30.4.10

citizenship please


ha ha - ran across this on facebook. arizona is trading in it's reputation for ditsy blonde girls and cacti for that of being racist

personally i don't care if you come up here and work - just pay your taxes

28.4.10

things i like




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this. movie. i love it.


this concept. i love it. i don't, however, condone the material. but i love it. (interactive video)
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and i also love this video. classy marketing.
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here is the high quality link to the movie above since blogger insists on cropping my vids.

27.4.10

sorry, but if i'm driving


i probably won't answer the phone to talk to you.

because

if i crash and die - i don't want to get high velocity blood splatter on your face.



i wish i came up with this idea. it's brilliant - but alas, i did not.


21.4.10

18.4.10

my new best friend.

i have been waiting a long time for this day. i've adopted a baby. one made in china. i got a digital SLR. BUTTTTT it's no ordinary camera - it's one that shoots 1080p FOOTAGE! amazing! i took it out today for a test run. i think i'm inclined to leave lots of negative space in my photos because i'm imagining text in those areas... good? bad? who knows?


see? plenty of space for text
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oh baby? you want a tagline? i left room
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looking for a cd cover? maybe for the 'folk' genre
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this can be the back of your cd cover, cool folk band!
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i've already written and started storyboarding my first film. it's going to be epic

15.4.10

NBC REBRAND



hi my name is eric. i have always felt that capital letters are too formal. whenever i write a cover letter - i feel fake.

hi, our name is capacity. we agree. capital letters ARE too proper. we convinced NBC to believe us. we love you eric, come work with us.


12.4.10

please stop asking me to add more text to your animation

"the animation is too long - add more text to make the slow parts more interesting" <------ i HATE hearing this more than anything. how about you do as i suggested in THE BEGINNING and make your animation shorter. an animation that can be presented flawlessly in 3 minutes should NEVER be ten minutes long. ever. blah. you're animation is definitely not making my 2010 demo reel.


i found this articles on 'the onion' and it's perfect <------ link


WASHINGTON—Unable to rest their eyes on a colorful photograph or boldface heading that could be easily skimmed and forgotten about, Americans collectively recoiled Monday when confronted with a solid block of uninterrupted text.

Dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print, unsure of what to do next. Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words.

"Why won't it just tell me what it's about?" said Boston resident Charlyne Thomson, who was bombarded with the overwhelming mass of black text late Monday afternoon. "There are no bullet points, no highlighted parts. I've looked everywhere—there's nothing here but words."

"Ow," Thomson added after reading the first and last lines in an attempt to get the gist of whatever the article, review, or possibly recipe was about.

At 3:16 p.m., a deafening sigh was heard across the country as the nation grappled with the daunting cascade of syllables, whose unfamiliar letter-upon-letter structure stretched on for an endless 500 words. Children wailed for the attention of their bewildered parents, businesses were shuttered, and local governments ground to a halt as Americans scanned the text in vain for a web link to click on.

Sources also reported a 450 percent rise in temple rubbing and under-the-breath cursing around this time.

"It demands so much of my time and concentration," said Chicago resident Dale Huza, who was confronted by the confusing mound of words early Monday afternoon. "This large block of text, it expects me to figure everything out on my own, and I hate it."

"I've never seen anything like it," said Mark Shelton, a high school teacher from St. Paul, MN who stared blankly at the page in front of him for several minutes before finally holding it up to his ear. "What does it want from us?"

As the public grows more desperate, scholars are working to randomly italicize different sections of the text, hoping the italics will land on the important parts and allow everyone to go on with their day. For now, though, millions of panicked and exhausted Americans continue to repetitively search the single column of print from top to bottom and right to left, looking for even the slightest semblance of meaning or perhaps a blurb.

Some have speculated that the never-ending flood of sentences may be a news article, medical study, urgent product recall notice, letter, user agreement, or even a binding contract of some kind. But until the news does a segment in which they take sections of the text and read them aloud in a slow, calm voice while highlighting those same words on the screen, no one can say for sure.

There are some, however, who remain unfazed by the virtual hailstorm of alternating consonants and vowels, and are determined to ignore it.

"I'm sure if it's important enough, they'll let us know some other way," Detroit local Janet Landsman said. "After all, it can't be that serious. If there were anything worthwhile buried deep in that block of impenetrable English, it would at least have an accompanying photo of a celebrity or a large humorous title containing a pop culture reference."

Added Landsman, "Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it doesn't even have a point."

disney getting their act together

remember when disney said that stop-motion was no longer a profitable medium to create films a few years back? and they told henry selick to get lost?

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0783139/

sayyyyyy wha disney!? sayyyy wha michael eisner?? ??




thank you disney for giving michael eisner the boot and putting someone in charge who knows what they're doing ----> rober iger


and in turn bringin in pixar's: ed catmull and john lasseter

http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/about_us/execs.htm


and in turn ed and john brought on none other than... the man that more than a decade earlier disney told to take a hike

henry selick!

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118017140.html?categoryid=13&cs=1


i like that disney and pixar are blurring the lines a litte:




i like that disney and pixar are blurring the lines a little: john c of mars is directed by one of pixar's all-star directors but released under the disney name

9.4.10

dizzy

what dizzy looked like as a puppy (but dizzy was cuter)



how dizzy likes to chillax (but dizzy is cooler)



how dizzy likes to contemplate life (but dizzy is smarter)
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told you. smart dogs wear glasses so they can read better



dizzy is so smart,
he lives in pennsylvania,
i wish he'd visit.

6.4.10

understanding post production VFX work

How many other areas does the director really work in this much minutia? Normally when they’re working with Directors of Photography, Production Designers, etc they discuss and try to get in sync regarding the general look and style they want. The director may be asked about the color of the pillows on a set but at some point they pass on the taking care of the details to their key creatives. The director is unlikely to ask to change the 3rd brick from the right on the set or ask the DP to reduce a specific light by ½ stop. And yet at times it can be that way when working with visual effects.

With visual effects the director has unlimited control. Every pixel of every frame can be changed. If production has an on set stunt or action the director shoots what takes they feel are appropriate and will select one. The fact that the stuntman’s hand is raised a little doesn’t cause problems. The best take will be selected and production moves on. With the advent of digital visual effects that’s not the end of the story. What would have been fine previously in any movie is now something to be scrutinized and analyzed by the director, editor and studio. Now it may be an added shot for the vfx crew to fix that hand position. And while they’re working on the shot can they change that thing back there and that other thing over there? A shot with a jet may get a request to roll the jet another 3 degrees. Will the audience notice 3 degrees? Will it make it a better shot? Obviously if production paid and shot a real jet they would be unlikely to schedule another shoot day simply to get the jet to roll 3 degrees more.

great article by Scott Squires. check it out ------------------> here

old spice and marketing

okay. it's long overdue. let's talk about this commercial and marketing.




i recently read an interesting article about 'going viral' by Ivan Askwith from Big Spaceship on their company blog (ad agency in NYC.) ivan talks about what it means when a client asks for a 'viral marketing campaign' and how to deliver. i like his breakdown of it - essentially, a campaign cannot be made viral, unless the target audience decides to make it so - ivan expands on how to connect with people and make them want to share it with others. definitely a great read.

GETTING PAST VIRAL <------ link

old spice has been doing some awesome ad work lately. really great stuff. refreshing. every old spice commercial i can think of from the past few years have been great. give the director of marketing over there a raise.

let us not forget, however, that old spice isn't the ones making the commercials. they pay the big bucks to someone else to create. for this particular ad it was 'Wieden + Kennedy'

w+k website <----- link

the following is the making of video... it's pretty long but here's how i look at it. tool academy 3 is all reruns now... episodes you've already seen but for some reason you like to watch again (and by you, i mean me.) so skip those loud commercials and watch how they made this one :) smile face.



side thought: it's not enough to just have a website anymore. it's about CONNECTING with your target audience. how do most companies do it? they don't. that's the difference between 'success' and 'doing' - it's a really fine mixture of going to your audience + not suffocating your audience. people aren't stupid - you can't stuff your product down their throat. i use the word 'product' as opposed to 'brand' intentionally. (secret link of great ad that is a rebellion of stupid ads yelling at you to do stuff)

ingredients to approach audience without suffocating:

that last link there is kinda a big deal. companies have started to realize that there may be no plausible reason for actually visiting a corporate website. so instead of spending big cash monies on building and maintaining one... they've adapted. facebook. fan pages. i'm guessing that corporate websites are going to be replaced with fan pages within the next couple years


i think the other HUGE thing is company blogs. i mean these things are wildly successful because you can get your audience hooked and coming back day after day. here are three huge companies that all have blogs.


adapt or die.

1.4.10

janell's takin' over but hates corporate spies

oh my goodness!

i found this audio clip hiding out on my desktop. explanation before listening: a game that my siblings and i like to play is to take a phrase (normally a short one) and record it onto my computer... but BACKWARDS. as in we try and pronounce it backwards - so after it's recorded we reverse the audio so that it will play it forward. make sense? the winner is the recording that sounds the most understandable after being reversed (so it plays forward.)

so it was the night before janell's wedding and we're chillin (dc chillin') and talking about how janell should make william (her handsome husband) take on her name as opposed to her taking on his. [janell is/was very independent (independent women) up until this point.] we were sounding out 'janell ' trying to get used to it - and one thing led to another to the point of seeing who could pronounce it the best backwards. things escalated on top of that and the final piece turned into this really creepy soundtrack. we debated playing it on repeat at the reception underneath the dessert table, but opted out.

enjoy.




in order of appearance on audio clip (that i turned into a robot face for fun): eric, carolyn, jared, and janell


carolyn, pretty janell, yours truly, jared (aka - j-rad)
janell had just refered to her wedding night as 'sexy time' and these were our candid reactions


pretty janell and handsome william