My first tweets

I started tweeting the other day. Here's a few samples. I like the idea that I can add a drawing. That way I get an extra 1000 words. I've been inspired by cartoonist Hugh MacLeod. He does these insightful simple cartoons with a few words added for punch. You can check him out at: gapingvoid.com/

I use a stylus on my iPad using the Skitch app. It's a very simple app that's free and I love working with it. When my drawings complete I just tell it to tweet, add some text and off it goes.

Skitch is by the makers of Evernote and you can also save your art to their cloud. Skitch is also available for Mac as well.

I'm trying to be spontaneous with the ideas and sketches or should I call them skitches. Anyway it's a fun way to share my imaginings and musings. You can follow me at @frankiegenius I'd like that.

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Space beats

Here's something you don't often get to see. Before storyboarding begins, or even during, a collection of images is created that illustrate the main story beats of a movie. These are called beat boards and here's one I created for Space Chimps. 

A storyboard drawing should be designed to read very quickly like a highway billboard. The reason is that storyboards won't be on the screen for a long time- they need to read fast. Since they won't be onscreen, story beat drawings can be more like a children's book illustration conveying a lot more information. They're a tool for the director, writer and story team to help develop the movie. They're a lot of fun to do. 

So here is Space Chimps in 80 images. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

I'd also like to thank Chris Siemasko and Randeep Katari for showing me how easy it is to create a blog. 

My Alien Encounter- Space Chimps

For one year I got to be an Alien. I worked in Vancouver, Canada on Space Chimps. We had an awesome group of people from all over the world working together. Originally the movie was directed by Donovan Cook and Norton Virgien. Kirk De Micco finished the directing.

In the script the Space Chimps return to earth after their adventure but it wasn't a satisfying ending. They just safely land. In trying to find some drama or suspense, I came up with the idea that they forgot to build landing gear on their returning ship. This action involved the chimps that were still on earth because they had to steal a truck for the Space Chimps to land on while driving at high speed. This also worked thematically with Chimp Ham's character arc. In the beginning of the movie Ham doesn't want to have anything to do with his grandfather's space legacy, he's getting by in life as a circus chimp who gets shot out of a cannon.  Ham's problem is he can never hit the target. Now having become a real space chimp he must prove he can hit the target. Their lives depend on it. It was a fun sequence to board. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)