photo credit: © 2010 CEA

I was lucky enough to be one of the 110,000 people in Las Vegas for the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show this past weekend, and I had a somewhat unexpected reaction to what I saw.  I expected to be surrounded by a dazzling array of innovative (if not bizarre) consumer products, on display for the world to see and fall in love with.  What I encountered was thousands of products that showed little to no original thought, and a collection of giant companies continuing to refuse to work together to improve the lives of their customers.  Here are a few observations: (more…)

Ryan Reeb is working on an animated short film called “Lillith & Thatch”, and he needs your help to complete it.  They’ve run up against a wall and they need some funding to push through and find the talented artists required to finish the project.  They made a Kickstarter page for the project so you can find out more about it and donate a little or a lot and make this dream a reality.  Please pass this info along and get the word spread far and wide, we’re trying to get Ryan out of his VFX artist’s chair and into a Director chair where he belongs!

This video is simple, beautiful, and very well done, which are my three favorite things to see in motion graphics work.  Just goes to show you how far good 3D tracking and clear ideas can take you.  It is a thank you to the sponsors of the AICP Southwest Festival that happened earlier this month, and was created by Corgan Media Lab .  I was not aware of these folks before, but I’m a solid fan now!  Discovered via Designcollector TV.

This video made me laugh. A lot. A whole lot. Brilliant idea, perfect execution, enjoy!

A while back, Stash Magazine linked to this cool little short film by Tim Bollinger, and I liked it, so I’m passing it along for you all to enjoy.  So enjoy it, darnit!

A while back, I wrote a little bit about a project we had just shot, a short film to help pitch a TV show idea brought to the table by Gene. It was the first RED shoot for any of us, and it went extremely well- certainly a learning experience on many fronts. This piece has been edited for a while, and we are working on getting the project moved along to the next stages, but we decided that in the meantime there was no harm in releasing the video onto the web for everyone to enjoy.

This is a tone piece, or sizzle reel, or whatever you feel like calling it; it is designed to give you a taste for the show’s look and feel but not necessarily structure. I hope you all like it, we worked very hard to get it to this stage, and are working even harder to get it to the next ones.

This video is short, sweet, and just about the best start to any day. Any kid that can do something badass and follow it with being cute wins, in my book.  Via Geekologie.

This is too weird/funny to not post. Happy Friday!

We get a lot of random links and messages and hellos and “hey, we’re making shows like you, let’s help each other out!”.  This is an example of how not to do it: (more…)

In just a little over one week I will hopefully be wrapped on doing VFX for Terminator: Salvation. When I do finish, I will be quitting. Not just quitting my job at the company I work for, I’m quitting VFX entirely. I have spent the past 7 years of working long days (and often long nights) doing CG for films and commercials, and then spending my ‘free time’ at night and on weekends making short films and videos for this site and others. It is almost impossible to write, plan, film, edit, and distribute something while sitting in an office for 8 to 16 hours per day, 5 to 7 days per week. I’ve done it over and over, and every single time it was hell on wheels. I have finally reached the point where I must stop one or the other, at least for a little while- or else I will go insane!

I listen to NPR on the drive to and from work every single day. I read the news. I know how incredibly unsound a decision it is to quit a well-paid, stable job in the face of the worst economic collapse in decades (if not ever). But I have been saving money for years, and have recently decided to use that money to support my dream instead of putting it as a down payment on a house as I had always planned. I came to Los Angeles in 1998 to go to film school. I went to film school to make movies. I graduated and have been working on other people’s movies ever since, with my own projects crammed into the spare hours left over. So now, despite the economy, I have decided to make a run at this ‘Directing’ thing full time, while I still can. The plan is to take at least 6 months (if not several years) off from working a day job to focus on doing what I came here to do.

Everyone whom I have talked to about this has been surprisingly supportive- not a single person has tried to caution me or otherwise convince me to change my mind. In fact, this decision has almost been more nerve-wracking given how little opposition I’ve heard. I am mildly terrified, but also more excited about it than anything I’ve done in a long time. My VFX skills are not going to disappear, and I have an open door at my current company to return, should I burn through all my savings and need to come crawling back for more.

What does this mean for The AV Club? First up is the completion of Team Apocalypse, a new pilot we have been working on for quite a while now. And then more Psycho Bob episodes. And after that, more web series, music videos, short films, spec commercials… anything that seems worth making! So stay tuned to this site- there will be plenty of new content, news and updates as this exciting chapter begins!

-Andy Cochrane