Baller

Lunar Totality

Tron Defragged A New York Geek Cast movie review


The Xbox Moves In
Forbes Magazine dated December 20, 2010

Scenes from the Latin Quarter

War N Peace

"No I was never in the Macon country. I've puked my puke of a life away here, I tell you! Here! In the Cackon country!"
~ Estragon, "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett

Borromini, After Effects artist of the 17th century!!!

The Nutcracker Chronicles
Published: November 16, 2010
Readers shared photos and memories of appearing in or attending the holiday classic “The Nutcracker.”
See if you can find me! I'm the NYCBallet version.

Near Death

A concept sketch for a friends hit webisode series: Prep School Blues.

Intimacy

5 animators to watch out for:
- Noella Borie a French Parsons student who intelligently animates mixed media and is assisting on a feature animation

- Chris Monti a freelance concept artist who knows how to perfect a design into something he can animate well
- Kyle Cabral a USC-Jerseyite with great emotional animal animation
- Josiah Sarr, educated somewhere in middle America, and despite that made a great amalgamation of fairytales
- and Karen Ross, a Pennsylvania animatrix who has clearly defined and settled into a personal style

This analysis is based on the 2010 ASIFA East open screening.
A special shout out to David Levy, whose film "Grandpa Looked Like William Powell" is a wonderful, artistic reminder that us fellow newbie-animators have a hell of a lot left to learn from teachers like him.

Bart-Man

"Melinda The Seer"
I found several drawings, comics and sketches from my 2008-early 2009 notebook, and had a couple laughs and groans as I relived memories and ideas. Some will be declassified in 20 years. This one is a character study for a hippie oracle that gives vital information to my hero in an epic crime drama. My notes say: "Seal of Solomon contains -smoke in the dorm room."

"And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart--love of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a wile or a stupid action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not."
- The black cat - Edgar Allen Poe

Elephant Stampede

A discarded idea for a client.



I was trying to find something that involved "Tarzan" and "Celluloid Closet," but stumbled upon this history of sex in cinema, from the early 1910s and on.

Valor

Hans Vredeman de Vries

My new book! Will begin after finishing Edger Allen Poe stories:

by the guy who painted Dinotopia

Fervor

Heat Stroke

My review of Tom Strathe's 6th Cartoon Carnival


LAGOA MULTIPHYSICS


PASSIONPIT REMIX

Unchained Melody

Aluna Test from Tristian Goik on Vimeo.

A test for the motion comic book "Aluna."  I did not draw it, but I animated it.  I was replaced by an Indian company, and unfortunately the project did not premiere at the San Diego Comic Con as originally intended.

The Web Means the End of Forgetting

By JEFFREY ROSEN

Published: July 21, 2010

The digital age is facing its first existential crisis: the impossibility of erasing your posted past and moving on.

It was late in the evening when K. arrived. The village was deep in snow. The Castle hill has hidden, veiled in mist and darkness, nor was there even a glimmer of light to show that a castle was there. On the wooden bridge leading from the main road to the village, K. stood for a long time gazing into the illusory emptiness above him.

 ~ "The Castle" by Kafka

Dubliners

"The Birthday of the Infanta" now at a website near you!!!

Suprise alternative music!

Why is it that words like these seem to me so dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?

~ "The Dead" by James Joyce

Battle: Los Angeles

Inspired by the Jean Leon Gerome exhibit at the Getty museum in L.A.


My review of Comic Con, via NY Geekcast.

Know Your Mushrooms

LABAN NOTATION

Chicken Man

Backstage at the Met Opera House, watching the "Romeo & Juliet" ballet

5 minutes of Bruno Bozetto's "Allegro Non Tropo, which is like "Fantasia" meets "8 1/2"


AND NOW... it's "My moon my man" remixes, BOYS NOIZE vs GRIZZLY BEAR


And my latest NY Geekcast post about the year 2050...

Haku

I am now guest blogging at the New York Geekcast. Check out my Naruto & Haku article.

You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

~ "An Enemy of the People" by Henrik Ibsen

Family of Trees

Strangers' faces hold no secrets because the imagination does not invest them with any. But the face of a lover is an unknown precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment.

- Another Country, by James Baldwin

GORILLAZ "MELANCHOLY HILL" VIDEO. TEH AWESOME

Clark Little

Sangfroid

An Interactive 3d Photo model of the Vatican, at the official Vatican website!

Last night, I went to Midsummer Night 2oons last night at the M1-5 bar (which is either a reference to a globular cluster in the Pegasus constellation or a punk band). It was organized by 5 semi successful animators who convinced the bar that they could show their animations and drive people to buy drinks during happy hour, but could not convince them to let them use their 6 HD flat screen TVs and instead projected animations on the wall (over lamps) and had several audio issues. That being said, the idea was great, very good for them and their friends. I ran into Alyssa D, and we had a good time and The Adventures of Man Child seemed to be the favorite.


And also yesterday my dad asked me to photograph a tour he arranged of the new Cooper Union building for various architects and engineers of the School Construction Authority.

Sideswipe

You can find a cute 1 minute recording of my lovely self at the Sunnyside Sound Project and listen right HERE. Sabine Heinlein is a really cool lady who moved into the neighborhood a few years ago and apparently was inspired by her neighbors. I got to make friends with some crazy old ladies.



"Poor creatures, why must we destroy you? I'll tell you why. Order is the tide of creation, but yours is a species that worships the one over the many. You glorify your intelligence because it allows you to believe anything. That you have a destiny, that you have a right, that you have a cause, that you are special. That you are great. But the truth... you are born insane. And such misery, can't be allowed to spread."
~ Evil Alien at the end of "Starship Troopers 2"

B.E.A.T.

ENVISION : Step into the sensory box from SUPERBIEN on Vimeo.

VIA Sarah Elizabeth Clemens

BABIES

Animation ebbs and tides, apparently. In this year's NYU Tisch Animation festival there were fewer films than I expected, and I looked for some pearls. Matt Christensen's "Rant" was great, but I covered that in an earlier post. So my highlight goes to Vincent Hon's "Cold Place, Warm Tale" which was a solid attempt to make a good film with a nice flair in fairy tale, anime, and character animation. Plus, I enjoyed the "draw two people with both hands while not looking at your drawing" game very much.

I couldn't find a relevant picture or video, so this will have to do. Vincent Hon animates with his feet, apparently.

Some cool art by *Phobs

Intro to animation pieces usually have great music too:

Genuflect Genuflect Genuflect

With similar transfiguring glee, Levi van Veluw of the Netherlands treats the flesh of his face and torso as topsoil, slathering on layers of moss, grasses, leaves and florets until he looks like a kind of Julius Caesar Chia Pet.

Asuka's Mind Rape

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at Aniboom
This is my submission to the Aniboom Awards 4, for Sesame St. Check it out, leave a comment!

Please watch copious amounts of French film before attempting to watch the Neon Genesis Evangelion series.

A scary Jesus magazine I found on the subway.

Crystal Castles

A sweet memorial for the passing of the Ugly Betty TV show...

My friend Ben O did the animation for this video!

South Park... redefining "fags."

I saw "The Man with a Movie Camera" today at MoMA. It sets up editing for all history.

Pas de Trois

Katyn

"I was not only 23 but a conspicuously retarded 23." ~ Buddy
Storyboards for "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" by JD Salinger


Somehow I missed the existence of the NYU Center for Advanced Digital Applications while I was in school. However, I have now had the opportunity to watch the DVD of their 2009 films (a surprising haven of 3d animation?). How come they can hand out free DVDs and our Tisch Animation Showcase can't?

Deliver Us

I recently attended Tom Stathes Cartoon Carnival and had the pleasure of drinking Cucumber Raspberry Collins and watching "Minnie's Yoo Hoo" while everyone sang along in a vaudeville atmosphere.



OMG, I was going to post the trailer for the 1981 "Caligula" (which drove me to drunken disorder) but I just found the imaginary remake trailer that someone made for the Whitney Biennial in 2006(?)!!! If you like this, go rent the original. It's highly disturbing... NSFW

Men in Skirts

"I simply state that I’m a product of a versatile mind in a restless generation – with every reason to throw my mind and pen in with the radicals. Even if, deep in my heart, I thought we were all blind atoms in a world as limited as a stroke of a pendulum, I and my sort would struggle against tradition; try, at least, to displace old cants with new ones. I’ve thought I was right about life at various times, but faith is difficult. One thing I know. If living isn’t seeking for the grail it may be a damned amusing game."
— F. Scott Fitzgerald (This Side of Paradise)

The winners of the New York International Children's Film Festival are listed HERE.

NSFW
NSFW but from a brilliant Fosse move "All That Jazz"
NSFW!!!

Rodeo

And now for my review of the ASIFA-East Film festival. I will restrict my opinions to one short sentence:

Top 5 Student Films:
5 - "A Rant" by Matt Christensen A clever stream-o-consciousness piece about the struggle over making student films.
4 - "New Soul" by Audrey Skalkowski A roughly animated but sensuous story of a tormented trapeze artist.
3 - "Down to the Bone" by Peter Ahern A creepy hilarious story about allergies gone horribly wrong.
2 - "The Terrible Thing of Alpha-9" by Jake Armstrong The cutest sharptoothed 6 eyed space monster ever!
1 - "Singles" by Rebecca Sugar. A hallucinatory reflection upon the self and loneliness.


Top 3 Independent Films:
Honorary Mention - "Aesthetic Species Maps" by David Montgomery Beauty in form and color found in ordinary and exotic nature cross sections.
3 - "The Thing in the Distance" by Elliot Cowan A primal story of two best friends dealing with the world.
2 - "The Hybrid Union" by Hybroll Animation 3 machines. 1 cloud. The desert.
1 - "Off-Line" by Tom Gasek. A microwave's circuit board flawlessly brought to life.

Woody Award - "Batman: A Death in the Family" by RobsMedia

Top 3 Sponsored Films under 2mins:
3 - "My Daughter Studies" by David B Levy A funny and educational short about punctuation.
2 - "Don't Miss It" by David Cowles & Jeremy Galante. A slickly polished and action packed commercial for an orchestra.

1 - "Midtown Twist" by Twinkle LLC (loses points for being unGooglable). A sketchbook of NYC brought to life.

Top 3 Sponsored Films over 2mins:
3 -"Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" by Weston Woods Studio You must not let the pigeon drive the bus.
2 - "One Time We Lived" by Slippery Rock Creative LLC. I <3>

1 - "ELECTRIC CAR" *CLAP CLAP* by Tiny Inventions I almost sang along to this "They Might Be Giants" song in the theatre itself.

Cairo

I premiered my latest Macy's drawing (above) at "The Art of Fashion" show at Webster Hall last Friday (below). Thanks to everyone who came to support my art!


STYLO - the new single from the GORILLAZ... My favorite animated band makes the transition to the 3rd dimension! And a special cameo by my single most favorite comic bk character.

For a month of Sundays I will be volunteering at the NY International Children's Film Festival.
The first Sunday I got to rip tickets and hand out programs and ballots for the short films. Here are some highlights:

The Happy Duckling pop up book animation!
Electric Car - They Might Be Giants catchy song, cute video

Lebensader Eskimo art!



DSi head tracking video games

Triple Axel

UnSound

One day I decided to see what I thought was a Polish Electro Punk Festival...and instead I found UNSOUND which is exactly that, if you redefine the meanings of 'Polish' 'Electro' 'Punk' and 'Festival.' Woe is me, I could only afford to go to the free event at the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, but I wanted to see the live music show they played during a screening of Warhol's Blow Job.

Later I got to see a screening of Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. I was sitting in the middle of a bunch of urban middle school children, who were trying hard to be gangsta but their fascination and ignorance of Greek mythology overwhelmed them. My favorite moments: 1) when Percy's mom says she met Poseidon on the Jersey Shore me and the teachers giggled (about The Situation) 2) the 5 day accidental lotus/acid trip Percy and his friends take in Vegas, with the obligatory Lady Gaga dance sequence, and 3) the oh so subtle reference to Citizen Kane (find it for yourself!). I am a sucker for anything fantastical and Manhattan based, so this would have blown my mind back in high school.

My favorite Superbowl ad...

Wonder Lab!

The Sony Public Space on Madison and 56th. Then I went to the Sony Wonder Technology Lab and programmed a robot, practiced virtual open heart surgery, and did some blend shape Maya animation. It's a really cool museum, for free, family fun, you get a ID card that you can program with your photo and voice print and you swipe it at every exhibit and everything is personalized.

Portrait Of Ludovico Capponi

I read an article in the New Yorker about the artist Bronzino at the Met, an Italian Mannerist, and they mentioned this painting "with that lad's unforgettably protruding, glad-to-see-us codpiece"

NIGHTFALL is a short story by Isaac Asimov, about a world where there is perpetual daylight, and about the possible consequences of that civilization experiencing one night for the first time.

LOST

Ok, so I was at this freelance job where I had to upload a million videos, and each one took 15 minutes. I thought it would be good to do some drawing. The first day I was looking for inspiration, and I remembered this great techno song with the lyrics "Hello Seattle / I am a manta ray" Then I saw "The Secret of Kells" and I just got really carried away. :-D


My new Mac Book Pro, with my new Adobe Production CS4, and Final Cut. And my tablet, on my new Parson's table!



On Sunday, I went to see the Dance on Camera Film Festival at the Walter Reade Theatre at Licoln Center. I read a NYTimes article about Disney and dance animation so I thought I would check it out. They showed 5 shorts: Goofy's How To Dance, The Skeleton Dance, Dance of the Hours from Fanatasia, Cock of the Walk, and maybe something else... I suggest you all look them up. Then they showed the festival submissions, and i voted for my favorite: "She" by Kathy Rose