Comic-Con 2007

Last weekend I went North to San Francisco. This weekend I went south to San Diego for the biggest gathering of nerds on the planet. Comic-Con International 2007. It was a crazy 3 days.


Malachi is pretty excited!


Inside the San Diego Convention Center


6000 people gathered to hear about the new Get Smart movie from Warner Bros. If you look carefully you can see Steve Carrell and The Rock on the screens (click to enlarge).


Little Keiko in a large room.


LOTS of people and video monitors.


Lots of Legos!


Stormtroopers and Fett!


A small sample of the LucasArts display case.
Monkey Island, Grim Fandango and a ton of Awards.


At the Jim Henson Company presentation we got to see previews of new shows and a sample of a Muppet Improv show.


And finally Ray Harryhausen in person. (He's on the right)
The father of Special Effects is still going strong at 85! We got to watch 20 Million Miles to Earth while he (and some others) did live commentary.

Paul

Video Sketch 006

Another AfterEffects tutorial that got out of hand.


Paul

Pictures from SFrisco

Last weekend I went with

and

to visit

in SFrisco.

Those were some trippy pictures.
These are some less trippy trip pictures.

You can click on them to see them up close.


Some girls on a bus.


We found a green screen.


One of the pillars in some famous park or something.


Lesson #43 in being cool. Stand like this.


A yellow house.


As you can see we are standing here.


I know we're cold but lets go that way.


Some other famous building with a Café-Bar in it.


We're on a Pier


At the SFMOMA there was an awesome light projection installation...


...but my camera was on manual focus and I didn't find out until later.


a pretty flower (in focus).


The drive home, complete with semi.

yeah!

Paul

Video Sketch 005

380 photos taken every 15 steps while walking up and down a section of Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles.

Paul

Video Sketch 004

Here's another After Effects project. The tutorial had me animating the camera driving down a cartoon road around street signs. I adapted it to make it more my style. It was designed to loop and its kinda quick so you may have to watch it a few times.

Paul

The Fire

Check out Malachi's new comic: "The Fire" over at A Film By Sam Ward
Paul

Video Sketch 003

This was an After Effects tutorial that I found through a link on Motionogropher.com. It uses images exported from Google Earth to simulate a fall from space.

Paul

Balboa Island Pictures

Paul

Video Sketch 002

Paul

Job Interview #3

Well this was my last "job" interview of the week. Tomorrow is the only day this week that I don't have an interview, and Friday I have the interview at Creative Circle. Today's interview was at The RTC Group in San Clemente. They publish trade magazines for the "Embedded Technology" industry. Embedded technology is basically any technology that is not in something like a personal computer. It includes the computer chips in everything from cell phones to military UAVs (Un-manned Aerial Vehicles). The job description itself was not really exciting but the description of the working environment and the values that the company holds to were very exciting. Imagine a company that is based in honesty and integrity with both the clients and the employees. A company where, even though the design isn't very interesting, they are committed to doing better design on every project than they did on the previous one. that may not sound very impressive when I say it, but during my interview I sat at the table with the Owner of the company, the Creative Director, and the rest of the design team for 1 hr. and 45 mins. and had them all look at my portfolio, ask me questions, and talk about the company. I could go on and on about everything I heard during my interview but the thing that will decide this job for me or not is that if they make me an offer it comes with the requirement that I relocate to a city that is a reasonable driving distance from their office within 60 days of the first day of work. They need someone to start work in 2 weeks (at the very latest). I'm really overwhelmed with possibilities/decisions right now so...

...I guess we just get to wait and see how things go.

Paul

Job Interview #2

This interveiw was at a advertising and marketing company called Kelly Media Group, located in Upland. They specialize in taking television shows that do the "call the number at the bottom of your screen now and get your free (insert item)" thing. They help their clients buy television time, take all the calls that come in, and ship out whatever the people are ordering. They also mail advertisements and postcards and newsletters (read junk mail) for the same clients. Up until now they have been contracting out all of their design work (website, letters, mailers, etc.) to who knows where and paying a lot of money for it. Now they want to hire an in-house designer to do all of these things for them so that they can save money.

The interview itself went really well. They said that they have interviewed a lot of people for the position but my work was "by far the best [they've] seen". They also said that I should hear back from them sometime in the next week or so. So that's good. I am not thrilled with the client list (as it includes a large percentage of Televangelists) but the office is only 20-30 minutes away and the pay is pretty good. I guess we will see if they call me back.

(#3 up next)

Paul

Job Interview #1

This one was at InCase Design Corp. in Irwindale. It was for a production artist position which basicaly means a job that uses design tools without actually getting to do anything creative. The office was really cool and the senior designer who was interviewing me was cool too. She looked at my resume/portfolio and said that I did not have enough production design experience for the position and that it would drive me crazy trying to do the job because it was to dry and technical for me. She also said that they are going to be hiring a new creative in a couple months and that because she liked me and my portfolio she would keep my information around for when they start interviewing for that position. Hopefully I will have a job already by then, but another possibility never hurts.

(job interview #2 comming soon)

Paul

Things are always changing.

I have finally recieved the sad news from UCI that I am not on the roster for next fall. I was half expecting this and have already put my contingancy plan into action. I have 3 job interviews next week at various design and production jobs and an interview at Creative Circle, a creative staffing agency downtown. I have also sent out emails to my favorite motion graphics firms in LA hoping to get a portfolio review and some advice on starting a career in motion design. Hopefully one of these leads will turn into a something, I'll just have to wait and see. At this point I am planning on continuing to do more artwork in order to beef up my portfolio for applying to grad school again next year. So...


Paul

The Denouement w/ Garage Voice - Pictures

Garage Voice...







...and The Denouement.















Paul

New Official Website

I just got myself an official website for my design portfolio. You can see it in it's temporary state at www.paulhoppedesign.com

Paul

Hello Newsletter Visitors!

Hello to everyone who is visiting because of a tip-off from my family's newsletter. I'm glad you are here to look at my humble space on the Internet. I highly recommend a viewing of the pictures of my trip, and a visit to the blog for the film project that I am a part of A Film By Sam Ward. Also, If you leave any comments be sure to include your name so that I will know who you are. Thanks for visiting! Please enjoy your stay and come back again soon as I am always adding new (and hopefully interesting) stuff.

Paul

A New Housemate!

Her name is Eleanor and she is a little baby Siamese mix. In these pictures you can see her in the two moods she has displayed so far: Running/Climbing and Cuddling.

Paul

Blogs To See

Our claymation related blog is up and running now. A Film By Sam Ward contains news, pictures, comics, and other stuff dedicated to the world in which our claymation films exist. Go check it out!

Also, if you are into video games, UltraRobotNinja (a friend of mine) has just started a blog about all things gaming related. His first post is about his experiences and thoughts on the Halo 3 Beta (which I got to play with him last night). If you don't know what that means then this may not be the blog for you.

That's all for now.

Paul

A Chinese Whirlwind: Part 3

The next day we got up early and drove 2.5 hours to a part of the Great Wall of China called Simetai. It was worth the drive for a couple of reasons. The first is that, being far away from the city means that there were no crowds and it was less touristy. The second is that the location we visited was the highest point on the Great Wall. We were met at Simetai by the pastor of my parents church in Thailand and his family. Their eldest son works with the British government in Beijing and speaks Chinese. He had also been to this place a few times and knew his way around. This allowed us to relax because we didn't have to worry about any of the details and we could just enjoy ourselves. Which we did.

Pictures anyone?


There it is


We got to ride this cable car about 2/3 of the way up.


On the wall


Out the window of a turret.
It's amazing how the wall just keeps winding off into the distant mountains.


A cranny in the turret


Steven up high


Steven enjoying the wind and wall


Anime Snapshot


A family on the wall

The next morning we got up really early and got a taxi back to the airport. From there we all flew to Bangkok and parted ways. I flew back to LAX through Taipei and my family flew straight back to Chiang Mai. So ended the Chinese Whirlwind and my trip to Asia.

Paul