12/21/06

Man, I really suck at keeping the news up to date. If you are reading this and you aren't on my mailing list yet, just shoot me an email and I'll add you. That way you'll know of the latest projects and SuperNews episodes!

I just finished my musical-robot animation entitled "Carol of the Robots"!

We also just finished our Christmas SuperNews episode "Christmas Wars".

On Tuesday, animation pioneer Joseph Barbera (of "Hanna-Barbera") passed away, and Current TV is airing a story about him. SuperNews creator Josh Faure-Brac and I appear in the segment and share our thoughts on his legacy, so be sure to look out for it! You can always see what's coming up on Current here: current.com/currenttv.

11/1/06

Lots of new SuperNews episodes since my last post, be sure to check them out here! I even got to record a song for the Halloween episode! Watch "Star-Spangled Terror".

I am reeeaaally close to finishing my New Numa animation, so be sure to check back!

I made a few updates to the site, but I have much more I want to still do. For now I just separated the movies/animation from the games. This should make much more sense now, plus I didn't really have enough games for an entire section before. But what will really be awesome is when I finally get around to putting up the music for each and every game. Right now in order to hear the music you have to play the game all the way through. I want people to be able to come to this site to hear the music quickly and easily, so I'll be making that change in the not-too-distant future (I hope!)

9/21/06

Guess what! I finally registered a new domain, www.dustfilms.com since this site is no longer just about music, and is actually mostly about my movies. Both urls still work, but I'm going to try to transition everything over.

In other exciting news, the TV network that I work for Current TV joined forces with Yahoo! to create a site with some slick video channels: Action Sports, Driver, Traveler and Buzz. video.yahoo.com/currenttv For the launch, us SuperNews guys created 3 new shows to fit with the categories! You can watch them all here:

-Speed World with Crystal Matt (part 1)

-Speed World with Crystal Matt (part 2)

-Bro vs. Brah

-Around the World With the Ugly American

(UPDATE: The Yahoo! Current thing didn't last for long and these links no longer work.)

9/9/06

I finished my first "solo" project since I began working with SuperNews! I actually started it back in April, but it sat here for a while and I just picked it back up a couple of weeks ago.
Watch "On Water".

It's created entirely with crayon drawings, scanned into the computer. And thanks to Newgrounds.com for sponsoring it!

Our SuperNews episodes have been on hold for a while, while we work on some other top-secret projects, but those will be seen soon hopefully! I've even had the chance to do some original music which is fun.

7/5/06

Holy Cow! I didn't think it had been this long since I posted anything. I guess time flies when you having fun! Or working hard. Or both at the same time... which is exactly what I've been doing! I have been enjoying my new job VERY much... I get to draw and animate all day long now. The downside is that by the time I get home, the last thing I want to do is work on more animation, so I don't know when on earth I'll be making another movie on my own.

Many people have been asking me when I'll be putting something new up on Newgrounds.com and I honestly don't know, so that's sort of a bummer. But there are far too many upsides to working as an animator full time on a tiny show like this. Speaking of which, be sure to check out the latest episodes, there is a new one about every 2 weeks! Click here to watch! Be sure to keep an eye out for the show on Current TV which is channel 366 on Direct TV and channel 107 on Comcast.

I recently put a nice version of "Spin" up on Google Video and also YouTube so be sure to pass those along to your friends! Oh and in case you didn't already know, you can find me on MySpace at www.myspace.com/pileofdust.

(UPDATE: I switched it to www.myspace.com/dustfilms)

4/27/06

Incredible news! After 6 years of driving all around Southern California repairing printers, I am moving on. I have accepted a position as an animator with the show Super News on the Current TV Network. (Check your local listings!) In fact, there are only 2 guys who currently work on the show, and they needed a third multi-talented fellow to join the team, so it sounds like I'll actually be getting to do... whatever it is I can do! Animation, sound, music, voices etc. I'm unbelievably excited! I'll be starting May 11th.

3/31/06

My goodness, I'm so behind on posting. I don't think anyone actually reads this anyway, so oh well!

I finished my celebrity-bashing animation! Thanks to Newgrounds.com for sponsoring it! Watch "Go Away"!

Last week Priscilla and I traveled to San Jose for the Independant Gaming Festival where Dad 'n Me took home the prize for Best Web Browser Game! (I did the music for the game.) You can check out some pictures of the fun here on Newgrounds!

2/20/06

Well, I'm behind on posting this, but hopefully you know by now that I released the stop-motion animation, "Trash" on Newgrounds.com last week. At first no one seemed to take notice and it suffered a low score and didn't win a single daily award. Luckily a few days later it was featured on the front page and then everyone seemed to love it! It ended up getting weekly 5th place and the "review crew pick" which means it was the highest reviewed movie of the week! Anyway, the movie was actually made in 1999 by André (aka "gel") and I BEFORE we made "Spin". It doesn't really have much of a story but it was an interesting exercise in utilizing the "peoplemation" technique. I decided we should show it to people after all these years so a few weeks ago I composed some new music for it and put it up.

I finally redesigned the page for purchasing one of my albums. Check it out and buy an album while you're there!

Oh yeah, and I don't want to jinx myself, but I think I'm FINALLY done with the "ultra-secret-biopharmaceutical animation"! That was one gnarly project. Too bad no one will really get to see it except the employees of said company.

2/4/06

Big news! (This) Cookie Dough Records website was featured on a show called "Click" on the BBC news 24! You can watch the video segment here: BBC video. (It's at the very end.) The same story is written here: BBC article. A HUGE thank you to Joe Williams who was the first to inform me of this and to send me the links!

On Friday I released an old "peoplemation" that André (aka "gel") and I made a while back. Watch it on Newgrounds.com. It's short and sort of pointless but I figured since everyone seemed to enjoy the coin animation so much (which was also short and pointless) they might like this. Unfortunately it's not getting as great of reviews, but that's ok. Next Friday I will be releasing a full-length "peoplemation" that we actually made BEFORE Spin, and I've given it an all new musical score! So be sure to check back next week!

2/1/06

I released "Play More" on Newgrounds.com on Friday and it did very well! It got Daily Feature (which means it was the highest scoring movie of the day) and second place for the week! That means it has a pretty good shot of winning one of the monthly awards, I'll keep my fingers crossed. (Yesterday the movie ranked as the #2 highest scoring movie of all time!) Nothing is set in stone, but André (aka "gel") and I have been discussing the possibility of creating an interactive Play game along the lines of the old Simon toys.

1/25/06

I've recorded a new song and for a limited time you can hear it in its entirety in the NEW MUSIC section! (click on Go Away) I actually already had a song entitled Go Away, but that is now called Without You. The plan is to create a full animation with this song featuring all of the celebrities mentioned. Who knows how long THAT will take.

1/20/06

I keep forgetting I can make news posts about stuff. A couple of days ago I had a little spare time (imagine that!) so I decided to throw together a project that's been sitting around for a long time. It was an old stop-motion thing I did one day back in 2000 with some coins. I happened to be borrowing André (aka "gel's") camera that we used for animating and I was bored one night. I never did anything with it sooner because I didn't think it was very interesting and it really had no point, but I decided I could submit it to Newgrounds.com just for the heck of it. It turns out that everybody LOVES it. I'm totally shocked! It started out with a relatively low score so it didn't win any daily awards, but then it was featured on the front page and the score went up and it has rave reviews. People are dying to see more stop-motion stuff, so right now I am going through our old video tapes finding a bunch of cool stuff we've done. Hopefully everyone has seen our "peoplemation" Spin by now. Well, that was actually the third "peoplemation" we made. The first one was just sort of a test, but the second one is pretty nifty so I'm planning to submit that very soon.

I'm still working on you know what. My list of projects I want to do is growing very large. Oh yeah, I almost forgot! I had a little break this weekend so I wrote and recorded a new song... It's still kind of a secret because I plan to use it in big animation for one of my next projects! Stay tuned...

1/10/06

Happy new year! There isn't much new going on, I've been working on the big "biopharmaceutical animation" all month, and it's basically done! In fact, in about an hour from now there is a big review with all of the high-ups to review the finished product. I'm scared to find out what sort of crazy changes I'm going to have to scramble to do now. In other news, the game by Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin that I composed music for, Dad 'n Me, is nominated for an IGF award, so I'll be attending the Game Developer's Conference from March 22-24 and the awards ceremony with Tom and Dan. Congrats guys! Lastly, I finally updated the main page so you have more choices up front, I hope that works out better.