Bits and Pieces: September 2008

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The Most Depressing PSA Ever for Global Warming

Straight out of Portugal...

http://www.fubiz.net/blog/index.php?2008/09/18/2229-global-warming-quercus

TryDrugs.net

As listed per "Communication Arts" this site is a winner. Takes you through the experience of what each drug feels like. Just say "no", people.

http://www.trydrugs.net

Monday, September 22, 2008

Well, I'm at work late again...and contemplating what songs make me happiest as the sound of my nails smack against the keys of my laptop. Here are my happy songs...or at least, ones that make me crack a smile...wicked or ...not.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Master Class at MOMA: Richard Williams with John Canemaker

For all of you kids out there that work in sfx and animation like I do, this is going to be an interesting lecture/conversation.

"A three-time Academy Award winner—for Special Achievement and for Visual Effects as the director of animation of the Walt Disney/Steven Spielberg blockbuster Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), and for his short film A Christmas Carol (1971)—Richard Williams discusses his long and influential career in a conversation with animation filmmaker and historian (and fellow Oscar-winner) John Canemaker. Born in Toronto in 1933, Williams became one of the finest animation filmmakers of the late twentieth century and has been a mentor to countless others. During the 1970s, his London-based studio created scores of stunningly crafted, award-winning commercials, titles, short films, and television specials. Not content with these successes, Williams then went on to hire veteran animators from the Disney studio's "Golden Age" and from Warner Bros. Cartoons, most notably Grim Natwick (Snow White), Art Babbitt (Fantasia), and Ken Harris (Bugs Bunny). He also learned from his friends Milt Kahl (Pinocchio, The Jungle Book), and Frank Thomas (Bambi, Cinderella). A distillation of his acquired knowledge went into the exuberant (and sexy) animation he directed for Who Framed Roger Rabbit and, most recently, into an unparalleled and indispensable series of instructional DVD master classes based on his bestselling book The Animator's Survival Kit."

Illustrated with clips from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Charge of the Light Brigade, A Christmas Carol, Raggedy Ann & Andy, the animated titles from The Return of the Pink Panther, award-winning commercials, segments from The Animator's Survival Kit, and more. Program 100 min.
Monday, September 22, 2008, 7:00 p.m., Theater 2, T2

http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/film_exhibitions.php?id=10045

Friday, September 12, 2008

Photography @ The Guggenheim: Catherine Opie

Overview

September 26, 2008–January 7, 2009

Since the early 1990s, Catherine Opie has produced a complex body of photographic work, creating series of images that explore notions of communal, sexual, and cultural identity. From her early portraits of queer subcultures to her expansive urban landscapes, Opie has offered profound insights into the conditions in which communities form and the terms in which they are defined. All the while she has maintained a strict formal rigor, working in lush and provocative color as well as richly toned black and white. Influenced by social documentary photographers such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and August Sander, Opie underscores and elevates the poignant yet unsettling veracity of her subjects.

Catherine Opie: American Photographer brings together nearly 200 of the artist's photographs in a major mid-career survey, offering the most comprehensive presentation of her work to date. Including works from the series Being and Having (1991); Portraits (1993-97); Freeways (1994-95); Houses (1995-96); Domestic (1995-98); Mini-malls (1997-98); Large-Format Polaroids (2000); Wall Street (2001); Icehouses (2001); Surfers (2003); Chicago (2004); and In and Around Home (2004-05), the exhibition will provide audiences with an unprecedented opportunity to examine the many interconnections between Opie's diverse bodies of work.

This exhibition is supported by The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Inc.

The Guggenheim Museum gratefully acknowledges the Leadership Committee for Catherine Opie: American Photographer.

Monday, September 1, 2008

Labor Day Wanderings...I followed the light through my lense from 8am-noon. A perfect meditation through observation.

watching the open in Madison Square Park..

bringing attention to a birthday campaign in the month of september to raise $1.5 million, build 333 wells and give clean, safe drinking water to 150,000 people in Ethiopia.
www.borninseptember.org