New scene from Shane Acker's 9

This is looking awesome. I'm excited for an animated feature that pushes the genre into a darker, more creative place.

Allen Park goes Hollywood

The big news out of Michigan lately is all the new film production business that has been migrating there. This is a pretty exciting prospect for the state of Michigan and my family, not to mention myself. Yesterday it was announced that a huge new film production studio called Unity studios would be built on aproximately 104 acres of land in my hometown of Allen Park. It's expected to bring 3,500 badly needed technical jobs to the area. Read more about the project here. I'll be keeping my eye on this one. Maybe someday I'll be able to move back home to good old A.P. Who would have thought?!



Concept images of the new Unity Studios.

Feeding My Obsession

Recently I decided to take another animation class to push my skills in acting amongst other things. I was able to take a class at Gnomon for free through the employee training program in the state of California with the help of Rhythm and Hues. It seemed like a great opportunity, so I thought, why not? I'm glad I decided to do it. The class is being taught by Chris Kirshbaum, an animator at Dreamworks. And the best part? Theres only 4 people in the class, including myself. So I'm getting lots of personal critiques and mentoring. I couldn't be happier. I am super busy at work on They Came from Upstairs right now, but hopefully I will be able to put some time into this class and really improve in the next few months. So this clip is the first blocking pass of our first assignment in Chris's class. It needed to be short and have two people acting. I've been dedicated to learning all I can this summer and between the new Walt Stanchfield books I just picked up, and the class and overtime at work... I think I should be doing pretty well. Hopefully I wont run myself into the ground. What can I say.. Its an obsession.

Marker and Newsprint

Did these quick character sketches last week while watching some bad reality tv shows. As a quick update, I know that jvportfolio.com is down right now and I'm working with my friend Dan to make a better homepage for my work. So when thats done I will post the link. Work is winding down on Night at the Museum 2 right now. I should be finished with it by the end of the week at least.