Golden Compass wins an Oscar.

Honestly I really don't care for the Oscars... They try to honor the individual when it is all the cohesive parts that make everyone look good. That is why a core group of films get all the awards each year. Very few awards are not swayed (in my opinion) by the contributions of other participants than the one receiving the award on the film. Example: Best Actor. How much of that performance is enhanced by great music, camera work, vfx, sound design, screen writing, all these things are cohesive and hard to separate for separate merit.

That being said. "Golden Compass" won the Academy Award for "Best Visual Fx". And I must say it is exciting to have been a part of the VFX team that created those effects. My hat goes off to all my co workers at R&H and those at the other studios that contributed. It is so incredible the number of man hours that are put into making films... It is an almost impossible task and yet there is the final product.

My Next Short is coming

Sheriff

This film has been a major labor of love. It started on the tail end of Der Ostwind while I was still in school. I told Kelly Loosli, my faculty adviser, that I wanted to do another visual effects film but something different from Ostwind. So we bounced some script ideas off each other. We settled on a story idea by Shane Lewis.

The premise of the story is the biggest, meanest, baddest dude in the old west comes to town to take on the cowardly sheriff, only to find himself facing something he would have never expected... a rooster with a badge!

Being that I started the film when I was in school and since then have worked on 3 different Blockbuster movies, it has morphed and changed in its look and approach since starting. Some of the elements I am kind of saddle with but in other areas there was a lot of room to maneuver. It still isn't perfect but hey... it is still born of a student film.

I have a great team of friends whom I attended school with helping me with the project and my tip my hat to BYU for allowing the project to continue to eat up resources at the University. I am hoping that for the students who help on the project will get a taste of a more real world experience of film making that many times is lacking in education.

What I am showing is a work in progress (render artifacts and all) of the new look for the rooster. He has come a long way believe you me. This is what he was:

then he was this (well not really but this was the first attempt at doing feathers and not just painted to look like he had feathers):

Needless to say, but he has improved much. He's not perfect... but then again... none of us are. I am excited as shots are beginning to be ready to render. Hopefully this film will reach even greater heights than Der Ostwind did. I would love to get to attend Sundance again. With out further adu... here he is... (right click play if necessary)



and here are just some fun posed images not really from the film but to give you an idea (not rendered... don't worry we won't have a gray rooster)

The Red Baron

Wow...



ok... Now you've seen it. For those of you who have seen my and Kohl's film, Der Ostwind... this is where we would have loved to take the visuals and one day I will! I hate budget/experience limitations.

Looks like it could be cool. Hopefully not another fly boys. While I found that film entertaining, it just wasn't unforgettable like I wanted it to be. I love aviation films and want them to be over the top incredible and there aren't many modern films that are. They always seem to loose the epic nature of the film by making it a love story and... oh yeah... I am at war flying an airplane... I want to see epic air battles. I want Saving Private Ryan of the air.

Someday I will make that film!

I love Independent films!

Sadly independent films are quite often viewed to be perverse, crass, dark and abhorrent. I would like to correct that misunderstanding. Sure some are as fore to mentioned, but there are many true gems among them. These gems are made by film makers who rise above the mindlessly depraved and take film making to the heights of pure story, relying on true talent to succeed in place of the easy and ungratifying lure of using sex and violence. Film makers who can create films such as those I am about to invite you to watch have mastered their craft and the result is entertainment that uplifts the soul. For eveyone who has a negative opinion of independent films I want you to see two films and report back. First, Sweetland:



It is a wonderful period piece about tolerance, love, friendship, and community. It is as beautiful to look at as it is beautiful to experience. It warmed my soul and filled me with a sublime sense of goodness. It is a must see.

The next independent film you should watch is Dear Frankie. It is a story of a deaf boy and his mother desperate attempt to protect him from their past.



This movie gave me a smile that I could hardly wipe off. It is truly amazing and fantastic. There is an innocence and a love between the characters that draws one into the picture, heart and soul. It is a masterful portrayal of how the human condition should be. How we should always care.

I hope all who read this will take a moment and see these films. You will not be disappointed. If you are looking for a film to rent/buy... it should be these.

"Transformers" and "Alvin and the who?"

It is no new thing for Hollywood to adapt popular tv series from the small screen to the big screen. Typically in Hollywood history there was not such a time gap from when the series ran to when the characters migrated to the bigger screen. There are many reasons, in my opinion, why this model of adaptation works better than waiting longer. For one thing the show still has a following and audience are either saddened that there beloved series is being canceled or the audience at one time enjoyed the show but found themselves not able or wanting to follow the week by week drama and are happy to see a condensed version of the characters they once loved.

Star Trek was like that for me. I liked the the tv shows and the movies... the movies were just big budget versions of the shows I loved... same characters... actors... But now it feels like Hollywood is finding it necessary to revive decade old and older shows to bring to the big screen. Fine I guess... but is it?

Tranformers has reinvigorated the race for making eights cartoons into movies... If grossed worldwide: $692,958,051. It was a $150 million budget movie! That is insane... I think the flood gate has just broken open and get ready for the flood. And here they come. I haven't seen Transformers, but my friend put it this way... "It's like making out with a girl you don't know... fun at the time if you don't think about it... kind of awkward afterward at school." The point is that it wasn't good for the right reasons. It took something that many people had an attachment too and made it into something else.

Don't get me wrong... I am not against finding new ways to tell old stories... but I'm not sure of what I think about resurrecting old tv hits for movies, ten to twenty years after the fact. It kind of pollutes the image. It never holds up to your childhood memories and then you rent the dvd of the old cartoons and it wrecks it even more as you realize you had a different perception of what was good.

The point is... Is it worth revisting these old childhood memories in this fashion? I think yes... but let me add that only as the exception, not the rule. People say it is making it new for the next generation... But is it far to rob the generation that loved it so much? In reality Micheal Bay's Transformers wasn't for the little kids of today as the cartoon was for my generation... That film was aimed at... who else... my generation. It was Transformers for grown ups. And really all it does is make me long for the simplicity of entertainment of yesteryear (which was all in my childhood perception).

I like to remember those childhood shows as "great stories" with "awesome animation" that were the "most entertaining shows" and "why can't shows be like that anymore?..." So now comes Alvin and the Chipmunks.

I cringe... If you haven't seen the trailer you won't understand... or maybe you do. Alvin eats Theodore's poop. He tells Dave it's a raisin... then he pops it down the hatch. When Dave leaves, he spits it out and tells Theodore, "You owe big time." When I saw that all I could think of is... oh no.


This is the Alvin and the Chipmunks Movie I remember and loved... However it came out at the time of the series (or shortly there after, can't remember). It, like star trek, feature the characters I knew and loved as a kid... The chipmunks were the chipmunks. Doesn't seem to be the case with the new hip hop gangsta chipmunks that are about to defile the big screen. It seems like they are trying to make it cool to those of us who grew up on it?!? Seems hard to do... they were singing chipmunks... Buy yet I have fond memories of listening to eighties covers and Christmas songs in high pitched chipmunk voices... I don't think I want to let this one get ruined...

I am not against making tv shows into feature films, but when is it too old to bring back or old enough? The films may be fine enough... but at what cost?! I myself am not ready to hand in my fond childhood memories for 3D rapping chipmunks...

What does the does the expansive cyberspace intellect have to say? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Other examples for or against?