I love that books are getting the full blown media treatment.  It makes sense that if you’re going to put the time and effort and money into a project, that you would work to create all sorts of support material.  Just because books are a low-tech entertainment medium, doesn’t mean that they can’t have a high-tech marketing campaign.  If you’ve got a story that you want the world to know about, the best thing to do is to create a shareable media package like a video or a wallpaper, or print image, and then put it on the net.  Remember the awesome Missle Mouse Comic?  So with that said, I’m doing my part to promote a project that I think is pretty cool (and not JUST because it reminds me of the fantastic shadow boxes that I make).  Go and check out the video trailer promoting the new Millennium Falcon book from Scholastic. It was written by Ryder Windham and includes art by Chris Trevas and Chris Reiff and the video features the Keeper of the Holocron himself, Leland Chee.

And while we’re on the subject, you should also check out this video for the Jedi Path by Dan Wallace and Illustrated by Jeff Carlisle, Chris Reiff, and Chris Trevas.

Last July, right before the San Diego Comic-Con, the BBQ aprons that I designed for the Star Wars Shop went up for pre-sale.  For those you you who may not be familiar with the Comic-Con, over 120,000 people show up to talk about, look at, and buy all sorts of pop culture, comic book, and movie merchandise.  It has become THE place to launch movie, comic, and tv news and get LOTS of attention.  So with that in mind, I started to devise a scheme to bring lots of attention to the aprons that I designed.  I started by contacting the head of a website called Leia’s Metal Bikini.  Every year at these conventions, Jamin the Slave Master gathers together his princess Leia’s for a gigantic photo shot.  I got things all timed out, and was able to get the prototype of the Leia BBQ apron and I crashed the photo shoot!

Sitting in the middle of these girls with all the camera flashes going off was a bit surreal (and a little awkward).  I think that this made for a pretty good launch for the product.  Here are 2 more photos shot by Nicole Love from Lucasfilm and found in their flickr gallery.  You’ll also notice that the apron is being modeled by Adrianne Curry, the winner of America’s Next Top Model.  (she’s a HUGE Star Wars nerd!).  You can see a poor quality video that I shot from the event here.

Well the news of this apron design has hit the internets like a storm over the past few months.  Just do a search for “Slave Leia Apron” so see all the results!  Most recently it was announced that the aprons would be available through the SkyMall magazine as well as from the Star Wars Shop, and then the products were highlighted on the G4 in the video below. It’s pretty exciting to be part of a project that has gotten this attention, AND it makes a wonderful last minute, quick and comfortable Halloween costume!

It may be a little early, but I wanted to put out the word that I will be attending the Vegas Valley Comic Book Festival on November the 6th. The show is from 11-4PM at the Clark County Library. This will be the second time that I’ve been a guest of World Famous Comics at the show, but this year I will be participating on one of the discussion panels. Starting at 11:15 in the large conference room,  Jarret Keene poses the questions, and “our Masters of the Impossible” – Deryl Skelton, Eric Shanower, the Fillbach Brothers, and Spencer Brinkerhoff III — provide the answers.  Working around the question ”What would happen if …?” we discuss the process of transfering from story concepts to paper.

Here are a few of the sketches and commissions that I have recently completed.

With the introduction of low cost, high speed cameras, it’s really no surprise to see so many people creating fantastic slow motion videos.  I came across this music video on Gizmodo, but I just had to know more about it. So here’s the video and then the research below.

The video was commissioned by Diesel:U:Music and directed by Tomas Mankovsky for the band Dancing Pigeons. Wait… what? The video was “commissioned”? by who?  Diesel used to make clothes, but sometime when I wasn’t looking, they began to identify themselves as, “DIESEL - the jeans, clothes, shoes and distraction company, not the fuel.”  They have expanded their brand name and worked to create a culture around their products by being involved in more than clothes.  So while looking into this video, I learned from their music site that Diesel:U:Music (D:U:M) launched 10 years ago (I am soooo clueless).  It’s a yearly (unsigned) music talent awards and a worldwide support network built to promote new artists, labels, radio stations, and journalists across most countries.  As D:U:M evolved and grew they began connecting fans to the bands, and in 2009 went on tour with two lucky winning bands.

To celebrate Diesel’s first decade in music, they’ve created a music contest.  Here’s more from their site about the contest.  ”In line with our prodigal Be Stupid philosophy we’ve screwed with the classic branded music contest, here’s the idea - now you the fan take centre stage and commit ’stupid’ acts to win gigs, recording fees and global infamy for your favourite bands, and thousands worth of actually amazing prizes for you. Easy…Through a series of heats and knockout rounds we will find the most obsessively followed new band in the world. It’s the ultimate battle of the fans, it’s survival of the stupidest and it’s online now.”

They have a “Be Stupid” philosophy?  That sounds dumb.  I guess to their targeted demographic the term “Be Stupid” could also mean, “Be daring, be spontaneous, be original, take risks, live life to it’s fullest, and have fun”, but that doesn’t grab your attention like being stupid.  So to help bring attention to the contest, it looks like D:U:M made a music video for the band Dancing Pigeons.

From the band’s MySpace page, I learned that their ”bedroom-recorded electro pop songs” really started to gather attention in spring of 2008. Within in a few months they began to support international acts and traveled around the world without even releasing any records.  Now as they work to make their first Studio-recorded album, they’ll be getting even more attention from this D:U:M contest.  :D

Advertised as “Amazing iPad Animations”, the video below uses a technique as old as animation itself, and really, it’s not that amazing.  Well, turning your $500.00 iPad into a $10.00 pre-schooler’s board book is pretty amazing I guess.  So here’s the amazing video.

 With the publication of his 2007 children’s book, Rufus Butler Seder called this display technique Scannimation.  In gathering information about his books, Seder states that he has invented this technique for books and has obtained a patent for it.  See the video for his explanation of his invention.

Interestingly, the Scanimate program was being used for motion capture experiments, animated intros, and animated logos back in the 1960’s.  There’s a pretty interesting news report video here.  But this whole process and technology goes back even further than that.

The Zoetrope was created in China around 180 AD and then refined in 1834 by British Mathematician William George Horner. The Zeotrope is made from a cylinder with slits cut vertically in the sides. Beneath the slits on the inner surface of the cylinder is a band which has either individual frames from a video/film or images from a set of sequenced drawings or photographs. As the cylinder spins the user looks through the slits at the pictures on the opposite side of the cylinder’s interior. The scanning of the slits keeps the pictures from simply blurring together so that the user sees a rapid succession of images producing the illusion of motion, the equivalent of a motion picture. Cylindrical zoetropes have the property of causing the images to appear thinner than their actual sizes when viewed in motion through the slits.

This AMAZING moving picture parlor trick led to the creation of flip books, and then motion photography, and then film, and then animated motion pictures, and then super technical 3D computer rendered imagery!  Then the technology advanced and compacted and now we can walk around with the equivalent of a whole BUILDING’S worth of 1960’s computing power in the palm of our hands!  What better use of this magnificent marvel of technology than to turn it into a toy from the 1800s.

Some of you may recall ALL THE WAY BACK to 2001 when Burger King launched the Subservient Chicken. This interactive advertising program was created to promote some new BK sandwich as part of their “Have it Your Way” campaign. It was a pretty advanced application at the time. When you went to the site you would find somebody in a dressed in a chicken suit, standing in their living room, and waiting to take direction from you. You can type in commands such as “lay an egg”, “dance”, or “die” and the chicken would do it!  The video looked like it was a live web cam, so it was this AMAZING piece of technology.

Fastforward to 2010 when live streaming video content can happen from your phone and reality TV is a anchor of the broadcast networks and we find “ControlTV“. I got a Facebook invite from series co-creator Matthew Senriech to join the Facebook group and help the show’s star Tristan get a little direction in his life. So ControlTV is a live-streamed, online reality experiment that gives viewers control over Tristan. Subservient TRISTAN! The camera crew will start to document Tristan’s every move on Wednesday October 6th and will allow the online audience to vote on every major aspect of his life. Pick out his clothes, tell him what to eat, or who he should date (insert lyrics to AQUA’s “Barbie Girl”). The show will fun for six weeks. So it’s Subservient Chicken meets the Truman Show meets social networking. The show is presented by Ford and Sprint but that doesn’t mean that Burger King can’t swamp the voting and have him eat one of their Chicken Sandwiches!