Back in the USSR.. err the ATL!

Well hello there folks! I'm comin' atcha from KREJ HQ, I have once again returned to my domicile, after a lovely near-two week stint of visiting Greg & Hannah down in Savannah, GA.

Also, a belated Happy St. Paddy's Day to you all!! This weekend will bring many things, one of them, the arrival of Da Grub. Another being a St. Paddy's party this weekend with some friends coming over to KREJ HQ. It should be quite the blast, as you kids say.

Unfortunately, there still exists a problem with our internet, and I am currently using our apartment complex's internet cafe wifi network, so it's slow as dog molasses.

I saw a bunch of movies/films while I was down in Savannah. Among them, Crazy Heart; which was every bit of excellent I hoped it would be. Mr. Bridges was nothing short of superb in his role as an old, busted up country singer trying to reclaim a slice of fame and joy in his musical career, battling the super evils/terribleness of more modern 'nu-country', as well as a beastly case of alcoholism.

I also watched Boondock Saints II : All Saints Day. It was pretty alright; as most people would tell you, not as good as the first, but still enjoyable. Plenty of action, a couple plot twists/reveals, and the usual helping of what us guys love most, guns, swearing, blood and more swearing.

Did a little more design work in planning for the poster we are putting together for Hero Sandwich. Really excited about working on that! Also changed my personal site design like 3 times. So yay?!

In my email inbox is a short version of our feature length script Rat Bastards. Will probably try and read it tonight, or else someone is gonna give me the third degree. Read your scripts people send you kids!

Until next time,
-Matt

Rants and Ravings!

Krej News, Movie Review and some more rantings and ravings...

Hero Sandwich - Hannah has finished character designs on Captain Deluxo and Turbo Tom. And they look amazing. Jerry did some coloring that somehow made them even better. I also got to see some early concept work for Titanium Cranium (Don't know who any of these characters are yet? Don't worry you will soon). I am exceptionally stoked about this project, it's going to take time but should be worth it. Keep your eyes open thar may be a "Hero Sandwich" poster soon!

In more Krej news Jerry and myself started working on an outline for a new summer project. The concept is still in it's rough form. We want to incorporate lot's of motion graphic effects and an existential/absurdist* story. My concern is it might be to "out there", even by my standards.

In even more Krej news, Steven has begun working on a mock-umentary script for summer production as well. I am tempted to go into more detail, but I think I will let Steven himself do that. I will say this, he is basing a character on me who speaks with a very thick french accent.

Movie Review

Saw Kevin Smith's new film "Cop Out" today. It was pretty good. Not "Mallrats" amazing, but also not "Jersey Girl" trash either. Tracey Jordan really shines, his comedic chops are borderline immaculate. Something did seem to be missing from this. I don't if it was the fact that Smith didn't pen it or not. At times the plot seemed overly complex (for a comedy anyway), and the extra stuff took away from the truly funny.

The Tracey Jordan/Bruce Willis combo was a sight to behold. They worked very well together. The opening scenes show this very well, but as the movie trails on some of that magic fades. My hope is this will propel Mr. Jordan to a major movie comedian, he clearly can hold his own with Willis. Over all I give this flick a 7/10.

Other ranting and ravings...

Been watching a lot of "Man Vs. Food" as of late. I enjoy the show, but at the same time it is a good example of what has become wrong with us as a society. Gluttonous America is in all it's glory. I can't imagine starving kids in poverty stricken areas of the country or the world would appreciate this show. But enough ranting.

Now for some raving!

How about all these natural disasters. Maybe the end of the world is coming. Probably not though. It's highly important to note George Carlin's view on the end of things. "The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are fucked". That's the absolute truth, it wouldn't take long after humanity ceases for Earth to fix itself and be "normal" again.

Which means all those environmentalist are going about this the wrong way. They should launch a "Save the Humans!" campaign. A source close to me assures me the dolphins are working on that though (get it? 42? Don't Panic? Hitchhikers? Thanks for the fish?).

Lastly and certainly most importantly, The Grub bequeathed us with a new word this week. In his infinate genius he decided the words otherwise and either/or needed to be fused together. Thus The Grub spoke and we were given "Eitherwise". How does one use this, an example. "We gotta stop ruining this planet "eitherwise" we will find ourselves on the wrong end of extinction". Thank you Grub for allowing us to be privy to your insanity and general loathing of the English language.

Well that's all I got in the tank for now. Going to work on a script for my new short and some storyboards for the same project and "Hero Sandwich".

*note this is in reference to the absurdist philosophy, which is connected to comedy style but not necessarily comedic in it's raw form.

My Pencils are the hotrods, my paper is the tarmac.

And they're speeding along to get Hero Sandwich character sketches on their way.

Character design is a fun way to work, especially when you're working with people you like and have just as much fun as you do. You get to dive in, create, and learn. This is especially interesting for me since I am a very detail oriented person and this kind of work has to be fairly simple in design and structure, so it turns on another part of the brain.

So far I've worked on a few sketches and things are moving smoothly along!

And of course, working with friends also helps. But I already said that.

Wish Granted!

I have a habit of drawing, which requires paper, which of course for me requires a forest. This evening the great G$ (my husband, he chooses the most absurd, if not fitting nicknames for himself) and I made our rounds about town and I now have my grubby bony hands on...

The official Hero Sandwich Sketchbook.

What does this mean? Well, probably not much to some- but for me it will be the treasure to tote around and work on, specifically for character designs. Heck, I may consolidate Hero Sandwich and KREJ conceptual illustrations into this one, singular, amazing and sadly empty sketchbook.

That's really about it. I figured I'd rub it in. The fact that I have a blank sketchbook...


AWHAAWH.

Greetings and salutations!

Yes, it's true, lately I have been under the weather. It looks like I got a wicked case of Streptococcal Pharyngitis. I thought I was getting better yesterday, but when I awoke this morning, I was in a lot of pain, my left ear hurt like the dickens, a painful ear infection, and I could no longer even swallow pills, due to my throat being in excruciating pain.

So I went up to Clairmont road to see the wonderful folks of the North Atlanta Urgent Care establishment. Within about 10 minutes of arriving I was already in visiting a nurse and getting my vitals taken. They diagnosed me, gave me a shot of some steroids and sent me on my way with 2 prescriptions; one being liquid Augmentin, antibiotics, and the other being liquid hydrocodone (which by the way, RULES), to numb the maddening pain in my throat. Liquid prescription medicine, of course, because I couldn't even swallow a tiny ibuprofen this morning. So I left there and went to the kroger near KREJ HQ and came home with my meds, dosed up and passed out.

About 13 hours and 2 doses later, I am already feeling better, my ear doesn't hurt, and I can actually eat food other than soup and yogurt!! But it will still be a few days longer before I am back to 'normal'. But tomorrow I am going to hopefully finish the Tim & Katie trailer, then begin scanning character designs for Hero Sandwich and sending them to our lovely friend Hannah; who, as you all should already know, played the Gypsy woman in the first Tim & Katie.

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I just ordered a new, more-better usb microphone for recording audio/vocals and whatever else we decide to do, but for right now we'll begin recording audio tracks for the first pilot episode of Hero Sandwich sometime next week. After I thought I was set on ordering a Blue Snowball mic, I kept reading reviews, and listening to samples I found online, and decided on purchasing a Samson G Track USB Microphone:

It's pretty snazzy. I got a cradle mount too. Stoked to give it some test runs this weekend! will be uploading samples on this here blog.

 Late last week I was even testing out a script for use in Adobe After Effects, for setting up rigging and controllers to apply Inverse Kinematics into 2D animated characters. below is a quick little sample I made watching a tutorial in a couple hours. I put in the Flying V cause I had been listening to a ton of Jay Reatard (RIP <3).

I cant freakin wait to do some work on backgrounds for Hero Sandwich! Also, with the onset of production for HS, Hannah will begin blogging on here as well!! YAY!! There is also talk of fan art and concept art for Tim & Katie being released in the future. So our media section of the site is going to be expanding to suit the different categories.

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In other, more annoying news, my slingbox has started to malfunction, so I did a bunch of online research and found out its a pretty common problem, like red rings for xboxes. Weak. So tonight I took mine apart to find that, yes indeed, my capacitors were pretty much fried and need to be replaced. Aforementioned capacitors:

:NERD RAGE: It really upsets me nowadays when companies are such jerks, that in order to save micro-pennies per unit, they use crappy components. This contraption cost like 100 bucks, and while it's a great unit when its working, the fact that something so simple and relatively easy to avoid is what leads to it's downfall, just pisses me off.

Also check out this free sample track Yeasayer are giving out -  Yeasayer - O.N.E  - from their forthcoming album, Odd Blood. Their debut album, All Hour Cymbals, was pretty excellent, and Odd Blood is starting to sound like it's only gonna get better with this wacky psychedelic / experimental Brooklyn trio. The initial single from Odd Blood, Ambling Alp was already a great release. Their music videos are just absolutely insane too. Check them out!



With nothing but love and 'tweenage angst,
-Matt

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(PEE. ESS. - It should also be noted that our google adsense ads are finally related to our intentions! so feel free to click stuff!)