The New Portfolio

As you might deduce from my last erratic posts, I'm currently juggling the old with the new: a NEW TV show, a NEW (now old) portfolio, a NEW York trip (an old trip now), and a NEW NEW! story sequence which I'm currently assembling.

Here then are some working roughs from that NEW-old portfolio short I just recently finished preproduction on in december, just before I left for NY. If we recall, it had something to do with toot whistle plunk and boom, and music; apparently it involves babies too, which is false (they were eventually "storied" out), but kids, it does.







at the bottom there--that's jenny!

NEW YORK

A dour looking sky over the United Nations; telephones at the Whitney; details from around Tribeca and Wall street; a west side pork shop; the best of bread at the Blue Ribbon Bakery; a midtown bus and the obscured view of lower Manhattan from Brooklyn Heights, near Joseph Pennell's old place.

They're sort of a sad group of photos; maybe the next batch will be happier.

Harold Rosenbaum: Chartered Accountant Extreme

It's true: before everything else, there was Harold Rosenbaum, the accounting show to end all accounting shows; a five part serial for YTV and Nelvana Animation. Harold is all the rage now on the internet, thanks to youtube.com. Many overdue thanks to Matt Ferguson, Dani Strijleva and James Robertson on much fun and a job well done. Special cheers to Marcus Moore for editing and post, and Paul Inston for the symphony score.





All art work on the show was divided amongst the four of us, the design work finding influence in Alex Toth and the Superfriends. WONDERTWIN POWERS.... ACTIVATE!

! { an aside }

Poster by the John Morgan Studio

Technology and I have not been getting along as of late--my printer busted before I left for New York, the phone company is having trouble with my internet connection, my cell phone... well. Suffice it to say that my computer at work isn't being too helpful either; I'd love to upload more photos and drawings, but I can't seem to get them on my system right now.

Oh well. I'm never on the computer much these days anyway because thankfully, I'm currently employed to wield a pencil--I've very suddenly been thrown into helping design a television series, and it's a bit of work! We're trying to inject the influence of Saul Bass and while it's fun, it is tough.


Thankfully I'm working under the influence of not only SB, but my good friend Matt--who's previous show, Harold Rosenbaum: Chartered Accountant Extreme, I got to design--and my pal Dani who's thumbnails and development sketches are a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps you know her good friend James of Iron Scythe fame? Well, we're all good pals and a great team together. Maybe I can show some of our work a little later?

I guess I can't really post anything at all now, but let's see if I can get this fixed tomorrow.

New York

Hello all, and welcome back.

I've returned from my trip, obviously, and it's taken me a bit to get to the computer. I have no web access at home these days, and things in the working world have been... busy. Funnily, the workaday world of my life here at home feels much more bustling than the small beginnings of a life I left behind in the Big Apple, and the moderately smaller pear, Boston. I guess that's the difference between a vacation and regular life.


I ended up experiencing a good number of things, extending myself beyond the big galleries and typical tourist hangouts to the places beneath bridges, in basements and in the shells of old theatres. I was frustrated and lost and awed and pushed around a bit, but was alternately comfortable and at home and very very welcome in many places. I had some very fancy meals and frequented the Met and Soho's boutiques, but at times also rooted through trash heaps and wandered through destitute streets in Harlem and Brooklyn. I met a good number of people whom I hung out with on a number of occasions, and even, in the end, found regular places to hang out. My stay was complicated, I guess, and it seemed like the longer I stayed, the more complex and subtle and complicated it got--it was good in other words, and became, the longer I stayed, more like I lived there and less like I was visiting.


But how can a person sum up their thoughts and experiences for a month and a half into anything specific and concise--especially since my goal was to actually see it all--or at least as much as I could. Well in the end I filled up two + sketchbooks, recorded a couple hours of audio (? yes, it's true!), filled my bags with books and ephemera, and took around 950 photographs.

As a start, I guess, here are 23:
I wonder if they describe something of the interesting and exciting time I had in NYC--let me know if they do!























all taken with a clunky hunka Pentax k1000 and various slide films, mostly Fuji Superia? 100 and 400, and old old kodak 1600 stock from my friend John at SpectraPhoto, East 44th & Lex.

Also:
To those who've been checking this blog everyday, thanks--I'm grateful. Finally there's something to see and more to come.