Back in March, Joey Potts and I were asked to spend a day overseeing the shoot of the Murder By Death Video that we would be animating in April. Who would have thought that we’d also get to hang out in the band’s backyard, drinking beer and soaking up the sunshine, with some of the coolest folks in the midwest. Not bad for a days work! Then it was time for us to get down to business. Working with the incredibly talented Optimus team, Joey came up with illustrations for the edit and I began laying everything in. We were able to combine a  mix of frame-by-frame hand drawn animation, a whole lot of tracked illustrations, and some AE animation to create this wonderful whisky loving world. Big thanks to MBD, Vagrant Records, and the entire production/post-production crew for making work fun!!

Hear Ya says: ”This is a HearYa.com premiere of the first video released from the album. The single is “As Long As There Is Whiskey In The World.” They blend country, punk, and irish drunk into a one barnstormer of a song. And video.” “Warning: This video may make you thirsty.”

The Delicious Promo is up! Big thanks to the Delicious team and to Seth Vanek for the incredible sound design on this piece.

Visit http://deliciousdesignleague.com/ to see more.

We’ve been hard a work all week creating animations for the Murder By Death video. Joey was able to use our fancy new light table to create illustrations, while I was putting in some serious computer time. We found that a great trick was to scale down a frame from each section to 25% and print it out on 3 hole punch paper for a hanging reference. Now if I could only find that instant animation button…..

Joey Potts and I cruised out to the Murder By Death music video shoot this weekend in Bloomington, IN. We had great weather, a kick-ass crew, and unbelievable hospitality from the band and friends! Now we are ready to take the shots we gathered and start animating like crazy all over them. Very excited for this one!

Here’s just a few of the amazing stills from the Delicious Design League Showreel piece I’ve been animating this month. These guys are some of my favorite designers so it was super cool to be able to work with them and create this awesome piece. Check out the storyboards in my work section and stay tuned for the final which will premier with the launch of the new Delicious 2010 website.

Much of the end of my 2009 year and the beginning of 2010 was dedicated to working with the guys over at Bulletproof Films on William S. Burroughs: A Man Within. So you can imagine how excited I was to find out that the film would be showcasing the opening night of The Chicago International Movies & Music Festival. It was an amazing event!

For the second year in a row, I teamed up with local illustrator/designer Anne Benjamin and created this trailer for SOSFF 2010. visit acmusic.org for more details on the event.

Last night was the premier of the Show ‘n Tell Show Opener Video that I teamed up with some of Optimus Chicago’s finest talent to create. It was a great night! Not only was I excited to see the final on the big screen but I also got to stick around to hear some amazing artists talk about their work. Top notch cowboys!!

If you’re wondering what blue puppets, magenta cacti, a gorilla playing the drums, and a cowboy/design enthusiast all have in common, I can tell you that I think I found out the secret on The Show ‘n Tell Show shoot this weekend over at Optimus Chicago. But you’ll have to find out for yourself. Stay tuned for the full video, …