This is a photo of actor Jeff Garlin holding a box of doughnuts, standing next to Leo Murphy, the Propmaster from Robocop 3 (shot here in Atlanta back in 1991). Now, I know that it’s Jeff Garlin, because I remember taking the photo. But… there’s no way that you can tell that it’s Jeff because the film was “skunked”, obliterating part of the image, which was often the case of Polaroid film on set..

Yes, the title of this post sounds exciting and dirty, but it is in fact a very accurate description of some special effect chairs that were built over at Scenario Custom Scenery a few years ago for a set of commercials for Badcock Furniture. I personally worked on the first chair shown in this video…. check it out and I’ll explain a bit more afterward:

Okay, in the first part of that video you saw a chair’s upholstery being sucked up into a vacuum cleaner, right? Well here’s how it worked…. Continue Reading

My friends Fiona and Geoffrey often meet up with their family and friends for a weekend brunch at the James Joyce in Avondale Estates. This weekend everyone gathered around in wonder to watch their daughter Zada nibble on one of her favorite treats: a slice of lemon. Prepare to pucker!!

Last weekend I got a call from someone who was working on a film project that required a slight tip of the hat to that most iconic space operas of our modern age. While I was busy digging out some of my old reference books two tiny scraps of paper fluttered to the ground. When I picked them up my eyes practically goggled as I realized that I’d discovered a couple of really old movie tickets that could have only come from a trip to see one of the installments for the original Star Wars Continue Reading

Thanks to my friends Chele and Kevin “Captain Danger” Snow, I was witness to Chipper Jones’ 400th career homerun this past Thursday night at Turner Field, near downtown Atlanta. The sad part is, I didn’t realize that Chipper was up for his 400th HR, so I didn’t get my camera out until he was around 3rd base, headed for home.

And while it has nothing to do with this post, I’d like to remind you that today marks the anniversary of D-Day.

I discovered a rendering problem of my website while viewing it on Internet Explorer 7 (IE7): floated images were leaving big chunky “holes” in otherwise normal blocks of paragraphs. Fortunately, I’ve discovered a solution and am posting it here to help jog my memory the next time I run across it. This bug has likely been documented already and probably has some really cool name like “Phantom Floated Image Bug” but just in case it hasn’t been named, that’s what I’m calling it. Before you read any farther you need to know this: I don’t pretend to be a master of Cascading Stylesheets (CSS) and I can’t possibly take a look at your site’s code (I’d probably screw it up for you anyway). I just post the solutions that I’ve found here for my own benefit, if they help you then feel free to leave a comment telling me that I saved you some time! That said, let’s squash this Continue Reading

I’m helping some friends from the film industry set up a free blog on WordPress.com and have discovered stumbling blocks within the WordPress interface that flumoxes non-technical users. In today’s lesson I’ll show you how to “assign your post to a category”. It’s something that every blogger should do and best of all it’s really Continue Reading

If you read through my blog you’ll see that I have a creative affection for that most malleable of forestry products: cardboard. From cardboard stormtroopers to cardboard panties, I continue to discover an ever-increasing array of uses for the stuff and have found that other people share the same delight with it as me. So today, I’m happy to announce my newest invention: the cardboard briefcase.

Inexpensive (free, actually), lightweight and easy to carry, this simple paper storage unit will change your life… or perhaps it already has?!! Continue Reading

On our way to the hockey game on Tuesday evening we passed by the Georgia World Congress Center, which was hammered by the tornado that plowed through downtown back in March. Looking like the sort of modern architecture rarely executed in Atlanta, this video shows how the west wall of the building is virtually sheathed in a layer of plywood. Counting the filled-in panes it looks like there could easily be more than 500 pieces of glass to be replaced on just the west side of this, Atlanta’s largest convention center. Near the end of the video you can see some of the damage to the towers downtown. Amazing!

Update: For those who might be worried, I was a backseat passenger when I shot this video.

This past Tuesday, April 1st, I returned to Philips Arena with the Sharps to thrill again to the fantastic game of hockey. As I detailed in my post of May 25th, the hockey girls use big scoops to collect shaved ice from the rink. While I haven’t figured out exactly where it goes yet, I have managed to capture video of the game itself!

Dear Bauder College,
Thank you for your interest in the field of Graphic Design. I found your newest television commercial, in which a representative for your school cheerfully proclaims “Not an artist? It doesn’t matter anymore!”, to be particularly exciting as it helped prove a point that I’ve long been trying to convey to my colleagues in the arts. The reason I’m writing this open letter to you is to express my happiness that you’ve had the guts to take a Post-Modern leadership position on what makes a person an artist. Thank you for stating unequivocally, as an institution of higher learning, that sophisticated graphics software has finally reached a state that eliminates the requirement that the operator have even a passing knowledge of Continue Reading

Up until about a month ago I’d never been to a hockey game in my life. I knew nothing of the sport other than that it was loud, cold, involved the consumption of copious amounts of beer and often involved bench clearing brawls. Sure, I’ve ice skated a few times in my life and I’ve owned an official team jersey for going on two years, but that’s just because I spilled ice cream all over my shirt at an arena football game and decided that the Atlanta Thrashers jersey was the best looking option in CNN Center (a decision greatly aided by beer). But nothing had prepared me for the electric thrill of this game. Finally, thanks to my friends Lisa and Lawrence Sharp, I have a much broader, more comprehensive understanding of the complexities of the sport. For instance, the hockey girls in the blue sweaters and miniskirts Continue Reading

If pressed to pick a favorite color I’d have to go with what we here in the United States call “Safety Yellow”. If I had to guess, I’d say that my affinity for this arresting color began with my interest in Winnie the Pooh (actually, his pot of honey). It soon shifted to an awed respect of a giant Tonka crane (which I still have), it was boosted by a very cool “adventure man” truck toy (which I would pay $100 to own again), it was set afire by a beautifully tanned blonde (in a safety yellow bikini) on a Florida beach who absolutely Continue Reading

Last week I finally got around to upgrading to Adobe CS3 and I love the new user interface and could go on and on about all the great improvements but unfortunately, it’s not all peaches and cream. During the production of InDesign CS3, it seems that a crucial 3rd-party plug-in called InBooklet SE was removed from the market because its maker had been purchased by Quark, Adobe’s key competitor in the document publishing market. Quark’s decision to discontinue the development of InBooklet SE was the business equivalent of kicking Adobe in the nuts.

But you came here for a way to fix your problem didn’t you?!

I’m going to give you a way to create a properly imposed PDF version of your InDesign document, without using anyone else’s plug-ins or scripts. It’s an entirely Adobe-based solution and while it doesn’t provide an editable InDesign imposition, it’s a very good solution that should benefit a good number of users. Are you ready? Continue Reading

As part of the work I’m doing to update this website I’ve decided to move my photo galleries offsite to Flickr.com to make it easier for people to navigate the photos. So far I’ve uploaded photos from three films: ‘Run Ronnie Run‘, ‘Sweet Home Alabama‘ and ‘Dumb & Dumberer‘ (the latter set has over 430 photos in it!!). Give ‘em a spin!!

Dumb & Dumberer - 433 photos
The Playboy Grotto from ‘Dumb & Dumberer’:

Continue Reading