“SNAP SHOT” 48 Hour Film Project

On July 31st I had the opportunity to be apart of an amazing movie by Team Insomniac Films for the Miami/Fort Lauderdale 48 Hour Film Project

What is SNAP SHOT about?

The film is called “SNAP SHOT” Directed by Chris Krider.

The story is about 2 career criminals who take up a job to recover a polaroid photo taken of their client by a photographer named Samantha Jimenez.

Samantha enchants the photo like a voodoo doll and can harm or even kill the subject by damaging the photo. Long story short you can watch the film below:

I was cast as “the brains of the operation” and a master lock picker who breaks into the studio as well as Samantha’s lock box to recover the photo.

While my co star Adam Crain, who also voices Tom from Tomatohead

 is the muscle with a penchant for using his hammer to do the talking.

If you haven’t already watched the film then *spoiler alert* we both die in the film. Its a bummer if you like bad guys maybe we should have had guns?

The 48 hour Film Project and SNAP SHOT’S Debut

The film premiered at the 48 hour film project on August 04th with about 20 plus other films.

Afterward we still thought our film was pretty solid and we were proven right on September 30.

During the 48 hour film’s award ceremony our film took 3 awards. Best lighting, best special effects and placing 3rd for the best film of the competition.

It was a stellar day which ended with us celebrating with a bar crawl of fort lauderdale.

In conclusion if your reading this I recommend you check out the film snapshot in the link above.

I had so much fun filming it and you will have as much fun watching it.

Its a wild ride with an interesting revelation at the end.

Support Team Insomniac

If you enjoy Team Insomiac’s work you can check out their youtube channel.

They also have a podcast called “Tryptich” were they talk about movies as well as pop culture happenings.

Support for Team Insomniac is also Support for Lennyandfriends

Did you know Team Insomniac is also a collaborator for Tomatohead?

Did you also know that by watching tomatohead liking and subscribing to my channel you are also supporting Lenny and Friends therefore supporting Team Insomniac?

If not I highly recommend you do so.

Bad Signal Nokia Cellphone Animation

Bad Signal is a another one of my 2D animated shorts however this one is made in collaboration with a friend of mine, musician, fashion designer and Artist Ahmad Jamal Wiggins AKA Snowey Rooftops.

The Bad Signal Plot

The Animation is about a doting husband Nokia cellphone trying to get in contact with his wife a cordless phone to let her know he will be home on time for dinner and whats for dinner. Little does he know he will be on the adventure of a lifetime, from the top of a mountain to jumping out of a plane. This man will stop at nothing to reach out to his wife only to hilariously crash land through their roof.

The Idea

Ahmad mentioned the idea when we were talking about something else via IG messenger, I beleive it was a voice recording, I don’t remember how long I thought about the idea whether 5 minutes or 5 days but I do remember reaching back out to him and letting him know I was gonna animated it.

I drafted a storyboard and went out and bought a pop filter for my Samson mic but some how ended up recording the audio in my car with the pop filter and being happy with the clips. I did the animatic with break neck speed and sent it to Ahmad which he gave me his emphatic approval.

The Animation Process

The Nokia Cellphone Guy at different angles
The Nokia Cellphone Guy at different angles

For the animation process I took a different approach which I hope to replicate for future animations. Mainly repurposing angles for different shots and only animating elements when it was absolutely necessary. This is my attempt at breaking away from my original approach from my pitch adult swim days.

Nokia Guy with his hiking / parachute napsack
Nokia Guy with his hiking / parachute napsack

In short I enjoyed this process and I think it helps the story more then conflicts with it.

The Final Export

This is by far the most annoying part of the process because the rush to just get it out there gets the best of me and I upload the finish product with errors that for some reason I alone notice.

My biggest issue was uploading the final product to Instagram which butchered my clips by eliminating 5-10 seconds off each clip, this is why I recommend the youtube video above.

Hi, My Name’s Daisy. Animation

This was my newest short “Hi, my name’s Daisy” presenting my newest character to be animated named Daisy. Daisy is a home body from rural Florida he enjoys a simple life on his property overlooking that vast wetlands.

Daisy has a Show

Daisy is apart of the cast of another animated short I as well as the voice of Daisy Adriel Kaplan have in the works called “Wetranger”.

A show about Flamingo who moved out of the city hoping to get away from rising crime, lack of food, and a decent job in hopes of a simple life. However it turns out the rural life comes with a different set of problems he did not realize.

Flamingo
Flamingo

Untop of not being able to find a job he realizes that the wetlands are a strange place filled with strange creatures. Swamp monsters, Gator Gangs, Aliens, and Strange Villains with hench women all while dealing his obnoxious roommates.

One in particular being Betty the Yeti, an adventurous take no prisoners free spirit that enjoys roaming about the countryside in his trusty pickup truck companion who is the namesake of the show Wetranger.

Wetranger
Betty The Yeti in the Wet Ranger


The Writing Process

At this moment I am still in the writing process (and I’m having fun) with this show and its episodes. Finding the right characters appears to be quite the challenge, people have lives and cannot guarantee a commitment at the moment but thats cool. In the mean time I have alot to do as far as concept art and character design is concerned.

Overall I have a feeling this project is gonna be fun as long as I can keep the run time short. This will be easier for me to produce more animations, speaking of which I would like to do a dramatic overhaul of my animation approach. I prefer to do less dynamic angles (which are a pain to animate) and an emphasis on humor and fun via the dialogue and simple use of character angles.

In the mean time while I work on this feel free to browse more of my animations and let me know your feedback, I look forward to hearing from you all.



Feminist writes article targeting lonely men for abusing “Replika” girls while the abuse of Real Women is IGNORED

I recently read an article regarding the abuse of virtual women using the app Replika. 

What is Replika?

Replika according to their site is “a personal AI that would help you express and witness yourself by offering a helpful conversation”  Its a pretty cool idea, you almost get the best of both worlds you can speak freely with a person (fake person) without all the weird judgment you would get from doing the same with an actual human being.

 

Who needs real friends when you have a virtual friend

This technology is fast becoming very popular among young people maybe because in our atomized society most people don’t have many friends or people they can necessarily trust. Its also not as easy to make friends when your an adult vs when you are a kid in school. What makes this worst is you have alot of grifters that try to take advantage of lonely people by having them spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on courses to improve their social skills. 

Yet despite the presence of these “experts” and their courses as well as testimonials from others about how the courses work it seems to be a drop in the bucket, we still have waves of lonely men and women going about their lives suffering in silence. Thats where the placebo’s come in, drugs, sex, the metaverse and Replika is no different. 

The Outrage

The article goes into posts on the Replika subreddit  which supposedly documents users bragging about saying derogatory things and abusive language to the AI chatbot. While some may view this behavior as concerning an expert in the article did indicate that you can’t really offend the robot because it is artificially created and not a real person. 

“It’s an AI, it doesn’t have a consciousness, so that’s not a human connection that person is having,” AI ethicist and consultant Olivia Gambelin told Futurism. “It is the person projecting onto the chatbot.”

I am of the opinion that we all to some degree have dark aspects of our personality and its healthy to find ways to channel those darker aspects of ourselves in creative ways that do not result in the harming of real people. I don’t think the author of the article Ashley Bardhan necessarily agrees with me which is in part why the article exists.

The Post Feminist Society


 To me its a reminder of the sad state of feminism in the west, since the pandemic domestic violence is on the rise and a crime wave unlike anything we have ever seen is sweeping across the United States with a growing number of women as victims of murder or attempted murder. Not to mention the condemnation of authors like JK Rowling and Margaret Atwood for speaking their minds about the trans community and the eraser of women. The author of this article would rather turn her attention and outrage to men who use these apps who aren’t even the same men that are actively hurting real women. It just seems to me more and more everyday that we are living in a “Post Feminist Society” its easier to help synthetic women be they male to female or virtual instead of helping real women. 


I wonder if this is the future, politicians will pay lip service to women while doing nothing for them once they gain power. Ironically this I think will be supported by women since politicians as well as Corporate America understand the emotional nature of women’s brains better then the women themselves. They are the new minorities and they will be treated as such they are also the new economic pump and dump. 

Pretty soon or maybe its already here, the lives of single adult women in the west will resemble the “situationships”. They lament about with men that are wholly indifferent to them until it comes to the bedroom where they will say what they have to say to get what they want from them. 

My Personal Creative Outlet

Despite what is happening I am not depressed rather inspired I fully intend on pulling these stories i read from my news and social media feeds and represent them in my animated web series Tomatohead which i will write about in a blog post very soon. 

Tomatohead Animated Scene Time Lapse

The second Time Lapse of me working on a scene from Episode 3 of Tomatohead. I take you through the process that goes into animating a scene with music by GrandBugs.

Will Tomatohead Episode 3 be ready this year?

The Episode is still currently in the works, I have alot of stuff I need to do before I get it ready for my lovely viewers hopefully this year! Just bare with me guys I am currently working on this by myself with intermittent help from some lovely people.

In the mean time feel free to check out Episodes 1 and 2 on my Gallery page.

Wet Ranger Lofi / Chill / Digital Art Speed Paint


The latest Digital Art piece of mine to drop features our classic character Betty the Yeti. This time however he’s not just sitting in a lawn chair enjoying a cold one in swamp. No this time he’s riding in style, I decided to add a Pickup Truck to his list personal effects.

Every Pickup Truck has a name

To sweeten the pie I thought of giving the truck a name, I decided to call it “The Wet Ranger”. Taken from combining the “Wet” from Wetlands and “Ranger” from Ford Ranger. This vehicle allows Betty to travel the wetlands in style while remaining protected from the denizens of the Swamp.

About the Digital Art Piece

This piece started out as a simple sketch which you can see below.

The Wet Ranger as a Sketch

I then took this bad boy into Photoshop where I used the Pen tool to draw over the sketch layer. Overall the final piece came out better then I expected, I’m most proud of how the front guard came out.

Are you going to do anything with this Character ?

The short answer is Yes! I definitely plan too put him in an animated short I’m currently writing. I want to take my time with getting the foundational elements of the short down while fleshing out the characters, then I will proceed to episodes. This will take time however since at the moment I am super busy and still working on Tomatohead. Hopefully I will get a short out some time next year.

Future of the Speed Paint Videos

While I have every intention to keep doing these videos as long as possible I am having a bit of difficulty finding music for each video as well as ideas for future videos. I intend to take this one day at a time and definitely keep drawing, eventually the ideas will come out.

Muppet Zelda Fan Art Speed Paint

It’s been a while since I did one of these but its great to get back into the swing of things and at least try to get one more video in before the end of the month. This speed paint using one of my original characters is based on the theme Zelda dressing my character named Fulk dressed as the game’s protagonist link

About the Zelda Speed Paint

This art work features my Original Character named of Fulk dressed as Link from Zelda chilling in a field reminiscent of the vast grassy planes Hyrule from Ocarina of Time. He looks blissfully at the two Fairy’s glowing to imitate Navi Link’s resident fairy and travel companion throughout the Legend of Zelda Series.

Inspiration

The inspiration simply put was just to have something done before the end of Haloween 2021 so I thought put one of my characters in Costume. At first I wanted to do everyone’s favorite Yeti but I just did not see him as a very good link… maybe I will do him as Ganondorf, he might pull that off better.

I also wanted to do a post on Zelda just out of curiosity and a desire to rank for said Key word. I fully intend to do more of these especially if this works and maybe you guys will get a kick out of seeing your favorite franchises adapted by some of my original characters. Beyond just featuring my characters in Fan Art I intend to do more with the characters in terms of Animated shorts featuring other characters of mine, maybe a cameo in Tomatohead time will tell and I recommend you stay tuned.

In Closing

Hey I hope you enjoyed reading my blog and checking out my Speed Paint Videos, I encourage you to Subscribe to my YouTube Channel or follow me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook to stay up to date on new Art work and animations.

Digital Art “Nice Day in the Swamp” Time Lapse

Lucky number Four Digital Art Time lapse video titled “Nice Day in the Swamp” you can view the artwork here also no special lofi artist this time around, it’s been quite challenging to get some new lofi music of late but there are tonnes of copyright free lofi music on youtube.

Digital Art Panel 2

My apologies for the brief hiatus, I went back to my home country for a few days on business and when I came back here the following few days were a mess to say the least.

Anyways I am happy to get back into the swing of things and produce more of these lovely Digital Art time lapse videos for you guys. I should have another one coming in the works however this next one is going to be based on my Adult Animated Comedy Tomatohead. I plan on doing a series of videos were I put together a scene and animated it, the concept is based on a previous video

The inspiration for this piece is derived from this past weekend, It’s typically hot and humid as balls in Florida but since this is the first day of fall it was actually nice out (still hot) but rather ok, definitely would love more days like this heading into winter.. possibly next year, why not forever.

Yeti Hike, Digital Art and some Lofi

My Third time lapse video titled “Yeti Vapes and Hikes” My recent digital art piece which you can check out on instagram. Lofi music by Fraud Debussy.

LOFI MUSIC

Another topic I want to talk about is the use of the music in this piece. Composed by Local Lofi Hip hop artist Fraud Debussy my video features his full beat tape which you can check out at your leisure preferably via my time lapse video it makes for a nice chill artsy experience.

What is Lofi

Lofi (Lo-fi or Low Fidelity) is a music production quality were the imperfections of a recording are audible and often times deliberate aesthetic choice.

Another sub genre is Lofi Hip hop were a high utilization of elements such as introspection to engage with human emotion. I think that explains why people get so invested in the sound and you see it everywhere on the internet, specifically Lofi Live streams on youtube.

Channel Goals

A major goal of mine is to resuscitate my channel by posting as many videos based around digital art and animation. I hope to have a combination of time lapses of digital art pieces that come to mind as well as time lapses of me working on the different scenes of my animations whether they be Tomatohead or a random animated shorts.

That one time I Pitched Adult Swim

Adult Swim
https://www.adultswim.com/videos/development-meeting/thursday-june-4th-2020


2020 was a crazy year but it was the year I got the opportunity to pitch Tomatohead.Yup,

I got to pitch the developers at Adult Swim.

Their now defunct online streaming show development meeting to be specific.

The Black Swan Event

It started last year when that ill fated pandemic besieged the planet. Forcing us to spend almost a year in near total lockdown.
After a few months all it took was a video of a cop leaning on this guys neck to set the whole world off.
Before we knew it the country spend the next 90 days in flames, every one and their Grandmother hated the cops.

Not me tho I took a negative and turned it into a positive, while everyone was panicking (I did a bit of that) I was busy working on the first 2 episodes of Tomatohead. I had fun those months to be honest,

I was the most productive at that time and I was really proud of the results. I also learned so much and picked up some skills with Blender.

The Pitch

I first heard of Adult Swim Development Meeting from my friend “Juicy Pequeno“a fellow animator and creator of the famous Beans and Toast. He expressed a desire to one day pitch a story to them and last year June was my time to do so.

How it worked was simple, If you wanted to pitch you simply clicked the link in the description to sign into the whereby chatroom. If you are lucky then hosts will select your chat box, make sure you put together all your assets in a google drive link (make it public and view only). That way the devs can go through and discuss your stuff while the audience watches and intereacts in the adultswim dot com chatroom. At the end they select the top three winners the best pitch can win up to $300-$500.

At the time I had no idea how nervous I was, I was also extremely unprepared. Ultimately I won $300 and eventually paid the Adam Crain and Chris Krider the dudes that helped me out with the voice work and story and the rest is History.

The Aftermath

Well I never became famous or the next Justin Roiland but I did have a wellspring of confidence and something to brag about tho I don’t think it works all that well lol. Well it was awesome that I did it and intended to do it again until I was informed that the show has been cancelled and all episodes are no longer available on the adult swim website.

Helpful Animation Pitch Resources

While this post wasn’t about how to pitch an animation to Adult Swim I recommend Cartoon Brew‘s article on how to pitch and sell an Animated Series. It’s broken up into several parts so you can absorb the material in stages.