Updatery

I know I'm ridiculously overdue for an update, so let's fix that, shall we?

I'm still working my butt off on The Greatest Fan Film of All Time. I still love how it's looking, though it's still taking forever. I tallied it up a couple weeks ago and found I have well over twenty minutes of it animated. I'd expect that would make the finish line feel closer, but so far no dice. I'm currently working on the major action scene of the film. Once that's finished, I think I'll start to feel good.

I'm still frequenting the movie theater when I need a break. As I anticipated, I'm a big fan of Wall-E. Cool story, amazing visuals, very touching, Pixar didn't let me down.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army was a blast and a great followup to the first.

Hancock was just okay for me. It was fun and had it's cool moments, but I wasn't blown away. I liked it though.

The Dark Knight, as I'm sure most of you know, is a beast. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed seeing a movie as much as I enjoyed that midnight screening. Eric, Jeff, Mikey, Mo and I were there in the sold out theater for the first showing. Everyone there was pumped and we even had a Robin and a Nightwing in attendance. Turns out I actually knew Nightwing.
The movie itself was great. Intense, dark, and managed to surprise me several times. I'm looking forward to a few more viewings.

DailyMotion has been awesome and very supportive of our films. After they gave Nintendo: OldSchool Revolution a couple months back (giving it an additional 89,000+ views so far), they ended up showing it at a screening at their offices last week. It's pretty wild to think that the project I animated nearly three years ago was just shown on a rooftop in New York City. Craziness. A million thanks to Aimee.

Even crazier, I got an email requesting I submit Sex Love and Honey to the Anim'est International Animation Film Festival in Bucharest, Romania. I still can't process that people on the other side of the world have seen my work and are even requesting it.
Now as part of the submission, I need to create a press kit for myself. That ought to be bizarre.

Who wants more baby Matthew pictures?

Also, some long overdue pictures of my autographed prize from Stan Lee, which turned out to be a poster for The Incredible Hulk.

I'll have to find a prime spot on my wall for this beauty.

Time, Frames, and Time Frames

Funny to think that one year ago our basement was subaqueous. It really seems like all of that happened ages and ages ago. Why does this year seem to be dragging along? Maybe because I've kept consistently busy, though I'd think that would make time fly by.

Busy is how The Girl and the Ghost has been keeping me. I had a period of a couple weeks where my creativity put up the "Gone fishin'" sign, but I'm back in business. More voice work is on its way from afar and I'm a big mix of nerves and excitement to finally hear it. The animation's looking great, though I'm starting to doubt I'll have it ready by the Los Angeles Animation Festival. I'm not going to sacrifice the quality of it just to submit it to one festival, I'm still going to try my best though, we'll see.

This week has been fairly interesting, as I've done most of my animating while under the influence of Benadryl, thanks to an annoying allergy uprising. It gets the job done wonderfully, but the drowsy factor can be a tricky thing. I'm surprised how well I've managed to work through it, it's like the drowsiness doubles as an automatic-animation-mode and before I know it, hours (and a depressingly low number of frames) have passed.

I passed the 300 hour mark today.

Back to work. Full steam ahead. Kick the tires and light the fires. Go Team Venture!

Jacob in Print, Batman in Jersey, Frylock in My Yard

I did an email interview last Monday for a small Spotlight piece that runs in a bunch of newspapers around the area. April Helms did the interviewing (I did the answering, of course) and not being a fan of talking on the phone, I quite liked the email-based method. I met April last year as she did a story on the premier of Batman and Losers. None of the papers are available in my neck of the woods, but April was kind enough to send a copy my way, I'm looking forward to checking it out. It actually ran on April Fool's Day. Oddly fitting for this goofball, no?

I got an email back in January from Jay Wulff. He told me he's hosting the Kevin Smith Fan Fest and asked for a DVD so they could screen Batman, so I sent him the nearest handy DVD with the cartoons on it. He sent me a note tonight to remind me that the fest is next Saturday, April 14th. Looking at the lineup, I was surprised to see that not only are they showing Batman's Gonna Get Shot in the Face, but also Nintendo: OldSchool Revolution and Tootsie Blow Pop.
Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it out for the fest, but if you're in the Franklin, New Jersey area, swing by, support the event, and have some fun!

In similar news, Larry was contacted a couple weeks ago and told that they want a screener of Batman for the 16th Annual St. Louis International Film Festival (November 8th-18th). How awesome is that?

I'm working hard on The Girl and the Ghost these days. We haven't even recorded voice work yet, but there's still plenty for me to do before that. It's coming along slowly, but I'm loving the look more and more.

Once again, the weather's going from 70s to snow this weekend, but it was enjoyable while it lasted. One odd thing happened during the warm spell. While outside, I noticed our rake bears an uncanny resemblance to Frylock from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. What do you think?

A Night At The Movies

Being the good Corrs fan that I am, when I heard the new movie featuring Andrea Corr would be playing at the Cleveland International Film Festival, there was no question about whether or not I'd be attending. I bought the tickets last week, so Mom, Dad, Grandma, and I were all set to see The Boys & Girl From County Clare. We were on our way to Tower City Cinemas, which, appropriately enough, is right across the street from where I first saw The Corrs in concert one magical night last August.

I was pumped, this was going to be my first film festival experience! I tend to have an overactive imagination at times...okay, most of the time. I pictured a big, fancy, classy event. It wasn't a spectacle or anything, but it was cool.

It began with the hunt for the preferred parking for the festival, of course it wasn't where it was supposed to be, but we made due. We found a little valet garage and headed in.
It was funny actually waiting in a line to get into a movie, the only other times I've experienced that was for the Lord of the Rings and the Star Wars movies.

We got into the theater and made it to our seats right away. It was a really nice old theater, but because it was old, the design bugged me a bit. I'm a fan of sitting about halfway down or in the front of theaters, older theaters always seem to only have disabled seating in the back. Sucky, but oh well. We sat there and listened to the movie junkies running around to their friends and comparing the number of movies they had seen that day and giving their "expert" opinions on which ones were and weren't worth seeing. They rambled on and on for a while as I sat and thought to myself "I wonder if the film Zoe and I are working on will be showing here next year?"

Before the film started, there were a few speakers. One was a lady associated with the CIFF and the other two were sponsors. One of the sponsors grew up in Dublin and ran an Irish pub/restaurant in downtown Cleveland. It cracked me up listening to him talk as he kept pronouncing the word "film" as "fil-um." When they finished introducing the film, the exited to the back of the theater and out the door right next to where I was sitting. As the door closed behind them, I heard the one sponsor say to the Irish guy "Since when does 'film' have two syllables?" I busted up as Irish guy laughed. The lights went down and the projector whirred, illuminating the screen.

Ninety minutes, many laughs, and several "what'd they say?"s later (hey, the Irish talk fast), the credits rolled, the lights went up, and the audience applauded. As the crowd filtered out, we voted on our little ballots to say what we thought of the movie. It was funny, fun, highly enjoyable, and I got to see one of my favorite singers on a thirty foot high screen, do you even have to ask how I voted?

Halfway back to the van, we all suddenly realized we had to pee. Thus began the quest for the open bathroom! The four of us searched through three floors, bladders ready to burst, before a security guard told us they were all locked. It makes no sense that the Tower City mall closes all of their bathrooms at 9 PM, especially when there's a film festival going on. Plus the food court right next to the theaters was closed at 9, that seems insane. When you come out of a movie, you're hungry, they would've raked in the dough!
Anyway, we ended up running into a bathroom in a restaurant at the Ritz Carlton, which is connected to the mall. One word: swanky. I'm easily impressed when a bathroom has actual cloth towels and motion sensor toilets I guess. Too much information? Too bad, my blog. ;)

Great movie, great fun, great night. One way or another, I WILL be at next year's Cleveland International Film Festival. See ya there?

-Jacob

Rollin' On

For those site visitors who may not know, I'm disabled and in a wheelchair, hence the title of my blog. I've had this last chair for a whopping twelve years. They don't even make this kind of chair anymore. Vintage, baby. I've bonded with the chair, we've gone a lot of places together and done a lot of things, but the fact is she's getting old. As much as I hate to retire her, it's time to bring in some new wheels.

Back in October we set things in motion to get me a new ride. We met with the folks at the wheelchair place, discussed what I needed, chose a chair model, and most importantly, chose the color. Midnight blue, ooh yeah. They put the case into the system and said they'd call us in four to six months.

A few weeks ago we got the call. A mix of excitement and dread came over me. I tried to let the excitement win out, but it wasn't that easy. Past experiences gave dread the edge. When getting past wheelchairs, my family and I have spent literally all day there as I was fitted and the chairs were customized. I wasn't in the mood for that again.

Three weeks ago I went for the first fitting. It was eight hours of doing our best to get this chair customized to my body. Seven of those eight hours were spent trying to get the back support right. After those seven hours they finally actually listened to me and tried the arrangement I suggested. What a surprise, it worked. At the end of the day there was a lot left to do, so we had to schedule a second fitting.

Monday we went back for part two. It was a short day, only seven hours. It was actually a fairly smooth day, we got the seat, supports, and controls set up as best we could and they let me leave with the new chair. It was the only true test for the chair, to see how I could function in my daily life with it. After we left, Mom and I decided to take it for a test drive at Target. Let me tell you, this thing moves like a bat out of hell and turns on a dime. Day one was a success. The following days were not quite as smooth.

The next day it felt like someone had messed with everything in the chair, though that wasn't the case. Everything about it was uncomfortable and I couldn't even sit in it.

Wednesday I decided to suck it up and head out in the chair again to give it another try. This is when it dawned on me that nobody must actually test these designs very thoroughly. The chair is designed to help take bumps easier. The front wheels are mounted on little arms that raise em when they hit a bump so that the big center wheels can take the brunt of it. Brilliant idea! The only problem? The motor is mounted so low on the chair the entire thing scraped across the bump! Talk about canceling out a great idea. The rest of the day went well as I went to the Cleveland International Film Festival, you can read more about that in my next blog.

Yesterday I did my best to compile a list of what all needs to be fixed. After fifteen hours of work, it's frustrating to have so many things still need to be fixed, but the fact is I should be more comfortable in the new chair, not in more pain. We've got to get it right. For the thousands of dollars chairs like this cost, there's no reason for this much discomfort and struggle. Mentally I'm not ready to go back for more work, but I've got to do what I've got to do. Wish me luck, gang.

And now, though it's a day late, here's a little cartoon by yours truly. Enjoy!



-Jacob