http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:Wlaputka&section=today deviantART RSS for by:Wlaputka en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:27:04 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/27110091/ http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/27110091/ Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:37:35 PDT Though the people seem of few words, they typically mean well, leaving a decent first impression. The hostel is colorful, but sleeping in a room thats purple and mauve and surrounded by 10 other people leaves an interesting impression of some near-dream like state thato ccurs once youve travelled as long as I have.

Now that I sit here in my sombre, jet-lagged state, I can only guess that hthe next few days, like the next few minutes, will be much the same as the past day has been. One of intersting, ''anything-is-possible'' like qualities that likely will follow my wife and I through several months of european intrigue and immerssion.

Stay posted,

Woodruff

]]> ~Wlaputka http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/26065236/ http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/26065236/ Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:18:01 PDT
Soon though, I will be leaving for a year to Scotland. What will it be like? Im not sure. Europe is one of those places that you hear about, read about, research and fantasize of all the possibilities, all the art and all the culture. But, to actually go and even to live there, now THAT is truly a stroke of a different chord. What will it be like? I wonder. So much subject matter, bolstering beyond the usual breathtaking scenery and colorful characters that Alaska always retains. How will it all pan out for me as an Artist there?

Well, as some of you know, I dont really post much on this website of mine. And, when I do post, they are usually few and far between. So, I've decided to keep a sort of journal, mapping my experiences through the year I will be abroad. From photo work, to video, to just plane thoughts on paper. I will have my trusty XL1s with me, so anything is possible in such a multicultural setting.

Im not sure what to call this project yet, so I suppose well see what I roll with. Right now, Im just waiting for the plane ride out of the Alaskan rainy season, and off to the "sunny" weather of Highland Scotland.

Talk to you all soon.

-WL

]]> ~Wlaputka http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/21596302/ http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/21596302/ Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:38:27 PST
Lately, lets just account for lately, Ive been having trouble coming up with anything even remotely creative. its not that I don't want to, or even that im not trying. I sit at the computer and stare. I pick up the camera and...well....there's just nothing. I don't know why, but its really eating away at me, making me less and less tolerant and more and more irritable. everything I jot down at random I end up never pursuing, and feel like Ive just hit some random brick wall that just doesn't move.

I don't understand, but if anyone has any advice, id be willing to listen.

thanks,

]]> ~Wlaputka http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/20975775/ http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/20975775/ Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:00:38 PDT
I think Zombie movies are something of a "coming of age" ritual for filmmakers. Especially, guys like me. Ive had a taste for about as bloody and dark shadowed of a zombie flick as I can get for quite sometime. I was recently looking over my schedule, and in a sort of quick outburst of creativity came up with a zombie short that, after good ol' guerrilla-style consideration, I'm going to shoot most of this weekend.

Im holding auditions for zombies this Friday, and plan on shooting my "feasting" scenes that same evening. Call it an experiment, if you will. Im trying to take the project seriously, but you should really enjoy making up your own zombie horde. So, I plan on being as playful with it as possible. Hand-held camera action comes to mind. Well see. One thought is a need for about as much blood as possible, even though it certainly is going to be about 20 degrees or less outside. But hey, provided the camera doesn't flake out and my actors are comfortable, we should be good to go.

Ill keep you updated.

W

]]> ~Wlaputka http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/20643927/ http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/20643927/ Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:43:18 PDT
I recently purchased a Canon XL1s camera, and have, at the same time, been quite packed with school work. Despite this, however, I have been breaking out now and then and started working on a little improv series, titled, "the Quarterlies". Really, the name means very little. Initially we were trying to do one practice every week (4 quarters in a month, haha), but with classes the way they are, its seems more difficult to make the time. Now, were just trying to get together.

This is sort of my fun time with the new camera, allowing me to experiment and get used to it before I start production on the new "Wendigo" project. Im still writing the script for it, but sooner than later ill be out in the snow (give away) shooting, and I would kind of like to know my camera better than I already do before I get out there.

This is really sort of a random blog, but hey, why not be a little random sometimes. Ive also been studying classic literature and communications law to where I dont know up or down, only Willa Cather and Clear-and-Present-danger (beware).

All the best,

Woodruff

]]> ~Wlaputka http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/20132841/ http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/20132841/ Sun, 24 Aug 2008 15:12:51 PDT
...I am now able to post my film work on Deviantart. I have already published 2 of these shorts of mine on my profile, and hope that everyone can both enjoy them as well as find the time to critic them. thank you

]]> ~Wlaputka http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/19417384/ http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/19417384/ Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:47:35 PDT
By Woodruff Laputka

Way down the river Xen, past the southern bluff known as the Arg Kak, stands the fishing village of Sul Nill. Erected from the ancient and thunderous waters of the River Xen, it stands completely alone of any bridge to the far off, waves pummeled shores, beaten day and night by the flow of the unrelenting currents. What fish they thought would come to them there, no one really knows. They, those ancient, white eyed crones who live some miles upriver, occasionally whisper in gargled, harsh spittle tones of times when they were young and beautiful, and when the River Xen was once tame and placid, and Sul Nill was the amber lit joy of the region. Every fish one could imagine, they say, would come from out those Xen waters. As if the Gods of deeper Ocean depths had favor from those Sul Nill folk, who often wore many a totem and jewel dedicated to some estranged All or deep-sea God. So was it assumed to be a blessed wonder, and the region fed like kings, and the town of Sul Nill grew. A mighty place on the water-top.

Then, as they say, came the year when a storm had arrived, a black and circular thing which shot down all who gazed it’s way, storming out with wind and thunder and hail of unusual shape and size, and so peculiar a sound and rumble that has never been well described. As black; impenetrable depths of dark. Here do the old crones account the arrival of a traveler, a man who was rowing upriver that night, who had just as soon passed the Arg Kak as to be stricken with fear and whole dread as to crash unto their town docks and storm maddeningly up the street.

Grabbed by a few strong men from indoors, and forced into a chair to get his head strait, he denied all ability to calm and cease his almost unintelligible gabbing. The wind cracked fiercer, and louder still as they forced strong drink down his throat, forcing him to calm his nerve. Until, at long last, he began to slow, and spoke more clearly on what his ail had been. For he said that the storm, so great and so cruel, was centered over top Sul Nill, projecting such maddening things, he said, that no man must dare live to remember it. He said that, “I am now a messenger, I admit, and a fool for not following my own advice to not travel in such awful weather, but the gods have dubbed me a damned man, I know, for that which I saw out there, tonight.” The storm, so he accounted, funneled in a strange and impure fashion, swaying to and fro as if dancing, hinging in fashions both geometric and fluid. Unlike anything hed ever seen. He spoke of light beaming through the whipping, gnarling clouds, and holding fast to a single spot, at the very center of Sul Nill.

Of the strange and awful things that seemed to ride atop the funneling cone, submerged in the cloud and the black, beating wings of ill-shapen form, but briefly before disappearing into the storm. Of the obelisk, tall and ominous, that was not known to have stood there prior, jutting out and up as if a beacon to the most unworldly and alien occurrences there. Before he left his conscious state, and died there before those curious and frightened, he spoke of so many people, small and slight compared to the greatness of the Storm. How they moved, he spoke, in sway with the cyclone! How their headdresses glowed with such malevolent air! How the thunder cracked, and the wind came to a crescendo, and how near the bluff could he hear the sudden, inunison screams of thousands of terrified townspeople.

How, as he looked but one last time, before he nerves left him completely, he saw those many thousands of the Sul Nill folk get pulled up from their famed and strong built docks and swallowed whole by the storm.
What questions there were, from all who set and listened to the travelers most horrifying tale. Surely, he was mad. The storm had been the oncoming of just bad weather. In the morning, after it clears, people would return to Sul Nill and find, most assurdily, all that they had known to be there quite steady. That the kind and fair faced townsfolk, with their jeweled shops and full, bursting store houses would be waiting, as always, with open arms for their business.

But, come the day after the storm, when the town discovered their shores so radically different from the Rivers wailing fury, Sul Nill set empty and dead. Not trader, nor farmer, nor marketer or craftsmen could be found streets. Not a child for the shoes left empty in the houses. Not a tenant to the tables of every vacant café. It was as if the people of Sul Nill had vanished into thin air. Vanished into the storm that was angry with them. And after that day that the town was left empty, when all curious and concerned left for home, the River Xen, which during the storm was most rampant, rekindled its ever fearsome run, topping any boat and destroying any fish-wheel, not even allowing settlements to build too far out... ]]> ~Wlaputka http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/19048290/ http://Wlaputka.deviantart.com/journal/19048290/ Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:03:57 PDT
I spent a long time, nearly 2 years with out really drawing much of anything. Once a prominent practice of mine, and then fazing through several different levels of seriousness, i suppose it is common to simply drift and explore for some time before returning to your roots or recognizing the more important attributes and releases to your personality and its ever vigilant battle for fruitful creative production. Lately, i seem to have just settled back into it. And, I have to say, it's rather relieving to put a pencil to paper again and finding a rather pleasurable result coming out of it, especially with such time in between heavy practice.

To give you a brief introduction to myself, I am a Filmmaker, as the term would label it these days. I shoot video creatively, and have enjoyed working independently for some time now. Before that, I was a Writer, Painter and Musician, developing various exploits and in several different formats, which ever would please me most ( i recall one time trekking accross Savannah, GA in search of a comfortable place to write a short story with an electric typewriter). Seemingly through this time, however, I never really lost my interest in doodling, cartooning and sketching (with, as you've probably noticed, little interest in the real and more emphasis in the fictional), collecting a large assortment of concept designs for stories, albums and various other projects. It simply was a natural release for ideas.

This past 2 year, however, were different. I started attending college (namely, the University of Alaska), and my world changed quite dramatically. I started becoming far more involved with developing community and organizing events that would benefit other artists as well as my great passion for filmmaking. I produced several short films and even got into radio production. With that type of a leap, you would think that the effort-filled happiness would be infinite. Think again. With this amount of investment, which many had called "serious over drive" (oh, how right they were) came the undeniable pull of responsibility, commitment, and ultimately the ALL important follow through. I was busy. Extremely busy. Ad things developed, i found myself rather a negative sort of character, my own creative exploits rather confusing and less similar to my earlier, more compassionate and adventurous exploits. I scheduled my time off like a no limit credit card at Macy's, and before I knew it, was consumed by the opportunities that often grant themselves to a student artist and filmmaker in a community that has few others with your passion to contribute.

This era, i would have to dub, "the Storm", as feasibly that's what it was, just a constant swelling of deadlines, activities/ functions (typically married with meetings and appearances) and the ever growing hunger for more and more follow through from your clients, staff and community. I became deeply in debt to myself for all the time I had taken and given out.

As you have probably figured by this point, this era did not last forever, otherwise I likely would not have come to deivantart in the first place. It did, by my own willing, end, and rather abruptly at that. The confusion and swelling of a constant storm of commitment, as quickly as it had arrived, vanished, leaving now a great wake of quiet, deeply eerie calm, looming about the shambles of a vast assortment of forgotten projects, cataloged and un-cataloged ideas, and partnerships that left their viscous, carrion stain of regret quite apparent.

Left standing in this calm, the question now was, what to do? So much time had been given, and so many ideas, expectations and diserving investments had been put to the shelf for quite a forgotten, "later". Returning home seemed like a good idea, helping to cool my nerves and allow for clarity to come back. Also, rekindling old relationships with friends who had stayed with their older, more predictable paths and quite happy with what outcomes were now being promised to them. Of these, one in particular is a Sequential Artist, and a student at SCAD. Seeing his developed skill and time earned portfolio caused a rather stern rancidity in my mouth, mixed with the disappointment of realizing that I simply had nothing in the same field nearly current enough to compare to his more developed and refined approaches to the craft, able only to share the assortment of productions carried out of "the storm" and its ferocity.

It was this reunion, i should say, that seemed to have quite an interesting effect on me. I began to look through assorted art galleries, more attentive and interested in the artistic approaches of the artists presented. I also spent more time developing in Photography, which is where this deviantart account of mine first came up. It wasnt until revcently that I finally was able to simply sit down, calm and with n... ]]> ~Wlaputka