Saturday, December 30, 2006

Animation 101

Watch and learn, young Jedi...

Thursday, December 28, 2006

A Joyful Yuletide


So we had a very Merry Christmas, as our 7th together, 6th married, and 1st with Ariel. She got a hippopatomus for Christmas, and in this picture it's eating her head.

Christmas Day in the afternoon, while Jay relaxed upstairs, I had a lovely time camped out on the couch watching some episodes from the first season of Saturday Night Live, which I got on DVD, including some awesome Simon & Garfunkel performances, Andy Kaufman bits, and the Land of Gorch Muppet sketches I've been wanting to see for years...so far most of them have been worth the wait. What struck me as pretty neat about watching them while Ariel slept on my stomach was that the show had its debut when I was a baby, and I know my parents were pretty big fans of the show, so it made think that these shows might have been watched under similar circumstances with me and them. Also fascinating pieces of history.

This week has been spent with a few various outings, working on the film (it's my goal to finish in 2007), and playing with Ariel so Jay can get some rest too. Thanks to lovely Santa Jay, I now have the complete DVD set of Monty Python's Flying Circus so there's been much viewing of that while animating. Life doesn't get much better than this.

Today we went birdwatching at the Reifel Sanctuary, which I haven't done in a very long time so it was nice to get back into it. I'd like to make it a more regular occurance if possible. Here's a list of what we saw, and a few pictures: Trumpeter Swan, Wood Duck, Pintail, Green-Winged Teal, Widgeon, Bufflehead, Fox Sparrow, White-Crowned Sparrow, Rufous-Sided Towhee, Black-Capped Chickadee, American Coot, Black-Crowned Night Heron, Bald Eagle, Gray-Headed Junco, Red-Winged Blackbird, and a few others I wasn't sure of.





Sunday, December 24, 2006

Christmas Vacation


It is SO nice to officially be on vacation for awhile! Yesterday, after hitting the shops for foodstuffs early enough to beat most of the heavy traffic, I resolved to spend the rest of the day doing absolutely NOTHING...that is, until it was time to go out for dinner. Dinner is important, especially Christmas dinner.

So anyway, the afternoon was spent with a variety of cartoon-watching and exposing Ariel to higher culture. Here we are enjoying one of Daddy's favorites from 1950s Disney, A Cowboy Needs a Horse.

And now it's Christmas Eve and we've had a double-dose of church services, so now it's time for more food and cartoons in our jammies. What a truly magical feeling with Christmas as a little family this year, and each year shall be more amazing.

To top it all off, after a wonderfully spiritually engaging and uplifting service tonight with incredible music and a powerful message, and driving around Ladner to see the festive light displays adorning the houses of families awaiting Santa and his magic, we arrive home and approach our humble abode while a sweet smell permeates from a neighbor's deck giving a new meaning to Angels we Have Heard on High...

...or perhaps the old Dr. Demento standard Frosty the Dopeman would be more appropriate.

To all a good night!

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

More videos

For a very cute video of Ariel getting a serenade from a special green friend, visit Jay's blog, where it's already posted:

http://thisisthegreatadventure.blogspot.com/2006/12/ariel-and-kermit_20.html

...and after wiping your tears away, you can marvel at the latest dialogue exercise from my talented students.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Monkeys!

History in the making! The creepiest puppet film ever made makes its internet debut, thanks to YouTube and a certain obsessive animation fan who calls himself "Scuzzbopper"...

Spread the evil far and wide!



...and speaking of cute but creepy monkeys (...actually one of them is more cute than creepy)...


Friday, December 01, 2006

What's This? What's This?

Our neighborhood looks like Halloween Town invading Christmas Town this week, as there is a feature film called Trick or Treat being shot here, and everything is all decked out like it's Halloween, but with snow. Pretty funny to see.




'Happy Halloween!' 'Merry Christmas!'

An Evening for Stop-Motion

This past Wednesday was the SIGGRAPH Event for Stop-Motion in Vancouver, featuring myself, Anthony Scott, Larry Bafia and Peter Muyzers. We had an amazing turn-out despite the nasty snow warnings, and the whole evening went really well.

I presented some of my animation from Snot Living and my various indie projects, plus some of my students' work, followed by a short 15-minute history of stop-motion creature effects. Anthony and Larry presented retrospectives on their stop-motion careers, along with some amazing behind-the-scenes footage from Nightmare, Corpse Bride and Vinton Studios. A panel discussion with all of us followed. Also sold and autographed at least a dozen copies of my book! It was a great night, and nice to see Larry again and meet Anthony and Peter in person.

There's been talk of doing more events like this in the future, so stay tuned!