The hitRECord revolution will now be televised.

Additional Notes:

1. No re-recs this week. This video (which I have taken to referring to as "the beast") took up all my time and energy, to the point where I forgot to even look at what people were putting up on hR for most of the week. I'm relying on you guys to tell me what I missed, because there's way too much for me to go through otherwise.


2. I used a butt-ton of public domain resources. If one of them interests you, leave me a note with the time at which it was used and I can probably go back and find it. I tried to keep an organized list of resources for all the public domain I used, but it was way too difficult.


3.   Per usual, I used roughly a bazilion different videos, so if I either fail to resource yours or resource something I didn't end up using, leave me a note letting me know.


4. I consider this a mostly finished product but, as always, I'm open to and welcome revising and suggestions.


5. This video was brought to you by Trader Joe's popsicles, which I consumed a frankly obscene number of in order to fuel the making of this monster. I couldn't have done it without you guys. You were both magnificent and delicious.

Hyuck, hyuck, hyuck.

This was a pun/tiny story I'd doodled out an illustration for about five or six years ago, which I found while thumbing through old sketchbooks. I re-did the drawings to look nicer, laid it out, and voila! I would say this is the worst pun I've ever made, but it's not even the worst pun I've made in the last 24 hours.

Also, I know, I know, the Tiny Book of Tiny Stories is in black and white, but I really wanted this one to have color. If this actually gets selected, I'll go back and re-work it.

I promised you it existed! Because I like to pretend you all care desperately, here is how I make a piece of art; a lazy, meandering week-long project that I have boiled down to six minutes.

Version 2 of my Great Society video, hopefully to be used at Sundance (?! Are we still doing re: OWS at Sundance?). This video owes a huge debt of gratitude to MissAmerica, whose Occupy video inspired me to re-work this with other people talking to tie it into the present, and whose invaluable suggestions at the end stretch of editing helped me tie the whole thing together and make it ten times better and more airtight than it started out as. In the results, I've also provided a music-free version for easier sound editing.

As always, if I forgot to resource something, let me know, and suggestions, direction, feedback, and constructive criticism is eagerly welcomed.

My recipe for peanut sauce! I figured we could use a little savory up in this business. And this stuff goes with anything; stick it on veggies, tofu, noodles, I bet you could even use it for a meat marinade. I was planning on doing a dessert recipe I made up a few years ago for a Christmas party, but even something as simple as this was way more time and labor intensive than I thought it would be. So who knows? It'll probably go up, but may take me even longer to do than this one did. (A week. Really. Little doodles are hard.) (That's what she said.)

I apologize if my handwriting is hard to read in this, but I refuse to apologize for the little nerdy joke in the corner.

I continue to be utterly floored by the positive response to my dinky little circles texture I drew a while back, mostly because I'm sort of infamous for being incapable of drawing circles. Like, it's a thing, where I'll be trying to diagram something quickly for my mother and she'll take one look at it and go, "Julia, how is it that you can draw so beautifully and yet you are incapable of making a circle look like a circle?" That is a good question, Mom! I have no idea!

So when I saw the texture rejjie made of my circles I was flabbergasted and overcome with joy. Like, even more than I was when the circles got re-rec'd. I seriously suggest you go to the resources, heart the texture, and use it as much as physically possible, because it's mind-bogglingly gorgeous. And I instantly had to draw something for it. It's not anything particularly imaginative - pretty lady + cool texture so I don't have to bother with background is sort of my default mode and a lot of what I drew back when I was considering doing art for a living, but I think it looks nice. And when my mom walked past, she gave it a verbal thumbs up. So we already know it's better than my circles.

Apparently when I say in a re-REC album "someone should do ____!" I mean "Julia, you know what you should do when you have a few hours to kill that you want to do instead of tackling your to-do list? That thing!" So this afternon I dug up a bunch of public domain old-timey footage, pieced it together, and voila! A video for the lovely song-like thing (still doesn't feel like a song to me, still not sure what to call it) "Try Not to Think About That".

You know, if I ever gathered up all the time I spend procrastinating and bored noodling around in various creative computer programs and actually directed it towards something, it's entirely possible I could turn into a productive and contributing member of society at some point in my life.

...nah.

So, I designed an album cover. It's not what Marke and Joe asked for. In fact, it's pretty much the opposite of what Marke and Joe asked for. They asked for a cover that is Not Your Mama's Vinyl and I made something that is, well, exactly like your mama's vinyl. Or maybe even your grandmama's, depending on your age. At some point, I will learn to listen to authority figures and do what they ask of me. Today is not that day. It was, however, fun to draw, something that could be used potentially on this site for another purpose, and something that could go in an illustration portfolio. So in that sense, mission accomplished.

I wouldn't call this a full-blown alternate version of my last video, more of a very slight adjustment. Per Matt and chariot13's suggestions, I did add some sound, though only Joe's welcome at the beginning. I tried clips from other segments, but they weren't fast enough and slowed down the pace of the movie. Plus, I liked the original feel, like you were almost fast-forwarding through the entire experience, and adding sound bits took away from that. I also swapped out more moon footage at the end for the gloam jack o' lantern, just because it's more of a unique hitRECord thing. They're minor differences, but I'm a big believer in listening to critique and trying anything once.

An illustration for one of my very favorite tiny stories by Dusty (with a few tiny textual tweaks), who is one of my very favorite people. I had hoped to get this done for her birthday yesterday, but alas. Cleaning up the text took way longer than anticipated.

By the way, if you are an animator and interested, I would love love love love love to make an animated version of this, since I initially saw the illustration in my head as a little movie.  If you are, I would be happy to provide way more in-between images or a storyboard or whatever you might need. Clearly I don't know what that would be, since I have no idea how to animate anything.

Whoever said that the big, bad wolf can't also be a sexy lady? With wolf ears? (I assume some people are into that sort of thing.)

And yes, she does look like Irene Adler from Sherlock on sort-of-purpose, her face is just too interesting not to draw.

Lately I've seen a lot of Japan/tsunami awareness on hitRECord (and the internet in general), and a lot of artists putting up pieces inspired by it with little links at the bottom to donate. Which, don't get me wrong, I think is totally amazing, but I sort of wonder why no one's doing that for all the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa, especially in Libya.

I mean, part of me gets it. We, as humans, like problems we can fix. We like feeling like we can make a difference in things. With Japan, there are concrete things you can do to help improve people's lives. In Libya (and Bahrain, and Yemen, and Iran, etc, etc, etc.), there isn't a lot anyone can do. It's messy and what's more, it's political. People don't like to rally behind political causes, people like to ban together on stuff they all agree on, like "earthquakes are really bad". No one disagrees that earthquakes that huge are a problem, or thinks that the Red Cross sucks, and if they do, they're probably not the kind of person you want to talk to, anyway. But people disagree about what to do with all this turmoil in the Middle East because all the solutions are, let's face it, crappy. We can argue over which way might minimize the crapiness, but when you get down to it, it sucks. And people, understandably, hate that.

I don't know, though. I understand the aversion, and the weariness, and the urge to just close your eyes, plug your ears, and turn away. Some days, I have to do that myself. But I still think, even if you check in just once a week to see what's changed, it's important, and something worth sparing thought for or spreading awareness of.

And thus concludes my preaching while simultaneously fulfilling my topical art quota for the next year.

Some call it narcissism, some call it self-acceptance.

I can, upon request, upload the paper I used to draw on for use as a texture, as well as a clean, black and white version of the drawing.

Of course after the BFI event, I couldn't just ignore all the great footage and new testimonials put up, so version two, now with better sound editing! As usual, any comments, criticisms, or suggestions are welcome.

NOTE: When you start nearing sixty resources, it's inevitable you're going to miss crediting one or two. If I have used yours and not credited it, please let me know and I'll fix that immediately.

Heard the song, had to sing to it, even though I am getting over a cold and my voice is not at the top of its game. A billion thank yous to Metaphorest for doing the final mix, because I can't mix for love or money.

Lyrics:
I'm alone and that's how I like it
Cause when you're alone no one leaves you crying
I've spent all my life running from boys like you
'Cause I'm afraid of the things that you could make my heart do

Don't say those words, I don't think you'd mean them
If you knew the promise implied between them
I've been broken with words coming from boys like you
And I'm afraid of the things that you could make my heart do
Things you make my heart do

Be careless, be thoughtless, be callous, be reckless, be cruel
I can take anything but sweetness from a boy like you
My heart is a delicate creature I've built walls around
I try to resist but you're Jericho's horn and my walls
They come crashing down
My walls come crashing down