Today on Boing Boing there was a link to a video of a three year old prodigy that was probably faked as a viral marketing shill. I like seeing special effects and as a filmmaker I rely on these kinds of tricks but this was nothing more than an underhanded attempt at marketing.

Lou, Aaron and I made a video response… basically we think the kid is a plant.

The people who posted the lame turtle video also seem to be responsible for the rest of this mess:

• AIM Mail Center - Viral Campaign & Website
• Albertsons - Viral Campaign & Website
• Ninja Turtles - Viral Campaign & Website

I probably get an especially bad taste from this clip because it’s the kind of half hearted commercial work I can almost… in some bizarro parallel universe.. almost see us getting stuck with. The guys who made this garbage probably just want to create short films and do neat compositing tricks but they somehow ended up making sneaky commercials for the man… and really that’s where the problem lies.

The Man.

I’m getting tired of big companies trying to pass themselves off as their own happy customers. A few months back Sony got called on the “All I want for Xmas” crap they tried to pull but it hasn’t slowed it down. Other companies are joining right in. They’re buying off reviewers and paying people to haunt forums and chatrooms. I don’t think we’re going to stop seeing this kind of manipulative advertising anytime soon. Big business is buying friendship and they can afford a hell of a lot of friends.

There’s more here though. I think maybe even a… could it be… a lesson? I’ll need to think about how this applies to my own business and what we can do to avoid falling into the grey glop of shitty marketing.

Short Film - The Kid is a Plant

Cerealsa is the first of my “Cooking with Lou” series. I’m hoping to make it an occasionally recurring cooking show starring everyone’s favorite kitchen curmudgeon. I was heavily inspired by the “Microwaving with Marge” segment that took place in Gremlins 2: The New Batch and of course by Lou’s kitchen antics.

This strip took waaaaay too long to put together. Part of the reason is because I’ve been working at an unwieldy resolution, much higher than needed for computer monitor. It will be nice to have the larger images if I ever decide to print a collection of these strips but I need to figure out a better way to work at that scale so I don’t have to spend so much time on each strip.

Comic - Cerealsa

I’ve had several people ask what sort of films we’ll be working on next so I thought I’d do a quick rundown.

Those who attended the JUMP Society Winter Film Festival have already seen Fruitcake of Joy but we’ll be getting it tuned up a little more and posted on the Alaska Robotics site a little later this week.

Fruitcake of Joy was an experimental short we worked on with Brice Habeger as an exercise in continuous shooting. I wrote the script in a hurry and we just took one day to setup, rehearse and film. Brice was in charge of lighting and filming while I tried to capture sound and do some semi-distracted directing. I’m very pleased with how it turned out and I’m excited to share it with a larger audience.

The second film should also be done before the end of the month. We’ve been working on an (must resist the pun) exciting stop motion film using eggs as our (must continue to resist the pun) expressive medium. The film will accompany Gage’s song Dead Mic Singer which he created for the February Album Writing Month.

In March we plan on participating in the International Documentary Challenge and several other film projects continue to drift around the back burners. Dead Lovely is the one I’m most excited about but it’s been facing organizational problems and our nearly complete script has been collecting dust for the past several months.

Other films in the nearly complete category include a pair of World of Warcraft flicks we worked on with Kevin and failed to finish before the last festival. No timeline on those but I hope to get them done before Kevin moves.

Also, keep an eye out for PedXing and Tastes Like Chicken, a couple of old favorites that are being given some spit polish for re-release.

I’m not entirely sure what sort of other secret projects are out there but I know Aaron has a couple films on deck and Lou is trying to finish his thesis… as a short film? I don’t know.

Snicker-snack life drawing is back! Tuesday nights 7:00-9:00 and this coming Sunday 2:00-5:00 in the Ruby Room. Just $10 to sit in on the two hour sessions or $15 for the three hour sessions.

Want more information about the sessions? Interested in modeling? Please contact Rob Roys at Two Crows gallery.

• Sketch 11
• Sketch 12
• Sketch 13
• Sketch 15

Last weekend a drunken herd of animals staggered through our apartment lapping up jungle juice and grazing on cheetos. I didn’t know that ligers were real animals until I spotted one in the wild. Here are my safari photos:

Jellyfish and Sponge
Lady Bug
Bald Eagle
Whorey Marmot
Elephant and Spider
Giraffe
Liger
*Giraffe attacking a Liger
Forest and Unicorn
Cat and a Bug
Sparkle Bug
Monkey

*Note: Giraffes are apex predators so they can pretty much eat whatever they want… including pansy ligers.

The artists behind Unshelved are coming to Juneau on February 22nd. Unshelved is a daily comic strip by Overdue Media that takes place in a public library.

It also looks like a good possibility that Scott McCloud, a prominent artist and comic scholar, will be visiting around June on his 50 state tour.

I’m very excited about both of these events since I just started my first weekly strip… hmm.. I’d better get something done for Monday.

I thought my first cartoon for the Alaska Robotics website should be about our launch party. We didn’t really throw one but I’m sure this is what it would have been like. Just a bunch of people crowding around a screen wearing silly hats waiting for a progress bar to finish loading. Oh wait a second… I think I just described New Years Eve.

My strip will post weekly (if I can keep up) and will be mostly about life behind the scenes here at Lucid Reverie / Alaska Robotics / JUMP Society. Dani Byers and Cristina Reitz are also working on comic strips for the site. Dani will post her “Geek Fetish” strip on Wednesdays and Cristina will post “Guilty Pleasures” on alternating Fridays. Who knows, maybe we’ll even get some comics from other members of the crew?

Comic - The Big Website Launch Party

We would like to hear your comments, rants, and raves for this last JUMP Film Festival. Dates were February 1-3. Here are the movies:

• 18 Random Things by Alex Nelson, Vince Wagner & Devin Baxter
• Fruitcake of Joy by Alaska Robotics
• Food Fight by Jeff Brown
• Come Una Pietra Scalciata by Jonas Lamb & Caleb Wylie
• Be Nice by Dawson Walker
• Gold Medal Pride by Greg Chaney & Annie Foruria
• In the Offices of JUMP by Clint Farr
• Adventure Club Video Scavenger Hunt by Bad Larry Productions
• Oops by Patty Kalbrener
• Zombie Movie by Kevin Fremlin & Aaron suring
• Yozhik by Arlo Midgett
• Freakin’ Fungus Trailer by Paul F. Disdier
• Intermission by Lou Logan
• Kneading a Metric Ton of Dough by Roald Simonson
• Quest Contest by Greg Chaney
• A Puppet Movie by Caro LeVeque, Lauren Alweis & Eve Southworth
• The Green Room by Alaska Robotics
• Face by Mukhya Khalsa
• White or Wheat by Bad Larry Productions
• bubba by Kenn Magowan
• Catching Bears by Riley Woodford & Kent Crabtree
• Frank Murkowski: A Tribute by Pat Race