• Countdown to Comic-Con 2007!
• Just landed in San Diego
• Comic-Con sum-up ...
• Comic-Con: Wednesday
• Comic-Con: Thursday

Panels:

Mattel / DC Comics:

We attended the Mattel / DC Comics panel, which was fun, and way more upbeat and jovial than Thursday's Hasbro panel. They showed a lot of stuff from the Justice League animated series, and copped to the poor design that makes them top-heavy and tough to display. They also announced new six-inch figures (with build-a-figure components) from none other than Four Horseman Studios. Orion and Etrigan, in particular, look pretty cool.

I can't help but wonder if the fan support for Mattel is due to where they are with the license. They're comparatively in the initial stages, and haven't hit the over-under arc where the trade-off for collector and mass-market hits the fan, which is what I think was the tension under the Marvel / Hasbro panel.

Joel Silver: Return to House on Haunted Hill and Moonlight:

I only caught the last half of the "Joel Silver: Return to House on Haunted Hill and Moonlight" (the Moonlight part), which was a bummer. I'm not a gore fan, but I wanted to see the innovative "Navigational Cinema" stuff they're allegedly putting on the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions of the film. I'd like to see someone do something with the new technology.

Moonlight looks and sounds compelling, but it's going to need to work to stay out of Angel's shadow, and Blade's (the TV series) curse. This was my first time hearing Joel Silver speak, and he's pretty interesting.

Halo Universe:

I was semi looking forward to this panel, and semi expecting it to be a disappointment. Brian Michale Bendis doesn't disappoint, and he was talking about the new comic book series (I took picts, but I'm not going to post stuff before the series goes to retail), so that was good.

WizKids Brand Manager Mark Tuttle did a great emcee job, which was good, given his company had done the big Halo reveal the day before. The Topps trading card discussion was pretty mheh, and Eric Nylund, while a great author, was (like everyone) hamstrung by what he couldn't say. Since there were no Bungie or Microsoft folks on the panel, not much Halo 3 stuff was going to be revealed. (I did see them in the audience, about six rows in; with sniper rifles, I'm sure, should any of the panelists revealed too much.)

Warner Bros. Animation: The Batman / Legion of Super-Heroes:

This was a great panel, if for no other reason than Phil Morris, voice and on-camera actor, and comic fan; and Andrea Romano, single handedly responsible for casting some of my favorite voices in Batman: The Animated Series; Animaniacs; Pinky and the Brain; Superman; and Justice League. The next seasons of both The Batman and Legion of Super-Heroes looks to up the ante, get a little darker, and build on the intensity and team dynamics. I'm looking forward to it.

I even got to run alongside Ms. Romano as she headed to the Warner Bros. booth for a signing, so I could say "thank you" for her work on things like Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, and for the extras stuff she shares on her craft on many of the DVD extra features.

Ray Harryhausen and 20 Million Miles to Earth: 50th Anniversary Edition:

Ray Harryhausen is a hero of mine. I've seen his films. I read his coffee-table crushing book. I was inspired to do my own stop-motion as a device for getting my voice out there. And 20 Million Miles to Earth was a film he'd wanted to do in color, but didn't have the budget to do so. 50 years later, we were able to watch the newly colorized version of the film -- for the same first time as Mr. Harryhausen -- and have him give live commentary on the film, his processes, and his views on fiction and criticism. He will probably not do this again.

From a Biz perspective, I arguably "should" have been at the Doctor Strange premiere, trying to connect with Craig Kyle, Marvel's senior VP of creative development animation.

But this film, with Ray Harryhausen, was historical. It was being there for a guy that informed a part of my creativity.

Other Cool Stuff:

I spoke with Leinil Francis Yu, mainly to say thanks for his work on New Avengers in general, and issue #22 in particular. Really pleasant, talented guy. I also noticed he had forward-thinking, hopeful "Captain America: The Return" print that I thought I wanted, but needed to think about.

The Four Horseman "Gauntlet of Vaskkh" gift from my buddy absolutely rocks, and hit me in a soft spot.

And the 20 Million Miles to Earth screening was a piece of history, and getting to attend it with a friend who gets it as much or more than me? Awesome.

What Sucked:

Those %&*^$#! Red-Shirts. And not having hair gel.

Pictures:

Twitterings:

(Reverse chronology.)

Labels: acting, animation, biz, business, Comic-Con, Comic-Con 2007, events, festivals, inspiration, toys, video games, voice acting

After the wring-out session, I went away, focused on headshots, pulled music and sound effects together, then Jason and I spent yesterday afternoon mixing / mastering / finalizing the demo.

Jason was adept at maximizing the sound (without losing the fidelity), and appropriately prioritized the vocals over the music and sound effects (without making the latter two sound like they were just "slapped underneath" the former).

Like I said, I feel great about this demo. Not just for the finished product, but because I ostensibly self-produced this project (with Jason's spot-on collaboration) -- I feel great about the product and the result -- and it's the demo I'm talking to Comic-Con this week.

Jason's available to do this for you. You should contact him. Or me, if you prefer an introduction.

And there's more to come, because we also recorded clips for my new commercial voice demo. But that'll have to wait until after I shake things up in San Diego.

Labels: acting, acting process, animation, biz, comic books, inspiration, tools, voice acting

Labels: animation, contests, SCHTICKFAS

Labels: animation, SCHTICKFAS, voice acting

Labels: animation, ramblings, toys

Labels: acting, animation

This is a stop-motion animation I created as an "activity" for my Meisner acting process training (rendered after the class).

Basically, at this stage of my training in Meisner, we're doing exercises where one person is at the "door", and one person is doing an "activity". Both people have goals. Both people are being blocked. Both people are supposed to honor the rule of improve, "Love your partner and believe everything they say."

The "activity" should be physically (or tactile-y) demandingand require extreme focus. I have a time limit. I have an extreme urgency to complete the task. The person at the door is interrupting me, potentially causing me to fail. I can't ignore them.

Stop-motion animation totally fit the bill.

That night's class wasn't that good (I wasn't bought into my urgency), but I learned important, applicable stuff about myself and my this process. So that was good.

Obviously, this is not normally the way to do stop-motion animation, and it's not the way I normally do it (no light box or tripod, the room wasn't light controlled, I didn't have my storyboards with me, I wasn't able to totally focus on the effort, etc.).

But because it required focus to do it right, it made for a good Meisner activity (though ended up with a horribly result).

Rather than just let the effort die, I compiled the thing real quick and posted in on YouTube for folks' viewing pleasure. And republished it here.

Enjoy(ish).

The Tools:

• "Animation plane": Table top
• Video post processing: Roxio VideoWave (to make an AVI file of the still frames)
• Editing: Adobe Premier Elements 2.0 (to make a better movie and do what frame normalization I could, prior to creating a QuickTime movie for upload)
• Rendering: Adobe Premiere Elements
• (No audio)

Labels: acting, acting process, animation, meisner, toys, training

I found another avenue to combine my voice acting with my love for comic books.

Over the holidays, I picked up a stop-motion animation "toy" at Toys R Us. It was Marvel branded, and included put-together cutouts of Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Dr. Doom, and the Green Goblin.

This week I animated a quick scene (no storyboarding this round), recorded some dialog for the four characters, put it all together and uploaded it to YouTube.

Why YouTube, rather than encoding the video myself and hosting it on my site? Since Marvel owns the licenses for the characters, I'm not worried about losing creative control of this particular clip, due to YouTube's user agreement.

Besides, one of the goals is for me to try out YouTube, have fun with it, and see if it's a decent marketing tool to drive additional like-minded folks to my site. And I may be a bit of an eyeball whore. But only when I get paid for it.

My weekend review of my weekly Web traffic stats shows a noticeable upswing for the days following the clip posting. Oddly, referrals don't show anyone coming from YouTube.com to adamcreighton.com; I say "oddly" because I did this twice at set times to make sure it was working. Ah well.

The only change to my voice is a slight mechanization filter to Doctor Doom -- no change in pitch / octave /etc. -- that's all me. The sound effects are a bit tinny, which is probably due to them being sampled at a different rate than the other video audio pieces that went into the final product. Lesson for next time.

The Tools:

• "Animation plane": Jazwares Marvel Heroes Ani-Movie
• Microphone: MXL-990 (with shockmount)
• Preamp: M-Audio MobilePre USB (the model before the M-Audio FastTrack)
• Audio Post Processing: GoldWave
• Video post processing: Roxio VideoWave (though it's a bit short for what I need it to do)
• Editing: Adobe Premier Elements 2.0 (ditto, but slightly less so)
• Rendering: Adobe Premiere Elements (message boards are alive with the known bugs that bit me here, so I've lost a lot of love for Adobe this round; and their pricing already cost them a lot of love)

Labels: acting, acting process, animation, comic books, voice acting

Elites look superbadass. Real word. Look it up. If you can’t find it, maybe your dictionary is too liberal.

JOCELYN BLAYLOCK
Clancy, if you could have sex with any celebrity, living or dead, which would it be?

CLANCY
Dead.

Labels: animation, comic books, inspiration, video games

Labels: animation, events, festivals, inspiration, voice acting