What I’m Listening To This Week

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The Hold Steady “Stay Positive”
Doesn’t grab me like their last release “Boys and Girls in America” but a few good tunes.

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Hercules And Love Affair
So I like overtly gay dance music — I’m man enough to admit it. Very Bronski Beat sounding.

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My Morning Jacket “Evil Urges”
I’m not sure what to make of this. At first I hated it. Now I merely dislike it. But a few songs are growing on me.

28 days Later (Not the movie, but the freelance gig)

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My entire month of July was consumed by a project for Wiley Publishing. Yes, the same Wiley that publishes the “…For Dummies” books. But this project was for their textbook division’s annual national sales meeting. To honor their top five sales people, the good people at Wiley contracted me to create a one minute animated film that was loosely based on the intro to the TV show “Sex and the City”.

Each sales rep was shown in some aspect of NYC activity, with the first rep in the role of Sarah Jessica Parker. Each rep is pleasantly surprised when they find their name and sales stats are part of the fabric of the city.

The entire project took 28 days straight. Sometimes fifteen hours long. Hand drawn characters, finished in Flash, composited in After Effects. The files were a whopping 1024 x 760 because the final was brought into Power Point. It was lots of work, tight deadlines, but a lot of fun. It also helps when you do work for an open-minded client that trusts your instincts. No wonder Wiley is so successful.

Sorry, but for contractual reasons, I can’t post the video. Here’s a few stills…
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While my real passion is character design, I must admit, I really had fun drawing places like Yankee Stadium.