april 9, 2007
watched the new footage for the first time friday, it's pretty good though all over the map. got my work cut out for me. scenes too long, scenes too short, some shots just trying to cram too much in at once instead of just letting it breathe on its own. rusty + overly excited but shapeable. really eager to dive in now. hope to be back in photography with some reshoots and more new stuff in a week. tonight animating a guy attacking a bear. this is a good read: pearls before breakfast
march 31, 2007
at the risk of sounding overly humble, "everything will beok" has really been raking in the awards. wait, that wasn't humble at all. while i try not to place a lot of stock in awards, i do get tremendous satisfaction from crushing all the other filmmakers, seeing them driven into the ground before me, and hearing the lamentation of their women.
kinda been back in the old swing of things here. some nights i animate, some nights i shoot, some nights i wander the streets without my pants. after tomorrow i'll have 800 feet of film in the can, which is maybe 1/3 of the movie. planning to be back in LA soon for its telecine and at the same time will do some final patchwork on OK's picture before we start putting together a DVD for that one. meanwhile i think i've come up with the title and the opening scene for chapter 3. we've been raising butterflies. we had ten of them and then they all laid eggs and then we let them go. they are tiny little blue eggs and at first we were awww! but then the little bastards kept on laying them and we were whaa? and they seriously laid about a hundred of them, everywhere. if you don't hear from me again i have been devoured by caterpillars. i bought a brown hoodie and its my new best friend. i might be traveling overseas this summer
march 12, 2007
all the switches tested ok so we installed a new up/down motor under the animation stand. the old one was still ok but thought something was wrong with the wiring which would take too long to troubleshoot. the new motor seemed fine but the belt kept slipping from the column's spinwheel whenever it struggled to go up, sending the camera crane hurtling to earth. discovered we'd not bolted in the motor tight enough and it was angrily fishtailing around in there. so i got it locked at a happy angle that keeps the belt in place but not before electrocuting myself again in all the excitement, this time with both hands pawing at some unknowndusty exposed wiring underneath the belly of the beast. i figure this camera stand will eventually either kill me one day or fortify me with electro-superpowers. anyway back in the saddle now and have been shooting for the last fivenights and tonight was surprised to learn i have about 5-6 minutes of finished material so far. cool
march 5, 2007
austin still doesn't disappoint. i don't think i've eaten so much cheese in one weekend before. the reflections of sunlight off the traffic twelve stories below cast kaleidoscope bands across the ceiling. we saw a parade and daniel johnston. the screeningswere a lot of fun, thanks and hello to everybody. very late after the final screening last night we had a large hotel picnic and watched the jesus documentary. here are pictures
february 28, 2007
shooting's delayed til next week, i ran into a little trouble with the camera crane the other night and i think i just need to get a little switch replaced. i tried monkeying with the control panel but forgot to turn off the power first and electrocuted myself. my hand grew a burny scar bump where it got shocked. but i bet if i popped it open there's candy inside
february 26, 2007
while sitting here printing photos i think i just came up with that final thing chapter 2 needed and i really like it... one last layer that sorta anchors things and adds the extra depth i was missing.
i'm probably gonna toss out this other scene now in the last half that was a little too abstract & half baked fuzzy in my head and giving me trouble. good deal. i might start shooting the first roll maybe tuesday, i just need to finish organizing these sets of stills for some of the opening shots. getting exciting. i gotta stop staying up to 6:30 though. see ya this weekend in austin
february 15, 2007
i think i'll be ready to prep shooting the first couple minutes of chapter two this weekend, just gotta get through printing and organizing a few more rounds of these still photos. the script just seems to be missing one last puzzle piece ... compared to "OK", so far it all seems to be shaping up as: funnier, darker, weirder, darker, funnier, darker, darker, darker, darker... down into the rabbit hole we fall.... spanning a lot of time both before and after the events in "OK". i think i'm gonna be shooting and animating this movie in little chunks as i go to get everything to film as soon as possible... usually i let it all stack up for a while but i've got a bunch of leftover kodak stock still hanging out in the fridge that i don't want to expire on me and i'm also kinda concerned that all this pencil art will start to fade or something if i let it bum around for too long. after all the travel and getting sick it actually took me a little while to get re-organized with where i was at on all this... i had pretty rough bronchitis, my lungs sounded like loud honking bagpipes that brought patriotic tears to the eyes of all nearby scotsmen. there are still occasional hairballs but i'm mostly back in action. anyway more news on the way soon. i think the mailing list is currently broken but we'll try and have a summary up somewhere. see ya in pasadena
january 28, 2007
hey what the hell, we won sundance. amazing. jenna was wiped out with the flu yesterday and i just figured i'd go to the awards thing alone and check it out. this was a good idea. somehow i managed to whip up some sort of speech and was then whisked into tv interviews where after a brief struggle they took away my 10 pound orange cube trophy for engraving, which i believe i will eventually fashion into a belt buckle. there was lots of free ice cream. "rejected" and "meaning of life" failed to even win a cup of coffee out here in their day and i'm told it's a rare thing indeed for animation to slay all the dragons and become the sundance grand wizard champion, so that's pretty cool. unfortunately today i'm the sick one. there's another special awards screening of "OK" tonight that i am going to do my best to crawl out to, but it's looking about 50/50 right now depending on if this fever breaks, else i end up fielding questions from imaginary animals and phantoms and drape myself across the front row. it is home tomorrow for the santa barbara film fest and then out to chicago i think.
january 24, 2007
here are pictures from the first six days of sundance. it's been warming up a little, tonight's temp was a balmy 8. screenings going well but nobody so far can beat our seattle audiences. all the movies we've seen so far have been great. tonight jared leto tried to hit me with a shopping cart
january 17, 2007
hello from a very cold seattle. am writing to you from backstage - literally - at the 2nd night of the animation show here, final screening. what is it about dark and musty backstages that i love so much? i'm happy to say that the digital projection the touring crew has put together looks really great. it is a tad unforgiving with the contrast in a couple shots of "OK" but that's my only quibble. everyone's responses so far to "OK" have been phenomenal - this is the first i've seen it with an audience - and i am so happy to see it connect with all of you and really enjoy hiding in the back and watching it all unfold. going digital this year has meanwhile allowed us to program and re-program the lineup with a lot more freedom, in fact one final title was added to the mix just a few days before the premiere. last night's opening went well and today i tackled some more interviews from the hotel and went to the art museum where they have that preserved dead body anatomy display thing which was pretty cool though the hall of birth defects was a bit rough. here are pictures. tomorrow it's sundance. stay warm.
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