January 18, 2007

Da House



















After a few months of looking around for an affordable (but not too far from work) home, we finally found one. We moved in on the weekend, and after 8 years of renting, here we are, our first little house.

January 17, 2007

Travel is Dangerous

Here's a nice Mogwai animated music video, produced by Hornet Inc.

January 16, 2007

January 12, 2007

Minatures














We Are All Ants





Bouncing Balls


While doing a clean sweep of the apartment, I dicovered some old folders filled with animation paper of my very first animation assignments I had done in college, then realised it was exactly 9 years ago I had done these. I remembered how me and 17 other students were the first to go through this Digital Animation course so by the time we started in Jan. 1997 we were still missing a lot of equipment that had yet to be shipped over to the college, so we went a few months without any pencil test system, no camera or scanner to film our assignments, just lots of flipping.

At one point, Peter (our classical animation teacher), booked the class a bus to travel an hour south to Halifax to film our bouncing ball assignments so that it could get processed in Toronto and eventually find its way back to the college where we could watch them on VHS.

It was fun experience, we went to the Atlantic Film Coop in a small dark room with hot lamps and an 8mm film camera to shoot our paper work. This is where we met Helen Hill. She was a delightful and sweet woman who helped 18 students all film their 2-3 buncing ball assignments, it was a long day, but worth the wait.

I was shocked to hear of her tragic death earlier this week. At only 36 years of age she was one of the nicest people you would ever meet.

Shown above, I took the liberty to scan in that same animation test, the first thing most animators in training learn to do, "the bouncing ball". Below is the CBC online news clip of the incident.

Filmmaker's slaying shocks Halifax community

Members of the filmmaking community in Halifax are mourning Helen Hill, an animator and social activist who was shot to death in New Orleans on Thursday.

On January 4th, Helen Hill, 36, was killed and her husband, Dr. Paul Gailiunas, was injured in the attack in their Louisiana home early Thursday morning. It was the city's sixth fatal shooting in 24 hours.

Police said officers found Gailiunas, 35, kneeling at the front door clutching the couple's two-year-old son in his arms. The boy wasn't hurt.

Walter Forsyth, executive director of the Atlantic Filmmakers Co-operative, said his friend Hill will be remembered for much more than the work she produced.

"She's really giving," he said. "She came here to make films and ended up starting Food Not Bombs and just helping people out on the street."

Halifax Food Not Bombs is a non-profit, volunteer run organization dedicated to providing free vegetarian meals to the local community.
Continue Article

Hill, from South Carolina, moved to Halifax in 1995 and made a name for herself through her animation work, as well as for her social activism.

Gailiunas won a humanitarian award from Dalhousie University when he graduated from medical school and helped set up the first charity foot clinic in Halifax.

Hill and Gailiunas left Halifax five years ago to live in New Orleans, the city where they first met.

New Orleans police don't have any suspects, nor any possible motives for the shootings.

But one neighbour said it was just like Hill and Gailiunas to open their door to someone in the wee hours thinking the person on the other side needed help.

January 10, 2007

Apple has done it again.

A Web Browser, Widget Display, Photo Album, Movie Player, Map Finder, E-mailer, iPod, and cellphone all rolled into one, all on the world's first mini-touch screen pad. For a whopping $600. Click on the image to take the tour.

Time


For seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

January 07, 2007

How many eyes?

Pan's Labyrinth Sketchbook

pans-labyrinth-sketches.jpg
I still haven't made it out to see Pan's Labyrinth, but seeing this collection of Guillermo del Toro's sketches for the film made me realize something: this guy would probably be really good at designing sex toys.

January 05, 2007

Blast From The Past

For my 400th post, Flooby Nooby is proud to present a little blast from the not-too-distant past. Here are pics taken nearly 7 years ago, back when Collideascope was animating its very first pilot episode, at the time being the first (along with Quads) to start a series using all 100% Flash.

We were a wee studio then, 1 director, 1 board/BG artist, and 8 animators, all struggling through our first time doing traditional style Flash cartoons for broadcast television.

Here we have James Boyd, Curtis Carey, Ron Doucet, Brian Finlay, Adam Gunn, and Bogdan Luca. We were practicing Jedi mind tricks every day.

Here we have Ron choking Curtis (a daily event) and Leigh flirting with Luca, she didn't even work at the studio, but enjoyed visiting us for some reason.

And here we have a visit from an old friend, sci-fiction celebrity icon, Chewbacca.... He's much shorter in real life.