Wednesday, November 27, 2013

"Home" sneak peak with The President, Steve Martin, and Jim Parsons



A fun clip surfaced of the President getting a little behind the scenes look at the movie I'm working on.  Also fun to see Steve Martin and Jim Parsons do their thing!  It's impossible to imagine the movie without them.



Tuesday, November 26, 2013

President Obama Visits DreamWorks!



Well, this was a special day here at DreamWorks.  President Obama came to give remarks (not a speech, apparently these are two different things).  Apparently this is the first time a sitting President has visited a film studio in 40 years.   So it was crazy all week leading up to main event.  Tons of security - we had to park over at the LA Zoo and get bused into work, go through round one of security to get inside the campus, and then a second round of security to get into the speaking area!

Very cool experience.  The President as always was well spoken and looked like he was having fun.  It's been great hearing stories getting traded around all day between employees.  Some of the MoCap guys got some extended time showing him a demo...and rumor is he even got to see our Hidden Room (the impressive bar CFX built hidden behind a wall)

No President yet, but I got pretty close to the podium!

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

New Additions to Blog

Head's up!  Up and over a few tabs you'll see a some new sections on my blog site.  I added a whole bunch of animations from over the years into the Animation Gallery, some figure drawing, and a biography.  Enjoy!

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

TD Ameritrade Ad for Outpost12



Excited to share this fun project that my wife, Heather Abels, and I did for Outpost12 Studios in Lincoln, NE.  It's a website takeover video for the launch of a new TD Ameritrade Exchange site.

I did all the animation and rigging of this little guy, along with a previs animatic to get a buy off from the client on all the different beats of the ad.  Heather handled all the models, texturing, and 2d graphics animation.  Sound was added by Outpost12.

We're really proud of this video.  It was our first collaboration since our graduate thesis project...and this one we managed to complete after work hours while taking care of a 8 month old!

Here's a link to the project page on Outpost's site:
http://www.visualawesome.com/outpost12/portfolio-items/better-bot-2/

Monday, November 4, 2013

University of Nebraska Featured Alumni


My undergraduate school, the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, just launched a new website.  I'm one of a handful of alumni to be featured on the site.  It's an honor to be up there along with some of my old classmates like Tim Croshaw and Abby Miller.  Good company to be in.

You can check out the page here:
http://arts.unl.edu/featured-alumni/theatre-and-film