when the world gets you down, bake a pie.

you're probably all pretty sick of the festival news, but here are a few more places you can see Chicken Cowboy:

Animation Block Party, New York City (this weekend)
Trimedia Film Festival, Old Town Fort Collins, Colorado, Sept 11 - 13
Calgary International Film Festival, Sept. 25 - Oct 4

princess-tastic figure drawing session.

a little something something from the sketchbook.

sea creatures. don't forget that tomorrow and every wednesday is whale wednesday.

jim henson we all miss you more than ever.

some faces from the ol' sketchbook.

friends, strangers, people on tv & in print.  no one is safe.

michael jackson--also from indiana.

Hi everyone.  in chicken cowboy-related news, the DGA screening was great.  CC will screening next at the indianapolis international film festival 

IIFF is July 15-25.  check it out!  Indianapolis is my hometown, so this is especially cool for me. Like Canadians, Hoosiers are strange and often creative people.  Famous Hoosiers include Larry Bird, James Dean, Kurt Vonnegut Jr, Twyla Tharp, Wes Mongomery, and, as the security guard at the airport reminded me after seeing my driver's license last week, John Cougar Mellencamp. Someday i will paint a series of hoosier portraits.

Come have an omelette with me can also be seen this week at the NYC Food Film Festival. Check out the schedule here.  Lots of food-related films and actual food and drinks.

Here are some sketches of flight attendants

here is vadim.

and some paint chips.

you can see some dr breakfast in there. I would like to storyboard dr breakfast on paint samples. 

Finally, thank you all for the kind comments on let's make out!

hi everyone. Here's my latest short, "let's make out." I started back in march, and it's taken me a little while to finally get the thing done. Pretty much all cycles of animation done after work or during lunch. something to keep me busy...



It's much in the same style of come have an omelette with me. this one's a little more detailed though.

thanks to connie for some extra vocals there. The original idea was to have a bunch of different animators do make out cycles, but things got a little hectic as always.

Here are some stills.









If you're in Los Angeles on June 2nd, you can see Chicken Cowboy at the Director's Guild. Here's the schedule for tuesday. Many fine films playing. I'll be there as well.



Anyhow, with let's make out done, it's on to the next project. hoping to get back to dr breakfast a bit, but we will see.

some stills from the new short

it's not so bad.

I've been skimming through ezra pound's ABC of Reading on the train.  One of my profs, Nick Tanis, first recommended it in his writing for the short film class.  Pound's educated (and often snarky) criticisms firstly apply to poetry. But his writings also provide some fun exercises for writers, filmmakers, and animators alike.  Just substitute the medium.

Take the passage below:

You have, probably all of you, your favourite writers.

What would happen to you if you started writing immediately after you had been reading

A,

B,

or C?

If you wanted to say something they hadn't said, or something of a different kind, would their manner of writing make your statement more accurate?

More interesting?

. . . . . .

Do you know why you like . . . .

A

B

C

Do you in any way distinguish beetween writers whom you 'like' and those whom you 'respect'?

Why, and how?

What do you guys think?  What are your filmmaking or drawing sensibilities? Where do they come from?  How easily are they influenced?  Is this a good thing?  How critical are we of what we see?  I'll see how this is met before I post my own responses.  

some trees

It's been another good week for chicken cowboy. CC won 1st at asifa-east in the student category. Congradulations to all the winners! full list can be seen here. Chicken Cowboy also won best animation at the national film festival for talented youth. Thanks!

Here's some fan art!

This comes from Aspen Middle School. Aspen Shortsfest has a great program that brings filmmakers into the classroom to show their shorts and answer questions about them.


This one is from chris siemasko. I like it, but would probably like it more if it was drawn by a student.

naw i'm just kidding. yeah napkin drawings!

i'll start posting more again, not that you guys have been missing out on much.

this sunday, if you're in new york...

be there or be [ ]

The New School

Tischman Auditorim

66 W. 12th St.

(bet. 5th/6th)

here's another still from the project:

hi everyone. Here are some concepts for the short short I've been working on in my free time. With fewer scenes unfinished than complete, it's time to start thinking about the next phase. How are these all going to fit together? And how to color them (with as little work as possible)?

These are just ideas. Anything and everything could and will change. nothing is permanent.

from what I've been showing so far, you can tell I'm really pushing the story and the production value. Well, not exactly. This is another experiment to keep me going before my next big short gets underway. A sort of spiritual sequel to come have an omelette with me.

speaking of CHAOWM, if you're in new york you'll be able to catch the world premiere at the new york food film festival, June 13-19th. food and film excite me.

In other news, you can catch Chicken Cowboy this weekend at NFFTY in Seattle, or next week at Rincon International. I think some more screenings are still coming, just in case you're not sick of chicken westerns.

have I been dropping too many hyperlinks lately? sorry if it's a little tacky.

happy friday

first off, here are some hugging dolphins



It's been a busy past week. Chicken Cowboy won for animation at AFI Dallas, and won Aspen Shortfest's "High Five to Lo-Fi" award. I was told that means it had the best low-budget to high production value.


Going to Aspen Shortsfest was a blast too. Met tons of extremely talented filmmakers. It also made me sad to miss AFI.

It's really amazing all the work that goes into making these festivals happen. My hats off to all the organizers and volunteers.

Looking forward to getting back to work on this short short. It's going to utilize a lot of the animation I've been posting lately. Can you detect a theme?

hi guys.  if you haven't heard the news, here it is.

Thanks again to everyone who made chicken cowboy possible.  It was a great way to finish nyu. Tons of fun to make.  

Here's second drawing I ever did of chicken cowboy. It was waaay back, summer of 06. The first drawing I did on a beach in california-- I'm too tired to dig it up and it's almost too silly to post.


here are some other old paintings of cc.



I'm off to aspen shortsfest. Thanks to everyone who saw chicken cowboy at AFI Dallas and First Run this past week. In the next month it's playing at NFFTY and Nashville.