3.14.2009

Georgia on my mind

hi ladies and gents... well, okay... hi gents. i send you greetings from my ancestral homeland. i'm here for a couple of weeks visiting family and friends. it is nice to be back for a bit. i wasn't able to come home for the holidays, so this is my first trip home since the production break last july. it has been refreshing.

it is also shaping up to be a busy month after my fun and games vacation. shortly before leaving for this trip i secured a studio space with a couple of friends from coraline. i'm really looking forward to getting back home to get the studio set up and functional. we are going to have dedicated space for all of my metal working tools, a soldering station, moldmaking, casting, (with ventilation!) personal, and shared work space for everyone, and an entire corner blocked off for a shooting stage. it is going to be a fair amount of work to get everything just right, but it should be well worth the trouble. the problem is, i'm booked on a job in LA less than a week after i arrive back in portand (not really a problem, of course) so i'll probably get just close enough to having the space set up that it is frustrating to leave it unfinished for three weeks. i really can't wait to get in there and get down to business. i'm also really pleased to get all of my shop equipment out of the kitchen!

in other news, i was pleasantly surprised to see that coraline is returning to 3D screens this weekend. wait, what day is it? i guess that technically happened yesterday... what do you want from me, i'm on vacation? at any rate, jonas brothers = epic fail.

3.05.2009

more developments at LAIKA

LAIKA made some big announcements earlier today. travis knight is stepping up to the position of CEO of the company, and claire jennings is taking a position as "president of entertainment". you can read the press release for all the gory details.

i think this is great news. i have a lot of confidence in both of these individuals. claire jennings is very well-respected throughout the animation industry, and she's already made a positive impact at LAIKA since she came aboard midway through coraline. i consider myself fortunate to have been able to work closely with travis knight over the past couple of years on coraline. he's an amazing animator, and was one of the most hardworking individuals on the project. i'm sure he'll be even more devoted to his new position as CEO.

who knows if any of this will speed up the timeline for another stop motion feature at LAIKA, but i have to assume so. good people are at the reigns, so i have hope.

3.03.2009

special delivery

i got a call from harbor freight right round the time i finished that last post. my mill/drill came in!



initial thoughts:
bigger than i thought
much heavier than i thought
covered in nasty red grease
i think it'll work

i needed a good mini drill press, and i can't really afford the one i want right now. i hit the web to research what my other options might be, and i came up with this chinese made mini mill that is equipped with a levered handle for drilling. the seig company makes this tool, as well as several other models of varying sizes. several american companies rebrand these and sell in them in the US. this one is the smallest, the "X1" model. they get decent reviews. i'm not really counting on much from the milling side of things, but if i can do precise drilling i will be happy. right now i have to try to get all this slop off of it...

recuperating

hello again. i've been keeping to myself for a bit, and i guess i owe you an apology. i've been sick with a cold or worse twice in the past month, and last weekend i caught the flu to end all flus. i thought it was the big one. i swear i have been sick every other week since november. jeremy is ready to be healthy, okay?

there's a different feeling in the air now that coraline is out in the world. it has been very satisfying to take in the public response to the film. people are talking about stop motion again. the press around coraline has been interesting. people are wondering what comes next for laika. people are starting to obsess over the technology behind 3D printing and RP machines. is it good for stop motion? is it bad? is just another product of mankind's relentless pursuit of technology for technology's sake? 3D projection is the other big topic right now. the consensus seems to be that there are not enough 3D screens to support the current slate of upcoming 3D films. like the highlander, there can only be one. even though the jonas bros movie was an epic fail last weekend, they still took most of the screens away from coraline, probably costing us several million dollars at the box office. next up in 3D land, moviegoers get yet another shiny new dreamworks cartoon packed full of hot celebrity voices. yay. perhaps the 3D run for coraline has come to an end? weird.

i guess i didn't have a whole lot to say today other than i have not fallen off the face of the earth. it looks like there might be some fun stuff right around the corner for me, so i'll keep you posted when i know more. i still plan on posting some pics from the premier, and then finally i'm going to get around to posting some work samples from coraline.

soon!