framed

Dr. Hubert Zork is now in the screen. And I am here to add more wit to the wisdom of the tale of my fictional animation anti-hero, John Akre. He is at work on an animated fiction film that he sometimes finds time to work on in his free time, tho it must make battle with all the other demands upon those same free time hours.

Last night he did find time, and he did find several hours. He completed about 30 seconds of animation, including one tedious frame sequence displaying the firing of many fantasy gun products designed by the Home Armaments Division of Boom, Inc., the corporation whose mission is to sell entertainment that goes Boom.

A frame is a frame around the video image. This is another personal obsession of the fictional Mr. Akre. He likes the concept. He has been using it for some time. There is a frame around the image, whether the frame be the real world or images that somehow comment upon the central image. In this he has taken some influence from the Krazy Kat cartoons of George Herrimann.

Here is how Akre makes an animated frame. He creates a series of images as Photoshop layers and then he changes the Photoshop canvas size so it is much bigger, so that it can hold a central hole and the image sequence around the edges of it. He will then spread his image sequence around the edges and save it all as the first frame.

He moves each image one position and then creates a new frame. He continues to do this until the first image is back to its original position. Last night this process of creation of a single frame took him an hour.

When he imports these frames into his movie and places them around his central animation image, the effect is an animated frame. It is very busy and has its greatest impact upon the sense of peripheral vision. But who completely understand the power of the edge, which is perhaps why he is so intrigued by the whole image of edges.

That is enough talk of frames and edges. Now is the time for the central Pome of the Pome of the Day Project. This is, as always, another new pome, created moments ago from fresh ingredients just for this missive.

what is that
particular tumor
the spot before eyes
that will not see

what is that
unbearable itch
that scratching won't end
nor will any ointment

what is that
incomprehensible headache
and why won't aspirin
make it better

what is that
monstrous story
written by its characters
and now they must live it.

Written in sincerity and with fingers,
Dr. Hubert Zork