i m aliv

4got how much i miss a/c in my life
be back soon, perhaps intermittent updates frm altadena
i leave sundoo, so les do somethin before then

Avatar

verdict: the original Turok had a better storyline, and as far as im concerned was a much more immersive experience. and im pretty sure it cost less than half a billion to make.

although i have to admit that was a pretty sweet alien panther

Monday Blues

Flight canceled, S.O.S.
Fall Animation final #1/2
Watch it with good sound, if possible
kthx

OH WAIT

nevermind, im apparently here until wednesday. Thank you, us airways.

Well--

that was only the longest week of my life. So glad to be able to finally move on (well--almost). My crits actually went surprisingly well, which I'm happy about because i was actually pretty pessimistic about both my animation finals until they were about 95% done. I feel good about both of them now. As of a few minutes ago I just finished my final Brown paper, and now I'm home free--quite literally, my flight leaves at 1pm tomorrow, and I should be getting into LAX sometime between 11-12. I just hope the massive amounts of snow don't create any unforeseen problems. I still have a bit of sound work and post production to do on my puppet final so that won't work its way on here until i get back from break, but my other final should be up by the end of the night. Regardless, ill be home soon, lets get some food, play some music, and go to disneyland. 4lyfe

Is this going to be forever?

WHY, I BELIEVE IT IS!

LIVIN' TH LIFE

THE PUPPET LIFE, THAT IS

fuck
this
i just wanna go to disneyworld

FOREVERT

Color Tests

Here are a bunch of old color maquette tests i did a while ago. I did a million of these, but these are my favorites of the bunch. I'm still not quite sure which direction to take it--theres so many possibilities with this set, and since its all on such a small scale theres such great control for tweaking. I could spend an entire semester just lighting these sets, theyre so fun to do and theres somuch you can get out of them. SUPR FUN

Right now im probably leaning more towards the pink washed lighting, maybe with cooler highlights, although the deep red is kind of really nice too. But I'm also into these night-ish shots with the unfiltered highlights, and was really happy with how it looked straight up naked with no gels, but i dont know. Perhaps you guys have some suggestions? Although i will probably inevitably end up going with an overall pink or red lighting scheme, as i tend to do.

New Era

My old crate amp blew out a month ago, and is beyond my ability to salvage. Maybe its just because ive been playing anson's tiny (tiny) amp for the past few weeks, but this amp is ridiculously crisp and luscious, not to mention extremely loud. Almost as nice as my dad's old princeton mod (this must have been destiny). Very, very excited about this, just wish i had time to actually play now that finals are due in a week. Wintersesssssshhhhhhhh

RIP Old Faithful Crate With a Missing Handle

Maybe one day ill fix you..

Finally Ready

After six or eight or ten or whatever its been long weeks, I'm finally ready to move beyond puppet construction. Getting excited again, gonnna bee fuunnn to work on this again. I also have a million process photos that will work their way up here eventually and i can explain the ridiculous (extremely unnecessary) fabrication process and experimentation i went through to get these simple puppets, but im not sure if anyone reads this blog for that kind of stuff (..Sean maybe? Are you out there??). Still, itll probably be a good resource for me to put together. I learned a lot about silicone that I couldnt really find information about on the internet (Zap-A-Gap? Really?). I'm just extremely happy to finally get this indecisive puppet fabrication phase out of the way, because the actual animation and editing is much more free and stress free to me, which is quite. nice. Something to look forward to for me.

Dinner

Leftover asian market steak, sliced and stuffed with mushrooms, spinach, pinenuts and blue cheese, served with sweet potatoes topped with bacon and molasses (pan fried in the bacon fat, of course). Don't be fooled though, the background bacon you see here was for Chris's separate bacon-fried-dumpling and potatoes dish (unpictured). Also present was a loaf of chocolate bread with embedded dried cherries bread from Whole Foods. I realized that I accidentally flipped the high ISO switch on my camera a week or so ago and never noticed, so all of my pictures recently have been on on the unfortunate side in terms of color saturation. But i can deal.

KNIFE ACTION MINUS BREAD ACTION

A Brief Update

I've fallen so far behind on what i've been meaning to post here. I've explored a whole world of potential puppet construction methods, thoroughly documented, and one day i will get around to making a mega post with that. But not tonight. I am, however, finally making progress on this excruciatingly slow project, and am almost at that delightful animation stage. If i can get the puppets up and running (haaaaa) by next week, that gives me two weeks animation time--an eternity, considering Fort Gloom was shot over the course of one to two (very long) days. I've definitely gotten too obsessed with exploring puppet construction techniques, but so much has come of it that I'm not really upset about it. Plus, kind of exciting things are starting to happen. The first step of the head cast was done tonight, so we'll see how that goes tomorrow (pictures eventually, really), which was my primary indecisive roadblock in moving along with this project. I kind of wish I had just gone with puppets like the one above, that was I could be well into animating a ridiculous puppet carnival. Maybe in the spring.

I also found this friendly gradstudent down by the canals who was moving to Seattle, and thus selling extremely cheap studio supplies--namely, $1 high gloss wood epoxy and $1 crystal-clear resin, which basically means im hoping to have extremely glossy floors for this animation, which I'm super excited about.

On another note, Thanksgiving was wonderfully rejuvinating, just what i needed. Im once again excited to work on these projects, and finish two animations in three loooong weeks. Getting ready for more naps in markethouse, and expensive brunch treats from cafe choklad. I also of course have a big thanksgiving post to put up, which should be coming around sometime this week. I've been neglecting these long status-update posts for a while, but they're nice to have around every now and then, if not just to sort out for myself what the hell im doing with these projects.

Oh, and this break has allowed me to finally get Windows 7 up and running (Digital River nightmare), the first OS upgrade I've had since 2003 or something. And I am happy to finally be running 64-bit--aside from the extra glossy-ness, there is a definite increase in efficiency that I am enjoying. Makes me wanna do after effects all day or something.

Current Obsession:

i know im late on this one, but its so right. everything you love about the hospitals minus all of the pretentiousness. go get sum drunkdriver

Lars von Trier

Very excited for this. In town on friday

mayb tonite

click 4 supersiz surprise

holy shit-- nnew A/C ep has the disneyland pan flute jam yeeee been waiting for this for so long, get it

Belly God

a one-night candle-lit concert serenade, tragically ended before its adulthood by the authorities. worth it? definitely--post party, our house is the cleanest its been since we first moved in. risd kids: so considerate in your party-going. thanks for enduring the walk, i know its tough but always worth it, maybe future basement baptisms will occur if we can find a way to navigate around providence's tough noise ordinance (three telephone poles is the official measurement, guys) and the old woman with bass problems next door. Maybe.

Omelette

Four egg omelet that through serendipity turned into this glorious fat egg-pankcake sitting atop a throne of mixed sausages and various vegetables. Garnished with some sad basil and two cherry tomatoes. A rediscovery of a marvelous dinner between me and chris one night back when we had time for such endeavors. And groceries. I need to post more food, I have so many pictures to share.

not what i should be doing right now

Spyin on some puppets

always makin a fool o myself

The House of the Devil

A step in the right direction for American horror --perfect pacing and a beautiful payoff. Not to mention an equally superb soundtrack. There was even a spot in the music portion of the credits for "Feedback." Legit. I was excited for this, and I'm glad that it came out on the right side of the spectrum. See it if its around you, if not, it should be on VOD for free, so get on it. In other news, I have a lot to do, and only five weeks to do it. I'll try to post some progress soon.

CRYSTALS

From cry-stills to cry-stals
Big thanks to jeremy for the sweet gems

Some Color Tests

Like them, but think i might stick with graphite for the sake of time/sanity

Halloween 029009

(And hey, happy 200th post)

Can't Stop Doing These

Crystal Stills

Some quick compositing tests that will probably end up in my puppet project at some point. Crystals by jeremy. Ill have a video up soon.