"Long Time No Blog" or "The First and Last Post of 2009"

It really was a busy year even though I didn't post anything here until now. Most of what I did this year I was either asked to keep confidential or it was more design related than illustrated (I do graphic design as well). This was one of the things that I worked on that was under wraps until now.

I was approached by my brother's friend who is a film director to create an animated logo for his production company. It would run at the beginning of the films he is making. His name is Darryl Shaw and from the first time we talked, I knew we were cut from the same cloth. And that cloth would probably be more like canvas from a straight jacket. Darryl had a pretty clear idea of what he wanted but was cool enough to let me make it even more Christ-serpent like. We intended to have it be longer with more scenes but the reality of completing it on time meant it had to be shortened up.

Darryl has a film in post-production right now which he wrote and directed and should make the festival circuit next year. I'll blog about it when there are more details. Oh, and my brother Dave Coleman is busy scoring the film, which is also really exciting! Anyway, it was lots of fun to work on and hopefully we will be working together again in the coming year.

10 Seconds of Terror

The TAIS (Toronto Animated Image Society) had an open call to submit a 10 second animated film for their Monster Edition of their TAIS showcase. Anyone could enter a film as long as it was some form of animation, had monsters as it's theme, and was only 10 seconds long. They would then edit all the clips together to make a  "MonsterJam" animated  film to be screened along with some other short films at the NFB Mediatheque in Toronto. You had me at monsters!

I have wanted to try my hand at animation for sometime and this seemed like a good excuse to do it. So for 2 months in my spare time (which there isn't much) I made this stop motion paper cutout animated monster movie. I recruited my brother Dave Coleman, who is just beginning a career in film scoring and sound design, to compose the music and he did a brilliant job! The music made it come to life better than I imagined, thanks little bro!

So the screening was last night (June 27/08) and my brother and I attended the show. We were late arriving and the show was sold out but we were able to stand in the back of the theatre and watch all the films. There were so many cool monster ones in the jam, and it was a thrill to see ours among them in that setting. There were some really neat monster prizes and although we didn't win anything, I still had such a blast just going and hanging out with my brother in the city. 

I'll post some "making of photos" later and if you want to see a better, bigger version of it just go here.