Hear Me Blather.....

Yes, when I'm not stuffing my face with ear after ear of Mother Nature's sweet sweet corn, I'm working on some kind of movie or another in some informal artistic aspect. In case you're not one of my seven friends who check out what I'm posting here, I'm generally thought of as a decent storyboard artist in the entertainment industry. It is, by no means, a glamorous job (most of the time). I'm usually one of a few guys in a cramped office space drawing picture after picture after picture after picture....you get the idea. Sometimes, however, you get to start your career on a high-profile genre pic and your work is featured in an "Art of" book and suddenly people who are not your Mom's friends know your name. So I occasionally get asked to do an interview.
Head on over to Geek Speak for about fifty minutes of me jawing about all kinds of things I've worked on....Hellboy, Monster House, Beowulf, even my brief stint on TMNT. And I give away absolutely no spoilers on City of Ember and Trick 'r Treat....so don't think you're going to get the info out of me.

Enjoy hearing me not really remember things.


watching: Monster House
listening to: Thunderbirds are now!

Take the House home.

So as many of you who follow film and dvd releases already know, Monster House came out on DVD this past Tuesday, the 24th. Did you pick yourself up a copy? Well why the hell not? What are you waiting for? No, you can rent Slither. Monster House you WANT to own. Well, because it's a damn good movie (I may be biased, but go ask someone else, they'll tell you) and the DVD is full of a whole mess of special features that'll tell you all about how they go about making one those durn motion capturey type of pictureshows. There are some supposedly good commentaries that I haven't watched yet (but I will, mind you), as well as a splendid Art of Monster House gallery. There is also a scene breakdown (only one? What happened to the deleted scenes we spent so much time drawing?) of our introduction to Horace Nebbercracker, which include a few of my early storyboards. I'm talking boards done during the first week or two of pre-production.....takes me back.

So git. Rent it, buy it, steal it off your pothead roommate and when he asks tell him he must have left it in his car and lock the door when he goes to check forgetting his keys, and laugh.

watching: Minority Report
listening to: Damien Jurado

In case you missed it....

A while back I was contacted by a director looking for some nice pitch boards. I was recommended by one of my favorites, Jon Liebesman (Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Rings) so I went to check out this director, Josh Finn. I was amazed with what I saw. Back in 2004 he made an award-winning short film entitled "Time Enough at Last" and after watching the trailer I knew I needed to see more, and knew I really wanted to work with him. Unfortunately, my schedule has been more than hectic, and way beyond full, so I has to pass on it. A bummer because his ideas for what make interesting films are right up there with my own. So we made plans to stay in touch and Josh sent me a copy of the short. I've just watched it a second time, and feel compelled to introduce it to anyone who may have missed it.
"Time Enough at Last" is great, smart sci-fi. A stylish examination of a man confronting the legacy left by his father- a man whose passions were fed by the supernatural. A world of words, a world of mind, not a family. It's a dark twist on a lingering resentment, emotional abandonment, and the Twilight Zone. Just plain good.
Now the DVD is not really commercially available, but if you go here:
http://www.time-enough.com/home.html you can request a copy. So get out there and see it. It's such a skillful use of the short film as an economic means of storytelling. I've been watching the first seasons of Amazing Stories and Masters of Horror and I've become much more appreciative of television as anthology storytelling. Where the overall show is thematic rather than an episodic mythos......we don't really have that right now. Perhaps we should.

watching: Dr. Tran
listening to: Gratitude