Wow. I am REALLY bad at this blogging thing.

2112 premiered a couple of weeks ago and it was a hit!

Some pictures

For anyone who doesn't know, I directed the show and did all of the artwork seen on the projection screen. They were done with cut paper.


I was really lucky to get the cast I have. Actually, we are planning a Chicago show later in the year. Boo YAH.


Besides that, my Calarts portfolio has been sent in. I'm officially going to be the jumpiest person ever until March.

I PROMISE PROMISE PROMISE that I will upload some art soon.

Stuff

I really need to learn how to update more.

Well, since my last entry number of things have happened.

-I made it on to the Comedy Sportz team! I have to admit, I'm pretty darn excited. We had our very first all school workshop, down town, this Saturday. I rode with the rest of the team and we were a lovely 30 minutes late. Apparently, this is a school tradition, so the people at the workshop didn't really care. We have an awesome ceramic cat for a mascot.

- I've offically started applying for colleges. Right now I have applied/ will apply to NYU, Herron @IUPUI, Kansas City Art Institute, and of course, CalArts. Obviously, the CalArts applications haven't even been posted, and I will be working extra hard on getting that application to be good. I also have scholarships to apply for and the dreaded Extended Essay to finish.

-What's most important to me right now though is 2112. We are about 3 weeks in and it's going great. The singers are fantastic, and I'm amazed at how well my males singers are dealing with the intensity that is Geddy Lee's high notes. My band is also working well, and quickly. I am very close to starting to shoot the animation, which will be paper cutouts. I started painting the backgrounds today.
This is just some concept art.

I've also not forgotten to make time for my cartoons.

I'm alive...

...I promise.

Sorry, I have yet to update after getting home from CSSA. I still have to uplaod the rest of my CSSSA pics and such, but they're all on my phone, so it takes a while.

Other than that, school has started back up. Senior year + IB= hard. I'm sure it'll be fine though.

On a better note, I just had callout for my Student Studio production of 2112 by Rush. It went pretty well, and I had a great turnout. The thing is, there are only 5 stage parts and 4-5 band parts. Where were all the kids last year when I did the 13 person show and I was scrapping to get people to do it? Ah well.

I also had auditions for Conedy Sportz. Not much to say about it. I got to be an angry Llama. It included spitting. yay. I find out next week.


I also picked up Prowl from the Transformers: Universe line today. Yay! Walmart finally has a good Transformers selection. IT's a good thing I only had 10 bucks, or I would have come home with quite a few more figures. I will be back for you, TFA Soundwave.

Speaking of Prowl, I really needed to draw. I have been people sketching, but thats about it. So, I decided to draw the infamous prick himself.

Transformers (or robots in general) are still really hard to draw for me. Sorry for ruining you, Prowl.

later

Library adventure continues....

I actually found the internet jack in my room, but my Guerin laptop is so firewwalled, nothing works.

Oh well.

Sunday was the Disneyland trip. It was AWESOME. Tomorrow I will give a full run dwon on what I did, but my time is currently limited.
All I have been doing the last couple of days has been working on my final film. It has to be at least 25 seconds, so it's pretty intense. I'm sort of doing traditional animation. What I mean is that I am drawing all my frames as usual, but then I'm cutting them out. It's a little hard to explain, but the characters will have a little white aura around them. Hopefully it will be epic.

Today we actually had a surprise visit from a person from Walt Disney Animation Studios! She just talked to us about internships and summer programs. She also talked to some people about our films. She let me and my friends know a little bit about the upcoming traditionally animated "The Princess and the Frog". The teaser trailer was just released yesterday. Find it and Watch it.

Other than that, nothing has really been going on. I really miss everyone in Indy, but I can't believe I only have a week left.

Hey. Still using a library computer.

Well, the Pixar guys officially left a couple of hours ago, but not before bestowing us with INtENSE knowledge. I learned so much in their lessons. I can't wait to apply what I've learned in my animations!

Oh, and we got some freebies. I now have a luxo jr. ball keychain, a pixar pencial, and..oh yeah, an official, movie theatre, double sided, huge, Ratatouille poster, signed by both animators! Boo yah!!

Other than that, I just finished animating my Week 2 animation an I'm going to shoot it later today. It's a girl dancing.

Tomorrow is DISNEYLAND!!! I am so pumped!!

I got an awesome letter from my love Laura Mckamey, whom I love.

Other than that, not much has been going on. I just found out that Mojo has Addison's Disease, a relatively rare, but treatable, adrenal gland disease. I was a bit worried at first, but it seems like he is going to be okay.

Melissa and I introduced Brittany to the Wonders of Yu-gi-Oh: The Abridged Series and Brittany has introduced us to the Lazar collection. Doctor Octagonapus! BWAAH!

Well, that's about it for now. Sorry for another post without pictures, I'm trying though!

Hey, another super quick, pictureless, update.


Today was the first day of the almighty PIXAR BOOTCAMP!!!!!!11!gkone!!!

Mark Walsh and Bobby Podesta (They have worked on every film except Toy Story and Wall E) are our teachers and today they tuaght us about story boarding and showed some short films that inspired them.
I'm getting them to sign something later.

I can't wait for tomorrow!!!

Other than that nothing much has been going on. Yesterday a group of us watched my Gotham Knight dvd. It was total awesome!

Alright ttyl

Sorry, the internet has been awful here and I haven't had any real access to a computer. I'm updating quickly to let you know that I am not dead. I had a super awesome update all typed out, but know I can't get to it. So..

SUPER quick run down on what I've down
-2 awesome faculty shows
-The Drowsy Chaperone (super funny)
-Finished my first film, which I will get up when I can.
-Other assorted Projects.
-Body Worlds (very cool)
- Hanging with other animators.

I received a package from my mom that included Transformers:All Hail Megatron, Transformers: Spotlight Hardhead (both comics), and a copy of Gotham Knight. I love them all.

I promise to give a better update, with pictures, when I can.

Love and miss you all!

Puppet time

I was being a Tourist yesterday and took a picture of the sign.

I finished my flipbooks. Chelsea, this one's for you. The title card for my bug flipbook-


Well, thankfully stop motion lesson is over..but I'm pretty behind on my puppet. I spent all of the open lab basically discovering what didn't work. But know I have a better idea nad I will have to work on it in my spare time. Quick note though, I totally forgot to mention that one of my teachers that is doing the stop motion lesson actually works on Robot Chicken and Moral Orel! I thought that was so neat, because one of the things I was thinking about doing in the future was working for animated TV.

Other than that not much has been going on. There was a "mass exodus" (quote from Vince) of animation students to Michaels yesterday. I got new markers, some paint, papermache, and styrofoam (which I have discovered that I don't need.) I luv Michaels.

We had a Faculty Screening on Tuesday and it was AMAZING!! The first presenter was Zoe Moss, whose stuff was hilarious. Ever seen Pikachu pitted up against a Zombie from Resident Evil? (Zoe's youtube account is here--> http://www.youtube.com/user/zoemoss)

Then we watched the most mindblowing film from Jodi Mack! It was like 20 minutes to a half an hour and it was all cutouts from recycled magazines. Oh, and it was a MUSICAL that she wrote herself. I was totally blown away and inspired. Keep your eyes out for "Yard Work is Hard Work".

I've met even more cool people in my class. Brittany is, like, the ONLY person I have ever met that has also played Psyconauts. Thomas, from Norway, is the only person who listens to the Animation Podcast (His voice was even on it once!) and Spline doctors. Hanock is kind of out there, but pretty darn cool.


Well, that's basically it. Ta Ta for Now!

Sushi

Well, I finished my first official-non orientation- day.

We've done some really cool stuff in the last couple of days. We worked with Camera-less film by painting and scratching and gluing and drawing onto strips of film. That was really neat.
Yesterday we talked about Early Animation and now we are making Flip books. One has to be a "morph" (mine is a dog jumping and turning into a girl jumping into a pool), and the other has to be high contrast, with 70% needed to be black, and composition, like angles and such (Mine is about a super Bug. Apparently, his name is CB).

This project definitely opened the door to the horror stories I've been hearing about. Each flip book has to be at least 30 frames, which is a lot. I'll probably be staying up to finish my high contrast one tonight.

Other than that, we've been watching some really interesting stuff in the Bijou (the little theater on the 2 floor). We had a contemporary animation festival on Sunday night and I was able to find one of my favorites from that,Hedgehog in the Fog, on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRsXU4Q6a0Q
It's all cutouts and it's very cool.

Besides class I've been meeting/ hanging out with more people in my department. Last night before our open lab time, a couple of us walked down to a Sushi place to get something to eat. This came from that outing. I apologize for the fact that it's sideways and tiny, I took it on my phone.



The kids in the video are all from animation. It's kind of hard to say who all of them are from the video, but the table was set up like

Vince ----- Sophie

Chelsea --- Megan

Emily ----- Sammy-Jo

Suami ----- Me

Hopefully you can figure it out from that.

Well, that seems to be it for now. To anyone I know from Indy who is reading, I miss you all!

Final note, apparently I'm getting a copy of Batman: Gotham Knight. Whoo hoo!

First Day

Well, it has begun.

Yesterday was officially my first day at CSSSA/Innerspark.

I made sure to arrive early to registration because I knew it would get busy. After freaking out because I was at Calarts, I visited the animation dept. table and met the animation chair Lori. Then I paid for all my field trips and got in the photo ID line. My pictures not bad, if I do say so myself.

Then I got my key and went to my dorm. I's pretty basic, but nicer than I expected. One of my roommates, Natalie, was already there when I was "moving in". She's in Vis Arts. I met my other roommate later on, who is Jasmine, also in Animation.My Bed

View from my dorm

The I went to a final meal with my family at Chili's and went back to our hotel for a bit to rest. when I came back I met up with Taylor, who I had spoken to previously, and met more of the animation kids. We had a huge meeting with everyone from CSSSA and got the necessary talks. Though the main guy (of course, I can't remember his name) said some really good things. My favorite of the night was "The bad news is, there is no key to being a good artist. The good news is, there is no lock".

After that, We all went to the free concert, which was an awesome salsa band. During the first song, a bunch of kids went down by the stage to dance. Taylor and I finally got up the nerves to go down as well. Of course we go to the stage and realize that most of the kids who were dancing we Dance majors and we had no idea what we were doing. But it was still fun.

The we had a final little meeting and went to our dorms. I met up with a few of the animation kids and we watched the Pixar Shorts DVD and swapped sketchbooks. It's really nice to say something like "I love "insert animation reference" and for someone to enthusiastically agree.

Finally, we had our RA meetings (our RAs are awesome) and went to bed.

Today we have orientation for our specific fields, which should be awesome.

WB Pictures

Here are pictures from the Warner Bros tour

College and Stars

Today, was busy, busy, busy.


First, I had my first official college visit at Loyola Marymount University (LMU).(We passed the offices for Electronic Arts on the way there)
It was a very nice campus and our tour guide was sweet. Though, he did not seem to always know what he was talking about. "In the Science program we have this really great thing. It..does something really cool and...it's rare that a school would have such a thing."

Basically, a good school. I would probably have liked it even better if I was unsure of what school I wanted to go to.
As we were walking around the school, we kept noticing signs that said "Dexter" and we had no idea what they meant until we were on our way out. We then saw that an episode of the TV show "Dexter" was being filmed. My mom just about had a heart attack.

After the tour, we were starving. We found the nearest Denny's and went to town.

Then we, surprisngly, went to Warner Bros. and took the VIP tour.

We saw a TON, Including:
-The ER set
-A Cold Case episode in pre production.
-The Watertower. Too bad the Animaniacs weren't home.
An episode of "Pushing Daisies" being filmed. (We were feet away from KRISTEN CHENOWITH.)
-A lot of empty backlot sets
-The set of 2 and a Half men.
-And a very cool room with a ton of cars from different films.

Then we went to a special tour only museum that didn't allow cameras. There was some CRAZY stuff in there:

-Costumes from Sweeney Todd, Willy Wonka, the old Batman TV show. As well as many Harry Potter costumes on the All Harry Potter floor.
-An actual set piece and four original puppets from "The Corpse Bride"
-Props from Sweeney Todd. I kind of wanted to eat one of the pies.
-A model of the new Bat mobile.
-There was a lot of other stuff from older films I didn't recognize.
Upstairs was all Harry Potter
-I was sorted into Gryffindor by the sorting hat.
-The Goblet of Fire and the Triwizard Cup.
-A puppet of the giant spider (The name escapes me)
-A lot of costumes from "The Goblet of Fire". Interesting note, the female costumes were fitted to the, very skinny, mannequins. When we saw Hermoine's dress from the dance, we almost died, unsure of how anyone could fit in that. Then we found out that no one did.
- The Marauder's Map
and a lot of other stuff.

Then the tour was over and I got a Marvin the Martian key chain.

Unfortunately, I was not able to see Hellboy. The cinema near our hotel was only playing it in one theatre and it was Sold Out.
So, I went to McDonalds and got another Transformers toy. Ratchet this time. It seems that I keep getting the ones that focus on the vehicle mode, and don't really care about the robot mode at all.

I'll just have to deal with the Hellboy book until I get back from CSSSA.

Which, by the way, starts in mere hours.

Travels

Ok. I lied. We actually drove to Lompoc today, not Valencia.

We drove for about 5 or so hours and during that journey I experienced my first...

In-N-Out Burger. It was simply delicious.

Finally, we spent some time at my Great Grand Father's. I was actually surprised to find some very healthy trees in his backyard.

An Apple tree
A Tangerine tree
A Pear tree
A single-fruited orange tree

And..

An Olalaberry bush! Quite delicious!

Then I suggested dinner. Of course the place wasn't actually open when we went. So, we took a little side trip to Solvang, a little Dutch tourist town about 2 minutes from the restaurant.


Finally, we ate at "Aj Spurs". I had salsa spilled on me and everything was way to big. But I got a free rootbear float at the end so it was good.

Today is also the last day in my Divine Mercy Chaplet Novena.

Tomorrow, I have a college visit at Loyola Marymount. That should be fun. If all goes well I will also being seeing Hellboy II.

CSSSA starts day after tomorrow!!