wasaap 2008

OLD NEWS

so i think the summer is over, maybe, no definitely

in the spirit of dark clouds on the horizon

stop motion

stop motion is the new peanut butter and jelly

quentin blake

anyone remember 4th grade, reading roald dahl with the illustrations of quentin blake, playing with magnifying glasses?

had a good weekend, hanging with a friend and his wife, who is deep into writing children's literature. i guess it was in my mind because i woke up this morning thinking of quentin blake's illustrations

senegal fast food

i gots no shame in posting youtube videos of this quality, pay no mind the the one below this, but this one is where its at

what can i say

hope you guys are doing well

mr. galloway

i don't know about you guys, but I think george galloway is the man

ya know

so big props to my friend sean pecknold, who is about to release a music video for the fleet foxes. the video has a great feel and concept - and is sort of heartbreakingly sad as well

not quite like this, but i'll just post this anyway
this comes to me via dave molloy, guy with the huge itunes collection and links for days

GOL!!!

big ups to spain for winning a big one

a friend at work turned me on to this video


Urban Soccer

amadou & mariam

have been really feeling the tracks from amadou & mariam for the past year

today am hanging out at the library, listening to deezer, pounding through c4d R10 workshop -- have been thinking about the future, and what things might look like in 10 or 20 years.

its scary as hell, but i guess i still have faith in the goodness of regular people

Discover Amadou & Mariam!

anti-war info graphics / debate

interesting spot from a cleanliness of information standpoint, quite enjoyed the debate going on about it at motionographer

i think a valid critique is reached, in that this spot makes the statement that the war is wrong only on the basis of the cost of the war in $USD, using consumer comparisons, ironically comparing the war cost to the cost of flag pins and cost to gas up SUV's but not in terms of lives or time to rebuild, or the litany of general wrongness about the whole thing

disclosure: I am anti-war

Suddenly is Sooner Than You Think from Rafael Pavon on Vimeo.

found this a minute ago

firefox 3

the new firefox is pretty dope, with some tasty new navigation features, which maybe is not the help i was looking for in leaving the house

we'll miss you buddy

i threw my phone into a bush when i was texted that george carlin had died. it puts the hysteria of softballer tim russert's death into perspective - and at least now chris matthews won't have to constantly have people mistaking him for russert. but back to george carlin - the last of comedy's great triumvirate, among lenny bruce and richard pryor. i don't usually care when celebrities die, but all i could think is that going forward, this new era we're living in needs more people like george carlin, not less

progress

this is what i'm talking about

folding bike handlebars -- read about it at gizmodo

i'll just get back to working on my inventions and stuff

paradoxicalifornia

3 days in the valley... visiting my good old friend shingi, who is deep into the pursuit of knowledge, specifically african traditional medicine. great weekend, kicking it with a huge expat Ugandan community - drinking and dancing to dancehall music at a Ugandan after hours spot. really good to see some other sides of LA while I'm down here for work - you have to take advantage of work trips while you can, and this weekend was fully.

found a favorite radio station... whatever is FM 88.5 here, when i landed it was playing Cuban and Puerto Rican music, and on my way later, some Bill Frisell. the wierd thing was as I drove through the hills and valleys, some news and mexican music stations would cut in - news of the circus around the alleged mastermind Khalid sheikh cutting against world music.

shingi has gotten hooked into some deep stuff - its nice to know people for years and see them grow. shingi enlightened me on ancient egyptians, and on the untold history of civilizations, including the pyramid building olmec people in ancient mexico


it's amazing how western civilizations retells it's history, and ignores the significant civilizations that were the foundation for our greco-roman knowledge base. whats funny is that during this weekend, which was like a schooling in african knowledge, shingi turned me on to some sick dancehall by Collie Buddz a white guy from bermuda who underscores that its about what you bring and who you are, not what you look like.

good trip though, glad i stopped to visit the shing, big ups to the LA Ugandan community

i know someone that would love this piece...

great narrative short spot - love the illustrative style and animation details

great write-up on motionographer

visiting my friend shingi this weekend in LA, doing what might be my last Disney meeting in a while, exciting things to come this summer

jack pics

starting to parse out the scenes for Jack and the Blood. Its always the time that one worries about coverage and choices made during production, but this is now a familiar feeling at this point in a production so i feel fairly at chilled this nth time around this feeling...above is a shot from the opening scene

or it could be that last night, after seeing my good friend SJ Chiro's short, THIRD DAYS CHILD at SIFF, on which I did some opening titles, we hooked up with some friends and got hugged by Amma, the hugging saint, who was having a massive Darshan at seattle center. it was pretty unreal and we waited until 140am to have our letter called, but walked away feeling realy groovy, though it could have been the chai that was going on




also of note, the cool as hell Indian short film 'REWIND', which showed in the same grouping at SIFF, is blowing up internationally as a short, and will open for 'Be kind, Rewind' in India. It definitely had my attention with an amazing use of reverse playback with perfectly timed, well voiced VO and great photography and concepting.

fffound

i posted earlier about beat takeshi, but overkill on this subject is no problem for me. seriously i should just start a beat takeshi appreciation blog, and write long essays about his dry editing style. i found this image while clicking through FFFOUND

more on new york later - which was unreal btw. big ups to miriam and lucky - will be posting some shots and making-of stuff of the short when i get a second to breathe.

peter, thanks for reminding me about the old days of listening to tom waits. have been listening to Franks Wild Years all day

jack and the blood

got everything from this last 2 weeks of hard work done and doner! feels good to hit deadlines and head into some working travel.



heading off tomorrow to Bushwick, NYC. will squeeze in making a short film with my good old pal Lucky Preksto using 35mm still lenses on the front of a 'pro-sumer' sony hdv camera... its a super light hungry set-up, but it will be cool to use my favorite 24mm lens - hopefully we'll get something between Jonathan Glazer and unintelligible video noise... big props to good co-workers, ping-pong players, neighbors, love interests, and toe truck drivers. super excited to see what my friend Sean Pecknold has been up to on a secret music video project.

seattle's saltiest camera

those of you that know the Ave, and have been inside Jim's Camera, used camera cum junk shop, know the proprieter's signature disdain and general air of condescension and irritable indolence. So i was trying to track down a specific camera part for my trip to nyc


This is the voicemail message he had going. Note: this message was still playing monday at 10:47am when I recorded it - favorite new word: "taco-smoke"


by the way, the u-district street fair was for me great, after working indoors saturday, we walked the ave and checked out seattle's best andean flute band playing in 11 man formation in the twilight as the festival was dying down. - reminded me of living in Tokyo and hanging out listening to peruvian music echo through Oimachi train station. My all-time hero, Beat Takeshi's prod. company's movie Ikinai features Andean music over shots of the Okinawan countryside. I wonder if Takeshi got into them through hearing them outside of train stations

onward

working another weekend, i guess that's how it goes in "the biz"...sike, its all good, going to enjoy next weekend in new york! thinking about an invite to head out to la push this weekend with some friends - i found this image for the blog via googling - it made me think of my dad's sketchbooks full of this kind of stuff

looked at some portfolios while rendering

thinking about what
books to get from the library

going to miss table tennis club today, will try to grab a quick bike ride later tonight

anyone seen Los Muertos?

ROJO MAGAZINE

interdisciplinary design + spanish = a vacation from keeping up on every happening in the motion graphics world

ROJO Magazine is definitely worth a few looks, and there is more english on the site than i made it sound like

there is so much good stuff being made right now

may mornings

i just have to say how much i love the feeling of late spring and summer mornings in seattle. there is this grocery aisle freshness that is thick in the air - and a temperature that feels slightly cooling, but basically unnoticeable. hope everyone is doing well

cheso power

music, man. thats what's been getting me by. just found this video by the dude that is tearing it up right now in zimbabwe. Alick Macheso is a lead singer/bass player, which is up there as a pretty dope way to run things -- check out the sick arranging and how the tune morphs. plus having a band that rolls straight up crew style is always impressive

more design related stuff to come soon, hope everybody is doing well

bucktown

i caught myself saying "whatup bucktown" to a friend living in brooklyn, and later realized my main point of reference. Black on Both Sides as it turns out is still as vital as it ever was. mos def/george carlin - my ticket for president. but seriously how about this hatchet job of a political process we have going on, theres more truth on 9 year old hip hop albums

FLight404 + Radiohead

Weird Fishes: Arpeggi from flight404 on Vimeo.

Robert Hodgin created this as part of a video contest for radiohead. Here's the cool part. This essentially used no keyframes and was made using an open source programming language called Processing. I'm on a roll of being blown away, having just seen (again) the end titles for Iron man by Danny Yount, and then this, on motionographer

inspiring stuff

SCANDALMONGER

My friends scandalmonger wanted a poster for their upcoming show, so i put this together one night, comping some images i scrounged up. a name like scandalmonger deserves a page of a burning trailer park. i think the next one should have to do with a moment in a fight by a poolside barbeque. first post.. complete, y'all take care now!