Commercials and Walk it Out

This past weekend (meaning Friday) I worked on a commercial for Bowlmor Lanes directed by fellow recent NYU graduate Todd Wiseman, shot by also fellow recent NYU graduate Milos Silber and produced/AD'd by last fellow recent NYU graduate Richard Gionotti. Together they make Hayden 5 Media Productions, a company they put together themselves and through which they, among many other things, take on clients and do commercials. For this particular production I was PA-ing. It was a last minute spur-of-the-moment decision that was made partially in part because I was doing nothing else with my time, partially in part because it paid a little bit (which was better than nothing), but mostly because I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet and get to know these guys. Networking is always an important thing to do (especially now that our greatest social lubricant i.e. college is done and over with) and if you have the opportunity to network with people while demonstrating your competency on set, all the better.

On Friday we were shooting at previously mentioned friend and rapper Nyle Emerson's apartment in Brooklyn. There I also seized the opportunity to talk with him about the upcoming preliminary shoot for the doc on him we had talked about earlier last month as well as took the chance to show him a little of what I've been doing since I last saw him for any significant amount of time.

Among what I showed him [my two trailers and a bunch of pencil/animation tests I had done] was my 3-D walk cycle from this summer, to which he was thoroughly entertained and insisted that I put it to Unk's "Walk it Out" so I could get a million hits on Youtube. Anyway, below is the result. Perhaps I'll go back and make some changes one of these days to make it a little more interesting, but eh, at the moment I am without the means to do so.

Walk It Out from Matthew Chao on Vimeo.

Lesson in Sound Design

I found something great that I think is worth sharing and looking at.

Here's a good lesson in the use of sound design to tell a story:




I think Valve is like the Pixar of gaming to me. They just make some great stuff and this series of advertisements are a good example that.

To Infinity and Beyond!

I saw the Toy Story double feature in 3-D today with my friend Jessica. In short, they're both just as amazing now as when they first came out. On top of that, the fact that I now know a lot of the references that they make to other movies makes it even better. I think that this, as of now, goes to prove that Pixar films have a timelessness to them. The storytelling is impeccable as is the animation. They're truly masters of their craft.

Some Movie Reviews

So I've realized that I haven't really posted much of anything about film recently, which is problematic because that was what this blog was supposed to be about, but recently it's taken on the role of my xanga and picked up a lot of my random bitching and moaning about how miserable the world is, so here's a return to what this blog was supposed to be related to.

Movies I've recently seen:

District 9
The Spirit
9

District 9:
I was sort of apathetic about district 9 because on one side it was way too hyped up but on the other hand it was difficult for me to tune out the rage of my friend who sat next to me and absolutely hated the film. Personally I liked the style and cinematography and hell, the concept was great for me too but the characters were difficult to relate to and therefore everything that happened seemed rather distant and unaffecting. I believe the solution to that issue would be to make the main character less of an ass/less selfish. (everything that motivates him up until the last 5-10 minutes is entirely for his own benefit.

The Spirit
I went into this one expecting a serious attempt at Will Eisner's "The Spirit" and the film noir genre, I shouldn't have. This was clearly one of those movies that recognized how bad it was and just went with it, from Samuel L. Jackson as The Octopus smashing a toilet over The Spirit's head (and indeed trapping him in the bowl) to the endless supply of clone flunkies that seem to enjoy dying. This is in no way an angry attempt at making fun of the film, to me it just honestly read as that.

9
I was really excited for this movie, especially when I saw the trailer and even more so when I saw the short it was based off of. After all the hype in my mind I thought it was only ok though, which was disappointing. I think the characters could have been developed more (I don't really know anything about anyone) and that's the film's greatest flaw. I don't feel anything when great adversity is overcome and I don't feel anything when failure falls upon our group of heroes either. There are pluses though, I thought the animation was amazing, backgrounds and character designs breathtaking and the craft in terms of movement, spot on, but at the end of it all the story didn't quite hold up entirely for me. I might just have to watch it again, but yea, it didn't do it for me.


Ok, so that's my return to movies and stuff, hopefully soon I'll have something of my own to show and critique so I'm not just criticizing other people's stuff.

Browsing other Blogs

So as I was browsing other people's blogs, more specifically Keith Lango's blog, a blog introduced to me by a friend of mine who was a senior at NYU when I was a freshmen; Stewart Shaw, I came upon some really good stuff, one of which is this below:

selected animated scenes from Beauty and the Beast in their early stages.


This video has reminded me just how much there is to learn from old-school Disney. It also makes me say wow a little bit because occasionally I get to hear Robby talk about what it was like to be the voice of the beast.

As someone that knows next to no computer animation, any sort of animation I do/have done (with the exception of the bit that I had done for assignments in intro to 3-D) is hand drawn, yet at the same time I have never really gotten past the rough stage of animating to the clean-up and coloring and I would really like to get to there at some point, so I guess it's time for me to start thinking up ideas that I can animate and following through on them. Seeing this video on the Beauty and the Beast is very intimidating yet I'm still motivated by another thing I found on his blog:

I found this post on Bill Plympton and was especially motivated by the note he made for himself:

"(note to self: never accept what somebody else defines as 'impossible'),".

School's Out Forever

Last night I officially ended the beginning chapter of my life. I had postponed my official graduation until the end of the summer so that I could take this one class; intro to 3-D animation. As the class came to an end and I exited the building nothing special happened. I didn't feel any sort of profound wisdom, I didn't feel anymore motivated to take on the world, I didn't feel anything. I left I as though I would only be appearing in class again in a couple of days.

I feel as though I'm at an age where I should have learned not to expect these kinds of things but despite that I always do.

At any rate, as I was sitting in the classroom talking with my professor I got a very sobering view of just what this industry is like. He described for us the difficulty of his situation, which isn't an uncommon situation for freelancers, especially in the area of animation and I couldn't help but feel helpless.

I think about Nyle and how he's starting to blow up on the hip-hop scene and I have no trouble telling friends that I fully believe and have believed that Nyle will become a famous rapper, there is no doubt in my mind. However, I think about it and I figure there must have been some doubt in his mind, there must have been some hesitance, what with all these business plans he used to come up with. However, I remember the last time I talked with him he had scrapped all those plans and decided to go all or nothing at this rapping thing and its doing wonders for him.

I sit and think and wonder, is there a way for me to do that? Can I go ahead and go all or nothing and see if I can make it? Is there a way for me to go all or nothing? I'm immediately thinking of 2 ways that may be possible but they're still not very likely to work, are they? Should I try? I don't want to be stuck in a situation where I hate what I'm doing, but thinking about it there's no avoiding it is there?