I recently learnt that Blender’s Cycles renderer can do negative light. It’s as simple as setting a negative value for Strength in the Emission node. Light energy is sucked out of the scene by an anti-light.

In the examples, the anti-light is red. Add “negative red” to white and you get cyan (the G + B left over from subtracting red from white). Over on the left of the first image, the black object is blocking the red anti-light on the right, thus creating a square patch on the far wall which not cyan.

In the second image, negative red plus red results in black. Negative red on green and blue does nothing (the object is casting a shadow by blocking normal white light being emitted by the cube it’s inside). Negative red on purple is blue, negative red on yellow is green, negative red on pink is light blue.

I don’t know specifically what use I have for negative light in this cartoon, but I’ll invent something to make use of it.

Meanwhile, I’ve simultaneously solved a big production design problem and rediscovered the possibility of making something really whimsical at the same time.

I was struggling a bit with the idea of how to architect Ktish’s house, how to divide the space up, how to light it, etc.. then I thought – what if it’s just one space, but it can be repurposed? I mean, this planet he’s staying on is meant to be extraordinarily high tech. Given that it’s animated, and given that animation is such a beautifully adept medium for fanciful ideas, why not go all the way into Jetsons territory and have things sliding in and out of the walls as he needs them – including the front door. Don’t even explain or try to understand how the underlying machinery of it all works: aim for something provocatively and gleefully absurd. (You know, like a cartoon: from Invader Zim to Tex Avery at MGM – take your pick.) It’ll set the tone for that kind of weird stuff in later editions, especially if the technology starts to play up.

There’s another tone I want to set in terms of the visual storytelling. I thought I knew how the short was going to start but interesting ideas keep appearing at the beginning – beginnings are temptation-filled places, I’m discovering. However, after watching 2001: A Space Odyssey, THX 1138 and the 2010 restoration of Metropolis (all classics and all highly recommended) I feel like I want to try something a bit avant garde and abstract as well. I’m a lapsed demoscener from way back – interesting procedural visuals coupled with awesome music are part of my subcultural DNA. So maybe this short’s going to start abstractly instead – entoptic phosphene visions and thoughts/mood as audio of Ktish as he’s meditating, trying to get calm and collected in anticipation of..

Well.. that’s a couple of episodes away. Hopefully I can show you what that’s all about by this time next year. I’m aware that I need to keep things interesting and entertaining, but hanging everything off the narrative plain wasn’t working. I’ve got an end state for the story but in terms of saving cats and heroes with a thousand faces.. I think I just want to point Ktish towards the end state and let him, the other characters and the universe decide how the hell he gets there.

There was an interesting moment in Woody Allen’s Sleeper where Woody’s character has a goal (get to the Resistance!), and he’s escaped the immediate danger of being caught and brainwashed, but there’s no obvious way for him to achieve the goal. No path to take. No allies. We’re unprepared for what comes next. That whole “what the hell is he going to do now?” moment I found really intriguing. There was a gaping void of anticipation because I didn’t know where he was going next.

It was so unfamiliar, being off-track like that. Disoriented and uncertain at a narrative level.

And I really liked that moment.

Stuff like that is a big reason for me to watch older movies – people make discoveries and have happy accidents in the earlier stages of an artistic form, but those things get forgotten as a Way Of Doing Things ossifies into place. The customary practices in any medium or artistic technology are in flux in its later early stages and audience expectations are both less set in stone and much broader – the vanguard adopters come up with all kinds of interesting experiments. This experimental stage is the stuff I love. I personally don’t care if it’s not as polished or coherent or polite – what it is, for me, is bloody interesting. So much cool stuff gets forgotten. It’s awesome living in the Information Age where so much old cinema is freely available to pick over and learn from, not to mention listening to DVD commentaries where film makers talk shop.

Anyway. If I can successfully pull off a moment or two like that as an amateur animated film maker learning the craft, I’ll definitely be happy about it. 🙂

I currently owe the pre-production sketchbook three pages of material. Better get to it. Even if it’s just one page and not three, one is greater than zero.