WHY JABBERWOCKY

Well:
1. great poem
2. cool flame monster
3. sword

but here’s the official version (and see mp4 version of movie):

Director’s Statement for the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival:

Poetry — I have been directing the comedies of William Shakespeare at DreamWrights Youth and Family Theatre for over a decade and I have seen again and again the difference words well used can make. Verse helps actors and audience gain familiarity and confidence with language. Parents of children I’ve worked with come up to me later amazed at how much a fan of Shakespeare their children have become (and how much better the children are doing in English classes). Poetry and verse make language and the ideas couched in it understandable.

My childhood had the poetry of A.A. Milne and Robert Louis Stevenson along with the fairies and comic verse of Shakespeare. Later, I added in ee cummings and Robert Frost and Odgen Nash and Lewis Carroll, with a touch of Doctor Seuss.

Jabberwocky is the poem I recited from memory to my younger brother at bedtime when I would come back from college for a visit or a summer. Its wordplay and adventure, plus the memories of a five year old Beau listening fascinated made it an easy choice as a movie subject.

THE JABBERWOCKY TRAILER

JABBERWOCKY

hath been declared done; friends and family preview link coming soon. Yee Haw.

Now to find a film festival.

WORKING ON THE WEEKENDS

Seems to be happening a lot. Good session with Calvin working on the latest Gullible and Twitchy video “Skate Street.” Lot of fun to do, put the movie through Composite Lab Pro twice to get different speeds and effects, plugged in music by Twitter peep @AdamSinger, a committed fan of the Creative Commons license and finder of some of the best visuals on the web. Waiting for Adam to weigh in on how he thinks his music suits and maybe a tiny bit more cropping, but coming soon to a screen near you.

Jabberwocky apparently needs a retake on the voiceover and eventually we’re going to have to figure out how to swap out large files between us — Calvin suggests MediaFire so I will investigate. In my voluminous free time. Voiceover retake should happen this week and then hand DVD delivery of sound + voice + music. Looking forward to seeing it all together.

Had fun at the concert Friday. Nice venue, pretty good crowd, no smoking (thank you — I hate having to come home in the am and shower to get the smell out of everything) and it is always good to see Jeremy on stage playing. And there was this little red keyboard/synth thing making cool sounds that I want in my office.

Hoping to have a day off tomorrow, avoid the computer, hit the YM, cook something fun and things like that. Need to go to the library sometime; new reading material would rock — suggest an author. Please.

But what you really want to know: Spectacular or Dadnapped, the President’s Day tween TV war…well, I’m little annoyed at The N for switching my Radio Free Roscoe to Degrassi The Next Generation (what no phasers?) and I refuse to get sucked into that soap opera. But mostly I object to the constant stream of Spectacular videos with music I keep hearing in my head but don’t want to remember. Dadnapped looks like a hoot and a good cast, but we might actually opt for the traditional Monday night The Big Bang Theory + Top Gear (Dadnapped will be on again soon, I bet). We’ve been too busy the past couple of weeks for a quiet Monday night and I miss it. Besides Flash is saving her excitement for the promised arrival on Tuesday of High School Musical 3. She’s a big Troy fan. She always wanders into the room when “Bet On It”’s playing with her tail fluffed high and happy.

Disney XD — yick on the commercials, but really impressed with Aaron Stone. Like the lead, the girl next door and the action. Well done. Am getting very fed up with the Phineas/Ferb love. Nice to see Phil of The Future back. Gayle really likes it and I’ve missed the pure malevolence that is Pim. But yick on the commercials.

Have stopped watching smallVille: sadness.

And now, good night. Sleep is really necessary. I forget that sometimes.

FRIDAY

Well this has not been the week I expected. Had planned for a quiet contemplative week preparing for the Chinese New Year, sketching oxen, cleaning house(kittens encourage already existing disarray to rise to an alarming level), etc…

Instead, I’ve been stressing about scheduling the voiceover session for Jabberwocky and that my week has been more hectic than I hoped. Which is self defeating. But the stress cycle always is.

There’s a new Blink Kitty Love so that’s good — and I had a blast doing it so that’s excellent. I haven’t worked on “The M” at all, but I have an idea steeping. And it would be so great to get Jabberwocky done. I’m debating what to do about this year’s Animation Magazine pitch party contest. It was on my list of goals and I do have a really inspired new project that’s exciting me to pitch but the same size banner ad could run over the AWN(Animation World Network) sites thanks to the lonelypond presence on animationblogspot and would cost nothing. I have some decisions to make before I start Moliere and Shakespeare prep.

To continue the Cake or Jake: I forgot Radio Free Roscoe; I’m listening to the Trews on last.fm right now — one of this afternoon’s episodes was Parker and Travis waiting in line for Trews tickets and the RFR all nighter with the rest of them. Parker is such a cool character that she even makes Travis fun — I know Travis is a cup of smoldering Buddhist kung fu philosophical we don’t kick ass but we can tea for some, but not me…possibly the character I sympathize most with is Robbie…I’m still really enjoying the music and Lily’s growth as an artist and musician. Yes, some of the typical issues you find in TV shows but I really like the radio/music/free speech packaging/underlying themes — and the characters.

And like everyone, I’m becoming fascinated by the is River Pierce cake or jake. He’s so very twisty and yet metal smooth — very slippy.

Seems warmer out today, which is nice. Due for a long walk and maybe finally contemplating what the Year of The Ox might bring…I think part of the problem is I miscalculated and spent some time thinking it was the Year of The Tiger, which inspired a cool Gullible and Twitchy animation idea which I can’t do yet. But the time slot for the G + T animation is being taken by Jabberwocky voiceover/sound editing stuff so if I do a New year animation it will be FlipBoom again, which might be fun. I did buy art supplies Wednesday — excellent water color paper and dual brush markers plus bonus fabric markers and some t-shirts. I’m hoping once I break them out some inspiration will happen. I’m going to try some more sketching first.

ESPN Winter X-Games coverage is heavy with clunky snowmobiles and making me not want to watch the X-Games. I liked it better when it was snowboard centric; coverage seems dragged out and too too slow.

2:03 AM

Burning a promised DVD of my movie stuff ( Gullible and Twitchy, Hat Hair, Lonely Pond Productions trailer), including the top secret Jabberwocky near final edit for the NJ nephew and nieces (and my buddy Laurie in Georgia).  This way I can get it off my to-do list and not turn on my computer on the morrow.  Pause for checking that iDVD actually put some content on the shiny disk (And the fun grindy noises begin.) 

Enjoyed the weather today; colors are starting to change and air is that particular crisp clear that comes with October, a visual bite into a Macintosh apple.  Tomorrow, hair cut, I’m thinking of going buzz cut levels of short on the sides, but chilly weather might make my ears reconsider.  

Speaking of apples, have been having half of one each night — we really need to trek down to the apple farm.  I keep buying half gallons of cider I only drink half of (half is our word here for the night at lonelypond — I am currently half asleep).  When I was a kid, a trek to the apple farm meant apple cider donuts.  Now I read the ingredients on the grocery store version and am cured of any cravings. What I like is a nice simple apple crisp with some streuselly stuff on top. Cinnamon season is upon us.  And pumpkins.  And pumpkin seeds on the wind, but that’s another story.

I’ll add TV reviews here, just to score one for insomniac stream of consciousness versus organized for you WordPress wordtag searchers out there.  Oh, and a note, I checked for a Tarrell Alvin McCraney play at the alternate office but none was available, so maybe it’s time to talk to the nice interlibrary loan librarian again.

The Middleman — watched the Clotharian Contamination Protocol again; still funny.  Love all the Dr. Who/Star Trek references, Ida rocks, Fantastic Voyage references good — although if only they’d managed to fit in a Tick/Dinosaur Neil one (note to self, acquire Tick vs. Season One; must see “The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight”  plus second most glorious villain El Seed)– love the initial conversation between Wendy and Tyler by the hot dog stand — The Middleman always does an excellent job when many things are happening at once.  MiddleMatt does a great job of restraint and emotion when listening to Wendy’s Code 47, it really is a darn shame that great writing, great fun and great acting doesn’t equal great second season. Still think Tyler’s too smarmy and thought it odd when Gayle agreed with me, she’s usually a sucker for sentiment.  Next week, I figure out which episode I have yet to review — I’m pretty sure there is one, #3 maybe??????? Or the other one with Roxy???

Still not really missing Eureka much, although I get occasional twitter updates from S.A.R.A.H.  Yes, you too can either follow an artificially intelligent superhouse or lonelypond on twitter — the choices you get with the new generation of social media.

The Big Bang Theory opened well with a great fall by Johnny Galecki into the sofa — true tests of comedians: the fall and the spit take. Fairly solid episode, maybe a little too much Sheldon, although the bit at the DMV was great. Good reactions all round — nice that frequently the actors, especially Cuoco, just get to have these looks, these great great funny looks.

Also, I must confess to straying off the Disney channel to catch the occasional iCarly. Flash does not approve, but at long as it doesn’t interfere with her post medication Disney time, she refrains from actually expressing disapproval — don’t ask, cats are particular about so many things. iCarly is a crazy loud fast moving hoot of a show with small children as crazy as I remember them being. Funny, funny — looking forward to iGo Japan on Nov. 8th.

And it’s 2:44 a.m. and I think that’s enough meandering for now. Good night all. Pick random Shakespeare quote (Google, etc.): “What’s in name? that which we call a rose…”
May rose petals waft in your dreams amid apples halves and October air.

JABBERWOCKY MONSTER TEST

And the Jabberwocky monster no longer seems impossible: here’s a flaming foundation for effects.