ooks like I'm going to be a lecturer at both UC Santa Cruz and CSU East Bay. I'll be instructing Art 21: Introduction to Computer Art and Art 22: Introduction to Electronics for Art at Santa Cruz, and Art 2810: Principles of Design at CSU East Bay.

Here's a link to test out font sizes on projectors in the classrooms.

dobe has quietly released Director 11 (though the quiet may come from lack of public interest more than any lack of effort on Adobe’s part). This is fine. Nice even. That Director, the program on which I cut my multimedia teeth as it were, has finally, after a four year hiatus from updates (which normally occurred every eighteen months) should finally be brought up to date. Truth is, I doubt I’ll acquire it. There are some 130 announced bug fixes, which is a tiny number from my experience, and no apparent new capabilities – just a few compatibility and UI enhancements. I’ll stick with Flash (something I never thought I’d say) and other multimedia applications like Cycling 74’s MAX/MSP & Jitter or javascript/­php/­html/­css. But at least I can post my old Shockwave files (I hope) so they can play on Intel Macs (see my “Shockwave, A Lament” khlog entry).

When you look for Director 11 at Adobe, you’ll find a classic orphaned software product. They don’t even include an updated icon for the product, which clearly positions it in their marketing strategy – which is to say there is no positioning at all. So, while my old files will now play on my new machine, I hold little hope for the future of one of the greatest multi­media tools of its (now past) time…

he Khazar have a new addition to the family! We have adopted a beautiful 9-month old kitten whom we have named “Eyekon.” If you check his picture out on the left, you can see why we gave him that referential moniker. The poor little tyke was likely struck with FHV at or near birth, and it has left his left eye a bit cloudy – but he’s OK in all other aspects and is a very affectionate and vivacious little rascal.

We were down to a one cat household after eleven years with three cats we raised from the same litter after foster-caring for a rescued litter of six. One is still around, sweet little Caviar; named for her nearly black and very luxurious fur coat. The other two litter mates passed away this year (2008); Champagne, a blond tabby, and Expresso, a black male twin to his sister Caviar. Cats need companionship, we believe, so we were determined to get another cat to keep Caviar company. We’ll see how it goes…

s a hard-core animation fan, I find it hard to believe that I have never seen the first feature-length animated film until now. The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), by Lotte Reiniger, preceded Walt Disney’s Snow White by eleven years, and may well be one of the most remarkable animated films I have ever seen. Unlike most animated films which use hand-drawn animation (or these days, computer-drawn), The Adventures of Prince Achmed is done entirely with silhouette animation using manipulated cutouts between a light-source and the animation camera.

It is gorgeous! Each frame of the film is a wonder to behold. The intricacies of the cutouts are astonishing, especially the lacy costumes of the female characters Dinarsade (Achmed’s sister) and Pari Banu (The beautiful ruler of the land of Wak Wak and Achmed’s beloved). The tale is taken from the One Thousand and One Nights – the fantastic collection of stories collected over thousands of years and consolidated into the frame story of Sheherazade and King Shahryar. The Adventures of Prince Achmed includes some of One Thousand and One Nights greatest characters: The Caliph of Baghdad, Prince Achmed, Princess Dinarsade, Pari Banu, Aladdin, The African Sorcerer, The Witch of the Fiery Mountain and even the Emperor of China.

Many of the effects in the film were completely without precedent. I can’t tell how some of them were done, but photographs of the animation stand (which uses multiple planes of glass, long before Disney’s patented camera of 1933) show sand being manipulated on the bottom plane of the camera. Apparently soap was used as well, along with thin slices of wax whose transecting pieces created a cloud of swirls that look like animated paper-marbling. Jaw-dropping amazing – I couldn’t figure out how that particular effect was done until I ran across a reference to Oskar Fishinger (the great experimental filmmaker) making a wax-slicing machine for the film here .

See it if you can! Netflix has it in their library, or it can be purchased from Amazon.

There is an excellent article and collection of images at the Animation Archive.

There is a very complete set of notes on the production of the restored version of the film by Milestone Films here.