I did this a year and a half ago for Scott Nygren's Hypervideo class, and I still haven't disowned it yet.
It was supposed to be a critique of those overwroght, anti-captialist, "cut-and-paste animation" propoghanda movies, but everyone just assumed it was one of them. The whole class thought it was exactly what I was trying to satire.
I finally realized that I’m never going to have enough time make a real portfolio, so I should jump on the bandwagon of a slick, Web 2.0, out-of-the-box solution. I found Carbonmade.
So you can find my new design-only portfolio at itISobvious.com which (if you’re paying attention) is a play off of this site’s name (isITobvious.com). I thought it was cute.
There isn’t all that much there. A portfolio is only as good as the worst piece, so I decided to only include the better ones or ones that I’m not bound by an NDA not to release.
Until I did my bi-yearly hard drive purge, I’d forgotten that in 2006, I was obsessed with learning 3D animation. “Learning” is the wrong word. I didn’t intend to “learn” 3D animation in any systematic way, I just happened to download a bunch of 30 day trials and decided that this would be what I was into for the next 30 days.
As you might assume, looking at how things have turned out by the beginning of of 2010, I never quite got beyond the “30 day trial” skill level using any of these programs. There was too much patience involved.
In addition to over a month of wasted time, I also got a hard drive full of animation tests (render tests, camera movement tests, lighting tests, texture tests) that I can show for myself. All-in-all, they’re mostly inept, glitchy and artless, but there are a few that more interesting than others. These are those:
Created in Vue 5
Created in Mojo World
Created in Mojo World
Created in Vue 5
Tried to do something realistic. It took a whole lot of work for what it ended up looking like.
Upon reflecting, I guess the big question is, what’s the point of all of this? I think the answer is that there is no point.
If you find a better way to spend 30 days in 2010, let me know and I’ll do that instead.
Dave Eggers (author and editor of McSweeney’s) dictated this brilliant essay in response to the question: “Are you concerned that you’re not publishing as many unknowns as you had been? And killed pieces? Are you taking any steps-are there any steps to be taken-to keep shit real?”
You actually asked me the question: “Are you taking any steps to keep shit real?” I want you always to look back on this time as being a time when those words came out of your mouth…
I’m pleased to announce that Adam Bowers‘ movie New Low, starring Adam, Toby Turner, and Valerie Jones is going to be in the Sundance Film Festival! That’s right, I didn’t write Slamdance, I wrote Sundance.
As if it can’t get any better, guess who was the DP? My boy Ryan Moulton.
For a week or two, I’ve been spending my “me time” learning how to use a program called Apophysis. It generates “fractal flames.” Though this might have practical applications, for my purposes, all it does is make pretty pictures.
It’s simple program to use, but it seems to require complicated math to get good at.
I plan on doing no math during my “me time.”
[click either picture to enlarge in another window]
I am officially an INTERNATIONALLY published author. Find my stream-of-consciousness music reviews gracing the pages of the October 2009 issue of City Night magazine distributed only in Mongolia.
Big thanks to Brian Offenther for the article.
[Click the images below to enlarge pages in another window]
I’m doing an experiment. I’ve decided to test out Amazon.com’s DTP system out by selling one of my short stories.
They won’t let me just give it away (the cheapest Amazon’s system allows is $0.99), but since I plan on making no sales, I also don’t plan on making any money. I’m not asking you to buy anything. In fact, please don’t buy it. Save your cash for when the revolution comes.
Even if I did have hopes of tricking some stranger into buying it, Amazon also takes a 70% cut on all downloads, which would leave me with 30 cents (without tax). The purpose of this is really just to see how the system works from start to finish.
So that’s where you come in. I’ve reprinted the story below and in the easier to read PDF format, for free.
If you get bored and decide to read it and you enjoy it, take a minute or two to about it write a glowing review on Amazon It should be full of ridiculous, outlandish praise that couldn’t possibly be real. I’d like to fill the Amazon page with bizarre claims about how good this story is. The sillier the better. I posted a sample of what a “good” review should look like on the Amazon page, but feel free to go wild with it. In fact, review it if you want even if you haven’t read the story. It might make writing the review more fun.
If you don’t like the story, feel free to stop yourself from writing a negative review.
I enjoyed writing it, so I hope people enjoy reading it. Without further ado, reprinted in all of it’s glory is the short story A Firework Over Lake Michigan along with some boss cover art that I threw together. Click Read More, to check it out…
Out popped a dozen people in dark windbreakers identifying them as feds -- agents from Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some raced to the loading docks. Others hurried through the front door. All were armed.
"I just sell honey -- what the hell is this all about?" he remembered asking, as he was hustled into a tiny room with his office manager and truck driver.
Three days before the April 25 raid, customs had persuaded a federal judge in Seattle to issue the search warrant shoved in Ingalls' hands. But it wasn't until Ingalls read "Attachment D" that he understood why investigators were seizing his business records, passport, phone logs, photographs, Rolodexes, mail and computer files -- almost anything that could be copied or hauled away.
Out popped a dozen people in dark windbreakers identifying them as feds -- agents from Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some raced to the loading docks. Others hurried through the front door. All were armed.
