My mentor and good friend Rosto has been hatching his tale for kids all ages for quite a while now. I remember hanging out at Studio Rosto AD back in 2006 sketching on the Virgil Bird Character and singing all the numbers backwards from a 100 to 0 for the storyboards and now it is finally out. The film had its world premiere at Annecy Animated Film Festival this year and hits the festival screens this summer. I haven't seen it yet, but knowing Rosto Im sure it is going to be Amazing. I worked with him on his Jona/Tomberry back in 2004/05 and he is such an inspiring surplus of creativity and inspiration and a master of his craft. That is probably also why talents like Tom Waits, Terry Gilliam and the Residents signed on to play along on the project. Have a look at the teaser and judge for yourself. Cant wait to see it...
Plus One
7.7.11
I have been a fan of Kevin Smith for quite a while now. The indie movies he did in the 90es was a testament to everyone that you can make unique and personal films without a big budget. And even though he shot on film his aesthetics and take on moviemaking helped spawn the indiewave of filmmaking on the threshold of the digital age. Now, you can debate how good a filmmaker Kevin Smith is (and a lot of people do) but one thing is for sure he is an AMAZING verbal storyteller and a really sympathetic character.
I have been following his Smodcast for a while and over the past few weeks while preparing preparing for the exhibition in LA I have been listening to a bunch of his other podcasts at the Smodcast Network site (and there are a lot to choose from) like Highlands; a peephole history, Smoviola, Sminterview, Hollywood Babble-on & Plus one.
What is really interesting about his work as a Podhead is that everything goes on without a filter and nothing is off limits in the debate; his sexlife with Jen Schawalbach, how he grew up as a kid, the way he got threwn off a plane for being too fat etc. And everything is told with a lot of love and a lot of humor. Now what I find really fascinating about this is the question about the public and the private Kevin Smith. There is no doubt that the lines are hard to distinguish because of his complete honesty on the air and the fact that he is constantly joined by a tight group of good friends all chipping in with their stories from their lives with and around Mr Smith, and what a charming bunch. Through the podcasts you get to know everyone really well & you get the strange illusion that you are a part of the gang. Almost every time somebody calls in to the program they are talking like they have known 'Kev' forever - even using the same lingo as him and what not. And a bunch of times in an almost awkward misplaced way, as if he is supposed to know them intimately as well. Yet, I havent heard him complain about his fans one single time, and he seems truly grateful to everyone supporting his growing empire of the Smodcast.
The night before leaving Berlin I had a few hours to kill and since all the Smodcasts are for free, I decided I wanted to give a little some thing back to Mr Smith and his beautiful wife for sharing their truly charming universe with everyone and putting a new spin on the old campfire storyteller tradition packed with a lot of sincerety and humor, so I sat down and spend a few hours to do a quick & dirty painting inspired by his Plus One Smodcast, a Smodcast he does on a daily basis with his wife, talking about life in the Smith home. Not only is it a highly entertaining piece of day, but also a beautiful testament and a legacy to their Tween daughter Harley Quinn. I wish that my parents had had a podcast telling the world about their history, their thoughts and their everyday life while I grew up. It is a beautiful documentary project indeed.
I would have loved to hand over this sloppily done painting personally. I could probably spend a nickel and buy me a map to the stars and hunt them down, but the preparation for the exhibition has been so busy, and to be honorest I dont want to invade their personal lifes for a petty fanboy handshake. I know that he is a good friend of the owner of Gallery 1988 here in LA so Ill pop by there with the painting a bit later and see if they can slip it to the Smiths at some point. Then they can keep it or auktion it off to support one of their many good causes if they please. I just wanted to give something back & say thank you for hours & hours of beautiful entertainment.
It is quite flawed because of the tempo of creation but kind of works in a comicbook kind of way. I wish I had had more time to work on it to really nail their features, but the exhibition (opening tonight) has had priority #1 - and what an opening it'll be... Come to the Royal T Gallery in Culver city tonight to the opening of Party Animals and see my works hanging with the works of Takashi Murikami, Jeff Koons, Friends with you, Yoko Ono and a whole bunch of other amazing people - The Royal/T is the center for cosplay chicks in the area so dress up as your favorite animal. Itll be grand!
I have been following his Smodcast for a while and over the past few weeks while preparing preparing for the exhibition in LA I have been listening to a bunch of his other podcasts at the Smodcast Network site (and there are a lot to choose from) like Highlands; a peephole history, Smoviola, Sminterview, Hollywood Babble-on & Plus one.
What is really interesting about his work as a Podhead is that everything goes on without a filter and nothing is off limits in the debate; his sexlife with Jen Schawalbach, how he grew up as a kid, the way he got threwn off a plane for being too fat etc. And everything is told with a lot of love and a lot of humor. Now what I find really fascinating about this is the question about the public and the private Kevin Smith. There is no doubt that the lines are hard to distinguish because of his complete honesty on the air and the fact that he is constantly joined by a tight group of good friends all chipping in with their stories from their lives with and around Mr Smith, and what a charming bunch. Through the podcasts you get to know everyone really well & you get the strange illusion that you are a part of the gang. Almost every time somebody calls in to the program they are talking like they have known 'Kev' forever - even using the same lingo as him and what not. And a bunch of times in an almost awkward misplaced way, as if he is supposed to know them intimately as well. Yet, I havent heard him complain about his fans one single time, and he seems truly grateful to everyone supporting his growing empire of the Smodcast.
The night before leaving Berlin I had a few hours to kill and since all the Smodcasts are for free, I decided I wanted to give a little some thing back to Mr Smith and his beautiful wife for sharing their truly charming universe with everyone and putting a new spin on the old campfire storyteller tradition packed with a lot of sincerety and humor, so I sat down and spend a few hours to do a quick & dirty painting inspired by his Plus One Smodcast, a Smodcast he does on a daily basis with his wife, talking about life in the Smith home. Not only is it a highly entertaining piece of day, but also a beautiful testament and a legacy to their Tween daughter Harley Quinn. I wish that my parents had had a podcast telling the world about their history, their thoughts and their everyday life while I grew up. It is a beautiful documentary project indeed.
I would have loved to hand over this sloppily done painting personally. I could probably spend a nickel and buy me a map to the stars and hunt them down, but the preparation for the exhibition has been so busy, and to be honorest I dont want to invade their personal lifes for a petty fanboy handshake. I know that he is a good friend of the owner of Gallery 1988 here in LA so Ill pop by there with the painting a bit later and see if they can slip it to the Smiths at some point. Then they can keep it or auktion it off to support one of their many good causes if they please. I just wanted to give something back & say thank you for hours & hours of beautiful entertainment.
It is quite flawed because of the tempo of creation but kind of works in a comicbook kind of way. I wish I had had more time to work on it to really nail their features, but the exhibition (opening tonight) has had priority #1 - and what an opening it'll be... Come to the Royal T Gallery in Culver city tonight to the opening of Party Animals and see my works hanging with the works of Takashi Murikami, Jeff Koons, Friends with you, Yoko Ono and a whole bunch of other amazing people - The Royal/T is the center for cosplay chicks in the area so dress up as your favorite animal. Itll be grand!
Webcuts Interview with yours truly
1.7.11
I had a blast of an evening at Webcuts.11 a few weeks back where both the Animation Tag Attack and Bear Untitled got screened. Then last week I got an email from the good people over at EFORS who documented the evening who send me a very flattering piece from the event featuring not only a very ranting interview with myself and some great shots from the Animation Tag Attack (including the not yet published E12) but it even starts out showing the entire Bear Untitled. What I am most stunned about is how wild my beard looks in that light. haha. The ATA segment starts from 3:18.
Webcuts 2011 - Internet Film Award Berlin from EFORS Berlin on Vimeo.
Webcuts 2011 - Internet Film Award Berlin from EFORS Berlin on Vimeo.
Exhibition LA
29.6.11
These past 8 months has been so extremely crazy both work wise, career wise and personally and a TON of stuff has happened. I flipped through my sketchbooks this morning, and it is seriously mind blowing how much has happened in this very short stretch of time. I am truly grateful to all the cats who has made a ton of this happen like the good David All & Bennett Richardson from the David All Group, Rob Rollinger & Johan Koning at Intel, all the guys and girls from the Animation Tag attack and a ton of people more.
And on to that list goes Lindsay Scoggins as well. I met Lindsay during the Guggenheim Mayhem last year. She is a really cool redhead/mashup video artist. She was there with her Wonderland Mafia video, mashing hardcore hip hop with Disney's Alice in Wonderland - and we hit it of immediately (We met at the airport as I landed), and just hung out chillin' during that short week in NYC.
During that week she got a lot of hype on the back of her video (and rightfully so) and got snatched up by the owner of the Royal T Galleri in Culver city, LA, where she got hired to make a promo video for the gallery and curate an exhibition starting on July 7th (next week). And I am really honored to have been asked to be a part of the exhibition alongside artists like Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons, KAWS, Yoko Ono & Yoshitomo Nara and the list goes on...
The Exhibition is entitled "pARTy Animals" and is a celebration of the Animal kingdom.
For the exhibition I have created 2 of my UV paintings entitled "Anatomy of a Party Animal", playing with the notion of life and death, fragility, animal instincts and the joy of living.
And here's a quick video portrait of the UV layers:
I am leaving for LA on monday if all goes well, to take part in the opening. Cant wait to get away from the computer and out into the real world. I have been stuck here for months now. and yes: Im going to the party...
And on to that list goes Lindsay Scoggins as well. I met Lindsay during the Guggenheim Mayhem last year. She is a really cool redhead/mashup video artist. She was there with her Wonderland Mafia video, mashing hardcore hip hop with Disney's Alice in Wonderland - and we hit it of immediately (We met at the airport as I landed), and just hung out chillin' during that short week in NYC.
During that week she got a lot of hype on the back of her video (and rightfully so) and got snatched up by the owner of the Royal T Galleri in Culver city, LA, where she got hired to make a promo video for the gallery and curate an exhibition starting on July 7th (next week). And I am really honored to have been asked to be a part of the exhibition alongside artists like Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons, KAWS, Yoko Ono & Yoshitomo Nara and the list goes on...
The Exhibition is entitled "pARTy Animals" and is a celebration of the Animal kingdom.
For the exhibition I have created 2 of my UV paintings entitled "Anatomy of a Party Animal", playing with the notion of life and death, fragility, animal instincts and the joy of living.
And here's a quick video portrait of the UV layers:
I am leaving for LA on monday if all goes well, to take part in the opening. Cant wait to get away from the computer and out into the real world. I have been stuck here for months now. and yes: Im going to the party...
Intel Visual Life - Post Mortem
27.6.11
A few months back I was approached by the good people at Intel about being a featured artist in their Visual Life series. The project is truly amazing; It is a video series trying to inspire people to use their technology in an intuitive way and push the creative envelope. Previously they've featured a handful of really cool designers, musicians and photographers who all uses the computer as a center pillar in their creative process - And I am really honored to be a part of that group of cats.
Now since I am a videoartist by trade they called me up asked me if I would be up for the challenge of creating my own profile film, and I virtually jumped with joy of the thought; cause lets face it it is a dream assignment to be asked (and payed) to do a 6 minute narcissistic piece on yourself and your work. Haha. But it proved to be be one of the toughest and most frustrating assignments I have ever done out of a series of reasons...
I come from an animation Sfx background and unlike a lot of other vidoartists I hardly ever portray myself in the stuff I do - because I normally say what I want to say through fictive characters and constructed universes, and I pretty quickly came to realize that self image is a bitch. Apparently I am as overly self critiquing as a 15 year old girl - I love giving interviews and you cats who know me, know that I love talking, but in interviews the stuff is edited by others who has a clear vision of how they see me. I think it is interesting how different other peoples vision of you is compared to your own.
In the beginning of this Odyssey I had a sitdown with one of my good friends and collaborators, Peter Ruschel, where we talked about what to include in the video, how to structure it etc. And it became quite apparent that my vision of myself isnt quite the way I am perceived by the world around me, so before I could dig in and start the actual filming and editing I had to figure out who I am, and define myself as a character. As I also state in the clip; It is a caricature of who I am and what I do because the reality is way to complex to put down in a 6 minute portrait. And since I have never really worked with that caricature of myself before it took a bit of time to define this persona.
My second headache was to condense everything I do down in 6 minutes. I had so many things I wanted to show in this clip that my first edit was around 16 minutes (I had 8-10 hrs of footage) that had to be condensed down to 6, so there was a lot of stuff that got cut like my music for instance.
All in all the project has been a really crazy learning experience, because it has been so different from all the other projects I normally do. It was so much fun editing an almost pure live action clip without having to think in terms of Sfx shots and animation and as I mentioned before the self definition part was such a crazy eyeopener as well. My only regret is that I had to push the deadline for it a couple of times. and I normally NEVER miss a deadline, but I am really grateful that the cats at Intel was flexible with the schedule & had the attitude that it wasn't a school assignment, but a clip where quality is more important than the deadline.
I would also like to give a short shoutout to the cats who stuck around and pitched in helping me with this huge piece of work. Most of all Schumann/Bach who did an amazing job on the sound design, wrote a bunch of the music and helped me arrange the stuff I wrote for it.
Mo Jäger who helped me edit all of my of footage & Peter Ruschel who helped me shoot a ton and structure it all + my dear Eva who helped me out so much by holding cameras, filming bits and pieces, doing interviewsessions, making me food and telling me off.
& a shoutout to my sister Julie Bach who designed the yarn puppet I ended up animating in the plant in my livingroom...
Now since I am a videoartist by trade they called me up asked me if I would be up for the challenge of creating my own profile film, and I virtually jumped with joy of the thought; cause lets face it it is a dream assignment to be asked (and payed) to do a 6 minute narcissistic piece on yourself and your work. Haha. But it proved to be be one of the toughest and most frustrating assignments I have ever done out of a series of reasons...
I come from an animation Sfx background and unlike a lot of other vidoartists I hardly ever portray myself in the stuff I do - because I normally say what I want to say through fictive characters and constructed universes, and I pretty quickly came to realize that self image is a bitch. Apparently I am as overly self critiquing as a 15 year old girl - I love giving interviews and you cats who know me, know that I love talking, but in interviews the stuff is edited by others who has a clear vision of how they see me. I think it is interesting how different other peoples vision of you is compared to your own.
In the beginning of this Odyssey I had a sitdown with one of my good friends and collaborators, Peter Ruschel, where we talked about what to include in the video, how to structure it etc. And it became quite apparent that my vision of myself isnt quite the way I am perceived by the world around me, so before I could dig in and start the actual filming and editing I had to figure out who I am, and define myself as a character. As I also state in the clip; It is a caricature of who I am and what I do because the reality is way to complex to put down in a 6 minute portrait. And since I have never really worked with that caricature of myself before it took a bit of time to define this persona.
My second headache was to condense everything I do down in 6 minutes. I had so many things I wanted to show in this clip that my first edit was around 16 minutes (I had 8-10 hrs of footage) that had to be condensed down to 6, so there was a lot of stuff that got cut like my music for instance.
All in all the project has been a really crazy learning experience, because it has been so different from all the other projects I normally do. It was so much fun editing an almost pure live action clip without having to think in terms of Sfx shots and animation and as I mentioned before the self definition part was such a crazy eyeopener as well. My only regret is that I had to push the deadline for it a couple of times. and I normally NEVER miss a deadline, but I am really grateful that the cats at Intel was flexible with the schedule & had the attitude that it wasn't a school assignment, but a clip where quality is more important than the deadline.
I would also like to give a short shoutout to the cats who stuck around and pitched in helping me with this huge piece of work. Most of all Schumann/Bach who did an amazing job on the sound design, wrote a bunch of the music and helped me arrange the stuff I wrote for it.
Mo Jäger who helped me edit all of my of footage & Peter Ruschel who helped me shoot a ton and structure it all + my dear Eva who helped me out so much by holding cameras, filming bits and pieces, doing interviewsessions, making me food and telling me off.
& a shoutout to my sister Julie Bach who designed the yarn puppet I ended up animating in the plant in my livingroom...
911 Retrospective...
18.6.11
A few weeks back I was contacted by the good people at L'Oeil de Links at Canal+ about making a piece on my memories of September 11th 2001. We are closing in on the 10 year mark for when it happened, and in memory of the tragedy, they have hired 11 artists from around the world to each create a video of 1 min and 11 sec to be shown in a special later this year...
It was really interesting to wrestle with a subject that is so personal and subjective to a lot of people. I had quite a debate with one of my long time collaborators (and best friends), Kim Svarer, whether or not I could show the actual event (the hit and the towers crashing) because it is such a sensitive topic to a lot of people. Kim is higly intelligent and a provocateur of the first rank, and we almost always agree on everything, so it surprised me that he was very cautious around this particular subject - but I am a very visual cat and the visuals of the day had a huge impact on my experiencing it, so it was out of the question not to include them in one way or another. - so if anybody out there are taking the imagery to heart, I apologize, It is not meant as offensive; It is just part of the way I remember the day.
I would have loved to do a visually complex treatment of it because as before mentioned the event opens up to a very rich visual memory bank. But the time restrictions and the budget on the piece set some quite strict limitations on me, so I ended up in GraphicsGale making it in 8 bit which is a super fast and quite intuitive way of going...
I will be posting the video and a proper post mortem on the clip when it airs on french tv. I do own the rights for the clip, but out of courtesy to the hard working boys and girls at L'Oeil de Links (that actually hired me to do it) - I think they should have the right to the first showing. I will however post a few frames from the clip...
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