Weighing In

I've divided my weekdays up so as to introduce an element of routine. I always get more work done when I allocate time for it - if I just let the days pass by I tend to work more in fits and starts. It gets very tempting to lapse into a habit of working only when the mood takes me. For the last fortnight I've managed to stick to a pretty easy timetable.
•8:30am-9am - Drag my fat ass out of bed, brew some coffee and get the three 'S's out of the way.
•9am-9:15am - Exercise. Usually just something light to wake myself up properly.
•9:15am-9:30am - Breakfast (banana or big handful of grapes) and work prep.
•9:30am-1pm - Work. If I don't have any commissions to work on I use this time to scour listings and postings for any. Once I've bled those dry I work on design and animation exercises to keep me in the swing of things.
•1pm-2pm - Lunch break
•2pm-4pm - More work.
•4pm-5pm - Get out of the apartment, see the sun if it's out, walk a little and try not to spend much money.
•5pm-7:30pm - More work.
•7:30pm-10:30pm - Once I've done a full work day I use this time for personal projects, classes, meeting up with people or working on self-promotion (portfolio/showreel work, festival submissions etc). Generally a light dinner will get factored in somewhere here.
•10:30pm-11pm - Exercise. A little more thorough than in the morning, usually mellows me out some.
If I'm not done with the day at 11pm I make a point of working on my still in-progress Struwwelpeter album. Generally this comes to about a half-hour a day. As this is the most hobby-ish of my personal projects I make a point of not spending too much time on it each day.
It's been working well so far. I'm ticking boxes at a faster rate than before, plus by keeping myself occupied I'm sticking to my weight loss plan and have gone down from 104kg to 102kg. This is around 4lbs, which ordinarily would be a little bit too fast, but whenever I start up the weight loss there's always a bigger drop to begin with.

Guess what band I'm gonna talk about in this post?

I realised something this week, that pop-culture in 2009 has become eerily tailored to my tastes. There's nothing new that really grabs me, but some old franchises are being revived. The Rocky, Rambo, Indiana Jones and Transformers fans of the world were, in the last couple years, treated to new outings for their beloved childhood protagonists. Not having much nostalgic investment in those properties, I felt a little bit left out. Well, actually I didn't really give a crap either way, but let's say I did for the purposes of setting up this entry.
2009 so far promises three triumphant revivals from my own childhood - one being, of course, the completely unexpected return of Faith No More. In June there's the GhostBusters video game, an equally unexpected revival bringing back the original cast, including Bill Murray (who was to GhostBusters as Mike Patton was to Faith No More in their shared insistence on never being part of any reunion).The third franchise being resurrected is another pleasant surprise - Red Dwarf. I would've put money on that ol' chestnut staying dead'n'buried, but in April they're dusting it off and giving it a handful of new episodes that might hopefully resolve the cliffhanger it ended on a decade ago.
Faith No More, GhostBusters and Red Dwarf? Those made up, like, 70% of my pre-adolescence! What's next - is David Lynch gonna whip out a sequel to 'Fire Walk With Me'? Are they gonna do a 'Bill & Ted 3'? Is Raul Julia gonna have the good manners to come back from the dead so we can have a proper new 'Addams Family' movie? Will Clive Barker finally release the fucking 'Scarlet Gospels'?
When I previously used the phrase 'triumphant revivals', I did so whilst knocking on wood. After all, they haven't happened yet, so I don't really know how triumphant they'll be. Y'see, friends, I'm cautious - I've been burned before...
Faith No More's final LP 'Album Of The Year' is notable for being merely great, as opposed to their three albums prior that were incandescently brilliant.
Okay, bad example.
But that same year (1997) there was an attempt to bring GhostBusters back with...ugh...'Extreme GhostBusters', an ill-advised, 'hip' update with youthful character replacements that ticked every ethnic box. It wasn't horrendously awful, and as an animation fan there's some fun in the visuals, but it's painful messages (tolerance, equality and a number of other social issues that, by that time, should've been a given) undermined themselves in their lack of subtlety.
Also in 1997 (kind of a weird coincidence in retrospect) the brilliant 'Red Dwarf VI' was finally given a follow-up - the dreadful 'Red Dwarf VII'. Two years later came 'Red Dwarf VIII', which wasn't as bad but was still no great shakes.
These were all forgivable enough, however it was a completely seperate revival that took my beloved childhood memories and literally screwed them in the arse...

To be continued...

Shininess! Lovely, lovely shininess!

I put in a mini order of 'House Guest' graphic novels when I published it last week, and they arrived today. I have to say the end result is way better than I had anticipated. Given the nature of Lulu, and that it's essentially a vanity-publishing company, I kind of expected some issues - washed-out colours, drab paper, loose binding, accidental cropping and so forth. As far as I can tell it came out perfect.The cover is lovely and shiny, the text on the spine is perfectly aligned, the writing is legible - it really makes for a top quality product. But inside is even better - the colours are more vibrant and the paper more smooth than, in all honesty, most actual graphic novels I own.As far as the actual content...well, whether that's any good or not depends on the reader. I quite like it, obviously, but I'm a self-aggrandising shithead. If you go onto the Lulu order page there is an option to look inside and preview the book, so people can try before they buy. I picked the Prospective Lay scene, which is a pretty fair representation of the book's style and sense of humour on the whole.

As I've mentioned before, the book not only has the entire adaptation of the film but also a bunch of extras, including layouts, concept art and piccies. It's a nice little package all round, if I say so myself. For those of you who want to be more eco-friendly and don't necessarily share my geeky enthusiasm for paper quality, remember it can also be purchased as a digital download for half the price. If you're into the universe of graphic novels or know people who are, please spread the word.

Weighty Matters

So, the officialness of Faith No More's official return was even more officially officiated today when it was announced that they will be headlining this year's Download Festival. It's a safe bet to assume I'll be there. In my ignited enthusiasm I've been digging out collected rarities and merchandise from the band that I picked up at record fairs, market stalls and, of course, eBay. One such item is an old shirt I had when I was twelve, but my love for oversized Dairy Milk bars won out against my love for the band, and by the time I was thirteen it didn't fit anymore. Along with my various other projects, I'm determined to kickstart an ongoing personal endeavour that had plateaued for a while - shifting some of my bulk.

In 2005 I resolved to lose weight, for several reasons - mainly as a check-up revealed some potential liver problems.Around the same time, 'My Name Is Earl' debuted and I was astonished to see how much weight Ethan Suplee had lost since 'American History X' (a brilliant, underrated flick that he is both amazing and terrifying in). The clincher came that same month, when I made the geekiest trek in my life to date - meeting Pinhead. At the same convention was Ashley Lawrence, and the blurry photo of her and I looked alarmingly like a publicity still of Kirsty Cotton and Butterball, the hyper-obese cenobite.

(Left) Ashley Lawrence with some kind of blubbery monster. (Right) Ashley Lawrence in 'Hellraiser'...

From this trilogy of events I subsequently stuck to my guns for two years and lost over 100lbs. By the beginning of 2008 I'd hit my target weight and all my health concerns were no longer an issue, so for all of last year the loss slowed to a crawl, and I dropped a comparatively meager 15lbs overall. Still, my BA and MA graduation photos look like a before-and-after Subway diet commercial.

Now I think I'm ready to kick things into gear again, as I'm still well above my BMI. While I've lost over 130lbs all told, I wasn't just fat to begin with. I was fucking gigantic - we're talking that-guy-from-'Lost' proportions. Right now I weigh in at about 104kg, which is about 230lbs. If I set a new weight-loss target for 95kg (about 210lbs) by the time Faith No More play at Download, I may even fit into the shirt I haven't been able to wear for thirteen years.

It's still depressingly snug at the moment...

If you're wondering what the connection is between the reformation of my childhood idols and weight loss - well, there isn't one. Except that there have been few certainties in life, one being that Faith No More would never get back together. Every time Mike Patton was asked about the possibility since their split, he insisted that 'there was no music left', that it would be a 'chicken shit' move and that he wouldn't be the singer if it happened. Whether he now legitimately believes that enough time has passed for those reasons to be rendered moot, or just that the credit crunch has forced them to ride the reunion train, Faith No More are touring again and Patton's name is included in the line-up.
My long-winded point is this - if Faith No More can get back together, anything can happen. If Faith No More can get back together, I could be a director one day. If Faith No More can get back together, I could be published one day. If Faith No More can get back together, I could be thin...well, thin-ish.
It's March 1st, and I have three and a half months to go. I can do this thing...

Get Literate!

Ah, Ben Mitchell - man about town, Jesus/hobbit lookalike, connoisseur of fine DVD box-sets - and now, graphic novelist!Hurray! I finished the 'House Guest' graphic novel! It took quite a bit longer than I would've thought, but free time is not the concept it once was back in the day. I really didn't want this to die on the vine so I persevered with it during the little chunks of free time I could find and incrementally it came together.

For the last stage of getting the book together, I called upon Jo Hepworth, fittingly enough as she was the main animation assistant on the original film. As she helped out so much with the cleanup and colouring for most of the source artwork, I'd intended to credit her on the cover anyway. Luckily she was able to assist even further by doing all the lettering. As I was dissatisfied with the look of the font in the dialogue balloons, and as my own handwriting is on a par with that of the criminally insane, it was great to enslave Jo once again for my zombie duck storytelling purposes. Just when she thought she was out...

Replacing the typed text with Jo's lettering to give it more of a proper comic-book look.

She also took the time to pen the afterword for the book, as I had one page going spare and wanted to give potential readers a break from my own ramblings.

At any rate, I'm very happy and excited and will hopefully be able to reach another audience with the story now that it's a comic as well as a film.
You can check it out on Lulu by clicking here.
It's available as a standard paperback, or you can buy a digital download version if you're into the environment - plus, hey, it's cheaper.

Happy Day!

So, since the last post Adam Carolla's doing just fine - his podcast is already #1.
Much as I admire the guy (and I really do), any concern for his fate would have been banished to the back of my mind when I read this today:
Faith No More to reunite for European Tour
It was as though somebody were playing a mean-spirited jape on my person. Et tu, Guardian? So I hunted out the story on other sites to corroborate it. Amongst my findings was this:
Faith No More Bassist Talks Reunion, Reveals Lineup
From Bill Gould's mouth. I'm stunned. The one thing that was guaranteed to never, ever happen in my lifetime has happened.
Faith No More are back together.
There is now a chance that the remorse I've carried for the last decade, having never gotten to see them live (they split when I was 14), might be eschewed.
There's a chance I'll get to see Faith No More live.
Faith No More. Faith No fucking More.
Just to let the world know, if you have any bad news for me that you've been sitting on, now would be the time to tell me. Because I'm so beyond elated you could be screwing all my exes at the same time and I'd just be inclined to give you a hug.

Faith No More. Did not see that one coming.

Sad Day

The radio station KLSX has switched formats and, as a consequence, dropped all its talk shows. This includes the Adam Carolla Show, which I listened to on a pretty much constant basis while working on ‘House Guest’. Once the film was done I even called in to thank them personally for unknowingly helping me with the MA.
Carolla has already set up his own podcast which I’m sure will do well, but I’m still a little sad to see the show go.
Here’s a little highlight that always makes me smile:

So, to the Ace Man, Bald Bryan and Teresa - mahalo.

At the risk of confusing Sinbad fans...

'House Guest', not to be confused with the Sinbad/Phil Hartman chestnut 'Houseguest' (one word) is now listed on IMDB!
Which means...which means...
Well, it doesn't really mean anything. You don't get a lot of action dropping the term 'IMDB' into chat-up lines. Trust me, I've been bar-hopping all night trying it out and I think they mostly assumed it was an abbreviation for some kind of scary STD. But I guess the film's a little more legit in industry terms.
What's quite neat is that by default all my friends whose names appear in the end credits are now listed too. Some are enthusiastic, others have no clue what IMDB even is.
It's a nice contributor to the modest reception the film has received so far. I would say that by mid-2009 I'll have tapped all the prospective festivals for screenings (unless I start going Stateside, most of which have pretty harsh entry fees) and I'll then lay it to rest. It's a good outcome though - this is the first film of this kind I've ever done, and most people's first films never even get seen.
I think, ultimately, my career won't be predicated on 'House Guest' - but it's given me a good kick up the arse in the right direction.Once again, just to clarify, this one definitely isn't my film. RIP Phil.

Animated Exeter

It’s worth mentioning that next week is Animated Exeter’s 10-year anniversary, and the festival looks like it’ll be a good’un.
Although my film wasn’t eligible for submission (they have a runtime cutoff of 8 minutes and ‘House Guest’ comes in at just under 15) a few friends of mine will be having their films shown on Friday 13th February during the ‘Best Of The West’ competition. From my graduating class I recommend you check out Vibeke Cleaverley’s ‘The Mason’, Sara Barbas’s ‘Wherever You Go, There You Are’, Lucia Morgan’s ‘The Legend of The Bat’ and Michael Rokes’s ‘Bertha & Bruno’. The latter film I did the music for, but I’m rooting for them all equally (in case any of them read this).
Also Sara Barbas (who recently won a Best Portuguese Director award) will be giving a talk on lip sync as part of the festival’s ‘Big Careers Day’ earlier in the afternoon.
If I can gather the scrilla I really hope to be able to make it, as in addition to these there are several other noteworthy screenings, including ‘The BAFTA Event’ featuring work by film-makers such as Nick Park and the Brothers McLeod.
More info is, naturally, on the official website.

Little Stubby Arms

Just a quick entry to draw your attention to some YouTube loveliness. This was animated by Jo Hepworth (my main assistant on 'House Guest' and all-around standup gal) for the 10-second competition I mentioned previously. Said competition was delayed and as yet still hasn't been rescheduled, but if it ever is then I reckon this'd be a strong contender. I think it's pretty cute: