Ethereality News & Weblog

NEWS:
It looks like I’ll be doing some work on the card game The Spoils. Tenacious Games had contacted me a few months back about doing the cards, but I was tied up with Spiderman 3 and Surf’s Up for Sony Pictures during those months. Now that my schedule’s opened up, I’ll probably end up doing roughly a dozen cards for them. I’ve done pen & paper RPG illustrations many years ago for R. Talsorian’s Cyberpunk: Pacific Rim, so this is kind of similar territory. A lot of my peers don’t like doing work for game cards and RPG manuals because these markets tend to pay less than others, but you could always negotiate a better rate to make it worth your time and effort (assuming you are worth the higher rate in the eyes of your client).

WEBLOG:
As a reader and a writer, I’ve always treasured the universal emotional truths that we all share as human beings. I’m not talking about emotions that are easily categorized like joy, pain, anger, boredom..etc, I’m talking about more complex layers of emotions that only arise from some form of dynamic interaction, not merely passive responses to the world around us. For example, the absolution of someone after being vindicated of a crime he did not commit, or the weight that dissolves from one’s back when he learns to let go of a hate that’s been the dark and destructive driving force of his existence, or rediscovering a long lost dream and rekindling the passion for making it come true. These are universal emotional truths unique to humans–ones that are far more dynamic than the simple emotions that even dogs can feel. They are the ingredients for great stories, and I’m drawn to them when I write or when I’m enjoying the works of other writers. I’ve seen so many aspiring writers that don’t understand this simple dynamic, and that’s the difference between a writer that has something to say, or a writer that simply tells a good yarn. Not that there’s anything wrong with a good yarn, but for me personally, if the story can resonate deeper than the basic entertainment appeal, then I become emotionally invested and the payoff is far more powerful. Unfortunately, there’s another category of writers–one that goes through the motion of fabricating these universal emotional truths in a manner that’s almost contemptuous of the reader/viewer’s emotional intelligence (or it puts to question the writer’s own emotional intelligence, or level of talent). Usually, when I’m experiencing the works of this type of writer, I feel either A) manipulated B) lost of emotional immersion due to the writer’s transparent execution shortcomings, or C) lost of interest due to the writer’s lack of emotional common sense. Sometimes I wish I had never learned critical analysis of creative works–be it art, writing, music, photography, or film, because when you’re less picky, you get to enjoy so much more. Even mediocre works can keep you immersed and entertained. Does all this sound very pretentious? It probably does, but that’s just what I’m feeling at the moment. Mind you though, I do enjoy the occasional cheese now and then if it’s done brilliantly (the British TV comedy Spaced comes to mind), so I’m not really as stuffy as my rantings suggest.

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I’ve been playing Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, and so far it’s pretty disappointing (I really should have read all the negative reviews online first). The people responsible for the writing of the game belongs to the third group I described above. If the gameplay itself was really fun,then I’d have been less critical, but it isn’t. I’m not even sure if I want to finish the game at this point. Maybe I should just hold out for Half-Life 2: Episode 2, as that’s the only franchise with a reliable pedigree out there these days.

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Oh My God. I never knew… (For all you fans of Oingo Boingo)

On a related note, I found out a while ago that Danny Elfman was commissioned by the Carnegie Hall to compose an original work titled “Serenada Schizophrana,” and it premiered in February of 2005. What’s also interesting was that Andy Summers (from The Police) performed on the guitar for another original piece preceeding Serenada Schizophrana. For those of you that haven’t been following Andy Summers’ career since The police broke up, he’s pretty much been immersed in the contemporary jazz scene (something that Sting’s dabbled in as well).

Have you guys noticed that the rockers of that generation tend to veer into the classical or jazz territory as they get older? I wonder what this generation of rockers will get into as they age. It seems that no matter what genre of music you start in, you’ll always gravitate towards the more conventional music styles as you age–probably because more conventional music styles have a richer history and tend to have greater musical complexity (at least according to conventional music theory). I personally have felt this as well, since the older I get, the more I gravitate towards composing orchestral works. This isn’t to say I’ve lost interest in the more edgy styles of music though–it’s just that orchestral works tend to be more challenging to compose and arrange. I’ve always been into jazz an classical even as a teenager though, so this is hardly a new transition. My greatest joy will always be hybridizing different genres though, and it’s something I’ve done for as long as I’ve been making music.

I remember distinctly back in the late 80’s, I wanted to combine orchestral and electronic music, but back then I didn’t have the necessary equipment to pull something like that off (high-end orchestral libraries were not an option back then as their cost was astronomical). When Hans Zimmer started to rise to celebrity status in Hollywood, I observed the hybrid style I had in my head become more and more popular, to the point where it’s the standard style these days for film/game/TV scores. Now that I have the necessary equipment to make that kind of music, it’s no longer something unique. I’ve always felt that being innovative and original isn’t necessarily the most important thing a creative person should strive for though–more than anything, simply expressing what resonates within you is the most important objective, and if you happen to be unique, then your work will be perceived as so. So many people mistake innovation and originality for “better,” and it couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve seen and heard and read plenty of very unique but completely pointless and atrocious creative works that used “being different” as a crutch and a gimmick (a lot of modern art comes to mind). But who knows? Maybe those people were actually “unique” and they did express what resonated within. It could just be that I’m the one that’s too mundane.

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I can’t believe it’s time to add more storage space to my rig already (I just ordered a 750GB hard drive from Fry’s, and a SATA 3GB/IDE133 controller card from newegg.com). Between my two machines, I will have almost two terabytes of storage space, plus 600GB of backup storage that’s off-line most of the time (I only hook them up when backing up files). The new hard drive will be taking over the sample libraries duties, but I’m a bit nervous about streaming all of my samples from one drive–it could lead to audio crackles and pops during recording and playback. At least I’ll be installing it internally though, so it’ll still be performing much better than an exterior option (which was what i considered at first).

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I was at the Palo Alto branch of Fry’s a few days ago, and it was such an appalling experience. For example, their DVD sections were grossly mislabeled, and their foreign section didn’t even have the DVD’s in alphabetical order! How the hell can anyone find anything in that condition? I talked to one of their employees about it, and he said they’ve badgered the manager about doing something, but the manager kept blowing them off, and upper management won’t listen to the little guys, as they always take the managers’ word for everything. He also told me that many have quit because the managers refused to listen to employees’ suggestions on how to improve the store. I talked to one of the managers, and sure enough, his eyes were glazed over as he fed me some line about “we’re looking into it.” They need to fire a bunch of managers at that store, because it’s probably one of the worst managed stores I’ve ever seen.

NEWS:
Started working on a couple of new tracks. Here’s a preview, still in rough sketch form–essentially undeveloped ideas that needs to be fleshed out and taken somewhere:

They’re Coming - Cue for an action/thriller story, during a scene when the antagonist are approaching and they came prepared to end it all. (That synth wailing sound isn’t a mistake–it’s there to create a dissonant feel for agitated tention.)

Just One Reason - This track I limited myself to using only Reason 3 for everything–my way of learning a new piece of software by doing a complete project in it.

WEBLOG:
I rarely have freetime to work on music, and it’s been my number one frustration for many years now. The problem is more complex than simply not having the time, it’s also that whatever little time I have to work on music, I use it to record new ideas that’s been swimming around in my head since that last time I’ve had time to do music. In the end, I accumulate a bunch of unfinished sketches that I never have time to finish (as you can tell if you browse the music section of my site). Maybe one day when my life becomes less hectic I’ll find the time to actually finish and polish some of the works in progress.

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I went to Borders to flip through Spectrum 13 the other day (my copy was sent to my brother’s house, and I haven’t had time to pick it up yet), and I was ecstatic over the print quality of my piece. It is one of the best printings of my work I’ve seen in the last fifteen years of my career as a professional artist, and part of the reason was because Spectrum asked all the artists to do their own RGB to CYMK conversions. I slaved over mine and made it look as absolutely pristine as possible, and it really paid off. I should strive to do my own conversions from now on, as I’ve had my work butchered in the past by publishers that had no idea what the hell they were doing (I’m not going to mention any names–they know who they are).

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Elena’s back in Fuzhou, China to take care of some business stuff, and this is the longest we’ll be apart in the last five years since we’ve met. Previously the longest was a week, but this time she’ll be gone for 10+ days. I used to have a hard time sleeping when she’s not home (same goes for her when I’m not home–she becomes an insomniac, staying up late watching DVD’s), but this time I managed just fine (partly because I’ve been dead tired from all the crazy all-nighter deadlines for Spiderman 3). Now that she’s been living in the States for five months, she’s gotten used to how clean, organized, spacious, modern, and quiet things are here, not to mention how curteous, professional, and compassionate Americans in general are in public places. These qualities are a sharp contrast compared to China–where all the values we treasure here simply doesn’t exist, or are extremely rare. I had lunch with the VP of the studio I’m freelancing for recently, and they have partners in China and need to travel there periodically. His impression of China was exactly the same as mine, and it was a shock for him to see the level of dishonesty, rudeness, apathy, and utter lack of scruple displayed by nearly everyone he came into contact with. Now that I’ve been back in the States for a while, I’m not nearly as frustrated and angry as I was about everything as when I was in China. That whole experience is now in the past, and it’s simply a different world I would never want to return to.

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If you haven’t seen On the Edge of Bladerunner yet, definitely watch it if you’re a fan of Bladerunner. It’s a 50 minute documentary about the film’s history in retrospect, and contains some really interesting interviews with the crew.

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I finally broke down and purchased Half-Life 2: Episode One over the Steam network. HL 1 & 2 are some of my ultimate favorite games ever, so there’s no way in hell I’ll skip anything in the franchise; however, I had my doubts about using Steam (although I support the idea) since I heard so many horror stories. Now that I’ve used it to purchase the Holiday Package (which includes a bunch of other HL-related games) I’m relieved that it was a delight to use. The videos you can download on Steam are also much better quality than you could find elsewhere–Valve’s video player for Steam is one of the best I’ve seen in terms of image quality. I can’t wait to get my ass back to City 17–I just know it’ll be an exciting ride.

NEWS:
ImagineFX magazine’s posted on their website the interview they did with me, originally printed in the first issue of the magazine. For those of you that missed it when it was in circulation, you can now read it here

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Spectrum 13 has shipped, and one of my paintings was accepted this year. (For those of you that don’t know, Spectrum is the most prestigious annual publication in the field of sci-fi/fantasy art.) You can find out more from these links:

About Spectrum, the annual sci-fi/fantasy art publication

About Spectrum 13, the latest in the series

You can purchase the book by clicking on the image:

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I’m still in the Bay Area at the moment. I have no idea when the studio wants me to move down to Burbank, and I’ll remain busy freelancing for them in the foreseeable future–until I get snatched up by another studio, that is. If that were to happen it would be too bad, because I like the guys there and my tour of the studio gave me a good impression of the place.

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Been a long time since I updated Kitty Cat Diary. Not that I stopped shooting, just that I’ve been too busy to prepare the images for the web. I took a couple of days off this weekend and got caught up though. You can see the latest entries here:

WEBLOG:
I used to pull all-nighters a lot when I was in the comic book industry, writing and illustrating comics for a living (if you can call the laughable money I made “a living”). When I defected to video games, I’ve only had to do an all-nighter once in three years and five shipped games (the all-nighter was for a Playstation game called “Pastrana VS. McGrath Freestyle Motorcross,” and I actually got to design the level as well as texture it–it’s the level with cherry blossoms, taiko drums, shrines, and lots of snow). In CG animation, I never had to pull an all-nighter–maybe really late nights, but never seeing the sun come up. In the last week, I had to pull three all-nighters straight on Spiderman 3 and Surf’s Up, with roughly two to three hours of sleep between each day. I took a caffein pill on the first day, and Elena boiled up a pot of jinseng–they helped to keep me awake and alert. The second and third day I did without any caffein pills and just drank the jinseng. I didn’t really feel any difference, so I’ll do without the caffein pills the next time I pull an all-nighter.

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One thing I don’t like about using WordPress for blogging is that although I have full control over everything (CSS coding), can host it myself, add plugins for more features, and make my own backups, I don’t have all the nifty features of communities like Livejournal and MySpace (they’re the ones that most of my friends use). So I figured out a way to implement it–a simple link to my own Livejournal/MySpace pages, which will then be linked to all of my friends, and also linked back to my site. Those links are now implemented into the menu on the left.

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Here are some quickie movie reivews of the stuff I’ve watched lately:

Brick - I was excited to watch this, as the guys at Filmspotting (one of the best film review podcasts on the internet) raved about it, but the film didn’t live up to expectations. I understand what the director tried to do–bending the noir genre by setting it in a high school with teenagers, but the whole thing felt more like an exercise in style than something that’s truly heartfelt. I can’t help but think if the film had been shot in a more realisitc manner with natural dialogues, instead of the hardcore noir dialogues and David Lynch-esque scene setups, it would’ve resonated more emotionally. There’s something inherently fake about teenagers playing grownups–something that writers do occassionally, but rarely do it well enough to be forgiven. Teenagers without any trace of what makes that age group unique, are not teenagers anymore, and I think that’s essentially what’s wrong with writers trying to push inexistent maturity upon characters that just aren’t ready for it yet.

Spanglish - I was afraid it would be one of those mindless and patronizing romantic comedies that plagues mainstream Hollywood, but Elena and I ended up really enjoying the film. The dialogues were unpredictable, and although it was light on serious social commentary (which isn’t the point of the film at all) about racial or cultural issues, it packed enough great moments to hold our interest–it even got some big laughs out of us.

And oh yeah, Paz Vega is quite something in that movie. There’s a scene of Adam Sandler yelling at her to get out of the wind because he was being distracted by the view of her being back-lit by the moonlight, with her dress clinging to her, revealing all kinds of curves. It was quite a vision. There’s a Chinese phrase the describes curaceous women as “Protudes in the front, sticks up in the back.” Quite fitting in this case. Strangely enough, I’ve also seen her in Sex and Lucia (from the director of Lovers of the Arctic Circle), and in the nude she isn’t that curvaceous at all. It just goes to show you how much clothes can shape a woman’s figure.

Battle Star Galactica Season 3 - Still one of the best shows on TV (although I don’t really have time to watch TV at all, so I’m not exactly up to date on other shows out there besides Lost). I’m so happy to see Sharon reinstated as an officer, although I found it hard to swallow that Adama would be that careless. I mean, everyone still remember that Cylons can be mind-controlled to do things, right? What’s to stop Sharon from another murderous episode, or worse, an evil betrayal? I’ve only watched up to Exodus part 1, and I hear part 2 was a mind-blower. Can’t wait to see it.

Poseidon - I can’t believe this is from the same director of Das Boot. It’s probably the most typical mainstream action/thriller film I’ve seen in a long time–totally predictable, by the numbers, and without any trace of creative passion from the people behind the lens.

Eight Below - As much as I love dogs and as cute as the ones in the movie were, I kept thinking the dogs were way too human-like in the movie–then I remembered it’s supposed to be a Disney film.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants - A pretty good chick flick for teenage girls. I would watch anything Alexis Bledel is in, because she’s such a rare mix of angelic grace, shyness, and natural beauty.

X-Men 3: The Last Stand - It’s no Brian Singer, but it wasn’t a disaster either. On the other hand, it would’ve taken a really terrible director to wreck the standard set by the previous two films. Even a hack director can simply ape the vibe of the previous two films and end up with a half-way decent sequel.

It’s interesting to see the previous generation of cute teenage actresses getting older and losing some of their fresh-faced appeal. I used to think Anna Paquin’s a total cutie, now she’s starting to look a little strange to me. But Kitty Pryde–meeeeow!

News:
I’ve wrapped up my contract for Surf’s Up, and now I’m working on the next project, which I sort of mentioned before (although not by name). Now that I’ve actually started work on it, I can tell you it’s Spiderman 3. I’ve enjoyed the previous two Spiderman films, so I was looking forward to doing work on the sequel. I’m working on the character Venom at the moment (hence the glaringly obvious pun of this blog entry), and it’s interesting to go back to my comic book roots.

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It looks like I might be moving to Burbank, CA soon for a new job. I’ve been offered a position by a studio down there, and as soon as we work out the nitty gritty, Elena and I will be relocating. It kinda sucks that we had just moved back to the Bay Area where all of my family and friends are, and will now have to move away again. If any of you reading this can offer some great advice regarding living in the Burbank area (or nearby cities withing a quick drive), please do.

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I was invited to write a treatment on spec for an animated TV series called Akihabara@Deep for Polygon Pictures and Nickelodeon Television recently. I had met Polygon’s CEO, Shuzo Shiota, during CG Overdrive 2006 in Singapore, and he expressed an interest in my take on Akihabara@Deep (which is already an established I.P. that was originally a manga, then made into a feature film, and now will be made into a children’s animated TV series for Nickelodeon) and invited me to submit a treatment. The premise of the original didn’t lend itself too well to a children’s show since it had a more mature theme, so Polygon Pictures wanted a rewrite of the premise. I essentially reworked the premise, changed some of the characters, added some new characters, and had a blast recreating the A@D universe. I just got an email from Polygon Pictures regarding my treatment, and their reply was both good and bad. The good is that they told me out of all the submissions by different writers, they thought mine was the most exciting and powerful. The bad is that as much as they liked my treatment, they felt it was still a bit too mature for the 6~11 yr-old demographic and went with another writer whoes submission was more children-friendly.

I guess at least I should be happy that Polygon liked my writing the best out of all the submissions. It would’ve been nice to get the gig though.

You can find out more about Akihabara@Deep from these links:
Article about Nickelodeon’s collaboration with Polygon Pictures on original Japanese content for the English-speaking market

Another article about the same subject

Akihabara@Deep feature film official website

Another Akihabara@Deep feature film website

Akihabara@Deep wiki entry

News:
Surf’s Up’s trailer is now online. As I mentioned before, I’m currently doing some work on Surf’s Up, so it’s extra exciting to see the trailer for it. I like how they set the mood right away with a sense of history, leading up to the premise. All the surfers will love this film, I’m sure. They should probably do the premiere in Hawaii, with guys in penguin suits walking around with surfboards. That’d be really something, eh?

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Due to my current busy schedule with freelance work, I had to stop teaching at the Academy of Art University. I was just spreading myself too thin; I’m a perfectionist and want to do a kickass job, I tend to spend too much time preparing class material–time that I don’t have. I hate doing things half-assed, and since teaching isn’t my bread and butter gig, I had to let it go (at least for now). I do enjoy teaching though–it’s a great feeling to give back to the next generation of upcoming talents.

weblog:
Someone was selling a used Novation ReMOTE 25 SL on ebay, and the price was so good that I just had to do it. The unit itself is very nice–the semi-weighted key-action is by far the best I’ve ever seen on the market. Makes me wish Novation would release 88 or 76-key versions too (now they only have 25, 37, and 61, and one without any keys). I’m bummed that it doesn’t support automap for Sonar though (because Cakewalk has developed their own automap technology called A.C.T., and refused to cooperate with Novation). The included templates do work, but how well varies. The templates for the Novation softsynths are great, as are the ones for Korg Legacy Collection (one of my favorite softsynths), and the rest either varies in coverage or I haven’t tried much. Anyway, I’m not going to write a detailed review or anything–there are plenty on the internet you can google for, and I agree with most of them. Here’s what the ReMOTE 25 SL looks like:

I took yesterday off to relax after finishing another deadline, and I spent it trying out some synths/workstations at Guitar Center (I really don’t do this very often, and it only seems I’ve been doing it a lot recently because I’m in the market for some new equipment, and I must do research). This time, I gave some fair play time to the Yamaha MO6/8, Roland Fantom X series, Korg Triton TR-88, Triton Extreme, Alesis Fusion HD-6, Casio Privia series, Yamaha CP-300, P-70..etc. To make a long story short, I think Roland and Korg should both up their game, as Yamaha’s new entry level MO series is extremely good, with a huge set of sounds that are excellent. It makes Korg’s Triton Le and its replacement, the Triton TR series, look dated and underwhelming. Roland doesn’t even have an entry level workstation–and I think they’re missing the boat on an entire market segment. The Casio Privia series are quite amazing for the price point–great piano-action and sounds (for the price). The best piano action I’ve played up till now is probably the Yamaha CP-300 and P-70–absolutely beautiful to play on. I’m not sure if the piano-action alone is worth the price of the CP-300, or the lack of modwheel/pitch-bend/aftertouch of the P-70 though. At this point, I’m more likely to get the CME UF7 for my semi-weighted master controller (it’s got breath-controller input!), and Kurzweil PC1X for my weighted piano-action 88-key controller (with the ribbon controller option). I wish I could find an 88-key semi-weighted controller with aftertouch, but no such thing exists in the market.

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Watched V For Vendetta recently, and since I’ve never read the original Alan Moore graphic novel, I don’t have any point of reference for it. Overall, I thought the film was enjoyable, but it’s not nearly as profound as what I had expected. I do feel that the film’s a bit too mainstream in its execution style, and if they had taken a less commercial approach, the film would’ve hit a lot harder emotionally and intellectually. But as it is, the approach is a bit too heavy-handed and lacks complexity. I’m sure Alan Moore asked to have his name removed from the credits for similar reasons.