Pixar tour

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=19658#1   

Do yourself a favour and read this article from AICN. It's a behind the scenes look at Pixar and it makes you just want to animate all day and all night to get so good that John himself asks if you could work there : ) 

 

"The Incredibles" DVD

I rented "The Incredibles" DVD over the weekend, and before you say "WHY DIDN'T YOU BUY IT?", I am waiting for my Amazon order to arrive. I watched all the bonus features and searched for the Easter eggs, and the most enjoyable feature is the commentary by Brad Bird and John Walker (the animators' commentary is good but nothing like Brad).  The guy is a genius and he can talk and talk and keeps you interested in listening to him for the full 107 minutes. He constantly wants to credit every animator for the work they did on each scene. If you get a chance, do yourself a favour and watch the movie with his commentary, enjoyable even if you aren't an animation NUT!!

Famous people aren't all Schmucks!!

On Wednesday of last week (apologies for the delay in posting) I was fortunate to be on shoot as VFX supervisor in the latest "Lays" commercial. I was also fortunate to meet Francois Pienaar, a man who is as humble as they say and, though it might be from years and years of PR coaching and press management, as nice a person as they come.

Doing his eighth commercial for the crisp company, he joked that the only reason he was there was because he lifted a silly little trophy almost ten years ago. During the shoot he was full of life, telling jokes and getting the crew in a better mood. I could go on and on about all the good things he did that day and how he was such a professional about the shoot but this isn't a Springbok fan site so I will skip to the point. Not ALL famous people are SCHMUCKS!

There are a few who take the effort to listen to what you have to say, they also know you exist and show it. They realize they are human too and are just as fortunate to be where they are as you are. They don't demand that everybody fall on their knees to help them. Basically, they act like you and me but have done something to elevate themselves to "stardom" but don't really see what all the fuss is about. If only more "stars" were like that...

Getting started

Just a test to see if the image posting works...

Welcome to my blog!

Just a warm welcome to all who have arrived at my first posting in my brand spanking new weblog. This is going to be a combination of blog and plog, so whatever I feel like posting.

Dazland is still up and running - I have just streamlined it to be more of a "Showreel" site. News, WIP and that kind of stuff will be here.

I am going to try all sorts of things over the next month and see if this blog stuff is really for me. So keep checking back when you have the chance – but don’t be too eager… I’m not one of those uber-bloggers.