The Lunchbox Debacle

Hiya folks! Did ya have a good week?

I have an announcement to make, but first, I must explain the invention that is the "Lunchbox". Let me start from the beginning (an ideal place, I believe).

In Animation class here at SVA, we shoot our scenes with a little gadget called a "Lunchbox".

It's called that...well...because it looks like a lunchbox. The only difference is that instead of it storing Lunchables or Caprisun, it stores snapshots like a large memory card or a backup drive.

Here's how it works: the Lunchbox is connected to a camera (a camcorder, preferably) which shoots downward towards an animation disc. Using the Lunchbox as the control, it snaps a photograph of your animation drawings and stores them in the Lunchbox. Once all your drawings are recorded, you can play your drawings in sequence to see how they move, what we in the business call a "pencil test".

While all this tedious work is going on, the Lunchbox is also plugged into a TV, where you can see all the drawings on screen as you're shooting it. You can play a scene at normal speed (24 frames per second, or on "one's"), slower speed (12 frames per second, or "two's") or even backwards. When you're done fooling around, you record the scene onto videotape with a VCR plugged into the TV for future reference.

You see, back before the days of computers (or even VCRs), if an animator wanted to see what his scene looked like, he'd have to send all his drawings to a cameraman, who in turn had to shoot each and every drawing with a film camera. Once all the drawings were shot, the cameraman had to take the reel of undeveloped film to a photo/film lab to develop it, while the animator waits a full day to see how his/her scene looks. Now, thanks to video & computer technology, you can now do all that work in a matter of seconds instead of hours or even days time.

Now to where I come in:

This past semester, I animated numerous tests in class to hone my developing animator skills. Bouncing balls, rotating heads, walk cycles... the usual animation mumbo-jumbo. At the end of the semester, I recorded all my scenes at once on tape with the Lunchbox. Now I can bring my work home to show my friends, family, colleagues & blog visitors!

"Let me just set up the old VCR, blah-blah blah, start up the computer, mmm-hmmmm... let's see... how do I....?"

...


"Aw crap."

Now how do I take the footage off a VHS tape & transfer it onto my computer?

Long story short, I had to go out to Best Buy, buy a VCR-to-DVD recorder to transfer my tape footage onto a DVD. I needed to buy one of those anyway, with all our old home movies and baby tapes deteriorating over the years, it's worth the cost. Better do it before they turn to dust!

Here's where my announcement comes in... in the next week or two, I'm going to post at least some of my SVA animation tests up here on the blog! Cool, isn't it? I can't wait to show you my morph!

What morph, you ask? Find out soon!


--Oh, while your at it, think up some questions for me to answer & please post a comment or two. It's getting lonely around here!