He shoots... he scores!

Amid all the festival fun, I squeezed in a quick freelance job - I was hired to design a new hockey team logo. Above is the rough sketch and the final!

Onward and upward to the next freelance design gig, stay tuned!

LA Shorts Fest + "Tah-Dah" crits

My brother Cody and I jaunted down to LA this past weekend to see my film "Tah-Dah" Premiere at the LA Shorts Fest. The films screened at the Laemmle Sunset 5 Theatres on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. It was his very generous birthday and early Christmas present to me...it was amazing!

A couple quick videos to show our excited experience: [we are obviously related]
Seeing Courtney Cox
Seeing Scarlett Johansson

It was a great experience, besides getting to sit right beside A-list stars like Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher & Lena Headey, I got to screen and participate in a filmmaker Q & A after my film screened. It was a huge honor to be invited to screen my film among these true Hollywood productions! I met a lot of great people in the Industry, and got some really positive feedback on my film. It was overall definitely worth the trip!

Festival is in November at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood:

The second fest I got some great feedback from was the AniMazing Spotlight - my film was included in the Quarter 3 entries and got feedback from amazing professionals in the Animation Industry all over the world.

Here are some of the comments I received about "Tah-Dah":

Nancy Beiman: [worked with Chuck Jones & a Disney Animation veteran]
"Good sound, interesting design. The animation is good, The style is highly derivative of 1950s Disney design and story but the film is professional looking and pretty to watch."

Bill Dennis:

"Delightful little film. Loved the sound track."

Paul Dopff: [animator & instructor from France]

"Just perfect, with a very good tribute to the UPA style.

very professional creation, visual and sound level together."

Bill Matthews: [Disney Feature Animation veteran]

"A short (very short) animated film using the flat, designy approach reminiscent of the 1950's style of commercial animation. Rather refreshing departure from all the 3-D computer shorts in this competition; used a jazz-type background for a character playing a cello concerto!! Nice expressions but just as I was "getting into" the idea, it ended. (Usually, I found that editing on some shorts would have tightened up their stories...here, I couldn't get quite enough!)"

Thanks so much everyone!!

A sketch & a quote.

An awesome woman I stopped and memory sketched super quick when we were exploring the streets of Seattle. I find life to be so many shades of beautiful.

Here's a quote a friend of mine shared, of which I am enthralled, and am now sharing. I think we should all take some time each day to ponder stuff like this.

"Two men looked out through prison bars, One saw the mud, the other saw the stars."

Numero 11 & 12

....and this fest is on home turf! [Gimli, Manitoba] The only "downside" is I won't be able to attend, as I will be jetting to LA this weekend [that sounds so posh!] with my bro to see my film premiere at the LA Shorts Fest! But Tams and the rest of the gang will cheer loudly for me, and that's all I could ever hope to wish for. :)

On July 24th in Gimli, Manitoba:

My film is playing on Friday, July 24th @ 7pm in the "Hot Dogs and Monsters Short Children's Program".

On Sept 19th at the Director's Guild in Hollywood:

This one is a student film fest, so it is exciting to be representing Sheridan College with my animated short :) Getting accepted to these things never gets old for me, I can't believe this is Number 12!

"Tah-Dah" teaser trailer

So I finally threw together a quick teaser trailer of my film, "Tah-Dah"! A few of the film fests were requesting a trailer, and I thought then it could have some online presence without having to post the whole film...yet.



I hope this makes ya wanna see the real deal!

San Diego Zoo sketchlings

The amount of sketches I did in comparison to the amount of animals we saw at the famed San Diego Zoo! What an amazing place, if I lived anywhere around there I would SO get an annual pass to draw it up!

I [stupidly] forgot my pencil pack back at the house when we left, so I bought a nice ol' HB San Diego zoo pencil and used that.....aaaaahhh, the quality lead that comes in those pencils, lemme tell ya.


I can't wait to spend some quality sketching time this summer at the ol' Winnipeg zoo!

Festivus 8, 9 & 10

'Tis the season for film fests! I continue to be overjoyed with the response "Tah-Dah" has had amongst the film festivals! It has been invited to 3 more over the last little while, yayzers! Here they are for the inquiring minds who....inquire.

On Friday Aug 21st in Nevada City, CA:

On August 8th at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood:

In November at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood:

I couldn't have done it nearly as well [or at all!] without Tams helping me colour the last few scenes, and all the Sheridan faculty's help along the way, not to mention all the support of my fab fellow 4th-year-ers!

Yay team!