Hitchcock Is Coming

Hitchcock seems to be showing up everywhere these days, from HBO original movies to major motion pictures to an upcoming A&E original series. It's certainly an exciting time to be taking a "Films of Alfred Hitchcock" course at Fordham. Aside from studying the master technician's films in depth, the class also offers its students the opportunity to produce creative projects in the vein of Hitchcock.

For my project, I've been developing an animated medley of Hitchcock characters and tropes---from men on the run to antagonistic birds to strangers on trains. The final piece will clock in at about one minute and thirty seconds, and will feel a bit like a Pixar end-credits sequence.

To give you a taste of where the video is going, here is a look at some of the production materials:

Production stills from finished animation sequences.

A pre-production character sheet for characters appearing in the medley.

A sample storyboard sheet for the opening of the medley.

Check back soon to see the final product in motion!

Merry Christmas, Fordham University!

'Tis the season to be busy---with finals, end-of-year reports, holiday shopping, and just about everything else. Luckily, the Fordham Holiday Passport is here once again to help bring cheer (and great holiday city adventure ideas) to Fordham students everywhere! (But mostly just at Fordham).

You may remember last year's holiday ram-deer motif. While I loved those cute little guys, I wanted this year's cover to feel a little more "classic" (not to mention a little more "collegiate")---like an old Currier & Ives Christmas card, or something out of It's a Wonderful Life. Hopefully Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart---or at least Buddy the Elf---would be proud.

The Dark Dean Rises: Part 1

After setting up a students-vs.-Superhero-Dean-Rogers storyline in last semester's series of Ram article clippings, I've returned to a panel-by-panel style to tell the epic conclusion of Superhero DR's time at Fordham. This semester brings you Part 1 of "The Dark Dean Rises"---a tale of clashing ideologies, political intrigue, and anarchic plot twists. You can read the five collected installments below:

Stay tuned next semester to read the stirring conclusion!

Fall Poster Roundup

It's been awhile since my last post on here---I hope you've been enjoying the various city sketches over at NY Illustrated in the meantime! The last few months have brought a number great opportunities to collaborate on one-shot poster projects with groups around campus (and around the world, even). Poster projects are always some of my favorite design tasks to tackle, and I've collected several of the better ones here for a bit of a fall poster roundup. Enjoy 'em!

I had a great time putting my own spin on the classic (now Disney-fied) princess Cinderella for a production running through Wesley College's theatre program---located in Australia, mate (see the banner I made for my friend Lyle for a look at my previous "down-unda" collaborations).

Fordham's ever-impressive experimental theatre troupe, FET, put on a very entertaining rendition of Little Shop of Horrors earlier this semester. (Another Disney connection here---composers Alan Menken and Howard Ashman would go on to revitalize Disney animated features with Broadway-style musical numbers soon after completing Little Shop.) For the poster, we wanted to create a piece of publicity material that might live in the universe of the show itself; and so we settled on an advertisement for the show's man-eating Audrey II, in the style of Coney-Island-meets-Disney-World.

The Residence Halls Association was all set to put on a costume contest in anticipation of Halloween---but then a hurricane came through town and shut everything down for the week. Luckily (or unfortunately?) the poster had already been completed pre-Sandy. The Charlie Brown influences are fairly conspicuous...

FET's second show of the season was an ambitious adaptation of the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The plot follows a man who undergoes a procedure to erase a former love from his memory, only to realize halfway through that he would rather hold onto the memories. Already trapped in the procedure, however, the characters must run through the inner reaches of the mind as memories begin to collapse around them. We decided to take a cerebral (literally), minimalist approach with the poster, drawing heavy influence from the amazing work of Saul Bass.

More posters to come next semester!