I’m still here! Despite my hectic work schedule, I’ve gotten quite a few art projects done over the past month. More on that later. But now, a sneak preview of my next project!

I finally got around to uploading part of the film I worked on last year for my independent study. This is just a 4-minute clip, but it will have to do for now.

I briefly linked to two animated versions of Bluebeard in my last post, but they’re both so interesting that I wanted to do them justice. The first, “Blue Beard’s Last Wife” (”La Dernière femme de barbe bleue”), blends the Bluebeard legend with ancient Greek mythology in an unexpected (and humorous) way. The second, “A Very Blue Beard” (”Ochen sinyaya boroda”) is a Russian musical short about a detective investigating Bluebeard’s crimes… with a surprising twist! So take a break, put your feet up, and watch a couple of really neat shorts!

One of my readings this week in Marina Warner’s From the Beast to the Blonde focuses on the symbolism and origins of the Bluebeard story. In a chapter titled “The Ogre’s Appetite”, Warner discusses many different iterations of a common theme: the serial murderer. What with Perrault’s fairy tales, medieval legends, devoured Catholic saints, and historical child killers, it’s pretty clear that society has been morbidly obsessed with these stories for centuries.

Brady Earnhart, brilliant musician and professor, has a new song. And I got to make the music video! In beautiful HD glory…

In addition to the more traditional storyboards, I thought I’d try a photographic approach for a couple of early scenes in my new film.

I watched “No Country for Old Men” last week as part of my independent study (more about that later). This post has been floating around in my head for some time, but this is the first opportunity I’ve had to write it out.
The most striking thing–for me, at least–about the Coen Brothers is their unwavering attention to shot composition. They do everything well, obviously, but I think their very strongest point is the way they excel at creating form, rhythm, style, and meaning through something as small as a single …

A ‘whose fault is it’ mashup for Anand Rao’s visual rhetoric class.

Back to my old habits of trading sleep for video editing. Mashup of “Risky Business” and “The Little Mermaid”.

Sometimes, the perfect companion to a cheesy shark movie is a post-it note.
These particular ones sprang from a rousing viewing of Shark Attack 3: Megalodon. (View one of its most hilarious scenes here.) Post-its, especially when inspired by awful movies, are a beautiful thing.
The nonsensical dialogue was, of course, a collaborative effort:

Inspired by spirited discussions of the vagina dentata film theory. Also see Teeth.

So gather your friends, a bad movie, and a stack of post-its. You won’t regret it.