The Hard Sell

So you might notice this isn't an animation related post, but it's my blog so I can do what I want:)

Over the weekend I got to see DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist do their thing with 45's A few years ago these guys got together for a concert called "The Brain Freeze". A CD and a DVD was made of this concert, unfortunately a soundboard recording was never made and only a crappy audience copy exists. But better then noting this CD is really amazing. The DJ's restrict themselves to only origanally pressed 45 records, these spin faster then full size records and are limited in selection. When I heard they were going to do that again I jumped at the chance at seeing them live.

This concert was called "The Hard Sell," it wasn't as good as Brain Freeze but it was definitely enjoyable. I took a couple videos and posted them on You Tube. After I posted them I found other people had videos that looked better then mine. I used a crappy point and shoot camera that kept changing focus (it was too dark for it to focus on anything). But it should give you some idea what the concert was like.

My Video 1:


My Video 2, this one was great they DJs pulled out portable turntables and strapped them around like guitars and walked around scratching like it was an electric guitar solo:



Better Look Part 1


Better Look Part 2

Peter & the Wolf

Congratulations Suzie Templeton (Direction) and Marek Skrobeki (Design) for winning the Annecy Cristal and the Audience Award at Annecy. It's great looking film . Check it out while you still can on You Tube:

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:

Catching Up

Last Sunday the Animation Mentor crew came to my house to shoot a new video lecture for their school. It was a lot of fun. Not only was it fun shooting the lecture but it was great catching up with my old pal Bobby. I've been working on an animation and an outline for the class, which is one of the reasons I haven't been keeping this blog up to date. Over all the shoot went really smooth. I'd like to thank Bobby Beck, Rachel Ito and Micahel Dauz for keeping the atmosphere of the shoot fun and light hearted as well as very professional. And thanks for cleaning up after yourselves, that was supper cool, especially considering how tired you all must have felt. Anyway you can read more and see pictures here: http://bobbyboom.blogspot.com/2007/06/in-la-day-7.html (BTW that's my new Tim Biskup painting "Mutation on the Bounty" in the BG, it was a fathers day present:)

Animation Mentor is doing great and it keeps improving. I've seen some of the new tools they are rolling out, I can't talk about them here, but they'll definitly make my job easer. I'm still teaching for Animation Mentor, in fact we just finished up our last Semester, all my students did great work on their short films. Now I've got a week off before I start the next semester.

Surf's Up has been out in the theater for a while, sorry I haven't been keeping you up to date about that. Didn't do too well in the box office, but the reviews of it are really great. 77% on Rotten Tomatoes. I think the film turned out really well. It's different, it really feels like a surfing film. We watched a lot of surfing films before getting stared on this one. They were really able to catch that laid back feel that surfing films tend to have. At times the documentary style was tricky to work with. (The camera was constantly moving, and the shots were a lot longer then usual for example) But you learned to work with or work around it. In the end I enjoyed the challenge, and it made your shot look that much better.

So that's what I've been up to.

Bunny Vs Football

This is a great looking short, and the fact that it's all CG is really impressive. Lord only knows why they miss spelled "Soccer Ball".

This Kid is Awsome

Photosynth Prototype

Jaw dropping technology of the day. At first I thought: "So what, it's just a zoom tool for photos, but by the time we get to the end I was throughly impressed.

Jack Black Teaches How To Do Film

Like Jack Black? Would you like to learn more about how to make a good TV Show? Check out his tutorals on Acceptible.tv:

http://acceptable.tv/tutorials