click on pic for closer view
The Battle for Cinco De Mayo is a lucha event happening this coming weekend in L.A. It looks totally awesome and tempting, but we’ve already decided to do our roadtrip up north instead (gotta do it this weekend or we’ll never do it).
A good source of lucha news: SocalUncensored Forums
Newsflash
¡Mucha Lucha! has been nominated for an Imagen Award in the Best Children’s Animated Programming category!
Finalists for the 2003 Imagen Awards were announced today by the Imagen Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 1985 to encourage and recognize the positive portrayal of Latinos in all media, and to increase Latino representation at all levels of the entertainment industry.
Website: www.imagen.org
Other nominees in this category are Dora the Explorer and The Proud Family.
P.S. The president of Imagen Foundation is Helen Hernandez, the Latin Cultural Consultant on ML.
Links and Downloads …
AMFA: Open-Source Flash Magazine - clever Flash stuff that I’m not keen to learn about. What’s more interesting is the pop-up window with the downloadable Flash MP3 Player.
The Hilarious House of Frightenstein. Thanks Cam, for another entertaining link. I wish I’d seen this! 1971 – I was very very little.
Pop-Up Window Generator. This could come in really handy for displaying Flash movies (html) online. I’ve always wanted to know how to do this.
¡Mucha Lucha! Comic Signing @ Hi De Ho Comics
Date: Next Wednesday, April 30th May 7th. 2003
Place: Hi De Ho Comics, 525 Santa Monica Blvd, Santa Monica
Time: 7pm
Come and support us! Sneak preview HERE
First Trip to Disneyland
At last we made it! And it was FUN FUN FUN. I have been wanting to do this ever since I was seven years old (when Mr. and Mrs. Chin took a honeymoon trip to Disneyland and left the kids at home; returning with loads of colorful glossy maps and brochures to rub it in…)
Every American we know has been to Disneyland so what you are about to read is likely to be all been-there-done-that stuff. For the guys back in Sydney who haven’t been to the Magic Kingdom, here’s a brief review of some of the attractions we visited. (General ratings by Lili; Cheese factor by Eddie)
The Enchanted Tiki Room (Adventureland)
Rating: 5 stars; Cheese factor: Blue Vein!
Lili: The show begins with some light banter between four animatronic parrots (a Mexican, French, Scottish and German, complete with accents); followed by an animatronic tropical birds choir; a colored fountain display, singing animatronic flowers, and mini tikis on the walls drumming and doing the Hawaiian war chant. This was so super cheesy and awesome. It’s every 1950′s Polynesian cliche packed into a small room. We couldn’t have asked for more.
Eddie: Yeah, I really got the impression this was the same show they’ve been doing for decades – the parrots spoke in incredibly stereotypical accents! The German parrot (named Fritz – I kid you not) was hilarious. I’m just amazed all these props keep on working…
Tarzan’s Treehouse (Adventureland)
Rating: 2 stars; Cheese factor: American Cheese
Lili: What I love about Disneyland is the fakeness everywhere, especially the animatronics. So it’s no surpise that this was a giant fake tree with fake bird sounds and drumbeats. You climb up winding stairs up through the fake winding branches and bits of rope to get a glimpse into Tarzan’s secret world… Alas, the treehouse window presents an anti-climactic vision. There’s a big cartoony sculpture of Kala the wistful mother-ape, embracing a baby Tarzan, with fuzzy footage from the movie on a screen in front of her. Too corny and schmultzy for words.Thank goodness they left Phil Collins out of this.
Eddie: Tarzan the movie sucked, and this pretty much sucked too. What’s becoming apparent, is that Disneyland is still surviving on the strength of its ‘golden age’ movies, and things like Tarzan, Atlantis and – URRGHHH! – Treasure Planet, are just obnoxious zits that ain’t gonna attract no-one to the park.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (Frontierland)
Rating: 3 stars; Cheese factor:Blue Vein
Lili: I love rollercoaster rides. Wild west/canyon theme. Need I say it was all fake landscaping with more animatronic birds?
Eddie with new coonskin hat from Frontierland
Eddie: Anyone can look this good for just 8 US bucks. And no racoon was hurt making this hat…although I’m sure some offshore sewing machinists got burned pretty badly…
All together, now…”Born on a mountain top in Tennesseeeee…..”
Mark Twain Riverboat (Frontierland)
Rating: 3 stars; Cheese factor: American Cheese
Lili: The massive three-storey boat drifts slowly around an island with fake (looking au naturale) Indian camps, beavers, moose, deer… A pleasant ride but not cheesy enough.
Eddie: Not enough indigenous Americans attacking the invading white man.
The Haunted Mansion (New Orleans Square)
Rating: 4.5 stars; Cheese factor: Blue Vein
Lili: The line to this was phenomenal and wound itself round and round through a maze all around the front of the mansion. We must’ve waited at least 45 minutes. This one was really cool and cheesy. We loved the spinning chairs which we rode on, the dining-room scene of (holographic) ghosts partying and dancing, the graveyard characters… All the visual effects were awesome. Well worth the wait.
Eddie: I thought this was gonna be so bad, and I was teasing Lili that we were gonna see guys in white sheets running around with holes cut out for the eyes. But to my surprise, it was really fun. Pure 1960′s ‘spooky’, but still fun.
Jungle Cruise (Adventure Land)
Rating: 4 stars; Cheese Factor: Mozzarella
Lili: Fun and cheesy because of all the animatronic wildlife and jungle cliches. We started in a “Cambodian jungle”, and ended up on the “Nile”. Fake hippos, tigers, cobras, headhunters and natives, you name it.
Eddie: Again, this was like a relic from a bygone age. Must have absolutely WOWED them in 1955…
Innovations (Tomorrowland)
Rating: 1 star; Cheese factor: Milk – no Cheese factor.
Lili: We decided that Tomorrowland was our least favorite attraction. There is no cheese factor here. We entered this exhibit and escaped after 5 minutes of listening to a metallic robot (named “Tom Morrow”) ramble on about the glorious inventions of the future… Pity that Space Mountain is under construction until 2005.
Eddie: Yeah, Tomorrowland happened and spoiled Disney’s fun. It’s called ‘today’.
Matterhorn Bobsleds (Fantasyland)
Rating: 4.5 stars; Cheese factor: Blue Vein
Lili: Fun and fast rollercoaster ride. Have you noticed these rides always start with a dark tunnel, then you slowly go up, up and up…. before swooping down really fast on an angle with water splashing on you at some point? The highlight had to be the animatronic Abominable Snowman near the end of the ride which had us cracking up.
Eddie: Yeah, this was cool! It’s a tandem ride (i.e. I had Lili between my legs). You get buffeted so much on this ride, I suggest anyone contemplating this one, should take a fat guy to sit behind them to absorbed the shockwaves. The Yeti was great…
Pirates of the Carribean (New Orleans Square)
Rating: 5 stars; Cheese factor: Blue Vein Thrombosis! (Off the scale)
Lili: Full-on animatronics/ visual fx stuff here. Again with the dark tunnel and spooky sound fx. The ride takes you through shipwreck set-ups with stormy skies; caverns with village scenes and animatronic pirates making merry and shooting at each other. They start singing (Ahoy Ahoy) and the cheese factor rises dramatically. I liked it that this was a long and slow ride compared to the others, and you could savour the impressive work by the people who put this together.
Eddie: I mean, Pirates?!? Pirates ceased to be entertainment in 1959. This was still pretty fun, though.
(above) It’s a Small World: cute South American figures
The Australasia/Oceania section: with koala, wiggling platypuses, (above) a pink kangaroo, and an Easter Island MOAI!
It’s A Small World (Fantasyland)
Rating: 4 stars; Cheese factor: Blue vein (for the song…)
Lili: Absolutely gorgeous designs and colors by Mary Blair. As a seven year old I’m not sure I would have appreciated this one; but it’s definitely a design masterpiece. Just never want to hear that song again…
Eddie: Yeah, the designs were awesome. I just kept thinking of that Simpsons episode where they go to Duff Gardens, and Lisa drinks the water, and…
… guys dressed as the Chinese mushrooms (from Fantasia)
Below – the Lion King rides a golden giraffe-drawn chariot on some fake clouds (or are they waves?) How superkitsch is this?
Eddie: This was weird – Walt’s dream of an ideal America that never existed. It really did have a strange, surreal vibe to it. My overall impression of Disneyland, is that it is a place where time really has stood still; the main attractions are still the characters and movies form decades ago, and I’m guessing the rides haven’t changed throughout it’s history. But that’s its charm – kids who went with their parents, now take their own kids, and it’s exactly the same. The fact I didn’t get to see this when I was seven years old doesn’t even matter – I’m seeing it now, just as it was then. It will never change, and I think everyone would be upset if it did.
Lili: … Lastly, we stayed for dinner at Blue Bayou (overpriced Cajun restaurant, in artificial Southern plantation night-time setting with lanterns) and were home by about 10pm.
P.S. I would’ve liked to have taken more photos but our camera was sucking really badly, with its slow performance.(like taking the picture at least three seconds after you hit the button.)
Our LA recreational diary continues… when I get my new camera next week.
Link with info and pics: The Disneyland Source
We had about two hours to kill before the UPA animation screening in Hollywood so we decided to stop at the Vespa centre on Ventura Blvd.
… this place brought back memories of Eddie’s vespa in Sydney and how much we both miss being on the scooter. L.A. is so NOT a scootering city. Eddie bought a black leather vespa jacket and I got a T-shirt. The pistachio green helmet looked mighty tempting but it cost TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS. That’s a whopping Australian FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS…
The UPA SCREENING was good, but not quite what we expected. There was no John Hubley stuff. These were shorts produced as part of the Boing Boing TV series: more whimsical, abstract and jazz-driven.
Fred Crippen (Roger Ramjet) and Jules Engel (color stylist; funny man!) both gave talks about their time at UPA – how it was such a rare experience in the history of TV animation because they could do whatever the hell they wanted on the Boing Boing series, so long as they delivered four Magoo cartoons a year. The result: these shorts were artsy, stylized and considered way ahead of their time.
I think we would’ve liked to have seen more interesting animation(movement) a la Rooty Toot Toot… but it was cool to be there.
We also met up with Jorge; then had dinner with Tony aka El Evil before going to Sugar, a club in Santa Monica which was fun.
Now very tired… have to get up bright and early tomorrow. We’re heading out to the happiest place on earth.
Potentially two very cool things could happen for this 2nd. season of ML. I am crossing my fingers really really hard that:
Website: the VIVA LUCHA art show!!! (1.5 MB)
Time is running out fast. Our schedule in the next seven days:
It’s getting busier and busier in ML world. And somehow we still have to fit in Disneyland, Tijuana, San Francisco (stopping on the coast), and a roadtrip inland through the desert and maybe to Joshua Tree. I think we have 3 weekends left.
There’s the UPA screening this weekend … The Anime Fest at the Egyptian Theatre also sounds really cool.
DC Comics:
¡MUCHA LUCHA! ISSUE #1
It’s already April 23rd, which means the 1st issue of the ¡Mucha Lucha! comic has just gone on sale. (US$2.25)
Eddie wrote 3 issues, I did pencils/inks for the covers. The awesome pencil artwork for the comics were by Ricardo Garcia Fuentes (Powerpuff Girls comics) and inked by Mike de Carlo. Joan Hilty was the fantastic editor at DC Comics.
Check out images at Comics Continuum
In Sydney, buy this from Kings Comics. (I’ve checked with Stephen Ford – they should have ordered in lots of copies 
)
LOTSA LINKS
SAQ Japan – Everything you wanted to know about Japan but were afraid to ask. The Ethnicity of Jesus - funny.
Flash Tips from my recently received Flashkit email newsletter:
GMF Tips n Tricks - The information on this website pertains mostly to Flash v 5. and for creating web-friendly animation and graphics. Becasue I sometimes use jpegs in Flash – finding these to be smaller in size than the original vector artwork, I found this article useful:
Improving bitmap image quality in Flash
There are a few things that can be done to improve the image quality of bitmaps before and after importing them to Flash.
To improve bitmap quality in Flash: Don’t scale imported bitmaps within Flash, which can greatly reduce image quality in published SWFs. Rather, use an external image editor such as Macromedia Fireworks to scale the image to the desired pixel dimensions before import.
After importing the image into Flash, break it apart and convert it to a graphic symbol. To do this, first select the image and choose Modify > Break Apart. Then, with the image still selected, choose Insert > Convert to Symbol and select the Graphic option for the behavior.
In the HTML tab of the Publish Settings (File menu > Publish Settings > HTML tab) set the Quality to Best.Disable the Allow Smoothing option for the bitmap. In the Library window, right-click (Windows) or control-click (Macintosh) on the bitmap and select Properties.
Un-check Allow smoothing in the Properties dialog and click OK.
Use lossless compression for the bitmap. In the Library window, right-click (Windows) or control-click (Macintosh) on the bitmap and select Properties. Choose Lossless from the Compression pop-up menu and click OK. This will cause Flash to render the image at the original imported quality and will probably cause the SWF file size to increase considerably.
Arthur Filloy has a new website: www.hellyeahdesign.com
I had the pleasure of working with Arthur a couple of years ago at Film Graphics Animation, on Lucky Lydia (pilot for Cartoon Network).
Personally, I think Arthur is one of THE BEST Animation Directors and Character Designers in the Australian animation industry. Thanks to Arthur, I got my first PAID animation gig in the industry.
Canadian Lucha! A big thanks to Cam for this link – www.luchacanada.com ”…the Canadian hub of Mexican Lucha Libre culture.”
The website owners are : Buddy Lee Roth who wears glasses with his mask on! (too funny) and El Macho! Jorge and Sandra, are you reading this?
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