Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief opens in theaters today. Last night at 11:00 I went upstair to wake my 11 year old son and 9 year old daughter to take them to the midnight showing (SURPRISE! They were already awake and dressed). The three of us have read all of the books in the series, but were curious about the film adaptation based on the movies trailer seen in the video below.

The movie was great. I would recommend going to see it. My 9 year old jumped a bit at the monsters, but it was rated PG so they didn’t have any gore. After reading the books and knowing the characters, the movie felt a bit rushed, and the plot-line from the books just wasn’t the same. Here’s the thing, you can’t really pack 375 pages into a 2 hour movie.

Chris Columbus the director of the Harry Potter movies took the helm on this project and sifted through all those pages and distilled them down to a 120 page movie script. To do that, he took elements of the original story and repurposed them for HIS story. Some things were left out, and some things were added. Don’t spend too much time thinking about the color of Anabeth’s hair or the type of pen that Percy has because there are much bigger issues to think about. Disney has bought the rights to the property, but that doesn’t mean that they have to make a carbon copy of the book. Interestingly enough, if they did make a 100% faithful film version of the book, the fans would probably pick out all of the little details that they left out. I may have been easier to just make a new version.

As the heroic tale is re-told throughout time, it tends to adapt and change and become a different story than the way it started. So, in my opinion, this movie is a re-telling of the book, it is not the book. It’s the Legend of Percy Jackson. I enjoyed the book enough to go see the movie, but I wasn’t so married to the book that I couldn’t enjoy the film adaptation.

I noticed my son and daughter were checking out books from the library about the Greek gods and ancients myths. This new found fascination with the ancient heroic tales of the gods and their offspring was a direct result of the book series Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

The book series is about a twelve year old boy diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, who is constantly getting into trouble and has been expelled from several schools. I started reading the series and was instantly hooked by author Rick Riordan’s wonderful characters, clever titles, and good humor. Here’s how the book starts.

chapter 1: I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher

Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood.

If you’re reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It’s scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

If you’re a normal kid, reading this because you think it’s fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it’s only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they’ll come for you.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

My name is Percy Jackson.

I have often thought about using the Hero’s Journey as outlined by Joseph Campbell to create my own stories, but I’d never thought about bringing the gods into a modern setting. I really enjoyed all of the books and was excited to hear that a movie was being made.

Here’s another shadow box commission that I did before Christmas.  A break from my Star Wars art and into another movie that I love “The Princess Bride.”  Here is Wesley and Buttercup leaving the Fire Swamp.

On December 21st, 1937 my world changed.  Hmmm, well, now that I think of it, it wasn’t really my world yet!  This day marks the premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  It was the first full-length cel-animated feature in motion picture history, as well as the first animated feature film produced in America, the first produced in full color, the first to be produced by Walt Disney, and the first in the Walt Disney Animated Classics canon.  I knew that it was I wanted to do.  I grew up watching these animated features and explaining to everyone that I knew that my life’s ambition was to be a Disney animator.  Well, I went to college for a semester, then spent 2 years as a missionary in Japan, returned home, finished another semester of college, changed majors, changed schools, changed majors, got married, and then graduated with a Fine Arts Degree from Arizona State University.

I interviewed and has a portfolio review at Disney but it didn’t go anywhere.  Fox Animation Studios set up shop in Phoenix and I met with people, toured and tested for positions, but I never made it there either.  I settled into a job working to create graphics and illustrations for online training courses, but it was NOT traditional animation.  I’ve worked to at this job for 10 years now, and I’m slowly starting to work my way into doing my original dream.  It’s not quite traditional animation, but I’m having a blast drawing Star Wars!

On a side note, after Snow White was released, Walt Disney saw a need to expand the studio and he used the profits from Snow White to build this studio in Burbank.  The success of Disney animation is built upon the Seven dwarfs so they are shown holding up the roof on the main administration building. Thanks Uncle Walt!

photo by Loren Javier

When Netflix was established in 1997, it was venturing into some uncharted waters. Instead of running down to Blockbuster or your local Video Shack, a Netflick subscriber creates a list on the company website, called a rental queue. Then, for a flat monthly fee, the movies are delivered to the subscriber’s home. It’s pretty cool stuff. After spending nearly $300 million a year on postage, the company seemed ready to make another leap forward in technology and truly put the NET in Netflixs by offering streaming video.

I have a Playstation 3 and I’ve been very happy with it. I was thrilled to learn that through the wireless connection I could watch YouTube videos, and for a little while, Hulu was available on the PS3. However, it seemed that whenever I went tried to use these services the connection was always slow and would be constantly buffering the video. We would connect my wife’s laptop to the tv and watch Hulu wirelessly as a test and that seemed to work just fine. I decided to use the Playstation Store to rent a movie to see if their own service worked better.  I started the download and walked away for 30 minutes so that enough of the movie could download for me to watch it.

So when I first heard that Netflix would be streaming video to the PS3 I was skeptical.  They don’t have the same number of shows available streaming as they do in the regular delivery service but 17,000 movies and recorded television shows isn’t bad. I put the Netflix disk in the system and in just over a minute I was watching Legend of the Seeker without a hitch. Well done Netflix, well done.

As I’ve been writing and thinking about video on the internet, I came across a dusty CD case in my office.  Within this case I found a CD I had burned and marked simply “BMW Films”.  You see, way back in 2001 I didn’t have high-speed internet at my house.  I was working for an online training company and I would use my work access to learn all about what was going on on-line.  When I found something marvelous, I would save it and store it.  *shrugs* Yeah, I’m a bit nerdy.

In 2002, BMW teamed up with 8 different filmmakers to produce a series of 10 minute long “Branded Content” entertainment.  The idea was a HUGE hit.  More often than not, the idea behind creating a viral video is to somehow hid the sponsorship or message in the video (just like the MegaWoosh).  BMW didn’t need to hide their message in their video, they FLAUNTED it, and the message was simple, “Our Cars can DRIVE”.

These films introduced me to Clive Owen as the BMW driver.  He’s hired on various jobs to get people from point A to B, but he does it with flair.  Later when Clive showed up in The Bourne Identity I elbowed my wife and said, “HEY! It’s the guy from BMW films!”  In my mind, it made him more of a star because I had already seen him.

This form of online video marketing was super successful.  It’s sure does say something when people are keeping a copy of your advertising.  You can learn more about The Hire here and see more videos like the one below on YouTube.

So here I am, hamming it up in front of the camera, again.  I spent the weekend running around gathering supplies so that I could get some test shots done and then start shooting footage today for a contest that ends, um Wednesday-ish.  So I better get crackin’.

Speaking of sound effects… Ben Burtt pioneered modern sound design, especially in the science fiction and fantasy genres. He has a reputation for including a sound effect dubbed “the Wilhelm scream” in many of the movies he’s worked on.Here’s a video and some info from Wikipedia about the Wilhelm scream.

The Wilhelm scream is a repeatedly used film and television stock sound effect first used in 1951 for the film Distant Drums. The effect gained new popularity (its use often becoming an in-joke) after it was used in Star Wars and many other blockbuster films as well as television programs and video games. The Wilhelm scream has become a well-known cinematic sound cliché, and is claimed to have been used in over 140 films, as well as every episode of Primeval, and in some form, every episode of The Middleman.I loved The Middleman. I was sad to see it go.

Speaking of treasure hunting adventurers on the big screen, it looks like there will be another Indiana Jones movie.  At the end of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indy’s hat blew across the floor to the feet of Mutt Williams.  It would appear that Mutt is the heir to the fedora, but Mutt Williams in NOT Indiana Jones, and I probably won’t go see his movie.  Here’s what I propose.

I think that there would be to many upset fans if you tried to have an Indiana Jones movie without Harrison Ford (and he’s getting older).  To me, Indiana Jones was and will always be a 1930’s adventurer after a mystic prize.  He was believable and smart and tough.  Now, I love the way that the new Star Trek movie completely wiped out the history of their universe and started with a fresh slate, but you can’t do that to Indiana Jones.  Here’s what you do.  You start the film with Harrison Ford as Indy.  He’s on the hunt to complete a quest that he started when he was younger.  During the film you see flashbacks of the younger Indy on the adventure thereby setting the stage for a new actor to fill the fedora.  You could also have the older Indy get injured and lose his eye to be consistent with the young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

That way when Indy VI comes out, it will be a whole new adventure.  Maybe they could skip Indy V and just go to VI?  OR MAYBE they make Indy V an online miniseries that sets the stage for Indy VI!!!  *sigh* I’m a genius.  umm, upon further review the whole Harrison Ford cameo to lend credibility to a new Indiana Jones actor has already been done.  BUT the online miniseries is still GENIUS!!

You can also see a tv interview with Harrison Ford about this show HERE.

I LOVE Indiana Jones.  Truth be told I want to be Indiana Jones.  I was 8 going on 9 when Raiders of the Lost Ark hit the big screen.  My childhood home had huge boulders and trees in the backyard that were constantly being used to recreate scenes from the movies.  When I was preparing for my trip to Australia I found out that the original Indy hat was made from an Australian Akubra.  So I made sure to track down a shop and buy a hat there.

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings is a new game for the Wii and the Playstation 2.  My wife bought it for me for Fathers Day and double checked with the store clerk to confirm that the game was NOT available for the Playstation 3.  The PS2 game looks like they made the game for the Wii and then just ported it to the PS2 so they could sell a few more copies.  The game runs pretty linear and keeps you from fully exploring the pixilated environments.  When ever you get into a situation that you don’t know what to do to continue, you just wander for a moment and in the right location the Action button will appear leading you to continue on your quest.  The camera angles and character animations are set to remind you of Indiana Jones, but really, the only reason that I’m still playing the game is so I can get through the story. This Trailer looks good, but I’m not loving the game…yet.