I refuse to update my website until I redo it (all in due time, people), so I am posting here lest people think I’ve been sitting on the couch watching cartoons all day. I’ve worked on a  couple of cool new websites over the last few months.  The first was the redesign of the Prince Street Gallery website.  The members wanted something simple yet sleek to best showcase their work.  I’d been wanting to do a nice minimal site for a while now, so I jumped at the opportunity.

I got to produce another sleek site with halsell.net. Halsell New Media is the site for New Media guru, Michelle Halsell. I’ve had the pleasure of working with her on quite a few intriguing projects, so I was very happy to be able to create a site for her.

Filed under: web design
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Though I claim to be an anime fan, it was my music obsession that led me to the beautiful film, Tekkonkinkreet. Plaid is one of my fav electronica groups, and while doing a routine check on their site , I discovered that they had recently done the music for a random anime I’d never heard of. I quickly Netflixed it, though I was really more interested in hearing the music. A quick search remedied that. Gotta love the interwebs. I liked it, but it definitely sounded like “soundtrack” music, so I was eager to see (hear) how it would translate when combined with the animation.

The movie quickly exceeded my expectations. The animation is stunning. There are layers of artwork within the film along with different styles that seamlessly mesh together. The story is about two orphans fighting for survival amongst a gritty landscape, and the animation does a wonderful job of painting that picture.

The icing on the cake is, of course, the music. Hearing Plaid’s work in its proper context made all the pieces fall into place and gave me a greater appreciation of the soundtrack. The opening and closing tracks alone do a wonderful job of encompassing the mood of the piece. Even some of the songs I didn’t care for on its own, integrated perfectly with the accompanying visuals.

I’m certainly not a movie critic, but I highly recommend this film (Will I get sued for giving it two thumbs up? ). I’ve seen it twice (the second time on Blu-Ray which was extra yummy), and it will definitely become part of my anime collection.

Filed under: animation, music
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