Lifelong Friendship Society (We Go Hard)

Own Your C, a project I worked on with Lifelong Friendship Society got some love on Motionographer.com today! Not only did I get a chance to animate and help out on set, but I fulfilled my day-long dream of dressing up as an underground elephant king and dancing on a television set.

... and apparently I work for a company with " lo-fi hipster aesthetics." If only that applied to Burger King spots as well.

ALSO: The music video All Over Again that I directed last year made it into the finals for "Best Music Video" at this year's Midwest Independent Film Festival! Hopefully that works out. If I had known about it sooner I would've tried to rally everyone into an online voting frenzy but alas I was unaware. Check out the trailer for this year's nominees here.

UPDATE: Alas, we didn't win... but there's always next time.

88-Keys "True Feelings" is online!

Yes, it is available for viewing on my site as well but clicking on the link above will give the Computer Beach Party site a little more love! Hope you guys like it.

Coming Soon. Very Soon.

Well it's been awhile since I've updated this blog and I apologize to all four of you who read it. However, my absence from the bloggurobble doesn't mean I've been unproductive by any means. After weeks of no days off and late nights at the office, I can finally say that the music video for 88-Keys' mixtape song "True Feelings" is in the final stages of completion. In the next few days we'll have it posted on both Marked Animation and Computer Beach Party so be sure to check back at your leisure! Until then, here are a couple more screenshots of the beast:



This project was a lot more texture-heavy than other things I've worked on. Graduating from the School of Stealing Images Off of Google Image Search, I instead went around Williamsburg taking a series of close-up snapshots of the gritty & grainy for this video to dirty things up a bit. There's a lot of high school, neighborhood bodega and traffic signs plastered all over 88. I can only assume that's why he got into this business.

Special thanks to Lifelong Friendship Society, Anna Maltezos, and Ben Myers for lending a varietal of hands on this project.

First Screenshots from 88-Keys' "True Feelings"

Sup fam!

Here's a couple of very vague & ambiguous screenshots from the upcoming music video for 88-Keys that we're working on. The video should be done in less than a couple of weeks (shit!) so be sure to check back soon for the finished product!

Computer Beach Party is LIVE

After roughly two years of talking, concepting, forgetting & procrastinating, the beta site for Computer Beach Party is finally online. CBP is a collective effort between Marked Animation, Mark Theriault of Partially Frozen & Skylar Wesby of Convivial Enemy. The site is in its infancy at the moment but be sure to check it for regular updates of new animation & visual effects work.

I'm also a little late on posting these, but the music video shoot for 88 Keys went relatively smoothly especially working under the hungover and sleep-deprived conditions that we subjected ourselves to! If all goes well, we'll start posting a few previews & test shots for it later this month. Here's a few behind-the-scenes* shots:









... other than that, Locksley's video for All Over Again is revised and back on the web with a vengeance. If you're not a regular MTV watcher like everyone else I know (lolz jk omg), be sure to check them out on the MTV site! They're artist of the week!



* "behind-the-scenes" = Mark trying to feel useful on set with a camera.

AOA on iTunes... coming soon!

Why watch the video for "All Over Again" for free on my website after I repost it when you can just as easily pay for it on iTunes?! Godspeed.

Marked Animation on MTV

Well it sounds like the day may finally be here...

After more than 11 months after completion, the Locksley Music Video "All Over Again" will be finally receiving its broadcast premiere Monday, September 8th on MTV! I know what you're thinking, "Wow Mark, they still play music videos on MTV?" My answer to that is a resounding "Maybe!" The video will be shown in conjunction with Locksley's appearance on MTV's "52 Bands/52 Weeks" feature, so it'd probably be better to just TiVo the whole week of programming. You never know when those boys pop up during an "America's Next Top Model" marathon!
In other news, I just finished up some storyboards for an upcoming project this morning and felt really good about them until I checked out the new United Airlines spots on Motionographer.com. Seriously, what's up United?! Why you gotta make everyone else look so bad?
They're great animated pieces, check them out if you haven't already!

88 Keys

Marked Animation is reuniting with brothers-in-creativity Convivial Enemy and Partially Frozen on a new music video collaboration with the artist 88 Keys. It will be the first project we've worked on together since Locksley's All Over Again video of yesteryear. The new project will include a mix of animation and live-action footage... so really, everyone wins. Production begins at the end of this month and things should be wrapped up by the end of September.
For those of you who aren't hip on the hippo hop, 88 has produced and worked with artists like Mos Def, Kanye West, Talib Kweli, and Musiq just to name a few. He's also a fairly dapper guy and highly excels in general gentlemanliness.

Feel free to download his latest mixtape, "Adam's Case Files" for free here.

e2 Transport

Recently Marked Animation had the pleasure of completing some animation & graphical work for the upcoming season of e2 (pronounced e-squared, not e-two...), a documentary series discussing the future of environmentally conscious transportation. The show is shot beautifully and the production seems to spare no expense. It's a very engaging program, and I found myself really being drawn in to the subject matter that I was working on. Season 3 is set to air on PBS later this fall, but until then, check out Season 1 on hulu.com if you haven't already!