Saturday, April 30, 2011

Lots of Videos + The End is Nigh!

WHOA, what an April.

Okay so a TON has happened since the month started. Wow. As I'm typing this, I have one measly class left. Just gotta type up a report for Dave Levy's Career Strategy's class and I'm all done. My thesis, "Balancing Act" is all turned in and I'm set to premiere at the Dusty Film & Animation Festival on May 8th, at 7:30 PM in the SVA Theatre (333 West 23rd Street). I'm, as of this post, in the #6 on the list of about 40 animated films that will be screening that night, so I'm nervous to be so close to the beginning! But I'm also really excited. Those of you who are fans of the NiN10Doh! collabs will be happy to hear the likes of Zach Bellissimo and Michael J. Ruocco will also in the screening. They have some kick-ass films that I've seen first hand; in fact our entire graduating year has done an incredible job! Those who can make it to the screening are in for a real treat.

So lately I've been trying to make better use of my YouTube channel and I've been creating a few videos that some of you might enjoy. The first of which is a trip down memory lane with an old book I found huddled in my basement. BEFORE GO! GO! PARODY RANGERS, THERE WAS THIS:



This was a birthday present when I was 7 years old. An old company called "Chimeric" would take commissions for "publishing" custom-made picture books, with drawings done by kids, sent it, printed and hard-bound like this one. I "wrote" and "illustrated" (I use those words lightly, in this case) this short-story about the Power Rangers.

I also mentioned last post that my cousin Lucciana, who scored the music for my thesis film, was in my hometown here in Long Island to perform with her band "The Lucky Bastards" on April Fools Day in a local pub:



Then recently, on a complete whim of venting on my tumblr, I decided to record an audio-version of a rant I did called "Unwasted". Surprisingly, it got a lot of really positive response from people, which I was NOT expecting at all. Feel free to listen in and I hope you might take something away from it too!



Some of you guys may know I've had the pleasure of working with Mr. Mike Pollock, known for his illustrious voiceover work in NYC, but most particularly as Dr. Eggman from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Recently, he wrote an original song parody about the death of Elizabeth Taylor and the tales of her many husbands. I illustrated a video to go alongside it, which he was quite pleased with. I haven't done any typography animation in a few years now, but it was interesting experience to say the least:



Speaking of Mike, I've gotten the chance to do some more professional voicework as of late! I just got my first gig at Edge Studio, thanks to some help from the wonderful Mick Lauer of DotDotDot fame. Can't talk much about that one just yet, but it's a project I'm REALLY excited to be a part of. On that same note, another big project I'm majorly excited about is ReincarnatedParano's animation called "Monster Boy", in which I voice the character ironically named "Chris". She's just finished the animatic for it, which you can view here:



...now I know what you're all thinking, BUT...the truth is, Rebekka and I hadn't met before I auditioned for the part (thanks to being told by D-Mac about a month ago), although apparently I won it by a landslide. To be fair, I think I fit the part of a lanky, hoodie-wearing art student with a big nose and an attitude problem pretty well, don't you? But yeah, Rebekka worked really hard on this and I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished product! As you'll also hear in the animatic, it features the talents of Kira Buckland, Martin Billany, Blake Swift and Xander Mobus. Check it out!

That's about all I can think of, but DAMN that's a lot. I'll probably have a few more posts in the month of May, since I've got a lot planned to tackle once graduation is through. In the meantime, I hope you guys enjoy all this stuff! Latah!

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Guess I'm the April Fool.

Okay so I think I got my hopes up a little bit too high for 2011.

I went in being all like YEAH THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME THIS IS MY YEAR YEAH TOTALLY COOL and it's...not really turning out that way. At least not yet. I feel like if I can stick it out for just one more month, I can make it. The Dusty is coming up soon, "Balancing Act" is done and I just need to finish up April and then I just gotta hope that things will start to turn around with the release of my film.

Surprisingly, my Newgrounds love hasn't been neglected as of late. I have a few things in the works over the next month to keep me busy. With the start of the month, I've held my tradition of doing an April Fools flash movie in the form of Turbo: A Parody Rangers Flash Movie. Due to a very short amount of time I had to make this, it's very shoddily put together, but I'm glad I at least got it outta me. I planned it for a very long time and teased about it in "Kirb Stomp". Special thanks to all of the cast for coming back again for this quick bit. I've also got a typography animation I can hopefully do in this next week or so, plus maybe another little thing for LittleKuriboh. Then, if a certain someone finishes cutting together a song I'm working on with some friends, maybe even a new music video by the time I graduate. We shall see.

I've also been doing a lot of voice-related stuff lately, which has been pretty fun. Mostly auditions for things, but a few projects I've been lucky enough to be cast in. One of these is being released right now, which I'm very honored to be a part of. Rhete has been working on an incredible 2-D shooting platformer game called "Hunters: Relic of Stars" that I voice a very cool character in. As of now, he hasn't shown up yet, but you can hear him in the game's kickass trailer.



The first few stages are released, so give 'em a go and I'm sure you'll enjoy it! Rhete did an outstanding job on the programming, making a truly fun old-school game that lovers of stuff like Metroid and Contra will really get a kick out of. Major props to D-Mac for the great casting and directing too. There's some wonderful voicework in there, not to mention AMAZING choices of music from the Audio Portal.

Thought I'd have more to talk about, but I guess not. Hopefully I'll have more blog posts this month though, I've been wiring down to only one a month lately and that's no good. Look forward to more!