the many beards of kepler

I love Johannes Kepler. As far as early astronomers go, he was such a pitiable figure. The pressure, the frustration! There's a lot of thematic meat on the bones of his life story that I'm interested in exploring for my graduation film. Here are some sketches poking around different looks for his character, with the ostentatious Tycho Brahe on the bottom right there. Still doing some research, more as it comes.

jester

Been working on a bit of web animation for Rick Herns Productions, a party company in Menlo Park. They've got a new site in the oven, and this clip is fresh out of mine, so hold tight! Basically, the idea is to have an animated version of their logo, a jester, appear on a services page, juggling icons representing the different areas of RHP's expertise.



On the left is the original logo (designed by my mom of all people), and on the right the gruesome remains of my doctoring to turn it into a segmented character. Looks strangely like a Hindu god now...



And there he goes. The clip is going to look nice on the page it's staged for, so be sure to tune in when their new website goes live.

exciting news from the front lines

The Cleaning won for "best traditional animation" at the 2009 Media Arts Awards on Friday. Thanks for the kick in the ass, Neil, and to Keenan and Jon for laying egg after golden egg. We're doing some minor tweaks on the film now, then it's back to the festival races.

Also, an extended congrats to all of the De Anza animators who had entries in this year--not a bad turnout guys!

a teamaker

What?

garage animation strikes again!

Between work, classes and Keenan's poor computer having epileptic seizures, the two of us managed to finish another delicious stop-motion scene. What we've really made is a testament to our tired, broken-down armatures. They've been through some rough times, no doubt.



Don't miss the bitchin 80'S REMIX, either!

not caroline at all!

Being sick is no fun, but there's been plenty to celebrate lately! Coraline was set free into the world last weekend, and I have to admit, it was something of an event for me. I've had a real interest in stop-motion for the last year or so, and this last month especially has been an adventure of puppet projects. Being able to see something so lovingly made and masterfully executed as Coraline is both encouraging and wildly inspirational for me. There is something truly magical about bringing tangible objects to life like this; it so articulately represents what I love about animation and why I'd want to pursue something so difficult. Coraline made me remember what it's like to be a kid, and that's a pretty amazing feeling to be able to give someone.

Weiden + Kennedy have a blog displaying all of the promotional materials they created for the film, and it's a special kind of awesome. They did an amazing job of extending the movie's atmosphere into the real world. Be sure to check out the official site they put together if you haven't already. I remember a time when people would pay good money to explore shit like this. What really stood out to me were all of the 2-minute documentaries in the theater room. They play up the esoteric nature of each artists' skill in such a charming way, one can see how that personality is channeled into the characters of the film.

On a side note, check out this guerrilla-style trader joe's commercial by Carl Willat. He's better known for his classic stop-motion Hershey's Kiss ads, and sometimes I'm lucky enough to find him subbing at my school. This video is such a kick, I must watch it three or four times a day. Disgusting, I know.

third world live

The Warhols posted a full version of Welcome to the Third World on their video page, so it's out there--bare and naked for the world to see. *sniff* So proud. Make sure to stop by the youtube listing and scrawl some lude, lascivious comments, yeah?

Okay, looks like the vid was hastily posted and has since been taken down by the band, but word on the street is it will pop up again once they get their new site together.

For the couple months I was working on my shots, the wall around my computer started being eaten by sketches like these. In retrospect it's hard to see how those funky mouth scribbles helped me at all, haha.

light at the end of the tunnel

I just put in what will probably be my last day of work on Neil's short, now officially dubbed "The Cleaning." It was a night of nasty sound effects and hilarious pixelation (the only suitable way to end production if you ask me). Now it's time to sit and wait while Neil puts the last few goodies and gumdrops in place--the suspense is killing me! I think this movie is going to make people smile. I mean, just look at this silly bastard:




This here is an early test from when we were trying to determine whether or not it would be a good idea to animate all of the creature shots with real beeswax.



We quickly learned that wax is a cruel and oppressive master. It's difficult to keep soft and workable, and tends to harden with inconsistent degrees of opacity. The idea was to have a material with an odd texture that, when lit from behind, would become slightly illuminated around the edges. In the end the effect didn't really justify how tough the wax was to manipulate (especially juxtaposed with the freedom clay offered us). I think it might have worked if we had found a way to blend the wax with a lotion or oil, but that just seems like a round-about way of making clay, doesn't it?

status report

Yeh, still alive. I wanted to get a preview of this sludge beast up before Christmas, so enjoy! This is shot on Neil's beautiful set, the creature's umm... natural habitat. We're all pretty stoked about the short's potential--it's going to be full of fun little moments.