Summer is the time for all good things - really, the only thing missing is Christmas, but then if it had that there'd simply be an overload of awesome and every other time would suck.
Time off from school (except for me, whoops!), travel, or, if you're, you know, responsible and have a job, the chance to go outside and it's still sunny past 5 PM.
But wait! We can't forget all those wonderful movies coming out as well. Has there been a summer with as much promise for movies as this one? I think not!
Featuring The Dude as the villian!
A throwback to those wacky acid-tripped 70s cartoons!
I'm sure C.S. Lewis would be gung-ho on turning his children's stories into big-budget, epic Hollywood behemoths!
Please don't suck!
Why watch Steve Carell for free on TV when you can pay $10 and see him on ginormous TV?
Johnny-5 would be proud!
What, you mean you're not excited for a movie to a TV show that ended more than 6 years ago on a terrible note?
All right, not gonna lie, this movie will be balls-to-the-wall awesome.
Did I forget anything? Then it's probably worth forgetting.
(Yes, I just saw this for the first time in well over ten years and didn't remember anything about it, so I'm still coming off from how amazing this film is.)
oftentimes I have friends that ask what art students do for finals...are we given a test at the end (well, yeah, if you have nina for a teacher), do you do a quick drawing and hand it in the same day, etc.
well, unfortunately, finals seem to come weeks in advance. and this weekend it especially hits hard. plenty of projects to do, never enough time to get it exactly the way you want, but so is life.
...Is such a joke. I just got an e-mail about some guy who tied his dog in a gallery and let it starve to death. Even worse are the amount of people that gawked, and walked right on by.
It is such a pain to see so many talented, hardworking artists constantly putting their nose against the grind, yet we have people like this that get attention over something so deplorable, when he should be wary of picking up the soap behind bars.
All in all, screw this guy. And Ad Reinhardt. And Mark Rothko. And Agnes Martin. And guys like Robert Mapplethorpe or Andres Serrano, who don't understand the difference between shock value and art.
So yesterday was our field trip to Disney Studios up in Burbank, which was mindblowingly awesome 5X over. And I need to write everything down so I can remember it for years to come.
First of all, I knew I was in for a treat as soon as I saw the Animation building from I-5. It looked more like an airport than anything else, and from that point on my mind was just reeling. The security guard was making small talk with me while waiting in line, and I probably had the dumbest grin on my face the entire time. My attention span also showed how inattentive it was, since I couldn’t even remember where I was supposed to go after parking.
Anyway, after meeting up with other dumbstruck Long Beach students, we made our way into the...Orson Wells building, I think it was called (I thought he did Warner movies...?). Inside we saw the original multiplane camera used for Snow White (!), and an entrance to the "Disney Archives" which was clearly marked appointment only. More on that later. ;)
We met up with plenty of other students listening intently on one of the counselors there...she was so soft spoken and other students around just yapping like nothing was there, you’d almost want to slap them over the head.
They eventually gathered all of us, and sent us off into one of the many conference rooms for what would bring about many speakers, videos, and general doohickeys. We had the guy who directed Brother Bear talk to us about his many experiences, and the core stuff that he does, and of course, lots of teasing about projects to come. We then had a Q&A session where I got to ask two questions (and got a few stink eyes for doing so, but oh well!) about traditional animation, and needless to say, it seems like Disney Animation is set to really bring it back in a big way, which is good for me. :) Another speaker who came out dealt specifically with bringing 2D back smoothly. One of the things he said was that Disney Animation never should he left, and it is here to stay.
After showing us a few animated shorts (one being the Goofy short about how to hook up your home theater, brilliant and relatable stuff), we then took a break to network with other people. Unfortunately for me, those archives from before sure piqued my interest, and luckily for me, there was a guard there who I asked about possibly going inside, without an appointment, to which he replied, "Well, I really, shouldn’t, but let’s go in anyway." Most awesome guard? Why, yes, yes he was.
Inside I saw things that are simply priceless - you’re immediately greeted by the cabinet used in The Chronicles of Narnia, and there are plenty of bookshelves along the wall on the opposite side. Just then the tour lady strolls in, and thinking that both of us are probably in trouble, she just proceeds to take her own tour party around, and the guy just keeps showing me around. We saw original cel art for Snow White, the original Pinochio model used for the movie, and so many figures and books spanning all the different movies, that I could barely wrap my head around. The guy even shows me baby pictures of Disney, which was a bit weird, but hell if I’m going to say anything. Leaving the gallery, the guy pulls me aside and says, "Mum’s the word on this, by the way." So...highlight of the day for me. :)
Back to the events, they eventually split us up into two groups; those wanting to go into 3D animation and those who want to go into 2D. And it was there where we had a dude named Eric Goldberg, who designed and animated Genie, from Aladdin. Needless to say, it was a bit hard to sit still for that; truly a master of his craft, and just an awesome, down to earth guy. He goes on to show us things that inspire him and various clips form different movies, and basically saying how incredible the animation of old was and still is. Then comes the part that I’m still in awe over. We had a Q&A after his talk, where he’d ask us questions and we’d answer them.
"If you wanted to draw a surprised character, what would you start with?" He asks.
"A straight, diagonal line", we say. He then shrugs, and does just that, then just whips up a perfect, surprised, Mickey figure just like that, no more than 10 seconds flat.
"How about a confused character?" Someone says an S line (I’m thinking, how would you draw that?) So he just nods, draws his S, and, same thing, a perfect figure just like that, in front of everyone. Now, here’s the amazing part. He then says we’re going to make our own character, and describe everything about it - what it is, personality, size & shape, its activity, etc. So we made a wildebeast that’s short and fat, shy, and his activity? Someone came up with doing his taxes. And lo and behold, there he was, in no less than 30 seconds, a wildebeast hunched over doing his taxes. I can hardly wrap my head around how confident and how much training that would take not only to compose something like that in that short amount of time, with that unorthodox a creature, in front of that many people. WOW.
Before I write a book, I’ll skip ahead to when we took our tour of the studio at the end. We went all over the place; most exciting was the underground tunnels, but no cryogenic Walt to be found. We also passed through a hallway full of original cels, paintings, etc. of movies, and our tour guide just nonchalantly keeps us moving. Unfortunately for her, I’d say about 10 - 15 of us weren’t satisfied with that, and ended up staying a little too long, and ended up getting lost. So we made our own tour for a bit, until we eventually met up with the rest of them. That was our chance of sneaking around, but it was probably better that we didn’t - last thing I’d want is to see a "DO NOT LET THIS PERSON IN" sign in front with my name on it after infiltrating the animation buildings and kicking back with Glen Keane or something.
And that concludes that. It was an amazing day, far and away the highlight of my Spring Break, regardless of the 5 or so hours I spent that day in traffic with the wonderful, tolerable, LA community.
We watched this in my music and film class, and while everyone else was laughing hysterically, I couldn’t help but look in horror as my little world of Mickey Mouse came tumbling down from 3:30 on.
Shrugging that off, you say? Exhibit B...
What’d he do to deserve all that? Trying to practice his opera and Bugs interrupts him, then it escalates to this? Really now.
Still not with me? Exhibit C...
What does this teach kids? Super Grover only cares about himself in from of a camera rather than helping out poor little girls.
By now you must be as appalled as I am, but there’s one more! This is my fav, er, the most horrific!
Even though I have to be up for work in about 5 hours, I can’t sleep and needed to put this down somewhere before I forget it. It’s THAT important.
Today at the Illustration club I go to we had a speaker who does art for comic books. Not really something I’d be interested in pursuing, but the guy had Batman on his resume, and who am I to say no to that.
Anyway, one of the things he talked about was the mistakes he made throughout his career, most notably, cutting corners. He would talk about projects he had when he was in school, and how every now and then one would come along that he just didn’t have the patience for or energy for or whatever, and how he would sort of mentally blow it off. He talked about how that sort of attitude "leads you down the path of destruction." (His words, not mine) If you’re in school and you’re blowing stuff off, it’s setting you up for failure in the worst possible way, not to mention that school is when you need to experiment, try new things, etc. etc.
I can’t sleep, and for whatever reason this is one of the reasons why; not that I’m screwing around (school’s too expensive to do that) but this really stuck with me.
Taking a break from my *wonderful* Illustration assignment, where I accidently draw flashlights resembling phallic symbols.
Semester is going just fine; enjoying my classes, save for the "Comic Spirit." It’s a bunch of new agey mumbo jumbo that I can’t wrap my head around that early in the morning. The teacher is also probably the most whiney person I know; complains about everything, just like what I’m doing right now.
Other than that, all art classes are great - Costumed Figure Drawing is a nice break from drawing nekkid people, Illustration is a lot more fun than I thought thanks to the good atmosphere, and Animation daily reminds me that my hand will likely fall off if I pursue it. Too bad I’m stubborn. Thankfully, I’m also taking the greatest class ever - Music & Film. We literally watch movies all day. It’s wonderful.
Living alone is nice too. Bit boring at times, but probably because I procrastinate too much for my own good.
Which is what I’m doing right now, so I’d better end this.
Films that stuck with me last year - I won't try to rank them, though.
Except for No Country. An absolute roller coaster of a movie with incredible performances from Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, and of course, Javier Bardem's portrayal of the ruthless killer that rivals Hannibal Lecter.
The reason why this took longer to post than I intended. Daniel Day-Lewis is getting an Oscar for this one.
Russell Crowe + Christian Bale in a film that revived the Western. What's not to like?
Easily the best animated picture I've seen all year, Brad Bird takes the (headscratching) concept of a rat that cooks to soaring new heights.
One of my favorite directors with two of my favorite stars combined to make a great film. Ridley Scott's attention to detail is impeccable.
A feel-good film about teen pregnancy? J.K. Simmons really hits it with this one.
While leaning more on the "yeah right" side, I still loved this movie... much easier to swallow than Superbad, that's for sure.
Call it manipulative (it is, but not near as bad as Crash), but I still enjoyed the film that no one else saw (A movie about Iraq bombing in the box office? No way!). Tommy Lee Jones gives a heartrending performance about a father searching for his son.
What an unnerving film. The first two kills, while (mostly) off screen, are more gut-wrenching than anything I've seen all year.
For the bathroom / rooftop fight alone.
Honorable mentions:
Wacky anime with stunning visuals.
The second hour is the ultimate payoff in film evar.
