new new new

new video:

new website:

new obsession:

busy busy summer dayssss

just an update!

boy oh boy what a busy summer!

dscheinert and myself have been busy chugging along through post production on the hundred in the hands music video. it'll be done by the end of the month, but i doubt we'll be able to release til the end of the summer when their new album DROPS! shabam!

anyways, here are some snazzy photos we took on set to whet your appetite.

we're also getting busy building a presence on the internets or whatever. now that our careers are taking off (or something like that) and we have to act like real human beings, we've decided that a website would be nice right? and business cards. yes business cards! so we dont have to keep writing our email addresses on napkins or people's palms. so expect those sometime this summer!

aside from that schein-dawg and i have been video treatment writing beasties. we're pretty excited about our new pitches and hope somebody else out there is too! we'll let you know if we get any bites! :)

-daniels

DANIELS signs to warp records! (as music video directors, not musicians, sadly)

we are proud to say that daniel scheinert and I have signed to warp records for UK representation to be a part of their awesomeeee roster of directors! weeeeeeeeeeee!

underwear vs thriller??

sorry yall ive been really bad at keeping you posted on what has been going on.
i dont have time to do one of these updatey deals, but i thought i might post this...

i always think its interesting to see how our post-modern, internet savvy generation reappropriates and mixes and mashes things into forgettable meaninglessness, but i never thought id ever fall victim to any of this creative pillaging. until now.

i give you our underwear music video set to michael jackson's thriller:



thats right.. someone out there in the interwebs took the time to download our video and replace the track with thriller... and change nothing else... i dont know what this means.. but i guess at least people are watching our stuff and thats cool... right?

right?

anyways, production stills from our latest shoot soon to come!

boy oh boy

its been awhile since I've posted in this thing. and thats mostly been because things have been getting busy.

its been exactly a month since coming back to los angeles and a bajillion things have happened. like... starting my job at dreamworks... and then quitting it a couple weeks later. and things like that... what??!

i guess things are really moving forward for daniel scheinert and I and this entire month has felt like ive been working two full-time jobs and i realized id have to pick between jobs. so i decided to be smart and quit my reliable, well-paying, well respected job and go be artsy or something.

whatever dudes! following my dreams!

flying out to new york city to shoot a music video for the hundred in the hands tomorrow! really psyched i'll let you know how it all goes! everyone stay healthy until then! im so stinkin sick, blegh.

We're Featured on MOTIONOGRAPHER! WHAT?!

Hey yall,

if you know anything about me i am a huge nerd who would rather spend his time looking for cool things on the internet than going out and interacting with real people. one of my favorite websites to do this on is motionographer.com

and now through some surreal turn of events, daniel scheinert and i are being featured on their front page with an exclusive interview where daniel and daniel from daniels got a chance to sit down and interview daniels.

make sure to also check out the behind the scenes video!!!!

CHECK IT OUTT

FM Belfast - "Underwear" Music Video!

well its finally out! the music video daniel scheinert and i finished about a month ago has been released and stereogum was nice enough to premiere it on their website so daniel and I are pretty psyched.

check it out here.

we made this on almost no budget, shot over five separate nights when we found the time, and edited it over a period of a month when we werent at our jobs. we didnt really know what we wanted to do with it entirely except for that we wanted people to never get bored. I think writers at stereogum sum up how i would describe the final product:

"This video has lots of fun dancing but also strikes an eerie note, since it focuses on the ideas that a) lots of people dance alone b) in their underwear and c) not many people look beautiful dancing, especially once they’re slowed down, sped up, or frozen. The result, however, is quite beautiful: Intimate, lonely, and still fun."

so go over and watch it already! and tell me what you think. and dont forget to spread it if you feel inspired to.

also if youre a band out there that is looking for a pair of intelligent chaps to make you a video, let us know and maybe we can have some fun!

little women

As I am preparing to permanently move to the west coast, I have been cleaning out my junk from parents' basement. Being the packrat that I am, I am unable to throw anything away, and instead I have spent most of the time looking over old things that I have completely forgotten about.

In my perusing, I came across an old notebook circa 4th or 5th grade filled with dumb stories I used to write for fun. though there are several stand out pieces, this one made me chuckle for quite some time. Here it is, grammatical errors and all (movie producers, eat your heart out):

Little Woman

(the funny version)

by daniel kwan

Interduction: in the normal version little woman was soposed to mean younge woman. but in mine it is like a olden day "Honey I shunk the kids". Ted Hudson

and then it stops. hahah. I don't know why I just stopped after ted hudson, but now the world will never know what story my 10 year old mind wanted to tell of tiny women. Anyways I should get back to trying to throw away my memories but not really doing anything. i will let you know if i come across any other nuggets of greatness.

i hate sitting on unreleased things

but i guess thats what im going to have to do... I currently have two things that I worked on this semester that I am just waiting to get out, but for some reason or another i haven't.

the first is the music video for FM Belfast that daniel scheinert and I have been slowly chiseling away at all semester. its been done for about a month now (at least thats how long it has felt like), but we are still waiting to figure things out with the band's publicist. sigh. we've been getting a lot of great feedback and a few people have requested to screen it at a couple smaller film festival/eventy things. I will keep you updated as to when that will happen.

and then there is this little short that i worked on (again with daniel scheinert) that we did in the last month of the semester, that started out as a ambitious class exercise, and ended up being something i like enough to sit on for a bit. its the first time ive written and directed for live action in a long time (cause it has all sucked in the past :p) and even though its less thought out and took less effort than most of the live action things ive done in the past, im happy with it and am thinking of submitting it to some small festivals? crazy? i dunno. it still needs some work. and i hope once i get to my computer again i can get it fixed up. i am pretty sure it will be screening at tiwwi's next show and tell screening early june, so i'll keep you posted.

as for daniel and i we will be busy as ever working on things. here is a quick poster i did for timmy and the tiny tigers, daniel scheinert's awesome tv show he's been trying to figure out for awhile now. this is only a mock-up so we can put together a pitch packet, so everything about this show is subject to and probably will change, especially the tiger puppet designs. but whatev. its going to be awesome.

i can't do much right now besides think of new things as my camera and computer are out in LA while i wait here in massachusetts to graduate (sad how crippled i am without technology). but hopefully youll be hearing from me soon!

its alll coming tooo an ennnnddd

Hello blog. it has been awhile.

so basically, it doesn't really feel like school is going to be done for good. i haven't been able to post much lately cause i'm trying to get everything done before i have to find a job, find a place to stay, put all my stuff in my car and park it somewhere, fly back to boston, graduate, fly back, keep looking for a job, become famous or rich, or both.

just kidding on the famous/rich party. im already famous.

daniel scheinert and i have been working ferociously on things. the fm belfast music video is finally done after taking a bajillion years to make. daniel has decided that from now on he is going to go into music videos with a clearer idea. haha. but this video was a lot of fun and i'll post it here as soon as we hear from the band's publicist (they are from iceland, so they are all probably battling volcanoes and stuff). here is a photo we took during one of the many little shoots we did for this video.

i am wearing all of the clothes i own plus more. and now i only have four outfits because one of my batches of laundry got stolen after this shoot. haha.

also this weekend i shot a quick fun project for my last class ever. it was a short 4 hour shoot with a crew of like three people (the best crew in the world, in case you were wondering). It involves a 7 year old boy dealing with issues far too complicated for him to understand. and urinating on things. its going to be fun. i'll post it in a few. here are some production stills hahha..

i caved.

i got a twitter.

it was because i really wanted to tell the world how much i want to see the new scott pilgrim movie, but realized it wasn't blog worthy. sigh. you can follow me if you want. who knows if ill use it...?

https://twitter.com/dunkwun

(btw, the trailer for the scott pilgrim film was just released today. i got so excited i decided to buy all of the graphic novels so i could read them again. don't judge me. i know it looks ridiculously stupid in a dumb-action-comedy-that-has-quirky-and-self-deprecating-characters-with-hip-michael-cera-and-even-hipper-music, but really its going to be just ridiculously stupid. in a good way.)

3 quick things before i go to bed.

1. remember fast? its online! WHAT?

2. remember cs4? forget it, here comes cs5! WHAT??

3. remember jon klassen (i've mentioned him here a couple times, he makes some of the most endearing illustrations ever)? well i met him cause apparently he works at dreamworks and ive been grabbing lunch with him every week! WHAT???

hopefully next time i'll something more productive to speak of.

(p.s. i know you might think that dreamworks has brainwashed me, but i just had to let you know that how to train your dragon is coming out this weekend, and believe me it made me feel like a kid again. 100% on rotten tomatoes so far, so go watch it in 3d, cause for once, the 3d is beneficial, if not essential.)

tired and stuff.

i guess this is just concept art (mostly playing with color) for the short i am going to be starting (hopefully) soon.

i had a strange and unproductive week. i need to get cracking on things soon or else.

i'll go crazy or something.

This Is What We Imagined

Hey,

Just thought I'd let people who were in the LA area to know about this sweet little collective of people called This Is What We Imagined (or TIWWI) that daniel scheinert and I are kind of (?) apart of. And Fast, the short we were working on is a part of it or something.

How it works is every few months there is something called a WEEKEND OF WONDERMENT, where everyone gets together and rents a bunch of equipment and just shoots some stuff. It is wonderful. i guess. :p

and then in about a month after the shoot there is a wonderful show and tell screening with an open bar and we all have a good time. i havent met that many people involved yet, but of the people i have met they are all pretty awesome.

so if you'd like to see these fun little projects you can come to the next show+tell:

March 13th - 9:00PM
REC CENTER STUDIO
Echo Park - 1161 Logan St.
$10 / +21 / OPEN BAR

itll be a good time.

a weekend test

since getting my new imac, ive been spending a lot of time installing, transferring, etc etc to get my computer ready for me to start work. i'm afraid the months off from software is going to slow me down. i spent the morning working in after effects and ended up with this. i havent done much audio driven work in after effects so i wanted to test out converting waveforms to keyframes, etc.

kind of goofy. but yeah.

i also wanted to try and give a flat character some dimension using meshwarps, etc. so i drew a character in illustrator and try to make it look like he had a big round belly. i think it kind of works. shmeeeeeeeeeh.

things that i really liked this week! vol 7!

i know ive been really slacking on this blogging business. here is another installment of things i really liked... there is no way i can fit all of the awesomeness that i have found since last time, but here are some good stuff ive found while perusing the interwebs.

VIDEOS!

arev manoukian - nuit blanche

this is one of the first videos ive seen in awhile that has instilled an immediate response in me. its kind of cheap because theyre using all sorts of tricks like super slow-mo, really dramatic music, the cliched love at first sight. but, the execution is absolutely flawless (make sure to check out the making of video on vimeo... amazing). this is what noir's would be like if they were produced with today's technology. i know ive embedded it here for convenience, but make sure you watch it full screen. :)

google - parisian love

this advertisement has nothing to do with technique and everything to do with great and innovative story telling. you may have caught it during the superbowl and i think its was one of the more memorable of the night. and just think about how cheap it was to make.

animations!

jon klassen+david o'reilly - black lake

this is less of a short film and more of a visual/sound scape. i have been inexplicably captivated by jon klassen's illustration work ever since seeing this image. and now combined with david o'reilly (arguably one of the most relevant independent animators today) and you have something great. i know they have already done something together for a u2 music video, but i really just like how simple this piece is. if itunes had this as a visualizer i would never get any work done.

scott bensen- man and cat at the end of the world

the title says it all. its a charming and understated conversation that is wonderfully rendered in after effects. though i have to say that the sky looks a little too much like the default wallpaper on apple computers.

sigh, there are too many too list for all the fun things ive seen since last time, so i won't. i hope you won't mind haha. i will be posting soon hopefully. and maybe now that i have a computer i will begin to productive. yay!

good morning campers!

hey again!

sooo i helped out daniel this weekend shooting some stuff.

first on tuesday we did some work on an ongoing music video shoot we've been doing for FM belfast, a sweet icelandic band.

we still have a few more shoots to do but, itll be pretty crazy in the end.

James rocking out at the bar....

Then later this saturday we shot another quickie short called Fast starring the charming Charlyne Yi. This piece is going to take a lot of post work, so you may not see it for another month or so, depending on how much time we have to work on it (daniel just got a job at the mill and im so excited for him :p).

charlyne preparing for a super special effects shot. hahah. or something.

peter's "but they won't be looking at the heel" tattoo

and on another awesome life update. I have a computer!! and am now in the process of installing a a shmillion things so i can start getting to work. i dont even have photoshop yet and its making life hard. :p

-danielk

life update... no work done.

wow.

it has been awhile since ive posted anything. i think it has something to do with me living a postworthiless life. or i am lazy. anyways here goes a short summary.

-well. im in the wonderful los angeles. the road trip was wonderful. i have a ton of footage that i will hopefully someday find the time to edit into a 1 or 2 minute montage of awesomeness that will make you all jealous. the days upon days i waste digging through all of the pointless footage i captured will be worth it just to make you jealous.

-and i am workstationless. AKA i have not been able to get any work done. But I am sketching and brainstorming on paper... so hopefully by the time i get a computer *shabam* something will get made!

-i have been meeting with the indispensable daniel scheinert regularly on some exciting projects. none of which we have much to show for just yet. but exciting nonetheless. a majority of our ideas have surrounded buttholes. daniel can testify.

-my internship has not started yet, but it promises to be awesome! so far i have eaten two wonderful meals and saw wes anderson give a q+a session. and it hasnt even started yet! looking forward to actually working :p

-what a sucky post. i wouldnt have posted anything except an eager follower (haha) emailed me and reminded me about this thing.

- stay tuned! (i miss you all)

road trip

whats up america?

i've been on the road for the past few days we're currently in new orleans. you can follow us from my friend's tumblr.

bengitkind.tumblr.com

see you guys in los angeles.