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!

Presentation & Festival this Weekend....

DELTA OPTIMIST ARTICLE

Cartoon Culture Sightings...

It appears that the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cameo found in the Little Golden Book for WALL-E has now become a running gag with the Pixar artists.

It's a little bit harder to spot this time, but take a close look at Carl's book in this illustration from the UP Little Golden Book.




Also spotted these ads in Vancouver's West Ender newspaper. Looks like Casper and Popeye have found a way to beat the recession by selling scrap metal.

Breath of Life...1 week away...

Musee Mechanique and more Adventures...

I'm now home from San Francisco recovering from another excursion of animation instruction and exploration. Despite puppets that kept wanting to fall apart on me, I'm happy with how the demos went and wish I could post my animation here, but it's all part of my course for AAU, so sorry.

I made really good time in wrapping up my shoots time-wise each day, which afforded me a good amount of time for relaxing, eating and exploring. I ate at my beloved American Graffiti-shrine Mel's Drive-Inn again, this time accompanied by local fellow- Hollywood Jesus writer Elisabeth Leitch...we had a great chat and it was nice to have some company.

Friday after all my shooting was done, I think I lost half my body weight walking around Fisherman's Wharf and elsewhere (but then I probably gained it all back at dinner.) A really cool destination point this time around was the Musee Mechanique, a museum of classic early 1900s arcade attractions, slot machines, nickelodeons, carnival attractions and creepy animatronic treasures! I love stuff like this so I took lots of videos, and many pictures viewable on FaceBook.



I decided to walk around to find Coit Tower for a nice scenic view, but wasn't aware it would involve climbing up a steep never-ending labyrinth of stairs just to get to the base of it. It was very tiring...not sure if it was really worth the trek by the time I got to the top or not. The view was nice though.





There was also a living monster shrub attacking people on the wharf.




Another highlight ended up being my final decision of where to treat myself to a really nice dinner. After perusing a few menus I stumbled upon The Franciscan, est. 1957 and really had that beautiful classic '50s style that I love.




And the food...holy crap...



A cup of clam chowder, glass of Franciscan private label Merlot, crab, garlic mashed potatoes and boneless short rib. They probably serve food like this in Heaven.

Top it off with a sunset like this and life is good. The only thing missing was my family being there to share it with me, but someday we'll come back with the kids in tow. Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 is a fantastic place to take lil' folks, so I look forward to that day.



Speaking of which, I finally felt Xander kick for the first time yesterday! Active little guy. Now it's back to the work week...I found out while I was away that Pixar is opening up a studio in Vancouver, which could be really good for the local industry and for the school. The adventure continues...

Back to San Francisco

I'm back in San Francisco for another round of video shoots, this time for my Stop Motion Animation II course for Academy of Art University. I got here yesterday and spent most of today shooting, which went pretty well. By the way, just before coming here the big events from the weekend were Janet's 30th Birthday Party (documented well on her blog) and I also spoke in church on 'Faith & Film: Taking God's Detour' focusing on Pixar's CARS. Once that is posted on the church's website, I'll post it here.

So anyway, here's some of the stuff I've been doing here...

This morning I had breakfast at Lori's Diner, where they had a guy dressed as Charlie Chaplin greeting people at the door. He was an older guy and his make-up was overdone so he looked like a very disturbing clown. There's one picture I took of him but I won't post it because it scares me.



They also had a cow.



I found this strange box in a store on the way to the studio. Never heard of these, but I think they're funny.


After a long, exhausting day of shooting and a little nap, I decided to treat myself to dinner at John's Grill right down the street. This is a historic Steak & Seafood restaurant in the city and one of the settings for The Maltese Falcon. I'm sorry to say I've never actually seen that whole movie, but since I love movies I figured it would be an important place to check out. Lots of celebrities have eaten there, and their autographed pictures covered all of the walls. Damn, the food was good too.




And a few more pictures from a foggy night...




OK, time to make replacement mouths.