Damned Cool Spot

Check out this cool spot. A simple but charming idea and a very nice employment of visual effects. I love the way the gathering weight of this snowball is related in the animation. Slightly spongey, but still heavy. Spots are intriguing to me. I have sort have become "a film guy" by virtue of the last few years of work and it is interesting how you can get labeled like that when the core elements of the work are so similar. The thing about spots that is both the killer appeal and Achilles heel is that it is all about the "idea." There are moments where you say to yourself "wow, what a cool idea" and then you realize you just said that about an advert for a brand of underarm deodorant! Film is much less on the idea and much more on the "art." Films last, spots don't. Film is still the best medium to push a design/look/style because of that bloody big screen. Nothing can replace that forty-footer for appeal of a moving image. Anyway, I am blathering on like a madman now... But suffice to say the two mediums appear irreconcilably divided on this idea versus art axis. Yet they both have strong elements of both as well... See what I mean? Intriguing...

My Stupid New Fancy Television

Click here to see the specs on my stupid new fancy television. For whatever reason I have never spent any money on a television. This is literally the first one when the price tag raised my eyebrows. I know, I know... Crazy to imagine in my profession that I wouldn't put any value in one. I used to spend (still do really) so much time at the studio and I guess I always preferred the cinema to home viewing. For the longest time I had a crap 17" JVC television was literally a "hand-me-down" from my folks. No kidding. Early on when I started work, everyone else was blowing all kinds all kinds of cash on huge projection televisions I had my little 17" crapper... Seems ridiculous now, but hey did I suffer? Not really, I just saw a lot movies in the theatre. Meg and I got rid of that one when we started globe trotting. When we got set up in Los Angeles we bought a 21" Toshiba CRT that's been a nice old school set. But, now that we are "settled" in our new place, spending lots of time "en casa" with Mateo and winter on its way, well I thought it was about time to get a "proper television" to watch movies on cold and rainy winter nights at home. So there it is. I am officially condemned as one of those "home theatre guys." I am gonna have to pay someone sit in front of me, chew loudly, and repeat lines from the film for me... Or else it just won't be the same.