Plotagon Is An Easy To Use Program For Making Animated Movies

Plotagon Is An Easy To Use Program For Making Animated Movies

There was a game called The Movies ten yeas ago.  Picture The Sims, but this was purely about being a movie studio tycoon.  You manage all of your simulated actors, make successful movies, expand your studios and so on.  People zeroed in on the movie making aspect of the game and started making their own movies.  There was also the expansion, The Movies: Stunts & Effects.  You could tell stories with these movies, and even now there are some pretty good ones online.

Other platforms were created for people to tell their stories, and The Sims and its various versions have been used as well.  These days, there are quite a few programs out there to make animated movies.  One of the better ones is called Plotagon.  What's interesting is that Plotagon doesn't just advertise the idea that you can make a movie.  There is also the educational aspect of this program.

They sell the idea to teachers that this can be used to teach lessons to students.  Animation can be an effective vehicle in teaching the young.  They also boast the fact that Plotagon can be used to spread an anti hate, anti violence, anti bullying lesson.  I think this is true, and it's actually a clever marketing plan.

The positives are that you can create your own characters.  They can be male or female, and because of the way the program works, you can even create transgender characters.  You have various clothes, long hair, short hair, makeup, glasses and hats and various voice levels.  You can make an animated version of yourself if you want.

For your movies, you get some pretty nice scene selections.  Some of the things you start out with include the interior of your home, some office space, a cafe, a restaurant and some street scenes.  It's enough to make several episodes before you need new scenes.  They have those too, for a reasonable fee.  Hospital, jail, school, a grocery store and some political settings are among your options.

There are definitely limitations.  You can only have two characters in a scene at a time.  I don't really think it's necessary to crowd the scene with too many characters, but being able to manage three or four characters in a scene would be nice.  You also can't have a character walk across the screen or dance.  It would also be nice if, in a PG way, characters could lay in bed and close their eyes since we do have beds and couches. 

You do have various facial expressions that cover much, but not all, of the emotional spectrum pretty well, and that helps provide more realism to your characters.  There are some actions two characters can engage in, such as high fives, a pat on the shoulder, a hug and three different kisses.  One kiss is the rejected kiss.  It might be nice to have a longer kiss for characters who are in love.  I totally understand not wanting to go in an adult direction here, but a longer kiss isn't pushing things too far and still presents a tasteful program.

As I mention, there are voices provided for your characters.  You actually get to hear your dialogue spoken out by the characters you create.   This is another of the attractive features provided by the program.   It's a bit robotic, but not bad.  Sometimes words aren't spoken clearly enough, but an observant writer can change the phrasing or spelling in a way that gets better results.  If you have voice actors, you can even provide your own voices.

I've been wanting to find a platform that would easily allow me to create an animated series.  After seeing somebody else do two series with good results, I decided to jump in and give this a try.  I have been enjoying the process so far.  There  are lots of options out there, but Plotagon is as easy as they come.  You can easily create characters and be writing your script in no time.  You can also go back and adjust your character's look or wardrobe before producing that episode.  If you are looking to have some fun with animation, Plotagon might be worth your time.

You can find their website right here:  https://plotagon.com/

Is This Real Or Reality's Dream?

Many people on this planet don't believe in the system or what is being presented to them as the truth.  It really just seems like the world has gone mad.  I am not a religious person, but I am a spiritual person who believes in a Creator.  I don't know or understand what that is, and it is based on my faith in the belief that we are not a cosmic accident.

A Christian might ask me why I don't completely believe in The Bible or organized religion.  The best answer I can give you is that it is yet another system of control.  It's not enough that they tell us what the rules are in society.  They tell us what money is and how much it's worth.  They explain what our reality is from an early age and tell us what is real and what is a conspiracy theory, even when contradicting themselves.  Now, they tell us how to act and think they control where we go in the afterlife, if such a place exists.  I believe it does, but who knows?  The point is they want to control our very relationship with God.

I speak a lot about the political system and how it is there to give us the illusion that we have a voice.  Millions and millions of people place their faith in it and are now to the point where they will hurt others who don't think like they do.  It used to be that religion was considered a main culprit in that, but look at the world around you.  The political system is a joke, and the politicians answer to the the rich, not the people.

Ultimately, we are only here for a short time in the grand scheme of things.  Some may be lucky enough to live to be 100 in relatively good health, but that is still just a drop in the bucket of time.  You still are not going to live on this planet forever, and why would you want to anyway?  If you believe there is another level of existence we can't even begin to comprehend here, why would you want to unnaturally prolong things before making the next journey?

I'm not suggesting people shouldn't live life to the fullest here.  You should.  Live, love, learn and grow.  Enjoy the ride.  Don't take everything so serious.  Don't believe everything you see in the world.  Its just a stage.  We're at our most real when we are enjoying experiences with each other and creating memories.  Eventually, it comes to an end.  The earth is not ours to keep, but it's here for us to dwell upon and take care of while we are here.

However, there is a movement by the elite to figure out a way to cheat death using technology.  They are creating things with computers that I certainly can't understand.  There are intelligent people who understand mathematics in a way that would make the average person's head spin.  They are applying that knowledge towards creating smart computers that can peak into other realities that are remarkably similar to our own reality.  There is an effort being made to create a computer that is basically alive.

The people who control the narrative will say that this is all some kooky conspiracy theory.  Look at where the world was 40 years ago.  We're doing things right now that seemed impossible then.  Don't kid yourself.  These people have seen enough evidence to suggest alternative realities and real artificial intelligence is possible, and they may know a lot more on both subjects right now than we are being led to believe.

You have people wanting to know if it is possible to crack the code of our very reality well enough to manipulate reality itself by artificial means.  Some people would cite what they call the Mandela Effect as evidence that such manipulation is taking place now.  The Mandela Effect was named after Nelson Mandela died in 2013.  Evidently, some people had memories of him dying in the early 1990's.  I don't remember that, but I've occasionally heard of some well known person dying and thought that I had heard they died years ago.  Is this evidence that time has been altered, or is it a false memory?

If time has been altered to change history, how on earth would anybody know?  Shouldn't you grow up believing the history as it was altered to become?  How is it possible to remember it differently?  The thought is that this is residual effect from the original history.  Some people remember iconic lines in movies differently than they appear in our current time line.  Some people remember corporate brand names and logos differently than they are in this time line.  There are countless videos on the subject.

Is something going on?  I just wonder why they would go back in time, if they can, just to mess with lines in movies and that sort of thing.  I saw a video in which it was theorized that these movies had scenes filmed differently or originally had lines in the scripts different than what we see now.  This person theorized that this meant that there were different ways in which the movie could be made, and our time line was changed to reflect one of the different ways it played out in one of the other time lines.

This sounds extremely far fetched until you get wind of what these highly educated people talk about.  If they talk about it, could they be doing it?  Why just mess with movies and logos?  Well, if they are messing with little things, who says that is all they are doing?  How could we tell?  Could they be doing this as an experiment to see if the people notice anything?  A moment in history may just be something in a history book.  There's less chance the average person notices that compared to a popular movie or logo.  Maybe that's why they do it as some sort of experiment.

Allow me to engage is speculation, not necessarily a belief I have.  Look at the JFK assassination.  The official story that many people don't believe is that Lee Harvey Oswald did it.  There are some pictures out there that show that he wasn't even in the book depository when the shooting happened.  Suppose he was when this originally happened and he fired a shot.  Somebody goes back to change history, he doesn't fire a shot and JFK is still assassinated?  Maybe they thought they could save him, or maybe they knew they wouldn't, but they wanted to leave behind another clue to see who noticed.

Here's the thing.  Many people are already to a point where they don't know who or what in the world to believe anymore.  They don't trust the government, the media or any of that.  Now you have people on record attempting to do these things with computers.  Some even believe they will eventually be able to upload their life essence into a computer and live forever in this existence as some sort of god.  It sounds absolutely crazy, but this is at the core of transhumanism.  You might just want to take a look at what these people are talking about, because they are working to make it a reality.

Our very reality could be hacked into at any time.  There are people theorizing even now that we are living in a computer simulation.  Do you trust your eyes?  Religious people will point out that this world was never given to us.  They will say it is actually ruled by the devil.  Some of us who may not go by The Bible believe there is a dark force at work on our planet manipulating the elite to do their bidding, but religious people say it is the devil playing with reality to trick us all.  It's all enough to make your head spin and make you want to tune out to the subject.  Would you want to live forever in the world we live in now, controlled by the powers that control it?

Most of us just go about our daily lives making the best of things.  We aren't the elite, and we don't have a seat at the table making the big decisions.  Regardless, big decisions are being made.  The world is getting stranger every day, and some people believe that this strangeness is accelerating.  At some point, these intelligent tech minded individuals might take that strangeness into a realm that would rival the best science fiction movies we know.  Are you ready for that?  It's enough to make you wonder if we are living in reality, or is this reality's dream.

Timeless Season Finale Next Week, But Will There Be A Season 2?

The first season of Timeless is nearly over now, and it has been a fun ride.  We are about ready to have the season finale as speculation has begun regarding a second season.  Are the ratings good enough for a Season 2?  Should ratings alone be the only factor in determining if the show gets to continue?  Should the show be given a chance to find its legs?

Much has happened in the past couple of episodes.  Wyatt talked Rufus into hijacking the Lifeboat and going back to the point in which the parents of the man who supposedly killed his wife met and stop them from conceiving him.  In the process, Wyatt unintentionally kills the father.  When he returns to the present time, he learns that his wife was still murdered.  Wyatt is also arrested upon his return.

Things change at Mason Industries.  The place is now crawling with Rittenhouse people, and Agent Christopher and has been relived of her duties.  A new agent is assigned to protect Lucy and Rufus, but he gets killed on his first mission.  Meanwhile, Agent Christopher visits Wyatt in prison and gives him what he needs to escape.  For the people thinking nothing is happening on this show.  It's happening now.  It's been building up.

We finally get a glimpse of Flynn showing just a little remorse for what he has done as he talks with a priest.  He is a man who believes in what he is fighting for.  Rittenhouse must be stopped.  At this point, I'm not even sure getting his wife and child back is the only motivation for him traveling back in time.  He wants Rittenhouse out of the picture. 

I don't know if that goal could really ever be accomplished.  We are talking about a secret society here.  You might call them a part of the Illuminati.  Even if the Rittenhouse group is eliminated, will that really stop the plan?  I only ask that question to show just how much potential this show really has.

In the most recent episode, yet another agent is assigned to Rufus and Lucy.  He is not their friend.  He is going for one reason only.  He is going to kill Flynn and end this once and for all.  They are going back to kill Flynn's mother.  Lucy is obsessed with getting her sister back. 

In all honestly, she would get her back if they do this job.  If Flynn is not born, Lucy would have her sister back.  That is unless something other then them changing the Hindenburg crash history is what eliminated her in the first place.  Therefore, if Flynn is never born, the original group of three has no reason to go back in time.  Lucy's diary doesn't exist.  Rufus may be a part of another mission, but their time travel adventures together would never have happened.

Why on earth would Lucy and Rufus not be okay with this mission?  They've witnessed the damage done by Flynn.  There are two reasons.  They are starting to realize that Flynn's goals aren't necessarily bad, but his actions have been.  Plus, Lucy has already devised a plan to get her sister back.  It's clever enough to work too.

Rufus has already set a course for an undisclosed location when they are sent off on their mission.  They tranquilize the agent and land the Lifeboat in a warehouse.  Agent Christopher and Wyatt are waiting for them.  Rufus also sabotaged the computers at Mason Industries to buy them some time.  It's decided that they will go back and undo the damage that erased Lucy's sister from existence.  Lucy says when her mother met her step father, it was love at first site.  They just have to get them to meet.

However, a new problem arises as Flynn has taken the Mothership back to the 1930's when Al Capone was about to be arrested.  Flynn wants a meeting with the mayor, and the mayor is on the take from Capone.  To state the obvious, Flynn could easily just go after the mayor without Capone, but this is a time travel show that likes to interact with historical figures. 

Flynn decides to prevent Capone from being arrested and convicted of tax evasion.  He gives him information on the guy who informed on him.  Capone is shown as a beloved figure in Chicago.  Instead of winning his battle with Capone, Elliot Ness has failed.  Capone owes Flynn two favors.  Not only does Capone not get convicted, Flynn provides him information on the whereabouts of Ness, and Capone has him killed.  You want a serious change in history?  You've got it.

In return, Capone sets up a meeting between Flynn and the mayor.  The mayor is part of Rittenhouse.  Flynn wants to know about a secret Rittenhouse meeting, which might be similar to the once secret Bilderberg meetings that actually do happen.  It already happened, but Flynn wants to know when the next one will take place.  He beats the information out of him and then kills him.  Another change in history. 

Capone hates owing favors, so he asks Flynn how he can make it even.  Flynn asks Capone to kill Rufcus when they show up.  Lucy recalls that Capone had a brother who disappeared.  He had changed his name and actually became a fed.  She asks him to come and arrest Capone, and he reluctantly agrees.  In a big confrontation, Capone's brother kills him, but not before Capone shoots Rufus.  Rufus lives, but he's barely conscious as he takes the Lifeboat back to the present time.

It's hard to condone Flynn's tactics and make him a sympathetic character at this point.  I get his anger over Rittenhouse killing his wife and daughter.  We still don't know why.  They turned against the original Mothership pilot, who was stranded in Native American territory during the time of Jesse James.  Wyatt's wife is dead, and that may or may not be Rittenhouse related.

Still, Flynn is going back and at least trying to kill historical figures.  He doesn't bat an eye over the innocent lives lost in the process.  Sure, Wyatt, Rufus and Lucy aren't innocent, but they show some remorse.  In this latest episode, Flynn played a part in getting Ness killed.  Why?  He had already done enough to get the information he needed from the mayor.  He sacrificed Ness to have Rufus killed?  So, how are we supposed to think of Flynn as a hero when he's doing things at times that seem worse than Rittenhouse?  Why would Lucy ever side with him?

We're about to find out.  When the show started, we learned that Flynn has a diary written by Lucy, but she doesn't recall ever writing a diary.  Just a few episodes ago, her mother gave her that very dairy to work out her thoughts.  Now, we see a preview of how they are going to start working with Flynn.  There may be a problem.  After the problems Mason Industries had with the Lifeboat being stolen and the computers being sabotaged, Connor Mason has now asked Rittenhosue for access to surveillance information, because Mason Industries has advanced tools capable of pinpointing the Lifeboat and the others immediately.

This show has its critics.  I've mentioned it before.  Why does nothing ever change?  Well, it's changing now.  Why is the plot not moving faster.  Well, it is now.  I don't think the writers had a full grasp of what they had for a show, but they are getting into the groove.  I believe this show will be so much better next season with a year under its belt.  It helps that they have an excellent cast.

Time travel shows aren't perfect.  There are errors in many of them.  Some shows are worse than others.  However, this show is fun, and it's different than the string of reality shows, police dramas and the typical shows we get in prime time.  I have no idea if it will be back, and it looks like what we will get in the finale is a cliff hanger. 

I would hate to see this story arc go unresolved after watching every episode.  Most of the new shows I love get canceled within a season.  Regardless of ratings, I hope this show gets a chance to continue for the sake of the story.  Let's hope that NBC green lights more episodes.  In my opinion, Timeless deserves that.

Is Saturday Night Live Good Political Comedy?

I was watching an episode of Family Guy, and Peter is talking to somebody about watching the show Scrubs, which was a comedy.  And he says, "I'm wondering, which one is the funny guy?"

In a political comedy sense, I tend to get bored very quickly with agenda driven comedy that has sacred political cows that you either don't poke fun at or do it in a light hearted way.  It's dishonest comedy to me.  George Carlin and Bill Hicks were great because they weren't afraid to go after anybody, no matter who they were aligned with.  They could see how the Left-Right paradigm we are still being fed today was a bunch of crap.

You can go too bland and vanilla too.  Rich Little, who admittedly did good impressions, and Bob Hope are two examples of guys who played it safe.  Johnny Carson was a little closer to the edge, but he didn't push too hard and didn't act like Democrats were perfect and Republicans were the only ones doing bad things.  Hope, after a while, just bored me.  Oh, Nixon or Reagan had a bad golf game.  Yawn.  But, he did shows for the troops, which I respect.

I have long understood that anytime I tune into Saturday Night Live, I will get "Democrat Good/Republican Bad" comedy.  They try to influence the political spectrum through comedy.  It's been cited that Tina Fey's portrayal of an "ignorant" Sarah Palin did damage to the McCain/Palin ticket.  Personally, I believe McCain was put there to lose to Obama, but Palin didn't get the memo on that.  She actually believed McCain wanted to win or was meant to win.  SNL is back at it in a big way with their "comedic" attacks on Trump.  In fact, some fans believe this will take Trump down.  Maybe the writers are doing it for that reason?

My issue with Alec Baldwin as Trump is that he just isn't funny in the role.  He's decidedly unfunny.  I'm far from a Trump supporter.  I thought people had to choose between a douche and a turd sandwich last year and chose the douche.  We lost either way.  But, Baldwin's Trump is only designed to appeal to the left and reinforce their beliefs that their side really cares, even when they do the same things the right does.  Trump supporters will hate this portrayal, and Trump feeds into this with his relentless Tweeting in protest.  He's a smart enough man to know this makes them double down on this garbage.  Is that what he wants?

This type of comedy is funny when it's an exaggeration of the person.  Darrell Hammond's Bill Clinton was funny.  It plays on his womanizing, but it still comes off as making him look cool.  Will Farrell's George Bush Jr. was a less insulting "dumb president" act than what we get with Baldwin's Trump.  Still kind of funny.  I wasn't a fan of either Bush, but Dana Carvey was brilliant as George Bush Sr.  It played on his nerdy aspects and created catch phrases like "Not ga da" "It's bad, it's bad"and "Wouldn't be prudent at this juncture."  Chevy Chase played on the "clumsy" Gerald Ford aspect, and that was funny too.  Dan Aykroyd's Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter?  Brilliant.  Carvey as Ross Perot, Norm McDonald as Bob Dole?  Funny.

Not only is Baldwin not funny in the least in the Trump role, and I love his Tony Bennett impression, it's mean and designed to attack Trump and the Republicans.  I get what they are trying to do here, but this is still a comedy.  If you are going to attack, at least try to be funny.  I forget who was playing Ronald Reagan at the time, but he was played by one of their regulars as a likeable guy in front of the cameras.  But, then he was the bad guy behind closed doors who was in full control and hated dealing with the press or photo ops with people.  Kind of mean, sure.  But there was funny in there.  Baldwin brings none of that to his portrayal.  He's simply playing a guy who doesn't know what he's talking about, signs things without reading them, takes his orders from Putin and is constantly Tweeting.  Yawn.  Democrats are in love with it, but Republicans and people who want good political comedy dislike it.

Melissa McCarthy just got into the act as Trump's Press Secretary.  I love her in that role.  Hilarious.  I know Trump haters think its about Sean Spicer going nuts trying to explain all of the "stupid" things that Trump does, but I can see any press secretary being exaggerated in the way she portrays Spicer.  I'm sure they've all had to explain things they didn't agree with or were unexplainable, and the press can be tough to deal with.  So, the exaggeration works here and makes good comedy.  It helps that McCarthy has the look down and has nailed this role.

Of course, the show is filled with shots at Republican core issues.  The news segment on this last show took several shots at Trump and his recent court losses on immigration.  They even did a stupid People's Court sketch with Baldwin playing Trump.  Of course, they immediately started with the myth that he's anti woman, and it went down hill from there.  The immigration and border issue came back in during a sketch for a Cheetos commercial, which was a play on the controversial Budweiser commercial that aired during the Super Bowl.  Suddenly, people want to boycott Budweiser over that.

The larger issue at play that people don't get is the left and right are whipping people into a frenzy.  The United States is still a country of laws.  Immigrants have played a vital role in that, but the system can't handle unchecked immigration.  We are at war, and we should be on our toes when it comes too who is coming here and making sure that they legally do so.  The right seems fixated on branding all Muslims as terrorists, and the left wants to pretend that none of them are.  There needs to be middle ground on this issue.

Ultimately, the discussion that is really taking place is whether we have a country or should we just be a part of the New World Order global government that many people have spoken of.  There are strong issues on both sides.  There are reasonable thoughts on both sides of the debate, but ultimately, any move into the global government realm will meet with resistance the minute free speech and the right to bear arms that this country was founded on are infringed upon.  The SNL message seemed to be that we should give up on the border.  Is there funny in that position, and if so, is it the kind of funny that reaches across all political ideologies?

Lest you think they don't go after Democrats, SNL always has a few soft balls in their arsenal to show how "fair" they are.  In this case, they pointed out in the news sketch how Elizabeth Warren stood up against Trump's cabinet nominations and used every procedure she could.  But really, it just portrayed her as somebody working hard for the people who is just a little obsessive about her job.  Funny, I guess.  It reinforces the left's love for her as somebody standing up against Trump more than anything.

This is the way the show is going.  If you hate Republicans and think they are out to get you and are the only political side doing bad things, SNL might make you laugh.  If you are somebody who enjoys political comedy that goes after everybody when they have it coming, this show won't appeal to you.  Or, they may have a gem here and there, such as McCarthy as Spicer.  You'll be sitting through an hour and a half to find that gem.

If you are looking for a funny Trump impersonation, that depends on your ideologies.  The exaggerations are such that Trump and non partisan people will probably find it unfunny.  People on the left will probably love it.  They did a sketch last night where Leslie Jones, who I have to admit has made me laugh several times, wanted to take on the Trump role.  I know they were going after the "absurdity" of a black woman playing Trump, but I can't help but think that she would actually be funny.  Also, it's so not ridiculous to think she can do it when you consider they once had a white cast member playing Obama for a while.  So why not show Baldwin tied up in the back and have Jones come out one night as Trump.  That might actually be funny.