Another lil' peek at the work being done on the Batturtle Productions logo animation. Intentions are for it to be tagged in front of the webisode project. We are working away on that, with plans to premiere online (obviously...seeing as they're webisodes and all) in 2010.

A second run at a Batty character design rotation. This one with a little more detail and shading on him. I've also seen a rough animation of the mini-project, it looks awesome.

This upcoming Friday night marks the greatest cross-promotion screening event in the history of the Mayfair! Roller derby girls AND 'Switchblade Sisters'. If you don't attend you clearly have your priorities all mixed up.

A few short weeks ago, being co-owner of the Mayfair wasn't part of my existence. Of course, much less was it even ever part of my day to day thought process. Now it's a constant and steady topic on my mind. Another thing packed into my already too packed schedule (a 48 hour day and 14 day week would be nice).

If you would have told me that the Mayfair was part of my future in more that a patron capacity though, I would have put up a hazard of a guess that my first suggestion of a movie to play might be 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'...maybe 'Big Trouble in Little China'. I would never have guessed that it would've been 'The Wiz'. Stranger things have happened I guess. So, if you're free Thursday night around nine or so, head on over to the Mayfair for a bizarre remake of Wizard of Oz starring Michael Jackson. I'll see yah there.

My friend (and conveniently enough also an animator) Cara Rowlands is currently working on an opening title thing for Batturtle Productions. A lil' project that I've been meaning to get underway for like a million years or so. The instigating factor was I wanted something neat to put in front of the currently in pre-production webisode series.

Here's the rotation for Batty. Where we finally get confirmation that he does indeed have a shell!

The Mayfair opened in 1932. In 2009 I became a co-owner.

Hope everyone has an Alpha Flight-tastic Canada Day. I will be crewing at some concert festivities like a chump. Or at least stuck there, hiding from the rain and not working because it looks like thunderstorms. No BBQ themed day off for me.

I'm working on a couple projects at the moment. Neither of which can I really talk about. Which makes blog updates a bit uneventful and difficult. I can at least say that one is a web-series and one is a comic book, and progress is happening on both.

The artist sent in the thumbnail layouts for issue three of the comic mini-series (it's five issues total). And even just at that stage it has me really excited. Can't wait to see it all penciled and inked.

Looking into getting an short bit of animation done for my mascot Batty there. Something quick and short for the opening titles of the web-series. Been meaning to get something like that done for an age, will be cool to see Batty in motion. Now if only I could get an action figure made in his likeness.

This upcoming Friday (May 29th) the Mayfair Theatre will be screening 'Young People Fucking' as their late late show (11PM). The movie is being shown as part of Canterbury High School's 40th anniversary, as it was directed by Canterbury alum Martin Gero.

Glenn Cockburn (one of the film's producers) will be in attendance to introduce the movie.

Tickets available at the theatre ($5 for members, $9 for non-members).

A movie that I worked on a lil' while back will have it's premiere this upcoming Friday night (May 22nd) at 7PM at the Nepean Creative Arts Centre (35 Stafford Road, Nepean...aka...Ottawa). Admission is $5.00.

Attack of the Giant Leeches is director Brett Kelly's re-make of the Roger Corman produced 1959 drive-in cult classic. A film which also got the MST3K treatment in 1992:

Dr. Forrester: Ah! Robinson, Servo, Mr. T. Robot! Our invention this week is inspired by this week's experiment, "Attack of the Giant Leeches". In ye olden times, alchemists believed that leeches served medicinal purposes.

TV's Frank: So do we!

Dr. Forrester: Uh, yes um, we found that the common fresh water leech uh, can serve the same purpose as a nicotine patch, and being neither food nor drug, there's no pesky FDA regulation to impede your progress and I can experiment at will. Frank?

TV's Frank: At your service.

Dr. Forrester: Our subject, Frank, has been trying to quit smoking for quite some time. He's a three pack-a-day man.

TV's Frank: No I'm not!

Dr. Forrester: Yes you are, shut up. Now this leech, we'll call him Patches...

TV's Frank: Yah!

Dr. Forrester: When applied to the neck or head area, will suck any desire to smoke out of Frank.

TV's Frank: No, no, no, no! No! No! No, I'm the sum of my vices! I have my pain, my happiness, my losses, my love! My struggles, my hobbies, my lent! I want to live! I want to live! I want to live! And love! And learn! And live!

Dr. Forrester: But this won't hurt a bit.

TV's Frank: Oh, Ok.

Dr. Forrester: Uh, there you go. Now, Patches, I'm depending on you, ya slug!

TV's Frank: Say, this is the most action I've ever got.

Yay for Free Comic Book Day!!!

This picture by Eric Talbot has nothing to do with me or Batturtle Productions. Except for if I had thought of it, I totally would have gotten him to draw me something like this one of the couple of times that I met him.

As I've stated on here in an earlier post, I prefer to add some form of picture along with my little blog updates. Alas, I don't have any photographic or art related stuff from the past month or so. Not that I haven't been busy. Work plows along on a couple projects that I can't really talk about just yet. Believe me, I wish I could gush about them but have been sworn to secrecy.

One (which I think I'm allowed to say is a comic book) is painfully close to hitting some form of maybe finding a publisher. It's such an insane uphill battle though. And I can't even say "but I can't complain"...'cause oh boy, could I ever complain about a couple of things that have happened to us in regards to finding a home for this thing and having it become an actual for real on paper comic book.

A couple posts ago I said I wanted to do something a bit more long form this year (like a feature length film). Which I would. But, out of nowhere (as good ideas have a tendency to often come from) a project that would be in a definite non-feature type format is on it's way to becoming a reality. As with that other project that's mentioned above, this too also involves comic books. Except they're more involved in the characters workplace location. I usually am extremely hard on my own writing...and I wrote something for this project that I think is my favorite thing that I've ever done. And that's a lot for me to fess up to considering my normal state of self deprecation.

On the weekend, crewed for a lil' bit on a comic book based shoot titled 'The Scarab'. Would've liked to have worked on it more, but had to ditch out 'cause I was already booked elsewhere. Anyhow, will contribute more work towards it in upcoming weeks.

Above is a shot of one of the costumed characters from the picture, The Woman in Red.

I guess this image could count as Blast From the Past #3 (I don't have drawers full of cool sketches like the TMNT blog has at it's disposal). That's me with a clipboard holding the lined shooting script, looking at a video assist monitor. This was taken during the shooting of one of the Villains shorts, which if I remember correctly was somewhere around 1950. Seems that long ago anyhow.

In more current news, am busy trying to get a few projects going:
I just wrote an 8 page back-up story for a friends comic book mini-series. The series that I co-wrote with Howard Wong is in the limbo of being shopped out to publisher's. In other writing related news, trying to figure out what to do with a trio of finished feature length scripts I have. Using them to sell out in some way would be just grand.

Also possibly re-tooling the ole' Comic Book Connection idea after having been inspired by a couple feature length doc's. Might be easier (well...easier is probably the wrong word) to focus the idea into a documentary with a beginning, middle, and end instead of a series straight away.

Basically, in 2009 I hope to do a longer project in some form. Fiction or doc... maybe both. If I can fit ambition and productivity in-between time spent at the Mayfair watching movies that is.

Will 2009 be awesome?
Magic Eight Ball says..."YES"
The Magic Eight Ball never lies!!!

From our home town of Ottawa...Kodos, Kang and I hope that all of you Quantum Presbyterians out there have an excellent Holiday season.

My good deed of the day (or week...or month...possibly longer) was to walk around my neighbourhood for a bit today, getting the new Mayfair schedules into some places of business and into people's hands. When I first saw the schedule a couple days ago, I became a little spellbound. On this one month of movies alone, the first of many schedules to come, the Mayfair has I think become one of the best movie theatres not just in Canada, but anywhere.

Check out the Mayfair website for more details on the screenings. And be sure to come out on January 2nd for the grand re-opening, featuring a free screening of some local shorts and the classic film 'Metropolis'.

The Killer63 screening is tomorrow. Go see it!

I have three things that I love about Halloween nowadays:
1) There's the eating of all the candy leftover from my friends house 'cause there's hardly any trick-or-treaters.
2) All the great old horror movies on TCM.
3) Girls in skimpy super hero costumes.
Happy Halloween!