Artist’s Statement: CalArts

Edit - this needs work, new one coming next week
The topics I explore in my work evolve from the interaction between humans and their physical and mental landscapes. I draw inspiration from the idea that perception is inescapable: there is no pure experience. Everything we observe, we interpret through our own unique filter of personal [...]

Experimentations with Illustrator Brushes

This week has yielded an odd convergence of doomed creative endeavors.  Monday there was rain.  I was having  a hard time thinking and was cold and felt still kind of off due to my weekend spent with three long haired cats (the only thing I know I’m allergic to) so I decided to just draw [...]

On Cameras and The First Render

It’s just after 11, and I am just rendering my latest movie for what I hope will be the final time.  This one wasn’t so bad, really, only 3 full-length test renders before the “one.”
No matter how foolish (and believe me, it is foolish) I always harbor a spark of hope that the first render [...]

Starting 36 Haunted IV - In Sleep (Dreams of Home)

Hi Everyone! Getting a bit of a late start today.  It was cold this morning and even the thought of bad (but warm) coffee couldn’t make me unwind myself from my cocoon.  But now, I’m here (wound up in yet another pile of blankets) and happily setting to work.   I’ve been working on another [...]

On Applications

2 Letters of recommendation
1 DVD of film and animation work
1 Slide Carousel
10-20 Slides
1 Letter of Intent
1 Artist’s Statement
1 “brief comments on films, books, art, etc., that you feel have influenced your thoughts and work as an artist.”
3-4 “Project Plans”
1 $75 Check

The chance to move to California to pay someone lots of money to teach me [...]

On Frame Rate

You can’t just change the frame rate of your animation from 24 fps to 30 fps just because you are no longer drawing by hand and can render at 30 fps in Cinema 4D and don’t have to be lazy.
Well, you can, just don’t come crying to me when all of your carefully timed little [...]

A Marimba looks like…

A messed up square wave.
My particular trouble with the marimba in this song is that it speaks over a very short period of time.  So many things in this track happen in such sharp, discrete time frames that I’m worried about giving people seizures if I try to represent them all that way.  The marimba/organic [...]

On The Visual Qualities of the Sound of a Marimba

So I’m going to be talking extensively about 25 Ghosts III for the next week or so, if you’re interested in being clued in to what I’m rambling about, listen [here] Also, view the original inspiration image used when writing this song [here] Also, the stage set that inspired my video (sorry for the poor [...]

On Purpose. Why I am what I am now.

Yes, I meant that as a double meaning.  I know have at least some vague idea of what I want to accomplish with my life.  It has taken some pretty good beating myself up to get here, but I think I might be on to something.  It seems that for most of the last decade, [...]

Bleeps, Sweeps and Creeps

I just liked this closeup of the Spectral Frequency for 25 Ghosts III.  You can clearly see several song elements in here:

tenor drum (vertical lines crossing all frequencies,)
high pitched static drone ( horizontal reddish orange bar across the top)
marimba (series of three bright yellow blotches)  3a.  You can see the chord in here in [...]