These are a few stills from a new movie Randomizations that I've put together (using a hundred some of my favorite illustrations including a bunch created just for this video). You can view it online at: Randomizations I've been getting questions about software and hardware, so a few details: Hardware: A assembled to my specs PC running XP. Wacom tablet for most of the artwork. Illustrations mostly take place in PhotoPaint with some material rendered in Vue and Poser -- but always brought into PhotoPaint for final touch ups and usually heavy modifications. I composed the soundtrack in a bit different manner from what I usually do (and this time creating a World Music style "tune you can whistle" -- and proving to critics that I really do know how to compose in the traditional style). Like my artwork, the music is all digital. The various "voices" were laid down with an Evolution keyboard recording several basic MIDI tracks. Rather than write out a score, I simply recorded the MIDI parts and then edited them directly. Oddly enough, the main melody was a "first take" that I then monkeyed with a little to get the various instrumental and vocal variations and fragments. Yes, the chorus is sampled as well. I tried to "perform" the instruments so they sounded like bowed, plucked string, or flutes, drawing on about 18 years of musical performance skills (gained before I wised up and became a writer/Illustrator). These various MIDI parts were then employed to control VST instruments. The instruments varied from synthesizer VSTs to samplers (using a sound fonts I put together for this video - the sound font was assembled using Vienna and Alive!) and modelers that electronically mimic real instruments. A VST Moog was employed for some of the old-style synthesizer parts. The drum parts were created around samples of actual African drums (for the most part - I think I added a bass drum to give it a bit more punch). I used three AudioMulch drummers to create the basic layout. I then shuffled the 10 upper parts (there were 15 "drummers" altogether) so that the repeated upper patterns actually keeps changing relationship to the beat (but not in their patterns), giving the feel of a live performance (I hope). These various tracks were recorded with Audacity, and then the various tracks were assembled, mixed, filtered, and compressed in Reaper. (You can hear a stereo version of the soundtrack at: Randomizations Soundtrack Once the drawings and music were assembled, the soundtrack and pictures were imported into Vegas for the layout, fades, panning, and so forth. One plus of Vegas is that a picture can be modified in PhotoPaint and then saved, it then is imported automatically into Vegas with its length, pans, etc., all in place. This saves a lot of work when some detail (that was missed earlier on) needs to be corrected on a picture. Though only 6 minutes long, this video was no small job and had I known the work going in, I might not have tackled it: About three weeks of drawing, cutting, splicing, chewing the carpet, and praying for the project to come to an end. However a lot was learned and hopefully it will be enjoyed by a few people besides me :o)