A Beautiful Week Awaits

\ This week hold so many fun things for me to do;

I still have Episode 2 of Tales of Monkey Island to finish as well as the Special Ed of the Secret of Monkey Island. So far this episode of Tales of Monkey Island is feeling a little repetitive and not as polished as the first episode – some poor animation in parts involving Elaine just sliding across the screen.


Today I downloaded the first part of the Ultimate Sith Edition Expansion for The Force Unleashed. I must say it was fantastic, not overly long only took an hour or so but the level design was rather fantastic – capturing the feel of Jabba the Hutt’s dungeon beautifully from Return of the Jedi. It really makes you feel like you are playing through an alternate version of the original trilogy – complete with the music and Ben Kenobi.

Adrian’s purchase of the Ghostbusters game (PS3) at some point this week means that I will be paying him a visit and we shall bust ghosts together – it will be beautiful, proton beams flying everywhere in glory. As will the release of Batman Arkham Asylum on Thursday although I noticed a copy of the Batarang in EB today and it looked like arse. Obviously a mass-produced moulded plastic thing.. I’ll get a closer look on Thursday so I’ll let you know how the Collector’s Edition goes.


I’m also heading home for the weekend so that will be a nice getaway from Wagga. Never thought I would say that about Young =p

Oh and the recent news of Disney buying Marvel has given birth to rumours/hopes for Pixar to do a Marvel movie or an Incredibles sequel that involves Marvel characters.. My thoughts?

WORST IDEA EVER!

Which idea am I talking about? Both. Pixar makes original films – that is what they have always had going for them, I am certainly hoping Disney keeps their meddling hands out of that one, they have already done enough by demanding sequels to a few Pixar films that could do without.

Oh and some videos I watched today included Halo 3 ODST footage, see Halo like you’ve never seen it before;








Cecil

Modern Monkey


Character design for the latest 5 Second Project over at greyscalegorilla which is going to be animated over the next couple of days and i will stick it up here when it's done.

More Hudson!


Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson will be appearing in a recurring role in the next season of Heroes! Check out the article at IGN.

Wolfman!!

Finally a Wolfman Trailer;

Initiative(s)

As you may have noticed I got a little slack with this blog and just finished a few catch-up posts. I’m getting my organising-skills back on track after a bit of time out spent in Saints Row 2 (*damn you Rob).

Uni projects are progressing at an alright (not great) pace which has been delayed by a confusing request for more research and then told to abandon such heavy research. Confused? I know I was. My final subject is proving to be just as much work as I expected, which as far as I am concerned is fortunate because I don’t think many in my class understand the amount of catch-up work they have to do over the next few weeks.

Apart from my 6 uni projects (2 advertising campaigns, 1 series of illustrations + layout, 1 series of videos to edit and upload, a motion graphics piece and a seminar) I am planning on undertaking a couple of other projects including a 52 Week Initiative during which I do one personal work per week (doesn’t matter what it is), a work for the next issue of GOFISH (Theme is Portraiture) and few other projects that I’ll talk about at a later date.


Also, be sure to check out my portfolio site, which went live this week. I’m working on the full site, so this is something that I can use in the meantime. There’s a couple of fix up’s that need to be done yet (i.e. the font for ‘Dane Kirkland, Portfolio). It has been a while coming, I am pretty sure the current template is Version 06.02 so....

Ooh and I finally picked up the 2 disc edition of Hot Fuzz from Big W last night in a shiny metal case!! Best $16 I have spent.

Heroes

Heroes Season 4 Trailer! Looks pretty damn sweet to me.


Review - G.I.JOE


**MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD**

As far as action films G.I.JOE is every boy’s dream. As far as a story is concerned, it falls by the wayside – but honestly who was going to G.I.JOE for the storyline??

Not Me.

I went purely to see the action, with no expectation of a real storyline so I got what I expected to see albeit there was a shallow story there but not really enough to engage you in really caring for the characters, although the predictability of the film did not really leave any doubts about the end result of a fight. I was pleasantly surprised with the identity of The Doctor, that was well played in comparison to The Baroness who I really thought they could have played on that mystery more than they did. With Sienna Miller looking radically different as a brunette to a blonde I think they could have used the flashbacks in a different way to build mystery around her identity and relationship with Duke more.


Actors from The Mummy films provided a heavy presence; Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Arnold Vosloo featuring heavily as Heavy Duty and Zartan respectively. Cameo’s from Kevin J O’Connor and Brendan Fraser were quite well played, especially Fraser. He was so insistent in being in the film I feel that his cameo was one of the better cameo’s I have seen in the past few years.

The special effects targeted the hyper-real look, which was at times painfully obvious – some scenes standing out more than others. The action scenes were well presented with a lot happening in a very manageable fashion (unlike Transformers). Overall I quite enjoyed the film, getting a little more than was expected with some great action sequences, but no story whatsoever definitely let the film down.

I'm Back Baby!


I expressed my opposition to Futurama continuing without the original cast a little while ago but it has been confirmed that Fox has done the mythical ‘deal(s)’ and all of the original cast will be returning for the new season – good news!! They have hinted at what the 5th Season holds for the series, which includes returning to its roots (avoiding the film disaster pieces) and focusing on what they did at the very beginning – ridiculing current technology through creating fantastical out-of-this-world 31st Century versions of them, a few of which actually exist today! The evil of Facebook will feature in a storyline as well as a romantic relationship between Amy and Bender. Should be good.

The End of Family Guy?


I came across a little article about Seth McFarlane and where he see’s Family Guy heading in the next few years which just so happens to be an ending! McFarlane expressed his preference for the show to go out while it is ‘still on top’ and not drag on and on like so many other show do. It was refreshing to read this, at least someone out there is self-aware.

Read the full article after the jump.

Learning IS Fun!





I've been trying out some new things in After Effects as a part of my intent to further my skills, or in other words - have my skills leap massively to a new level. The above video is a part of something that i am working on.. Something mysterious and elusive.

Apart from this i have been playing with creating a new blog myself,


So far my attempts to further my skills are going rather well, but it's early days yet. Hopefully there will be further updates; one including an animated version of my logo when i can decide upon a suitable method.

Review - The Ugly Truth


Tuesday night happened to be a night when I actually settled to go and see a movie that Liz actually
wanted to see and I was quite happy to go along with this because I am a fan of Gerard Butler’s acting talent.

As far as the film goes I feel that it could have been a far better movie if they had a different ending as well as larger contributions as far as the performances of the supporting cast goes. Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl carried the movie as far as it was going to go by themselves, with what I felt was fleeting support from the rest of the cast. I feel that Heigl could have done far more with the role than what we were presented with, which is essentially the same role that she plays in all her films. Underwhelming performance in what was meant to be a romantic comedy, there was very little comedy in her performance – or at least very little that amused me.

Gerard Butler on the other hand did everything that he could with the material without being offensive, yes he walked a very thin lines at times but avoided out rightly offending the audience and therefore remained quite amusing.

This being said the film’s major pitfall lay in the film’s story, which left much wanting. The film had the potential to be different but as soon as Butler’s character began to fall for Heigl I lost all interest in the predictable plot and focused on Butler’s comedy to pull me through the rest of the film.

Adertise Your*my*self


As I near the end of my university career I am now pimping myself out via the wonderful world of the Internet to various sites which will hopefully assist me in finding a job at the end of the year. As long as you pick the right sites it works quite well. Apart from all these other sites there’s another option of course, which is a portfolio site.

dkirkland.com will be going up hopefully by the end of the week, once the transfer of hosting has gone through (currently in the process of the transfer). Above is a screen shot of the template that I have been working on. This particular site is a filler which i can use to apply for jobs whilst i finish compiling the final site which will include a larger, full portfolio rather than select works - which will therefore give a fuller impression of my capabilities.

Imaginarium

There is finally a trailer for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which is to Heath Ledger's final film (as i am sure you are all aware).



The movie looks amazingly fantastical and i am sincerely hoping that it holds up well after the changes forced by Ledger's passing, but regardless his performance looks to be at the same standard as The Dark Knight. There is a bittersweetness to the trailer as you watch a man, so talented and yet so far away now. I feel the final line of the trailer expresses this explicitly;

"Nothing's permanent. Not even death"

That's the thing about death, Ledger has been immortalised through his films and it is not beyond their capability to 'ressurect' him (so to speak).

More Symposia

Some images from this year's SYMPOSIA, taken by Michael Agzarian.





SYMPOSIA09


Over the past few weeks I have been very busy with working on promotional material for SYMPOSIA09 (as well as an animation job for Westpac ~ tiring). Apart from working on the posters, website etc I was also introducing a speaker and speaking myself, so I have had a fair bit on my mind.

The event went rather well I thought, highlights were illustrator Stuart McLachlan, Traditional Animator Murray Deubs, SOAP Creative Director Brad Eldridge, Designer Andy Sargent, Chris Orchard from CSU and a good mate of mine, Pete Hanshaw from Bluetongue Entertainment.

I feel that my talk on the Friday went quite well or rather I have no opposing opinions so I guess that’s a good thing. I barely read what I had written, despite I the fact I had stayed up ill 4am on the Wednesday writing it. I guess I was constantly thinking about it all throughout Thursday as I was watching the other speakers and noting the good things about how their presentations were prepared. But if anyone saw my talk it would be great to get some feedback?

The Speaker’s Dinner on the Thursday night was great. Depending on you seating situation it was a little difficult to speak to some of the speakers but I quite enjoyed a great chat with Neal Haslam (really friendly guy) as well as the odd talk with Stuart McLachlan. It was also good to catch up with Pete again, having gone to uni with him and studying the same degree and sharing a few classes. Fantastic guy, he’s in Wagga reasonably regularly so I make a decent effort to see him each time.

Lindsay Adams


I have been a bit slack in the blogging department in the past week and a bit, having been distracted by a few different things that have been going on so there will be a few catch up posts today I’m afraid. First of which covering another visiting artist to Wagga on the 31st of August (slow in posting this in know).

Lindsay Adams is an ex CSU student who now works as Lead Compositor @ Animal Logic in Sydney. He’s a great guy, really nice and very approachable. He came down to present a similar talk in my 1st Year (2006) and since then we have been teased with another visit. From May 2008 up until the end of February this year I worked with him on his short film ‘Hex’ – undertaking the foley/fx work as well the sound design. So I have been in quite regular contact with him for over a year now, but had not had the opportunity to meet him face to face until now which was both fantastic and embarrassing (singled out during the lecture once he found out I was there, delivering some rather embarrassingly high praise whilst shaking my hand rather enthusiastically).

It was wonderful to get such a reaction from this guy who works for one of the best film studios within Australia. This being said, he’s a really down to Earth guy and where he works is fairly unimportant in the grand scheme of things in terms of judging his character. So that was definitely a highlight of the first week back at uni for me, his talks on compositing and colour theory were amazing – so many damn tricks taken with compositing that its amazing that you do not notice these things in cinema. I met up with him at the pub that night and had quite a decent chat with him about heaps of different things, and may be catching up with in Sydney next weekend if I have the time (hopefully).

He also brought down a finished copy of Hex for me – complete with music, which I was yet to hear which sounds fantastic and I am so proud to have that on my resume.