Mas Pocoyo!!!

I bet the next couple of posts will be centered around my fascination with Pocoyo. It is so well done and from an animation perspective it has it all, staging, clarity, good pose, simple story, squash and stretch, I could go on.

First the staging...

The top image lends a simple and clear example of a simple, well staged shot. The focus is the radio, both the characters eyelines point to the object of attention, the radio. The upside down triangle is a perfectly symmetrical shot with clarity of thought and intent.

The next image shows Pocoyo sipping from his cup, the duck in the background is affected by this. The interesting thing is how they staged the shot to tell the whole story. Pocoyo in the foreground in action with the straw and cup, the duck framed neatly in the background within the action of the cup. His pose suggests alarm with his hat fully erect and stretched eyes showing surprise. The offset angles provide a non-static symmetry in the shot. The white backgound gives the viewer an easy contrast with the character and the negative shape the white provides.

The last image is taken from Citizen Kane. Greg Toland was the cinematographer and is credited with most of the staging for the film. If you have not seen it, you should as it was way ahead of it's time and considered by most to be the greatest film ever made. It was a pioneer in the use of staging and lighting to tell a story rather than to just serve the dialog.

The scene is of Susan Alexander's suicide attempt. Notice how everything needed to tell the story is in the shot and the symmetrical relationships between them. The empty medicine bottle, the glass with spoon and cork, forming the base of a triangle that points to another triangle that ends with the passed out Susan Alexander in the mid ground. This triangle forms the base of another, larger triangle that then points to Orson Wells bursting through the door, discovering the crisis. Their eye lines direct us to the focus of the shot, Susan. Clear, complete, symmetrical but not static.

If you have not seen Pocoyo, follow the links in the previous post.

Pocoyo!!!

Our new lead animator at work turned me on to Pocoyo, an animated kids show. It is simple, inventive, and superbly animated. The skits are basic and funny and they don't talk down the the kids. It respects it's audience.

The characters are well designed and the animation is simple and entertaining. The poses are well designed and the silhouettes read very well against the plain, white, background. It is amazing what you can communicate with some clear character posing and good timing. The staging is well thought out and there us great use of negative shapes, contrasting shapes, and silhouette. The secondary animation is simplified to a minimum, the ear flap on Pocoyo or the bill on the duck, wiggling when the character settles into a pose.

My favorite character is the duck. Note how dramatically his body shape changes from action to action and how his bill is used as a major part of his personality and functionality.


The originals are in Spanish, Mariana says the accent is from Spain, they are dubbed in English though and just as entertaining in either language.


You can see it for yourself here...


Pocoyo en Espanol


Pocoyo in English


They have a blog too...

Moringing Shift at D'Bah

I surfed Duranbah again this morning before work. It has turned out to be my favorite wave in Australia so far as I am a big fan of beach breaks yet, this is no ordinary beachie. The bottom is not too shallow and it is constantly fed sand from the Tweed River dredging pump that is just up current from the break that not only feeds D'Bah but creates the sand banks at Snapper Rocks, Greenmount and Rainbow Bay. Literally, hundreds of thousands of metric tons of it every month.

A North East facing break D'Bah is open to almost all swell that comes to the Gold Coast, and in the summer months the prevalent SSE wind means it blows offshore most of the time. The jetties and Point Danger that line both sides of the break act like a funnel, refracting swell onto the soft, shapely, sand bars. The result, glassy, punchy, tubes up and down the whole beach, bigger than everywhere else on the coast and more consistent.

It is a legendary spot on a legendary coast and is home to many of Australia's biggest surf stars. I have surfed there twice but have seen a good portion of the ASP top 16 in the lineup at anyone time.

Sunday I was out and saw, Danny Wills, Luke Steadman, and Joel Parkinson who is ranked #4 in the world at the moment.

This morning I saw none other than Mick Fanning, the current ASP World Champion and surfed about ten feet from him. He seemed like a nice enough guy too. Once a guy paddled up to him just to shake his hand and to thank him for bringing the title back to Oz, he smiled and said thanks and seemed genuinely thankful for the compliment. Watching him surf you got the idea that his title is no accident. He seems to surf with focus determination, quietly sitting away from the pack, in his own world. He takes off on a wave and you can see the drive in his face, like he is surfing a heat in his head, desperate for a ten pointer to clinch the heat. I was really impressed.

I got one wave and came up after it to see him flying through a barrel, heading right for me. He was obscured in foam and I am sure quite blind. I stared saying to myself "please don't make it" as if he came out he would have hit me for sure. I was neck deep in water with my board next to me and would have had no way to get out of his line. He did not make it and I can say I saw Mick Fanning get shacked.

Other notable legend sighting; Wayne "Rabbit" Bartholemew, ASP 1978 World Champion and now ASP tour director.

Duranbah was super fun today. Head high and off shore, kind of crowded but enough waves coming through that I got my share. I got the best wave I have had in Australia, a head high gem that screamed down the line, emerald green and clean. I am starting to get used to the new board with the increased water time I am getting with the car and it was the most fun I have had since I got here.

I love this place.

Transport!!!

Life just got easier. Gone are the days of walking absolutely everywhere for absolutely everything. We like walking as much as anyone but it was starting to get real old, real quick. To understand where I am coming from you have to first understand the climate in which we live.

It is hot. It tends to be between 28 and 32 degrees everyday, that is in celsius so that would be between 80 and 95 (ish) most days. Then add in the humidity, and there is plenty of it. It seems to be anywhere from 60% to 80% most days. The worst of it has to be the sun. Man, the sun is intense here. I believe the UV level in California in the summer is somewhere around 4-5, here it is 14! When it is sunny, you literally cook, you can feel it burning your skin it is that intense. Then there is the rain which is torrential when it comes.
We had learned over the months here that if you have to walk, do it early or late. We don't walk between 12 and 2 if we can help it, it is just too hot. One day we did the River Walk at 1:00, Mariana started getting dizzy and flush. Bingo, heat exhaustion. We had to sit in the shade and hydrate.

Now of course with the car comes better quality of life. We can get out of the city. I can surf on a regular basis, we can do the shopping, I can surf on a consistent basis, we can explore more restaurants, and did I mention I can surf?

Cars are expensive here. Example; my Mazda 3 in the US was about $18,500 and with closing costs and the like it came out to just a tad under $20K. That is with leather seats, Sirius Radio, AC, Sport Package and the likes. Here, the base model Mazda 3 starts at $26,000. In Australia they list a car with the MSRP price but that IS NOT including dealer markup, transfer fees, rego, paint, etc. so when you add all that up it is another $4000.00 on the sticker. Cars are expensive here, really expensive.

We got a good deal on our little Yaris. It is small like most cars here as gas is expensive. It is compact but roomy enough for me to shove a couple of surfboards in and get me to D'Bah, that is all I wanted.

Did I mention that I can go surf?

New Apartment

Our view is better than yours.

Today was move in day for our new, permanent apartment . It is located in Newstead, in what we have found out is a quite the upscale neighborhood. When we give our address to someone, we always seem to get a "oh, Newstead! How trendy". So it must be swank. Cuz, we roll like that!

It is a large complex that is divided into five buildings but every building only has four floors and four units each on each floor. The tenants seem to mostly be owners, middle aged or retired and from the looks of it, wealthy. The units for sale fetch up to 1.6 million for the 3 bedroom model and the garage is full of Jaguars, Mercedes and BMW's and if you knew how expensive cars were here, you know how much a full sized import sedan would go for. Status aside, it is nice to see as it means that our neighbors won't have a party that lasts until five am and chuck bottles from their balconies every weekend like in our last, sleazy, temporary unit.

The unit is a large two bedroom apartment with pantries, laundry room, storage and large bathrooms. It is almost as big as our place in San Clemente and thankfully just as quiet. However the best feature would have to be the view. We have a 180 degree view of the Brisbane River and River walk which sits about 25 yards away, across the river is scenic Bulimba and the hook that leads to further down river. Check the view from the balcony...

It will be like camping for the next two weeks until our furniture arrives. We are sleeping on an air mattress and our living room consists of two beach chairs.

Works for me...

Cat Pics!!!

Everyone loves cat pictures, especially me. If you don't like them than you might need to move on to another blog.

Erin, a new colleague is taking care of our cats for two (very long) weeks until we get into our pet friendly unit. It has been hard to get on without them but they seem to be happy at her house. She is a budding photographer and managed to get some really nice portraits of our kids.

Enjoy...

A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall...

Consider yourself warned...

It's raining very large cats and very big dogs at the moment, then this comes through the wire. I have heard that they get really bad flash storms and softball sized hail and now I believe it, it is storming outside...

Cool beans.


sorry for the lack of posts of late but it's been hectic.