Archive for October, 2008
You know, we’re not all just Psychic Bunnies around here. And in case you need a costume idea or two, here you go! (more below the fold)
Last Tuesday we had the pleasure of going to the premiere of “The Real Deal,” our latest project with TimePlay. It’s a live poker show event at the Venetian in Vegas. Basically the skinny is this: 2 of the cast of 10 biggest names in poker (we’re talking Doyle Brunson, Phil Helmouth Jr., Scotty Nguyen, etc.) are playing poker live at the front of the theater. The host, comedian Vinny Favorito, picks 6 people out of the audience to play with him. In addition, the audience is playing right along with them on their own handheld touchscreen devices. It should be a huge hit.
We designed the HD and handheld graphics for this show– over 20 motion graphic splashes, 12 character animations, 12 handheld screens, a few leaderboards, and a few graphic overlay screens.
Remember back in August when I told you about a festival started by two guys in trucker hats? Well, I was just informed that our short film, “The Golden Egg” just won their audience award. It’s called the “Golden Toof Award.” How fitting.
Intellectual Property law in the US has been getting tanglier and tanglier, what with Copyright extensions, fair use questions, the open source explosion, and the advent of digital technology that makes remixes and mashups into viable artistic expression. One thing advocates of the current (much too tight, in my opinion) IP regime keep trotting out is these figures 750,000 lost jobs, and $250 billion in lost revenue.
Sounds like a lot. Only problem is, those numbers appear to be made up. The article is good, and you should read it, but here’s the nut:
“Neither figure is terribly plausible on its face. As Wired noted earlier this week, 750,000 jobs is fully 8 percent of the current number of unemployed in the United States. And $250 billion is more than the combined 2005 gross domestic revenues of the movie, music, software, and video game industries.”
Besides, do you really want to discourage masterworks of creative re-allocation like The Other Family?
Is finally getting some press. The suite of DiscoveriT videos we produced top-to-bottom for Nortel are out there and teaching kids how to be safe on the internet.
We made those back in 2005, right after we painted all the walls red in our brand new offices. Awww. Tear.
When I was young and on a constant quest of finding things I like to do and don’t like to do, I was lucky to speak with a ton of professionals (filmmakers, stock brokers, lawyers, doctors, scientists) who came in, told me what their jobs were like, and whether they were happy in their work. In trying to pass that on, I dropped in on my friend Albert’s Drama class today at Roosevelt High. Not only did I pass on what I’ve learned, I got this shameless photo op!
I’m the dorky one in the red shoes. I showed them some recent videos made for our Mayday Contest, a video I made when I was in high school, and then answered a few questions and then hopefully didn’t make too much of a fool of myself.
Speaking of FOOLS, the class told me of an environmental video they made called “Recycle, Fool!” which totally exists on the Youtubes!
It’s pretty hilarious, and apparently had a huge effect on the high school, getting everybody to start recycling. “Yeah, I remember back in the day, when recycling was cool. These kids today, they don’t seem to care.” HAHAHA. You guys rock.