Back in 2000, during my second senior year, I got a research grant to make a student film. The proposed film was far from typical; It was going to be stop motion animated, but use custom written software to superimpose lips and mouths onto the characters. The idea of this wasn’t outrageous. The previous year I had worked with Marshall Miller on his student stop motion film. Marshall is someone who has truly studied character animation, and his enthusiasm for the topic was contagious. My contribution was software that let him compare his frames as he shot, and allowed him to build previews on set.

(Sadly, all I have is this low resolution version. Watch the quality of the character movements, and then realize he got that out of regular artist mannequins).

The next year I was experimenting in lip-sync for undergraduate animation, and I used the grant as a way to expand the research. Marshall and I spent all summer at Oldfather Studios working on a stop motion version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, subsisting mostly on peanut butter sandwiches. My mother had made the costumes, and his mom had made the sets, Marshall was lead animator, Niki Newland was our cinematographer, and I was director, software designer, and animation assistant. My professor at one point exclaimed “It’s like a modern version of let’s put on a show!”

After that year I graduated and moved to Dallas. The animation bug wasn’t dead, but I certainly didn’t have the spare time to engage it. Five years later, when I bought a house, I finally had the space to really try again, but doing an animated short really didn’t interest me. The problem is that you build up a number of sets, characters, and costumes, spend months or years shooting minutes of footage, and then throw it all away when you’re finished. What I had really wanted to do was make an independent animated series. First, you can re-use the sets, costumes, and characters week after week. Second,when you work on a short you have to finish the entire thing, but on a series you get small rewards by having new episodes.

While I was thinking about this, my high school friend Cory Q contacted me looking to collaborate on something. He and his friend Seth had a website monkeyrivertown.com, and they wanted to do something for their site. Cory’s thought was that there should be a professor monkey who talks about random things, like their Ask The Philosotron. This was a little too open ended for me. Cory is very Liberal Arts, with knowledge about history and culture, but the only two things I know about are computers and movies. The solution was to narrow the focus down to writing about movies, and with that the Movie Monkey was born.

Writing episodes usually would involve having a random thought in the middle of a conversation and thinking “I should write an episode around that.” Anyone who follows my twitter feed probably knows I have a lot of random thoughts in a given week. I would bunch up about 6 episodes at a time and then record them with Cory Q and my friends. Of the entire process, recording was the most rewarding. While the script had the structure, Cory, Jason, Chris, Parvenah would make it funny. My scripts were never considered fully baked, and everyone brought ideas to the table to make it funnier (for example, in the original script Steve Jobs was a hippie. Cory changed it in delivery). I got to record my friends hanging out and having fun. What could be better?

I would shoot episodes in the mini-studio in my house. The set and the monkey itself was built by Brendan Lattin, who was a KU student at the time. All of those books in the Movie Monkey’s bookshelf? Hand bound by Brendan. The guy is good. The costumes were made by my mom, and once again she did an amazing job. After her experience on The Emperor’s New Clothes, she’d learned how to design costumes specific to stop motion. If the audio was cut together I could animate an episode across the span of two weekends if I did nothing but animate.

Probably the biggest accomplishment was the Movie Monkey Evil League of Evil entry. Like the rest of the internet, I loved Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog and when I heard about the YouTube contest I knew we had to enter. The original idea was to turn the Movie Monkey into The Funky Monkey, a disco super-villain. I didn’t have time to make Bootsy Collin’s glasses or a costume, or music, or anything else necessary to pull it off. The idea also didn’t fit with the meta-humor of the Movie Monkey, who tends to talk about why things are. Three days before the deadline I had a new idea: rather than focus on making a superhero, make a video about failing to make a superhero. I wrote the original lyrics to the song while in a three hour conference call at work. Brian Campbell wrote the music (and made the lyrics work) and Brian Hindman lent his voice.

Which brings us to the central question – why don’t I post the funny anymore? There are a number of reasons.

I have a disadvantage to most independent filmmakers in that I like my office job, and not just because my boss might be reading. When you have a time consuming creative endeavor, it helps to do it out of hatred of your soul crushing job, especially if you can see it as an eventual escape. Sadly, I like what I do, and surprisingly I don’t suck at it or at least I hope I don’t.

What I do suck at is promotion. Getting a series off the ground involves getting people to watch, which is all the harder when you don’t have a major network or company behind you. It doesn’t help when you pick a main character name Google thinks is a misspelling. I tried forcing my friends to watch by emailing, pestering, and otherwise being a Amway salesman with my friends, but I couldn’t get people to watch.

There is one video I made that was popular.

The reason it’s popular isn’t because it’s very good; it’s just because it’s about Transformers. Movie Monkey episodes can takes weeks to make, and I’m lucky if one of them gets over 1000 views. It took me one evening to write, animate, and put that up after seeing the Transformers movie, and it’s currently sitting at 20,000 views. If I wanted viewers, I could litter Movie Monkey episodes with Transformer, video game, and movie references (it is named the Movie Monkey after all). That isn’t the series I wanted to make though. Sadly, no one wanted to watch the one I was making.

The final problem was that I’m not a very good animator. My best work aspires to reach the heights of Hannah-Barbera cartoons, which is like saying I aspire to paint by numbers. You can actually see the quality of the Movie Monkey’s animation degrade as the series progress: in the first episode, the Movie Monkey shakes and scratches his butt as he talks, but by the end I was happy to just put in head movements.

When you’re your own studio only you have the power to cancel yourself, and I think it’s time to cancel the Movie Monkey. He had a good run, said the things I wanted to say, and was a blast to work on. Does this mean I’m a quitter? Maybe, maybe not. One of the problems I had with animation is that it competed for my free time with athletics. It’s hard to train for sporting events when you have to spend your weekends locked away. The most popular entries on nicreations.com have always been the fitnick posts, so I’ve decided to spin that off into it’s own blog. I’ve picked up some new video equipment in order to record sporting events, and I hope to make interesting and exciting posts.

That’s the deal. I’ll still post nerdy things to this site (and possibly some animation), so don’t remove it from RSS just yet. If you like fitness posts, follow the new fitnick blog. I also recommend Monkeyrivertown for a good site to read. Finally, I’d like to thank my Mom, Brendan, Cory Q, Jason, Chris, Parvenah, Marshall, and everyone else who helped with the Movie Monkey. You guys made it work – I just edited.

It’s been great fun. Good night!

Last Thursday was the first time in four years I played indoor soccer. It was for fun with some friends from work over lunch. Friday morning I hurt all over. Am I that out of shape?

Oh, right. Never mind.

Let’s me make my non-medical opinion clear to start: I don’t think there is much health value in lifting weights. I know that weight lifting builds muscle and a pound of muscle burns 10 calories a day just sitting around, but you burn a whole lot more running and you get the cardiovascular benefits. In my mind the main reason people lift weights is vanity, pure and simple.

Of course, what is wrong with vanity? Sure, some people have a problem with it, but that’s their loss. Who doesn’t want to look good naked? To the women out there who are scared they’d end up looking like Schwarzenegger I have three words: Michelle Obama arms.

He may be the Commander in Chief, but she’s the one with the guns.

I first started going to my college gym when I was a freshman because I wanted to shake the “99 lbs weakling” image I had in high school. Fun fact: in 8th grade they had to pair me the other 99 lbs kid for wrestling in gym class. By college I had gained a whole… well, 20 lbs, so I still had an image to shake. I didn’t know anything about weights, so I did what all 99 lbs weaklings do – I went to the book store. Thankfully, I found Bill Pearl’s book Getting Stronger, a book full of workouts for building muscle.

I find that a big problem when people try weightlifting is that they get a bit over-psyched – they find some picture that will be “their inspiration”, they sign up for the 12 month membership at Gold’s Gym, and then find it is a lot easier not to go. It is a setup for failure, except it’s failure with a gym membership that has a fiscal exit penalty.

For starters, be honest with yourself. Unless you work out 8 hours a day and get into illegal doping, you will not look like that photo, but only because the human body was never meant to look like that.  Really there’s a much easier program to look like the person in the photo: it’s called Photoshop.

Personally I’m happy we’re past the 1980’s action movies where the heroes were monosyllabic and all looked like they never left the gym.

Second, if you get a gym membership to lift weights, you are basically paying money so you have access to a room full of heavy objects to lift, but for $30 you can get your own heavy objects to lift, so why pay rent on a room you don’t need? As you progress you will no longer be able to afford the equipment, but I don’t believe in putting in the investment of a membership until you know it will be used. Finally, weight lifting will not help you lose fat, and being heavy will make it harder to see results. Only get started if you know what you want out of it.

I think Bill Pearl’s starter workout is a fantastic introduction (for those doing this with home equipment, do push-ups instead of the bench press). Make sure you follow his advice before getting started – you don’t want to hurt yourself! Every body is unique and results will vary, but if you keep up a three times a week schedule within a month you will notices differences for the better.

Where to go from there? Depends on how much you enjoy what you’re doing. I’ve had friends who, once they got over their initial skepticism, tried out weight lifting and became engrossed once they began seeing results. For others it never stuck. Your results will vary, but hopefully this has given you some reason to try.

The KCCC Triathlon was last weekend. I thought my time was decent but I do need to work harder on cycling (I think I’m doing okay with running). The next triathlon I am signed up for is the Shawnee Mission Park triathlon in early July, where I am signed up for the full course instead of the sprint distance.

After fighting rain and my lack of skill with hammers, I now have a shed in my backyard. I needed a shed so I could store a lawn mower so I could start doing yard work, even though nothing in that last phrase sounded appealing to me. Many thanks to Brian C for all the hard work he put into it.

And finally, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog is now available in brick & mortar stores! As you may or may not know, Dr. Horrible is the internet musical sensation starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion,  and Felicia Day. Movie Monkey Applies To The ELE is also on the DVD as one of the special features (which got a nice mention in this review).

Running is somewhat like the GWB presidency – you either love it or you hate it. For those who love it, running is not an activity but a religion. They wake up in the god-fucking-awful hours of the morning just to run. They run races on weekends before you’ve had coffee. They bring up how many ‘K’ they’ve run in casual conversation. For those who hate it, they hate hate hate it. They eat junk food in front of runners out of spite. They build speed bumps on trails to trip morning runners (true story).

This is unfortunate, because of all the activities I do to stay fit I believe running has the highest exercise density:

If you are trying to get into shape running gives you the most results for the time you put into it. Team sports are a lot more fun and biking and swimming have less impact on the body, but nothing gets you into shape like running does.

Running also has one of the lowest cost’s of entry of any activity; all you need are shoes. When people think of running shoes, they think of $200 nike shoes with pumps and and levers and magic fairy dust, but it does not need to be that complicated. Be honest about what you are looking for. If you are just getting started, let the salesperson know that you don’t necessarily want to spend a lot of money. Let the salesperson about any conditions that may cause complications (fallen arches, etc) and don’t let them up sell you on fancy gizmos. A local running store is a better place to shop for shoes than a mall, as the sales people will probably be better informed about what shoes work best with your stride. Finally, be prepared to spend about $50 to $100 on shoes – yes this is a lot of money, but running with insufficient padding can be very bad on your knees.

I think the main reason many people hate running is associative. Specifically, their first experience went something like this:

1. I’m going to start running! I’m going to train for a Marathon! Yeah!
2. Look at me! I’m running!
3. (Rest of the week) Ow! My body!

Many first time runners set their expectations way too high. The beauty of running for fitness is that you can get a lot of benefit just running 20 to 30 minutes a day. If you’re just starting, set your goal to run a 5 kilometer (3.1 miles) race. 5K races are very common in the running world, they usually have fairly low entry fees (around $20), and they give you a tee shirt! The important thing is that this gives you a goal. Make sure to sign up for one a few months away to give yourself time to get ready.

Before you begin your workout, it is important to stretch properly, which I learned this the hard way (It involved headaches caused by tight hamstrings). Now comes the difficult part: actual running. Your body will be very against it. The first time you run, your body will ask you the same question over and over – what are you doing? It will ask this question again every time you go running for the next month – get used to it.  Your goal your first week is to be able to keep running for 15 minutes at as slow a pace as you want. During this time you may want to run on a high school track so you can use the number of loops you complete as a measure of how far you’ve traveled (4 loops = 1 mile). If you can run three times in a week (take every other day off) for 15 minutes you’re off to a good start. When you’re comfortable with your running routine, slowly increase the amount of time you run. Over time your body will respond.

Many people find it easier to run when they have a running partner. With the right partner, you will find the extra motivation to run on days when one of you just isn’t feeling it. A bad running partner can be a demotivater – someone who prevents you from improving. It is very important to find a running partner who runs at your pace and is committed to your goals.

So is it worth it? I obviously think so. I find the time I spend running as a good way to bring myself back into focus, and I miss it when I can’t run. When done in moderation it has the most health benefits of any physical activity I know of, and all it takes are shoes and patience.

When someone asked me, “so, why would you do a triathlon?” just yesterday, the answer I tried to convey was “because few races really stretch your body out like a triathlon does. Oh sure, there are plenty of endurance races out there, but so few put you through your paces like triathlons do.”

Today’s race definitely put me through my paces, to a degree that makes me question my sanity. This morning when I was packing the car at 4:45 AM, I noticed there was a thick fog. In Kansas our fog comes in “cold” and “humid”, and this was definitely of the “cold” variety. When l I started my car the thermometer informed me that it was 42 degrees outside – ten degrees above freezing! I knew it would warm up once the sun was up, but the race began at 7:30 AM; how much warmer could it really get?

It wasn’t any warmer by the time I arrived at Heritage Park. The fog was so thick you couldn’t see the orange buoys on the lake that define the swim course, and the announcer repeated over (and over) that the water temperature was 52 degrees(!).  It was still possible for triathletes to switch to the duathalon (a duathalon is a run, bike run – no swimming involved) but should I do it?

Thankfully, last year I was able to buy a triathlon wetsuit for $400 off regular price (yes, I am proud of my savings. Why do you ask?). Triathlon wetsuits are different from waterskiing wetsuits in that they’re designed to be skin tight but allow maximum flexibility in the arms, allowing the wearer to still execute proper swim strokes. Usually the hassle of getting in and out would be a dealbreaker, but in 52 degree weather it made a huge difference.

Funny enough, because at race time the air temperature was around the water temperature, actually getting into the water was not nearly as traumatic as I expected. In fact, swimming all winter really paid off, because I shaved a minute and a half off my swim time, despite wearing the wetsuit and swimming in the cold weather! Sadly, swimming all winter really cost me on my biking and running times. When I began my bike ride, my long sleeve shirt was wet and cold from being under the wetsuit and my left hamstring was really sore. When I finished the bike ride I noticed my feet were numb – augh! Usually I am able to make up some time on the run, but my hamstring was still giving me problems so I tried to strike a balance between pushing ahead and not pulling my major leg muscle.

In the end, I finished 4 minutes slower than I did in 2007, when I last did this race. While it’s good to know that my swim time has improved, I now know that I’m going to have to work on my biking and running to make up the difference.

Things I learned:

• I think I over-trained a bit this week. I think in the future I will just not lift weights at all the week of a race.
• <TMI Alert>Peeing in your wetsuit is a great way to stay warm</TMI Alert>
• I see more bike practice in my future. At this point I’d be happy to keep my swim time.