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Thursday, December 29, 2005

Happy Winter

As we enter the thick of winter, the days are at their coldest and shortest. We all need to laugh just a little bit more than usual to make it through the week.

Friday, December 23, 2005

Shorts... Fuggy Fuggy!

I got a few animated shorts to share with you all that I found in my travels. First of which is a 2d short by the Brothers McLeod, "Fuggy Fuggy". It's a quirky and somewhat random short about the code of the ninja. I am willing to bet this short is going to be really popular in the coming months, so get in on the ground floor while you still can, and you can boast to your pals "I saw them way before you!".

Next is a French 3d piece called "Super Monks" in which a monastery must defend off a group of barbarian hordes. Besides its clever gags and violence, it has a really clean and simple 3d style, and a lot of good old squash and stretch. Plus in the credits there is a 2d flash animation that is just as entertaining as the rest of the short. Just a warning its got a lot of swearing and blood, but thats the good stuff right?

Finally another 2d short by the new studio Jellyman Productions, "Catching Kringle". Incredibly it has an all-star voice talent list including Danny DeVito, Larry King, and John Rhys-Davies (Kimbly in Lord of the Rings). Cute 14 minute short about Santa Clause being forced to deliver presents in an urban assault vehicle due to new homeland security, more or less.

Saturday, December 17, 2005

New Animation Forum

Hey, just a quick little post here. I found a new animation forum I was getting hits from. It looks like it has a lot of potential, its along the lines of CGChar and StrutYourReel. Find it at http://www.animationlounge.com

Going to Atlanta to visit my friend Jo Davidovich tomorrow. Should be a lot of fun, haven't seen her since she graduated. I'll post something about my adventures in Atlanta land when I get back, have fun till then.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

I'm a doctor not an iPod!

I've just accomplished one of the scariest experiences of my life, although not nearly as scary as trying to wrestle an angry cat in effort to ram tranquilizer pills down its throat so it will behave on a road trip. Rather I just opened my beloved iPod and tossed its guts all over the desk in order to replace its sick battery. Now it had been on the "battery donor list" for quite some time now, and until now we were just unable to find a match. In fact the iPods health had deteriorated so badly in recent months that is was restricted to paperweight duty. But tonight the time came, and I have never physically sweated so much for something that required so little exertion. In order to have surgery on your iPod you must first open it, and thanks to Apple's brilliant industrial designers there are no latches to accomplish this small feat. Instead the new battery comes with these little dinky plastic wedges that you must thrust into your faithful music companion and with great care pry open the elegant plastic shell. You're afraid to touch anything inside of it, let alone breathe on it, at which point I realized I wasn't breathing and had to remind myself that passing out would not help the situation. I decided to call my sister who had the week before successfully conducted a similar iPod surgery and asked her permission to start pulling bits out. I have a whole new respect for engineers, its truly amazing how everything is crammed into that little box, I've have yet to meet an art student that has these kinds of spatial relations. The battery was removed and replaced with few complications, and I expect the iPod to make a full and healthy recovery. I perscribed it to play Led Zeppelin and call me in the morning.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Kill and eat what we don't understand!

So I just got back from King Kong, and oh yes, he is King. However this movie is the second I have seen in a matter of days that displays a new disturbing trend in Hollywood. No, not gratuitous sex and foul language. No, not rampant drug use, or even bloody unapologetic violence. Instead filmmakers have spent millions of dollars and hundreds of CG artists such as myself to endow animal characters with humanity. And after they succeed wildly what do they do, why torture them of course! Ah yes, technology has advanced far enough that we can now create a twenty-five foot gorilla and spend two hours to convince you that this creature has a soul, that it laughs, it cries, even throws a temper tantrum when it doesn't get its way. Then come the last thirty minutes lets hurt and torture it, oh and look, the animation is so superb that we can feel the pain in its eyes, horray we rule! Honestly I was not expecting King Kong to be a heavy movie, and yes I knew before hand exactly how it ends, the monkey dies, just like the Titanic sinks. Call me a sap, or perhaps I have an overly liberal view on inter species relationships, but not for one second did I not believe the love story between Kong and beauty. Why spend all that time, energy, and emotional investment only to toss it off a tall building, literally. That's lack of foresight on the part of the filmmakers if you ask me, if you kill the Ape there can't be sequels. If Peter Jackson was truly visionary, the film could have instead explored Kong and his woman breaking down the interspecies marriage walls, the franchise spin off possibilities could be endless, not to mention the political fallout! What? What's that you say? That would be a mockery of the original, butchering the story that has inspired generations of filmmakers and artists create our modern cinema? Fine, fine, take your shinny 3D Kong; just remember his computer-generated blood is on your hands!

So on a more serious note I enjoyed the movie, a whole lot. I find it hard these days to go to a film with animation and actually just watch it, and not analyze the animation. "Oh wow, that's neato, I wonder what the graph editor was doing on that movement!" (Cue the geek slurping and heavy breathing). With King Kong I was totally immersed in the experience, in the moment. And fasten your seatbelt when Kong takes on uber T-Rex, its rollercoaster ride that will invoke a geek-gasm in even the most straight-laced and normal member of the audience. I walked out of the theatre wanting to animate eyes, and just eyes. Any animator that doesn't believe the eyes and the area around them require just as much thought and attention to detail as the rest of the body, only need to go see this film to be converted. The eyes have it, they are the means to give our creations souls, and then promptly kill them.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Brand New Website!

Hey everyone, and welcome to the brand spanking new website! I've worked really hard on it over the holiday break and I am really happy with how it's looking. Primarily this was an effort to "name brand" myself to employers. For those of you not familiar with my industry this simply means that my website, demo reel, business card, resume, and even my packaging all have a look and feel that is easily recognized and associated with me. However there was some features that I have wanted to add to my website for a very long time that I was not able to implement, until now.

First of the new features is this new blog that you are reading now. I can now update this from anywhere, anytime. Isn't technology nifty? I plan to be writting in this a lot, everything from thoughts on animation, interesting snippets I crawl across the web, to events going on in my life. This is going to be positive and upbeat blog (although I can't promise there won't be the rare, political rant or brag about my cat).

Other new features on this site include much easier navigation, and some new content. Make sure to check out my shinny new demo reel, and I will shortly have a downloads section with a few Maya rigging tutorials and my free Lt. Dan ball and legs rig. (the bio and contact info pages still aren't up) All the old content from the previous site is still here in the various galleries and the photo journal entries you see on the right. So please take a look around, and if you see something not working properly, let me know, I am still trying to tie up all the loose ends.

Let me give you all a quick update on what's going on with my life. The last week of fall quarter I had in person interviews with Activision and Lucas Arts within three days of each other. Then the week after school I had an interview with Fisher Price (yes I know what you are thinking, Fisher Price does do CG production work). I had a really positive experience with all of the interviews, and they have really fortified in my mind that this is where I want to be and doing. I so badly want to be part of this industry, and for the first time its just within my grasp, I can smell the proverbial cookies in the kitchen, and all I have to do is wait till they are done and eat them, with a tall class of milk of course. This March is judgment day, I'll be twenty-three and graduated, Christ I am getting old... um, I mean youthful, and boyish! Seriously though, things really couldn't be much better then they are now, and I have no doubt that the job hunt is going to work out. So stayed tuned everyone, its going to be an exciting three months for sure.

photo journal entries