La Seduzione - Storyboards and Animatic

I've finished a roughly drawn storyboard of La Seduzione, which given my limited drawing skills is about the best I can do. I've also finished an early version of the animatic. (You can read other posts about the making of this animated short here.)

A storyboard is like what you see below... a visual interpretation of each scene in the movie. (Just to be really confusing, in animation we call shots scenes.) It's usually accompanied by a text description of what is going on. Click to enlarge:

Once the storyboard is finished, an animatic is made. This is essentially a filmed storyboard. The image of each scene is kept on screen for as long as it would appear in the final product. Scratch (by which we mean temporary) music, dialogue if any, and some sound effects accompany the images.

An animatic allows a filmmaker to preview the timing and story flow of the film before a big investment is made in animation. I know I will probably putter around with my animatic for weeks before I feel comfortable enough to start animating scenes.

Sub-Prime Submarines

It looks like the lax standards of the credit industry are catching up with them. How lax are their standards exactly?

The Center for Responsible Lending laid out the gory details in its December 2006 report "Losing Ground: Foreclosures in the sub-prime market and their cost to homeowners" According to the report, more than 50 percent of sub-prime loans are underwritten using less than full documentation. A subsequent review of a sample of these loans showed that 90 percent of borrowers inflated their incomes and 60 percent of the borrowers inflated their incomes by more than 50 percent.

Yikes. But that's just a small part of the market, right?

The delinquency rate on sub-prime mortgages is now above 10 percent. With sub-prime mortgages comprising 23 percent of mortgage originations in 2006, the math is ugly and getting worse. Eventually, the CRL projects that 19 percent of sub-prime mortgages originated during the past two years will default with 2.2 million sub-prime households losing their homes and suffering monetary losses of $164 billion.

This mass of foreclosures would add to housing inventory that is already at near-record levels. That in turn would push down prices. These falling prices, together with tightening credit standards, would make re-financing the exploding ARMs that are maturing this year problematic. With payments rising dramatically and households falling into negative equity, the temptation to walk away is very real.

It could get ugly.

Gore Wins

Al Gore won the Oscar last night and the Supreme Court can't do anything about it. Oh, that his mock announcement of candidacy weren't so mock!

Al Gore was right about the first Persian Gulf War. He was right about the internet. He was right about global warming. He was right about the second Iraq War. That's an impressive record of clear-sightedness on some of the most important issues of our day.

Moreover, there is something mythic about his emergence after defeat in 2000. He has been liberated. The new Gore is more authentic, more passionate, and a better communicator. And hey, even the old Gore was able to win a majority of the votes in a national election.

Al Gore ought to be President. These nice people are trying to get him to run. Sign their petition and maybe throw some bucks their way if you can.

The Bitch Slap Theory

Josh Marshall has a good post about the recent Cheney-Pelosi dust-up. Cheney alleged that Pelosi was validating Al-Qaeda's strategy in Iraq; Pelosi whined that this was "beneath the dignity of the debate we're engaged in." I'll let Josh explain:

The point of the whole exercise is not the underlying issue of Pelosi but what the exchange is supposed to demonstrate about both players -- that Cheney is strong (he hits) and Pelosi is weak (she complains when attacked.)

Josh would probably endorse Obama's attitude to Cheney when he ridiculed him yesterday for his statements regarding the British troop withdrawal from the Iraqi south. Said Obama: "When Dick Cheney says it's a good thing, you know that you've probably got some big problems."

But this also reminds me of something David Mamet once said: the problem with the Democrats is that they never raise the bet. Why not say that Dick Cheney is a loose cannon, and that a strong executive would rein him in? Say he's the administration's crazy uncle. Dare President Bush to either endorse or reject Cheney's statements. They're playing a losing hand -- 2006 told us that. The only reason Cheney is allowed to say things like that is because only their base pays attention to him.

When you've got a winning hand raise the bet.

Argument and Personality

Well, here I am about to go all bloggy again, but this video exchange between Eric Alterman and Mark Schmitt caught my attention. Alterman criticizes Andrew Sullivan for putting too much personal information in his blogs:

Too many bloggers feel that their private lives are intrinsically interesting. And maybe they are. But in a very unhealthy way. In a very Us Magazine, not even a People way. In an Us Magazine way. And I think that interferes with the quality of ... the ability of one to make one's argument on the quality of one's argument.... like Andy, Andy, curling up... I just noticed this because last week he wrote about Valentine's Day, how happy he was to be curling up in bed with his boyfriend to watch a DVD. I'm like: Why do I have to read this?

This is what Sullivan wrote on Valentine's day:

We watched "Basic Instinct" last night with a bottle of champagne and freshly-made brownies. I'd never seen it before. It was washed down by a HD Sunrise Earth special on Machu Picchu. Life is good when you're in love and have a widescreen television.

Alterman has a very narrow definition of what argument is. Aristotle said there were three categories: logos, the appeal to reason, pathos, the appeal to emotion, and ethos, the use of authority. One of Andrew's major themes is the right of gay people to marry. It seems to me that, probably without even being conscious of it, he is establishing ethos -- he's making clear that he's in a committed relationship with another man, which after all, doesn't seem to be too much different from a straight relationship. He is making a testament in favor of an argument that is very important to him.

And heck, it makes for more interesting writing anyway. Ann Althouse has more.

So Much for Flypaper...

From a Mother Jones study: the Iraqi war has increased terrorism sevenfold worldwide. Via Kevin Drum.

Meet the Press for Idiots

I don't post many youtubes, but this one's pretty good.