Demo Demo

Wow. Have I been lax on updating this thing or what? Well, just a quick little post - I've been animating for the past three months on a spec pilot for an animated/live action series, so I haven't had much time for blogging. I can't post any of the work I've been doing yet (hopefully in the beginning of December), but for now, here's my latest Demo Reel (almost 6 months old now) which has the final version of the "Took the Bike" shots.

I promise to post all sorts of new stuff as soon as I'm allowed!

Rich Ferrando - Animation Demo Reel - Summer 2009 from Richard Ferrando on Vimeo.

They Took The Bike

Hey all! Sorry for the near-non-existent posts for the past few months, but I've been fairly busy. What with work, applying for jobs, and more shots top work on, I've had very little time to post updates except for the occasional movie recommendation.

Well, here's a peek at some new shots I'm working on. They're still far from done - the first shot still needs a few timing tweaks and knee pop fixes, I have yet to fix some arcs and timing in Shot 2 (and Murdock - the tall guy - is still linear at this point), and shot 3 is still in Blocking. But anyway, it gives you an idea of what I've been up to, and hopefully proves that I haven't been sitting on my butt. Well... I guess I HAVE been sitting on my butt, but I can't animate standing all the time! ;-)

Anywho, here's the new shots. I'm hoping to finish them up pretty quickly over the next couple weeks 'cuz I may have a freelance job coming up! Some of you may be upset that it isn't more shots from the short film. Well, after 24 weeks of insanity working on the short for AM, I decided I needed a little break from it. As soon as these shots are done, I'm getting right back to the short. I've already blocked out the last 10 shots, so I'm already ready to roll!

Oh - and the sound clip in the new sequence is from the film Max Dugan Returns.

Movie Recommendation: The Haunting (1963)

Title: The Haunting (1963 Original)
Starring: Julie Harris, Russ Tamblyn.
Director: Robert Wise (West Side Story, The Sound of Music, Star Trek: The Motion Picture)
Story: Five people spend a terrifying weekend inside a haunted house. Unlike the remake, the original film relies entirely on sound and the mystery of the camera to create terror. Still considered one of the most frightening films ever made.
Feels Like: The Others.

Movie Recommendation: Paris Je Taime

Title: Paris Je T'aime
Starring: All-star cast includes Natalie Portman, Elijah Wood, Willem Dafoe, Bob Hoskins, and Steve Buscemi.
Director: 18 directors, including Alexander Payne (Sideways), The Coen Brothers (No Country for Old Men), Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), and Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men)
Story: 18 short films about love in 18 boroughs of Paris.
Feels Like: New York Stories meets Eros.

Movie Recommendation: Brainstorm (1983)

Title: Brainstorm
Starring: Christopher Walken, Natalie Wood, Louise Fletcher.
Director: Douglas Trumbull (VFX Pioneer on 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind)
Story: Scientists develop a device that can record and play back brainwaves, simulating that person's experience to another person, but when a person dies while recording, "something else" is recorded. Natalie Wood's last film.
Feels Like: Honestly, this film is pretty unique. One of my favorites.

Movie Recommendation - 10 Items or Less

Now that I have graduated from AM (more details on that adventure soon,) I need to start using this blog for any number of other ramblings. I'm still working on new shots, and will be taking another swing at my short film once I complete a new dialogue shot I'm working on (which I shall post once it gets into a better place visually.) But I figured I can use this blog as a place to recommend obscure movies, much like some of my AM friends do.

Most of the movies I will be recommending are pretty obscure and may not be available in all countries, but they're still worth seeking out.

This week:

Title: 10 Items or Less
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Paz Vega.
Directed by Brad Silberling (City of Angels, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events)
Story: A formerly famous actor researching a role is left stranded at a grocery store, and enlists the help of a quirky cashier who's preparing for a big job interview.
Feels Like: The Station Agent



And this one is last week's, which I posted to my Facebook:

Title: Gray's Anatomy
Starring: Spalding Gray
Directed by Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Oceans Eleven)
Story: Storyteller Spalding Gray tells the elaborate tale of his struggle with an eye disease.
Feels Like: Swimming to Cambodia

Mac & Me

Dost thou hear the tolling of the bells? It is the death knell. The harbinger of doom. The audible sound of hideous doom.

While this week was greeted with joy - the joy of completing my 18-month course at Animation Mentor - it was suddenly stricken with the grief of demise.

My Mac is Dead. That's right. After only 3 years, it's dead. Fried Logic Board (that's Apple's term for a Motherboard) and at least one blown processor. It is presently shipping to a Bay-area repair location for what I hope is an inexpensive fix. At least cheaper than what the Apple store wants ($1700.)

I guess that I just wore the thing out. 18 solid months of extremely resource-heavy 3D work. Thankfully the failure came 18-hours after I turned in my final assignment at AM, and about 12-hours after I backed up most of my short film files. Also thankfully, the hard drives were not affected by the issue. I bought an external firewire enclosure and popped both drives out of the Mac to transfer all of the vital files over to my still functioning, 9-year-old Dell.

So the good news is I haven't lost any of my AM work. The bad news is, without a machine fast enough to run Maya, I can't complete and render out full-res versions of my short film shots or work on my DVD demo reel until the machine is repaired or replaced. This, naturally, throws a huge wrench in the job-seeking process. Theoretically, if all goes well, I should have the machine back the week after Christmas, but if all doesn't go well, then the only answer is a new 'puter.

Then, of course, the question becomes - do I get another Mac, or move back to the PC? Honestly, the latter is what I'm considering. For the price of a lowest-end new Intel Mac, I could buy one helluva fast and awesome PC - something that, if the motherboard or processor failed - I could easily fix on my own for a few hundred dollars. That, and the fact that this same issue has been reported by scores of other G5 and iBook users (even my friend Fox's iBook died from this exact same problem a few months ago.) This leads me to believe that there is an issue in Mac hardware.Does this issue carry over into the new Intel's? I would hope not, but would I really want to stake $2500+ on a hunch that in 3 years my computer will still be working? In these troubled times, would you?

I'm not going to post my final assignment version until I've had time to address the last few notes from my mentor and also polish up the big money shots some more. Until then, I'll keep you posted on what's happening with Spalding (that's what I named the Mac - after the late storyteller and monologist Spalding Gray.)