Week 2: Settling In

As promised, this is the view from my window. A balcony view of the company lagoon, trees and a sliver of mountains off in the distance, upper right.

This week's Hollywood moment occurred at the famous Graumann's Chinese Theater. Dreamworks invited the entire company to a Cast and Crew screening of Flushed Away and after-party the Hollywood and Highland Mall. The movie was Hi-Larious, very fast-paced, lots of in-jokes to Aardman fans and a very entertaining story. I was probably one of a handful of DreamWorkers who could have and objective view of the film. There has been some rumblings about the DWA/Aardman relationship but I still think the movie came off very well. There were probably too many Slug shots especially with the final song-and-dance sendoff but the Frogs were hilarious and Marcell was a hoot. I do recommend this film to anyone who likes Aardman films. Even in CG, Dreamworks still kept the stop-motion look and feel with the poppy mouths and model imperfections. Sir Ian McKellan was the BEST villain and chewed the entire set with giddy impishness. He definitely had a ball with this role. Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman play the leadsd but their voices were such that any Brit could have done as good a job. I LOVE Kate but Kate trying to do Cockney was about as successful as Jackman doing Queen's English. meh. Overall: A-







After the premiere came the after-party. The coolest moment of the night came just before we left. We were making our way throught the crowd and Greg mentioned "Hey, there's Peter Lord." I nearly tripped spinning around trying to see him. We got to chat him up a bit, chiding him about the speech he gave earlier. Very graciously referring to the DWA/Aardman union as a marriage between a stallion and a bear. Not sure who's who... All the speeches given made it sound like none of the fights ever happened. Greg even got to "interview" with Peter a bit since Aardman is allegedly creating their own CG outfit. Aardman will need someone who can convert CG info to film. Hope he remembers when he gets back to Bristol.



Other news: I created my first in-movie shot for KFP. EMO training goes down easier when you are practicing what they preach. Even got to suggest an ALT shot for it.

I am also looking around for a car. Ebay Motors might be a good bet. More to come.