Bring It On!

So we had a pretty kick-ass weekend. Friday night was a BBQ at the Funks' house with members of the worship team and other delightful church folk. Apparently the rumour was leaked to our new worship pastor that I used to play the drums, so perhaps when the dust settles at some point, I'll get to do that. Whoa...is...me...I feel like a splintered drumstick.
It was a fantastic evening and there are no better people on this planet.

Saturday was Marcy & Stephen's wedding, which was lovely. We got to see Mike's apartment as well, way up high overlooking the beauties of downtown Richmond and a big kitty litter box where people apparently like to draw...pictures. Yes, I like waking up to big...pictures too.
Anyway, fun fun fun was had by all. At the reception location there was another reception going on as well, and some of the groomsmen were sending drunks from there into their dance floor. Experiments in human behavior make celebrations of true love more interesting.

Sunday was church, bridal shower for Jo, and birthday dinner for Bill Matthews at French restaurant downtown. Spent awhile wandering the area around Robson/Denman where I used to live; not much to see there. Dinner was nice...Bill Matthews had an interesting comment about my book...he said, after just reading the introduction and skimming through it cover to cover, he thinks it is "to puppet animation today what Preston Blair's book was to cartoon animation in the 1940s." That is a comment you take to the bank! I'm still reeling from that one.

This evening I showed a stop-motion film retrospective at the school to tie-in with the release of my book, including It's a Bird, The Mascot, Revolt of the Toys, Do-it-Yourself Cartoon Kit, Closed Mondays, A Christmas Gift, Crosspaths, Creature Comforts and The Peanut Vendor.

Speaking of stop-motion, apparently our baby is very healthy and growing to Kong-sized proportions. Hopefully the theory that they eat and sleep better will ring true. There is a chance that a window delivery is inevitable, so we'll see what happens; we just want her here now, and just got back from a long walk to see if we can get the engine going.

And now, a sign.

New Arrival #1

From out of my hands, to into my hands! My first copy of the actual book arrived today, and I am happy. The publishers did a fantastic job laying it out and making it look awesome. The paper is good quality, it's a comfortable size, small but frickin' thick! I can't believe I wrote all of this in 6 months, but of course it was also due to plenty of divine intervention and generous assistance from so many others, especially Jay.

Order yours today!

Now we're just waiting for Arrival #2, also small but frickin' thick from the feel of things. Still continuing to drop...next week? two weeks? We shall see!

Today was pretty awesome, as I spent the day with Chris Carter (not the X-files guy) to go through the footage for the next VanArts DVD. We got some good stuff...man it's exhausting work just watching videos. Then we headed over to Backbone Entertainment to shoot interviews with some of the grads working there. During a time when some of us are nervous about stuff going on at work, today really solidified what a grand history the school has had, and why it should keep doing what it does best. Many of these guys were kids when I first met them, and now they're so grown up. There were even people who I didn't know were working there, like Jose, who I was hoping I would run into soon. It was a blast, like a reunion of old souls. Quite an amazing visit.

Hold on tight...

Drumroll please...

So today I found out that the book has finally arrived at the warehouse (all 4000+ of them), so I should get a copy this week, and our baby is measuring at 40 weeks, still dropping, so could be ready to arrive at any moment. Feeling incredibly anxious and excited about both.

Last night I had ribs. That is also very good news.

Approaching the Southern Oracle of Life

Found out today that Ariel is starting to drop, so it could be a few weeks, or one, two weeks, we don't know...depends on her agenda. Sooner would be good, as it's freakin hot around here.

Cars Review

Saw Cars yesterday and posted a review on Hollywood Jesus.

5 Years!

Ah yes, 5 years ago today I married my best friend. Today we had a very relaxing time, going out for breakfast, walking around town, hanging around the house together, and going out to an amazing dinner at La Belle Auberge, including our first taste of smoked kangaroo! Yes, that's right, kangaroo. We also watched our wedding video and laughed and cried together. It's amazing to watch; seems so long ago and yet still so close. I am still the happiest and most blessed person on Earth to be with Jay. I'm so proud of her and look forward to seeing her as a mom...she's going to be great. Watching our video also reminded me of how wonderful our families are, both in blood and in friendship. Life is good today, very good.

Looking forward

Ahh, the calm after one storm and before another...

Just had another group of students start at work, and the summer group next week. Lots of drama, don't really want to get into it. Too much to say. Makes my brain hurt. Always feel drained after an intake starts. Luckily this weekend is a holiday with three entire days off. The first one being our 5-year anniversary...finally made it to a whole hand!

Thought Baby might be doin' a tap dance inside but turns out she's still breakdancing doing a head spin...yep, if all goes well she will leave through the door instead of the window. The room is finally all finished, complete with chair, crib, poop table and the ever important bookcase.

...and here is our stroller, with stunt baby testing it out and checking for things like good airbag control, wind resistance, flux capacitor and coffee holder all functioning properly, not to mention getting the coordinates from the Nava computer, since travelling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, as we all know without precise coordinates the baby might fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that would end her trip real quick.

What does one say about this?

Ok, I am scared but intrigued. Disturbing hypnotic Disney toys from Japan...possibly some kind of brainwashing device? Remember, this is the same country that brought us 'The Ring.'

Be afraid.....Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance!

I should become a dumb athlete

I played the game of "Life" for the first time this evening! I know, I'm a little behind the times I guess. I still don't like Monopoly either. Life was fun though; I got to be a dumb athlete who got repeated speeding tickets and somehow had my salary change from $70k to $40k overnight, but I still got to retire with over $1 million! Maybe I should forget writing and animation and kick a ball around.

Cut, Print, That's a Wrap!

It's official, the book has finally been shipped to the printers, so it's officially out of my hands! All that is left is batting ideas around for marketing, which I've already made suggestions for, so it's up to the publishers to work it. I feel strangely empty yet fulfilled, and it's hard to believe I no longer have to pick away at this thing at night. I find just doing nothing rather satisfying and I have an itching urge to watch Star Wars, which I think I will do tomorrow on the bus. That is random and I have no idea why.

Anyway, here is the cover, before a minor punctuation adjustment at bottom:

Already available for pre-order at Amazon.com and available July 18!

Baby still kicking like the Flashdance video these days. Tonight she practically womped my hand away. Jay is really uncomfortable cuz the weather is getting warmer, fog is getting thicker, Leon is getting larger, and so is she. 7 weeks to go, so we're praying for an early arrival.

Tick tick tick...

Coming down

It's been another lazy Sunday for us, other than an outdoor church service and May Days parade with donuts and coffee. I've been feeling really gross the past few days with a cold-fluish type thing. Not sure where I caught it, but I attribute part of it to climate change and coming down off the high from working so hard on the book these past few months. All of the CD material got sent off the other day, and all chapters minus the introduction have been approved and fine-tuned by me and the editors. I've seen proofs for the first four chapters, and it looks fabulous...like a real book! It's all very exciting and extremely surreal.

Baby is still kicking alot and we can't wait for her to be here. Scheduled family visits are starting to take place; Mom and brothers will be here in August for about a week, and I'm assuming Dad, Grandpa and hopefully Francie & Shucree sometime in the Fall. Our plans at this point are to go to Michigan in the Spring, but will have to be before or after the dates in March when Dan is going to Europe, the lucky guy. I'm excited for him.

Now that the book is out of the way, I'm starting to focus back on the film again. Backgrounds will be started soon and a few scenes have been farmed out for in-betweening. The documentary project is still hanging over my head too, and I'm not sure when that will see the light of day. It mainly requires getting our computer fixed up first. Who knows, I'm sure I'll know when the time is right to attempt making it into something, perhaps just a short film of sorts. I'd also like to put Snot Living on DVD soon, as soon as I get a working transfer from Steve. Lots to do...

Long Weekend Ketchup

Time to ketchup on recent events.

A few weeks ago I had a radio interview on CBC Radio, and I'm still waiting on getting a recording of it, either from the Reel Youth festival people or from CBC. When I get a copy I'll post it here. It was a lot of fun...I love doing radio...takes me back to old WCBN daze.

Author review time for the book going well...I have to get going on the CD material very soon, as I'm running out of time for it.

My brain is...hold on a second...that's better. My brain is pretty full with lots of things these days: work, baby, book, films, eating. Our baby has been kicking and dancing up a storm lately, and many a relaxing night between business has been spent on the couch feeling it move while all of the good TV shows wrap up their series finales. We are at the point where we would rather have it here than inside there. Already preparing myself pretending there's a little person in the house. It's all new so I don't really know how to act, other than being supportive and excited, and take it as it comes.

Luckily today is a day off, so here is something to give the brain a rest...

Lucas, Rest In Peace

Lucas

1993-2006

Very sad news from this week...a four-legged member of the family went to Doggie Heaven. He was a constant source of entertainment and the cutest dog I've ever had the privilege to know. It's surreal and sad when a dog dies; I remember when Tyler died it was weird not having him in the house anymore. The neat thing about Lucas is that we were given a pretty urn to hold his ashes which is sitting in the sun on our windowsill, so now our landlord can't say anything about having a dog in the apartment. He's finally living with us, and we can actually feel his presence.

Lucas was really Jay's dog, so she has a much more detailed and heartfelt tribute on her blog. But I miss him too.

Photos, Killer Plants, and a Weekend Getaway

So this has been an eventful week! Wednesday night we had a maternity photo shoot done by Maria at Frozen Reflections, who did our photo shoot from last Spring. It was fun...Jay didn't wear much. We will have some nice pictures for various baby albums and scrapbooks now, plus a few that only arty folk like us will see.

Thursday night, after a frustrating day at work, was seeing my favorite musical Little Shop of Horrors done by the local high school. A couple guys from our Youth Group were involved in the production, as well. For a high school production, they did a fantastic job, even better then the rendition I saw at UofM. It was nice to see it done with a real talking plant, rather than a giant pod with a girl in a green leotard coming out. It reminded me of how brilliant the lyrics are in that show, and there were extra songs not included in the movie that were just as good. I found myself almost tearing up during 'Somewhere That's Green'...the 50s references are awesome and make it nostalgic but classic. The one song I noticed they cut was 'Mean Green Mother' which was fine, because it's not a very strong song. It works well in the movie, but I think given the dark tone of the play near the end it would have seemed out of place, so I'm glad they cut it. Now I want to watch the movie again...and again.

...and again.

Now we are in Victoria and you are not, unless you live here, hi.....for a much-needed getaway. Not sure what we're going to do today, except eat at Chandlers and have tea, shop, etc. whatever. Ok time to go.

That's all she wrote

Apparently Jay is telling me she's going to out-blog me, so I guess I'd better starting updating this site more...not sure what I get if I win, but I bet it's good.

Anyway, for all intents and purposes, the book is DONE! Or at least there is no more new material to be written or pictures to take. Now begins the process of editing, writing up bibliographies and whatnot, fine tuning kind of stuff, and also preparing movies for the CD that comes with it. Now perhaps I can actually start to watch movies, hang out with Jay and have a social life. Pretty overwhelming that all of this stuff I've been doing is going to be out there being read by thousands of people I may never meet. But again, it's kind of like this blog, if anyone reads it.

Today I need to clean up all of the mess I've left around the house while working on books and puppets. This is why we need a big house so I can have my own workshop for this kind of stuff. Here is a sneak preview of some of the puppets I've built to include in the book.

I've been finally getting to feel the baby kick, which is neat. Doesn't always work, she tends to stop when I put my hand there expecting to feel something. Tricky little thing. Sounds like trouble. I don't believe in karma, but I think there might be something to that 'what goes around comes around' theory when it comes to having children. But that's life I guess. All the good stuff about us will be there too. We've already been wondering which characteristics our kids will have. Guess we find out in about 15 weeks or so!

Ariel in 3D!

Meet Ariel Lynn Priebe...in eye-popping 3D!

After technical difficulties during our first visit, we returned to get the rest of our sneak-peek at our little girl. This time the technical difficulties were presented not by their equipment, but by the baby, who had her back turned most of the time. Jay had to eat chocolate and run up and downstairs to see if it would coax our little bean sprout to turn around. After much prodding, we did manage to get a good enough profile so we could get some shots of her face, before she turned around again. Think this will be a difficult child?

Anyway, this is all very exciting and we can't wait to see her leave her womb service hotel to enter the real world. Here's her feet! She got long legs like Daddy.

In other news, I'm taking a few days off work to finish my book and build puppets, and enjoy the Easter weekend activities with family. Last night we finished up a successful wire armature puppet, and over the next few days will be attempting a latex build-up character. I recently discovered the joys of YouTube and have posted some of my students' work online, and it's a big hit over at the StopMotionAnimation.com message board.

Back to writing...

Everything Else

Here's everything else that's going on....I'm currently in the final stretch for my book, and I see many long nights & days ahead. Through it all I've been connecting with lots of big stop-motion people granting permission to use images. I got an email from Will Vinton, who I'm still awaiting more contact with, which is really neat. Also got a personal letter from Ray Harryhausen, and am currently negotiating rights for images with Ladislas Starewitch's granddaughter. I've been toying with the idea of an entire book of interviews with stop-motion animators as a follow up to this one, so we'll see what happens there.

I had a tape sent to me from home with all of my raw Snot Living footage on it. It's been fun looking through it all and remembering what a challenge making that film was, and how much fun. I miss working with film; it has such a better look than video. Too bad it's so expensive and impractical compared to today's digital tools. Perhaps one day I'll get the opportunity again to shoot something that way.

I went to Alberta for a few days for more info sessions and got to see Mike Trudy and the boys; they're so cute.

Yesterday I had an amazing experience doing a stop-motion workshop at a small private school in Victoria. There were three kids, grades 6 to 8, who want to start a stop-motion club and make films. It was truly inspirational to see the potential audience for my book, so passionate about what they were doing, and very talented. One of the kids in particular, this 6th grader named Julian, was going on about and reacting to comments about Svankmeyer, Metropolis, Clockwork Orange, Eraserhead and all of these other films which I'm sure nobody else his age knows about. I told him 'you probably shouldn't be watching all of those films, but I'm glad you are!' I was absolutely delighted...gave me a glimpse of what our kids will probably be like, unless they get too much art & film from us and want to be stockbrokers instead. I would love to be able to help kids make films as a career someday; perhaps down the road I'll have the opportunity.

Today I saw the most brilliant short film I've ever seen, right here:

Steve did some animation on it and told me to check it out. The film made me laugh and cry; such a fantastic piece of work, and gave me a burst of inspiration to get my film done sometime soon and get it out there. Gonna see if Steve and his partner can help me get it colored in.

Better get back to the book, and will try to blog more amongst all of everything.

Doesn't look like Skeletor anymore

Here's baby update again. A few weeks ago we went to the 3D ultrasound place but their equipment wasn't working right, so we had to reschedule, and we're going back there April 12. The trip wasn't a total waste, cuz we found out it looks like we're having...

...a girl!

We're very excited; I'm already telling her she's not allowed to date or get on the back of a motorcycle. Today we had another 2D ultrasound pictured above, and she did a big stretch with a yawn, and scratched the back of her head. Profile looks like both of us, since Jay and I have the same profile anyway, so no surprises there. She's been kicking alot, but I haven't felt it yet. Sure I will before too long, and people say you can usually see little lumps poking around sometimes. This is so cool.

Baby!

Here's Baby's pictorial debut!

This is so cool...we created a little person. Weird eh? The radio was playing that 'Walking in Memphis' song when I saw it on the screen for the first time. I'm not sure why that's significant, but it's a good song so now it actually has meaning. So yay!

Today is nasty cold rainy windy blah but it's a day off work, so time to write. Gotta meet a deadline.

Overdoo Blog

I'm finally out from under my rock. It's been a crazy busy time lately, what with book writing, stress at work, birthdays, babies, barf and more book writing. So here's a few highlights...

-interviews mostly finished...just plugging away on chapters trying to make myself sound intelligent. Not much else to say there; just writing and getting equipped for animating. I got Ray Harryhausen's mailing address.

-One morning I got some sort of food poisoning from some bad Japanese food. It was not fun. It was the opposite of good.

-I turned 31 on a Sunday. Went to church and found out we raised lots of money for the new building. Jesus rocks. Spent the rest of the day with leisure, Chinese food and 80s videos.

-I got my first advance check from the publishers...the first time I got paid to write! Whew...here's to the start of something.

-Last night I met Marv Newland and got to see all his films on the big screen. Quite a historic event...nice guy too.

-Baby's getting bigger! Finally heard its heartbeat. We have a sneaky baby...we found it right away, and then it moved, as if saying 'leave me alone!' Then it took awhile to find it again, but finally located it and got to listen to it again...like a game of hide and seek. Probably means it will be a difficult child with a mind of its own? Guess we had it coming, being who we are. Seriously though, I have been in a pretty great mood since then...the reality of this whole thing hit us and it's very exciting. Afterwards I had a very new feeling that was altogether new to me (and quite frankly, I love it!) Heh.



- Puppy!