With so much talk of “flattening the curve” but seemingly so little understanding of why, or even what that actually meant, I decided to make an explanation video PSA of my own. My mom suffers with athsma so it was/is particularly personal. It was also a welcomed distraction as the world around me shut down and fear ramped up, not to mention very important information for everyone to understand.
sculpt & build, creative direction & production (co-management)
Creativity in Los Angeles is all about having the talent- and knowing the right people. I know some of the right people. While at Dreamworks, I had the pleasure of spending my nights in a 80,000 square foot warehouse making random and super cool stuff do even more amazing things when combined.
Originally I was hired to make kabuki dancing puppets of the band members, but it was soon clear how much work needed to be done and we all decided puppets with less than 3 seconds of fly by screen time didn’t need to be dancing.
Damian & Tim Puppets
Dan & Andy puppets
I welded, built, tinkered, co-managed the top floor. I did anything and everything that needed to be done that I could do (and perhaps a couple things I didn’t know I could). The mad genius of the guys and gals at Syynlabs, the palpable creative energy of the band, and the focused yet childlike joy and excitement of everyone involved made any sleep loss well worth it… though I had marble nightmares for weeks afterwards.
Music video “Bloody Bells” by Eastern Conference Champions (ECC)
creative direction & production, sculpt & build, digital enhancement & compositing, photography & video
Listening to ECC’s album Speak-aaah, it was obvious to me that they had to be made into puppets. I had never made marionettes before but that was irrelevant. The project was a lot of fun to make and the band loved it. It became the song’s official video.
fun fact: You might recognize the lead singer, Josh Ostrander. He is now MondoCozmo.
Originally based on this photograph by Richard Avedon of his father, the scultpure evolved to be less about getting it to look exactly like the photograph and more of a study on skin texture.
For my fine arts senior thesis at Columbia University, I made a hugging machine. It had to be adjustable so everyone could receive a hug at optimal height. I sewed a fleece padded body with belly and water balloon breasts, because, let’s face it, they make a hug great.
