24 April 2012

Jesse Owens on American Experience


I am hoping anyone reading this will watch American Experience on May 1st. yes it's a great documentary but my reasons are purely selfish I'm afraid to say. I did mega loads of work on this. Retouching and animating photos in 3D space, restoring and animating posters and magazine covers, recreating and restoring headlines... just tons of work. I haven't seen the final version yet so I don't know how much of my work is still in there but the shear volume says... it's a lot. If you look at the case and crew listing, I'm under "Graphics" with my partner on this project, Alton Christensen.

And please, feel free to tell me what you thought about it... good or bad.

Check your local PBS station for the time but it seems to be playing at 8 pm here and on the east coast.

Show description:
The most famous athlete of his time, his stunning triumph at the 1936 Olympic Games captivated the world even as it infuriated the Nazis. Despite the racial slurs he endured, Jesse Owens' grace and athleticism rallied crowds across the globe. But when the four-time Olympic gold medalist returned home, he could not even ride in the front of a bus. The story of the 22-year-old son of a sharecropper who triumphed over adversity to become a hero and world champion, Jesse Owens is also about the elusive, fleeting quality of fame and the way Americans idolize athletes when they suit our purpose, and forget them once they don't.

16 April 2012

Pen & Ink illustration

Trying to do more traditional artwork along with the more digital oriented work.


11 April 2012

Harness

A little digital painting from an old reference photo I took about 12 years ago and never used. Getting closer to doing a face... not confident enough yet.


10 April 2012

Spring has arrived. The sure signs... Cirque du Soleil at the old port, surfers on the Saint Lawrence. Plus more HDR along the piste cyclable.

01 April 2012

30 Years of Behemoth media


2012 marks the 30th anniversary of Behemoth media. What started as the name (Behemoth Productions) for super8 productions made by myself and partner in crime Jeannette Reeves merged with my graphic design business to become Behemoth media in the 90's and continues to this day. I expanded into more post production and animations after the year 2000 along with leaving film behind for a digital workflow.

After making several test films and playing around with my Bell & Howell super 8 movie camera (oh how I still miss it) I took a film editing class from ”the Jamaica Plain Newsreel” who were a small group making super 8 documentaries in the Boston area. My first project was called ”Different Drummer”. The simple concept was to film my good friend at the time, writer Stephen Merritt, and put the footage to music. I used a song he chose, ”Watching and Waiting” by the his favorite band, The Moody Blues. It was fairly well received in class. I have no idea where Stephen is today, but I still appreciate him letting me film him and show it. He was a geek before it was chic, like many of my friends, and I think the film shows this and his love of solitary activities like reading, writing and walking in the nature.

I've retooled the old dragon logo and I like it so much I think I'll be using a modified version on future productions from now on. It seems more ”film oriented” and the love of story telling through film and illustration is what's kept me doing this stuff for 30 years.