Brain-Fried

I've been so busy lately I can't think straight. It doesn't help that I'm addicted to "Lost," either, and losing sleep watching it. Uuuuuggghh.

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The Longer Than Expected Nap

One of the worst feelings in the world is when I take a nap during the day, only expecting to be asleep for 20-30 minutes... then I wake up hours later to see the sun is gone and the day is wasted.

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Guy With Wand

Stupid.

One Year Later...

It's interesting how the mind tricks you. Every time I visit my parents I still expect to be greeted by a fuzzy creature. I still instinctively close the door behind me when I go into the basement (so he wouldn't trip down the stairs). Sometimes I hear little noises that remind me of him... One year ago from this very moment we lost our family pet, JJ. He was my little brother, my best friend... and a very big part of me.

The cool, stiff September air is a constant reminder of the weeks leading up to that day. For at least a month I went home to Franklin every weekend just to be with him, night and day. It was definitely the hardest thing I ever went through.

I can't believe it's already been a year. Time flies.

HANNA ANGRY!!

She's sick of my email antics.

5 Seconds of "Thriller"

I was bored a couple of nights last month so I spent some time literally tracing over 5 seconds of the "Thriller" video. The idea was to do this section, till the end, and kind of use animation to do some fancy things with the dance, but there's no way in hell I'll ever have the time to finish this any time soon. Especially considering this is about 1/30th of the entire section.

Larry Bruce at Coolidge Corner!

I just got word that a short film I helped animate is currently playing at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Boston for the rest of August! "Larry Bruce: Memoirs of a Bicycle" was done for the blog 24 Hour Toons, along with the talented Mike Annear and Joe Boyle.

Here's some info on the short films playing at Coolidge. It's playing in Moviehouse 1, and apparently the current movie being shown there is "500 Days of Summer." It'd be cool to see it on the big screen, but, I don't know if I'd want to see that movie again.

So check it out if you can! Or, watch it right here on YouTube.

Blowing Your Nose...

...is incredibly dangerous!

I started this drawing in November 2008, then completely forgot about it. I found it in a folder on my desktop yesterday, and decided to finish it. I'm not sure if the "punchline" was what I originally had in mind, but I think it works. :p

Beware of badly drawn hands!!

Get Your Butt in Gear!!

Haven't done anything in a while... so I figured I'd post something. My brother gave me the idea (when he told me I need to "get my butt in gear" and make a new blog post).

Don't ask me where the gear shift is in relation to him. I have no clue. :p

"Unicef" Spot

I realized I hadn't posted this yet... Dave Schlafman had me help animate a Unicef ad a few months back with coworker Mike Annear. It was a fun project, and everyone involved is super talented. Here are the full credits, yoinked from Dave's blog:

Direction: Dave Schlafman
Animation: Dan Flynn
Animation: Mike Annear
Backgrounds: Jen Blicharz and Dave Schlafman
Compositing and Sound Design: Evan Sussman
Music: Daniel Koren
V.O: Gigi Abraham

UNICEF Education in Emergencies Spot from Dave Schlafman on Vimeo.

"I Get Off On Your Tears"

There's no real context to this. My brother encouraged me to create an animation based on the saying.

Blahblahblahblah

Insanity

I don't expect the blog posts to keep up at this rate much longer. Though it would be nice!

Frustrated? Naah...

Just testing out the resilience of my monitor.

New Project

So I actually have two different projects I'm in the planning stages for. I keep jumping from one to the other. But this one I've had in my head for months and months, and just recently I finally started thumbing it out. I was listening to The Syncopated Clock a while back, when this story started playing out in my head to the music. It's a simple story about a guy trying to get a girl, but I think it could be really cool if it all plays out in rhythm. The horse trotting along to the "tick tock," the woman walking away seductively to the clarinet part at 0:53. It goes on, but I want to keep it a surprise.

Anyway, I'm posting some horrible drawings of the thumbs I've been working on for it. This whole process is only a means of figuring out the staging and timing of all the shots. Don't judge me on my artistic skills from these drawings. ...Judge me from THIS DRAWING!!!

Just kidding. Please don't.

Anyway, here they are. Just as proof that I am doing something productive with my free time.

Koren Ansambel

So a little while back, Evan Sussman asked me to animate a bird for a short film he was editing for Dan Koren (correct me if the name is wrong). At first I wanted to animate it the traditional "flash" way with symbols and whatnot, but instead I decided this is the perfect opportunity to take a stab at "traditional" style animation. I dabble with it all the time, but this is the first time I put any real effort into it. And it was really fun. I was going for a Disney feel, and I'm hoping it shows.

The film itself is great. The music is fantastic and VERY Disney-esque and really helped me get in the mood. It's pretty funny, too, so watch the entire thing.

CLICK HERE FOR HIGH RES YOUTUBE VERSION

Unfortunately I can only upload videos this size to Blogger, and the bird itself is pretty small so it's hard to see. But you get the idea. I was going to upload some "in progress" videos too, but it's even harder to see those. So instead I took a few screens of the animation in progress.







EDIT: Just did some searching on Youtube and it looks like he uploaded it there. So check out the link above, the quality is a bajillion times better.

If I Were Sonic the Hedgehog...

...it would hurt.

So Tired...

I've been on a violent streak lately.

Running into... Poles

What I feel like doing right now:

Gross

I probably shouldn't be posting this.

Babies?

This weird animation is based off a drawing by the talented Justin Cichon. The drawing is based off of an email conversation we had... many months ago.

Fire

This is a fire loop I did for work that will be going unused. Lay off, it's my first one.

Next time though, I may try to make the loop a little longer.

Hat

Something simple.

Skydiving

Note- may run super slow on older computers.

I Don't Have My Tablet

I left my tablet at my parent's house over the break. I wanted to update my blog, so I did this with the tiny 2"x2" finger pad on my laptop. NOT FUN.