Film Reviews: Gasland (dir. Josh Fox)

This week the Oscar nominations were announced for the 83rd Annual Academy Awards. You can see a full list of nominees here. Gasland is nominated in the Best Documentary category. It tackles the issue of natural gas drilling aka fracking within the United States.

I'm also a big Jon Stuart fan, and often watch The Daily Show. This week he welcomed guest T. Boone Pickens, BP Capital Management. I am disappointed in Jon Stuart for continuing the PR myth that Mr. Picken's and the  Picken's Plan are interested in the welfare of the environment and ending our dependency on foreign oil. Picken's blatantly lied on national television to Americans when he said fracking doesn't cause damage to the environment or people's health. I think Stuart has a responsibility as a prominent member of the media to ask hard questions, and he can get away with doing so because of his charming sense of humor.   Stewart asked if the U.S. has been slow to embrace natural gas due to issues of safety, such as the harmful effects of fracking. While there are accusations that fracking contaminates the aquifer, Pickens insisted, "I have never seen that happen. And you're not talking about Ned in the first reader. I've been here. I have fracked 3,000 wells in my life... I've never seen anything damaged."  (Huffington Post) I just think Stuart could have laid into him a lot more.
 Yes America has a foreign oil dependency issue. However, it's not just foreign oil we have a dependency issue with. We have an issue with consuming non-renewable resources and fossil fuels. If congress, corporations and scientists put as much effort into research and development of clean energy (solar, wind, and tidal power) as they put into creating loopholes in the very environmental laws that were created to protect people we could get somewhere. Corporations have all the money, so they can make the rules, or at the very least buy someone who can make the rules.
    The Jon Stuart interview also represents a larger issue of politicians using creative advertising to tap into America's patriotism and interest for creating jobs in a depressed economy, while exploiting natural and human resources causing irreparable damage on the environment.

Red-winged blackbirds are dead at new years. Is fracking to blame? copyright New York Times

There was also a point in Gasland that highlighted some of the dead animals from a fracking sight. It reminded me of a smaller version of the recent events in Arkansas where thousands of birds just fell out of the air and fish went belly up.

Arkansas is a state that has heavy natural gas drilling  (fracking) operations in place. No wonder the official cause of these mass animal deaths is still officially "unknown".  Please,  allow me to clarify,  officials know why these animals all suddenly died, but because dead birds and fish generate bad publicity, someone at the natural gas PR firm has paid big time to keep things hush-hush in the media. But don't let me tell you what to think. Watch Gasland and then remind yourself of the events in Arkansas. Put two and two together for yourself. If you have any other hypotheses, I'd love to hear them.

I haven't yet viewed all the other films nominated for the best documentary academy award, however, in my humble opinion this film does what docu does best: eviscerating real people and the situations they confront in life, looking into the causes of these problems, and starting a conversation. Life is tough, let's talk about it. When we as a people can be satisfied,  being more than mere consumers, and having fewer corporations will begin to lose power over the people. Until then it's in their best interest to keep us consuming, and lying to us.
Gasland gets a 4 out of 5, and I recommend it to everyone who loves to drink fresh water in their own home.

Back to the Sea

I went to work in China on this film earlier this year. I think it's supposed to have an international release sometime this year , but this is the first time I've seen any actual animation from the film. My job on the film was color concepts and prop design.  You can see the work I did here and here.


Clip

More Effects Concepts

I decided to scan in some of my animation that I've cleaned up already to play around with colors, and methods of painting the effects for this shot. I'm pretty pleased with this scene so far, I think the line tests are showing something promising, with a little more work it will get there. I really like the red one, specifically since in the film the actual colors will be so different, and as always I love deep turquoises with yellows. There are five main beams of light, some with as many as 3 layers of animation. Not all are painted in the concept paintings.

Oh here's a line test of my animation, it's not final yet.  I'm planning on more inbetweens, to smooth out some of the jerkier streams of light, and maybe  complete revision of the one in bottom right hand corner. Any other suggestions to improve on it?

Untitled from rory animates on Vimeo.

New Concept Art for Sing a Little Song- the Book

I've been busy writing stories and working on ideas for the book! Here are the two newest concept paintings for sale over on etsy.  Some of the decisions I've made about the book include making it a collection of character driven short stories  (about seven of them) that more or less all happen in the same imaginary world. The top concept painting is for a story called The Water Bird (working title). While the painting in the middle is a concept from the most developed story to date called The Bird Who Fell in Love With the Whale.  At the moment I think my narwhal looks like an old potato with broom handle stuck in it, I'm developing the illustration digitally ( the bottom illustration is an example of my work in progress) so hopefully other people wont think it looks too terrible. Support my book by buying concept art on  my etsy store. Hey who knows, I could be famous one day, then you could be rich because you knew me when.

work in progress

OK, I have to get back to animating. I have lots of lighting effects to draw before tomorrow morning. Maybe I'll show you a line test....... if you're niiiice.
                                                         

Film Reviews: This is England and This is England '86 (dir Shane Meadows)

     I guess since I've been living in England going on four years come July, my friends back home in the states seem to direct all their questions and curiosities about the country in my direction. This is definately the case with This is England (dir Shane Meadows 2006) I suppose also because I am still a punk rock kid at heart. This is England chronicles the lives of a clique of skin head teenagers who encounter the realities of the British Nationalist Party in 1983 set against the backdrop of the Falkland's War. Shaun, played by Thomas Turgoose is a kid getting bullied who runs into a clique of skins in a subway after getting knocked about at school. The skins are a gang of well meaning misfits (that  incidentally remind me of people I used to be friends with in real life back home in Atlanta) who take Shaun under their wing and hang out with him, and give him some form of identity within the group. However when Combo, a skinhead who has been in jail for three years because of taking the rap for the leader of the skins, comes back to town the mood changes.  Combo brings with him nationalistic ideals of racism and bigotry which pull the formerly light hearted friends apart. The attention to detail pertaining to  skinhead culture is quite faithfully accurate. In fact the skins I know pretty much look exactly the way these guys do in the movie. Feather cuts on the girls with Ben Sherman shirts and bleached out jeans. I think the only thing that is missing from This is England is a concert scene complete with mosh pit. I know bands like The Glory would have loved to have been featured.

The film is does what great indie films do. It provides a window into the lives of a fantastic cast of convincing characters dealing tough situations in a way unique to time and place. I also find that the issues of joblessness and bleakness of future relevant to the current uncertain economic climate in a post bail-out world.

This is England  also reminds me of Penelope Spheeris's actual 1983 film Suburbia  in that it too chronicles the lives of youths in the punk rock and hardcore scene of LA, perhaps mixed with Misfits  another great British series chronicling the lives of social outcast (although they happen to have super powers).
                                       
This is England '86 (2010) is a four part mini series  produced for Channel 4 that picks up with the gang 3 years after the end of the film.  It's always interesting to see characters develop over extended time periods, and a rare treat to be able to watch a film so well done followed up by an equally thoughtful predecessor. '86 presents a bleakness of reality that is sometimes comical is just how unbelievable it is.
                                         
For example, when Woody brings Lol back to their "castle"  (new apartment )  after the failed wedding for the first time,  for Lol to find she will be living in what can only be compared to an ash blackend hovel infested with maggots where someone had died and decomposed. It's slightly ludacris in how bad a place this could possibly be. However, what keeps the mood of the film from being completely bleak  and depressing is the amount of devotion everyone has to each other. They are the family for each other that they may not have had at home. It's reassuring even at the darkest moments.


I recommend This is England to anyone interested in skin head and punk culture, indie film, the 1980's, and perhaps what it may be like to grow up under privileged in certain areas of England. It's fantastic.
4 out of 5 for the whole lot.  Oh and the soundtrack is pretty bitchin' too.

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I'd also like to take the opportunity to say that being a skinhead isn't inherently racist at all, as a sub cultural movement skin heads extol the virtues of the working class, listening to reg-ea, ska, and more recently Oi! music. The dress sense reflects the utilitarian needs and the budget of the "working class".
It is unfortunate that mainstream society more often than not automatically views skins as racists. The overwhelming majority of skin heads I know and am friends with aren't racist at all, and there is even a popular movent within the skin society called Sharp (Skin Heads Against Racial Predjudice) that goes out of their way to make the point that racism and bigotry is not ok. I have been, and am still friends with a lot of skin heads who have been wonderful friends when I really needed them. Oi! Oi!

Dream Box

So there is this exhibit coming up, open call at Uni, that I thought I might put something together for. Pretty open criteria, A5 image on good paper, having to do with Dreams. Last night I had a dream about flying. Maye I'll do something with this. The dead line is February 21st.  It's a been a while since I showed anything in public. I guess I should think about it some more.

Self Portrait

        This is how I see myself most of the time.