Kid Cudi "Day 'N' Night" directed by So Me

These folks always do great work and Kid Cudi's new music video is certainly no exception. Also, if you haven't heard much of Kid Cudi yet DOWNLOAD HIS MIXTAPE HERE. It's great! That guy's gonna be big in a big way.

Lifelong Friendship Society 2.0

Lifelong Friendship Society's brand-new website went live today, with an all-new flash interface, work reel, and a slew of projects we had archived on the servers. Check it out here!

Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job!

Season 4 is currently airing every Sunday night (Monday morning I guess...?) at 12:30 AM EST

Watch it. Even if you hate it.

Illustration in 2009

When the new year came and went around a month-and-a-half ago, I decided to be more of realist when it came to making resolutions for 2009 and quickly shot down any personal goals of traveling more, wasting money on frivolous things and/or cutting back on my drinking. Instead I opted for two other ideas: learn the 3D program Maya and get back into illustrating on a more consistent basis. As my friend Mark Theriault has graciously reminded me, getting into Maya is a whole new beast in itself with a whole new world of technical issues & frustrating problems, so we'll see exactly where that taco will take me once I gather up the nerve to eat it.

Man with Finger Mustache ⓒ 2009 Mark Phillips

Illustration, on the other hand, is what got me into animation in the first place and was something that I did nearly every single day of my life until I was out of school. Drawing saved me from the hellish boredom of countless math classes & even earned me my first car. After perusing my website statistics on the fine internet service known as Google Analytics, I found that although it was the least updated of all of my pages, Marked Animation's illustration section actually received the most traffic out of any other page on my site. Thus, last week I began scribbling away again when I would get the chance and came up with some new material that will make its way onto the interwebz when I update everything soon.

Morning Breath featured in the March 2009 issue of Complex Magazine, which I receive in the mail for no reason since I never subscribed to it to begin with

Speaking of illustration, you should check out the work of the fine gentlemen at Morning Breath. They've done some amazing design work and chances are you've seen the various products of their labor floating around all over the place (one of the more recent pieces that comes to mind is the cover art for TV on the Radio's highly-acclaimed album, Dear Science). Earlier in 2008 LFS and MB were supposed to work together on a music video project for the group known as N.A.S.A. but the project unfortunately never materialized beyond pre-production. Regardless, I've kept in contact with them and hopefully a collaboration of sorts will come to fruition in the coming months!
... Plus I feel the need to prove myself to Doug (pictured on the right), who is one of the few people that I've met who can drink a beer faster than me in a casual setting. That, people, is called talent.

Chester French

The music video for their single "She Loves Everybody" premiered yesterday on MTV. It's a great song, take a listen if you haven't gotten the chance to yet.

New Reel & Site Updates coming soon!

If there's a better way to doom the progress of a website or blog than to create an entry about how you're planning to make changes and updates soon, I don't know what it is. I'm going to fight the cliché however and go into this with an optimistic face.

Stay tuned! New work will be posted in the following month if all goes well! In the meantime, check out my friend Joe Nelson's website Cujo-Dah. That guy does some amazing work and I hope that we can collaborate on a [non-sex] project in the near future.

Montana State University What UP.

The Catalyst from NINU EYE + CO. on Vimeo.

This was posted on Motionographer's student section earlier this month and I felt the need to repost on this blog. Being a native of Montana myself (and a one-eighth native of Montana Native-American) I can honestly say I haven't noticed a lot of notable design work coming out of that state. I'm NOT hating but the Big Sky country ain't exactly known for its animatery. I thought this piece was really nice though, even if I'm super biased on the matter.
The original post from Motionographer reads as follows:

"Okay, so this promotional video for the Montana State University School of Art doesn’t fit the normal schema of Students posts, but I think it belongs here anyway.

It was directed by Zachary McIntosh, who once studied graphic design at MSU but then left at the age of 21 to work full-time. Now, a few years later, he’s slowly earning his remaining credits to get his degree. It’s a cool story, the kind that I find inspiring."

BIG UPS MT!

Starbucks "Are You In?" Campaign

Since around the time of my last post back at the beginning of January, we've been working nearly non-stop up until a few days ago at Lifelong Friendship Society getting the latest spot for Starbucks out the door. I was lead animator and Travis Spangler was in charge of design and the overall look of it. We had a great team of animators (Alex, Tim, Ish, Lily & Rosie) and knocked it out despite the seething amounts of sexual tension in the room whilst we all worked (that 3AM unshowered musk really heats things up). I've never lost so much sleep on one project, and for me that's really saying something. I even gave up my 8-month boycott on coffee so I could make it through.

So far the response has been pretty positive, and we even got featured on Youtube's main page!


And now I present to you the full 2:40 version...

Metronomy "A Thing For Me"

88 turned me onto this video earlier today, it's SICK.


A Thing For Me from Metronomy on Vimeo.

(sick in the good way, not the AIDS-y way)

More Motionographer Love...

One of my best friends and lovers Mark Theriault got his very own shout-out on Motionographer.com today. If you haven't checked out his site Partially Frozen yet, check it out here or better yet check out his Computer Beach Party VFX reel here.* You'll be so engulfed in particle-sex that you'll need to see a doctor and a lawyer.

*note: Mark Theriault's CBP reel has made members of Locksley cry. No joke, right Sam?