One of my favorite indie rockers, Jeff Hanson, was found dead on Friday in his new concrete-floored apartment of an apparent accidental fall, reports the St. Paul, Minnesota Star Tribune (via The Onion A.V. Club).
I was first introduced to Jeff Hanson's music by fellow UCLA Animator, Lena Podesta, who used Hanson's song "Just Like Me" for her film Dead Girl + Live Boy. I was blown away by the delicate vocals so I asked Lena, "who's the chick that does the song for your film?" but Lena corrected me and said "believe it or not, it's a dude" and she lent me Hanson's debut solo CD Son, which is one of my all-time favorites.
Jeff Hanson's death reminds me of Elliott Smith, who also died at a tragically young age, though Hanson did not have the life-long battle with drugs and depression that plagued Smith, and Hanson's death was probably an accident while Smith's was ruled a suicide. Still, Hanson and Smith had very similar guitar and vocal styles and they were both talented musicians, playing almost all of the instruments on the albums they each recorded for the indie label Kill Rock Stars.
MTV.com just released an exclusive clip from 9 that features my favorite character in the film: a sewing snake-like beast that Shane dubbed "the Seamstress." Throughout production, I kept begging for more Seamstress, and now to see it fully animated and rendered, it gives me chills. It's so exciting because I got to hobnob with the storyboard artists while they were boarding and re-boarding this sequence, watching it evolve up until the last year of production, and apparently Shane has added a little twist to the sequence since that last time I saw it. I can't wait to see what other surprises are in the final film. 09/09/09 is just a few months away...
Barack Obama: 3
G.W. Bush, et al: 0
Actually, this chart conveniently leaves off Thomas Jefferson, who waged war against the "Barbary states", which supported pirates, so presumably pirates were killed because of Jefferson's actions.
Still, the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips by US Navy SEAL snipers is clearly a victory for Obama that is rare among US Presidents.
I'm nearing my own birthday in a few days (the dreaded dirty thirty), but today, February 12th, is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution through natural selection is easily one of the greatest discoveries in the history of human knowledge.
In celebration of Darwin Day 2009, my fellow Americans should watch the Nova special about the debate surrounding evolution in America called Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial on the PBS website. I especially recommend Chapter 6, which explains the difference between the common everyday use of the term "theory" (which implies unsupported "speculation") versus a scientific theory (which, according to the National Academy of Sciences, is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment"). Chapter 6 also presents one of the most compelling facts to support human evolution: the existence of vestigial centromeres and telomeres in Chromosome 2.
Sadly, 150 years after the first publication of Darwin's seminal book On the Origin of Species, many Americans still refuse to accept evolution as fact despite the (literally) mountains of evidence to support Darwin's theory. I spent last Thanksgiving arguing with a family friend who defiantly dismissed evolution as "just a theory" despite my futile attempts to educate her. She, like so many Americans, defies rationality and reason by subscribing to the so-called "Intelligent Design" theory, which is hardly a theory at all because it cannot be confirmed through observation and experiment nor can it make any predictions about the natural world. Evolution, however, has been confirmed over and over with each new piece of genetic and fossil evidence (e.g. Tiktaalik) and it can make accurate predictions about the natural world (i.e. Chromosome 2).
Happy Birthday Charles Darwin!!!
Free-thinking YouTuber TheraminTrees created this brilliant metaphoric animation, which really resonates with my own personal experience:
I like TheraminTrees' use of speech bubbles, especially when the dad's bubble silences the kid.
The cupboard metaphor works quite nicely, especially the part when the kid follows the exact word of the "instruction manual" only to discover he's built something unbalanced and dysfunctional. Clearly, people pick and choose instructions from their manuals (scriptures) to construct cabinets (world-views/moralities) that are most practical for their own needs, and yet they pass judgment against others who find different interpretations from the same manual or follow a different manual altogether.
What a wonderfully diverse the world would be if everyone chose to build their cupboards according to universal design fundamentals and were free to express themselves adorn their cupboards with their own personal decoration?! I chose long ago to put my Bible (and its antiquated rules) away and to instead live my life according to the fundamental "Golden Rule" of reciprocity (which is universal to all major religions and has been the foundation of ethics long before Jesus said "love thy neighbor").
After posting a link to the "9" Trailer everywhere I could (this blog, my Facebook, my MySpace, etc) people have been asking me what those songs are in the trailer. I was a bit curious myself because I honestly didn't recognize the songs, so I considered asking Shane, but I decided to try out the iPhone apps that identify songs played into the mic.
I already had both of the iPhone apps available, Shazam and Midomi so I decided to try Shazam first, because I'd already tested out Midomi and I'd recently seen Shazam in an iPhone commercial. I tried 3 times but Shazam failed to identify the ambient music at the beginning of the trailer, possibly because there was only 3 long sustained notes before Martin Landau's narration starts (I made sure to stop short of the narration since it's obviously not part of the original song). Shazam said that the song was "unrecognized" on the first 2 attempts and on the 3rd try it misidentified the song as "Ich Bin Nich' Ich" by Tokio Hotel (horrible song btw).
Shazam had no trouble recognizing the thrashing metals guitars from the action part at the middle of the trailer, nor the classical guitar at the end of the trailer, and it correctly identified both bits of music as the same song, "Welcome Home" by Coheed and Cambria.
I still wanted to know what the ambient song was at the beginning of the trailer so I gave Midomi a try. I'd used Midomi several times before to identify songs that were in my head because Midomi can also recognize songs that are sung or hummed (Shazam only works with original recordings played into the mic). Midomi not only recognized "Welcome Home" but it also correctly identified the ambient song on the first try as "The Captain" by The Knife.
So there you have it, the songs in the "9" trailer are:
It's funny cuz when I first saw the trailer at Shane's place, I told him I honestly thought the music was really cheesy. But after watching it many times, I have to admit that the music is very fitting for the energy of the trailer. It builds an excitement that will hopefully sustain until the movie is released on 9/9/09 (also a tad cheesy and yet so perfectly fitting). Seriously, I'm so 
ing excited, I'm shaking.
Link: http://www.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/9/
Right about this time two years ago, in December 2006, I was packing up to move to Luxembourg City for a few months to continue working on Shane Acker's feature film "9", based on his Oscar-nominated short. Then a year later, in January 2008, I was following Shane again, this time to Toronto, for a few more months of production before I finally finished my role as production-assistant-turned-technical-coordinator-turned-assistant-editor in February 2008. All totaled, the production took me to 4 cities, 3 countries and 2 continents, and now after over 2 years of trying to explain the film to curious friends and family, I can answer people's questions about the film by telling them simply to "check out the trailer..."
So stop reading this and go, check out the trailer:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/focus_features/9/
Current mood:
Super-fantastically excited
Link: http://www.pixelnitrate.com/aig_catcher.php
Fellow UCLA Animation Workshopper Joaquin Baldwin has created a great little Flash game called AIG Exec UFO Catcher (NSFW). Joaquin combines excellent animation and simple interactivity with apropos social commentary to let players punish AIG execs for their shameful spending of bail-out money on opulent self-indulgence. There's something satisfying and charming about being able to (literally) "bring down the hammer" (in the form of an old-school "UFO catcher" vending machine claw) on effigies of these real-life corporate criminals. I just hope they face real punishment (though I'll settle for huge fines and/or prison time instead of death and dismemberment)...
You can play the game on Joaquin's website:
AIG Exec UFO Catcher (NSFW, especially if you work for a big corporate bank)
Also, check out his award-winning animated films Papiroflexia and Sebastian's Voodoo, which was just won the Grand Prix in the 2008 aniBoom Awards.
Jon Stewart's guest on The Daily Show last night (Tuesday Dec 09, 2008) was former Arkansas Governor and failed Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. During the 2008 primaries, the affable Huckabee was a frequent guest on both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, where the Huckster was usually allowed to shamelessly self-promote his Christian Conservative dogma without much challenge from the hosts (Colbert even gave Huckabee the "Corbert Bump") but last night Jon Stewart really took Mike to task on the issue of gay marriage, which Huckabee opposes.
My favorite moment came about 4 minutes into the second part of the interview (video below) when Jon Stewart noted:
Religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality. And the protections that we have, for religion --we protect religion-- and talk about a lifestyle choice! That is absolutely a choice. Gay people don't choose to be gay.
Huckabee had no retort to Jon's point nor did have have any answer when Jon asked him:
At what age did you choose not to be gay?
Amen, Jon!
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