During this month, the Art Institute of Vancouver hosted their first Alumni Reception & Exibihition Evening which they will make an annual event out of it. My former classmates and I have been contacted to be featured on the alumni wall at the school with our post graduate achievements in the industry. Here is my interview:

You can check out more about the event here at http://celebr8ai.com/vancouver/#

In the beginning of this year, a couple of my co-workers started a Youtube channel called “Late Chow”. Broadcasting their own show about the 4th and best meal of the day! This past halloween, since I have been collecting more and more video gear and wanted to start using it more, I had the chance to help them shoot some of it. We had a big group of our co-workers come out dressed up as zombies. It was a lot of fun to help film it. Josh Riley and Phan Wiantrakoon (the creators of the show) put a lot of work in this, and I totally recommend checking it out! Especially if you love food =)

They air a show every 2 weeks or so, so subscribe if you like to see more coming!
http://www.youtube.com/user/LateChow

Over the past several months, we’ve been working on a 3D project describing the new patented design of a golfball!  All of the visual elements in the footage was created by us and the audio voice over was done by our good friend Jason Simpson. Check it out here.

After finishing production on Men in black 3 in April, I finally got a chance to update my demo reel with some new shots.  Its been a busy summer, starting Wizard of Oz, going on vacation to Indonesia for 3 weeks, and moving down town next week!  But finally, I was motivated to finish my reel when Art Institute of Vancouver contacted my wife and I for an ‘alumni success’ story.

Even though I finished around 30 shots on this movie, most of the work was motorcycle wheel replacement and environment replacement.  I did get a chance to animate a few cool creatures.  Such as the alien fish and the weasel (insect creature).  I even got a chance to animate a couple CG digital double where Boris grabs Griffin onto his motorcycle and rides off the stadium.  The video is posted on my homepage at the top, check it out!

Or click the link here

It has been almost 3 months since I started working on the new Wizard of Oz movie! The best part about working on this film is that we get to animate monkeys. But not just any monkeys, flying monkeys! This is pretty much new territory for me as I have not animated much of any bird/flying shots. I am learning lots and its been pretty interesting! Just recently, Sony released the first trailer of Oz at Comic-con:

Scheduled to release on March 8th of next year, and with reshoots scheduled in the next few weeks, we have another 5 months of intense work set out for us!

More pictures here.

My Wife Calista has a new demoreel posted showcasing some of her new work on Monster High and League of Super Evil. Check it out!

You can see more of her stuff at Calistopolis.com

For the last couple years, I have been helping out at church with the video slides and lighting cues during service. First at Willingdon Church and now at our new CrossRidge Church. I have always sat beside the person controlling the audio mixer the whole time. Every time I looked at that thing, it always scares me with all the little buttons and dials and channels. I never understood any of it, and it looks like something you can easily just mess up with one touch of a dial! Last weekend I had the opportunity to help out with the sound mixing at our church service for the first time. Pastor Andy (who leads our music team) gave me a quick run-down on how the equipment worked. Tony, who is well versed with these equipments (as he does repair for audio equipment as his profession) also showed me how the system works. And with a half an hour quick tutorial, I was on my way to doing the service.

I was always worried about doing anything with audio, since my wife thinks I might possibly be tone deaf (especially when it comes to me singing). But I found it, if I had concentrated hard on listening to levels on each instrument, I can decipher what was too loud or too soft and if anything was causing strange feedback.. Hopefully you guys enjoyed the service last Sunday! I’ve learnt a lot and now I’m not as afraid of using the sound board!

SoundBoard at CrossRidge Church

Thanks again Andy and Tony for showing me how to use it!

So last week was my last time working on Men in Black 3. Animation has pretty much wrapped up and the lighting/compositing team is on its way to be finished! The film comes out May 25th, 2012! They just released a new trailer, which actually shows a lot of the movie… so watch at your discretion!

Today I begin my journey working on the movie ‘Oz: The Great and Powerful’ to be released spring of 2013! The plot of the film pretty much entails about how the great wizard of Oz, played by James Franco, got to where he is. It is a prequel to the famous story of ‘Wizard of Oz’. With tons of FX shots and a lot of work this is going to be one helluva production!. But from what I’ve seen already, it is looking pretty cool! The only picture I found on the internet of Oz is this one that seems to be on set material. It shows a glimpse of what the logo might be.

IMDB: Oz, The Great and Powerful

So the last few weeks I’ve finally got around to creating a new website for my wife. The new site entails the use of WordPress just like how mine is set up. She decided on a different template, so it was just a matter of tweaking the template to suit her needs. The color scheme and imagery was all hers, I was just there to facilitate all the technical issues!

Take a look at her new site here at www.calistopolis.com