Wednesday, December 24, 2008

2008 Holiday Animation

Here's a holiday animation I did for CandlelightStories.com. All the backgrounds and scenic elements were painted in a cheap software package called 'ArtRage.' The character and animation were done in Flash CS3.

You can watch a high-definition version on the home page at CandlelightStories.com.

Have a very happy holiday and an excellent 2009!



Sunday, December 14, 2008

Hero Journalist Throws Shoes at Bush

This is the first person in nearly eight years to react rationally and intelligently to the presence of George W. Bush in the same room. During a surprise visit today in Iraq by Bush, an Arab journalist took off his shoes and threw them directly at the supreme asshole of the Western World. I cannot think of a better thing to do than to throw shoes at this son-of-a-bitch. In the Arab world, showing someone the sole of your shoe is a terrible insult. To actually throw your shoe at a person is to call that person filth.



In the history of the United States there has not been a president who has conducted such a brutally violent assault on freedom of expression, freedom of thought, freedom of the press, freedom from illegal detainment, freedom from torture, freedom from illegal wiretapping, and freedom from fear itself. This prick and his friends have been torturing and killing thousands upon thousands of people. They have prevented journalists from even taking the photographs that they should be taking during a war. They have lied in order to conduct the invasion of a sovereign nation. Journalists in the U.S. are too frightened to even write critically of this creep or to adequately investigate his acts. Much less to throw their shoes at him. Several weeks ago, as Bush ascended a podium holding many of the world's leaders at the G20 Summit, they all refused to shake his hand. It was the first behavior from world leaders toward Bush that seemed suited to him.




I suspect that the Iraqis will go easy on this man because they all secretly agree with what he did. It was not any kind of life-threatening act. I think anyone who understands what this awful man has been up to for the past decade would agree with throwing shoes at him. I have not seen a more beautiful expression of the world's hatred for this man than this magnificent shoe-throwing display.

Once the worst president in U.S. history has left office, those who are too afraid to speak out about what he has been doing will begin to talk and then this shoe throwing episode will be remembered for what it really is: a great big 'Fuck You' from the journalists of the world. This Arab shoe-throwing journalist is a true camouflage lens.

Perhaps with all the stress associated with being so hated and reviled by all the world's leaders, Bush will get cancer. Then he will wither. And finally go to hell.

The shoes. The lovely shoes.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Bad Lit: Digging Underground Film

Bad Lit - The Journal of Underground Film (Badlit.com) is a good film blog. There are a lot of crappy ones around, but Bad Lit just keeps putting real stuff up there and I keep finding things I want to read about. For instance, a couple weeks ago I came across this post about filmmaker Kenneth Anger and I got curious about this artist who knew the Rolling Stones and a Manson killer. So I read the article written by Bad Lit's founder and owner, Mike Everleth. I watched Anger films called 'Lucifer Rising' and 'Invocation of My Demon Brother.'


I thought this was some total rocking scary good stuff that was trying to turn my insides out. My point is that what Everleth writes about gets me interested and gets me searching for more. His site posts film clips, reviews, underground film news and events, biographical information about filmmakers, a listing of films called The Underground Film Guide, and film festival news.

It's a good film site because the guy writes like he loves underground film. He doesn't sound like he's trying to get a part time job at Columbia University. I'm amazed at how little I know about underground or avant-garde film. I'm trying to make some of my own while learning about the great filmmakers at the same time. So I go out browsing around for web sites and blogs about film and I end up ready to shoot myself in the head. It's almost impossible to find a site that simply discusses films and actually posts things you can watch. YouTube is just a giant hard drive. It doesn't count unless you're talking about their Screening Room which works well, though they tend to focus on middle of the road short film stuff that you'd expect to see at your local Academy Awards ceremony. I don't know if most of these bloggers are students or what but I gotta say 99 of 100 film sites just bore the living shit out of me. Then there's a site like Bad Lit and I just start searching around in there and find all sorts of treasures. Here's a very recent post about some guys who have made a short horror movie promo that's modeled on 70s slashers. That's cool. It's some people with a camera and some initiative going out and making something. Very nice. That's why video cameras exist. Here's another post about a filmmaker in New York who walks around with a video camera and makes documentaries that get put out on DVD. Fantastic. Perfect. Everleth writes about the guy's films with obvious enthusiasm for both the films, their technique, and for the city itself.

I browse around on Bad Lit a little bit more and I find this filmmaker:



Very well done that little piece there. So I wish there were more good film sites. There are not. But Bad Lit is one.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

New Cinegram: Venture Forth Wicked Beauty

My new cinegram is about a woman and a rose, ashes, projections, a bottle, a walk through the night. I won't be much clearer than that. A cinegram should not announce its intentions. It should bury them and allow them to drift up through the ground.





It took more time to make this one because it uses a more layered soundtrack than my other pieces. Also, the rose and flame scenes were very difficult to film because I wanted the light of the projections to flicker across the scene properly. Moving the camera in such close up conditions made everything an effort.

I am really enjoying YouTube's new high quality video settings. They've gone to widescreen format with normal and high-quality settings. Though their high-quality video isn't as high-definition as other sites like Vimeo, the motion is much smoother than either Vimeo or BlipTV. I find the inability of those sites to encode hi-def video without frame stutter to be inexcusable. YouTube has figured out the problem and maintains the smooth motion as it was originally shot. The image quality is good enough. So YouTube wins. Smooth motion is much more important than sharpness of image.