New Blog

I have a new blog now along with a new website!

Check them both out, this blog will no longer be used so all my followers please congregate over to the new blog, thanks!

Brian and Beard

http://brianandbeard.blogspot.com/

So little time...

By the time i do my next post i will have probably handed in my Thesis film... that alone is a very scary thought.

About a month left before judgement day!

Right now i am compositing & editing which is proving to take a very long time.

I also had the chance to go to the Tim Burton exhibit at the MoMa recently and found it to be really amazing. I highly suggest everyone go to see this exhibit, be sure to get tickets a good week in advance though, they go so fast. Going to the exhibit inspired me to draw straight from my head and just draw whatever the hell came out of my pencil. I put some of the sketches in this post.

Ugly Americans premiere is tommorrow! It will be on Comedy Central Wensday the 17th at 10:30 pm after South Park. Watch it! I worked mostly on the pilot so a lot of my stuff will be in the premiere episode tomorrow and it is gonna be really funny i promise.

Well wish me luck as i enter the Final Countdown!

Movies i watched since my last post

• Thumbsucker (7.5/10) Pretty good coming of age film, especially like Keanu Reave's character.
• The Wrath Of Kahn (7/10) Very dramatic Star Trek film, should be seen only after seeing the original Star Trek episode it follows "Demon Seed"
• Star Trek (8.5/10) Not being a huge Star Trek guy myself i gotta say i absolutely loved this film. It reintroduces the series and characters in such a fresh, exciting, and clever way while sticking true to its roots.
• Mysterious Skin (7.5/10) One of those films that is really hard to watch more then once, lots of disturbing scenes and themes in this film that are hard to take in. A strong and powerful film that I probably will not watch again.
• Halo Legends (7/10) Most the shorts range from bad to alright with the exception of "Odd Man Out" which is absolutely hilarious. Its a total satire of DBZ and Power Rangers but Halo style.
• Ponyo (7/10) Certainly not Miyazaki's best film in regards to story and characters. But visually it is incredible, in this regard it could be his best looking film. Overall if you can just look at it as pure fun and nothing more you will enjoy it a lot.
• Waking Sleeping Beauty (7.5/10) A very interesting look into Disney's come back. The film feels very personal and really gives insight into the people at Disney and the drama between them.

The end is near

March feels all too close....

I'm still feeling ok but the pressure of that thesis is definitely weighing down on me. I've started to overnight every single day of the week and I have a feeling that won't be ending any time soon.

I've started to do special effects for John Dilworth's new short which i'm very excited about!

Also have sucked myself and quite a few others into the infinite abyss of MAGIC THE GATHERING. We play regularly now, if you wish to challenge us as a wizard of magic please do so! We welcome all wizards! Except for lame harry potter ones.

Alright back to Magi- er.. I mean thesis, yeah thesis.

Film's I watched this month (Oh shit new thing I put in my blog! Where I review movies!!)

• District 9 (9/10) (Amazing!!)
• Up In The Air (8.9/10) (Almost equally Amazing!)
• A Serious Man (7/10) (Still not a Coen Bros. fan, not sure how I feel about the ending either)
• Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (8/10) (Very fun film, love the main character and the imagination of the film)
• Zombie Land (7.5/10) (Great! The cameo appearance of (SPOILER) made my day)

2nd Semester... The beginning of THE END

Second Semester has started and it feels like thesis is a giant turtle slowly taking a dump on my face, sorry for that visual but I think it describes every thesis students situation. Its an impending doom that we must meet!

I'm feeling good again at where I am, not amazing, but good. The bad bit is that i'm still trying to really figure out how I want my film to end and some other small issues i'm having with the "God" character. I hope it all works out in the end, i have this tendency to change things in the middle. I'm just going to keep going tho and hope it works itself out.

Law firm internship seems to be over, I gave them the final files and i've had an amazing month of no revisions. But I must say it was an awesome experience working there and I don't think i'll ever have anything quite like it again especially for such good pay. And my boss was such a nice,

cool, awesome guy who gave me lots of great music!

OH! I got to be an extra in a Passion Pit Music Video! If you don't know passion pit they do the song "sleepyhead" featured in that one cellphone commercial, this may jog your memory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXdExYKC3bU

Anyway I had to wear a bag on my head and dance like a maniac to the same song 8 or so times with the band performing it (or rather pretending to perform it) a few feet away from me, all the while confetti shot over our heads and rained down on us. Such a fun experience, though it was so weird dancing with bags on our heads, I elbowed someone in the head REALLY hard at one point... you seriously cant see anything. I'll post the video when it's up and hopefully you'll be able to see me!

Anyway back to thesis oh and I'm trying out this new 100% free online game called Dragonica, looks kickass. If you play find me on there:

http://dragonica.thqice.com/

Later

Another Live-Action Experiment

Edited together the second video me and friends made with the HD Cam we rented out from SVA.

Check it out here:

The Job Hunt

Same Excuse

Same excuse as usual, getting distracted left and right from updating my blog. I hate myself for it and I promise I will give myself ten whips for each week I go without blogging from now on.

The first act of my thesis is now practically 100% complete. I've begun animating the 3rd and final act of the film and all those that think i'm ahead need to remember I still have another 4 minutes or so to animate, I have my work cut out for me.

Orrick shorts are done, it's just a matter of dropping them off now.

I've been screwing around and loosing time for thesis making quick live-action shorts for fun. Judge them based on the idea that none required more than a single day of work haha. But they were fun to work on and I hope you like 'em. First is Are You Afraid of The Dark episode my brother shot and my cousin edited and I came up with the story concept:

The Tale Of Lucky Pete's Playground

Second, me and some friends rented a nice HD cam from SVA to record some live action shots for a certain thesis film. Well afterwards we wanted to get more use out of it so we did a Spanish Soap Opera, why not right? Enjoy!

El Perro

There's a third film we shot today with the HD camera, put more effort into it then this spanish soap opera, well a little more. Anyway I'll post that when i'm done editing that in the next two weeks or so.

Alright back to finished all this shit in time for the end of the semester, be back soon. I promise, or else I will inflict pain upon myself.

Flight Into Imagination in a Film Festival! And more

Yeah I know it's been a while, my usual excuse would be I've been busy and got distracted so I'm gonna go with that again.

But since my last post i've made a lot of progress and also just today acquired some really exciting news, A Flight Into Imagination has made its way into the "Short Attention Span Digital Video Festival"! and will be shown this coming Friday (Oct.30th) You can see the details here:

SASDVF

If anyone can make it please attend!

The second short being produced for the Orrick Law Firm is still in production, went much longer than expected but it also became much longer and intensive than originally planned. But I am 99% finished at this point, so close! And they seem to be very happy with the results. Here's a little sample of the Epic Mech that will be showing up in the short.

Thesis is on schedule once again, I completed the entire second segment of my thesis. That's 3 minutes that are completely inked, colored, composited and ready to go! I'm now animating the first segment and hope to finish that by winter break and then have the rest of my time to finish off the third and final segment of the film. So far very happy with the results.


Oh! And I have a new reel up, which can be seen here:

REEL

Also went back to interning at Augenblick, right now we are working on the "Ugly Americans" TV series. But earlier I had the chance to do inbetweening for the videogame "Dante's Inferno". The detail in the animation and the incredible compositing they are doing with this really makes it absolutely beautiful, so proud to have been able to work on this! Unfortunately I'm not allowed to show anything until the game is released but I assure you it will be worth the wait!

Anyway thats all for now, I'll be sure to update this on a more regular (Monthly) basis again from now on

Promise