If you're just joining us, howsabout a brief recap of 2007?
Creatively, the year jumped off with an amazing start. January started with Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face being voted the 4th Best Short film of 2006 by FilmThreat.com
I also finished my work on Harvey Daggit and the Devil's Olives as well as the music video for Raine Maida's Sex Love & Honey.
Personally speaking, things were rough, as things were a bit turbulent in Kris' life.
February saw an amazing trip up to Windsor to see Chantal Kreviazuk and Raine Maida.
March brought Harvey Daggit's acceptance to the website for Spielberg's show, On the Lot. Sadly, that's as far as it went.
It was also in March that we announced The Greatest Fan Film of All Time and The Girl and the Ghost.
April started with my very first newspaper interview about our films and continued with Tootsie Blow Pop exploding after being featured on MySpace.
The summer was mostly quiet as I worked away on Fan Film and Ghost until late August, when Mom and I embarked on another Canadian adventure.
More animation led me into November, which brought my first experience in live action filming. In a complete turnaround from the way the year started, Kris became a father and I became an uncle.
December was mostly more animation, enjoying being an uncle, and prepping for Christmas. Which leads me to now.
As I type this blog with the arrival of a new year at hand, I find myself feeling more optimistic than I was at this time last year. Though busy working on things I love, I spent most of 2007 frustrated and stressed out. In recent weeks, things have changed and I feel I've changed (for the better) too.
2008 will bring the completion of Ghost and Fan Film and, if my hopes become reality, the start of some wonderful new things.
I wish you all joy, health, and prosperity in the year ahead. Happy New Year!!!
Showing posts with label Harvey Daggit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harvey Daggit. Show all posts
Monday, December 31, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
HUGE News!
I'm extremely excited and proud to announce that Harvey Daggit and the Devil's Olives has made it into the internet voting stage for the new show from Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett called On the Lot.
At this point, people watch and vote on all the films and they'll eventually be narrowed down to 16 filmmakers who will make it onto the show. Each week, they'll make a short, be voted on, and narrowed down until there's a winner. That winner gets a $1,000,000 developmental deal with DreamWorks.
This is big. HUGE.
This is where you come in.
Please, help this film make it through to the next stage. Helping is ridiculously fast and easy. All you have to do is follow this link:
http://films.thelot.com/films/18290
Watch the film, register, and vote for it. Spread the word, tell your friends. Get some votes rolling in! It's up to you guys now!
At this point, people watch and vote on all the films and they'll eventually be narrowed down to 16 filmmakers who will make it onto the show. Each week, they'll make a short, be voted on, and narrowed down until there's a winner. That winner gets a $1,000,000 developmental deal with DreamWorks.
This is big. HUGE.
This is where you come in.
Please, help this film make it through to the next stage. Helping is ridiculously fast and easy. All you have to do is follow this link:
http://films.thelot.com/films/18290
Watch the film, register, and vote for it. Spread the word, tell your friends. Get some votes rolling in! It's up to you guys now!
Friday, March 02, 2007
A Call to Digg
Okay, another small update. As of yesterday, the absolute best looking version of Sex Love and Honey is at iFilm.com. Right here, as a matter of fact:
Sunday, February 18, 2007
"They mostly come at night...mostly"
As of early this morning, Harvey Daggit and the Devil's Olives is being featured on iFilm's front page. If you haven't checked it out yet, what are you waiting for??
Things are pretty slow around here. The weather's ridiculous, we have between one and two feet of snow on the ground and some pretty hefty icicles hanging around. I'm ready for summer. Cabin fever's a pain.
I've been writing a little bit lately, but nothing too intensive, just playing with some ideas.
Mostly, I've been doing my best to whittle down my Netflix queue a bit. I've watched quite a few movies lately, but almost none have left an impression. That's not to say they're bad, I've enjoyed watching them, but so many lack that "wow" factor and I end up forgetting what I watched within a few days. Though last night was good. I watched Aliens.
I'm sure I've seen the whole movie over the years, but in bits and pieces spread out over God knows how long. This was my first time watching it all at once. I saw the wow factor. The movie's just awesome. Period.
It ended up leaving me mad at current movies. With all the advanced technology out there, these aliens from 20 years ago look better than most of the creature effects we see today. And not only do they look amazing, but they're actually scary. Sure, CGI creatures can look great, but more often than not, it's blatantly obvious that they're CGI and that's a problem. It's so much more effective when the monster's actually tangible. Tell me the alien queen wasn't terrifying.
Movies need a resurgence of animatronic creatures.
My nerdiness is showing, I better quit while I'm ahead.
Things are pretty slow around here. The weather's ridiculous, we have between one and two feet of snow on the ground and some pretty hefty icicles hanging around. I'm ready for summer. Cabin fever's a pain.
I've been writing a little bit lately, but nothing too intensive, just playing with some ideas.
Mostly, I've been doing my best to whittle down my Netflix queue a bit. I've watched quite a few movies lately, but almost none have left an impression. That's not to say they're bad, I've enjoyed watching them, but so many lack that "wow" factor and I end up forgetting what I watched within a few days. Though last night was good. I watched Aliens.
I'm sure I've seen the whole movie over the years, but in bits and pieces spread out over God knows how long. This was my first time watching it all at once. I saw the wow factor. The movie's just awesome. Period.
It ended up leaving me mad at current movies. With all the advanced technology out there, these aliens from 20 years ago look better than most of the creature effects we see today. And not only do they look amazing, but they're actually scary. Sure, CGI creatures can look great, but more often than not, it's blatantly obvious that they're CGI and that's a problem. It's so much more effective when the monster's actually tangible. Tell me the alien queen wasn't terrifying.
Movies need a resurgence of animatronic creatures.
My nerdiness is showing, I better quit while I'm ahead.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Films A-Plenty
Get comfy, buttercup. Lots of video heading your way right about...now.
First up, Raine Maida's MySpace page has the video for Sex, Love, and Honey uploaded and the quality's better than on YouTube, in my opinion. You can see it here:
First up, Raine Maida's MySpace page has the video for Sex, Love, and Honey uploaded and the quality's better than on YouTube, in my opinion. You can see it here:
Raine Maida Sex Love and Honey
Add to My Profile | More Videos
Next up, loads of Bullcrank goodness. Larry just put the finishing touches on the gang's short film entry for Fox's upcoming TV show, On the Lot. They did some great work on this one in a surprisingly short amount of time. There's even a few seconds of animation by yours truly.
Check out Harvey Daggit and the Devil's Olives here:
Aaron Longstreth's been keeping extremely busy and making short films like crazy. He just made 7 more in the time it took me to type this sentence. Check out his recent shorts here:
Security
Add to My Profile | More Videos
Next up, loads of Bullcrank goodness. Larry just put the finishing touches on the gang's short film entry for Fox's upcoming TV show, On the Lot. They did some great work on this one in a surprisingly short amount of time. There's even a few seconds of animation by yours truly.
Check out Harvey Daggit and the Devil's Olives here:
Aaron Longstreth's been keeping extremely busy and making short films like crazy. He just made 7 more in the time it took me to type this sentence. Check out his recent shorts here:
Security
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)