Thursday, August 30, 2007

To the North I Go

Much like the yearly emergence of Punxsutawney Phil, the time of year has come for me to head up to Canada.
We're heading up early in the morning. Actually, we're leaving in just a few hours, now that I see the clock.
I probably won't be able to blog properly while on the road, but I'll try to post a Photo-of-the-Day or something until I return on Tuesday.
Everyone have a fun and safe Labor Day weekend. When I return from my adventures, I'll officially have a quarter-century under my belt.
I'm old.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

How Time Flies

I'm a slacker. Plain and simple.

I gave myself last weekend off, but the weekend decided to extend itself. A lot. I'll definitely get back to work tomorrow.

I ended up visiting with friends and making new ones, going to the movies, watching DVDs, and just relaxing. Most of the summer has been spent working, so I figure one week of chill time isn't too bad. I'll admit though, I was thinking abut the projects and planning shots the whole time.

Larry sent me the Fan Film voice work from LA today and it's fantastic. Word is people were even talking about the short at this year's Comic Con. That certainly caught me by surprise. I'm still not quite sure how to process all of this.

It's late, time to reply to some email, get some sleep, and then get back into the fray of The Girl and the Ghost tomorrow.

Deep breath.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

The Weekend the Stars Fell

When I saw Larry during the making of Harvey Daggit and the Devil's Olives, he was completely stressed out, distracted, and exhausted. Now that I find myself in charge of The Girl and the Ghost, I fully understand what he was feeling back then.

It's amazing how many hiccups arise on a film that will only be roughly fifteen minutes long in the end. From making sure all the voice work sessions go smoothly, to issues with editing software, to figuring out music, to just being burnt out by animating. All the little problems take a mental toll on you when there are so many other aspects needing your attention.

I've been in a zombie state lately, which is why I gave myself the weekend off.

This weekend happened to be the weekend of the Perseid meteor shower. Over the years, it's been an amazing thing to watch, so it seemed like a perfect time for a break.

Jeff is heading off to college in a couple days, so we had a final game night before school took over. It seems the new challenge among the guys is to best me at Soul Calibur II. They keep trying. They even resorted to trying to make me laugh so much that I'd lose. At one point, I had Mikey inches from my head making bizarre faces and sounds while Jeff blasted audio of a goose calling tournament from his iPod. I had tears in my eyes from laughing, but I emerged victorious, though it was a crazy and awesome battle.

After the games, I headed outside with Mom to see what could be seen in the sky. We saw a handful of meteors on Saturday night and only one each on Sunday night.

Yesterday, we went to see Stardust. I read the book a couple years ago and loved it, so I was excited (and a little nervous) to see it on the big screen. I've seen the trailer and though I love the book, the preview just didn't sit right. Thankfully, Neil Gaiman was right when he said on his blog that the previews are bad and very misrepresentative of the actual movie.

I had a great time and Mom was even teary-eyed by the end. The previews try to sell it as a romantic film with a little action and while it is romantic and there is action, there's so much more to it than that. The humor is actually funny (which is rare in most movies lately) and sometimes twisted, the fantasy elements are great, and Robert DeNiro gives a... very surprising performance. There's a little bit of everything going on in Stardust and I thought it worked well. For the first time in a while, a movie revolving around magical beings and events actually felt magical. I left the theater happy.

We came home and ended up staring into the skies again for four and a half hours. While it wasn't as spectacular as other years, we still got quite a light show with accompaniment by the tree frogs and crickets. Between 10:00 PM and 2:00 AM, we probably saw between fifteen to twenty shooting stars. Some were small, some were not so small, bright and colorful with tails that stretched halfway across the sky. We even saw one strange light that appeared to fade out not a hundred feet away from us.

Still puzzled by that one...

It's been a nice and much needed break. Hopefully this'll get the creative parts of my brain firing again so I can get back to working at full burn again soon.

Thursday, August 02, 2007

A First Glimpse

With all the blogging I've done about The Girl and the Ghost over the last few months, I figure it's about time I put something up to show for it. So, without any more delaying, here's what I guess would be called a teaser image.

So, any readers out there in internet-land, let me know what you think.

click to enlarge

22

Happy Birthday. Miss you.