February 2012
1 post
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December 2011
6 posts
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9 tags
11 tags
8 tags
15 tags
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November 2011
1 post
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October 2011
5 posts
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September 2011
3 posts
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August 2011
2 posts
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July 2011
12 posts
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WatchIt’s so hot outside. It’s so hot outside. It’s so hot outside.
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WatchI posted a new animation last night at 11:11, but thought I would post an older one this morning again, you know, summer reruns. This is also one of my favorites. I feel like it says so much in just a few words. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this or not yet, but ‘Prayers for Peace’ did end up winning the Next Great Filmmaker Award. It has helped so much. Thanks for everyone who took the time...
WatchThis one was a strange animation to do. Similar to the person telling the story, I don’t know a whole lot about Islam or Muslims and aside from most of the negative stuff I hear in the news. Of course I know better than to believe what I hear in the news, but it still raised a bunch of questions for me. Then I started to worry that maybe I’m not allowed to draw anything referring to...
WatchThis is an animation I did back in February, but I thought it would be nice to post it up on the blog so it gets shuffled back to the top so more people can see it. I like this one so much just because it is dripping with sensuality, even though nothing even remotely sexual was mentioned. The student, the teacher, a bar, shouldn’t be dong this, but, I have an excuse this time. I...
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WatchI wanted to make this ten times longer, with them staring and her and her showing off her tattoo, so long that it starts to get uncomfortable, but short is good too. I still haven’t got that cable, but I was able to renew the Muybridge book, so I’ll hopefully be starting those again on Tuesday. Animation Hotline is a series of daily animations where I use messages left on my voicemail...
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WatchI don’t know what is going on here, I guess it’s a lion on a park bench with a mustache. Kinda reminds me of Colonel Mustard in the Lounge with the dagger. It also reminds me of a creeper guy in the park, although he’s not that creepy. And lastly it reminds me of Cheryl’s facebook profile, rrrow. It takes a really long time to make one of these so I have a lot of time...
WatchI spent the day building a case so I can start using a projector again, which means I can start doing those Muybridge rotoscopes. Yay! Jeff Roth sent me the projector so I’m going to do a bunch of horses for him as soon as I get it to work. I still need to get the cables though, it has a funny connection, and not ha-ha funny. In answering you question, more of my friends and family call...
WatchThis one was a sort of an experiment. I’ve been story-boarding everything lately, which is something I never used to do, but today I tried to just do something spontaneous without a storyboard and without a narrative. On the one hand I don’t think it turned out all that great, but on the other hand without experimentation the whole project will get stale.
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WatchThe first time I did the animation I used all of KK’s underwear, but I realized that she would get really pissed if she went online and saw all of her underwear in this animation. So instead I used a pair of mine. They’re clean, I checked. I figured out that if I do one a day and only take two days off, I can still hit the goal of 100 of these by mid-August. I did the red, white and...
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WatchI don’t know if this is what Delphine had in mind when she left this one. I think she was most likely thinking about some diner food, and that was what I was going to do, a little girl getting hungry and angry, but then as I got into it I thought this one was better. Plus I was listening to Radiohead and they always forge rebellion. Animation Hotline is a series of relatively often...
June 2011
2 posts
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WatchJerry and Bob were the first people I asked to leave messages when I first started the project. I might have started the whole project just cause I wanted to animate their voices. Jerry gave me three poems. “Bird on a Branch” was one of the first animations I did, then this one is a poem he wrote for Summer Solstice, which oddly enough I used today, and the other poem I’m going...
WatchI’ve been trying to use these Muybridge photographs, which means I’m rotoscoping everything, and I had forgotten how time consuming rotoscoping is. Even the most simple images are taking two days to do. I have a re-found respect for anything rotoscoped.
Animation Hotline is a series of relatively often animations where I use messages left on my voicemail for content. When you get a...
May 2011
14 posts
WatchI went to the Museum of the Moving image in Queens the other week and I was watching all the Eadgear Muybridge photographs and I really wanted to start using them in my animations. I just got a book from the library yesterday and it was this amazing 800 page archive of thousands of his photographs. This was the first of the experiments to use his photos in the animations, so it didn’t come...
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WatchEven though this one doesn’t have anything to do with Peru, it is the same guy (or at least sounds like the same guy) that left that message, and I’m guessing that it is the same girl that he’s talking about. Hopefully he will leave the conclusion to what happens, or maybe they fell in love and ran off to Maui, because Maui is for lovers. Also, I’m trying to figure out how...
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WatchSummer’s Dance
Weee! This one was pretty fun. I used the clock that is down the street from me, and then when she talked about advice being 5¢ I was thinking about using the Peanut’s reference, with Lucy sitting in the box, but then I took it one step further, and used Theodor Reik, a notable psychoanalyst who emigrated from Germany and eventually ended up in New York in 1938. Morton...
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WatchThis was supposed to be a haiku animation, 5 seconds, 7 seconds, 5 seconds, but it ended up that it just worked out better like this. I was also going to cut the dialogue up so that it fit into 5-7-5 syllables, but it just took too much away. I spent the weekend submitting the micro-animations to the gigantic syndicates, like King Features, United Media, and Uclick. I won’t find out what...
Watchtrue story.
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WatchThe Steven Alan sample sale is only two days away so I think I was thinking about that while I was drawing this. One year I got a $450 sweater for $50. I know, great deal, even though the sweater was still $50, it was on crazy-sale. I’m not really a shopper, I rarely, if ever, buy clothes, but twice a year I like to go to this sale. It is like when mom used to take me to the...
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WatchI’ve decided to go from trying and failing to do it seven days a week, to something a little more realistic, like five days a week. I think I can do that. Plus that will give me some time to keep the rest of my life in order. Animation Hotline is a series of relatively often animations where I use messages left on my voicemail for content. When you get a chance please leave me a message, and...
WatchPG-13 Alert! Although, at the same time it is a touching story about a father and daughter. I didn’t do this one a while ago because I know my mom watches these and I sorta felt the same way that the girl is feeling, but in the end I don’t think it’s really that bad, it’s life. It’s a message that someone left, I’ll animate whatever. Animation Hotline is a...
WatchI’ve been trying to do this one for a while, and knew how I wanted to put it together, and even started it a time or two, but trying to draw those princesses and the fear of Disney lawyers made me set it aside. My hat goes off to those animators at Disney, drawing those princesses to perfection every single time. Animation Hotline is a series of daily animations where I use messages left on...
WatchThese have been really hard to get back to doing. After stopping for a while, I remember how easy they were getting to do and I want to just jump right back into that mode, but unfortunately, I’ve stopped for so long that it is like I am out of shape. It would be like if a marathon runner stopped training for a month and then tried to just jump right up and run a marathon. I’d...
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WatchHappy Mother’s Day Mom, sorry I wasn’t able to see you this year, but I’ll be home in December. (note: this wasn’t my mother who left this message) Animation Hotline is a series of daily animations where I use messages left on my voicemail for content. When you get a chance please leave me a message, and honestly it’s best if you leave more than one because sometimes...
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WatchI was working on some character animation about princesses but just couldn’t get into it and decided to do this default animation instead. I think it turned out pretty good though. If anyone gets a chance, please give me a story about your Mom so I have something for Mother’s Day. Please vote for Prayers for Peace for the Next Great Filmmaker Award contest. I’m one of five...
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WatchWhoa! Finally the fingers are dirty again. It took so much energy to get started doing one of these. I was working a freelance animation job at Thornberg & Forester, then I went to the Petaluma Film Festival, then I went to see Ursi and Tom’s baby, baby Bali, out in Grass Valley. When I got back to the house I felt like I needed to clean, so I spent a few days cleaning and then...
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Next Great Filmmaker Award →
Please vote for Prayers for Peace for the Next Great Filmmaker Award contest. I’m one of five films that have been selected for the contest and if I win I’ll get $5000, which should will finance the Animation Hotline for a few months. It’s easy to vote, just follow the link, plus you could win an iPad2 just for voting. How awesome is that?! biffma.com/nextGREAT
April 2011
2 posts
WatchWords of Malcolm X
Finally! I haven’t posted in so long and it feels so good to get a new one up. I’ve been working this freelance job and it’s pretty awesome, I’m learning a lot of new stuff, but it’s sort of squashed all of my time and energy. When I get home I have a hard time doing anything other than going to bed. Anyway, the job ends tomorrow, so...
Animation Hotline at dorkbot nyc tonight! →
I’m speaking Wednesday, April 6 (tonight) at dorkbot nyc at Location One (20 Greene Street @ Canal) about the Animation Hotline. I haven’t really spoken publicly about it, so it might get a little meandering (like that first sentence), but I’m going to play a few of them and tell where the idea came from and where I would like it to go. So if you want a better insight into the...
March 2011
18 posts
WatchI haven’t posted in a while because I got a job for the next four weeks working ten hours a day and it has been really hard to get motivated to do anything when I get home other than check the emails and go to sleep. Especially because it is a new job, so I have to learn all this crazy stuff. The project that they have me working on is pretty cool though. If you are planning on leaving a...
WatchI did this entire video very differently the first time, but I wasn’t happy with how it turned out, so i took the “one world” part out of it and redid the whole thing. I like this one a lot more. Animation Hotline is a series of daily animations where I use messages left on my voicemail for content. when you get a chance please leave me a message, and honestly it’s best if...