Bighead Scientists

Obama is Urb Alt

2008-11-13T01:04:00.004-05:00

Its been a while. Studies at NYU/Gallatin are kicking my butt. I'm hanging in as best I can. I wanted to post this Urb Alt piece http://urbalt.ning.com put together by my brother, Boston Fielder, and his partner in crime, Shena Verrett. Bro started Urb Alt years ago showcasing music, performances and video. This video was particularly well done and documents, with great style and class, the ascension of Barack Obama into the Office of President of this Mug. Enjoy.

Find more videos like this on URB ALT

Unfiltered: Ralph Bakshi

2008-08-05T15:16:00.003-04:00

My main reason for posting is the link above. I purchased the hardback biography of Ralph Bakshi "Unfiltered" just last month. It was an awe inspiring book. This guy was doing it independently when there was very little opportunity to do so. He made it happen again and again. I have attempted to do my own film over the last 8 years with great difficulty. I have blamed it on this issue or that. But in the end I've looked at all of the angles and I am forced to agree with Mr. Bakshi. The only thing that has delayed me are things that have nothing to do with the film. Yes, one could say hey, he's saying the computer is doing the work for him. He's actually not saying that. He's saying the computer DRAMATICALLY reduces the overhead and manpower to produce an animated film. Moreover the venues to sell and make money (ie. a living) exist more now than ever before. Sure, he may be simplistic in his delivery, but hell, he's right. Look what the other way has gotten us. Bad movies and raw asses.

Major life changes have gone down since my last post. I will be going back to school full time in just a few weeks to finish off my degree. This is something that I have put off for far too long. I'll give an breakdown of events in another post.

RIX Episode 1 Animatic

2008-04-01T13:56:00.005-04:00

Hello Everyone,

This is the animatic for the first episode of Rix. Each episode is only 2 minutes long so I had to really be exact with my storytelling. For the moment there isn't any sound but thats soon to come. I will post the finish piece as well as wip as I get further along. Sorry for the lack of updates. Daddy's been busy.

Croc WIP

2008-01-18T16:31:00.000-05:00

Hey Everybody,

So like I said before, I'm on a track now to do a bit funnier stuff. The idea I got was a boxing match with two appropriately cartoony characters. The first one is this guy:
Croc Adams

I'll upload the idea for the opponent on another day. For the moment I'm working on the animatic trying to get the timing and rough camera moves thought out. Check it out.

That First Night

2008-01-14T17:05:00.000-05:00

Hey folks,

Right now I'm in a space where I'm trying to really vary the different types of animatics/storyboard work I can do. Last time out of course was very much in the action packed kinetic style. This time out I wanted to showcase more subtle and thoughtful work with an audio clip from The Shawshank Redemption. Shawshank is for me one of the great great films of all time, not to mention one of the primary reasons why I'd never ever want to go prison (HBO's OZ being a close second:-)

Enjoy

ps. I want to continue to push myself. Thusly, I'm opening the floor up to requests. Please feel free to send any challenge you guys would like. Up first is a request from my friend Danny. This will be a humorous piece with characters inspired by the film Ice Age. Standby

Rope Bridge animatic

2008-01-03T02:43:00.000-05:00

Hello all.

Yes yes I know its been months since I posted. I have no excuse. I have been working on the films however. This newest clip is part of the animatic for Harbinger. It's a major action sequence that takes place on a suspended rope bridge. The most immediate influence being the Indiana Jones films, which of course were paying homage to the adventure serials of the early and mid 20th. Beyond the purpose of getting the timing and pacing correct it was also important for me to put the Adobe Suite and Painter workflow through its paces. The entire sequence is just over a minute long. I did however leave out some more detailed elements as there is still more to be added at a later date. I'm happy with it so far.

RIX in motion

2007-09-23T16:08:00.000-04:00

Hello Guys. I'm back after a few days trying to sort out the studio for serious production work on Harbinger. This little ditty is a proof of concept for RIX, which I posted a week ago. It was fun to do. The feedback thus far has been pretty enthusiastic. Let me know what you think. Now on to trying to make this puppet tool in After FX work out:-)

2007-09-19T04:24:00.000-04:00

Hello folks. I have decided to start posting images from my other film, much longer in production, titled Harbinger. You can expect to see tons of motion tests, concept designs, and ulitmately finished shots over the months as I work towards completion. This image is one of the first of the main character, Montalbon.

2007-09-18T12:04:00.000-04:00

Hello once again. As part of doing visual development one has to have a clear idea of the settings just as much as the characters. But in order to do this it is obviously helpful to know the how and the why. A fancy way of saying "what's the story?" So for Rix imagine a future largely covered by ocean. Certainly if one leaves the cliched tendancy in place its easy to fall into the Strange Da...errr Waterworld motif. But if you bring humans and money into the equation, and our desperate need for self preservation, Human civilization will simply...find a way (great line from Jurassic Park:-)

First up: City Ship Coffee shop sketch. My poor woman had to endure me gorging on coffee while I disucssed the mechanics of a network of buildings on a ship. Bless her.

Second: From this image I realise I must seriously work on my painting skills. Starting next week I'll be getting tutorials from my good friend Eric Wilkerson http://www.starleagueart.com/ Hey, I couldn't just leave the sketch a sketch. I took it further and blinggablanggablam...Photoshop is beautiful.

Comments, Criticisms?

2007-09-17T05:53:00.000-04:00

Hello Everybody. This is my first blog entry. Well actually, this is my first blog ever. Yes I know I'm like seriously late. Anyways, I'm here. This blog will serve as a stream of consciousness with my work. I am what is traditionally known as a Jack of all Trades: Master of None. Maybe a bad thing but that's being honest. I'm a Hybrid Filmmaker. I do everything just within firing range with one set of skills, then I utilize a different set of skills to get a project just right. First up is a concept design that started way back in highschool called RIX. About 2 years ago I tried to adapt it into a comic in a moment of desperation. But now as my interests have long since moved on to Animation I figured hey, lets go on and do it as that. Of course as a visual development artist I had to try different styles. The bottom image was what I chose as it was a nice balance.

My brother, Jim is working with me on this thing. Nice to have a sounding board. Special thanks to Danny Williams and Marc Florestant for putting some fire under my butt to get work done. Oddly enough, I finally started taking my own advice:-)