Monday, July 28, 2014

Batkid movie panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2014

Wow, today was incredible.

As always, it's so fun to reminisce about all the special and unexpected and crazy moments of the Batkid Day (Nov. 15, 2013) with some of the incredible people who made it a reality. What was REALLY crazy was that today we got to do that on a panel at San Diego Comic-Con International!

Room schedule
OMG
Earlier today in San Diego, California, we presented a new trailer for the upcoming documentary film Batkid Begins. Most of the "cast" of the Batkid day was there, along with Patricia Wilson from Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area and Dana Nachman, the director of the documentary. Our panel was moderated by the illustrious Chris Taylor from Mashable. That dude is totally awesome.

Chris and Patricia
Me being animated about something
Talking, and EJ demonstrating the "Riddler box"
Penguin Waddling demo for the crowd
Me and Patricia
Dana, Patricia, EJ, Sue, Me
Our Comic-Con Panel
Awesome day with awesome people
The Bat-team
At one point in the panel, I demonstrated the different kinds of "Penguin waddles" and why we chose the sillier, waddlier one:



At the end of the panel, Michal and I headed out and managed to snag one of Uber's special "Gotham City" police cars for a cruise around San Diego's downtown.

With my Uber Gotham City Police Car, no big deal ;)
Michal cutely posing with a rough news headline (thankfully, it's the fake "Gotham City News") ;)
Here's the new trailer.



(Aside: a major purpose of the Comic-Con Panel for Batkid Begins was to promote the documentary and also give a shout-out to the Indiegogo fundraising campaign. The film producers are reaching out to the community to ask for fundraising to plus-up the film with aerial shots, sound editing, a cool animated sequence, etc. See here for more details: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/batkid-begins)

A few more fun pics:

Friends or Foes?! :)
EJ, Sue, Me
EJ showing off his awesome homemade Bat-tech from the Batkid Day
It's been a long and fun day. Back in San Francisco now and time for some sleep after a fun and over-stimulating weekend of Comic-Con madness: on the expo floor, in line for panels, and... somehow... doing our OWN panel?!?!!! Wow, I still can't believe that just happened.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Batkid Documentary fundraising campaign

Announcing the Batkid Documentary Indiegogo campaign. Our film's producers are fundraising to plus-up the film: aerial shots, animated sequences and graphics, a stellar soundtrack.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/batkid-begins


All proceeds of the film and soundtrack will be donated
to The Batkid Fund (benefiting Make-A-Wish, Ronald McDonald House and Asanta Rogue Regional Medical Center).

Creative Spark: Dustin Lance Black

A GREAT piece from The Academy about epic screenwriter Dustin Lance Black's creative process... amazing, detailed, and painstaking. No wonder his movies are so good.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Batkid Begins: Documentary Film!

The Penguin shall rise again!! If only to be bested yet again by the courageous kid-wonder... :)

Epic awesome news that I can finally share... a Batkid Documentary Film is currently in the works. Documentary Filmmaker Dana Nachman and KTF Films are creating a documentary outlining the lead up to SFBatkid day and the day itself. I can't wait to see how all the interviews are woven together, it's gonna be awesome. More exciting news soon.

For now, check out the Batkid Begins Facebook page, and Twitter page here:


I'll be posting more thoughts and insights here, and quick links and behind-the-scenes stuff to my Twitter account (@jutanclan) when possible. Keep an eye out over the next few weeks for some crazy new announcements.

Wah Wah Wah,
Mike :)

Tuesday, July 01, 2014

FXGuide: ILM turns up its Transformers toolset

Ian Failes from FXGuide posted an awesome article today called "Age of Extinction: ILM turns up its Transformers toolset" on FXGuide. It's really great and features interviews by some of my incredibly talented co-workers at ILM.

Particularly awesome is his mention of BlockParty2, the rigging system I co-wrote at ILM! He mentions a few details about it, and describes its application to the newly released film Transformers 4: Age of Extinction. Super wicked!!

Check out the article here:
http://www.fxguide.com/featured/age-of-extinction-ilm-turns-up-its-transformers-toolset/1/