More unabashed self-promotion in an attempt to convince myself that my cartooney timewasting has some value or consequence. Ah, who am I kidding? Of course it does!It's been confirmed that 'House Guest' will be part of the 8th edition of Salento Finibus Terrae International Short Film Festival. Said festival won't be for ages yet (it starts around mid-July) and I doubt I'll know the specifics until June, but it takes the edge of that postal anxiety to get the ol' early heads-up. Festival takes place in San Vito dei Normanni in Italy (the heel of the boot).
Another festival to include my delectable ducky goodness is the previously mentioned Belgrade Documentary & Short Film Festival, which I now know will screen 'House Guest' at 5pm CET on April 3rd. Good times.
My continuing battle with Flash CS4 is getting to be significantly less stressful through the trial and error of putting this new 
The main issue, now that I've sorted out most of the coding problems, is the visual motif I'm going with, having all the information - such as popups, buttons, headers etc - printed out on torn scraps of paper that either crinkle, unfurl or boil depending on how the mouse interacts with them. The torn paper look is something that I've always been fond of aesthetically and it's appeared in several previous projects, such as my short film 
To make it authentic I'm designing the assets, printing them out and scanning them back in, several times in some instances depending on what kind of animation is required. The process is tedium incarnate, but it does look pretty good once it's done. The popups themselves consist of six books, fourteen music projects, seven short films and seven music videos, along with bio information and several other elements that have no function other than being ornamental.
The site has five sections, the main page which incorporates some personal info, links and news updates; Music; Film/Animation; Design/Illustration; and Books/Comics. Each of these has a different backdrop, a collage of visuals tailored to each section (eg. the 'Books' section features imagery from various comics and graphic novels, 'Music' features album artwork and so on). The sub-sections have the same opening animation to help stick with the theme, a reverse paper-scrunch that quickly smooths out.
I'm liking the way it's coming together although I'm a little concerned that, with all the visual elements, the loading times for each page may frustrate visitors. Gonna file that one under 'bridge to cross once gotten to'.
Ah, Actionscript. Or, as I like to call it, 'c**tcode'. I pray that whoever developed it outlives their only child. Or at the very least they lose both testes (or ovaries - I don't discriminate) to a particularly nasty battle with a rabid pine weasel. Just when I get to grips with it I find that there are several variations on it that don't function at all while running alongside one another, resulting in an entirely new language I've developed for use when exasperated. It's predominantly comprised of grunts, rhythmic projectile spitting, fiendishly-modified racial epithets and self-mutilation.
I suppose it makes the taste of victory that little bit sweeter when I finally get the f***ing sh***ing tw***ing c***ing thing to do what I f***ing sh***ing tw***ing c***ing want it to. Betraying my natural instinct to immediately give up on anything that's hard to begin with, I'm progressing it ever-so-incrementally and, in most respects, it's coming along quite well. Look at some purty screen grabs while I go back to it and choke back tears of vexation.
