Commercials rock!

I've been freelancing for the past several months as a post-production producer at Respond2 here in Portland. The first several projects I worked on were infomercials - they are 28 minutes long, and extremely time consuming. For the past week or so, I've been working on short commercials; 60 and 30 seconds, and they are really fun so far. It's a pleasant change of pace, and I'm looking forward to some of them airing.

There have been just a slew of ASIFA events - the one I'm most recently proud of is that I moderated an animation panel as part of the Northwest Filmmakers' Festival. It's the first time I've ever moderated a panel, and I think everyone had a good time. The conversation was geared much more heavily toward process than I anticipated - all the animations we were discussing were handmade and intricate, so the process gave us a lot of fodder for conversation. I especially liked that our panelists seem to click with each other, and hope that they stay in contact.

(By the way, the films in question were: Old Time Film, Meta Aberratio, and Laszlo Lassu. Fascinating work, all of them.)

Next month, ASIFA is also partially sponsoring the Rose City Animation Showcase. I've been to the previous two years, and it's a fun event.

I'm reading some Nietzsche and dabbling in learning French in my free time, and still writing for the Oregon Creative Industries blog, although not as much as I'd like - I just don't have the time to do a good job of it. I was also invited to participate in the Creative Economy Council: we have our second meeting in a couple weeks, and I'm very interested in what we can do together. It's a real pleasure to be at the table with that group of people- creative, involved, competent leaders all of them, and I feel privileged to be there.

On a larger note, what a crazy year it's been. I'm just now starting to catch my breath and wrap my head around everything that has happened. Most unexpectedly, a lot of the ambitious goals I named in my annual report have come to pass. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Catching up

Oh, so much has happened.

I'm now the president of Asifa Portland. I'm really excited about it. Mike did a great job of reviving the chapter and putting on some great events, and getting us in the habit of having events and planning ahead. Now I'd like to look a bit further out, and think about how we strengthen the whole community, and become a real resource for animation in Portland. I've recruited Rob Bekuhrs to be the vice president and hope that over time we can build a really strong board, with a lot of strategic partnerships in the industry and with other organizations. There are a lot of possibilities.

I'm also just starting to blog for Oregon Creative Industries, a consortium of creative companies in Oregon. I'll be profiling members of our amazing creative economy and hope to grow the blog to demonstrate the depth and breadth of the great work happening here. If you know anyone who would make a good interview subject, please let me know.

I think I also need to start another blog, specifically about being a producer. It will, I think, be good for me professionally and I hope to capture some of the insights I've been having lately as I talk with artists. Go me!