That Stop-Motion Lifestyle

There was a Seago adventure afoot. We started off at the St. Louis Nicaragua spot: Fritanga.

Soulja Boys were out on account of this being Veteran's Day weekend. I hope they really Superman that parade.

We started with a little lunch at Fritanga, the local Nicaraguan joint. It's a fun place because not only do I get to eat delicious food but I can reminisce about one of the worst trips I've yet experienced, complete with a bout of what I believe was dengue fever.

The art on the walls reminded me of something similar we picked up in Nicaragua.

So I like the St. Louis International Film Festival a lot. What I don't like about it is that a lot of it costs more than zero dollars. I was scanning the free section and I saw something that sounded pretty rad: a master class in stop-motion animation with Brad Schiff. Brad is a native St. Louisan, Oscar nominee, and animation supervisor of Laika Studios. One of the early bullet points on his rap sheet was a stint working for MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch. I used to love that show.

Man this was a really cool talk. He's worked on several stop motion films, and I think Laika might be the only company, or maybe one of two that are doing stop motion. Anyway so they are really setting the standard and having to figure out how to do things themselves. Their earlier films were much rougher around the edges but then he showed their progression, with each film getting better and better. I had no idea the movies worked like this, but they would 3D print out a zillion of each character's face that would then snap onto the puppet's head in order to show expression.

The facial plates came in a set of two, so the characters' eyes and mouths could be animated independently. The seam between the two plates of the puppets' face was then removed in post production.  This one was for Coraline.

As the studio got more and more sophisticated it seemed that they were able to handle animating more and more characters on-screen concurrently.  These guys are from The Boxtrolls.

The puppets got more and more sophisticated culminating in their latest release: Missing Link.

The skeletons of the puppets were super cool: they pull a knob or tighten a screw to make a character get slightly taller or fatter, such as the normal wobbling around your body does when you walk. Jumping or falling was especially interesting. If a character jumps off a cliff they have to use rigging to suspend the puppet in the air then animate its descent. 

At first they were just using their imagination but one of the insights was to have the puppeteers or whoever else was around act out the scenes and act as models for the puppets. It sort of seemed like a no-brainer in hindsight.

The talk ended with questions from the audience. It was around this time that I realized everyone in the crowd was legit animation students, not just knowledge tourists. They had a bunch of really specific, fun, and technical animation questions.

Me and Mr Link.

After I was thoroughly confident that I had mastered stop-motion animation it was time to celebrate all of my accomplishments. Gezellig in the Grove was a new one for me. It was cool because it had lots of beer cases open to patrons. I could grab my own cold one. We did a taste test thing so I grabbed something classy: the champagne of beers in a champagne bottle.

Just as I suspected, all of the beers had a taste. I will continue to test this hypothesis.

Halloween Party at Club Rep

Lydia found us a sweet Halloween party sponsored by Webster University's Repertory Theatre of St. Louis.

It was awesome for multiple reasons. First of all, every single part of it was free. I was a little hesitant to get excited about it because it was so cool that I figured that there must be some kind of catch.

Not only did they have a ton of complimentary snacks, but they had a theatre company's production values. Everything looked like a lot of care went into making it. I mean who among you has seen such a beautiful tray of cinnamon rolls with icing made to look like intestines?

I was also excited because it meant I could wear my hotdog costume again.

You see, "In economics, fixed costs, indirect costs or overheads are business expenses that are not dependent on the level of goods or services produced by the business. They tend to be time-related, such as interest or rents being paid per month, and are often referred to as overhead costs. This is in contrast to variable costs, which are volume-related (and are paid per quantity produced) and unknown at the beginning of the accounting year. For a simple example, such as a bakery, the monthly rent for the baking facilities, and the monthly payments for the security system and basic phone line are fixed costs, as they do not change according to how much bread the bakery produces and sells. On the other hand, the wage costs of the bakery are variable, as the bakery will have to hire more workers if the production of bread increases. Economists reckon fixed cost as an entry barrier for new entrepreneurs."

"In management accounting, fixed costs are defined as expenses that do not change as a function of the activity of a business, within the relevant period. For example, a retailer must pay rent and utility bills irrespective of sales. In marketing, it is necessary to know how costs divide between variable and fixed costs. This distinction is crucial in forecasting the earnings generated by various changes in unit sales and thus the financial impact of proposed marketing campaigns. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 60 percent responded that they found the "variable and fixed costs" metric very useful."

As we descended the stairs from the lobby there was a girl handing out free jello shots that came in syringes. This was my kind of place.

Someone went to the trouble of sticking googly eyes onto all of these cups!

The music was rad as well. There was a DJ but at times he would play the sax over it. Insane that this was free.

Pumpkin vomit veggie tray? Check.

There was a free tarot card reader!?

Bi-State Area Arting

Lydia and I popped up to historic Springfield, Illinois, home of the corndog, to visit the 57th annual Springfield Old Capitol Art Fair.

We have a race riot walking tour. Yay? Springfield trivia fact #3,567: the 1908 Race Riot led to the creation of the NAACP.

Lydia was busy looking at art but I was busy looking for women who look exactly like Lydia from behind. Spotted one!

We had fun but it was also quite warm outside. We had places to be and so had to say a sad farewell to the inhabitants of Springfield and drove back down to St. Louis.

Luckily I had something fun to distract me from my profound Springfield separation anxiety. The Opera Theatre of Saint Louis' performance of La Traviata. Damn I'm fancy.

Songs were sung, dramatics were... described, and fun was had by all.