Long Weekend

Saturday breakfast
The Return of the Pancake King
(aka Eddie, who cooks nothing else but manages to do great pancakes)

It’s Memorial Day weekend (Monday’s a public holiday) and Lisa is visiting from Atlanta, which means we have a reason (not that we need one) to do some fun L.A. stuff.

Thursday night was Lisa’s first time at Tiki-Ti,  following dinner at Palms Thai (with Thai Elvis… btw, does this guy ever shake his booty?). Today - Olvera Street and Wacko; tomorrow night – the Bigfoot Lodge, a bar that we’ve been meaning to check out for months now.

Olvera Street, Downtown LA
Lisa bought a kid-sized Santo mask for Thea

This morning Eddie and I visited Trader Joe’s for the very first time. I can’t believe we hadn’t done this sooner. People talk a lot Trader Joe’s, we just never understood the hype, assuming that it was a tiny niche store where, to quote Joel: ” … they sell mochi and stuff like that”… when in fact, it’s an awesome and cheap ’world gourmet’ supermarket and another reason to love L.A. They even gave away a free bottle of rosemary olive oil.

Upcoming stuff: *EDITED

• Next week - We’re getting DSL internet in our apartment! Can’t wait.
• June 12th - the Charles Phoenix show!
• June 19th - Two lucha legends – Mil Mascaras and Canek are appearing at Frank & Sons (AWS promotion) 
• June 24th – Lucha Va Voom no. 6
• June 26th- ‘Destroy All Monsters’ as part of the Godzilla Tribute at the Egyptian Theatre.
• July 23rd – Our first San Diego Comic-Con
• Sometime in June/July, if time permits, we might take a trip to NYC. (…putting to use our United discount vouchers…)

Ilustration from Miroslav Sasek‘s website. (via I like) We have the ‘This is London’ book which we didn’t realize was part of a series.

Rolf Harris mashups (click on mp3s link, or stream here)

The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra. They’re serious…

Kevin Lyon’s Mighty Uprock Figures

From what I could see in the first episode, we’re getting a samurai story, but told in a modern way (like with the dialogue), and with a very strong hip-hop influence. Watanabe has not only managed to give the genre a new life by using hip-hop beats in the soundtrack, but the visuals also take a cue from scratch culture (cuts between scenes are “scratched”).

This MTV short (3mb, .mov file) is pretty funny. Thanks, Oli!  Mr BaliHai, you might enjoy this one

Keith’s response sums it all up:

“Genius!

What these companies do is take a drawing and literally do whatever it takes to replicate the drawing in 3-D. At no point were they even aware the source material was a wrestling mask. The same companies do those creepy muscle suits for kids, so you’ll see a skinny black kid dressed as Goldberg, complete with caucasian muscles and red chest hair. Very wrong…” 

Note: Eddie and Lili take no responsibility for the appearance of these ML Rikochet and Flea costumes. Images found HERE. 

*edit - P.S. Here’s what a Rikochet costume should look like. (made by Liz for CN)

BTW- there’s a lucha event this Satuday,
May 29th 2pm @ Frank n Sons, City of Industry. We most possibly will be going to this.

I’ve started using Mailwasher Pro (spam filter program) and accidentally deleted/bounced a bunch of legitimate emails. If your emails sent to my lili@fwak….. address have bounced back, I’m really sorry. Please resend! I’m making sure that this doesn’t happen again.

Sydney Morning Herald: When little minds turn to mush, it’s time to plug the merchandise. Forget the bit that says cartoons are BAD for children. The exciting news for us is that ¡Mucha Lucha! is doing so well on Australia’s Cartoon Network.(where both Seasons 1 & 2 and currently on air)

Random links:

Flash movie - if you like cutesie toilet humor. (Thanks, Jerry)

Lederhosen Lucil - download Mp3s. (Thanks, Lorraine)

Interview with Salam Pax with Andrew Denton (Thanks, Kirsten)

Cheburashka. More here (linked from imomus)

Back in L.A.

We arrived yesterday morning and were struggling to stay awake all day. I don’t think the coffees worked at all. Finally crashed at about 5pm, and when I woke up it was 5am the next day! That’s 12 hours’ sleep.

So here we are. The suitcases are still unpacked and there are  boxes of mail in our office (Emmys ‘For Your Consideration’ videotapes).

This morning we saw our first hummingbird out the front of our apartment. It zipped around, like a wasp, from flower to flower. I tried to take a photo but it moved way too fast. This sight was a treat because we don’t have hummingbirds in Australia.

I have to thank Eduardo for organizing my belated-birthday group dinner at Cha Cha Cha tonight.  It was great to see everyone.(Photos are coming soon ).

So here are some of my birthday goodies … Thanks to Keith for the very cool Spiderman  head and Kaliman comics. Thanks, Jorge and Sandra for the cute dream pet!  (closest thing to a dog) I also have a signed copy of Hoodtown by Christa which I can’t wait to read, and this new gizmo from Eddie is in the post.

It’s 2.35am now… can you believe it, we’re wide awake

Bye Bye Sydney

How time flies! Has it really been one month already? We have only ONE day left in Sydney …. 

It has been great. We’ve really enjoyed not having to keep nine-to-five working hours, staying up late, sleeping in, catching up with friends & family, and eating good Asian food. (It’s much better here).

So we’ve had to work and sleep next door to a Korean karaoke restaurant(which comes alive every midnight), put up with a noisy Chinese Opera school downstairs, and curse away on our studio’s old computers which are all seriously in need of an upgrade… 

In spite of all this, camping out at our studio isn’t all that bad. As disorganized and messy as this place can be, it’s our creative base. We’re going to miss our studio when we’re back in L.A….

Tomorrow’s going to be frantic with lots of last minute stuff to take care of. We also probably won’t have time to blog until the weekend. (Wouldn’t it be nice if Qantas had Wi-Fi too?)

Random Links

This looks like a very cool book: Vinyl Will Kill – The Process of 3D Figure Production published by IdN. Unfortunately I can’t find any more info anywhere… (via Jeremyville)

On the Enough Rope website, there are transcripts of Andrew Denton’s(Australian talkshow host/comedian) very entertaining interviews with celebrities. e.g.,  Hugh Jackman, Steve ‘Crocodile Hunter’ Irwin, Adam ‘Harvie Krumpet’ Elliot. More transcripts here. 

Two theme parks: Vietnam’s Buddhist Theme Park, and Stalin World (via boingboing)

Where to find restrooms in your city/Add your own. A great idea and anyone can add information to this site. There are heaps of free public restrooms in Manhattan, where are the ones in L.A.? (via gawker)

Time to go to bed - 2.30am Thurs

Something’s gone very weird with xanga’s xtools… no text formatting or hyperlinking options. It also took several attempts to get to this page. Let’s hope this post works.

Tomorrow’s a big day. We’re getting photographed in the morning – this is in conjunction with an interview we did re: Australians who have such busy lives that there is no separation between their professional and private lives. Yep, that’s us.

Then Peter is coming over with a videotaped copy (because we can’t get clear SBS reception) of the tackiest show known to mankind - the Eurovision Song Contest!

…in terms of kitsch, tackiness, geopolitical tension, and sheer entertainment value the U.S. has nothing, but nothing, to match the Eurovision Song Contest. The Eurovision is the common cultural bond uniting generations of Europeans, the continent’s one true collective ritual.

There’s a great description on this blog (Eurovision 2003).

According to Eddie, who watched the preliminaries on Friday night in Melbourne, the winning song from the Ukraine is in fact the best because it’s visually, the tackiest (the girls wore Xena Warrior Princess outfits!). There’s also some really cringeworthy dancing from Latvia.

Eddie: “You HAVE TO see this guy dance! If Latvia hasn’t made it into the finals, I’ll do the dance for you. It’s so bad it’s the most unfunky thing you’ve ever seen.”

Lili: “Can you do the dance anyway?”

(There is also a weblog dedicated entirely to Eurovision HERE.)

And because I can’t resist writing this – tomorrow (17th) is also my birthday What I really really want is a dog. (Or a cat) But I know that’s not practical with our frequent travelling, stay-back-late-at-work lifestyle.

Currently playing: Japanese Groupsounds

Directing TV Animation – by Mark Mayerson @ Cartoon Brew.
Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3.

“In live action TV, the director has his or her hands on everything and is communicating directly with the people doing the work. In TV animation, the director is often separated from the people doing the work by levels of bureaucracy or by thousands of miles.

…… There’s no question that when a director is able to work in close contact with animators you get a better result. It’s a shame that this has become a luxury in the TV animation business.”

The same can be said of a Flash TV series like ML, where most of production happens offshore. On the other hand, we are lucky that ML is a Flash show and that we have an in-house Flash team. The director does in fact have the luxury to change the timing and fine tune the final animation. It’s always a gamble with offshore production, but this scenario is better than having no control at all.

In the case of the ML direct-to-DVD movie -  after the animation was completed (by Bardel, who did a great job), Ron sat closely with the in-house Flash guys and meticulously tweaked every single frame of this movie. The result is an awesome looking show.

Poster for the in house premiere last month.
(which we missed because we were in Sydney).

The Return of El Maléfico will have its first public screening at the San Diego Comic-Con on Friday July 23rd, 3.00 – 4.30pm.

P.S. This will be our very first time at the Comic-Con! .

More ML toys found at  Millionaireplayboy.com’s Jakks page most of which are still in development (for release later in the year). For example:

New facial expressions for Rikochet and The Flea?
Potato Patata Jr and Sonic Sumo look great! Love the man-boobs

Pinball characters!
Hmmm…. Let’s hope these aren’t final.
Why does Primadonna Hodges have GREEN skin and Heavy Traffic, GREY hair?

UPDATE – Mix-a-lot figures Series 2

Random:

The Business of Animation Seminar (May 21st., Santa Monica).

Charles Phoenix Variety Show - We’re going to this next month.

Webby Awards 2004

Godchecker.com 

How To Fold a Shirt (video).

On ‘Googling People’- “I’ve gotten into the habit of googling just about everyone I meet.”- j-walk blog   Ha! So I’m not the only one who does this.

Watching: Cinema Hong Kong series on the Discovery Channel.

¡¡¡Jumping Frijoles!!!

Yep. These toys are for real. They are Jakk’s Mucha Lucha ‘jumping beans’ and they’re freaky!!! 

*update: They are sold in packs of two at the Toywiz website.

Then there are these bellywashers (what a weird name for a juice bottle). It’s a pretty weird concept if you think about it… You’re sucking out of their heads…

I’m a ROCQUITA fan…

© 2004 FWAK! Animation

This is what happens when you’re designing some characters and an infectious little song comes along and sticks in your head…

 ’Rock Guitar’ by The Pancakes.
(From Global Indie Club Pop)

© 2004 FWAK! Animation

P.S. This is not the actual final title of the project.

Weekend out of Sydney

11.30pm Saturday – North Avoca Beach.
I’m writing this entry at Peter and Georgia’s house, on my new wireless notebook  It’s a very cool experience sitting on the couch connected to the internet with no wires. (I think we’ll have to set up the apartment in L.A. with wifi when we get back).

North Avoca is about 1.5 hours north-east of Sydney by train. We arrived in Gosford where the Hansens picked us up. Then spent the afternoon strolling along the beach watching families with their dogs and surfers riding dangerous waves.

The Hansens’ house is a huge two storey bungalow. There are bush turkeys and possums in their backyard. 

After too much wine and an awesome dinner by the beach, we’re a little tired now. Will post photos tomorrow (when we get back to Sydney).

6.00pm Sunday – posting some pics -

1. Eddie, Peter & Georgia on North Avoca beach (afternoon)
2. North Avoca Beach
3. Peter and Eddie on the house balcony
4. Breakfast on the balcony
5. A possum on the same balcony (at night)
6. The Hansens gave us a tour of the central coast. One of the beaches we stopped at was near Ettalong - These guys are kite-surfing.
7. It’s so windy that the kite pulls him up off the water. (sorry, a bit hard to see)