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!

Power of the Pop (Follow Up)

In its 24 hours of being featured on MySpace, Tootsie Blow Pop brought in a combined total of roughly 430,000 hits among all of our videos. That's the number of times Nintendo: OldSchool Revolution has had over the past year at iFilm. In one day.

Color me flabbergasted.

I love Tootsie Blow Pop, but it was really just an in-between-projects project, I don't think any of us ever expected it to trigger a surge anywhere near this size.

Wow. What a day.

In other news, my sinuses still hate me.

Power of the Pop

Looks like weird dreams aren't the only thing that can perk up a guy whose sinuses have declared war on him.

I was signing in on MySpace a little bit ago and found myself unexpectedly face to face with Mr Owl. Apparently one of the mighty Tom's many friends decided to feature Tootsie Blow Pop on the main page. This is a biggie, all of our videos are seeing a huge surge in views and it's only been a couple hours.


This definitely makes the uprising behind my face a bit more bearable.

Sinus Dreams

I've been fighting off some kind of sinus bug for the last few days, it finally got a hold of me last night. Needless to say, I hate being sick, but there's one rare aspect that does amuse me. I've found that when I'm sick, I have a tendency to have some pretty weird dreams. I woke up today feeling sick, but chuckling, as I had one of those dreams last night.

I was in a hotel somewhere with palm trees, possibly California. I was in a meeting there with two business type folks. One was a guy around thirty, he had blond hair and looked like he spent too much time in the sun. The other was a blond middle-aged woman who was trying her hardest to look twenty.

The meeting was all about them trying to get me on board to direct a documentary for them, though I don't recall the subject matter. I sat in disbelief as they insisted the documentary be fully scripted. I argued that it defeated the purpose of a documentary to script the whole thing, but my arguments were met with creepy fake smiles and further attempts to make me see their point of view.

I continued to decline and things eventually got heated. I kicked them out and said "Do you know what you call a scripted documentary? 'The Office.' When you decide to do it right, give me a call."

As I escorted them to the door, the dream's setting changed from a meeting room in the hotel to my hotel room. While closing the door behind them, I saw Tom Selleck in the hallway, walking past the elevator. I turned to Mom, who was packing our things, and calmly said "I think Tom Selleck just walked by", as if it was a completely normal thing to see.

Next thing I knew, I was waiting for Mom in the hotel lobby while she was getting the van. The lobby was enormous and looked more like an airport than a hotel. There was a group of about a half dozen girls in their late teens to early twenties sitting in a row of seats near me.

In the distance, a guy walks by and I hear a hushed commotion among the girls as they notice him. He looks vaguely familiar, with hair like Hurley from Lost, but less wild. I recognize he's an actor in movies and I overhear the girls call him Jason something. His last name had two syllables, the first syllable having a hard "A" sound.

A few minutes after walking by, he returns, this time just a few feet away. He looks around and starts calling out my name. Unsure of what's going on, I quietly say "that's me." To my surprise, he extends both hands, a newspaper in one, a pen in the other, and asks for my autograph.
Laughing to myself and unsure what to think, I bluntly ask "Are you bullshitting me?" He then tells me he's seen all my plays and is a big fan. Still caught a bit off guard, I assume he means the cartoons and I sign his paper.

"My first autograph,
thanks for this!
Jacob Drake"

My Achin' Head

I've got a cold. A nasty, all encompassing, annoying cold.

My sinuses are working like there's no tomorrow, my nose hurts, I feel the start of a tickle cough coming on, and my head just aches.

I woke up at 8 AM today. I think it's been about a year and a half since I've gotten up that early. It's a result of me falling asleep early last night, which was a result of not being able to sleep at all Saturday night.
I normally stay up all night working on my various projects and head to bed around 6 AM.

I'm all messed up.

I've realized one thing today: daytime TV blows. I've never gotten into The Price is Right, the kiddy shows on PBS are kind of terrifying, and they've changed Family Feud. John O'Hurley is the host now? Peterman?
I can't keep up.

Okay, I better get back to my orange juice.