Well, I was going to try working on it tonight, but I've got the vacation itch and I don't really feel up to it. I've got a college visit tomorrow and my friend

lawofsyllogism and I are going to explore Nyack and do a photo project Saturday.

I've got Sunday off, so I'll probably work on this then, as well as another personal research project I am starting on the history and interesting locations of Nyack, which is actually getting kicked off Saturday with Margaret, though I'll work more on some of the paper work that day.

Then Monday is another college visit, and probably Tuesday I'll put some time in, if not working on the video itself, I'll get started on the gov't research part.

For my Government research, I'm going to find out what the copy right laws are concerning my making this book into a flash movie. I tried to get in contact with the publishers before, but to no avail, so probably Tuesday I'll get on that again. I figure I have stated the author of the book in the beginning, and I'll put all the book's publishing info at the end in the credits, so it should be all legal, but well, this is my gov't research, so I'm just going to do it.

Also, I've been thinking about what Mr. Burns said in our last meeting, about putting sound in, either music or a narration. Music will be hard, with the timing, because if I was going to do music, I should have figured that out earlier so I could have the timing be right.

What I think I am going to do is provide a narration done by either myself, or I'll beg Mr. Burns to do it, since he has The Actor's Voice, and almost perfect diction, as we've made fun of him for before in Drama Lit. Then for some of the parts I'm going to put in some appropriate Classical music just as background. Because, in all honesty, it really does need some audio to pop it back up to the next level.

I'll probably do some more research on newgrounds tonight, aaaaand, that's about it. :D

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