Resumes are out and now it's a waiting game. In the meantime, I bought Transformers: War for Cybertron! I would have to say the game is really fun! Transformers games have always sucked, but this one takes it to a whole new level. The campaign was challenging and entertaining the whole way though. The dialogue was well written and the cut scenes kept the story rolling. So when I'm not writing cover letters, I am a transformer! If I were a transformer my name would be Mograph Prime.

Don't you know about the bird?

-- Nick

Now that my reel is being passed around online I've received some really nice feedback! I took some advice and decided to accept defeat! I changed my reel a teeny bit! Hopefully it is as close to final as possible. In my world, saying "final" is the worst thing to do, because somewhere down the line you'll end up changing it. Eventually that continues until you have files called "something.final.final.version2.final" Agh! File organization gets pretty gnarly at that point!

So... the 4th came and went, but I had a great time! My friends and I bbq'd some sweet tri-tip, took a dip in the pool, and headed out to Newport Harbor to watch some fireworks. I expected mass traffic on the way, but luckily we didn't hit any! After finding a cozy parking spot we decided to take a trek up a mountain side to find the 'perfect' spot. Well we found it alright! The view was amazing. We were probably 100 feet above the beach overlooking the harbor. Right around 9pm someone started lighting off huge fireworks less than 100 feet behind us! A mile to the right another fireworks show. A mile ahead of us another off the coast line. To our left about a mile was another show! Wow! As if that wasn't enough, the harbor show started shortly after! We had 4-5 fireworks shows all going off at once! It was awesome! I recorded the fireworks show on my phone so I can show my girlfriend when she comes back to the states! Hope everyone had a great holiday!

Now that all the fun is over it's time for me to crack down on finding a job. I'm hoping I can pick one up by the end of July!

Finally finished up my new reel. I'm pretty stoked with the way it turned out. Now its time to finish up the demo reel breakdown and start applying to some studios. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up a job before the end of next month. I also changed up the rollovers on the media to reflect my new 'design' for the 2010 reel. I'm still toying with the idea of adding a way to update my content via xml, but we'll see if that ever happens. For now, enjoy the reel and drop me a line!

I leave you with a famous quote, "What? You pooped in the refrigerator and you ate the whole wheel of cheese? How'd you do that? Heck, I'm not even mad".

Working on my new demo reel and resume! Hopefully I'll be able to find a job soon. It feels weird to know that I am done with school forever... its about time!

I'll be reworking the internals of my site soon. Hopefully I'll be able to update things a little easier than before.

Cheers.

Its been a long time since I've updated. Soon there will be some major changes to my website. Including a smaller load time and other necessities. 2009 is in the past and the future is coming soon.

Too much to do, too little time.

Let 2010 begin!

Its been awhile, but I've been busy! Finally got a reel cut together that I'm happy with and its up on the site. Check it out if you have a minute! Hockey has been a lot of fun this summer and my last game is Wednesday - boo!! I'm moving back down south for school next week, but the problem I face is that I don't have a place to live yet! Hopefully that will all change very shortly.

Got some recording equipment, too - so look out for future 'music' updates.

I'm exhausted... Good night

My day started at 8:15am when I had to wake up to drive my buddy to school at 9:15. He recently had jaw surgery and he can't drive until he's off the medicine. So I woke up, ate, and cleaned out the inside of my car so he could actually sit down! After that I had about 15 minutes before I had to leave so I decided to wash my car. Washed it, picked him up, and drove him to school. On the way home I headed to mail off some document at the post office, return items to walmart from christmas, buy guitar strap buttons from the music shop, and pick up some washers from the hardware store! All this before noon!

Once I got home I immediately began working on my ukulele. I've wanted a strap for awhile now and I finally got the courage to drill into my beautiful ukulele! The installation went very smoothly and I'm extremely happy with my strap set up now! You can see step by step pictures on my facebook. After my risky surgery on the uke I gave it some love by playing for the next 3 hours. It was a lot of fun and I learned 2 new songs. I even recorded them and tried to sing... but I suck! Singing and playing is definitely something that doesn't come naturally to me. I'll keep practicing though!

Helped cook dinner tonight with my brother and watched some tv. I played with photoshop CS4 for another few hours making random things and now its time for sleep. I have to wake up to drive my friend again. Peace, love, and ukulele!

Idle Monkeys took a fortunate victory over PGSP in OT! It was a weird game all around, but we pulled out a dominate performance in the OT period and didn't allow a single shot on net. It ended with a slick pass from our offense to the crease and a perfect wrister to the top shelf of the goal. I scored 2 goals; one insanely fast snapshot through the 5 hole and the other a deke forehand to backhand and shot it in while the goalie was down. Those weren't the only digits I put up on the board, however! I ended up sitting in the box for a 2 minute tripping penalty. It was a loose call, but I didn't argue. Thankfully our penalty killers managed to prevent any goals while our goalie was standing on his head stopping everything. Check out all our stats and game schedules on our website!

Aside from hockey, I managed to spend a good amount of time diving into photoshop CS4. I've been reluctant in using it because it just feels crappier than CS3. I don't really like the new layout with the way adjustment layers work, but I guess its something I have to get used to. I really dislike the tabbed images, so I quickly turned that off. The flick feature is totally bogus and shouldn't have been programmed in! I didn't see any options for CS3 layouts so I guess I just need to spend more time working in CS4 to really appreciate it. I plan on spending some time tomorrow reading up about the new features and what not. I've been using AE CS4 since it was released and love it - so I guess its just about time to get rolling with the rest of the suite!

I've also started getting into expressions and scripting for AE - which led me to find this pretty amazing program called NodeBox. Seems like a really awesome program to learn how to make generative art, something I've grown more interested in as of late. There are just too many things to learn and keep up with!

Updates to the site:
- Added 2 new videos to 'motion'. Deleted 1.
- Added 8 new 'designs'. Deleted 2.
- Added resume to my contact page
- Added a new skateboarding 'photo album'.
- Added pink highlight to hyperlinks in 'blog' and 'contact' pages.

Tune in next time... ya-did-i-mean?

Another site update - this time for the better! You'll notice a new menu item called 'PHOTOS' that will host all my photo albums and when clicking on each of the albums it will open up in a new smaller grid with all the thumbnails instead of flash. It was a complete overhaul to most of the scripting to make it work, but my genius brother (the programmer behind the site) managed to make miracles happen. I'm really happy with the way the photo albums are set up now! On top of all that I realized that my content holder images weren't optimized for the web, so I compressed those WAY down. Now my site should load slightly faster.

Before I head back to school I am hoping we'll be able to get my site to dynamically load all the images, instead of preloading them all! This might mess up some of the cool animations and stuff, but we'll see.

G'night!

I managed to get an interactive flash gallery set up for my photos finally. You can find my photo galleries under the 'work' section, then click on the not so obvious 'photos'. Each gallery will have its own image under photos and each will link to a separate flash gallery. The downside to having the galleries be flash is that it doesn't go with the rest of my site not being flash - and it wont work on iPhones! I might try hacking together an html gallery, but for the moment these will have to do. I think its pretty cool looking though! I only put up one gallery right now, but more will be coming!

Late!

Sorry for the long delay between updates. I've been slacking off a bit! I changed the 'news' section into 'blog' now. I had a great time teaching the Filmmaking for Skateboarding course up at Stanford through DMA (Digital Media Academy). The 5 students I had were very motivated to learn and I'm sure I pounded enough information in their brains to make them explode! Now that the class is over I am back to my normal schedule and minor freelance projects here and there.

I got a call the other day to help vfx supervise a music video in Roseville, CA. I headed up there and spent nearly 15 hours helping the shoot go smoothly. I pretty much did it all since they didn't have enough help, but my main focus was technical directing. The band is called "A Rotterdam November" and if you google them you can check out their website and media. It was their first music video and I thought they handled the hours and repetitive takes really well. We shot at night in front of an old theater - "The Tower Theater" in Roseville, CA. A bum came up to us at about 2am and said he could hear the band from all the way across town! Good thing we had our permits! The cops rolled through a couple times, but never bothered to stop. I think they were more interested in seeing our lady actress in a small dress in the freezing cold!

I'm going to really motivate myself and work on my reel this coming week. After that, its time to focus on the story for my senior thesis project. If you know any really good script writers or storytellers please have them email me! I really want to collaborate with someone to help write it! I'm also going to try and get a photo gallery up on my website for the random photo's I take.

Peace, love, and ukulele.

After a nice lunch meeting with some friends, I finally have a little motivation to work on my senior thesis project over the summer. I've got some very talented people wanting to latch onto the project, which makes me excited! Hopefully by the end of the Summer I'll have some concept art or test shots finished. For now, I am concentrating on getting a reel built for future potential jobs.

I'm teaching a course at Digital Media Academy for the week of July 20th - which should extremely fun. Its a filmmaking for skateboarding course which is designed for teens who are interested in creating on-beat, entertaining skate videos. Hopefully I can inspire some of the students to pursue film as a viable career!

Take care.

I had an amazing vacation that started in Hawaii and ended in Guam. I was gone for a total of 15 days! It was one of the best vacations I've been on - and there have been lots of those! I want to thank my lovely girlfriend Lauren and her very generous family for giving me the opportunity to see their island and its unique culture. I have a billion photos to share, so check them out on my facebook account. If you aren't my friend, add me with a message!

I had a 30 hour travel back to California - spent the night in Riverside - then drove to San Jose. I'll be in San Jose until school starts up again. Hockey will keep me in shape, while Digital Media Academy will keep me occupied. I'm teaching a Filmmaking for Skateboarding 1 week summer camp through DMA at Stanford University. It should prove to be an exciting and educational week. For now, I'm unwinding after the eventful vacation - but I'm going to hit Maya pretty hard very soon.

Peace.

I've been busy packing up my house and moving it all for the Summer, so I haven't had any time to update! I finally hooked up my computer today, for one day, and decided it was about time to let you all know what I'm up to. I've spent the past 9 days in Riverside, CA with my girlfriend - relaxing, swimming, eating, and watching movies! It has been a great start to the summer and it will only get better! I leave for Hawaii tomorrow for 2 days - and then I'm off to Guam for 12 days!! It's going to be a blast! I won't be able to update again until I get back home to San Jose where I'll be staying with my brother.

If you're a friend on Facebook make sure to check constantly as I'll be uploading photos/videos every night! Some other news - I paid my dues to Hollywood and saw "Drag me to Hell" as well as "UP"! Drag me to Hell wasn't exactly what I imagined, but at least it had a good ending! Up was amazing, however. Going into it I didn't know what to expect out of the story, but Pixar pulled it off! Time to go pack and get ready for the big trip.

Aloha!

Finals are almost over! My last final is tomorrow evening - and then its Summer!

I've been working on a few other things all while studying for finals - they'll be uploaded on the site soon enough. For now, just a small news update.

-- Nick

I had a very productive day today! My final projects are coming along and I can't wait to get them over with. Summer is almost here!

Tonight I was honored with meeting Rob Minkoff, director of The Lion King and other great features, in an informal dinner/meet and greet. It was amazing to see him and hear what he had to say about his upbringing, his career, and the industry. Who would have known that when I was singing Hakuna Matata as a little boy I'd eventually grow up and meet the director!? Pretty awesome. I got a picture with him, that you can view by clicking on the small photo. Its been a long, busy day, so its off to bed.

peace

I've been pretty busy lately with school and other small projects - so I haven't had much time to write an update! I've about killed myself this week with exercise, but thats a good thing. I need to get into shape for the beginning of summer - surfing everyday!! Im so excited for that! I played hockey for 4 hours with 12 other people this past Saturday, which was a blast... and a blast of rays from the sun. I ended up being a tomato at the end of the day, but proceeded to Riverside for the weekend. A couple friends and I celebrated Mothers Day with my girlfriends parents, which was nice. Played some ukulele, some cards, and ate ate ate!

I went to see my girlfriend do a presentation today on "Self Name Recognition" - at Chapman University. It was really a treat to see her speaking and she presented her topic very well! Aside from everything else, I've been stuck doing final projects lately. Taking 4 project based classes is really playing a toll on my time /sigh. I just finished up a first pass, a very rough first pass, of my final animation for 3D class. I've been learning a lot going through the project, but I wish I actually learned this stuff in class... oh well.

Peace, love, and Ukulele - Nick

I woke up really late today, but still managed to get a bunch done. I talked to the registrars at school and got my "cluster" class figured out and declared - then proceeded to get the Chairman's signature on my registration forms. I need her signature to get into some classes, since I transferred here and the system doesn't like me registering online because of that reason - oh well. I still need to get into 2 classes within the Graphic Design department. Hopefully I can get in touch with the professors over there and get that sorted out. I really need to get into those 2 Graphic Design classes because they're only offered in the Fall semester.

Tonight I attended another ACME meeting, where we had guest speaker Katherine Concepcion. She had a ton of useful information about the industry and was a real pleasure to listen to. So many amazing stories - it was pretty inspiring. Hopefully I'll be able to be a guest speaker at some school... one day! She really cleared up how to write a resume for the entertainment industry and honed in on exactly what the studios are looking for from an applicant. I also talked to her about my senior thesis project, which she felt was a good idea!

G'night - NG

I should probably be doing homework, but getting content up on the website was wayyyyy more exciting to me. I'm pretty much finished with most of the content. I have a just a few more compositing projects that I've been working on lately, so those will go up when they're finished. My final class projects will be going up as they get finished too. I'll be using this "NEWS" feed as sort of a daily blog, too. So keep coming back and checking it out!

Peace, Love, and Ukulele - NG

I've been away from my computer for pretty much the entire weekend! The internet wasn't working at my house, for some reason, so I decided to stay away from it and enjoy everything else. I went to Disneyland which was a ton of fun. We rode Thunder Mountain Railroad as the fireworks finale was going off. It was pretty wicked to be zooming around while fireworks were directly above! We didn't leave the park until 12:30am! We also decided to ride Splash Mountain with our eyes closed, what a trip! At times, you don't even know if you're moving until you hit something, lol. Saturday was a long, slightly boring day, but I got a lot of content optimized for the website! I didn't have internet so I couldn't put anything up - but it will be coming shortly. I went and picked up my friend Jasmine from the airport on Sunday, then headed right back to sleep. I woke up at 1:30pm then went and played some intense hockey for 2 hours at a local rink. It was sure a nice feeling strapping on all the pads and heading out there! I scored 4 goals and had 3 assists. After hockey I had to register for the next semester of classes - but like always - registration was a nightmare for me. The school just doesn't seem to understand that I TRANSFERRED there, so it keeps telling me I haven't taken any pre-requisite classes! Aghh... hopefully I can get that sorted out tomorrow. I had dinner with my girlfriend and her parents tonight, too. We ate at the Lazy Dog cafe and I stuffed my face with a chili cheeseburger. I even tried some Ahi Poke! Its time to start some work and do a bit of homework while Im at it!

Cheers - NG

I've been sorting through files and trying to get things optimized for the web. Some of the HQ video links wont upload for some reason, so I am going to have to try re-uploading those at school or somewhere else with a faster internet connection. I put up some content - nothing in any particular order, but I wanted to get some stuff up before I leave today.

Im heading off to Disneyland, the most magical place on earth. Then going to see Danny Maika perform! Cheers.

It's been a goal of mine to get my website up and running, ohhhh for about 2 years now. I'm glad to say its finally happening! I wanted to stay away from Flash, since the iPhone doesn't support flash, but still have it 'feel' more fluid. After 20 different designs, that were all too fancy, I ended up landing on this design. I think the simplicity of the design really helps put the attention on the artwork. Thanks to my brother Shaun for doing an amazing job at programming this thing. Without his help I'd still be in photoshop designing a new page!

Content IS coming I promise. Its tough to go back through a year or more of work and start optimizing it for the web :).

Shaun did an extraordinary job programming this website. Many many thanks goes out to him for making this dream of mine a reality. ++