PSA: Invisible Toxic Paint

Personal Project

PSA

creative direction & production, design & motion, sculpt & build, illustration

-warning: language-

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.

I made a mistake, cut a corner, that I will never do again. The original plan was to use the white clay so I could easily color it in post to portray a whole rainbow of skin tones. I was so eager to get it out while it was still relevant and it had taken me longer than planned, and I skipped the step of toning the faces in the large graph section. By doing so, I made a statement I definitely did not intend and excluded people I meant wholeheartedly to include. It might have been something I was proud of, as a quick piece, but instead it just makes me cringe. 

2020

This Too Shall Pass

SyynLabs

Music Video, “This Too Shall Pass” by OK GO

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.

 

kabuki puppets OK GO

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

Damian & Tim Puppets

Dan & Andy puppets

Dan & Andy puppets

OK go puppet making of process shot

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.

Me, welding

Me, welding

Zelora

Personal Project

Short film, “Zelora”

creative direction & production, sculpt & build, digital enhancement & compositing, photography & video

 

A short film about ending the fights we have with ourselves and finding peace.

digital character in physical set

“Zelora” is composed with a physical set and a digital character.

books in drawer

Digital animation using Maya is combined with stop motion.

2004

Music Video: “Bloody Bells”

Personal Project, Eastern Conference Champions

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 known as MondoCozmo.

2009

Avedon Study

Personal project

Sculpture

sculpt & build

Avedon sculpture Avedon_6587_1000_web

Sculpted in Sculpee. 2006

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.

Richard Avedon Photograph

 

Hugger

Personal project

Motorized Hugging Machine

sculpt & build

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.

hugging machine