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MTV Da Vinci Code
Minus the Bear: Pachuca
Cablevision Boards
Action Booklet
Minus The Bear Photos
Grayskul Music Video
Baskin Robbins
 Designed To Help
Designbum Shirts
MTV Saw II
Fankick Montage
MTV Lords Of Dogtown
Superfad Branding
Fanta
Water Photography

 
MTV Da Vinci Code Promo
Another tasty little Fad project. These MTV promo spots are fun, but they're a lot of work. Sometimes we only have two days to put something together, which is something they never teach you in school. We had longer to work on this spot, but there were some long days on this one. Heavy renders, too, by gum. Watch it now. Anyway, the frames pictured here are from the boards I did.
So, the dream team on this was myself, Eric, and Britta, both from Fad. I did the directing and art direction, Britta handled the stop motion, and Eric did all the animation. Truth be told, though, we all did a bit of each other's work. I did some compositing and animation, Eric did some art directing and directing, and Britta just kicked ass as usual. What's really cool about these projects is when it kind of becomes one big collaboration. What happened here was everybody brought something tasty along with them, and it was a kind of visual picnic. That's how it should be, I think. Though sometimes, nothing will kill creativity faster than designing by committee. So you have to be careful and tread that line. Something to ponder, I guess. So it goes.


 

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Minus the Bear: Pachuca Sunrise
This tasty new video for Minus the Bear involved several unique and secret weapons. First, and perhaps the most formidable, this is the first music video in the history of the universe to feature the band member's dads. I think. Second, was the stop motion animation of those tasty little sponge creatures we have all come to know and love. Disclaimer: no sponges or dads were harmed in the making of this video. Watch the low res (12MB) version or the high res (40MB) version.
   
To wit, what we had to do is create a huge tank with a light box floor in which we submerged the sexy band. In short, this video may be interpreted more as a recipe for making man stew than anything else. All culinary joking aside, I'll dispense with some more facts. This was co-directed with Britta Johnson, stop motion genius, and produced by Vanessa Reisler, with major production support from Fad. We shot it on the new Panasonic HD camera which was great.
   
 

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Cablevision
I busted out hecka style-frames on this board for a re-branding pitch for a Cablevision project for Superfad. This involved using a lot of glowy lights and other tasty shizzle which I enjoy. Believe it or not, all the lighting elements are photos I shot at night. They come in handy. In fact, I just put them up for download, so check them out here.
Anyway, so yeah, a lot of style-frames. You know, it snowed yesterday which was really nice. It doesn't snow that often in Seattle, maybe once or twice a year and it hardly ever sticks. When it's winter, ever since I've been young, when I wake up, the first thing I do is look out the window to see if it's snowed. Sometimes when the light is just right, it looks like snow and I'll get all excited before I look again and realize that it's not. I think if it snowed more often than it does, I wouldn't appreciate it as much. Back in northern California, where I'm from, it snows about as frequently as Seattle, but it sticks more. Sometimes we get about two feet, which is really special. We got that much at my mom's house last year but I wasn't around. I was in Seattle, but I saw the photos my mom took.

 

 

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Gaycity Action Booklet (2nd printing)
Back by popular demand, this biblical tome of gayness, bi-ness, trans-ness, and health information has been re-released, thanks in no small part to the thousands of activists who through letters of appreciation and endearment made this project possible.
Actually, I'm kinda pulling your chain. In truth, yes, the original Action booklet that I designed went over extremely well and as such, they decided to reprint it, this time with a snazzy new cover. Since this cover is 100% vector shizzle, you can download it or go to the downloads page and check out other sweet project downloads with which to feast your eyes and tickle your senses. Also, check out Gaycity.org for further health info. They're pretty cool and do a lot of cutting edge work with the gay community and so forth.  

 

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Minus The Bear
This was my first real 'commercial photo' (not including Fankick) gig in over five years since a one time and   somewhat traumatic stint at wedding photography (lots of good stories there). We found a great abandoned warehouse that surely gave us all asbestos poisoning.
I shot 414 photos on three cameras (2 digital and one medium format film camera) in four hours. But the craziest, absolutely most weird thing was this: I had two assistants, and they were using the two digital cameras with me, taking photos with the camera I wasn't using. When I got home, to my complete shock, there were the same number of photos on each digital camera: 183 (a prime number). Now, if that's not some whacked out crazy shit, I don't know what is.

Anyway, the photos turned out sweet, and with the help of our good friend Photoshop, virile textures, and some old fashioned elbow grease, visual tastiness ensued.

 

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Grayskul Music Video
It fell to my creative endeavors, one fine day, to be challenged by Fad with the task of doing the as of yet undone, to direct, with the full brunt of my ire and intellect, a music video for the hip hop trio Grayskul. Watch the video.
How I got the job remains somewhat clouded in mystery, but what I do know is that based on my photography, Fad (www.superfad.com) held me in esteem enough to trust a large chunk of cash to someone with no experience to speak of. A certain John Hilton, Seattle director extraordinaire, was called in, and since he looks like me in 15 years, we got along fine, with John providing the technical and networked connections, which would ultimately be the lubricant that would grease this fetid beast. The next obvious step was that we needed to immediately start building eight foot by eight foot sets, which we proceed to do with a reckless enthusiasm, our only inspiration the classic rock radio channel, and the endless sardines and crackers which became my daily diet. Several weeks later we emerged, brain cells deadened by the chemicals and spray paint, and once the dust settled, the fruits of our labor were revealed: four miniature sets, including two forests, a mountain landscape, and desert landscape.
Our next challenge was, naturally, to rent the largest motion control camera in Seattle, and film a series of complicated scaled shots on the sets, with the knowledge that we would be shooting the same shots the following week with the band, against a huge green screen, but the shots would be scaled up 50 times and the band would be composited seamlessly into the environments we had created. The first shoot took somewhat longer than expected, about 18 hours, to be precise, and the second shoot took about 16 hours.

From there, armed with our footage, our work was cut out for us. In a matter of days I was keying and directing our fine team of After Effects wizards who selflessly worked their fingers to the bone, compositing and keying with a merciless zeal, and through tedious abandon, ultimately created the pieces of the puzzle, which were passed off our our editor, and assembled to create the finished piece you can find on this site. On a personal note, I killed myself on this , working 10-17 hours a day, 7 days a week, for two months.

 

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Baskin Robbins Boards
Digital Kitchen invited me to participate in a round of boards for a Baskin Robbins pitch. All they gave me was some ice cream photos and told me that the client liked that one 'Hummer' spot with all the morphing shapes.
I brought out my can of shizzle, shook it out, and sprayed, and where I sprayed, visual tastiness emerged, like a spring flower after a long hard winter. Armed with this resolute and stoic direction, the client could not help but be swayed to the point of parting with their budget, and the chase was on! Digital Kitchen (or D-Kizzle, as I like to call them) begged me to assist with the production, for without my tiny wrist and huge round eye, how could success be guaranteed? I, however, laughed in merriment and bade them nay, for I had further folly's to attend to.
 

 

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Designed to Help
These vector illustrations were published in the Designed To Help book. Proceeds went directly to the Tsunami Relief Fund. Since these are vector, I only figured it'd be decent of me if I made them available for download, which you can do here.
Conceptually, I wanted to do a series of illustrations on the theme of ascension, namely the spirit ascending at it begins it's new transformation, after death. Originally, I had wanted to incorporate various texts dealing with the topic of death, but the legal constraints of the project did not allow for published works from the likes of Walt Whitman, and Kahlil Gibran, which I found to be unfortunate. However, in the face of this great travesty, I was able persevere, and you see the result before you. Additionally, I have made the images available for download here, in vector form and I only ask that if you do use these images, you give me credit and send me a link to the new work as I do enjoy seeing various unpredictable iterations and mutations of ideas.
On a more personal note, I had a cooler layout planned for this table, but Dreamweaver (may Allah forgive it's creators) saw it to be unclean. As a result, it decided to punish me for all my past trespasses by refusing to accurately preview in the program, even though it faithfully previewed on several browsers. Unfortunately, I was filled with doubt, and at this point had begun to perspire in a somewhat unattractive fashion. Cursing and near the point of despair, I capitulated. I revised my tabular layout, and vowed to move on, as production constraints dictated that I couldn't spend my entire day fighting Dreamweaver. I have resolved to choose my battles, when it comes to this infernal program, fickle mistress that it is.

 

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Tasty DesignBum Shirts
A little dabble in the old shirt design. I decided I needed some sweet tasty trappings with which to snare the unsuspecting female. Problem is, they're all suspecting, and my snares seem to backfire with relish.
Check out my nifty logo, eh?
Notwithstanding, or perhaps in spite of, I busted out these slender yet succulent designs. Do they really and truly exist? Can you order one to perhaps impress your friends and cause your enemies to curse in disgust and impotent rage? The answer, fortunately, is no. If someone wants to print them for me, we can discuss this. Otherwise, they will be relegated to the dustbin of time, wherewith they will die their noble death, unremembered, and un-renounced.
On a lighter note, rest assured, my tender parakeets, that all is not lost, that hope thrives in despair. No, wait. That's innovation. Yeah, innovation thrives in.. no, that's not it.  Hmmm.. come to think of it nothing really thrives in despair. Except maybe more despair. No, the trick is to not despair. Instead, turn to rage, that brightest of flames with which to kindle your loins. Or something.

 

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MTV Saw II Promo
Okay, this project was really cool. Fad even let me Creative Direct and build this puppy myself with collaborative help from Britta, this really dope girl who works here, who is pretty much genius. Anyway, what we did was shoot the whole thing stop motion using high res digital stills which gave us the resolution of film. Watch it now.
I know that you're probably thinking, 'what the fuck? This guy's talking some mad shit!' Well let me be the first to tell you that, yes this is the case. See, all you need is a bunch of cool materials, a little studio space and you can produce film quality awesome stop motion shizzle that looks like the real deal. Hella tight visuals on a shoestring budget is what I'm talking about, my gentle parakeet!

 

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Fankick Wallpapers, Photography
Those lackluster ladies of loquacious lupine languish have proceeded to accidentally inspire me to take photos of them and do service through my feeble worship in the form of tasty wallpapers and photos. All tremble in despair as they see the tastiness inherent in these situations. Visit their site that I made, and check their baddessness out! You can download high res versions of the below four images, there, too.
In case you don't know, Fankick is the hottest trend, sweeping Seattle, and by sheer proximity, the entire west coast, through their daring and innovative performance routines. Basically, these chicks dress up all '80's style and get their groove on street level, and dance for tips. All very cool and chic, to be sure. And, well, since one of them is my roommate, I have no choice but to ensure that in moments of sheer boredom, I fill my useless moments creating, as one obsessed, Fankick memorabilia and visual trinkets, so that I may tickle your senses, and spread, like a fine whipped butter, the joy and happiness that is Fankick.

 

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MTV Lords of Dogtown Promo
The instant this project started, I knew that I immediately had to create a Plexiglas tub to put on a light table so that we could print out video and logo elements, submerge them in water, and videotape the process of the ink dissolving. Thankfully, Fad indulged me in my insane plan, though they threatened me with a haircut if it didn't turn out cool, which it did! Watch it now.
I mean, it was like I had a moral responsibility to do this. After some experimenting with different transparency stocks and water temperatures, we were able to get the exact results we wanted. For those of you who want to do this, use Laser Jet transparency film in an Ink Jet printer for all flat logo elements. It sounds crazy, but it totally works! I got a note the other day from Even Dennis of NextSeason regarding this piece. He's been doing some sweet shit with transparencies submerged in water too. Check out his cool shizzle here.  

 

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SuperFad Branding
See, I developed the re-branding project of SuperFad, or Fad, to their friends, an international motion graphics house. Right off the bat, I knew that what I really had to do was get a small aquarium, fill it with warm water, surround it with lights, and drop ink into it while I photographed it.
And, by gum, that's exactly what I did! I shot the stills with a Canon D10 or some such device. All I know is that the camera was pretty sweet and took some pretty sweet pictures. The light overlays were some photo textures I shot way back in 'nam and use for just about every project. They're kind of like my salt. You know how you can put salt on just about anything? So, anyway, they wanted to keep the branding iconic, yet organic and timeless. Even though SuperFad is a motion graphics house, they wanted to give the branding a timeless quality. Anyway, needless to say, everyone was pretty goddamn stoked with how the branding turned out. Which was lucky for me because that meant I could feed my twenty five children!
The website also turned out remarkably well. I turned to the services of Andy Jones and Geoff Guntle to build a database driven back end with a flash front end. Under my direction, they built a php driven Content Management System which controlled every aspect of the dynamic content. The site is hella tight.    

 

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Fanta Promo Graphics
These tasty graphics were part of a style pitch on a project that Fad was doing. I was called in to lend some caliber to the project, but alas, they didn't go with my shizzle. They did, however, end up going with Nigel's shizzle, which is great cause he's a pimp.
Anyway, I did a little recycling with these and subtracted the Fanta branded stuff and turned it into the Action Booklet cover, which manifests a tastiness incomparable to the original piece. That's how it is sometimes, you know, you do some cool shit which gets rejected by the client, but then you turn those lemons into lemonade, which is what you gotta do to get the ladies. See, ladies love lemonade. It's sweet yet tart, perfect on a hot day. If you can keep your lady supplied with lemonade during those hot summer days, she will thank you with gratitude. And if maybe you play for a different team, don't forget that fellas like lemonade, too! In fact it's safe to say it's a safe bet no matter what. It's like dolphins. Who doesn't like dolphins?

 

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Personal Photography: Water
I've long been fascinated with the notion of water being a visual metaphor for the unconscious. Our relationship to large bodies of water I especially find intriguing. I know that sometimes when my mind is turbulent, I have dreams of vast waves.
In addressing this metaphor, I find it useful to look at certain elements, namely the surface of water, the area above, the area below, the intensity. All these elements translate into specific areas of the psyche. The conscious mind can be considered to be the surface of the water, that marginal divide between the gulf of the unconscious and the aerial expanse of the superego.
In an unrelated subject, the above photo was one of the last ones my digital camera took before getting swamped by a wave and dying. Most of the photos in this series are on film but some are digital.
I hope that by working on this series, I can better get in touch with this fear. Going surfing for the first time helped a lot, and learning that waves and organic pure energy can be used for a good time. It's not hard to make a case for the archetype of the wave being somehow elemental and figurative into human consciousness. That idea of something organic, natural, and powerful and visceral evokes a familiar feeling, whatever our own personal response. My own happens to be fear. There's something about the loss of control, that feeling of being tossed in utter disregard to my humanity by a force larger than myself that inspires, unfortunately, a profound sense of fear.