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Animex Talk… Again!

February 9, 2009

And now for the second half of this fantastic animation and games festival, with the focus for the Thursday and Friday focusing on the animation and film side of things. Such guests included Mark Walsh from Pixar (talking about Presto!), Mark Empey from Disney Feature Animation (discussing Bolt), and Jason Sadler from Blue Sky Studios (designer for Horton Hears a Who, but more importantly, an animator on Happy Tree Friends). And don’t forget representatives from Industrial Light & Magic, Framestore, and House of Curves looking at plenty of VFX stuff. Even as a programmer, it’s still highly enjoyable for those interested in design and storytelling, so I had a good time.

animex_presto
The best bit had to be the 3D screening of Bolt on the Friday night, though. The stereoscopic projector got installed especially for the Animex screening, and the technology makes it look great. And with plenty of Real-D films in production (including a re-render of the original Toy Story), I guess it’s the future of cinema. We’ll see.

BOLT Walt Disney Pictures November 26, 2008_2_jpg

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Posting About Posters!

October 10, 2008

As my friends here in Middlesbrough probably know, I’ve been working on that Nymphadora Tonks poster for a while. Well, I finally got it printed the other day, along with a few awesome game-related ones – they look great, so I’ve decided to upload them here for people to use. They’re JPEG copies of the original photoshop files I used (standard A3 template, so stupidly high resolution) with all the original artwork watermarks removed, and should be suitable to just take to a reprographics shop to be printed. Enjoy!

Artwork is owned by it’s respective copyright owners, yadda yadda.

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"Boy, I Sure Hate Mummies, Yet Again!" *sigh*

August 15, 2008

So, the goal of updating my blog every day lasted long… but to be honest, can you really blame me? What’s the point in forcing myself to write a blog entry when there’s noting to write about (unless you really care about what I ate for lunch)? So I say, for the sake of creativity, fuck schedules! If I have something to write about, then I’ll write it; If not, too bad. At least, that’s my excuse.

I never really knew who Rodney Bingenheimer was (this is where you say “Rodney who?”), except for that he’s a DJ at KROQ doing the dead shift on a Sunday morning – Oh, and that according to the fantastic humour of Kevin Ryder and Bean Baxter (I honestly can’t tell whether that’s sarcasm or not), he’s a senile paedophile that talks funny and shits his pants from time to time. Well, seeing as I love the radio station dearly, I thought it best to check out the documentary ‘Mayor of the Sunset Strip’ about the life of Rodney, and my opinions of the man have changed completely. Despite his looks and shyness, the guy is a pure genius., giving musicians such as David Bowie, No Doubt, Blondie, Coldplay, Muse, Duran Duran, and many many more their first playtime on US radio and helped them break through to the American market. Plus, he owned a nightclub in the early 1970′s, and got to bang blonde 14-year-old groupies every night, something that I can’t argue is impressive (although slightly illegal in this day and age, I must say). So, Mr. Bingenheimer, I salute you. May you rock on forever.

I have to come straight out with this one – I don’t like the new Mummy movie. Firstly, because there’s no mummies in it. Someone needs to do their research, because without the process of mummification, the undead != mummies. Secondly, they yet again overuse the line of “Not this again!” and “Boy, I sure hate mummies!”, and so forth. Goddammit, get some decent acting in there. Thirdly, the new actors are stupid – bring back the proper Evelyn Hammond, one that doesn’t sound like she’s made out of wood, and get rid Alex cause he just seems like a right dick all the time. And finally, it just doesn’t seem as epic as the last movies, I’m sorry. Oh well, at least it’s nice to see Brendan Frasier back on the big screen, and the special effects are good, and yada yada… come on, Hollywood. Don’t make me go through another period of watching British independent movies in order to find a decent film – restore my faith.

Oh, and I turned 19 today. I don’t think many people really care, so I’ll just say happy birthday to myself, shall I? ^^;

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Heist in Haven City

July 25, 2008

So I followed up on my post-holiday movie list, sat down one day, and went through Ocean’s 11, 12 and 13 all in one sitting. Nothing more needs to be said about Ocean’s 11, because everyone’s seen it, and it’s still a great film. Ocean’s 12 just doesn’t feel right – it’s not a heist movie without Vegas, is it? The plot is a little complicated at times, and the ‘lol we actually stole it halfway through the movie’ ending just feels a bit like a ‘fuck you’ rather than a happy ending with them getting away with the goods. Thankfully, Ocean’s 13 brings everything back to normal – It jumps straight into the setup of the con and stays that way for the entire movie with no fussing around. The funky music is back, Vegas is back… it just feels… exciting. Like it should, then.

I’ve also blasted through a good 60% of Jak II in a day, now I have my shiny new Samsung 22″ widescreen monitor to play it on. I would hook it up to the PC, but it won’t fit on the desk… bawww. I’ve played the first half of this game before, and it does take some determination as a player to actually put up with the glaring problems the game has. The vehicle system needs to die in a fire, the camera controls can be shoddy, you have to do each mission several times because they made it too hard and decided not to implement a checkpoint system… but ignore those issues, and the game is alright. Dax still brings the funny, although a bit racier (think Banjo-Tooie compared to Banjo-Kazooie, but without blatant dongs and gay jokes all over the place), the graphics still look alright for a PS2 game, and some gameplay elements can be quite fun when they’re not frustrating the hell outta you.

And as a final note, I became more of a Tonks obsessive. Annoyed about the fact there’s no decent Tonks merchandise (apart from a crappy bust), I went about making my own poster. If anyone knows a good place where I can get some A2 stuff printed well, then let me know – click the poster for a bigger version. Enjoy!

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Aftermath: Movies

July 9, 2008

For me, holidays aren’t just chances to go new places and see new things – it’s a great chance to catch up with the entertainment I’ve been missing out on. Usually, I’m too busy playing World of Warcraft to do anything else (including working on my programming skills, sorry Greeny…), so this is a nice breathing opportunity. Hell, my current WoW subscription is over, so I might as well take a week or two off to sort out the arrangements for my new house. Anyway, I digress – let me tell you about the stuff I’m enjoying, starting with movies…

First, let’s go back to this entry, and looking at Order of the Phoenix in relation to the female actresses – here’s the to five that I come up with. Of course, Miss Nymphadora Tonks comes in at number one (and I may change my MSN nickname back to ~tonks for a while, seeing as the Beyond Good and Evil announcement was ages ago and it’s time for a change). Second place would have to go to Bellatrix LeStrange, because you know I’m a sucker for skinny goth chicks in corsets. Third is gonna be Hermione Grainger (reluctantly – she’s apparently a bitch in person, but we’re not judging on that), and then… nope, sorry, nobody left. I can’t say Ginny Weasley without being put on some kind of list, Luna Lovegood’s accent annoys the hell outta me, but not as much as Cho Chang’s… so there you go.

Speaking of Natalia Tena, I also saw About a Boy again, and I quite enjoy it. Even if he’s just a kid, a dramatic Nicholas Hoult is always better than when he’s trying to be a cocky git with shit acting (see: Skins). Wanna see some good acting by him? Go watch Coming Down the Mountain and see him kill a retard after having a slash-tastic emo mental breakdown. Fan-bloody-tastic. What other movies… a lot, seeing as all the hotels I stayed in had HBO. Wedding Crashers is a pile of shite but still strangely bearable, the third Pokémon movie still kicks ass (in the mood to play Diamond now, maybe after I finish Phantom Hourglass), and I’ll have to get Ocean’s 13 when I get home because from the 10 minute clip I watched, it seems to have made up for the ‘Jak & Daxter syndrome’ that made the second one craptastic. And hey, it’s summer movie season, so I’ve got shitloads of new stuff to watch! Wahey!

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