American University Museum

American University has an incredible Art Museum at their Katzen Art Center (Dept. of Art). I've visited it before and I was extremely impressed. The museum exhibits both student work and work by visiting artists from all corners of the world. They also conduct Gallery Talks with exhibiting artists as well. I haven't been to one of those, but I want to (maybe this summer).

If you guys ever get a chance, you should definitely visit the museum. It contains some breathtaking work.

Link: http://www.american.edu/cas/katzen/museum/

Movies for Summer 2008

Want to know what's coming out this summer?

http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/01/10/official-guide-to-the-summer-of-2008/

Something That Caught My Eye

My brother-in-law is a digital artist and I've just recently seen his works. He has a blog that he uses to display his pieces, which are, of course, awesome! He has actually started selling his work now and I think he's exhibiting soon as well. My favorite is "Night Bloom". You can check out some of his pieces at his blog site:

http://www.timmiri.com/

Enjoy!

An Engineer's Guide To Cats

For all the cat lovers. This short film is awesome! Check it out:

http://video.yahoo.com/network/100284668?v=2369949&l=3774740

A Good Cause

I saw a commercial on TV for this organization and it was really powerful.
http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer

Unnecessary Instructions

I found the napkins at Chipotle to have some "unnecessary instructions". It has three visual steps on how to hold the burrito, unwrap the burrito and then eat the burrito. I guess they can be considered to be little visual elements that add to their branding and so forth, but they are definitely unnecessary, at least to me.

Uwe Boll

I just had to post this.

So there's this German director named Uwe Boll who makes films based off of video games. He works outside of the Hollywood system by getting all his funding from the German government and other overseas investors and sources.

Here's the thing... his work as a director sucks! He's been criticized as being the worst director ever! A review of one of Boll's films (Alone in the Dark) stated... "the movie should make all other "bad" movie directors feel better in comparison: "'It's okay,' they'll tell themselves, 'I didn't make Alone in the Dark.'" Another reviewer wrote that his films were "so poorly built, so horribly acted and so sloppily stitched together that they're not even at the straight-to-DVD level."

So now there's this online petition going around getting signatures so that Uwe Boll will stop making movies! And he's actually posted videos of himself addressing this petition. And he gets really irate and starts badmouthing Michael Bay and George Clooney. It's pretty incredible. Check them out:

http://www.movieweb.com/video/V08D3fkpyGRTVX

http://www.movieweb.com/video/V08D13cnvxyPQR

Project 4orty 5ive at the Grog

The Juice Guys

So my product is Nantucket Nectars juices. You can find them practically anywhere and the their selling point is the fact that their juices are mostly all natural. The company founders are two guys named Tom and Tom that had humble beginnings.

The Company
Tom and Tom started their adventure servicing visiting boats in Nantucket Harbor. They bought a Boston Whaler, painted the name "Allserve" on the side, and a business was born. Their jobs consisted of delivering everything from newspapers and coffee, to laundry and other necessities not easily obtainable without a trip into town. What started as a local saying about their business soon became their motto: "Ain't nothin' them boys don't do."

With the Allserve business growing quickly, the Toms used the opportunity to start a juice company, Nantucket Nectars. They also opened the Allserve General Store on the island, created a distribution company to get their juice out to thirsty consumers, and opened the Juice Guys Juice Bar which, now partnered with Provisions, still exists on the island today.

Tom & Tom Story
Tom First and Tom Scott, known as Tom and Tom, met at Brown University in the fall of 1985. Four years later they graduated and headed to Nantucket. That summer they started Allserve, a floating convenience store servicing boats in Nantucket Harbor. The pair delivered everything from newspapers to laundry in their unmistakable red boat. One cold winter night they began mixing juice in a blender. The following summer they sold it off their boat. People loved it! They decided to call it Nantucket Nectars.

Today, Nantucket Nectars are available in many varieties: 100% Juices, Juice Cocktails, Nantucket Squeezed Nectars, and Nantucket Nectars Organic. There is also a Juice Guys Juice Bar on Easy Street in Nantucket. You gotta try Nantucket Nectars. We won't let you down.

taken from www.juiceguys.com

Project 4orty 5ive at Fletchers

Hey guys!

This is a video of my band at Fletchers back in February. You can't really see me in it though because I'm on the far right corner of the stage and its dark. But you can see my arm, my hand, my watch and part of my guitar!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDy9tRCcVyI

Kulifoahnia!

Hey everyone!

Not sure if you've come across this before, but there are some guys who've cut together audio clips of Arnold Schwarzenegger from his various film roles. They've used these clips for prank phone calls to random people in random places. They basically call people and respond to them by playing dialogue from Arnold on the phone.

Most of these are pretty funny, but there are some that could be offensive as well. Judge for yourself. I just thought I'd put it out there.

Oh yeah... WARNING: Explicit Language!

http://www.realmofdarkness.net/pranks/arnold-pranks.htm

Narrative: Timelines

I think timelines are a very interesting and visual way to convey a narrative.  Based on the topic, they take the most significant event within a specified length of time and use them chronologically as points in time to establish and describe that amount of time.  This creates a narrative of events that shapes a period of history, or a art movement, or a campaign.

There are many kinds of timelines.  I really like the graphical ones that show thumbnail pictures of the specific event and and includes the year and/or a brief description of that point in time.

Lovely Alien

Maria, Jill, Mike and I came up with this little story.  We tried to convey a short story within 5 panels of information.  

Our story is called "Lovely Alien" and it is about an astronaut landing on a planet.  He then encounters what he thinks is a cute, lovable little alien.  The cute alien then shows his true colors and the rest of its body springs forth from the ground exposing its true self.  The astronaut shoots the alien with this laser gun, but the alien splits and becomes two!  The two aliens then devour the astronaut.  They then see another space ship about to land and bury their more gruesome halves underground, only letting their cute, lovable tops to be exposed.  The second astronaut then lands and the entire horrific cycle starts over.

I enjoyed this little project quite a bit.  It was a good exercise in establishing a story within specific keyframes.  We chose the 5 most important "scenes" of the story and created key frames that progressed the pace of the narrative.  I think we did a good job of establishing a beginning, middle and end as well.  This was fun!

Narrative

These are the lyrics to one of my all-time favorite songs ever by a band called Gin Blossoms! I think these lyrics have the writer's heart very evident in them. In just 4 verses and a chorus, I get an entire picture of a relationship that seemed very one sided. It's sort of a sad song that's just a reflection of sad emotions I guess. But overall, I think it's great story-telling as far as content and narrative.

Found Out About You
by Gin Blossoms

All last summer in case you don't recall
I was yours and you were mine forget it all
Is there a line that I could write
Sad enough to make you cry
And all the lines you wrote to me were lies

Months roll past the love that you struck dead
Did you love me only in my head
Well the things you said and did to me
Seemed to come so easily
The love I thought I'd won you gave for free

Whispers at the bus stop
I heard about night's out in the school yard
I found out about you

Rumors follow everywhere you go
Like when you left and I was last to know
Well you're famous now and there's no doubt
In all the places you hang out
They know your name and they know what you're about

Street lights blink on through the car window
I get the time too often on A.M. radio
You know its all I think about
I write your name, drive past your house
You're boyfriend's over, I watch your lights go out

Terry Tate: Office Linebacker

These shorts are hilarious. They've been out for awhile, but I've just re-discovered them. Thought I'd share:

http://www.returnofterrytate.com/