Skidoosh

Thanks to my friend Jon, I got to check out an ASIFA-Hollywood preview of Kung Fu Panda last night! My buddy Ben Willis has been animating on this film for the past 2 years, so I've been waiting to see it for a while. Congrats to the folks at DreamWorks, great job! The action sequences in particular really blew me away, and the movie itself was thoroughly entertaining.

Go check out Kung Fu Panda when it opens this week!

New York Comic Con 2008

This weekend I went to the (3rd?) Annual New York Comic Con! I have to say that I was pretty impressed. I haven't been to Comic Con in San Diego, I'm sure it's bigger and there's more going on, but even so this was a pretty big show, and a ton of people were there. The highlights of the show for me were the previews of Wall-E, and the panel of Battlestar Galactica actors. Before you laugh, if you haven't seen Battlestar Galactica go read all the glowing reviews in the media, it's an amazing show. What we got to see from Wall-E was incredible, so insanely entertaining without any dialogue! It gave the impression that the animators could really play around with entertaining acting choices and it seems so fully owned by the animators. Of course I don't really know, but that's the impression I got by watching it.

Michael Trucco (Anders), Rekha Sharma (Tory), Michael Hogan (Tigh)

I have to say, the Battlestar Panel was one of the best panels I've ever been to (granted I haven't been to many). The actors were so professional, extremely grateful to be given the opportunity to work on a great show like Battlestar, and talked a lot about their craft, their views of their characters, etc. The questions from the audience were overall pretty good too. Michael Hogan is an absolute professional, you can tell by the way he presents himself, how seriously he takes his work, and by just watching him on screen. He's a really amazing actor. Michael Trucco (Anders) was the comic on stage, and I don't think him or Rekha Sharma (Tory) had been to a panel before.

I'm not really a comic book fan, so I didn't know a lot of the artists who were there, but it was still cool to see their incredible talent and to see them draw characters (for a charge) for other people. One of the good things about not knowing a lot of the artists was that I wasn't shy to talk to anyone because I didn't know if they were famous or not! One person I did know and actually got to meet was Peter Laird, one of the creators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! The 10 year old in me really geeked out, I was one of those kids who watched the old cartoon every week, had a ton of toys, and loved to yell "Kowabunga" :P He was just sitting at a table, very few people around him buying drawings, no big displays behind him or anything. Really friendly guy, didn't talk to him much but had to get my picture taken with him.

Me and Peter Laird

I also met and talked a bit with David Mack, artist of "KABUKI", and, un-beknownst to me, writer and artist of Marvel's "Daredevil". A book he had on his desk, called "The Shy Creatures", caught my eye because of the similarity in style to Dr. Seuss drawings. I noticed the rest of his work was very naturalistic, and he explained to me that "The Shy Creatures" was actually a part of an issue of his comic "Kabuki", where one of the characters reads this book. He actually created the book in the comic, drew it out page by page through the character's point of view. He said that he thought the contrast in styles between the naturalistic world of his comic and the fanciful style of the book the character was reading was interesting. As I was flipping through his other comics, I saw how his page layouts were very creative, not your normal comic panels, one had a blueprint of a house roof and descriptive text outside of the comic panels. He was very friendly, (not all of the artists were), I really enjoyed talking to him and wish I had gotten a picture with him.

I also went to a few of the other panels, one was on "The State of Animation" with J.J. Sedelmaier and another man (I can't remember his name now, he said he has done Garfield shows for the "last 150 years"), and also one on storytelling in comics, with Klaus Janson and Marc Guggenheim. The storytelling one was my favorite, they didn't talk necessarily about story, but about the differences between writing and drawing for comics, and the difference between writing for comics and writing for film. (Marc Guggenheim has been both a writer for comics and tv, most recently co-creator of Eli Stone.) I found it interesting how so much of what they said was the same thing we talk about in animation, just in different vocabulary. Klaus stressed the importance of using reference, Marc talked about finding your unique voice, both talked about the necessity of re-doing work to make it better, among other interesting topics. It really was a direct way for me to see that what we strive for in animation isn't that different from other commercial art/storytelling techniques. Though I have never drawn or written for a comic book, I could relate to almost everything they talked about through my experience in animation. Once again, my lack of knowledge in comics paid off, as I wasn't shy to chat with Klaus for a bit afterwards...not really realizing how well known he is in the world of comics for his work, and his work with Frank Miller.

Anyway, New York Comic Con was a good time, and I was pretty impressed by it since San Diego is the one that gets all the glory. Anyone who's around NY next year should definitely check it out (and get the weekend pass, much cheaper!)

I thought this guy was a great look alike to Obi-Wan ;) It was funny how serious he was when I asked him if I could take a picture. In complete Ewan McGregor tone, he said "Yes, of course..."

Had to take a picture of Mickey!

You wouldn't like me when I'm angry...

NYC ACM SIGGRAPH: Industry Spotlight

Tonight I had the pleasure of checking out the NYC Industry Spotlight, courtesy of the NYC chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH. I wish more of these types of events happened around New York, because it was a lot of fun to see what everyone is producing around here these days. The event was held at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology), and featured work from Framestore NY, Pysop, Nathan Love, Charlex, Curious Pictures, among others. It was only a couple of hours long, but it's a great way for professionals and students alike to keep up to date with the CG industry in New York. Basically representatives from each studio give a short talk about their company and work, and then show off their latest and greatest! If you're around NYC and missed it this year, I highly recommend checking it out next year, whether you're a student or professional. If nothing else it's fun to run into some familiar faces!

Congrats to everyone who showed work, great job!

Fed Ex Carrier Pigeons, Framestore NY

Cellular South, Nathan Love

Coke Happiness Factory, Psyop

Magnolia Pictures Animated Shorts Screening

Last night I went to a short film screening that turned out to be my favorite movie-going experience since seeing The Incredibles for the first time with a theatre full of SCAD animation/vfx students. Magnolia Pictures is showing a collection of 2006 Oscar Nominated and Shortlisted animated short films, I saw it at the IFC Center here in New York. Check out the playlist: The Danish Poet (Torill Kove), Lifted (Pixar), The Little Matchgirl (Disney), No Time for Nuts (Blue Sky), A Gentleman's Dual (Blur), Guide Dog (Bill Plympton), One Rat Short (Charlex), The Passenger (Chris Jones), Wraith of Cobble Hill (Adam Parrish King), and Maestro (Geza M. Toth). Let me tell you, nearly every single film was compelling and thoroughly enjoyable, and in my opinion beats Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeld's "Animation Show 3" by a long shot. Don't get me wrong, there were some great films in The Animation Show 3, but there was also some that just weren't my taste--your sort of grotesque indy 2D animated films. That shouldn't be a surprise coming from Judge and Hertzfeld though.

In all honesty I went just to see Rats again on the big screen and see some of my Charlex friends, having no idea what else was showing. To my surprise the Pixar logo shows up at the beginning and "Lifted" starts playing! Film after film surpassed my expectations, most surprisingly "The Passenger" by Chris Jones--a practically one-man film that I had not even heard of, that presents a visually stunning, while funny and engaging horror story of sorts. (One of my friends told me it took Jones 6 years to make it!) "A Gentelman's Duel" was also a nice surprise, since I didn't know when I'd be able to see Blur's new short, but had seen some images on CG Talk.

If anyone has a chance to see this traveling exhibition, it is well worth your time and money! Check out the playdates/locations, and other information here. There is also a screening of live-action shorts by Magnolia that I was not able to see, but if the animated selections are any proof, I bet the live action selections are great too.

By the way, I have updated the look/template of this blog, and hopefully will be using this more often! I know I've said that before, but I think I have a plan this time. I've also transferred all the previous posts from my website homepage to this blog, so there may be some strange references to updates that don't make sense anymore :P