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

Peabody Trailer & Stills

The first trailer is finally out!  Can't wait to see what people think of it...I personally think it's unlike any DreamWorks movie we've done - in a good way!

Also, in an article in USA Today, a bunch of stills from "Mr. Peabody & Sherman" were released.  I love the character designs on these guys - and they look amazing animated.  Hopefully a trailer will show up soon

"Home" (previous known as Smekday)

A few images of Home (which had been called "Happy Smekday!") came out today from a press screening DreamWorks was hosting.  It's been a real fun show to animate on - especially with these little aliens (the Boov).  You can get the sense of humor of the film from their press release about cast updates:

INTERGALACTIC MEMO:
Subject: Steve Martin and Jennifer Lopez
DreamWorks Animation

Somewhere in the Universe -- Attention Earthlings: Your friendly alien invaders The Boov would like to inform you that legendary comedian Steve Martin and singer/actress/pop-culture icon Jennifer Lopez will be taking their rightful place among three-time Emmy Award winning actor Jim Parsons and international superstar Rihanna in our upcoming film from DreamWorks Animation. Since humans are largely a primitive and uninformed race, we will also remind you that our film, Home, is based on the critically acclaimed book “The True Meaning of Smekday” by Adam Rex and will be released in theaters in November 2014.

Steve Martin will be honored with playing the role of our very brave and never-wrong leader Captain Smek, while Jennifer Lopez will play one of the very important humanspersons you call a “mother.”

Our research on your race leads us to believe you will also find the following information helpful:

DreamWorks Animation’s Home is not your standard post-apocalyptic-alien-invasion-buddy-comedy. When Earth is taken over by the overly-confident Boov, an alien race in search of a new place to call home, all humans are promptly relocated (Captain Smek optimistically declares “Relocation is fun and mandatory!”), while all Boov get busy efficiently reorganizing the planet (“You’re welcome”). But when one resourceful girl, Tip, (Rihanna) manages to avoid capture, she finds herself the accidental accomplice of a banished Boov by the name of Oh (Jim Parsons). Equally stubborn and set in their ways, these two fugitives realize there’s a lot more at stake than intergalactic relations as they embark on the road trip of a lifetime. Good thing they have a flying car.

Tim Johnson (Over the Hedge, Antz) will serve as the film’s director. Chris Jenkins (Rio, Surf’s Up) and Suzanne Buirgy (Kung Fu Panda 2) are serving as producers and DreamWorks Animation’s Head of Development Gregg Taylor is overseeing the project. Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember (Get Smart) are currently writing the screenplay.

Peabody Website Up

The website for Mr. Peabody & Sherman is up.  Finally starting to get some good views of the look of this picture.  I crashed a cross-site dailies last week and got to see some of the new ideas for the finale (it's changed a lot since I moved off the show at the end of last year).  I LOVE the animation on this show - can't wait to see on the big screen.

Also appearing on the web are a few shots of Ty Burrel and Stephen Colbert recording dialog for the film.  They both do a great job - and Ty is just a standout at playing Peabody.

FLASHBACK: DreamWorks Company Photo

 

Well, this picture is from quite a few months back, but I just ran across it on the DreamWorks tumblr blog.  Its actually a pretty interesting blog - lots of great concept art and designs get posted up on it.

This picture is the entire company getting together up at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal Studios last October.  It was the first time both Redwood City and Glendale campuses got together in one place at one time. This was way back before all the layoffs - so this is probably the largest picture of DreamWorkers that there'll ever be. 

Desks

We're moving to new desks this week.  Not that moving desks is at all a news-worthy item.  It's just an excuse to post this picture I love of my desk.  Spencer snapped it the other week during the portrait photo shoot.