My attention span has a deficit and is somewhat disorderly which often leaves me feeling bored and distracted but too impatient and edgy to focus on most things. I generally have the T.V. on but I’m rarely watching it; and if I do happen to be looking in the direction of the screen the remote will most likely be in my hand, fingers flying over the buttons as I search in vain for something more interesting than whatever I just clicked which looked better than what I was watching before that. If someone coerces or tricks me into going to see a movie in a theater, social etiquette can help me stay in my seat for the duration of the film … as long as I’m also provided with plenty of snacks and allowed to whip out my Droid to obsessively check texts, e-mails, Facebook, instant messenger, my blog and the ‘dating’ site every ten minutes or so.
Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly if you know anything about ADD (which I don’t because it’s far simpler to just take the meds than to research the various conditions or chemical imbalances I’ve been tagged with), I find it far easier to become involved in routine or repetitive activities. I can’t make it through a commercial break without picking up a book or my phone or going out for a smoke, but give me my set of Prismacolors and just about anything from Dover Publications (although, I am partial to dinosaurs) and I can be happy coloring for hours.
When I got laid off from a job I hated (yet was still terribly offended to realize they were as eager to get rid of me as I was to leave) I used some of my severance money to soothe my bruised ego with an expensive, high-end video camera I didn’t need and am somewhat embarrassed to actually carry around as it makes me look like a local news cameraman (woman, person, whatever …) who’s lost my on-scene reporter, GenericFirstName InsertAnyEthnicLastNameProuncedWithADistinctAccent.
However, in reading through the user guide about the various features and functions I didn’t understand and would never use (zebra pattern? flicker reduce? histogram? … please, just show me the auto-focus) I stumbled across ‘stop-motion’ and discovered that my new favorite toy could be used to make animated movies ala Gumby, Moral Orel and Robot Chicken. I immediately set about experimenting with it and found that aside from the end result being pretty cool, the process of getting there is exceedingly repetitious! Move the figures a fraction of an inch, click off a shot, move them a tiny bit more, take another shot … it takes six shots to get one second of footage!
Since the layoff left me jobless but somewhat well-funded, and because the position a friend was developing for me at his company (same pay, closer to home … SCORE!) would be in the works for a couple of months, I found myself with a little free time on my hands and brand new way to distract myself. So, without further ado, I present The Unemployment Attention Deficit Animation Film Festival!
That’s it for now. What do you think? Be honest. A little more practice and I’ll be giving Tim Burton some competition, right? Right?
Hello?
