Digital Flickr
This is a really cool service that I stumbled upon. Perfect for you photobloggers and would-be photographers to get all your stuff together without knowing MoveableType or complicated website coding or flash skills. It's called FLICKR. And it's coooool.

Got mine up and running. I think I'm going to do two of these. A personal one for pics of me and my friends, stupid pics and candid pics and whatnot. And then one to throw my sparse photography portfolio onto.

Anyway - my Flickr slideshow is RIGHT HERE. Like I said, it's mostly candid shots.

If anyone reading this (assuming, you know, anyone reads this) and go ahead and set one of these up yourself - please leave a comment with the address in it. I'd love to see them.


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What the hell? ptanderson.com shut down? That's disappointing...
- posted by Brendan @ 4:50 AM 1 comments

 
Exhaust fumes
So, I'm basically done with yet another semester. I was coloring my costume design concepts in the last 30 minutes before class this morning. I used some sleight of hand to postpone my CRM presentation (sorry, not going to elaborate on what that means).

So basically I just have my final film in Production 2 to worry about. And I am worried. I have some concepts, but nothing really rounded out. I need some inspiration.

Oh well.
- posted by Brendan @ 9:29 PM 0 comments

 
move
So I'm currently working on the costume design sketches for my production design final in Script Analysis. I'm doing the Ghost World script.

I'm so hopped up on caffeine right now that I'm having a hard time keeping my hand still to draw the sketches. This kind of sucks.

Back to work now.
- posted by Brendan @ 3:16 AM 0 comments

 
Review of The Meaning of Life / The Animation Show



As I procrastinate writing my Script Analysis final paper ---

I forgot to mention this earlier - David and I went to UofC to see Don Hertzfeldt & Mike Judge's "The Animation Show 2005". It's a collection of animated shorts, of various styles and techniques. The big draw, for me, was that it was screening Hertzfeldt's own new animation, "The Meaning of Life".

Most of the internet generation has seen something by Hertzfeldt. "Genre" - about a small stick-figurey bunny forced to reprsent various movie genres. "Billy's Balloon", a dark comedy about hordes of evil balloons taking over. Or his most famous (and rightly so), "Rejected" - a collection of clips supposedly presented to The Learning Channel, and others, as advertisements. All of this have a unique sense of humor and style that has got Hertzfledt a significant cult following. Including me. And David. And Pat. And Stu.. and most of my friends, actually.

Unfortunately - "The Meaning of Life" is extremely disappointing, on all counts. What Hertzfeldt seemed to mock in "Genre" with the 'pretentious student film' joke, is what The Meaning of Life becomes. It's nothing more than a jumble of noise. It's impressively animated - all hand done by Hertzfledt himself over the course of 4 years, with all effects done in-camera and no CG aid. However, those 4 years of work for *this* 12 minute short can't help but seems extremely misplaced and futile to me. That the 10 second title scene has more wit and biting sarcasm, and feels more like the trademark Don Hertzfeldt , than the 11 minutes and 50 seconds that follow. I can't help but feel that the jumbled, overlapping, music-covered, dialogue that makes up the bulk of that time would have been far more meaningful and entertaining, had it been isolated enough that we could make out what they were saying.

I don't know. Maybe it's because The Meaning of Life sticks out like a sore thumb against the previous shorts in the show. I'd like to see it again, seperate from any others, in its own context - by itself. But as it stands, it was severely disappointing agaisnt Hertzfeldt's other shorts. I think it's good that he decided to branch out and not be limited to the style of his other works, but I just feel that this entire concept was wasted and misplaced. He's obviously a great animator and filmmaker, but this was just too great a leap between tones. Again, especially in the context of The Animation show.

Individual Ratings for The Animation Show titles:
Gaurd Dog: 3/4 - Dark comedy. Funny, but predictable.
F.E.D.S: 1/4 - What the hell? No.
Pan With Us: 3/4 - Unique. Very interesting animation style.
Ward 13: 3/4 - Again, dark comedy. Great stop-motion animation. But predictable finale.
Hello: 3/4 - Cute.
Rock Fish: 2/4 - Meh.
The Man with no Shadow: 2/4 - Again, just meh.
Fallen Art: 4/4 - Loved this one. Dark comedy, again. But the pay off is fantastic. Awesome.
When the Day Breaks: 2.5/4 - Pretty good short. But not that good.
Fireworks: 3/4 - very short, one-shot deal. But I liked the style.
The Meaning of Life: 1.5/4 - See above. (Pending re-review)
- posted by Brendan @ 12:32 AM 0 comments

 
Fruit of the Loom, in case you were wondering.
This weekend was a lot.. a lot.. of fun. Well, specifically Sunday night.

Stefin, Other Pat, Sarah and I went down to the Fox river around 12am. I don't know *why* we did that, but I'm glad we did. I'd always talked to Sarah about wading out to the little islands in the middle of the river in Geneva, and we finally did it.

I started off just walking in the water up to my ankles. Then I started to get braver under the cover of night, and started walking a little deeper.. then deeper.. till I was halfway to the island. The water was up to my thighs now. My jeans, soaking wet. I decided I was already half of the way there, so I might as well actually touch the freaking island, so I continued on. Then Stefin got the spirit and hopped in with me.

Sarah was a little more hesitant, but I told her I'd catch her if she fell in and pretty soon she was in the water with us. Then Talitha and Walleed showed up and hopped in as well. There were some people fishing (at 12am?!) so we decided to move down the river into a more secluded area. There I saw yet *another* island - much further from shore. Again, I jumped in the river and started wading towards it. Stefin soon followed. Talitha, Sarah and Walleed thought this might be pushing things too far, but then they followed in after us.

The water got much deeper than before and pretty soon my balls were the size of peas (it wasn't particularly warm out on Sunday night.. and the water was.. colder). When we reached the second island Stefin stripped to his boxers, and I stripped to my.. erm.. briefs. I know I looked ridiculous with my little pale legs running along in my white skivvies but I didn't really care. The entire situation was ridiculous, but it was a lot of fun. Hell, if not for the rows of razor sharp rocks under the water I probably would have said "Fuck it." and ditched the skivvies and gone au natural. But razor sharp rocks are kind of a deal breaker (hence my now black toe).

Some black kids walked by and saw this situation and muttered, according to Pat who was standing gaurd on shore, "White people are weird."

Yes. Yes indeed. But it was fucking fun, regardless.

I've added an extra pair of jeans and a Tshirt to my trunk in case this situation presents itself again :P

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I'm currently on a Star Wars high, with almost every conversation including, or ending, with a Star Wars reference. But I saw this posted on TheForum today and I thought it made a good point about one of the final duels in Revenge of the Sith. It's a spoiler, so it's going to be in invisotext. Highlight to read:


Both fights mimiced each other. Yoda as stated above [then] was all the way at the bottom of the senate chamber. The Emperor had the upper hand. Yoda was smart and gave up to live another day. Obi-Wan was on the high hill and warned Anakin not to jump cause he knew if he did it you have to take him out. Anakin wasnt as smart at Yoda and lost he arm and legs.

So you see - Yoda is still a badass.


Speaking of Star Wars (and I'll do my best to ensure this is the last of Star Wars I talk about for a while.. at least until the tv series' come out) looking at the positive and negative reactions I think it's fair to divide the pro and cons into two categories:

1.) The Positives - The people who look past the dialogue in the first 90 minutes of the film. The people who still get excited when a lightsaber ignites. Who were still captivated and tense during the duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan regardless of knowing how it will end. Basically, people who acknowledge the problems that have always been present in *every* Star Wars film and accept them as part of the deal. But who retain the excitement of the first time they saw the series.

2.) The Negatives - The people caught up on the details. On the acting. On the lines. Who hold onto an idealized version of the original trilogy and haven't grown past that, or were never part of it.


And most people have fallen back into the first category with the release of Revenge of the Sith.

What stupid celebrity are you destined to kill? by daydreamer8852
Name
Birthdate
You killed
With a
On	August 20, 2021
Quiz created with MemeGen!

You may all send thanks.
- posted by Brendan @ 6:19 PM 0 comments