unfortunately i don't have any animation stills to upload right now as i am away from home and my external hard drive but the animated short film i was lead animator for, a plumbers tale, has been accepted into two festivals. one in los angeles called the new filmmakers and another in new york i haven't found the name of yet. not bad for a 15 minute film with no sound! or maybe sound was finally put on? i'm not sure but it looks like i'll find out when it screens here in los angeles on january 19th.
over the thanksgiving break my grandma, vo, turned 80 and since i thought this was such a grand age to be i made her something a little extra special.
I made the little bunny warren inside an 8.5 x 11 inch wooden frame i got on discount years ago at a wal-mart. i meant to make many different things in this frame at one time or another but it seems the frame was waiting for these little bunnies all this time.
the bunnies are baked super sculpey that were later flocked. the little props were made using super sculpey, wood or styrene. the warren itself is carved hard foam covered with texture and glue. the whole piece took me about 24 hours in total and i couldn't be happier with it :] and my grandma vo loved it, of course. she's my grandma!
took a pick with a dime in there so you can see just how small the bunnies are. TINY!
FIRST i miss seeing No Naked at the downtown film festival and NOW i find out that i MISSED SEEING IT AT THE LOS ANGELES COMEDY FESTIVAL! UNGH! these festivals are in my neighborhood! i can go to these! but the good news is that No Naked is still touring, and people are still loving it. i discovered it had already screened last saturday morning when i woke up and had an email from someone who really loved it. it's a bittersweet sort of thing. i thought i was going to get an email from the festival people telling me when it was playing. maybe i got it... i do get a lot of emails...
but sitting in a theatre full of people watching something i made makes me all nervous anyway. i know i'm not the only one who feels this way!
anyway, haven't put any links up to it on here in a while so might as well embed it for those who haven't seen it yet, or have seen it and want to watch it again :]
not so long ago, in a los angeles town not so far away, a drunk letter "T", a short stack of pancakes, a space bear and a wrinkled testicle crash landed their spacecraft into an animation studio. and had an interview.
it was awkward. it was weird. maybe even a little inappropriate at times. but it was good. and with a little luck it won't be cut from the dvd special footage! wuuuu!
being an ewok isn't something you wake up and all of the sudden decide to be. you are born this way. maybe you don't have a fuzzy body and greatly surpass the 3 foot 7 inch height limit, but deep down inside you feel it. we call it "the yub".
sure, i get made fun of sometimes. some people call me the space beargirl, yeah, some call me the gangster of yub. some people call me wicket ~woo wooooo~ cause i speak of the pompitous of space love. and also probably because i dress up like an ewok.
had a few more things from those fuel tv spots i wanted to post.
i didn't make all these buildings but i made some of them.
computers for the inside of the spaceship. the set designer laid the groundwork for the set.
i didn't paint the set but here it is all gussied up with my pride and glory, the anal probe
beginnings of the pool for the desert set
it took the better part of a day getting the pool filled out with small pieces of cardboard to make it this shape. tedious but the results were very nice.
cardboard lettering.
the whole set all done and painted up (again, not by me). the set designer did most the work on this one, i just did some of the detail work like the boarded up wall and stone detail in the middle. and the pool, of course :]
didn't manage to take pics of a bunch of the other things i worked on but you get the idea :]
here are a few of the props i made at shadow machine for those fuel tv commercials. this first one is a motorcycle. the production designer made the initial frame (mostly from brass tubing. it has to be sturdy for the puppet.) and i did all the fleshing out with cardboard. the wheels and handlebars actually turn!
another cycle with the initial frame built by the production designer that i covered up with cardboard. this one also has moving wheels and handlebars.
a dumpster with an animateable lid.
some sort of space alien table/gurney thing that pinto was tied down to. the table part pivots up and down. that hole in the middle is there for tying the puppet down.
firehydrant with a removable top pipe. in one of the commercials pinto smashes into it and the top pipe opens and water shoots out. i also made the paper cut-out replacement series for that.
bad ass skull.
drum set with animateable cymbals.
animateable gong.
here's a fun one, it's the anal probe! lots of animateable stuff on this guy. the front mechanism rotates and has four claw-like pieces that move, there are some dials and knobs on the side that move and the whole unit is able to pivot on these three jointed arms i made (held up with the help of some armature wire). i was happy to see that the animator was able to get some good results out of all these movable pieces i incorporated.
i am not sure what to really call these. title cards? tags? either way they have the fuel tv name and logo and were placed at the end of each commercial. i made a few different variations of these.
after the production for frankenhole finished up shadow machine had me back to help with a smattering of commercials for fuel tv. we made all the sets and props out of cardboard. it's a really fun medium to work with. i think there were ten commercials in all but all i found online were these five posted by the director. they're pretty fast paced.
In this Fuel Tv ID our action Sports hero Pinto gets shocked by an electric fence, torn up by a cactus, abducted by a UFO and probed in outer space. That's how he rolls.
Created By:Jeff Gardner Client:Fuel Tv Production:Shadow Machine Films Music:Jeff Gardner
A 10 second Fuel Tv ID of Pinto skateboarding an abandoned mid century modern motel swimming pool then getting torn up by a cactus when he loses it coming off of the vert ramp.
Created By:Jeff Gardner Client:Fuel Tv Production:Shadow Machine Films
"No Naked!" totally played at the downtown los angeles film festival ON THE SAME DAY AS THE SHADOW MACHINE ART SHOW and i totally didn't get to go. i could have rushed down there and then rushed back but i wouldn't have had time to shower or put on clothes that were somewhat presentable. sometimes you just gotta let something go. i really wanted to go, too :[
also, i am officially no longer submitting my little short to any more festivals. "No Naked!" has had a good run and now it's time for something new! already got something in the works. need some time to decompress from all this art show and two job business though. this will be the first weekend i have to do whatever i want in a looong time.
so for the past two and a half weeks i've been building this monstrosity in ALMOST complete secrecy. it's kinda hard to build something of this size in secret. so what the hell is it!? well it's a zoetrope... of sorts. most zoetropes are cylindrical shaped and have slits cut in the side and spin to allow for viewing of the images blurring together and giving the illusion of movement. my zoetrope (if i can even call it a zoetrope... i wasn't sure what else to call it) is more like a conveyor belt that needs to be cranked and relies on a strobe light to give the illusion of movement. oh, and it's inside the mouth of a monster.
here's a video of my hoppy day monster in action so you can see what i mean
there are seven bunnies that make up the hop cycle. you turn the crank clockwise to see them in action. turning the crank counter-clockwise shows the cycle in reverse.
i made the hoppy day monster zoetrope for the shadow machine films (the place where i work) art show which took place last saturday night. i can't really remember where i got the idea to make a zoetrope like this, i just really like zoetropes and the whole concept of camera-less (and computer-less) animation. my first introduction to 3-d zoetropes was at cal-arts through a visiting artist named katsushi boda (for reals that is his name). ever since then i have wanted to push the limits of zoetropes and camera-less animation and now that i know this particular style of zoetrope actually works i think i can do that. i have been loosely calling it a tank-wheel style zoetrope (i need to come up with a better name). my first goal is to make the zoetrope belt much longer to accommodate for longer cycles of animation. after that... well you'll just have to wait and see what i have planned ;]
also, there have been many, many other styles of camera-less animation devices but as far as i know this is the first one to utilize a crank wheel mechanism of this sort and display the animation on a belt rather than in a cylinder. let me know if you have seen any others like this!
and now for some retarded pictures of me with my monster :P
me with a co-worker. that is her piece on the right so we had to take a picture. duh! don't let that smile fool you, she is a BIG troublemaker.
me and my two roomies. obviously troublemakers. obviously.
2 le-git 2 quit dis gangstah life
my piece went over really well at the show. it made all that hard work and lack of sleep so totally worth it :] i can't wait until the next one!
and for your information, i am a real gangstah. for reals, yo. for reals.
found two pictures of some straggling props. i believe these were the last things i made for the show. in the picture above i made the picture frame for that sexy time photo of doctor frankenstein. ooh lala! the skulls below were pre existing resin casts, i made some modifications for the lights to fit in with the wires (i remember getting those tiny wires through being a very tedious task), did some hot glue art for the dripping wax and finished up with some paint.
so this officially concludes my frankenhole postings. the next shadow machine project i'll post stuff from will be the fuel tv commercials i worked on. get ready for some cardboard!
this was the third and final set i made for the show. the fun foam stuff was, well, FUN, but this was a nice change of pace for me since i got to get my hands a little dirtier here. the hanging cloth was a great creative challenge, especially on the brick wall that looks like it was cannonballed. i remember research for this set being really fun for some reason :D
and again, my favorite part is the stove... er... adobe oven thing.
the only real glory shot i was able to take of any of my sets. the lighting really brings everything to life!
the second set i made for frankenhole. like the log cabin set this one was pretty much entirely made out of carved fun foam. believe it or not, you will go through a LOT of razors cutting this stuff. fun foam likes a sharp blade. you can see this set in the john thomas jefferson episode (the same episode with the log cabin).
this was the first set i was assigned for frankenhole and can be seen in the john thomas jefferson episode. all of the elements were carved out of soft foam and then glued on to wood. i did the paint job for this set (and the other two i made) as well.
unfortunately this is the only set i took progress pics of. glad i got at least one!
after the set was painted i gave it a dirty wash to give an aged effect.
my favorite part of the set was this little wood burning stove. second favorite would have to be the door which i don't think even got any screen time...? don't quote me on that though, i don't have cable so i can't even watch the show when it airs. but i do know a chunk of the main shot this set was for was cut due to censorship. i'm finding out that happens a lot with these shadow machine shows. just more to look forward to when the dvd comes out! (i hope there will be a dvd!)
final pic is the set on stage. i think the shot was partially animated at this point. production moves so fast i wasn't able to take a glory shot of the set but you get the idea.
