Posts Tagged ‘Tower 37’
The Incident at Tower 37: Released!
March 22nd, 2011
At long last, the short animated film I worked on in College is available to the public. March 22 is World Water Day, so give it a watch and think about how precious water really is!
SIGGRAPH ’09
August 5th, 2009
On Monday, I headed to New Orleans for SIGGRAPH 2009. Though I only got to stay for a day, I got to see a lot of really cool exhibits and short films. The Computer Animation Festival definitely lived up to it’s usual awe inspiring potential. I was especially excited and happy to see The Incident at Tower 37 up there with the best CG and VFX the industry and academia has to offer! I’ve included a short video of a cool/creepy exhibit we saw in the experiences are of the conference. Unfortunately, I had to shoot from the hip to avoid getting hassled by the staff.
Anyway, SIGGRAPH and CAF were a lot of fun and I was really happy to see everyone who was able to make the trip down.
IFF Boston, Part 2
April 27th, 2009
My second viewing of the 1st shorts package and the Boston IFF was just as good, if not better than the first. First off all, Hanging out with the Tower 37 crew before hand was great! I got to catch up with everyone and see some people I hadn’t seen in quite a long time. After the show, we all made our way to a bar/restaurant in Somerville (wish I could remember the name!) for drinks. One of our ranks, Basaam, did a suberb job of explaining to us all why he thought the film Undone (one of the shorts in the festival) was one of the best. Previously, I had thought the film was too long, too ambiguous and contained several elements that I thought were a tad cliche. Basaam, however, explained in great detail about the language of film, and how Undone was speaking that language very effectively. I came out of the discussion with a new appreciation for the short.
All in all, I had a great time, and I can’t wait to hear about the two other festivals that took place that night!
IFF Boston, Part 1
April 23rd, 2009
Tonight, I went to see “The Incident at Tower 37″ at the Boston Independent Film Festival! It screened with 5 other short animated films, one of which was by Don Hertzfeldt. Mr. Hertzfeldt has been doing traditional hand drawn animation since before I was born, so I was pretty excited to see some of my work in the same screening.
In my opinion, Tower 37 had much steeper competition in Boston than in did in Providence, but I really think it held it’s own in fine style. The other films ranged from rather abstract mixed media to full 3D animations. Along with Don Hertzfeldt’s hilarious yet powerfully thought provoking “I Am So Proud of You”, I really liked “Skhizein” by Jérémy Clapin. The latter was about man who finds himself 91 centimeters to the left… I won’t spoil it!
I’m looking forward to Saturday when I’ll be joined by some more of the crew, at which point part 2 of this story will follow! Also, If you are planning on going, buy your tickets online now and get to Davis Square an hour before the show starts. I showed up a half hour early and the line went around the corner, so I can only imagine the crowd on a Saturday night!
The Incident at 92Y Tribeca
February 27th, 2009
Last night I went to the Hampshire College Alumni Screening. The Alumni Reel was absolutely incredible. I had no idea that so many Hampshire students have gone on to do such amazing things! The work represented spanned the gamut from short animation to Hollywood visual effects. I’m just as happy to be a part of the post-Hampshire community as I was to be part of the student body. I did not get much of a chance to speak with some of the older alumni that were there since I was mostly preoccupied with The Incident at Tower 37 which screened after the Alumni Reel.
First of all, a shout out to the students, alumni and Chris who made the film look and sound incredible! It was a unique experience to see the finished product of a project that I had worked on for close to 3 years in various stages. Being able to reconnect with those who I had worked on the film with was also a great experience. I’ve gotten so many new ideas and perspectives on Tower 37, Hampshire’s media production program(s) and the entertainment industry in general. I’m going to try to recap all the things I got to talk to people about, but I know I’m going to miss a lot of it. Here it goes…
Tower 37 as a collaborative student project. Chris mentioned that the collaborative approach to teaching computer animation is very uncommon among undergraduate institutions. I think this is an eerily true statement. My favorite analogy that I heard was teaching computer animation individually would be like telling an actor that in order to learn how to act, you would have to write the story and script, build the sets, rig the lights and play all the characters yourself. Clearly, that would be ludicrous. So why is computer animation taught largely to individuals? In the short time I’ve been working professionally, I can already see the results of this educational isolation. While the artists that come from individualistic programs are incredibly creative and talented, they find it more difficult to work with others on a project. This is not necessarily true of their interpersonal interactions, but rather their technical interactions. For example, rigging a 3d model for animation requires not just joints and painted skin weights. It also requires self-explanatory controls. If someone is used to working alone on projects, making your work accessible to others could be a completely foreign concept, but one that is very necessary in the professional world. Anyway, Tower 37 has prepared all those who worked on it with an intimate understanding of what it means to work collaboratively and effectively with others.
Taking a project from start to finish. Last night, after seeing my name in the credits, I felt very strange. My time spent on the project seems so long ago and so removed from what the film looks and sounds like that it’s difficult for me to “own” the project as I once did. Our VFX Supervisor at Brickyard recently passed on a nugget of wisdom that really hit home with me last night. That is, it doesn’t matter how hard you work. It matters how smart you work. Anyone can take a shot from 0% to 90%. It takes real guile, skill and confidence to take a shot from 90% to 99.9%. I would say that I effectively took most of the film to around 85% to 95%. It was those who came on the project after I left that truly finished the film. Though, I don’t want to put myself down too much… After thinking about it, I realize that the last 10% wouldn’t have been possible if the groundwork and infrastructure hadn’t been laid out. If I and those like me hadn’t gone through the steps we went through, there would be no movie. So therefore, I am pretty proud that I was able to do all of the things I did and that I really do feel like I own parts of the film, even though I didn’t finish them.
Hampshire College in geographic context. I’ve been reading and hearing a lot recently about Plymouth Rock Studios and the MA entertainment tax credit. By 2010, a full capacity movie studio will be built in Plymouth, MA. Combined with the tax credit available in MA, this should bring an unprecidented amount of entertainment industry work into the state. With this in mind, I really feel like Hampshire’s unique program with its collaborative approach can and will produce talented artists and filmmakers just in time to take advantage of the jobs and opportunities that having a studio in the state will bring. Several people I’ve spoken with recently have told me and down right encouraged me to pick up and move to LA. LA is where the work is. However, I’m resisting that temptation in the hopes that I, and other’s like me, can weather the storm and participate and influence the birth of a movie and entertainment industry right here in Massachusetts.
