Resolution

Live From Memphis is holding its 8th Li'l Film Fest, Saturday, December 15, 2007 at 2pm at the MeDiA co-op (1000 S. Cooper).

The theme of Li'l Film Fest 8 is RESOLUTIONS, you know, the New Year's kind. I know, I know, you will cut back on the partying and staying out so late, you will exercise more and loose weight, you will remember to call your mother on her birthday, you will stop watching so much television, you will eat more veggies, and of course you'll spend more time with the dog. But surely you can manage to squeeze in a few hours to make a film, right...?

Regarding resolutions, I made a movie, but didn't finish it in time for the LFF. I was rendering it through and past the deadline for the Fest entries.

It's another draft of my Zippin Pippin movie. I haven't posted it to YouTube yet 'cause I want to add sound, but here are some frames.

Going up the 1st Hill

Rounding the curve at the top of the 1st Hill.

Turning back around on the Last Hill.

It's fun doing this. As I think of things to add and figure out how to do them, I will make improvements. Besides adding the lights of a nearby carnival, I'd like to add the beautiful Fairview School.

Ride the Zippin Pippin, Part 0.2!

If you haven't seen the news, Save Libertyland now owns the Zippin Pippin. In honor of that, I present the next version of my Zippin Pippin work-in-process animation, now with color, some texture, a sky, all in horrible low-resolution!

Click on the image at the bottom of the post to get a little higher-quality vision.

Getting back to reality, the good news about the Zippin Pippin: if it survives, it will survive in Memphis. The bad news: survival isn't assured.

The people who bought the Pippin and have now given it Save Libertyland did not buy the land under the coaster. That still belongs to the City of Memphis. To date, the city has been random at best, antagonistic at worst, to the efforts of Save Libertyland to do as their name states. I hope the city can see the imaginative value of keeping the Pippin and the Carousel in the fairgrounds redevelopment. (I have always envied Alvy Singer for living under a roller coaster at Coney Island).

This Flyer article mentions that SL is also talking to Elvis Presley Enterprises about preserving the ride. This is great, although EPE hasn't been particularly active in preserving Elvis' physical legacy outside of Graceland's gates. Hopefully this will change, but if it doesn't, perhaps they can enlist Elvis fans and fan clubs around the world in the efforts to preserve the ride (and the Chisca too).

Ride the Zippin Pippin! Part 0.1

This is an animated wireframe "sketch" of a 3D model I'm building, from photos, my wife's memory (she rode it about a thousand times) and Google Earth images, of the Zippin Pippin, Memphis' rollercoaster (and Elvis' favorite)

Besides the fact that it's wireframe and incompletely modeled to boot, I'm still working on the timing of the drops and stops and starts. Here's a look at an early textured still.



I want to do more of this stuff as part of this blog. I'm a big believer in visual persuasion.

Making with Blender 3D!

Update: read last week's CA article for more details on the Zippin Pippin's fate.