Smile of the Week: Professor and His Shadow

Posted on June 22, 2010 at 3:51 pm

I love the gentle trick Biola math professor Matthew Weathers played on his class (with a little help from the University President at the end).

If I can just be a movie nerd here for a moment, I’ll point out that it reminds me of a pioneer of animated cartoons, Winsor McCay’s “Gertie the Dinosaur.” McCay was enormously successful as a political cartoonist and creator of comic strips “Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend” and “Little Nemo.” He realized that if he made a lot of drawings, varying each of them slightly, and made each into a frame of film, he could animate movement. So, he drew thousands of individual pictures. And, like Professor Weathers he interacted with the animated character. I love to see new technologies and approaches sharing this most analog and human element of story-telling.

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‘Toy Story 3’ creates commercials for Lots-o-Huggin Bear

Posted on June 16, 2010 at 9:26 am

The “Toy Story” movie characters have a warm, retro feel. For parents and grandparents, one of the many pleasures of the movies is the evocative memory they bring back of the beloved toys of our own childhoods. Woody, Jessie, and Buzz are Pixar creations that fit so well with the real-life Etch-a-Sketch, green soldiers, barrel of monkeys, slinky dog, and many others that we slip easily into their world. This third installment adds some new characters based on real or almost-real toys from the 1960’s, including Lots-o-Huggin Bear (with strawberry scent!), voiced by Ned Beatty.

Those madcaps at Pixar have created a fake 1980’s-style commercial for Lots-o-Huggin that are so perfectly realized those who grew up in that era will almost believe we might have a Lots-o somewhere in our attic.

They even did a “Japanese” version!

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Shorts

Taps: Origin and Meaning

Posted on May 31, 2010 at 8:00 am

On Memorial Day, we honor those who gave “the last full measure of devotion” to protect freedom and democracy. Let us all keep their example in mind as we do our best to live up to the dreams they died for.

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