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Monday, September 19, 2011

SuperHeavy - "Miracle Worker"

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[Today is the release date for the debut album--! See superheavy.com and order it thru Amazon.] 

A true a meeting of legends and musicians at the top of their game-- my geeky self would compare it with something like the Avengers Assembling or the Justice League team-up of musical talent.
The supergroup that composes SuperHeavy are Mick Jagger, Dave Stewart, Joss Stone, A.R. Rahman, and Damian Marley. It was the most diverse and talented pooling of folks I had ever heard of and a real pleasure to be a involved in this first release single.



I met with the director Paul Boyd and Dave A. Stewart of Eurythmics fame and worked out of his offices to knock these boards out in a big hurry. Again, more comics related references-- but I had heard of Dave's work in comics (not the also talented colorist 'Dave Stewart') but as scribe for the quirky black comedy graphic novel, "Zombie Broadway". I still have to check out his other her dip into comics with "Walk-In" which I was recommended. I gave him one of my 'Sunless Circus' comics I tend to have on hand.
Perks to working on-site--
Dave Stewart strumming live awesomeness
The SuperHeavy logo was a design by Shepard Fairey and that indeed was a real tattoo of it that Dave was getting in the vid. Now that's dedication to the project~ Here I was complaining about getting non-toxic marker ink all over my hands at the art desk...

Since the video required a crowd on set, a pal and I got treated to a free concert as extras and met a couple of the legendary performers. The violinist Ann Marie Calhoun was also amazing to hear perform live. 
I also got a copy of my hastily drawn storyboards signed by Sir Mick and Ms. Stone, which was quite fantastic.
If you do a search for it on eBay...... you won't find it~
All the talent and crew were a fine class of people and great to work with.

[Drawing Process]

Though I usually use digital color/toning, this one was rushed through (totaling 100+ frames of drawings in about two days) so I opted for my quick-and-speedy COPIC marker rendering. You can kind of see where I ran out of cool grays to switch to a warm tone in some of them. I've found this much faster and a better indicator of how to improve more confident linework. I personally like using the chisel tip Sketch markers that can handle both details and wide shadow areas. Especially for on-set sketching, I should really have a set of gray values handy for storyboarding on the fly.


The director was stellar and seemed happy with probably some of my most rushed drawings. It was a treat to see what parts of the sketches made the final cut. See here--


[Storyboards and screenshot comparison] :

Thursday, August 25, 2011

American Greetings/ Prius - "Nature's Harmony"

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This e-card was part of American Greetings' Summer of Harmony e-cards for the Toyota Prius. I didn't know this was up until I recently found it through the director, Chad Koch's site.I thought the hummingbird and the deer stumbling away was a nice touch--
This was a little while ago, but I remember listening to these SFX tracks over and over to catch the different animals. I still hear birds whenever a Prius honks.

In hindsight, I'm not sure what sound that tortoise would have made....
though possibly "Kow-a-bunga"

See the card HERE.

Monday, August 15, 2011

"Drop In to Win" - Wienerschnitzel Promotion

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This project for Wienerschnitzel through Adville USA was less storyboard heavy but required a process of sequential storytelling nonetheless. It features the vintage character of "Wienerman" as a throwback to the old mascot and the restaurant's 50th anniversary. Winning game pieces win one of fifty FIAT 500s.
Some of the ads are airing now on TV accompanied by that "Little Bitty Pretty One" song-- which after syncing animation to after hours on end, is thoroughly cemented in my head now~

Try your luck yourself at wienercash.com for a limited time--
Character turnaround and key mouth phonemes
(like "Eh", "Ah", "Oh", "M", "Oo", "Fffffff...")

Friday, July 29, 2011

Post Updates

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This post is a place-holder for recent projects that are in production, still under NDA contract, or I've yet to collect, collate and post board for. Stay tuned for updates--!

• TaxSlayer.com

• Wienerschnitzel (Wienercash.com promo animation)

• Taylor Swift e-card (AG.com)

• FSU graduate film project

• Super Heavy music video

• Pfizer commercial

In the meantime, here is work from an EstrellaTV commercial:









Monday, April 25, 2011

"White Apple" - Independent Short Drama

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This project was for a local filmmaker duo, the Brothers Pham. This short film follows the story of two brothers, one of whom is involved in an apocalyptic cult with very dark leanings. The mood and tone in the scenes I boarded were very thought out and well presented while working with the director. These specific boards shown had greytones added to define some characters and also selected to leave out some revelatory moments.
I think the casting choice was very fitting based on the characters I read and what I've seen so far-- It's great to see shrewd solutions worked on independent works like this with smart use of staging and lighting.
See the trailer embedded at bottom and see some more behind the scenes at their Facebook Page.

Writer/Director: Naman Pham 
Producer: Namson Pham

[Storyboards and screenshots.]


Sunday, April 17, 2011

Dex Knows - "Local Rhythms" Commercial

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Dex One Corporation provides print, online and mobile search marketing via their DexKnows.com website, print yellow pages directories. I wasn't familiar with the name until I realized they own the Yellow Pages here in CA. I noticed the DEX print material for the first time during a recent trip to Vegas--

Check out the extended version of the spot here: "Local Rhythms"

The commercial has a YouTube "Making of" video (embedded on bottom) that was fun to see since since I wasn't around for the actual filming. The setup for such a large cast looked like a huge challenge even in the early development stages.
T.K. Broderick did a stellar job weaving the sounds into the rhythmic beat that builds into the climax. After listening to the track several times over to work out the timing, I started to hear percussion in waking life everywhere too. 

Director: Ace Norton

[Storyboard and screenshot comparisons:]

Monday, March 28, 2011

"Winerschnitzel" - Cash in on a Corndog Promotion

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I once again worked on Wienerschnitzel's "Cash in on a Corn Dog" promo campaign through Adville USA. This year's had a more classic/vintage flavor compared to last years animated rapper. You can see some ads for it on TV in select areas (seen at least in parts of So. California~)

You can see the site up at Wienercash.com hosting the promotion. The walk cycle took a bit of doing to animate-- you can check it out by entering the sweepstakes info even if you don't have a promo code yet. There, you can also see the "Win-o-matic" machine in action-- the fun vintage refridgerator/vending machine/x-ray inspired contraption!

The contest and site will be up until May 29.
Find out some well aggregated info about the promo at this sweepstakeslovers.com page if you want to play the corndog odds!