New Blog! Check it!

I have a new blog! Get your fill of Amanda at: www.amandacurryrocks.blogspot.com

Blah Blah Blogspot

So, I am going to shutter this blog.
1. I never write in it.
2. No one reads what I never write.
3. I have way to many other blogs/websites/etc... that I manage and this one ain't a priority.

Goodbye, Mom. If you ever get past dial-up connections you'll be able to read this!

Back from the World Premiere!!!

I'm fresh back from the West Coast where we had the world premiere of Keep it Runnin'!!
Right before we left we received an invite from San Diego Children's Film Festival Director, Dan Bennett, to have an extra screening in front of 220 kids on Thursday morning! So, I jumped on a plane and headed out a day early to see it screen as part of a field trip day!!

The kids and their teachers were awesome and very smart, asking all kinds of questions:

• How can I become an animator?
  
• How long did it take you to make the Cool Beans?
• Where can I see the movie again?
  
• Can I be in a Big Wheel Race?
  

The screening went off without a hitch and was housed in the lovely Museum of Photographic Arts in beautiful Balboa Park in downtown San Diego.

We then used the next few days to promote all over town, handing out Cool Beans buttons and fliers to anyone and everyone!

On Sunday we enjoyed the Official World Premiere and screened it in front of a very welcoming crowd. We passed out Cool Beans t-shirts, buttons and invites to join our fan club!
(Which you should join too! www.coolbeansfanclub.com)

We are really looking forward to using this piece to get kids excited about the Beans and build our fan club and see smiles on faces wherever it is shown!

More pictures to come soon!

Keep it Runnin' to screen at Comic-Con!

More awesome news!!! Keep it Runnin' will screen at Comic-Con in San Diego!!!
Comic-Con is the largest comic book and popular culture convention in the world, with over 114,000 attendees last year!
Comic-Con '07 takes place July 26-29 at the San Diego Convention Center.
Keep it Runnin' will screen on July 29th!!!

More information to come as soon as we can get it!

www.comic-con.org/cci/

Screening time for Keep it Runnin' at San Diego Intl. Children's Film Festival

Keep It Runnin' will be shown as part of the short films for kids 5+ at the San Diego Children's Film Festival in Balboa Park!!

San Diego International Children's Film Festival
Program #7: Short films for ages 5 and older!
April 29th
11:45 - 12:45

Tickets on sale now at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/14271

Keep it Runnin' accepted to the San Diego Children's Film Fesitval!

We wanted to share the very good news...
"Keep it Runnin'", our super-awesome short, will screen at the San Diego Children's Film Festival!!!!
It's the first festival we've heard back from, so we are quite excited.

The festival runs from April 22nd - May 5th. We'll have more details regarding screening times after April 1st!!!
www.sdchildrensfilm.org


We're looking forward to connecting with our favorite kids yoga studio Next Generation Yoga while we're out there too!
NGY just relocated to San Diego from the Upper West Side and we can't wait to share "Keep it Runnin'" with Jodi Komitor's west coast yoginis!
www.nextgenerationyoga.com

Stay tuned for more good news and screening dates & times!!!

Congratulations! It's a... MUSIC VIDEO!

Over here at WFM we are expectantly waiting/slaving over our very first piece to ever ever go public.

We've been working on a music video "Keep it Runnin'".
It's been a wild and interesting ride. The music video itself has had a very very interesting life. A life that could only live within the walls of an independent studio. Never in a bajillion years would a large corporation ever consent to anything remotely as awesome as what we did.

Here is the story of the life of our music video.

- Almost 2 years ago, Patrick and Bomber were at Giant Studios testing out their motion capture studio with our rigs for Streetch & Stylee. They plugged in a Cool Beans tune "Keep it Runnin'" and let the data fly while Bomber and Patrick got their groove on, all suited up. The footage they got was phenomenal, and the characters looked great. It was intended to be just a test, but the footage was just too damn good.

- About a year ago the studio decided that we needed to get some animation out there. So, why not use some of the dancing/mocap footage and release a music video?! We spent a few days making a really cool Saturday-night-fever-esque dance floor and rendered out the footage. It was awesome. But it didn't exactly qualify as a music video, and there wasn't enough animation to go for the entire song. We focused on our other projects, knowing we had a gem in the making, but didn't have the time then to concentrate on it.

- Cut to last spring. We decided we should finish the video. Seeing as the song was about a race between the Cool Beans and the Bad Seedz, why not film real-life kids in a race and cut that with the mo-cap dancing?!? Super cool idea, eh? Now, just where could we host a race? And what would kids race on?
We brainstormed for a few days, when it hit us: BIG WHEELS. Those awesome toys that we all loved as kids! We could stage a race and have kids on Big Wheels and tape it all!
But, where to have the race? Brooklyn! Yeah! We'd have it in our own backyard! But a little thing called street permits and insurance made it impossible to have our race in Brooklyn.
Then one of our interns said "Why not have it at a go-cart track?".
Bingo! Right ON! I had been to Myrtle Beach as a teenager and been to a crazy go cart track! So, we called the track and they were down! We booked it. We called Big Wheel.
We got over 20 sponsors on board.

-August '06. The entire WFM crew caravanned down to Myrtle Beach and by the time we got there, we were able to say "The World's Largest Big Wheel Race". We had t-shirts, banners, announcers, 1,000 prizes, food, water, and the Cool Beans themselves. We turned the entire race into a huge promotion for exercise and healthy eating!!! We only chose healthy partners and we talked to kids about nutrition and being active. The fact that is was over 100* didn't help us much, but we had a great turnout. The only problem was, while these kids were super awesome kids, for some it was their first time on a Big Wheel... the footage wasn't quite up to "Racing extravaganza" level...

- October '06. We got a group of fantastic kids from New Jersey through a really great guy, Greg Hildebrandt, to come to a green screen studio and ride Big Wheels. We filmed them up, down, over and around. The footage was rockin'.

- January '07. We bought a blue screen set it up in our studio and decided to film some pre-race footage with super-wacky characters, Skip Weatherall, Shotzee McPotzerelli and Sally Sue Shenanigans. The footage again, was phenomenal.

- February '07. We are now in final animation, compositing and editing stages on what is now not just a music video, but an entertainment piece! We like to compare it to "Thriller".

Now, a few of you may look at this timeline and at this project and think "oh man, they've been through it all". But, we like to look at this project and think "Oh! MAN! We learned it ALL!" We did all of this on a very very modest budget. Pulling in favors, working late nights and doing things like shooting blue screen in our studio. We did the impossible.

We learned:
Motion Capture
Green Screen
Live Action Shoot
Event Planning
Marketing & PR
Blue Screen
Compositing
Rendering
Animation
Voice Over
Acting

Each one of those phases of production we'll have to rely upon again, but next time we'll be old pros at it.
We got our feet wet.
We learned the ropes.
The best part?
The project rocks. Quite simply, it's a fantastic, fantastic piece of animation extravaganza.
And now, we are on to our next phase...
Sales & Distribution.

Wish us luck, though we know we don't need it.

Orange Hunter's Cap

You heard it here first, folks!
Over Thanksgiving, when I was walking around Tamarack Lake with my pup I found that my head was a little chilly. So I borrowed my father's florescent orange hunter's cap for my future walks over the holiday.
When I got back to Brooklyn, I had found the hat was tucked into my pocket! I felt guilty that I had accidentally pilfered my Dad's cap, but while I had it, why not make the best of it?!
So, I started wearing it. Wearing it EVERYWHERE. It seemed so out of place in Brooklyn, with it's worn hunter cap yarn softly spinning off and the deer hunting patch barely hanging off the edge. The more I wore it, the more I realized that no one had a hat like mine! I was sporting a one-of-a-kind!!! At least in these parts.
It hit me! I could start a trend! I could single-handedly bring the hunter cap to Brooklyn and beyond!
Could a country girl in the city really bring a trend about?
Well, I not only wear the hat every day, I also TALK about the hat alot. ALOT.
So far, I have told ALL of my friends and family. It goes something like this "Have you heard about the new hunter cap trend? It's all the rage in Brooklyn."
While at a Christmas cocktail party I happened to find myself talking to a man that worked for GQ magazine. I gave him my standard pitch, plus "Yes! IT's TRUE! You know how it used to be all about camoflage and blending in? Now it's flipped, man! IT's about standing OUT, being seen! Yeah, the hunter cap!! IT's HOT!!"
I estimate that I have told at least 100 people about the hat directly, and who can count the number of sightings?!?
Just the other day I saw a student at the high school across the street entering school in a brand NEW hunter cap orange hat! Coincedence? I think NOT!
So I thought I would also get all my 7 blog readers up on the latest! Start this trend in YOUR area.
I will also be bringing the hunter cap to SUNDANCE!! I promise to wear the cap out and talk about it with the Hollywood elite.
There are also levels of trend adoption for which I will describe in fuller detail at a later time.
For now, sport the orange hunter cap with pride, people.
It's IN.
You heard it here first!

Off to Sundance!

Well, it's Sundance-eve and we're all ready to head out to Park City, Utah!
While the Cool Beans won't be in the festival, Walsh Family Media will be on the scene.
We're going to check out the Animated Shorts, meet with a few folks and also try to meeet up with some brands!
We've been hard at work on our own short, our music video and our t-shirt line.
Our first digital press kit was completed an hour ago and we're ready to hit Main Street running with our Macbook pro showing everyone the stuff we've got kickin' out of Brooklyn.

So, that's our plan for now. Meet with people, talk about the project and try to get some interest in The Cool Beans.
We'll let you know how it goes!!