Yesterday we were outside and a little woodpecker did this next door to our house. Tee-hee.

"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!

"Tah-Dah" Poster.... Finally!

So even though I officially finished my Animation degree this previous Friday [yaaahOOOOOOOO!!!!] and will soon complete the last chapter in this 4-chapter book....it doesn't feel that way!

Industry Day is this Thursday, so I am madly trying to get together my portfolio, update my resume, do my demo reel, design a takeaway portfolio for possible interviews, design postcards and redesign my poster, get that all printed, apply to a bunch of film fests....OH and my family is flying out this weekend and then we will be moving back to the Peg.

PHEW! Time flies :)

BTW, if anyone wants to take a peek at my flat portfolio or my press kit for "Tah-Dah", the links are on the side > > > under "My Jazz".

We'll see how the big screening goes!

Straight to your airwaves...

I'm on the radio! Or, I was.

First off, a huge thanks to Toni Pennacchia at MergingArts Productions, who invited me to come and do an interview with her on Spoiler Alert Radio.

It was great fun! I have never been on the radio before, not even as a call-in for a contest, so this was an entirely new experience for moi. It's now available as a downloadable podcast on the Spoiler Alert Radio website here.

For more info on Toni's awesome film festivals, Short Short Short Film Festival and Womanimation!, click here.

Paintin' fences

I am done clean-up [yay!!], and I am starting now to colour my backgrounds. I have 13 backgrounds total, and 2 minutes worth of animation.....and I plan to paint each frame in Photoshop with texture SOOOOOOOOOO....

I gots a lots o' colouring ahead!

For now, background 01 is done-o!

Animation Yearbook design

So this has been the year I have been waiting for [in more ways than one!], but also in terms of our annual Animation Yearbook. We can design one page of artwork each year to be included in the Yearbook, black and white; however when you get to 4th year, we get 2 pages - one colour AND one black and white. Wowza!

I spent last night and this morning finishing up a design to represent my film and be sufficiently well designed--at least to my liking!

Above are the pages individually; the black and white page will be on the left and the colour page on the right. I only tried to remember one thing this year when I designed them - LESS is more!

The pages together as hopefully they will appear in the Yearbook:

And now....back to clean-up!

Rough "TAH-DAH" Poster Idear

UPDATE: Watch a trailer of the finished film "Tah-Dah" here!




Amid working like a nutbar on cleaning up my animation, I am also trying to compile a few promotional pieces for my film right now. I am confident I will have more artwork when the film is closer to being finished, but as it stands I threw together a few pieces.....here's one of them, a rough poster idear.

Stay tuned for more!

Colour Concoctions

Right now I am trying to clean up all my animation [as quickly as humanly possible, which is not easy with clean up!]....so I thought I'd post my newest colour script for my film.

I really want an earthy palette, but one that's also a bit wacky to work with the UPA-ish stylings.
I hope this works, but the real test will be when I start to paint my animation and backgrounds!

Must.....keep...........drawrrrrrrinnnnnnggg......

Ruff animation stills from "TAH-DAH"

I thought since I am starting clean-up today [FINALLY!!], that I would post some stills of my ruff animation. I am actually happy with how it's turning out, which is a rareity when it comes to me liking my own animation!! So I am staying positive and moving forward!















I am sooooooo anxious to get to the painting stage, I just want to see it all finished now, but clean-up is a necessary evil, I suppose...... :)

Onward and upward!

The Stars of "TAH-DAH"

I'm pausing inbetween scenes to quickly post some character designs...I realize I haven't posted too much artwork from my film as of yet - 'cause everything is in the works!

But I have to say, I am actually really excited with the direction my film is going. Even though it's crazy insane amounts of work, I'm really lovin' seeing my characters come to life and my story take form.

It won't be complete [knock on wood!!] until end of April, but for now, here's my designs for the two main characters: Farmer Henry and Bentley Bug.

I hope everyone else will enjoy it as well!

A "TAH-DAH" test

I am madly ruff animating as we type.....HOWever, I thought I shouldst post a test scene I did before Christmas to see if I could ACTUALLY animate the way I was thinking in my head. In order to get the result I wanted, I mean. It's not perrrrfect, but it helped me work out a LOT of pipeline bugs, and is definitely helping me not lose sleep during the ruff animation stage....wondering how I am gonna clean up and colour all those frames.....

As you can see, I didn't finish colouring all the frames, but it was good enough for moi.

So enjoy the sneak peek!
Stay tuned for the real flick, April 2009 :)

Kaj sketches

Still workin on film stuff before I post...but I came across these rough Kaj Pindal sketches I did of him a couple months ago when he was kind enough to critique my film leica.

He gave me some great tips and comments, and regardless, it's always a bundle of enjoyment to be in that man's company and share in his vast animation experience and wisdom!

Cheers to Kaj!

Tips from Leo

I know, I KNOW, I have NOT posted in what seems like 8.3 months, but I am madly working on bits and parts of my film in its chaotic state at this moment! It's gotta be complete in 11 weeks, ack, ack, ACK.

Things will be posted toute suite on the aforementioned film....

....but in the meantime, here are some great tips on doing a short film from leonardo.
I found it both helpful and enjoyable.

I will post soon, I promise!

"Tah-dah" 4th year film leica reel [v.3]

As our local animation legend Kaj Pindal put it yesterday in his lecture about leica reels: "They are a living organism, you should be always updating your leica, and always ready to show it!"

Kaj is one of those people that you never question, you just smile and nod! I always LOVE seeing him speak, he still has so much animation joy after so many years in the industry, it's very refreshing!

So, in the spirit of Kaj, I am posting my current leica reel for my 4th year film, as it stands today! It will continue to change, morph, grow....and hopefully will be something I can be very proud of come end of April 2009! Comments, crits, etc are always welcomed!



A special thanks to my rad composer out in LA, Corey Wallace, who scrambled to get me a scratch score in time for our big screening! Thanks again Corey!!

Craft paper concepts pour moi Story

So I pitched my current film concept today for my mentor Barry, and a few fellow 4th years, and I got some great crits/idears - thanks Guys! This will definitely continue to morph and change, but I'd like to get to the leica reel stage earlier than later so I can work with the timing of the music and such.

ANYhooooo, getting ahead of me-self.

For the pitch today, I decided to do something totally different and dragged out my scissors and craft paper. It was fun - I was back in grade 2! Ah, the good ol' days. And a nice change from the constant drawring.....plus it forced me to think of basic shapes, silhouettes, contrasting elements, etc.

Read below each panel to get an idear of where my story is now. Stay tuned for the changes to come!

Open with EXT shot of farm; broken music notes emanating from a large willow tree.

Cross dissolve to INT shot of farmer playing his cello. Badly. All broken/sour notes are coming out from the cello, but farmer loves to play anyway.

Follow broken notes to bug up in the corner of the room - he is disgruntled, as he is just trying to enjoy his meal and cannot eat in peace with all the sour notes.

Bug decides to take matters into his own hands, flies down to the farmer's cello and begins to pick the strings to show him how to play properly.

Man notices bug on cello and tries to chase him off - but in the process of chasing the bug he is able to play a beautiful cello solo.

Man realizes that he needs bugs help / good luck to bring out his buried talent of cello genius.

Bug realizes he not only stopped the sour notes, but became the farmer's musical mentor. He can now eat in peace! He does a 4-legged "Tah-dah!"

------- iris out -------


That's it for now - comments and crits always welcomed and appreciated! I will continue to post updates as the story evolves in the coming days/weeks.

[Side note: Working title for this short is "Tah-dah!"]

Snippets of Inspirato

Firstly, a sketch and a snapshot.

I deem this dude Ed. I only caught a glimpse of him as I was driving through the Fisher-Price campus returning from lunch. I think he is a gardener on the grounds, and he paused as I drove by. His whole persona and expression just struck me, I had to immediately run back to my cube and sketch him. He makes me happy. :)

This was taken during a jaunt to one of the lovely Western NY parks - this one even having sculptures scattered among the green beauty! I loved loved loved loved it. I would love to retreat there daily. It is instances like this that I wish the whole "beam me up Scotty" thing was a reality! But because I cannot, I shall stare at the pics and pretend.


I can't believe I have a mere 5 weeks left here in Western NY. I realized this morning whilst I was chatting on the phone with a friend, and they asked if I was excited to come home, that I am going to miss everything here! I think that snuck up on me.

Isn't life just like that sometimes? I think all of us "human-folk" resist change. Eeww, cringe, NO, change?? Why, why change? I like knowing where to go, who I will talk to, what I will do, no, don't change it!

But then when we allow ourselves to let the door of change swing open, and we walk through it - not knowing really anything about what we are stepping into - there are always rewards. Always. Albeit, tough times of adjustment and discomfort too...but isn't that what makes you feel alive, really? Who wants to get comfortable in a rut? Isn't it almost worse to let yourself feel that numb autopilot, than to be invigorated with the fear of having no flippin' clue where are you headed next?

All of my rambling is leading to one thing: at first I really found it hard to adjust being out here. Being away from everyone and everything I knew. But I really tried to get as much out of each day that I could - and almost more importantly - put as much IN to each day as I could!

And I am really feeling the rewards of that now. I can honestly say that I am truly enjoying being out here, meeting the people I have and experiencing the things I have thus far. I am truly blessed, and I can't help but share that. I can only hope to pour some of that gratitude and positive experience into my film next year. If I can communicate even a snippet of that, I believe my film will be a success.

Life is too short. Find a way to enjoy your moment - now!

Paint therapy

I find when I am just feeling blah, that some easy therapy is my good ol' paints. There's something about mushing around acrylics on a canvas and seeing the different colours meld together...who needs therapists? I say, colour therapy can heal wonders :)

This is something that is the result of my Colour Therapy 101 from today. No plans, no expectations, no pressures.

Regardless of how the end product turned out....I should definitely do it more often.

[If you can't tell, it's the age-old tale of a music band and 2 canoers.]

**UPDATE JULY 22.08: I just wanted to add to this post that a friend of mine saw this painting and loved it so much she asked if she could buy it from me. It's funny because I never saw it as anything more than a stress relief, and I was actually planning on painting over it. JUST goes to show you that you never know the impact your art may have to someone else, when you have disregarded it, especially when it's created in honesty.

4th Year Film pitch package

So I have been reeeeeeeally busy getting settled over here in East Aurora, NY... adjusting to being a temporary American is interesting! More on that soonly :)

In the meantime, here is my 4th Year film pitch package that I handed in on the last day of 3rd year. I love my initial concept, but this summer it will need to go through a lot of growing pains and changes.

But here's the starting point. Critiques and comments are always encouraged and appreciated!