Friday, January 20, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Friday, November 25, 2011
The Ghost and Us at Loscon
Check out their Facebook page for more info. It's on Friday and Saturday. At Six. At the LAX Marriot. Now you basically have all the info.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
TAG ARCHIVES: THE HUNTER AND THE SWAN DISCUSS THEIR MEETING
The Absurd Man – à la 8-Bit RPG
Thanks to my very good friend Landon Zakheim – who curated the second annual “Razorblades in Your Reese’s” Halloween short film program at the Downtown Independent last Monday- I was exposed to the tender and hilarious ennui of filmmaker Emily Carmichael. I am very happy this has happened. Her short The Hunter and the Swan Discuss Their Meeting was an outcast among the more shocking and musically epic shorts in the program (The Legend of Beaver Dam is one of the greatest things ever, as well), but its sensibility was dry and sweet, like some Yellow Tail at a dinner party with friends you don’t quite you know yet. Her contemporary take on this classic myth is fresh and she uses her symbols well.
But it’s her ongoing animated series The Adventures of Ledo and Ix that has me jazzed up. In this currently 8-part work, Carmichael uses the pixelated melodrama of the adventure RPG to cast absurd exigence on the hero/sidekick-vs-indifferent-cosmos experience. In four minute bursts, and with only 256 colors (which close-up, still manage to evoke real pathos), she parses the loopholes of consciousness, the automation of society, fear of the unknown, and the habits we cling to that give us meaning.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
The Ghost and Us Takes Best Comedic Horror Short at Tabloid Witch Awards
"Entries to the Tabloid Witch are often weak on story. Way too many serial killers or zombies killing people. Zombies attack. People run. Zombies kill. Repeat cycle. By contrast, The Ghost and Us has story arcs. Three of them, even! Each character changes in some small way by film's end.
Especially admirable is the film's middle (the turning point). Laura and Sena have called a temporary truce in their struggle for Ben's affections. Together, they share a snack in the kitchen. Girl stuff of the sort that bonds women. Then it becomes apparent that Sena cannot eat. She's a ghost."
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Takuya Hosogane's Geometry of Space (as opposed to what?)
This was an extra in the Kindle version of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. I finally tracked it down online because I wanted to use it as scratch audio for Episode 1. I seriously can't stop watching it.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
I'm back I'm back! (SO SING TO RAISE THE BLINDS UP)
What happened was, I spent a good piece of the summer teaching HERE. It was my job to prep 70 super-gifted black and latino seventh graders for the entrance exam they need to take to break into the fancy, blazer-y world of New England private prep schools, whence they will go on to become world-eating dynamos.
The students are awesome, awesome people. Teaching was super hard work, mainly because---OMG teaching whole classes of brilliant twelve year olds is very hard work. By the end of the summer I had a pretty good "Serious Teacher means business NOW" voice and was using it to great effect.
Now, I never yell when I'm directing. I don't think. Someone tell me if I'm wrong. There have been times when I've been like "everyone needs to bear with me because I am going to be yelly so that we make our day," but that's like, bracketed. It's a special case. I really thought that everything you could accomplish with yelling you could also accomplish with not-yelling, but I think when you're dealing with kids you really do have to come in strong and assert authority on the very first day, so you don't have to attempt to prove your authority on every subsequent day. I think probably when you're raising kids, also. It did make me grateful for everyone who has ever worked on one of my films and unquestioningly accepted my usually quite gentle style of leadership.
Anyways, the first episode of the new season of Ledo and Ix will start production tomorrow, a day on which it will still be August, so I am possibly not a liar if you have a forgiving definition?
You can join the mailing list and get a glimpse of the new season via the widget below. I'll be sure to e-mail the mailing list when the episodes start airing. We're also going to have a Kickstarter campaign up with some pretty awesome awards (such as appearing in an episode of Ledo and Ix, for all you big spenders out there.)
Finally, here's a look at Song-A-Day crooner Jonathan Mann sporting his awesome new Ledo T-shirt.
And in case anyone didn't click on the links which are to Jonathan's amazing Kickstarter video in which he explains, among other things, how to deal with writer's block, here it is. Watch it.
What happened was, I spent a good piece of the summer teaching HERE. It was my job to prep 70 super-gifted black and latino seventh graders for the entrance exam they need to take to break into the fancy, blazer-y world of New England private prep schools, whence they will go on to become world-eating dynamos.
The students are awesome, awesome people. Teaching was super hard work, mainly because---OMG teaching whole classes of brilliant twelve year olds is very hard work. By the end of the summer I had a pretty good "Serious Teacher means business NOW" voice and was using it to great effect.
Now, I never yell when I'm directing. I don't think. Someone tell me if I'm wrong. There have been times when I've been like "everyone needs to bear with me because I am going to be yelly so that we make our day," but that's like, bracketed. It's a special case. I really thought that everything you could accomplish with yelling you could also accomplish with not-yelling, but I think when you're dealing with kids you really do have to come in strong and assert authority on the very first day, so you don't have to attempt to prove your authority on every subsequent day. I think probably when you're raising kids, also. It did make me grateful for everyone who has ever worked on one of my films and unquestioningly accepted my usually quite gentle style of leadership.
Anyways, the first episode of the new season of Ledo and Ix will start production tomorrow, a day on which it will still be August, so I am possibly not a liar if you have a forgiving definition?
You can join the mailing list and get a glimpse of the new season via the widget below. I'll be sure to e-mail the mailing list when the episodes start airing. We're also going to have a Kickstarter campaign up with some pretty awesome awards (such as appearing in an episode of Ledo and Ix, for all you big spenders out there.)
Finally, here's a look at Song-A-Day crooner Jonathan Mann sporting his awesome new Ledo T-shirt.
And in case anyone didn't click on the links which are to Jonathan's amazing Kickstarter video in which he explains, among other things, how to deal with writer's block, here it is. Watch it.
Friday, August 5, 2011
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