It's Xander!

Here is our son!
Xander Ambrose Priebe
Born August 26, 2009
8:29am
8lbs 7oz, 53 cm long

We're home now, recovering and enjoying our new little guy.

Anticipation

One week from today we'll be holding our son. Here's Ariel and I hangin' out while we wait, and sleep while we still can.

Breath of Life Article: MB Herald

"Breath of Life" has now found another incarnation as an article I've written for publication in MB Herald magazine. Click the link below for the online version...
THE BREATH OF LIFE

Calm Before the Storm

Back to the blog! I've been rather consumed by lots of projects for the past little while, but I'm happie to say that my ANM 382 Stop Motion Level II course and my animation for the latest BigFott film is now complete! I now officially have very few major things to do, outside of work, relaxing, family time, and anticipation for the arrival of little Xander in just a matter of weeks! I'm hoping to catch up on lots of movies and other things I've been putting off.

Here's some totally random bloggie goodness of neat things and what's been on my mind...

We had a beautiful thunderstorm last weekend, which unfortunately doesn't happen very often here, so I was very excited. Got some neat pictures of the show.




Yesterday we had a Lilo & Stitch Luau for Ariel's 3rd birthday party, in honor of the day she was supposed to be born! It was really nice and a very good time spent with friends and family. Part of the party was the annual "storytime" reading of this year's children's book we wrote & illustrated for Ariel, which can be viewed online here: ARIEL'S MAGIC DANCE SHOES




MORE PARTY PHOTOS ON FACEBOOK

My little "twitchy witchy girl" (as I now call her, based off the song Coraline's father sings to her) is growing into such a fun, intelligent and delightful little person. It's been nice having my projects finished so I can spend more quality time with her these days, which is important for us to bond before she has a sibling in the mix.


"Don't mess with me or Stitch will kill you."
I have some other project ideas brewing and some thoughts about my future involvement with animation teaching. My Saturday courses have really dried up in the past couple of years, and I've rather gotten used to having full weekends for a change. At this stage of my life, I've decided I really need to quit teaching part-time animation courses at VanArts on Saturdays. I want to be able to spend more time with Jay and both of our kids, have the freedom to do more family outings together, and possibly start some more creative projects. I'm thinking of passing along the 2D course to someone else and finding a way to continue my stop-motion course as an evening class during the week. I'll also be teaching my online courses for AAU, so that's plenty to keep me in the teaching fold. I'd also really like to start some animation workshops for kids, as a way to start moving more in that direction as an additional career path. I think this is extremely important, especially as I continue to see the declining quality in a good number of the portfolios that show up at work. Art isn't being taught properly in schools, and neither is animation, so anything I can do to fill the void with some better creativity is a pretty worthy investment. There's a hell of a lot more things in this world to draw than Anime characters, Spiderman, and people carrying big guns.

Storytime with Nigel of course is still on the back burner and I hope to get some more scenes farmed out as the dust settles this month, to try and make some more progress on it. I have an idea for a very short stop-motion film which I may also try and find time to throw together. My hope is that I can whip it up, post it around and enter it into some festivals, as a way to possibly drum up interest in getting some support to finish Nigel off. It's just a thought, or a hope...

I'm also hoping to bring my "Breath of Life" presentation 'on the road' at some point, and sharing it in some Vancouver churches.

And I'm really looking forward to seeing this movie...

Praying for Lisa Jane...

My friend Paul Moldovanos told me today that his associate Lisa Jane Gray is currently in the Vancouver hospital in critical condition, so we're all praying for her and her family. Lisa Jane has many years of experience in the stop-motion animation field. I got to meet Lisa Jane recently and she's a great person full of talent.

UPDATE JULY 10th: Lisa Jane passed away today. A great loss for the animation community. :(

Faith & Film: Taking God's Detour

The sermon which I gave at Cedar Park Church on May 3rd, based on Pixar's film CARS, is now posted for listening to online. The audio clip is also framed with opening and closing prayers by Pastor Dave Esau.

Faith & Film: Taking God's Detour

All Work and No Play....

Been spending a few days off, but not much relaxing. I may be off work-work, but work of other kinds continue here at home. I'm balancing two major projects that have deadlines looming, both my online stop-motion course for AAU and animation for Bigfott.

Today is our 8-year anniversary, which is very special! Despite the occasion it was pretty much a regular day...we had a Doctor's appointment (Xander is doing well), went to the mall, and I spent the whole afternoon animating. Jay is feeling uber-preggers and didn't really feel like going out or doing anything fancy, so we got take-out from the Boot and just had a nice little dinner. We may go to Seattle for a day-trip in a few weeks when things settle down, or maybe do something a little more romantic.

I downloaded a bunch of rare movie soundtracks today from VINNIE RATOLLE's Records, an awesome pop culture blog. Pretty great stuff...while animating in my studio, my iPod was graciously providing soundtracks for The Secret of NIMH, The Goonies, Gremlins, The Shining, Little Shop of Horrors and the Rocky Horror Picture Show. This also made me happy.

Meh...

Apparently I was so shocked and numbed by the Michael Jackson news (a big bite out of my childhood culture) that all I could think of to do was post a music video I did for "Thriller" back when I was 14 years old, using a bunch of horror movie clips...(and using 2 VCRs hooked up to each other....major old school)

I'm not sure how I feel about it now. Too much death already. It's here if you want to see it.

UPdate on Life

If you want to know what's been going on in my life these days, simply read my Hollywood Jesus review for Pixar's UP.

Breath of Life Animation Festival 2009

Finally, here is my full report on the 2nd Annual Breath of Life Animation Festival at Cedar Park Church, June 6 2009. Much of it was the same as last year but we changed up a few things and added some too. Overall it was a big success, more organized and yet still a continuing work in progress.

All the kids filed into the sanctuary, assigned to 5 groups A through E with their group leaders, for an introduction and welcome by myself...don't let the scattered looks of this crowd fool you; we got quite a few more people by the end of the day!



Workshops included DRAWING CARTOON CHARACTERS with the talented Mr. Gerard DeSouza...





...FLIPBOOKS with the lovely husband & wife team of Blake & Nicole Standard...







...CLAY SCULPTING with the Amazing Clayman, Paul Moldovanos, who helped the kids create little clay worms for the following workshop...








...the CLAYMATION WORM RACE, led by the incredible stop-motion super-heroes Lee Skinner and Bronwen Kyffin...







...and PIXILATION with the incredible team of Amanda Emery and Matt Smith, who gave the kids a great time getting animated.





...open stations like the Doodle Room, animation demos, the Ten Thousand Villages table and 16mm film projection were also a big hit...







After topping off the workshops with a short film screening was the Animator's Picnic, a time of food and fellowship, wrapping up an inspiring day of creativity for all who joined in.





Thanks everyone for pulling off another great festival!