Running to Catch Up

Happy New Year!!!

...Yeah, a little late, I know. So, where have I been? Right here, pretty much. To be honest, I've just felt completely burnt out since finishing The Greatest Fan Film of All Time. I really haven't wanted anything to do with anything and I've been keeping a low profile, both online and off, in hopes of recharging myself a bit. Hasn't quite worked yet, but I'm slowly getting there.

Over the course of my journey to recharge, the holidays came and went and were nice. Santa brought me a digital video camera I'm hoping to put to good use.
In January (and beyond), Mother Nature unleashed her fury and gave us near-record-setting amounts of snow and left me stranded inside the house for a long, long time. On the bright side, it gave me a chance to make a dent in my monstrosity of a Netflix queue. Unfortunately, most of the movies I watched were disappointing. But I discovered how much I love the Bourne movies.

I broke my long streak of not going to the movies by going to see Coraline in 3D a couple weeks ago. The movie itself was great and the RealD 3D was amazing. Stylin' glasses too.


Tomorrow night I'm heading to the midnight showing of Watchmen. Can't wait.

Matthew has been a constant source of entertainment and exhaustion. He's 15 months old, huge, and smart.


On the movie-making front, Larry and the guys are working on both a new film and a new animated project. After a lot of hard thought, I made the difficult decision not to head up this animated project. I need to take a little time for myself and wrap up some of my own projects that have been sitting on the back burner. The Girl and the Ghost is still unfinished and I want to finally get it done and out there, even if only for myself.
I'm sure they'll do just great without me on this one.
It's been insane and great working with the guys these last few years and I'm sure we'll be teaming up again on something spectacular before too long.

You might notice the site's looking a bit different. I'm in the process of giving it an impromptu update, so hang in there and we'll be snazzified soon.

Before I wrap this entry up, I just wanted to take a minute to mention my niece. A few months ago, we found out Kris & Jessi were expecting another baby, a little girl. We found out a couple weeks ago that Jessi lost the baby. It's been hard on all of us. So, I wanted to take this opportunity to write this in memory of the niece I never got to meet.

I know I keep saying it, but I really will try to post more often. I swear.

New Bullcrank Short

I didn't have anything to do with this one, but man, do I love it.

In 2008, a film was rediscovered from long ago. The film, titled "Bad Dudes With Attitudes", had begun production in 1983 and had been promptly shut down when film studios realized it was the greatest film ever created. Its lighting was brilliant, its acting top notch, its special fx immortal, and its story unparalleled. Studios knew its success would never be duplicated and that any films that came after would forever be poorly received simply because they were nothing compared to "Bad Dudes With Attitudes". This is the only finished and existing footage. Enjoy its awesomeness.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/43331b35a5

"Funny" votes are appreciated!

Back to Earth

As of Wednesday, my work in space is done. I finished that scene just a couple hours before Larry and Derby stopped by for a visit, so I got to show them the footage while it was still fresh out of the oven.
I'm extremely proud and happy with how these shots came out and I guess I'm not the only one. Larry's loving it and says the rest of the Bullcrank guys and gals are impressed.
We ended up talking about the rest of the movie and the big shots still ahead of me throughout most of the visit. It helped pump me up a bit and got the creative juices flowing, we even came up with a few amazing ideas I'll be including.

Aside from a few extra pick up shots, filming of The Wimp Whose Woman Was a Werewolf wrapped this weekend. It's looking to be excellent and a real step up for Bullcrank. You don't have to just take my word for it though, being the crazily driven madman that he is, Larry has already put together a trailer. Check it out here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zYGzUJBmoUU

And you can take a look at the creation of the werewolf here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PLo8btWkj40

I've been ridiculously amused at how dark, depressing, and continuously hilarious Garfield comic strips are when you remove Garfield from them and it's all thanks to Garfield Minus Garfield. I'll never look at John Arbuckle the same way again.

Our tickets to see Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova arrived a couple of days ago and the seats look great. This is going to be a fantastic show.

On to the next scene I go. We're expected to have between one and two feet of snow on the ground by tonight, so the weather's right for animating.

Stay warm.

Jacob's Yearly Year's End Review of the Year- 2007

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!!!

My Training Wheels

The first day of the shoot was an experience, to say the least. I woke around noon (early) to the sound of my phone and confirmed what time I had to be there. Things went as they usually do, not as planned, and I fell a bit behind schedule.

Mom, Aunt Karen, and I hit the road and arrived at the set around 4 PM, but not before getting lost and driving past the building twice.

The Bullcrank boys had everything set up inside. They had lights and cameras, but the action was still a couple hours off. I roamed the maze of cubicles, trying to familiarize myself with it and take everything in.

Hanging with Larry, Travis, and Aaron


Clint, me, and Ian

We all ended up hanging out for a while and had some spaghetti, thanks to Mom and Aunt Karen.

As we finished, more crew and the cast started trickling in. I saw lots of familiar faces and met a few new ones. Everyone scurried about the set doing what had to be done: getting into costume, troubleshooting the sound equipment, etc. That's when I began to wonder what I should be doing. And that's when my first directorial duty arose as our lead actress, Marisa Tomasic, came to me asking which outfit she should wear. A fairly easy first task.

Marisa displaying outfit options


Donna puts Larry's face on


Rick being all suave

Minutes later, everyone was ready and I was set up in front of my monitor behind camera one. Things looked good, Larry and Rick were ready to go and I called "Action!". With that utterance, my complete inexperience was revealed. Apparently the cameras have to be rolling before action gets called. Who knew?

Aaron, Ian, and Andy were a huge help the whole time, I think I'd have been pretty lost and miserable otherwise.

The night went on, not without its bumps, but everything kept moving forward. I know I must have looked like a deer in headlights, as that's exactly how I felt, but I'm glad I was there. The long day ended as we headed home at 2 AM, after ten hours on set. That's nothing, compared to the others, who were there for thirteen hours and doing a lot more than me.

The foggy road home seemed fitting at the end of the first day of filming this werewolf movie.

Day two began around 4:30, after a rainy drive back to the set. I was more on track with everyone else, as they were just setting up when I got there. The days shoot involved much simpler shots, which made things much easier and less chaotic. There was also excitement in the air, as this was the day we were filming with Cleveland legend, Big Chuck Schodowski.

Day two


Big Chuck and Larry

Chuck arrived and donned his security guard uniform. Ian called for the cameras to roll, I called action, Marisa rushed through the doorway, and Chuck greeted her with "...I didn't hear 'action.'"

I spoke up and it was smoother from then on.

Big Chuck and Lil' Jay

I enjoyed the second day much more than the first. Communication was better, the setup was better, Chuck was hilarious, and I think we got some great stuff. Aaron's lighting was especially awesome looking. I can't wait to see the whole thing put together.

Directing Big Chuck


Kickin' it with the stars


Vince works the camera

We wrapped up around 9 PM and did the obligatory group photo before anyone left. The remaining crew dismantled the set and returned the building to its usual state while pausing for sloppy joes.

The Brothers Longstreth relax after a long day


"Leave no evidence we were here!"

We all ended up leaving at about 10, ending my time on this movie. Back at home, I relaxed by watching the Werewolf episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

The rest of the gang will continue filming over the next several weekends, including a trip to New York City to film with Lloyd Kaufman. Meanwhile, I'll be here hammering on The Greatest Fan Film of All Time.

It was a crazy weekend that initially left me a little wary of the whole filmmaking process, but I feel like I learned a lot and when the opportunity arises again, I think I'll be ready for more.

Stepping It Up

Well, that snow they were forecasting never hit us. It hit all the areas around us, but all we got was sporadic rain throughout the week. A brief reprieve before the inevitable arrival of the real deal.

Tomorrow marks the first time in my filmmaking career that I'll be directing actors who weren't drawn by me. Yes, actual living, breathing human beings.
Larry asked me to direct some scenes for the upcoming Bullcrank film, currently titled either An American Werewolf in America or The Wimp Whose Woman Was a Werewolf. Larry loves the long titles.
I've spent the last few days making up storyboards and doing the things I suspect a director would do to prepare. It must have worked, as I feel prepared and surprisingly un-nervous. We'll be filming Saturday and Sunday. I'll most likely post a small update or two over the weekend.

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!

"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.

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:

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

The Common Truth

Kira's Office

Man on the Street Interviews

It Runs in the Family

Much like myself, my cousin, Jeff, has been bitten by the filmmaking bug. He's done a few short films for school so far and tonight, I saw his most recent one, Dog the Hallway Monitor. It cracked me up bigtime and I wanted to share it here. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOVZm4brDaE

I'm Feeling It

It's been snowing like crazy here for the past week. Maybe longer. It had been a virtually snowless and very mild winter up until recently. I guess the Snow Miser was saving it up to just bombard us, the frost-bitten little creep.



As a result of the nasty weather, I've remained cooped up in the house and not too thrilled about it. I'm itching to get out and do something, but alas, there's not much to do around here. I'm going stir-crazy. As soon as the snow lets up, I need to go see Pan's Labyrinth. I've been waiting for ages to check it out and it's finally showing at the local theater, likely thanks to all of its Oscar nominations.

One fortunate byproduct of my cabin fever is that I've been feeling really creative these last few days. I've been writing (first time in a while) and I've done some computer art, or as I call them, cyber paintings. I'll post one or two of them as soon as I decide whether or not they're finished. On top of that, it looks as though I'm helping Larry and the guys out with a few seconds of animation for an upcoming short film. More on that as it progresses.

It feels nice to be productive.

Expect more cool news later today. Possibly tomorrow. Definitely sometime this week.

Wow

As if the other day's Film Threat news wasn't cool enough, apparently Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face has been featured on their main page all day!

In case you look and it's not there anymore, I snapped a shot of it right here.
(click it for a larger version)

New Year, Same Jacob

It's tough to believe it's just over a week ago I rang in 2007 with my nerdiest New Year's celebration yet (I drank lots of wine and champagne with Mom and watched Short Circuit at 2 AM). It feels like ages ago. And Christmas was only two weeks ago? I'm telling you, time's gone all wonky.

Kris had surgery last week following the incident at the bar two weeks ago and is recovering nicely.

I've still been keeping busy with my project, which is rapidly nearing completion. I'm hammering out a few last details with the boss right now and I should wrap things up within the next few days. I'm pumped.

In other awesome news, the folks over at FilmThreat.com chose Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face as the 4th best short film of 2006! Check out the article here! It was pretty awesome news to wake up to yesterday. Thanks, guys!

I've been daydreaming about Niagara Falls again. Anybody wanna move there with me?

Today I'll leave you with a new commercial I'm enjoying quite a bit. It's a spot for Old Spice featuring a personal favorite of mine, Bruce Campbell. I'm really tempted to copy the decor (especially the neverending painting) when I redo my bedroom...

2006: The Year it Hit the Fan. Again. Hard.

Tonight, we find ourselves on the eve of 2007. All I can say is "it's about time."

I don't mean to be a downer, but I'm so happy to see 2006 go. I'm not saying nothing good has happened this year, but it sure has seemed everything good has come with a complimentary kick to the groin.

Behold.

The year started with the premier and surprisingly large success of Nintendo: OldSchool Revolution, but also with having to pay for repairs to my dear old iBook.

I spent a lot of time being creative and working on films, but ended up losing touch with friends, sometimes for months at a time, as everyone got caught up in their own lives.

I finished my work on Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face and our TV died after only 5 years.

I saw the fantastic final cut of Batman and the flood hit.

I went to Niagara Falls for my birthday and my iBook died. Again.

I caved in and bought a shiny new MacBook. Four months later, it had a drink and left me with the bill.

I went to Canada and had an amazing time with Chantal Kreviazuk & Raine Maida, but I was miserably sick the whole time.

My favorite holiday of the year, Christmas, came along and my brother had a nasty run in with some drunken, cowardly, lowlife thugs.

See what I mean?

2006 has left me drained, but I have high hopes for 2007. I'm going into the year working on a big, great project which will soon be revealed. It'll be followed up by more excellent projects, including helping Larry out on the upcoming sequel to Zombies in My Neighborhood.

Here's to a fantastic 2007 for everyone, filled with love, happiness, and success. Adios '06, see you in the funny papers.

Script Update

Weighing in at 95 pages long, this draft of the script is finished! I'm extremely pleased with it, but of course, it still needs some fine tuning.

I was a bit nervous sending it to Larry for feedback, but to my surprise, he really liked it. Larry's not one to hide it if he doesn't like a movie, so this was a big confidence boost for me.

Not quite sure what the next step is, but I'm excited.

Losers and Monkeys and Bats. Oh My.

After one week on iFilm, the films are doing pretty well. The Losers Have a Junkyard has chalked up 18,471 views so far at the moment I'm typing this, while Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face has been viewed 8,833 times and is currently the #1 most viewed animation in the past 7 days. A cool little bonus is that still hanging in at #3 is Nintendo: OldSchool Revolution, which is currently up to a total of 411,171 views. Thanks to everyone who's been watching!

I think Revolution spoiled me. In its first week online, it racked up over 200,000 views. I've been finding myself disappointed with Batman's numbers, thinking "Okay...only 8,000? What's the problem here?" Then I remind myself that a year ago I would have freaked at the thought of eight hundred people seeing my work would have freaked me out. No matter what the numbers, I'm extremely proud of Batman.

Another cool note, Batman and Losers are both officially listed on the Internet Movie Database! You can view the pages here and here.

I'm still plugging away at that script of mine. It's taking longer than I'd have liked, but I'd rather take a bit longer and get it right as opposed to rushing it at the cost of quality. Wow, with all this talk, this thing better not suck.

I watched Sin City again tonight and it's got me feeling the creative flow, not only because it's an awesome movie that was amazingly executed, but because, cheesy as it might sound, Robert Rodriguez inspires me.
I mean, the guy started out by basically being a guinea pig at a drug testing facility to make enough money to shoot his first feature. He worked his way up to where he is now because he loves doing what he does.
He's such a hands-on filmmaker, doing everything he can do himself to keep the films as close to his vision as possible. That's how I want to do things. It'd be torture for me to film a whole movie and then just pass it off to somebody else to edit.
His movies just get me pumped to make movies. Can you tell?

I'll end this post with something I have recently finished, the second installment of Ask the Reading Monkey! Enjoy!

Films Are Online!

Ladies and gentlemen, without any further delay, I'm proud to announce that Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face and The Losers Have a Junkyard are now online!
Go! Watch! Enjoy!
Oh, and just as a heads up, there's a little bit of strong language. So those of you who aren't into that, consider yourselves warned.

The Premier

Wow. What a day.

I don't even know where to begin.

Nervous energy prevented me from getting much sleep last night, so I'm running on fumes as I type this.

We got to Classic Fairways fairly easily, only making one wrong turn along the way. As soon as I got there, the meeting and greeting began. I said hello to everyone in Larry's group I had met before as well as those I hadn't, which was a bit odd, I've seen their films so many times I wasn't 100% sure whether or not I had met a few of them.

The place itself was really nice. Lots of space, really clean, big couches, a bar, and a bunch of enormous projection screens all around.

Shortly after 6 PM, the show began. Larry said a few words and The Losers Have a Junkyard started playing on all the screens.
The hard work put into Losers wasn't hard to see, Larry and his crew should be proud of themselves. The atmosphere, the music, every bit of it made for a really cool and fun short film.

Next up was Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face. Larry started to introduce it, I could hear him on the microphone, but I couldn't see him. I leaned over and whispered to Mom, "Where is he?"
She responded by pointing, behind me. I spun around and he was right there. Before I knew it, I had the mic and I was rambling off my thoughts on the cartoon. Considering I hate public speaking, I think I did alright on the mic, except I didn't have time to position myself, so I sort of had my back to most of the audience. Ah well, let's just say it was an artist's eccentricity.
After a brief hunt for the remote control, Batman began on the screens.
That was a very surreal moment. The project created entirely on my little 13" laptop was now being projected onto giant screens in every direction in front of over 100 people. And the people were loving it. They were laughing at all the right places, some even had tears in their eyes from laughing. The laughter was followed by applause, which was interrupted by the last joke during the credits, which was followed by more applause.
That was such a rush and absolutely worth all of the work.

The cast of Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face

After that, Larry had all of the other films playing. Zombies in My Neighborhood, Nintendo: OldSchool Revolution, Real Men of the Mat, The Eyeball Papercuts, and Tootsie Blow Pop along with some behind the scenes stuff and deleted clips.

Another surreal moment was watching the Johnny McCocky skit from Eyeball Papercuts with Andy Larsen, Johnny McCocky himself, standing 5 feet away.

In the hour or so following Batman, I said "Thank you" more than I ever have before. People kept congratulating me and saying how much they enjoyed the cartoon. What really caught me off guard was when people would introduce themselves as fans of my work.

I really don't even feel like I've done that much yet. I haven't even been doing this for a full year yet and I have fans? Cool!

Surrounding me from left to right- Allan Derby, Aaron Longstreth, Larry Longstreth, Clint George, and Vince Bruno

What a crazy and awesome day. I want to thank Larry again for bringing me into all of this wonderful madness. I also want to that everyone who came out to support us and see what we've been working on, I hope you all enjoyed myself.

The films should be online sometime tomorrow.

Now I'm gonna go kick back and relax.

PS- Sorry about the dark pictures, I'm looking into getting a new camera.

Pre-Show

Well, it's now the wee hours of Sunday morning. The big premier with Batman and Losers is tonight. About 12 hours from now.

When I started my work on Revolution back in late September, I never would have expected I'd have animated three short films and be having a premier in under a year. Sure, it's no Hollywood red carpet thing, but people will be coming to sit down and watch something I worked on and helped bring to life along with my new friends. Not many people can say they've had that experience.

I can't thank Larry enough for letting me get in on the game with his team.

I'm a big mix of nerves and excitement right now. This is too cool.

I better go rest up. I'll be sure to update on how things went when I get home tonight.

Premier Date!

Well, it's official. Sunday, August 13th is the official premier date for Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face and The Losers Have a Junkyard!
We're having an actual premier screening of both down in Stow and then both films should be available online later that evening.
If you'd like to attend the premier screening, contact me for details. There's an email link in my profile on the right side of the page.
Hope to see you there!