New Animation Reel

Presenting...my new current animation reel of scenes animated for Bigfott Studios and Scholastic/Weston Woods, on short films All the World, I'm Fast, Scaredy Squirrel and Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend, directed by Galen Fott.

Trailers for New BigFott Studios Films

The two most recent films I animated on for BigFott Studios have now been released: Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend and I'm Fast, both adapted and directed by Galen Fott.

Enjoy these trailers and visit the official pages for the films (with production credits and DVD ordering information) at the links below.

Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend >>



I'm Fast! >>

Remembering with ParaNorman

Aggie: Aggie... My name was Aggie... I - I remember... My mommy brought me here once. We sat under the tree and she told me stories. They all had happy endings. Then those horrible men came and took me away and I never saw her again! 

Norman: Sometimes when people get scared, they say and do terrible things. I think you got so scared that you forgot who you are. But I don't think you're a witch. Not really. 

Aggie: You don't? 

Norman: I think you're just a little kid with a really special gift who only ever wanted people to understand her. So we're not all that different at all.

I’ve been telling people for months I had this inkling that ParaNorman might be one of the most important films of 2012, and possibly, as time will tell, of the decade. It’s taken me awhile to process and let its nagging significance soak into my head, but I think more and more I’m starting to see why.

Of Beauty, Beasts and Wild Things

On November 11th, 2012 I preached this Sunday morning sermon at Cedar Park Church, exploring how the Book of Psalms, the book Where the Wild Things Are and the life of its author Maurice Sendak speak to us about the transforming power of beauty. 

Click here to listen or download the mp3 file >>

I concluded the sermon with this poem that I wrote, as a closing prayer. 

The Sacred Space of The Muppet Show

Once upon a time, on Friday nights in the late 1970s, there was a little 30-minute space of time on the CBS network which would grow to define a generation. Carved out between shows like Dance Fever, Family Feud and The Incredible Hulk, which were mostly predictable week after week, a program called The Muppet Show provided the kind of variety, humor, playfulness and absurdity that provided a welcome respite from the usual sound and fury of prime-time programming. Looking at much of what passes as "entertainment" these days, looking back on certain moments from this show makes you wonder how it ever got broadcast to begin with. The show drew on age-old traditions of vaudeville, show tunes, mime, and international styles of puppet theater brought up-to-date for its modern audience, in a manner seldom seen on television at all since then. For several years, US networks turned down Jim Henson's concept of a prime-time slot for puppetry, and it might never have happened were it not for the faith that British producer Lew Grade put into the show to green-light it for production and syndication. The first season in particular, first aired in 1976-77, featured a mix of British and American guest stars who had previously worked with the Muppets or who were friends of the production team. Once the show grew in popularity, finding guest stars became an easier task, allowing them to attract everyone from the "high culture" of classical ballet and opera to the freakish fringes of 70s shock-rock & pop...from Beverly Sills and Rudolf Nureyev to Alice Cooper and Debbie Harry. Through the entire 5-season run of The Muppet Show, as I've enjoyed it so much from those first original airings as a small child, into re-runs and collecting of episodes as I've grown up, there is one particular feature of the show which I have come to notice as rather poignant and significant.

The Music that Changed my Life, Part 3

Continuing from The Music that Changed my Life, Part 2....and Part 1 before that, here is the final chapter of my reflective series on the albums and songs which have moved me, challenged me, ingrained themselves into my molecules and continue to grace my playlists for constant re-discovery.  As noted in my previous articles, there seems to be some common threads in much of the music I'm drawn to: vocals and instrumental elements which feel like soaring, a sense of storytelling, and a sense of longing for something that is lost. Whether it's expressed through notes and chords of rage or more quiet, introspective melodies, a lot of the music I tune myself into also invokes images of driving. I first fell in love with music being driven around in the car with my parents, and when I was able to drive myself, so many significant journeys and experiences in the car were inevitably set to music.

This chapter of my musical memoirs begins with me leaving my home state of Michigan and literally hitting the highway on a road trip to Vancouver, where I still reside today.  For 5 days in late August 1998, my friend Brandon Moses and I drove across America, and literally began our descent onto that first freeway ramp with the opening notes to Movin' Right Along off The Muppet Movie Soundtrack. Along the way we would listen to practically every album and mix tape we each brought with us, including much of the music I've mentioned in my previous two chapters of this series. In some ways, it was like a musical flashback of my life thus far following me along the road into the next phase of the journey.

Outside Over There: Reflections on Maurice Sendak

Earlier this year, on May 8, 2012, I was struck unexpectedly by the news on the radio as I crawled out of bed, that Maurice Sendak had passed away.  On my commute to work, I somehow stumbled across his final interview on NPR, and 19 minutes later, had to fight back tears as I stepped off the train. What I had heard in my earbuds was a story and testimony all at once extremely beautiful, extremely sad, and yet full of mystery and grace. I was hearing for the first time the longings of an artist who I only knew in a relatively shallow manner, but who I discovered meant more to me than I ever fully realized.

I only knew him through one of my favorite books, Where the Wild Things Are, plus some fond memories of seeing the films and books for Really Rosie and The Nutshell Library as a child.  I regret to say that outside of these particular works, I was not overly familiar with the rest of his life until hearing of his passing and reading up on the various news reports that followed. It's one of those unfortunate realities of life that we often don't spend enough time studying the lives of artists we admire until they have left us. By then it's too late to send them a note of thanks or encouragement, or to anticipate any other projects they may be working on.