5.10.2010
R.I.P. Frank Frazetta
it is impossible to overstate this man's influence on artists of every stripe. he was the best. R.I.P.
3.22.2010
and then...
i could start off by saying how busy i have been, but that would be redundant and boring. i can't believe my last post was in january. sheesh.
i promised that i would go into detail about my trip to NYC, so i'll share a bit about that. believe it or not, it was my first trip to the big city, so everything about it was fresh and exciting in its own right. i won't bore you with too much of the mundane (mundane in NYC?) stuff, but there are some topic appropriate things that i should mention.
many of you have probably heard about the tim burton exhibit at MoMA that is currently running. this special exhibit was sold out for almost the entire week i was there, but i managed to wrangle a ticket on a very crowded new years day just as the museum opened. although i would consider myself a huge fan of some of his earlier films (peewee's big adventure, edward scissorhands, beetlejuice) i have not followed tim burton very closely for the second half of his career. clearly the main draw for me has been his ongoing support for the art of stop motion animation. the MoMA show included a large sampling of maquettes and puppets and other dimensional artifacts from all stages of his career. going back to the early days, there were some really incredible conceptual models created by rick heinrichs for a few projects that never made it past the development stage. they showed the replacement cycle of eyeballs that the chiodo brothers used for the transformation of large marge in peewee's big adventure, as well as the puppets they made for the vincent short. i'm pretty sure i also remember seeing a puppet or maquette of the beetlejuice sandworm thingy. i need to watch that movie again, actually. anyway, moving on to the juicy stuff, they had a couple of dozen puppets from the nightmare before christmas, including a large assortment of jack heads, and several other of your favorite characters. actually, oogie boogie is one of the first things you see when you come into the first exhibition room, which i thought was pretty cool. it was great to see so many of these puppets in person. they also included a nice selection of concept art and storyboards, meant to help show the many steps of creating an animated film of that complexity. it was a nice little display. since burton was a producer on the film, they also included a handful of puppets from james and the giant peach. from what i recall it was mostly skeletons from the pirate jack sequence. it was interesting to see how well they masked the ball and socket joints into the skeleton designs. food for thought for sure. (you may have gathered by now that they did not allow photography in the exhibit, or else i would be sharing tons of pics with you.) the next large display featured a large assortment of puppets from corpse bride. these puppets are all little masterpieces! it really is hard to describe just how beautiful those puppets are in person. i'm not even going to try. truly magnificent work by mackinnon and saunders. while on the topic of mackinnon and saunders, i should mention the cool little promo spot they created for the show. a couple of coraline alum did much of the work on this spot, and it turned out really cool. take a look at the spot, and the making of, here. for me, the coolest part of the whole affair was a small display featuring puppets and animation clips from the early stop motion development of mars attacks. people who know me know that i have a borderline obsession with the mars attacks illustrations, and "what could have been" aspect of the aborted stop motion martians. one of the high points of last year's visit to mackinnon and saunders' studio was getting a chance to see some of these puppets again. i had seen one back in 2001 at a convention in vegas, but this was different. this time i got to TOUCH them. POSE them! talk to the people who made them! very cool. so it was doubly gratifying to see a bare armature martian on display at MoMA that i had personally handled only a year earlier. to top it all off, there was a screen nearby looping a segment of animation (done by phil dale) where a martian walks into a room and disintegrates a lounging barry purves, who was set to be the film's animation director. i have heard that a great deal of animation had been shot before the dreaded switch to CG was made, but i have not seen much of it. here's hoping a future blu-ray disc of mars attacks could include some of this lost footage.
so that is about it for the tim burton show. obviously there were a zillion tim burton drawings as well.
the other noteworthy sighting was a series of window displays at the bergdorf goodman men's store featuring a large selection of puppets and sets from the fantastic mr fox. again, these are absolutely beautiful puppets, most of which were created (again!) by mackinnon and saunders. it was great to see examples of all the different scales they used for different shots. here is another interesting article which discusses the work that went into making these puppets. i took some pics of the window sets, but they are terrible, so you should take a look at these shots taken by people who know how to take nice pictures instead. possibly the coolest thing about this stop was getting a chance to see the reaction of little kids as they walked by and noticed what was in the window. we were in the area for about 10 or 15 minutes, and kids were constantly making their parents stop in the middle of the sidewalk so they could take a look at the displays. it was pretty sweet.
as for the here and now, i'm just chugging along working on a few small projects. i swear as soon as i have permission to show some recent work i will do so. hang in there. things are about to get different.
i promised that i would go into detail about my trip to NYC, so i'll share a bit about that. believe it or not, it was my first trip to the big city, so everything about it was fresh and exciting in its own right. i won't bore you with too much of the mundane (mundane in NYC?) stuff, but there are some topic appropriate things that i should mention.
many of you have probably heard about the tim burton exhibit at MoMA that is currently running. this special exhibit was sold out for almost the entire week i was there, but i managed to wrangle a ticket on a very crowded new years day just as the museum opened. although i would consider myself a huge fan of some of his earlier films (peewee's big adventure, edward scissorhands, beetlejuice) i have not followed tim burton very closely for the second half of his career. clearly the main draw for me has been his ongoing support for the art of stop motion animation. the MoMA show included a large sampling of maquettes and puppets and other dimensional artifacts from all stages of his career. going back to the early days, there were some really incredible conceptual models created by rick heinrichs for a few projects that never made it past the development stage. they showed the replacement cycle of eyeballs that the chiodo brothers used for the transformation of large marge in peewee's big adventure, as well as the puppets they made for the vincent short. i'm pretty sure i also remember seeing a puppet or maquette of the beetlejuice sandworm thingy. i need to watch that movie again, actually. anyway, moving on to the juicy stuff, they had a couple of dozen puppets from the nightmare before christmas, including a large assortment of jack heads, and several other of your favorite characters. actually, oogie boogie is one of the first things you see when you come into the first exhibition room, which i thought was pretty cool. it was great to see so many of these puppets in person. they also included a nice selection of concept art and storyboards, meant to help show the many steps of creating an animated film of that complexity. it was a nice little display. since burton was a producer on the film, they also included a handful of puppets from james and the giant peach. from what i recall it was mostly skeletons from the pirate jack sequence. it was interesting to see how well they masked the ball and socket joints into the skeleton designs. food for thought for sure. (you may have gathered by now that they did not allow photography in the exhibit, or else i would be sharing tons of pics with you.) the next large display featured a large assortment of puppets from corpse bride. these puppets are all little masterpieces! it really is hard to describe just how beautiful those puppets are in person. i'm not even going to try. truly magnificent work by mackinnon and saunders. while on the topic of mackinnon and saunders, i should mention the cool little promo spot they created for the show. a couple of coraline alum did much of the work on this spot, and it turned out really cool. take a look at the spot, and the making of, here. for me, the coolest part of the whole affair was a small display featuring puppets and animation clips from the early stop motion development of mars attacks. people who know me know that i have a borderline obsession with the mars attacks illustrations, and "what could have been" aspect of the aborted stop motion martians. one of the high points of last year's visit to mackinnon and saunders' studio was getting a chance to see some of these puppets again. i had seen one back in 2001 at a convention in vegas, but this was different. this time i got to TOUCH them. POSE them! talk to the people who made them! very cool. so it was doubly gratifying to see a bare armature martian on display at MoMA that i had personally handled only a year earlier. to top it all off, there was a screen nearby looping a segment of animation (done by phil dale) where a martian walks into a room and disintegrates a lounging barry purves, who was set to be the film's animation director. i have heard that a great deal of animation had been shot before the dreaded switch to CG was made, but i have not seen much of it. here's hoping a future blu-ray disc of mars attacks could include some of this lost footage.
so that is about it for the tim burton show. obviously there were a zillion tim burton drawings as well.
the other noteworthy sighting was a series of window displays at the bergdorf goodman men's store featuring a large selection of puppets and sets from the fantastic mr fox. again, these are absolutely beautiful puppets, most of which were created (again!) by mackinnon and saunders. it was great to see examples of all the different scales they used for different shots. here is another interesting article which discusses the work that went into making these puppets. i took some pics of the window sets, but they are terrible, so you should take a look at these shots taken by people who know how to take nice pictures instead. possibly the coolest thing about this stop was getting a chance to see the reaction of little kids as they walked by and noticed what was in the window. we were in the area for about 10 or 15 minutes, and kids were constantly making their parents stop in the middle of the sidewalk so they could take a look at the displays. it was pretty sweet.
as for the here and now, i'm just chugging along working on a few small projects. i swear as soon as i have permission to show some recent work i will do so. hang in there. things are about to get different.
1.10.2010
2009 is dead
but what a year, huh!? i'm not really big on new year's resolutions and things of that nature, but it is always good to take a moment and reflect on where you are, what you are doing, how you got there, and where you want to be. seems like the start of a new year (or decade) is as good a time as any. so in taking an existential inventory of things, i have to say it has been a weird one for sure. although i was mostly unemployed last year, i had many amazing opportunities to meet and work for some great new friends from all around the country, nay, WORLD. in doing so i have learned many important lessons about myself, my craft, and my "industry". i have also had the good fortune to put together a small studio with some good friends and collaborators. this has given us a much needed boost to our collective productivity as we scramble to complete our various personal projects before the "next big job" comes along. and yes, i have been doing a great deal of scrambling lately.
so, due to the combined facts that it has been AGES since i made a real post here, and a new year is upon us, i am going to format this post as sort of a wrap-up. i hope you enjoy it.
something i completely forgot to mention in my post back in october was the film mary and max. the portland chapter of ASIFA had just hosted a screening and Q&A with director adam elliot. the film was outstanding, and adam elliot was both congenial and forthcoming at the Q&A following the screening. i love the distinct visual sensibility of elliot's body of work, and it was nice to see his world expanded a bit for a feature film. the subject matter could be considered somewhat dark, but i thought the movie was remarkably humorous and quite poignant, if a bit melodramatic at times. i usually could not care less about voice casting of celebrities, but i thought phillip seymour hoffman's performance as the voice of max was amazing. i believe you can currently see this on IFC on demand, and i highly recommend that you do!
since i've already started talking about movies, i'll move on to wes anderson's the fantastic mr fox. at the end of 2008 i took a trip to england and took the chance to visit some of the studios over there. the first stop was 3 mills where they were a little over halfway finished shooting "fox". although i had just been awake for the majority of a 30+ hour journey, my memory of the studio tour is quite vivid. i was immediately struck by the complexity of some of the bigger setups for long panning shots. while i was not shown any footage at the time, i saw a lot that made me very excited. later in the trip i visited mackinnon and saunders, the puppet making studio that continues to set the standard for high quality stop motion puppets. it was there that the full sized hero characters, with their sophisticated head mechanics, were created. most of the puppets that were made there had already been shipped to the studio in london, but there were still enough odds and ends on hand to make my excitement for this project grow even more. wes anderson had made a point to mention on many occasions that ladislas starevitch's the tale of the fox was a major influence on his wanting to do a stop motion film, and particularly one with animals. after seeing the animal puppets for this film, the influence was unmistakable. i was won over by the look, but was curious to see how they were going to look when the came to life on screen.
as many of you are probably aware, during the weeks preceding the film's release there had been some minor controversy in regard to anderson's method of directing the film. pairing this flurry of bad press with a somewhat flat trailer, i admit that i was feeling very tentative going into this one. but... I LOVED IT. so much for bored journalists building up negative hype! i thought this was one of the very best films of the year. it was everything that a movie for kids should be. (in a related side note, while in NYC last week i made a trip over to the waldrof goodman men's store to take a look at the window displays that are currently featuring puppets and sets from this movie. during the 15 or so minutes that i was in the vicinity there were several children who became super excited as soon as they recognized the contents of the windows, and made their parents stop to let them look at the displays) i've read on various websites where some parents have been displeased with the somewhat vague moral of the story... WHAT EVER. you can be that way if you want. i guess i'm not a traditionalist, and i feel like most children's entertainment is so disgustingly nerfed that i was happy to see the protagonists reverting to their animal instincts in order to assure their survival. how about this for a moral: be yourself. anyway, i was filled with pure joy the entire time i was watching this one. i don't know what happened at the box office, but i absolutely feel like this movie will become a classic in the truest sense. congratulations to everyone involved!
p.s. if anyone knows who animated the shot of bean ransacking his trailer, go find him and buy him a drink on me. i'll pay you back.
and of course with all of these stop-mo films being released this year there is bound to be some friendly competition. while i don't generally place much value on awards one way or another, i have to admit that it has been nice to see coraline, (as well as fox, mary & max, and others) on various nominee and year-end lists. i just noticed a couple of days ago that focus has released a new featurette on the making of coraline in order to drum up renewed interest in the film for the coming award season. while there isn't really any new content in this video, it was good to see a lot of familiar faces during the crew montage segments. if you watch closely you might even see a guy that looks kind of like me.
beyond all that big-budget movie magic, i've been keeping my head down at the studio working on 3 or 4 smaller projects. one is nearing completion, one is halfway finished, and another is just about to take off in earnest. i should be able to share pictures from one of these projects as soon as i finish, so that should give you something to look forward to beyond all of this jibber-jabber. i know i don't post enough pics on here. i'm aware of the problem and i aim to do better.
i can sort of show you guys some stuff from one of the projects that i mentioned in a previous post. my studio-mate shea bordo has been developing this project for about the last year, but it has really gained momentum in the past 6 months or so since we got back from our stint at buddy system. it isn't really MY project, so i'm not going to go into too much detail, but i did want to show a little character test from the puppet i helped build. our other studio-mate rachel larsen, who will be animating the film, has been doing some animation tests using a quick casting that we did in order to find out if the armature was going to perform well enough. unfortunately, i didn't take any pics of the armature before we cast it up for testing. i'll make sure to take some photos of it after any changes i make before we cast the actual puppet. for now, i hope you enjoy this little animation test.
man, i feel like i'm just scraping the surface of what i wanted to post here, but this is getting ridiculously long, and i think i want to stop for now.
dang it, one more thing. i've been following ethan marak's website since well before i knew him personally, and he has been working on a his chemical kid/super battle project for many years. he literally just announced this website showcasing a brand new trailer and lots of great behind the scenes photos. this stuff looks awesome! the keener eyes out there (read: nerds) might notice various armature work by lionel orozco, tom brierton, and wuchan kim.
so, due to the combined facts that it has been AGES since i made a real post here, and a new year is upon us, i am going to format this post as sort of a wrap-up. i hope you enjoy it.
something i completely forgot to mention in my post back in october was the film mary and max. the portland chapter of ASIFA had just hosted a screening and Q&A with director adam elliot. the film was outstanding, and adam elliot was both congenial and forthcoming at the Q&A following the screening. i love the distinct visual sensibility of elliot's body of work, and it was nice to see his world expanded a bit for a feature film. the subject matter could be considered somewhat dark, but i thought the movie was remarkably humorous and quite poignant, if a bit melodramatic at times. i usually could not care less about voice casting of celebrities, but i thought phillip seymour hoffman's performance as the voice of max was amazing. i believe you can currently see this on IFC on demand, and i highly recommend that you do!
since i've already started talking about movies, i'll move on to wes anderson's the fantastic mr fox. at the end of 2008 i took a trip to england and took the chance to visit some of the studios over there. the first stop was 3 mills where they were a little over halfway finished shooting "fox". although i had just been awake for the majority of a 30+ hour journey, my memory of the studio tour is quite vivid. i was immediately struck by the complexity of some of the bigger setups for long panning shots. while i was not shown any footage at the time, i saw a lot that made me very excited. later in the trip i visited mackinnon and saunders, the puppet making studio that continues to set the standard for high quality stop motion puppets. it was there that the full sized hero characters, with their sophisticated head mechanics, were created. most of the puppets that were made there had already been shipped to the studio in london, but there were still enough odds and ends on hand to make my excitement for this project grow even more. wes anderson had made a point to mention on many occasions that ladislas starevitch's the tale of the fox was a major influence on his wanting to do a stop motion film, and particularly one with animals. after seeing the animal puppets for this film, the influence was unmistakable. i was won over by the look, but was curious to see how they were going to look when the came to life on screen.
as many of you are probably aware, during the weeks preceding the film's release there had been some minor controversy in regard to anderson's method of directing the film. pairing this flurry of bad press with a somewhat flat trailer, i admit that i was feeling very tentative going into this one. but... I LOVED IT. so much for bored journalists building up negative hype! i thought this was one of the very best films of the year. it was everything that a movie for kids should be. (in a related side note, while in NYC last week i made a trip over to the waldrof goodman men's store to take a look at the window displays that are currently featuring puppets and sets from this movie. during the 15 or so minutes that i was in the vicinity there were several children who became super excited as soon as they recognized the contents of the windows, and made their parents stop to let them look at the displays) i've read on various websites where some parents have been displeased with the somewhat vague moral of the story... WHAT EVER. you can be that way if you want. i guess i'm not a traditionalist, and i feel like most children's entertainment is so disgustingly nerfed that i was happy to see the protagonists reverting to their animal instincts in order to assure their survival. how about this for a moral: be yourself. anyway, i was filled with pure joy the entire time i was watching this one. i don't know what happened at the box office, but i absolutely feel like this movie will become a classic in the truest sense. congratulations to everyone involved!
p.s. if anyone knows who animated the shot of bean ransacking his trailer, go find him and buy him a drink on me. i'll pay you back.
and of course with all of these stop-mo films being released this year there is bound to be some friendly competition. while i don't generally place much value on awards one way or another, i have to admit that it has been nice to see coraline, (as well as fox, mary & max, and others) on various nominee and year-end lists. i just noticed a couple of days ago that focus has released a new featurette on the making of coraline in order to drum up renewed interest in the film for the coming award season. while there isn't really any new content in this video, it was good to see a lot of familiar faces during the crew montage segments. if you watch closely you might even see a guy that looks kind of like me.
beyond all that big-budget movie magic, i've been keeping my head down at the studio working on 3 or 4 smaller projects. one is nearing completion, one is halfway finished, and another is just about to take off in earnest. i should be able to share pictures from one of these projects as soon as i finish, so that should give you something to look forward to beyond all of this jibber-jabber. i know i don't post enough pics on here. i'm aware of the problem and i aim to do better.
i can sort of show you guys some stuff from one of the projects that i mentioned in a previous post. my studio-mate shea bordo has been developing this project for about the last year, but it has really gained momentum in the past 6 months or so since we got back from our stint at buddy system. it isn't really MY project, so i'm not going to go into too much detail, but i did want to show a little character test from the puppet i helped build. our other studio-mate rachel larsen, who will be animating the film, has been doing some animation tests using a quick casting that we did in order to find out if the armature was going to perform well enough. unfortunately, i didn't take any pics of the armature before we cast it up for testing. i'll make sure to take some photos of it after any changes i make before we cast the actual puppet. for now, i hope you enjoy this little animation test.
man, i feel like i'm just scraping the surface of what i wanted to post here, but this is getting ridiculously long, and i think i want to stop for now.
dang it, one more thing. i've been following ethan marak's website since well before i knew him personally, and he has been working on a his chemical kid/super battle project for many years. he literally just announced this website showcasing a brand new trailer and lots of great behind the scenes photos. this stuff looks awesome! the keener eyes out there (read: nerds) might notice various armature work by lionel orozco, tom brierton, and wuchan kim.
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