Hardcow - DONE!

It's finally here! It's been a long time coming (the first post about it was September of last year), but this is finally done. Summer has been good to this project (I only had this much done at the end of the semester) - it started out as a few smacked together scenes of cows dancing.

I was able to manipulate a handful of scenes in post-production/After Effects in order to make a better end result (the effect during the dance sequences, the way the cow and the pig are watching the rooster eat the boombox, etc). I could extend frames I needed more time with (for example, the first two frames of the pig were both one 1's, then pulled apart and drawn out into a longer jitter, etc). I used a bunch of fun sounds I found on freesound.org.

The idea behind this short, as mentioned at the end, to "SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL HARDCOW". Listening to a handful of local bands and making it a point to go and see a handful of local shows was one of the most memorable things from my teenage years. I was watching people in my generation essentially express themselves and putting all the time and money they could into it, regardless of their background. I wanted to make this short as a way to remind us all to embrace what type of art is happening in our backyard (or in this case, our barnyard) - everyone has to start somewhere.

The best thing about being even a small part of the local music scene's community was that you got to watch musicians grow. While I was working on this short, a band I had literally watched play in a BARN (how fitting) back when I was a sophomore in high school got signed and went out on a tour. Another crazy thing happened while working on this short: I met a guy at a mutual friend's house who, turns out, had also been a part of the local music scene for a handful of years. I was in need of finding music for my cow to dance to, and the band he was working with had the perfect song. This summer that band landed a spot to play on the Ernie Ball stage at Cleveland's Warped Tour. The way I grew up watching bands play simply because they loved it translated straight to how I want to do my own art for the same exact reason.

What's next? Revisiting my senior thesis plans.

That being said, I hope to make more cows dance in the future.