pandering

well, i feel a little awkward mentioning this here, as it feels a little too much like tooting my own horn... but some of you may be interested. marc spess of animateclay.com recently included an interview with me in the 3rd edition of his "secrets revealed" e-book on stop motion. hopefully i don't come across like TOO much of a jackass. the publication is a great overall resource. marc covers pretty much every aspect of making a stop motion film and includes insight you can use both in your garage and on a big budget feature. the new edition also includes interviews with anthony scott, kathi zung, justin rasch, and brad schiff.

you can buy it here

while on the topic of telling you how you should spend your money, i highly recommend you go see the new film moon.

dang

somewhere i think i said i was going to be doing a post a week... anybody remember that?

thing is, you get busy. and i got BUSY!

as i write this, i'm happy to say that i am back home in beautiful portland, oregon for the rest of what i hope will be a mild-weathered, relaxing summer. well, lets not get ahead of ourselves.

i feel like there is a lot to catch up on. a quick look at my calendar tells me that i left for atlanta on march 9th and returned home to portland on the 23rd, only to leave again on the 28th for LA, where i remained until the 9th of may. for one heavenly week i enjoyed the comforts of home before heading back down to LA on the 17th, for another month, this time driving back in a rented SUV packed to the brim with tools and containers of toxic chemicals and explosives. i feel like just yesterday i was making dinner for valentine's with my sweetheart, and here it is... over FOUR months later? jeez.

i guess i covered the atlanta trip already. totally cool.

first leg of the LA trip was probably more eventful than the second. i was very lucky to get a chance to see my bloody valentine perform an unannounced show at the el ray theater in a sort of warm up for their appearance at coachella the next weekend. thanks to my pal david for the assist! i never ever thought i would get to see that band perform, and it lived up to my hopes. it was a bit of adventure actually getting to the venue, but it was well worth the trouble. big thanks go to jon for lending me his trusty yellow truck, which allowed me to get out and eat a nice lunch from time to time. other than that, i pretty much worked 75-85 hour a week. somehow i still managed to spend way too much on LPs at amoeba records. can't talk about the work though. not specifically, anyway. i'd like to acknowledge the huge contribution my pal and studio mate shea bordo has made to our collective puppet making efforts as of late. we've become quite the unstoppable force. seriously.

second trip to LA... nothing but work. only work. work. again, i would be a total jerk if i didn't openly state my vast appreciation for our amazing interns, and especially the secret weapons who go by the names of john sumner, and dexter caseres.

what now? we're still getting settled in over at the "new" studio. heading over there now to install some more shelving and do boring stuff like that. maybe by the end of the week i'll have a puppet build up to show off. i DO have my own projects, you know!

Back to the Grind(er)

the trip back to georgia was a good choice. i think i needed to rekindle the drawl just a little bit. hell, i shot a gun. it was a great change, being able to spend time with the family without having a holiday in the way to dictate the terms of my visit. outside of the family, i got to see almost everybody i wanted to see. two weeks seems like a lot of time, but it gets by quicker than you think it will. it was really great to see all of my friends from back home. i know its cliché to say it, but when i get back together with some of those guys it feels like i was never gone. it makes me really happy to know i've got such great friends in my life, even if i don't get to see some of them very often anymore.

i also got to see a few of my favorite things which are not people...





back home i tried to get the new studio up and running. okay, i knew that would not really happen AT ALL, but i wanted to get the ball rolling, at least. did i previously mention getting studio space? okay, yeah i have. jeez, it has been a long time since that last post, sorry guys! so yeah, i got in there and tried to get some work spaces put together. rachel and i spent most of every day that week building stuff and trying to figure out what was going to where. i think we got most of it figured out, but its always going to be a work in progress. for now, i'm just looking forward to getting back in there and getting some work done. here's what my little area looked like about 2 weeks ago.



after being in atlanta for two weeks, followed by about 5 days back home in portland, i have now moved on to the north hollywood for an extended work trip. i've been here for two weeks so far, and the end has yet to be determined. i am making some puppets for some buddies of mine, and after this particular job is finished it looks like i might be doing something for a more shadowy group. i can't really say much more than that, but it has been really great so far. for the most part. i have been pretty outspoken in the past about how much i think LA sucks, but i have been having a really nice time, so i guess i'm starting to change my mine a little bit. (how about that rocky IV monologue at the end where he says "if i can change, you can change! we can all change!". yeah!) since i've been here i've been able to meet a LOT of great new people and i've been able to see some people IRL who i've previously only "met" online. good stuff all around. i guess right now the main thing i'm feeling is "lucky". it is such a gift to be able to do stuff like this for awesome people and in the process be able to meet and work with even more awesome people...
but on a slightly less inspirational note, i spent a lot of last week just drilling holes...



i'll keep you guys posted. maybe one day i'll make it back to portland!

p.s. the last time i checked, coraline was about $100,000 short of matching NMBC's domestic box office numbers. that's crazy!

Georgia on my mind

hi ladies and gents... well, okay... hi gents. i send you greetings from my ancestral homeland. i'm here for a couple of weeks visiting family and friends. it is nice to be back for a bit. i wasn't able to come home for the holidays, so this is my first trip home since the production break last july. it has been refreshing.

it is also shaping up to be a busy month after my fun and games vacation. shortly before leaving for this trip i secured a studio space with a couple of friends from coraline. i'm really looking forward to getting back home to get the studio set up and functional. we are going to have dedicated space for all of my metal working tools, a soldering station, moldmaking, casting, (with ventilation!) personal, and shared work space for everyone, and an entire corner blocked off for a shooting stage. it is going to be a fair amount of work to get everything just right, but it should be well worth the trouble. the problem is, i'm booked on a job in LA less than a week after i arrive back in portand (not really a problem, of course) so i'll probably get just close enough to having the space set up that it is frustrating to leave it unfinished for three weeks. i really can't wait to get in there and get down to business. i'm also really pleased to get all of my shop equipment out of the kitchen!

in other news, i was pleasantly surprised to see that coraline is returning to 3D screens this weekend. wait, what day is it? i guess that technically happened yesterday... what do you want from me, i'm on vacation? at any rate, jonas brothers = epic fail.

more developments at LAIKA

LAIKA made some big announcements earlier today. travis knight is stepping up to the position of CEO of the company, and claire jennings is taking a position as "president of entertainment". you can read the press release for all the gory details.

i think this is great news. i have a lot of confidence in both of these individuals. claire jennings is very well-respected throughout the animation industry, and she's already made a positive impact at LAIKA since she came aboard midway through coraline. i consider myself fortunate to have been able to work closely with travis knight over the past couple of years on coraline. he's an amazing animator, and was one of the most hardworking individuals on the project. i'm sure he'll be even more devoted to his new position as CEO.

who knows if any of this will speed up the timeline for another stop motion feature at LAIKA, but i have to assume so. good people are at the reigns, so i have hope.

special delivery

i got a call from harbor freight right round the time i finished that last post. my mill/drill came in!



initial thoughts:
bigger than i thought
much heavier than i thought
covered in nasty red grease
i think it'll work

i needed a good mini drill press, and i can't really afford the one i want right now. i hit the web to research what my other options might be, and i came up with this chinese made mini mill that is equipped with a levered handle for drilling. the seig company makes this tool, as well as several other models of varying sizes. several american companies rebrand these and sell in them in the US. this one is the smallest, the "X1" model. they get decent reviews. i'm not really counting on much from the milling side of things, but if i can do precise drilling i will be happy. right now i have to try to get all this slop off of it...

recuperating

hello again. i've been keeping to myself for a bit, and i guess i owe you an apology. i've been sick with a cold or worse twice in the past month, and last weekend i caught the flu to end all flus. i thought it was the big one. i swear i have been sick every other week since november. jeremy is ready to be healthy, okay?

there's a different feeling in the air now that coraline is out in the world. it has been very satisfying to take in the public response to the film. people are talking about stop motion again. the press around coraline has been interesting. people are wondering what comes next for laika. people are starting to obsess over the technology behind 3D printing and RP machines. is it good for stop motion? is it bad? is just another product of mankind's relentless pursuit of technology for technology's sake? 3D projection is the other big topic right now. the consensus seems to be that there are not enough 3D screens to support the current slate of upcoming 3D films. like the highlander, there can only be one. even though the jonas bros movie was an epic fail last weekend, they still took most of the screens away from coraline, probably costing us several million dollars at the box office. next up in 3D land, moviegoers get yet another shiny new dreamworks cartoon packed full of hot celebrity voices. yay. perhaps the 3D run for coraline has come to an end? weird.

i guess i didn't have a whole lot to say today other than i have not fallen off the face of the earth. it looks like there might be some fun stuff right around the corner for me, so i'll keep you posted when i know more. i still plan on posting some pics from the premier, and then finally i'm going to get around to posting some work samples from coraline.

soon!

strong opening

i'd say congratulations are in order for all the crew who worked on coraline. blood, sweat and tears were literally shed to make this movie happen. many people made huge sacrifices in their personal lives so this film could be what it is. i was very fortunate to play a small role in the creation of this film, but there were about 300 other amazing individuals who worked just as hard and if you know any of them, smack 'em on the back and say thanks!


(i got bored an ripped off shepard fairey last night)

and while it may not be immediately apparent, we performed really well last weekend. why? here's why. the final tally for the weekend B.O has been reported to be $16.8 million. most trackers had us coming in closer to half that. we opened on about 2,300 screens, which is about 1,000 less than most "wide releases", and still managed to come in 3rd for the weekend. interestingly, about 60% of the gross from opening weekend came from 3D theaters. (if you haven't yet, go see it in 3D before the jonas brothers run it out of the 3D theaters in 2 weeks) we beat out pink panther 2, which everyone predicted would bury us. the film "taken" came in second, but our per screen average was higher, so you could make an argument that we came in 2nd. maybe not technically, but... as for the number one spot, you can't really put coraline up against a movie like "she's just not that into you" and expect reason to prevail. funny thing is, a lot of people seem to be pretty "meh" about that one after having seen it, and the word of mouth of coraline has been terrific, so hopefully in the long weekend coming up (valentine's day too!) we will continue to see good things for coraline.

i was heartened by this picture my mom sent me a couple of days ago. she still lives in the town where i grew up, newnan, georgia, which is a suburb of atlanta, about 40 miles southwest of the city. not exactly ground central for film promotion, but someone lovingly painted this mural in the window for opening weekend!



in a couple of days i will post some pics from the premier and a DIY crew screening from opening night.

almost there

coraline is just about to make her grand arrival to the masses! so far the reviews have been very good! rotten tomatoes has it at 88% at the time of this posting. that's quite good! it is weird thinking that very soon all of the hard work that we've done will be unleashed onto the world. whether it is loved, hated, praised or ignored it will be out there. this may be the most important weekend of my life? a bunch of us crew folk practically bought out a theater locally to see the film tomorrow night, and i've made some special preparations!

custom rosewood and mohaghany 3D glasses!



also, this is pretty funny.

what the?

i saw this in the backyard a few weeks ago. any ideas?