Archive for June, 2008
Yep, that’s right — Travel and Adventure!!
This email blast I just got from Spirit Airlines is pretty racy:
Obviously they’re playing on the alternate meaning of T&A, but they’re playing it smart. If anybody gets angry, they can calmly reply “What? We had no idea it meant that!”
Even Virgin America, which brands itself as the new “hip and cool and sexy” airline, doesn’t go that far. Spirit, on the other hand, had a Mother’s Day sale entitled “MILF.” As in, “Mothers I’d Like to Fly.” In an email Spirit has said these promotions are “designed to be entertaining, humorous, and of course, impactful.” And you know what? I think they’re dead on.
Yes, I know it’s been a while since I updated the blog about this trip, but can you really blame me for having such a good time in Tokyo that I only got about 4 hours of sleep each night, if I was lucky? Actually, it’s pretty much like it was at SXSW– stay out all night partying with other filmmakers, wake up early for panels and screenings. I managed to meet this schedule all week until I completely crashed out on the flight back. Now that I’m back at work, I’m reliving my trip through these blog posts. YEAH!
For those that don’t know, my film “The Golden Egg” was selected for the Short Shorts Film Festival, and they invited me (and paid for me) to fly out to Tokyo. They even paid for my hotel, which was an incredible room…
Our friend and sometimes co-Producer Jeff Beard has completed his political doc, “Split,” about our great nation’s current political divide (I’m looking at you, Barack “Joker” Obama). He asked me to do some art for their viral campaign based on the movie’s highly designed versions of the ol’ Donkey and Elephant, and here are the results:
Click below the fold to see the inspiration for this highly patriotic image. (more…)
Okay, so normally I stay out of politics.
I do occasionally, weigh in on matters of policy, such as my near-constant assertion that many of our cities, Los Angeles included, would be far better off if lawmakers would wise up and pass some legislation to create a government-sanctioned Batman. The fact that I was mugged with a shiny gun to my temple by a pair of punks last December and went through the most horrendous ordeal of the cops failing to show up, finally showing up, failing to care, calling me to say they’d recovered some of my stuff, mysteriously having no knowledge of finding my stuff when I went to claim it (you KEPT it Detective, you and I both know it) and in all ways failing me in my hour of need only strengthens that.
But I keep my politics to myself. HOWEVER, this photo of Senator Obama “clinching” the democratic nomination (which graced the front page of the LA Times) scared the living crap out of me.
Something about that smile… I can’t quite put my finger on it… Wait. What does Batman do when he can’t quite figure out who someone reminds him of? He usually gets out a red pen and traces over the photo… OH HOLY CRAP!
See what happens when we don’t have Batman?!!
In all seriousness, the good senator would make a fantastic Joker. What a dead-on perfect smile structure.
Arrived in Tokyo yesterday, and the entire Short Shorts Film Festival crew has been extremely organized and on the ball! After a couple volunteers met us at Narita airport, we came back to the Oakwood Apartments, where we’re staying. Our room is extremely nice.
The film festival is apparently a big deal here. Lucas and Ford were here earlier in the week promoting Indiana Jones, and today Diablo Cody is here promoting Juno, which is only now premiering in Japan.
I went to my first screening here at the Laforet museum.
It was a really great selection of shorts. I’ll try to blog about some of them later on. People seemed to like my film. I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly witty at the Q&A session afterward, I’m sad to say. Much better at spending an hour writing one line of dialogue than coming up with something funny on the spot. Ah well.
The one question everybody asks about the movie is how he lays the eggs while his pants are still on. Velcro egg hatch, baby. How else?
This series of webcomics about the recent earthquakes in Sichuan province are touching and very well executed. A wonderful use of the graphic medium to tell stories that bring home recent events.
The Golden Egg is about to make its Midwestern, Japanese, and Canadian premiere next week. In fact, over the span of 2 days it will screen in Michigan, Tokyo, and Toronto. I won’t be able to go to all three, but the Short Shorts Film Festival in Japan is sponsoring me to fly and stay in Tokyo for a week, and welp, I’m pretty excited. I’ll try to post some pictures while I’m there to give you a sense of what film festivals are like in other countries. Wow.
If you happen to be any of these places next week, you should definitely go! Read below for screening times:
The USS Kitty Hawk is one of the last conventional aircraft carriers in the fleet, and after 10 years stationed in Japan, she’s coming home. Japan, of course, is not too thrilled at the prospect of nuclear anything after their rather negative experiences in that regard:
So what’s a US Navy to do? We can’t send the Nimitz (architect of our pacific strategy), Enterprise (most famous ship of the Pacific theatre) or the Eisenhower (duh), so we’re sending the USS George Washington. A fine honor for the people of Japan, but it is a nuclear vessel. So the Navy has produced a 200 page Manga to help ease the transition!
Having done a fair amount of this type of work for the military ourselves, we’re pretty interested in this project. Unfortunately, none of us can read Japanese. But hey, maybe Rick can pick us up a copy when he’s in Tokyo for the Short Shorts Festival.