BKNY

In 1988, I went to Andover Summer School. (Yeah, so what if I did? Huh? HUH?) In my English class I met a girl named Alysia. She was cool. We were buds.

Jump to two years later and I’m at Penn (Yeah, so? So?!) And I bump into Alysia on campus. Except it’s not Alysia, it’s her twin sister Beth. She was cool. We were buds.

Jump to two years later and I learn that my cousins, Eugene and Stephanie are her cousins too. So we’re related by marriage, I think that’s called first cousins once removed? Anyway, we sort of keep in touch. It’s cool, we’re buds. She’s a writer in NYC, I was in NYC but moved to SF.

A few years ago, we get back in touch and she sends me her personal newsletter titled, “BKNY”.

It’s hella funny. She writes real good.

But get this, it’s printed on PAPER. And distributed via the United States Postal Service. How quaint! How 20th century! How often do I receive said newsletter? Not very frickin often.

So I says to Beth, I say, “Yo cous’, there’s this thing called the Internet. And something called a Blog.” And she says, “Yeah I know but privacy concerns, yadda yadda yadda, I’m a luddite yadda yadda yadda, I’m afraid of the boogeyman yadda yadda yadda.”

A few weeks ago, out of the blue, I get an email from Beth announcing that she now has a blog. I read it. She still funny.

And now she puts up like 200 posts an hour.

Duck, Water. Water, Duck. Finally. Sheesh!

workshop cont...

Wiki Wiki

Sometimes I wish there was a cliffnotes version of a popular book that I just don’t have the time or motivation to read.

For example, I read the first Harry Potter book and thought it was ok but didn’t feel motivated to keep reading the series. But I still am interested enough to know how things turned out.

Wish there was a cliffnotes for it… but wait! There is! It’s called Wikipedia.

Thank you, Wikipedia, you just saved me countless hours of wading through mediocre writing and giving me the story in a nutshell. Wikipedia – cliffnotes for the world.

Today...

Today I was eating something in the kitchen in my usual manner - filling my mouth until my cheeks are abundant with surplus.

It's efficient.

The wife took one look at me and said, "You are just barely housebroken."

Ouch.

Facebook

Previously I had sung the praises of Google Calendar’s UI Design. Well there’s a new prodigy in town, one that impresses me even more and its name is Facebook. Its UI is clean, consisten, simple and powerful.

Often times the best UI is the one you don’t even present to the user, where the app does it for the user. Facebook is all about automatically presenting information in useful way that doesn’t force the user to hunt or search. I have wasted oodles of time on that site. Great site.

AAU Fall '07 (Semester 4 of 7)

It's been a while since I wrote about my ongoing schooling at the Academy of Art (AAU) in San Francisco. I'm studying to be a Story Artist in the Animation Program. Below my take on the courses I took in the Fall of last year...

Advanced Storyboarding
This class was a little frustrating in that the instructor didn’t have much structure to the semester as I would have liked. Most classes were spent listening to him talk about his experiences and opinions. Some days we didn’t have any homework assignments or exercises. It was useful but could have been better.

Every storyboarding class is completely dependent on the instructor and there’s no higher or lower level of instruction to a course. Next semester’s Storyboarding class would prove to be entirely different than the previous two.

Clothed Figure 1
This was an interesting class. The illustration courses have on the whole been stronger than the animation courses if just for the structure and curriculum of the semester.

Learned to recognize and draw different kinds of folds that wrap around and define the body underneath it. Very difficult to do. It’s like learning to have x-ray vision, to see through the clothing in order to know how to draw body and the clothing’s reaction to it.

Acting for Animators
In feature film animation, the real actors are not the people who give voice to the characters but those who make the characters PHYSICALLY MOVE to those voices – the animators. Animators study acting and take acting classes, like this one.

There were days when I thought we could have done more and the instructor was distracte. But it was a lot fo fun, and there were a few very valuable things I took away from the class.

The first thing was make it physical: touch, punch, shove, pull. Once you do that it’s easier for your acting partner (or other character in the scene you’re working on) to react. The second was reading the book “Impro” by Keith Johnstone – the entire book is a must for any storyteller. The book "Acting for Animators" by Ed Hooks is also highly recommended.

Figure Drawing Workshop

The Vegetarian Redux

I'm rethinking a storyboard I'd created a while ago called "The Vegetarian" where a little girl is a heroine of the title name, who saves livestock from being eaten.

The bad guy in the first version was a chef about to cook a crab, but now I've made it a butcher about to chop up a chicken. He also loves his lone decoration in his butcher shop, a leafy green plant.

Bot Sketch

Office Space

I have a new office space. I’m sharing a basement room in an apartment building between Haight Ashbury and Cole Valley. It’s perfect. It’s quiet, cheap, carpeted and clean. My officemate is a graphic designer and plays in his own band called The Matinees.

The location is a 7 minute bike ride from my house. It’s a place away from home that I can focus on work. And most importantly – there is no internet connection and no TV and no kids. Disconnected.

I set up my drafting table and put my old desktop computer in place. I’m doing a lot more writing than drawing - outlining storyboards before I thumbnail them.

I listen to my Sansa, usually to podcasts like RadioLab or This American Life. Both the Haight and Cole Valley are great neighborhoods to walk around and find something to eat. My new vice is a soy latte.

Self Sketch

Buds

Chung Brothers

Media Review

The Prestige
This is a very good movie, so good in fact that it illustrates my frustration with the Netflix star rating system. I’m always torn with Netflix’s star system. One star clearly means the movie blows. Two stars means it’s not a total loss but not recommendable. Three stars means it’s good. Four means it’s excellent. And five stars means it belongs in the Canon of all time great films which must be seen.

I rate based on percentile, meaning there should be relatively few movies that get four stars and even fewer that make it to five stars. This results in a high number of 3 star movies. But there are quite a few films that fall between three and four stars – especially good movies but not necessarily excellent movies.

But you can’t rate something three and a half stars. This is one of those kinds of movies. So I have given it just three stars on Netflix but I do highly recommend it. The less you know the better, so I won’t give any details.


Casino Royale
I had heard a lot of good things about the relaunch of the James Bond franchise with this film. I was one of the few who thought from the very beginning that Daniel Craig would be good. And he was good. The movie is smart and not outdated or ridiculously cheesy. It was sexy and thrilling.

It does have a flaw that all James Bond movies do in that there’s a significant lag late in the second act. But you could argue that it’s what makes it a James Bond flick. Overall, I’m looking forward to the next one.

Sketchbook

"Once" Movie

I don't like cheesy romantic films. I'll only see them when I know they're 4 star films or if my wife insists. But in general I don't dig chick flicks. Not that chick flicks are bad films; Steel Magnolias is a really good movie, Terms of Endearment is a great movie - both chick flicks.

I have a good bud named Geoffrey Pay who is a media-head like me. He and I always talk movies and our tastes rarely diverge. But he would never spam an email list to promote a film unless he was sure about it. Last week he did, it said go see the movie, "Once." So the wife and I did last night, caught it at the Embarcadero in SF.

Best movie I've seen in a theater all year.

It ain't Shakespeare, it won't be compared to Citizen Kane. But it's the most moving film I've seen in a long time. It's honest, it's intimate, it's different... it's a musical. Yes, a musical. But not like West Side Story or Guys and Dolls but more like 8 Mile or Hustle and Flow (not that I've seen either of those films.)

I recommend not knowing anything more about it. Go in blind. Take your significant other. Take a date. Take both! They'll love it and so will you.

From the sketchbook

Hybrid Bus

I just saw one of these on the street the other day. Although it's debatable whether they're truly "green" or not, it's still pretty cool to see.

I Shouldn't Be Alive... the tv show

I found this show called "I Shouldn't Be Alive" while flipping through cable about a year ago. Discovery has some serious gonads if you ask me. This show is not for the weak. I found it absolutely gripping and intense. Like a car crash that I can't help but rubberneck. And the whole time I'm watching it I'm telling myself "change the channel change the channel turn off the tv run away!"

And they have a similary show now called "Man vs. Wild" also well done but not as harrowing.

more school work...

Switched from iPod to Sansa

For the longest time I resisted owning an mp3 player. But then a former employer gave all the employees an iPod as a Christmas gift. So I returned to the land of Apple albeit only with iPod use, still use a pc at home. I like iTunes ok, but not a big fan of how it's so proprietary. I love the iPod as a product both in industrial and user interface design. The UI is so simply brilliant; Apple is just so damed disciplined at eliminating EVERYTHING that is unnecessary. Subtracting it to the bare essentials. It's a product conceived by a single design team from software to hardware and it shows. It's a single concept of ingenuity, not a hodge-podge of chefs from different kitchens.

Before iTunes I was a Rhapsody user. I really liked the service but would cancel my subscription on and off again since I wasn't using it very much. Then I started having technical difficulty with my iPod and the battery was dying, so I started to think about switching back to Rhapsody and their Sansa player. I got the kind that plays iTunes-purchased music files, e260 I think.

I still love the Rhapsody service. It's so easy to discover new music, or sample a new band or their new album. I really like having their entire database available at my fingertips. Sure the prescription model is pricey but I think for music consumption it makes a lot of sense.

But the Sansa... I really hate the Sansa player. I think it's because I got used to the simplicity of the iPod's interface. The Sansa is just awkward in comparison. And it's so slow, there's significant delay time to all the operations. All in all I think I'm probably happier now, but navigating the sansa is pretty annoying.

"Milo's Train" and the Auction

Our oldest son's preschool had an annual fundraising event where there is a live auction during dinner. The auction items are things parents have volunteered whether it's their summer home in the wine country, a package trip to san diego or box seats at Giants stadium. A parent who knew I was in school to become an animator suggested that I auction off my ability to make a cartoon. I thought, "No way."

But she was persistent and my wife got into the idea, so I figured why not. I said I would make an animatic starring the child as the protagonist of their very own story. In other words, whoever won my auction item, I'd go over their house, get to know their kid, take a few pictures, recordings, sketches and go back and make a story with their child as the hero, a story that would reflect the child's interest, a little snapshot of their mind at age 4.

But some people were still a little confused as to what an animatic was so I decided to make one for my son, Milo, and showcase that at the live auction event. In addition I printed out a color copy of the storyboards and bound it like a small children's book so people could flip through a hard copy.

The parent who was running the auction event asked me what the item price should be so they could estimate a starting bid. I replied I had no idea since I'd never done anything like this before and I didn't even know what story artists make. So we guesstimated the best we could and came up value of $1000 and a starting bid of $600.

When the bidding started, a number of parents raised their numbered paddles immediately. The bid quickly rose to over $1000. When it hit $1500 the number of bidders dwindled down to three. Then it became a bidding war between two families who happened to be sitting at the same table, right next to me. I was too shocked and embarrassed to look, I just kept my head down. The winning bid was $2000. It was the highest selling item of the night.

Below is the animatic I made for Milo called "Milo's Train".

Media Review

The Namesake
I liked the book and the film stayed pretty faithful to the novel. Ultimately, I was a little disappointed. Still 3 stars but a low 3. I think the movie was a little dry, I was expecting the cinematography to be more stunning, especially when you're shooting India which is such a visually intense place. The actors were all excellent. I liked Kal Penn and his mother played by Tabu was also very good, but the standout performance was the father played by Irfan Khan. He was exceptional. I would recommend seeing the movie just based on his understated performance.


Crash
I finally rented this somewhat controversial movie that won Best Picture in 2006. Controversial in that people thought Brokeback Mountain should have won Best Picture. I saw Brokeback first and I thought it was wonderful. People I know either liked or disliked the Crash, so I came in with low expectations. I came away thinking that Crash definitely deserved the Best Picture nod. I liked this movie a lot. Both Brokeback and Crash were Oscar worthy but I don't know which would have deserved it more. I can see why there are Crash-haters out there, but this film really spoke to me. There's a lot of anger in it, and I related to that anger.

Meet the Robinsons
Not horrrible. Not great. Kinda sorta okay, I guess. The visuals were awesome, the animation was also very good. The pace was strange. You could tell that the story was re-worked and patched together. There were some shots that didn't make sense at all. The main villain was very very fun to watch. I'm glad I saw it but I'm not sure I'd recommend it. How's that for a half-assed review.

Spiderman 3
Let me start by saying that I barely liked Spiderman 1, mainly because they totally got the Goblin wrong, missing a grand opportunity with Willem Defoe, and I thought it was a little too violent. I liked Spiderman 2 but thought it could do without a lot of the cheese-factor with Mary Jane, the action sequences were great. Here's what was good about Spiderman 3 - the Sandman visual effects scenes and Venom's visual effects scenes. The rest of this film sucked hard. All the criticism you may have read, I agree with. It was a pretty bad movie all in all.

The Proposition
Great movie. Highly recommend. Australian western. The landscape scenery was stunning. The acting superb. Visually crafted. If you like them brutal westerns I think you'll really like this movie.

The Departed
I saw Infernal Affairs which is the Hong Kong film that Departed is based upon. But they are two very different movies. Which I was glad to see. I thought Departed was great, but I think I would've voted for Babel for best picture instead. Still glad to see Scorsese finally get his oscar nod though.

Capote
Very good but I wasn't completely blown away by film as a whole. The performances were great, I really liked Catherine Keener. Obviously Philip Seymour Hoffman is the man, I always like him in whatever he's in, but the breakout performance for me was Clifton Collins Jr. who played one of the killers, Perry Smith. I thought I had seen him before and indeed, he played the gay Mexican hitman in one of my favorite movies, Traffic.

High School Football Theme

Two high school students modeled for us.

Clothed Figure Studio continues...

Mr Man Gets Away

This was an assignment from my storyboard class this semester: Mr Man (whose character design was predetermined) has to wake up, go to one other room in the house, then leave the house - make up the story.

PSI

I'm not a car person. I still drive the first car I've ever bought and owned, a 1997 Honda Civic EX. Yes, it's black. Yes, I'm asian.

But I do get a little obsessive when it comes to car maintenance and the latest zit on my mind was tire pressure.

My wife's Subaru Outback LL Bean edition has a leaky tire that I refill with air every once in a while but never checked the psi before. When I brought it in for a checkup at the dealer I asked them to be sure to check the pressure in the tires. They assured that they had when all was said and done. Shortly after I noticed that the leaky tire was low again, so I read up on the manual on what the correct psi is for front and back tires (30 psi front, 29 psi back) and got out my trusty tire pressure gauge (pictured above) and checked the pressure on ALL the tires.
Front driver side: 20 psi
Front passenger side (leaky): 10 psi
back driver side: 35 psi
back passenger side: 37 psi

Needless to say I corrected the tire pressure for all four wheels and keep an eye on the leaky one. My wife said she immediately noticed a difference in the way the car handled.

Then I checked MY car's tire pressure...
Front driver side: 20 psi
Front passenger side (leaky): 10 psi
back driver side: 20 psi
back passenger side: 15 psi

I corrected these as well and I did notice a difference in handling although it could be my imagination.

Moral of the story. Go get yourself a tire gauge. Check your tires when they're cold - as in not driven for at least 2 hrs. Add or release air as necessary.

From your friendly car maintenance man,
Fred.