Donnie Darko and Frank watch the Jack and Jill Trailer

So I've been very concerned with the Jack and Jill (2011) trailer I stumbled upon the other day...I mean, hey we are all expecting a groaner for any Adam Sandler movie, but this was just too much. After seeing two video mashups of George C. Scott and Sam Neil watching the trailer, I decided to give this one a go, and created the Donnie Darko mashup. (Later saw a Nic Cage version as well - possible meme picking up steam?!)

Anyway, I made this in iMovie '11. Put the trailer on one track and slapped some Darko cutaways on top. The scene is perfect - I constructed it too look like Frank had already seen the trailer one or two times, and Jake Gyllenhaal is all like "You gotta be kidding me right?! This is a sick joke right?!)

Alas...it's real, as is Al Pacino's role in it.

Honest Ape Productions Presents: Zoo Fling 3D

I'm currently in a class called IM 313: Intermediate Interactive Media Authoring, which as it turns out is a big fancy way of describing a class that goes through the complete process of creating, designing, developing, and promoting a video game. There were three local "topics" to randomly chose from which required various levels of involvement or thematic punch. My group, upon naming ourselves Honest Ape Productions, received on a slip of paper the simple words Peoria Zoo. 


I took charge of the 2D art of the game, creating a GUI, menu screens, buttons, etc., in Photoshop that were given to our programmer. I also created our app icon, and dabbled in some sound effects.

The real brunt of the work actually came from creating the website, which I designed off of a free template and made various modifications. I learned a few new things for this, including some basic Java editing for the dynamic slider on the home page. I also used anchor tags for the first time, to link to sections on the page (so I only had to create 4 pages instead of 7.) I did all the artwork for the site, and wrote all the copy besides a few programming paragraphs and bios. I'm very happy with the website, and if you want to learn more about the game and the art for it, check it out!

http://honestapeproductions.com

Nic Cage As Everyone

*Modified Photo

I have several thoughts on the acting caliber of Mr. Nic Cage...but won't go into them. I was bored and happened to do one of my favorite activities: face-swapping. Nic Cage as a (female) body builder. This one took a record 8-minutes!

Click Here for more info on the meme.
Click Here to see the original picture.

Offerbug.com

It's been a while since I've updated the blog, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy - the folks over at PulseTV.com asked me to design and develop their latest deal of the day website - Offerbug.com. I was part of the creative process from the beginning, forming the logo and solidifying a suitable tagline "We take the "bite" out of retail!"

The logo went through several changes, and that cute little bug initially started out as a bee - but it turns out there was already a similar mascot for a different deal of the day site. So I created this hybrid-beetle-thing and selected the color scheme of black and green.

I eventually created a Photoshop mockup of the page layout, playing off the established color scheme and strove for a minimalist site, since there really is not too much going on besides product description. The mockup was then sent to the developers and coders over at PulseTV, and they reproduced the look as faithfully as possible while we collaborated on updates, and necessary graphic work.

Check out the site here http://offerbug.com

Wes Anderson Desktop Wallpaper

I remember the first time I watched Bottle Rocket. My roommate said it was one of his favorite movies, and even though I had things to work on, I figured I'd at least sit down and do things on my laptop. Within a half hour, I had shut my laptop and focused solely on this movie - it was just too funny, quirky, and engrossing. I wasn't a huge fan of Owen Wilson at the time (Shanghai Noon?) and I had only seen Luke Wilson in Old School. But the movie was awesome, and introduced me to the world of Wes Anderson.

In this world, there are often stupid, yet life-affirming characters who desperately combat all kinds of psychology-fueled defense mechanisms and depression. In this world, comedy comes from normal people doing slightly abnormal things, and being gosh-darned proud of it. In this world, people wear shorts. After watching one, I had to finish, and watched the rest - Rushmore, The Royal Tennenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and The Darjeeling Limited. I decided to make a sweet desktop wallpaper with a collage of his films just for fun. They're all there - Bill Murray, the Wilsons, Gene Hackman, Adrian Brody, and the rest of the bunch. I made this before Fantastic Mr. Fox came out, but I probably wouldn't have included the puppetry anyway.

I really tried playing with the flow of the images, and even made Jeff Goldblum wrap his arm around Owen Wilson just for the heck of it.

Trigun/Hellsing Guitar

Before I get too carried away here, it should be said that the guitars below are NOT actually real guitars, they are merely Photoshopped mockups that I did for fun one day. I snapped a picture of my sweet red/black electro-acoustic (3/4 scale) and thought about what I would do to modify it. I made these in 2009.

That first picture is of the original guitar (strings

removed of course) And next is the Trigun version I did. The black and red scheme made me think of the overall imagery of the series, so I thought it was a natural choice. The Trigun guitar was made with various images grabbed from the web, and the "bullet holes" were also just grabbed online, probably from those window decals for your car. I also decided if I were to do this, I would spray paint the inside black to make it extra cool.

After making the Trigun one, I instantly thought of making a Hellsing guitar, since I just got into the series around this time, and thought Alucard (it's Dracula backwards!) was pretty badass, and deserved his own guitar. I used mostly the Multiply layer effect, though some were Darken. I also Colorized a few, to make sure that it was completely monochromatic with red and black. I thought about adding bullet holes as well, but it would have been too busy. I also added the magic pentagram thingy from the show in the sound hole.

I'm not exactly sure how I would go about doing this in real life...perhaps create some transparent .pngs onto sticker paper and then apply some kind of gloss to the whole thing.

The White Stripes Break Up

The White Stripes have won Grammys, made six studio albums, and sold millions of those records. And today, on February 2, 2011, they announced their breakup.

I found out when a Myspace(yeah, I still have a page, mostly to follow a handful of bands) email notification told me the White Stripes had a new blog posting. In it, there was a short, but well-thought out message to the world’s fans that the band had indeed “officially ended and will make no further new recordings or perform live.” With an elephant-heavy heart, I checked and rechecked the internet for confirmation, and wondered if this wasn’t some hoax.

I know in my heart I saw it coming earlier, but pushed it further and further away from my analytic brain, for fear of the truth. The band’s been on hiatus for a few years now, with their last album Icky Thump coming out in 2007. The album itself was a bit of a stretch for the band and Jack White’s maturation as an artist clashed with earlier aesthetics of the band. Put all six album covers in a row, and pick out the one that doesn’t quite belong – it’s the pearly king and queen of Icky Thump that have a slight air of weariness to them.

Album art aside, the band seemed to understand their position, and in a way to ease the transition they released the 2009 concert tour/documentary Under Great White Northern Lights. It is a beautiful tribute to the band as a whole, and a touching parting gift for fans. If only we realized it at the time.

The band’s farewell message seems all at once too vague and profound, as they wish to “preserve what is beautiful and special about the band and have it stay that way.” What exactly was so beautiful and special about that band in the first place? Everything. The childlike duo’s air of curiosity and innocence fueled their creative process and visual dynamics. What was great was that the band was growing up in the prime of its pre-conceived childhood. What they didn’t count on was the maturation beyond those years.

Jack White’s collaborations within the Raconteurs, and Dead Weather have given him the musical equivalent of studying abroad as a teenager – he’s grown up amongst different cultures and changed. It may not be better or worse; but it is different. He’s no longer the wide-eyed kid with a plastic guitar in a garage.

When I said the White’s had an air of weariness to them, it wasn’t as if they were weary of playing music, of being together. They were weary of pretending and keeping up the act and suppressing the creative maturation they know they have gained over the years.

The farewell letter states that Jack and Meg hope the fans see it as “a positive move done out of respect for the art and music that the band has created.” You have to appreciate the dedication of the band, to forcibly get back into their old mindset, and when they can no longer do it, they call it a day. A lesser band would continue using their name as only a vehicle for music no longer relevant to their original intent.

It should be said that I am relieved the band hadn’t waited til they put out a bad record to announce the breakup. They had six amazing records. I still wouldn’t rule out musical collaborations between the two (I suspect that they would simply say that it was done by Jack and Meg White, as opposed to the band name). Jack is of course always working on the next great project – he’s collaborating with Norah Jones and Danger Mouse for a March 2011 album.

Even though I fully understand it, and even applaud the decision, I’m still slightly heartbroken. I remember watching the electrifying Grammy performance of “Seven Nation Army” in 2004, before I even knew about the band. I remember listening to Elephant on a burned CD-R over and over on a portable CD player during a family trip. I heard the “Icky Thump” single on the day of my senior prom. I have grown up with this band and eagerly awaited each release.

The closing of the letter sums it up nicely. “The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore. The White Stripes belong to you know and you can do with it whatever you want. The beauty of art and music is that it can last forever if people want it to.”

I agree.

(Read the breakup letter here)

Published in the BU Scout

Kurt Cobain Tribute Poem

It's been a while since I last posted, I chalk that up to enjoying my last winter break. Can ya believe adults with careers don't have winter breaks!? I didn't quite grasp that til now...but I felt like I haven't been as creative (outside a few freelance posters and banner ads) as I usually am without professorial encouragement - so I decided to make a little art piece out of one of my poems.

I never would have thought it would work out as well as it did, but I took a creative writing course last semester just for fun, and it specialized in poetry (I found out a week before class started). I wasn't disappointed or anything, I figured I could get by. The class was taught by Illinois Poet Laureate, Kevin Stein, and was one of the best courses I've taken at Bradley. We were constantly creating and critiquing, and the class fostered a community of poets eager to help each other improve.

The poem itself is my personal favorite that I have written in my beginning life as a poet. I was almost afraid to write a poem about Kurt Cobain, since I didn't want to let myself down in failing to convey the right mood. I also just wanted it to be good - Nirvana changed my life in many ways, and I wanted to do both Kurt and the band the artistic justice they deserve.

I hunted around morguefile.com to find some photos with a Creative Commons license, and simply typed in "seattle." I sifted through dozens and on one of the last pages was this bench that I used. If I'm not mistaken there are a few benches in Seattle that serve as tribute locations for Cobain, and this one had a perfect close up that demonstrated the reverence, hero worship, sadness, and celebration of one person. Thanks to Kristine Kisky for the photo and making it available!

I lowered the saturation of the whole thing, to make it mostly black and white, til the flower colors were the only bits of color. I shrunk it a bit and added a black Inner Glow to the whole frame, as well as added some gradient layer masking to make the image fade on the sides a bit more. I toyed with the idea of adding all kinds of images of cardigans, torn jeans, and maybe a Fender Jagstang - but I thought it was better with this simple display. I chose a Courier-type font (American Typewriter) because it, presents the poem in a straight-forward way (thanks for articulating that for me Lauren!) Cursive-fonts made it seem too girly/sentimental, and that's not what I was going for.

I plan on submitting this poem, among others, to some journals and things eventually. A few of them are begging for artistic accompaniments, so I may do that!

Standoff: Editing Exercise

For the final project in Nonlinear Post Production, the class had to collectively edit an entire episode of the cancelled FOX show, Standoff, starring Ron Livingston. The show is about FBI hostage negotiators, and has a few familiar TV faces on it besides Livingston. (I was happy to see Firefly's Gina Torres having a small part as well.) It only aired 6 episodes, and we got allllllll the footage they shot for the episode entitled "Heroine". After this project, I got to say "Look Ma! I edited a whole TV show!"

The class was divided in teams of two, for each team to edit one of the four acts. One team volunteered to also tackle the trailer for extra credit. I was appointed Supervising Editor (a decision made based on the quality of my previous work in the class, such as the shoe commercials and an edited scene from the TV series Angel.

This was the first time I have edited with a partner or collaborated with anyone really. My partner, Andrew Darling was also appointed Supervising Audio Engineer for displaying his own proficiencies at soundscaping and audio selections on other projects. He is a skilled and easy-going partner who also wanted a professional end result. Sometimes we edited together, getting and giving input on editing decisions, and other times we worked alone. Both methods worked out fine, and the end result speaks for itself.

After our act was finished I also had to edit the others for continuity, content, and time. The final cut had to be 44 minutes, and ours was 49 all together. As Supervising Editor, I had to cut scenes that were not necessary, trim dialogue, and cut long segments (instead of a continuous shot of someone walking to get a door - I just showed the door opening). I had to color correct certain segments, and seek footage that was not included for our project. I searched for HD footage of Los Angeles to use for scene transitions, and grabbed some footage off of the Hulu video of the same episode (such as opening/closing credits). It was an intense project that required many hours of work, but was a blast and I'm very proud of the show and the work my fellow classmates put in.

The clip below is the climax of the show, and the act Andrew and I edited together. Sorry it isn't in YouTube format, they claimed I violated come copyright stuff, and some morons didn't understand the refute I sent them.

*Update: Here's the embedded video courtesy of Vimeo!

Nirvana Desktop Wallpaper

Due to the popularity of the White Stripes wallpaper, I thought I'd upload the Nirvana Wallpaper I made a few years ago (2007). It was one of the first projects I did with Photoshop on my first-ever Mac, so I was just gettin the hang of it, and using layer effects for the first time. There are plenty of GLARING errors (at least to me) and things I'd like to improve upon one day. I'd also like to resize it a bit better. But for now, I'm just gonna upload it. Obviously focused primarily on Kurt Cobain, but Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl are there too...

A-Phlatt's Mixtape

While working at 747 Productions for my internship, Andre "A-Phlatt" Russel asked if I would be willing to design him an album cover for his upcoming mixtape - Mr. Feature Vol. I, The Double Disc Edition. I said sure, and came up with three variations before settling on this one. The design process was completed within 3 days.

The original image of A-Phlatt himself was not the best quality photo - colors were bland and the image was pretty blurry. After isolating him from the background, I converted it to a black and white image. I applied a light "Dark Strokes" filter in Photoshop to him, which provides a nice high-contrast smoothness without making it any blurrier. I used a gradient overlay to get that blue-pinkish purple color for A-Phlatt, and created a different gradient for the blues in the background. After looking at Lil Wayne's Carter IV album, we decided to use a fancier font (Snell Roundhand) for A-Phlatt's name to contrast with the grungy and bold type everywhere else (Impact font with some grunge brushes overlaid on top).

The city was created with merging several shapes of city skylines together, and is no city in particular as far as I know. I then added the splatter shapes below and merged the two and added a yellow stroke around everything to really make it pop. Using a few other brushes, I added the greens and yellow-red flourishes all around for a more soulful touch, like it is surrounding A-Phlatt (who looks pretty imposing over the city skyline). Overall I think it encompasses classiness and boldness at the same time. That QMG logo is semi-transparent, and is positioned to be kinda at the heart of the city, without interfering with it. I also created matching promotional flyers for the release - which is coming up on December 17th! Check out "She Betty Boopin'" below. (My flyer is at the beginning and end of the slideshow!) The song is pretty damn catchy...

White Stripes Wallpaper

To commemorate the return of Conan O'Brien and the appearance of Jack White on the new TBS show, I decided to get artsy-fartsy and make a desktop wallpaper. (By the way, if you havent seen the rockabilly performance that Conan and Jack did, look it up - it's pretty cool).

The main idea for the poster came from a poem I've been working on - it's still in the works, but the title is "Jack and Meg". The poem is a descriptive journey through the world that the White Stripes have created and their roles as children wandering and battling with Meg's wooden sticks and Jack's plastic guitar. (It definitely sounds better in the poem). I decided to focus on the ideals of the White Stripes, from the earlier days of Elephant and White Blood Cells, and kind of ignored the more experimental styles of Get Behind Me Satan. The duo themselves went back to their older style for tours promoting Icky Thump, so a few images are from that era as well.

I hunted around for some rolling grassy hills and found a great one with a beaten grass path right in the middle. I colorized it red, and then duplicated the hills with a different layer effect to create some of the highlights in the grass. For the white path, I just cut out that part, made it black and white, and messed with contrast/brightness. I took out some trees I didn't like, and removed the sky - since I would be creating my own. I messed with the Render Clouds filter and placed it over a pure red background and a very light vector starburst shape. I placed a peppermint candy "sun" right in the middle of the starburst, and added some inside and outside glow effects.

The skyline features a few larger than life images of Jack and Meg, and I messed with a few layer effects to get them to look how I wanted. Found a cool picture of an African elephant since they have bigger ears and are overall cooler than Indian elephants (no offense). I messed with positioning and gaussian blur to create a sense of perspective, and had a little Jack White leading the elephants with guitar in hand, like a Pachedermal Pied Piper. I wanted more images of the group, so I took the cover of Elephant, and had them sitting in the tall grass, with Jack looking straight up at the peppermint sun. The lightning effects were added to give it a little more "color" (white isnt a color, but I just wanted more white).

After creating the initial wallpaper, I realized the aspect ratio and sizing was a little off, so I also made a more horizontally-friendly version using the clone tool to "stretch" out the landscape, and added more lightning (below). It was a lot of fun to do, but it makes me miss the White Stripes...obviously love all of Jack's other endeavors, but there's something really special about Jack and Meg together.

Rack Room Shoes :30 Ad (2)

This is another commercial for Rack Room Shoes, and the assignment was the same: create a 30 second commercial using hours of footage by the same guy who directed the other one. This one is pretty self explanatory, I color-corrected the whole video with a little more yellow to give it a south-western flavor. The rotating shoes at the end was done with some chroma keying effects (green screen) and was the first time I ever used that effect. (I just watched some tutorials online to figure out the basics). The music is "Hello Operator" by the White Stripes, and it's only a coincidence that there is currently a Converse commercial using it nowadays. Or maybe they got the idea from me...

747 Productions Logo

It was a bit of a daunting task: I had only been working at my internship for a few weeks when they asked if I could redesign the logo. I admit, I knew that it needed some serious work the first time I saw it, but I never really thought I was gonna do anything with it. Here's the original stacked up against mine:

The most glaring problem of the original logo was that the design couldn't exist anywhere but a white background. If you wanted to slap it on a poster or something, it would have to include an ugly white rectangle behind it to make it stand out. The easiest way to fix this was to put the contents into a shape so that it at least has some kind of unique form.

I wanted to keep the same basic color scheme, since it had to fit with the same website. I messed with the spacing in "747" to make it fit better in the circle, and wanted it to have that cool shiny web 2.0 button look. So I messed with these layer effects: Gradient Fill, Inner Shadow, Inner Glow, and Bevel/Emboss. I left the main text pretty much as is for it's simple elegance (the font is Monotype Corsiva). I gave the whole shape a slight gray to light-gray gradient, and a light blue outline to tie the colors together.

Rack Room Shoes :30 Ad

In my non-linear post production class, all are assignments are given to us with all the footage, and it is up to us to turn it into something useful. These projects are "tests" that are given to prospective editors to assess their skill level and creativity.

For this project we had to create a 30 second ad (which of course means 29 seconds and 29 frames - that last frame is used to signal the next commercial). The add could not be any longer or we would lose points (makes sense to me). We were only told to use 3 computer graphics: "Smart Shoes" "Dumb Boyfriend" and "Rack Room Shoes" (The shoe company for which the commercial was made for in the mid 90's)

The premise: a daughter invites her new boyfriend out to lunch with her parents at a diner. The father is skeptical of the new guy, and the mom is trying to play peace keeper and just have a nice family outing. Meanwhile, the new boyfriend (Judd) engages the girl in some good ol' fashioned footsie. She gets up and leaves (probably cause she was getting too excited...) and Judd realizes that he was just feeling up Dad.

The difficult part came from culling together the right "scenes" of the commercial from literally hundreds of takes. The project was headed by a first-time director, and he didn't quite know what he wanted. So there were no less than 20 takes of the boyfriend walking into frame. It's kinda nice not having to go out and shoot once in a while...but at the same time, it was super frustrating knowing that these shots could have very easily been gotten without all this hassle. There were also entire sequences and lines that would have been impossible to include in the 30 seconds.

I chose the Black Keys' tune "Howlin' For You" (off of their latest album, Brothers) because the commercial was intended for girls in the south. The southern-blues song has the right mix of sexy and playful moods and has a fun sing-songy chorus. I made the graphics in Photoshop because I thought it would be a good idea to manipulate a single image of text and the arrow instead of using Avid's title tool and then creating another arrow. I also grabbed the Rack Room logo (thanks Google) and threw a light glow around the .png. I thought it turned out pretty good.

Keep in mind...this was shot in the mid 90's...so don't go blaming me for non-HD and whatnot.

Eiffel Tower Power Lines

I always had this grand idea of taking power lines and super imposing the Eiffel Tower in place of each regular thingy. It just kinda reminded me of it - the metal structures holding up each line were just stripped-down, less Parisian version of the Tower itself.

It was done a few summers ago - before I fully refined all my Photoshop techniques. I wish I could say I took the original photograph, but it was actually the second image I found on Google (hope no one minds...) But I mostly used the Clone Tool to paint the sky over the original structures. I then placed a high-contrast image of the Eiffel Tower in each spot where it belongs. I shrunk and lowered the opacity for those that were further away to enhance the illusion of perspective. I also increased the contrast to get a slightly more dramatic sunset. It was just for fun, and was my desktop background for a while.

The Social Network: Movie Review

As Published in The Bradley Scout

When you start a movie off with a White Stripes song, it tends to get my attention and high expectations follow. (I won’t go into detail how Napoleon Dynamite fooled me with similar pretenses...)

Last Saturday, my date and I barely made it in our seats when “Ball and a Biscuit” began rumbling and the Columbia lady popped on the screen. The first scene immediately set the film’s tone and cleared up any confusion that may have occurred from watching the trailers.

Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook Founder/CEO) is a big fat jerk.

The opening scene has Zuckerberg narcissistically ranting about joining exclusive clubs at rapid fire pace at his then girlfriend, while demeaning her intelligence. He is mechanical, unrelenting, and completely self-absorbed and it leads to his girlfriend dumping him and calling him a…well…a big fat jerk (paraphrased).

Thus begins Zuckerberg’s maniacal quest to get recognition. He does it all with relative ease, and his genius never comes into question. After hacking into Harvard’s computer network to create a Hot-or-Not type website, he is approached by some fellow students to program a website that would connect every Harvard student with pictures and personal information. Zuckerberg agrees, and then doesn’t talk to those guys for a while.

In the meantime, he goes to his best (only) friend with an idea for a college social site. His best friend becomes part of the new company, and invests all the initial startup money. Later on down the line, Zuckerberg produces “The Facebook”, ignores that first project for Harvard students, and then leaves his partner and friend in the dust.

The movie weaves in and out of the chronological narrative of the startup of Facebook, and two separate trials of Zuckerberg’s former friends and business partners suing him.

The film artfully unfolds by telling the story from the perspectives of Zukerberg, his then-best friend, Eduardo, and the Harvard guys who asked for the original website. Jesse Eisenberg plays the prodigy-hacker Zuckerberg with the perfect mix of a little bit of vulnerability and a lot of social personality disorders. Sometimes I caught myself liking his “stick it to the man” attitude, but then I was quickly reminded that he’s not being rebellious for any good reason other than furthering his little computer empire. Eduardo, played by Andrew Garfield, offers the most dynamic performance as the once-loyal and only real friend of Zuckerberg. Justin Timberlake also excels as the charismatic and wild card personality of Sean Parker, founder of Napster. The film functions excellently as a character study of the strange habits, motivations and intricacies of friendships and business partners of our time.

The actual soundtrack differs from the widely distributed trailer featuring a choir covering Radiohead’s “Creep”, which has an awe-inspiring yet melancholy feel. It differs for good reason – Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails scored the movie with a characteristic industrial-noise background that adds a dark and foreboding undertone throughout the movie.

The fitting soundtrack aside, the whole movie feels wonderfully tense as it goes back and forth with accusations, lies, excuses, and leaves the audience grasping for truth. The message of the film is vague enough for you to do a double-take before you actually declare him a jealous and misunderstood tragic hero who just needed to belong.

I was only really disappointed with social commentary that was only hinted at with Timberlake’s character. Instead of examining how Facebook changed business, social networking, and the Internet itself – the zeitgeistal shift is overshadowed by a story of ambition and greed. While still valid topics, I still cannot get over how this particular big fat jerk conquered our culture to become the CEO of a $25 billion company. See the movie to understand the history of that little part of your life that you utilize every single day.

Grade: A-

The Bob Dylan Translator

I was in an audio-production class my sophomore year. It was a blast, and among other projects there were PSA's, music mixes, and even a DJ show. We had to make a few 30-60 second commercials with original content, and for this particular commercial, I directed two friends (you would think that they were actually PROFESSIONAL voiceworkers!), Andrew Stewart and Joe Olafsson - two overall cool guys.

I don't know where the idea for a Bob Dylan Translator came from...but I was just getting into his music at the time, so it was a great opportunity to utilize my new favorite artist. The commercial goes like this: two fellas are hangin out, and one laments that he cannot understand what Bob Dylan sings sometimes. The other, luckily, has the official Bob Dylan Translator that helps decipher his lyrical genius.

It's pretty silly, but I thought the humor was there. The robot-like translated part came from recording my Mac's built-in text-to speech capabilities. I wrote out the lyrics and then highlighted them and pressed the command key I set up (I'm not sure what the default is, but mine is option+s) You can learn how to use it here.

The volume is a little low, so you might have to turn up the speakers a bit to hear it properly. To view it on YouTube, check it out here.

Summer Albums That Didn't Suck: The Black Keys, Danger Mouse, and Devo

I spent my whole summer avoiding the radio with whatever kids are listening to thee days - the Beibers, Gagas, and Ke$has. Yeah, I may be a bit of a musical curmudgeon…but I know I’m not the only one uninterested in how many floosies come out of the state of california. (I’m talking to you Katy Perry! And the other five people it took to write that awful song!)

That being said, there was actually some great music released this summer. Here are my three favorite albums of the summer.

The Black Keys: Brothers

Release date: May 18th

Certainly the most accessible album on the list, a few tunes from the Black Keys sixth studio album have already gotten some serious attention. The first single, “Tighten Up” had an award-wining video that has gotten airplay on MTV, and can also be heard in the commercial for the new season of House.

The attention is well-earned, and this may be one of the best albums to date. Each song contributes well to the overall theme of the album, without being an actual “concept” album. It has all the great hooks you can expect on songs like “Tighten Up” and “Next Girl”. All the familiar Black Keys song elements and structures are there, and the album is truly cohesive in mood.

Everything is kinda dark, a little melancholy, and it all sounds comfortably fuzzy. It is a straight-forward and soulful tribute to the blues of old, but maintains its catchy rock riffs to make one real cool album.

Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse: Dark Night of the Soul

Release date: July 12th

I could have potentially written about this album last year…but under very different circumstances. Auteur producer/Gnarles Barkley member Danger Mouse had an idea for a concept album some time ago. He got together some top-notch collaborators, like Julian Casablancas, Wayne Coyne, and Iggy Pop. Together, they created an album dedicated to celebrating the gritty human condition, with songs like “Daddy’s Gone”, “Revenge” and “Pain”. Most of the tracks deal with some pretty dark subject matter, but all are simply beautiful – due to Danger Mouse’s characteristic dreamy ambience.

Along with a book of photography by David Lynch (who also appears on two tracks) the super album was semi-released last summer. What does that mean? The CD contained was blank. Written on the disk was this: “For legal reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will”. It was an interesting stunt, but still left many potential listeners out in the dark.

It was nice to see the album get fully released this summer, and any indie fan can appreciate its catchy hooks, R&B beats, and the absolute best ensemble of artists you could hope for.

Devo: Something For Everybody

Release date: June 15

I’m just as surprised as anybody to find that the first Devo album in 20 years is fantastic. I wasn’t exactly a Devo fan prior to the album, but like any fan of music, I thought 1980’s “Whip It” was awesome. My mom, knowing this, TiVo’d the band playing on Regis and Kelly over the summer. They played “Whip It” and their first new single, “Fresh”. I was blown away and got the album shortly after.

First of all, you gotta remember that Devo has been playing music since 1973…so these guys are old. But knowing that, you cannot help noticing how cool they are. These guys are playing synth-based satirical songs that rock harder than a lot of stuff out there now. When a song like “Don’t Shoot (I’m a Man)” has a repeated chorus of “Don’t taze me bro” it is hard not appreciating the charm of these hip 60-somethings.

The album is a blast to listen to, and I dare you not to fall in love with at least one track.

Silent K Records: The Blanks

This is the second full assignment we had gotten in my web design class, and we were asked to create a one page press release. It had to be some kind of music release - so we needed images for a parent company or record company, and another image to put in the article, like a CD cover. So I (of course) used my Silent K Bunny, and stuck with a red/black color scheme.

I found a nice picture of a black and red Gibson SG, and threw some downloaded paint brush effects on top of it to serve as a giant (web-optimized) image for the background. The rest of the design was positioned to that one background image.

I created the album cover by taking a high resolution image of a Hulk action figure and applied a "Cut Out" filter in Photoshop. I then turned it red and messed with the Saturation and Contrast filters. The hardest part actually came from cropping the image of the hulk on the CD cover. Depending on how close it was cropped, it would have completely different looks and feels to the design, and I wasn't quite sure what I wanted. I asked for opinions, and narrowed it down to two choices, and wound up solving the problem by using them both! One extreme close up for a CD cover, and one cropped out a little further to be used for the DVD cover. I threw a glow effect on them and saved the .png so I could position it anywhere on the site.

The copy is all original content and contains a bunch of little "inside jokes" of my favorite musicians, directors, actors, and things from my personal interests. The band name itself - The Blanks was a two-man-band I had in high school. (The logo was also very similar, but I recreated it for this project). It a fun project, and I think this was the project that cemented Trebuchet as my favorite typeface (you are reading with it now in fact!)

Check out the fake site here (hosted on my website) Here.