April 30th is the Queens day in the Netherlands.
Actually, Queen Beatrix’s birthday is January 31st. But her mother, Queen Juliana’s birthday was April 30th. It’s nice that this special day is in the beginning of spring and to see people celebrating under the sun.

3 animators strolled through a nearby park to check out the flea market & outdoor entertainment.

Some interesting toys…

There were rows of retro cars with proud owners.
Of course Max took tons of pictures…perhaps we can use these as a reference for our film?

Introducing some characters who will appear in our new film.
Some didn’t make it into the cut and some ended up getting more screen time. But the casting is over.

Max has been learning Cinema4D, Mudbox & 3D Coat. I’m really impressed how fluent he is with all the programs.
Max has been modeling the characters in CG using the clay puppets as reference. All of the facial features on the characters will be drawn animation so we can get a wide range of expressions.

Some people think that when you take a photo of the clay puppet and press a magical button, the character will immediately transforms into a 3D version. Although the technology is really advanced, it’s not that magical and easy. It takes months and months of training to get to the level of making a cute and organic character in CG.

Here’s the comparison of the clay and digital.
The first character is being rigged….can’t wait to animate them and bring them to life. *smile*

—BONUS—
Our great animator friend, Kirsten Lepore, is finishing up with her new film and one of our characters will be making a screen debut.
So she turned our clay puppet into an animatable puppet. How cool is this? Very excited…!

It’s been 2 years since the film was released and it’s really nice to still receive recognition.
Thank you RiverRun. It’s been a fun and happy festival ride.

I’ve heard that the ideal situation to release an independent film every 1-2 years so your name and work are constantly circulating.
Well… I am envious of those filmmakers who can do that.
We are slow, like snails.
But we’re in middle of a production so a new film is coming, not this year, but next year.

We’ve always wanted to work with a composer / sound designer during the animatic stage. End of last year, we spoke with Bram Meindersma, a very talented composer / sound designer who lives in Amsterdam.
He came down to Tilburg ( 1.5 hours south of Amsterdam) to sketch out the music for our new film. What an interesting experiment. With Bram’s suggestions, we worked on the edit together. I felt like it was a really cool collaboration. Music can drive some scenes of the film and Bram’s suggestions really helped to shape up the film.

At the Netherlands Institute for Animated Film, we get a guidance once or twice a month. We’ve had writers, animation critic, animation directors, etc. ( I had completely forgotten to document all this but I decided to start now…)
Last week, we had Guido van Gennep who is the BEST Director of Photography in the Netherlands.

After we showed our animatic and discussed some scenes that can use interesting camera moves, we went right into working! Guido showed us some cool lighting effect using our set. It was an eye opening moment when Guido put some masking tapes on a mirror and created simple geometric shapes. When the light hit the mirror, it created a very German Expressionistic shadow!
Now we got some ideas how to light and shoot.

With the help and support from many people, we are slowly moving onto the production phase of our film….When I feel like “time is running out”, that is a very good feeling.

People react to spring allergies differently.

Windows reflect the place and people who live there.

We’re very happy to receive the best animation award from Queens World Film Festival!

“Something Left, Something Taken” is on the last stretch of the festival circulation.
Our plan is to start posting more pictures of our new film. Stay tuned…

Hinamatsuri is a Japanese dolls’ festival. (Also known as Girl’s day or Peach flower festival).
This picture is my hina dolls that my grandma bought for me when I was born.
Ton, the director of the Netherlands Institute for Animated Film (the organization we belong to) asked me to do an international day and I immediately thought to celebrate Hinamatsuri.
Peach flowers are one of the most important decorations and the meaning behind is that peach flowers get rid of bad spirits. The winter in the Netherlands is COLD, DARK and LONG! Our spirits have been down for quite some time so I thought maybe I can bring spring quicker and get rid of all bad energy.

My mission was to make 8 dishes for 13 people.
I think when foreigners hear “Japanese food” they automatically think of sushi.
But common people do not eat sushi everyday, it’s only for special occasions.
So I tried to make things that I grew up eating.

Inari (sushi rice in tofu skin pouch)
Chirashi-zushi (sushi rice and vegetables and egg on top)

Buta no Kakuni (very slow cooked pork)

Ingen no Goma-ae (green beans with sesame dressing)
Kyuri no sunomono (cucumber in vinegar)

Satoimo no nimono (simmered taro potatoes)
Hakusai no tsukemono (pickled napa cabbage)

Behind me in the pot is Oshiruko ( rice cake in sweet red bean soup)

Frauke made a peach cake in a shape of a peach flower.

Max, Frauke and I spent all day making these peach flowers and dangling all over a meeting room. Frauke’s finger started to bleed from over-working. No pain, no gain. She proved it.

Max made a slideshow of various hina dolls.

Everybody seemed very curious.

It was a success. I think I was able to provide a bit of Japanese culture to them.
Thank you Frauke & Max for helping me out so much!