kudos to the VFX team on avatar but that aside can we all just agree here that story/acting/script-wise avatar was a stunningly mediocre film? how desperately closed in and detached do we have to be to become severely depressed that we don't live in a CGI world haphazardly inspired by the very nature of our own? why must we captivate ourselves with the guilt of simply being human?

at the very least i can say i underestimated james cameron before this movie came out. i thought nobody was going to be interested in disturbing motion captured blue aliens created by an ego-centric jaded director who willingly admitted he wanted people to be sexually attracted to his "creations". but time and time again his dances with wolves pocahontas sci-fi epic tops the box office - although to his credit nothing really good has come out recently with the exception of peter jackson's the lovely bones.

which reminds me - shouldn't filmmakers be using cg to help tell a story instead of hide a bad one? the lovely bones may have been long-winded but at least jackson used technology to propel story elements instead of give us neon blue migraines for 3 hours.

and on a final note, unobtanium. real creative name there. as if the ill paced narration to explain every story bit to death wasn't enough, you had to make a pun out of the name on the mineral on a planet called pandora. way to treat your audience like a bunch of idiots. but maybe that's what they want.

$2 billion says yes!

speaking of $2 billion - avatar is NOT the highest grossing film of all time domestically. inflation in mind, it hasn't even passed titanic. the prize goes to gone with the wind, which in today's dollars would have made almost $2 billion domestically. barack obama's fault? you decide.

i don't even know why i post here anymore. anyway, The Lighthouse Girl premiere was incredible. the festival had a record attendance of 160 people and we were shown right before the highlight event Secret of Kells, so that was really cool. We also won a Student Film Award for the short. some pics of the event can be seen at their official blog.

that being said, most people couldn't attend because it was in seattle and you guys are all over the world. so this Sunday, December 13th, Jenna and I will be doing 3 separate LIVE video streams of the cartoon at the official Lighthouse Girl website. check the live event page for info on the times for your timezone. you should RSVP on Facebook if you wanna be reminded of it.

and maybe someday it will be playing at a festival in your area. i'll keep a festival schedule on that site as well. after the live event it will be available there and on sites like vimeo. i don't think there will ever be a newgrounds version for several reasons, the most likely being that the final format is video and it putting it in a bloated swf just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

i'm sure you can guess the other reasons. here's a hint: mario's not in it

since february blvd-square and i have been working on a cartoon together called Lighthouse Girl. We are literally days away from completing it and we couldn't be happier - and to top it off it will premiere at the 2D or not 2D animation festival at Seattle's PacSci Eames IMAX theater december 5th!

If you're local, please come and celebrate the festival with us! The main event is the 1st American showing of Secret of Kells. This is waybefore it's coming to theaters and probably the only time you'll get to see it on an IMAX screen, too - much less our cartoon.

tickets are $20 for students - may seem pricey, but it gets you 9 hours of animation, and 100% of the funds go towards starting up a local animation studio.

chances are you're not from around here - in that case we'll be doing a LIVE video event for the online premiere of it sometime next month as well. If you're familiar with livestream that's where we'll be doing it and we'll also show it 3 times during the day for all the different timezones. we also hope to send it to other festivals around the country, so keep your eye out for that.

after that we'll be putting it on video sites like vimeo. we're gonna try to squeeze it into and SWF format, but because its final format is video, it's not going to be easy.

anyway, here's two spots/bumps i did for thebackalleys livestream channel, where we'll be premiering the cartoon online. the picture below is a screenshot from a final scene too.

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i'm sure many of you attended or watched the live stream of last week's NEWGROUNDS RASSLIN' FRASSLIN' FREAKDOWN 2009 where the NG elite came to cage fight in the TweenDome in front of a crowd of 70,000 13 year-olds. and as you also may know it came down to me and mindchamber. we were neck and neck for this year's golden mario hat when he pulled an ILLEGAL MOVE in the heat of the 12th round, the infamous double-back knoxinator which nearly killed my hero Legendary Frog back in 2004 when he fought two-time heavyweight (and i mean heavyweight) champion Pikanjo.

and not only did the referee let this pass, allowing mindchamber to steal my place as this year's rightful champion, he left me with a mangled, broken right hand from - what would you know - THE KNOXINATOR. and now my livelyhood as an animator is shattered as i must re-learn everything i was able to do with my right hand, which i guess you can now refer to as jello pudding, because that's what it looks like.

but i will not let my greif stop at this completely self-serving pity card of a newspost. with my fortunes from my interactive flash game hentai empire, i have hired the nation's top team of lawyers to bring down mindchamber AND newgrounds with him for letting this fixed fight destroy the integrity of fighters everywhere and my career as a blossoming manga-ka.

remember MajinPicollo, creator of Skittlez 'n Bitz vs. Mars Inc., creator of Skittles? Well the only reason Majin won that case is because he had a stake in Rina Chan Gets Randy 3, which allowed him to cover the massive legal fees needed to take down "the man", and keep the Skittles name on his timeless sprite series.

and that's what you have coming to you, Tom Fulp. ironic, really, that the boatloads of revenue from the glorious animes I littered onto your flash portal will now enable me to take you and your corrupt empire down. there will be no holds barred. i will not back down. arbitration is not an option. i will see you in court. i can feel the chakra rising.

after much deliberation, the winner of the Lighthouse Music Contest is Winterwind-NS! he will be scoring me and jenna's cartoon and we're really excited to work with him. check out his music! we finally have a date for when it will first be shown - december 5th. where i can't say, but it will be local. later on we will be putting it online as well.

we want to thank everyone who submitted a piece and took part in the contest. it was not easy deciding and we enjoyed all your submissions.

also, congratulations to ry99an for winning the heroes vs villains contest after 3 intense rounds. she won a whopping $65 (redeemable anywhere in the world), and a free weekend pass to tweenland, my theme park dedicated to legendary frog, opening in 2050.

the next contest starts today and is already at $45. the theme? anything halloween! entries due halloween day, or whenever the topic is closed, which is usually at 4 in the morning. we take art, music, animation, whatever you got. we had just under 20 participants last contest - so if you make something good, chances are you'll get a shot at the top. GOOD LUCK

and have some boo chips

MUSICIANS: If you enter and win my Lighthouse Music Contest, I am now adding a $50 cash prize. I'd feel bad not offering any money for your hard work so I had to add it. This applies to all of you who have already submitted as well! But if you haven't, I'd love to hear what you have to offer.

ARTISTS: This month's TBA Art Tournament theme is Heroes & Villains. Round 1 is heroes, round 2 is villains, and the final round is hero vs villain. Each round there is a vote, and the top half most voted artists advance to the next round.

The cash prize is a pot that anyone can put money into, and it has already reached $44! If no one else adds anything I will even it out to $50. This could be a great opportunity for you to practice art - and get your money's worth in the end! Every month we have a contest and the prize starts at $10. The more people involved, the bigger the stakes. Hope to see you there!

NOTICE: we have chosen a winner and are no longer receiving submissions. winner will be announced soon.

Blvd-Square and I have been working on a cartoon since February that is very important to us. We are nearing the end of the animation cycle and we've decided to open up the music to a contest!

This cartoon is going to be seen by a lot of important people who have worked with as many musicians as they have animators, and will be sent to scores of festivals across the USA and hopefully beyond - and your name could be on it. And i'm not just saying this, it's going to happen! This would be a great chance to have your music heard by more than just onlookers, playing next to an animated short with a lot of work and care.

If you'd like a shot at this, I only ask three things:
1. you must have samples of previous work
2. you must be reasonably available to make the track within the next month or two
3. please understand you will be composing a track loosely synced to events in an already animated cartoon. it will be about 4 minutes long.

Ready to enter? Here's how it works:
1. Here are 3 screenshots of the cartoon: 1 2 3 . With these 3 screenshots, you can do one of two things: send a 5 or 10 second clip of what you think a soundtrack to this would sound like, OR a song you've made in the past that you think fits.
2. Send your clip or link to lighthouse-music@rmcartoons.com, with some information about yourself, why you think you'd be best for the project, and some samples of previous work. You will receive an automated message if your submission was received. If you don't get one, feel free to PM your entry to me.

DEADLINE: September 28th, 2009(subject to change.)
TIP: we're looking for some lighthearted, adventure-y music. the original track we were going to use was this, which we have permission to use from Sega, but we'd prefer a more personal touch :).

Thanks to all of you! Jenna and I look forward to hearing from you.

NOTICE: we have chosen a winner and are no longer receiving submissions. winner will be announced soon.

over the past year thebackalleys has lost its original point of being my portfolio site and now it's some bizarre aimless community. but this gives me an opportunity to do what i've wanted to do with it for a long time - turn it into a tutorial-based site.

so i was looking @ flashkit, tutorialize, and other big tutorial sites. some of them have a lot of good stuff, but i think they all could use huge improvements. bad ratio of good to poor tuts, outdated information, weak navigation, ridiculous and distracting ad clutter.

some of you might remember 2 years ago i set up a wiki for flash stuff on my site. but i botched the launch of it and i didn't really know what i was doing back then.

but now i'm hand-coding a tutorial interface with php & mysql linked with the forum, and i want it to be something that the flash animation, programming and art community can really make good use of.

i only started a few days ago, and i have some ideas of my own, but i'm sure i haven't thought of some things.

so my question to you is, what would YOU want to see in a site that offered resources, tutorials and guides? i don't care how many suggestions you have just go ahead and say it. i want to spend a lot of time on this and make it as good as possible. here's what i already have planned:

- forum-like category section
- search function for software (can be version-specific) and keywords
- upload section where a member can manage/delete/update their own files for their tutorials
- comment & rating system
- new tutorials moderator checked for quality
- video embed support

so yeah i'd like to hear your thoughts. and yes this news post was just gonna be a parody at first but the subject is so pathetic it doesn't even merit my 5 minutes of blunt sarcasm

lastly, some people have been telling me i should sell this as a poster, and as a matter a fact i have been for a while now. not like anyone would know on account of the caption saying "sonic eats a hamburger", but if you'd like one you can get one here for $9 americas/$10int'l - shipping included.

below: cropped unfinished shot from "lighthouse girl", which will come out sometime this year

just kidding

here i am shaking hands with the 'ol Vlad Put heh

i wish i had more self indulgent news to share with you but i am clearly spent

come back next week when i sit down with legendaryfrog as we talk about the evolution of circle jerking on newgrounds

i know comic-con was over 2 weeks ago but i forgot to post my recap i wrote last week here, and since some of you asked how it went, this should wrap things up.

if you don't want to read it even though there are pretty pictures, here's a summary:
· met Shinya Tsukamoto, director of Tetsuo. He is making an American version of the film which will be the third in the series. It will be called Tetsuo: Bullet Man.
· saw the American premiere of Chan Wook Park's (of Oldboy fame) new movie Thirst. it's a vampire film, but the anti-twilight of vampire films.
· saw Hayao Miyazaki at the Pixar panel. his new movie Ponyo comes out in American theaters next week. go see it.
· Cartoon Network knows CN Real was mostly a mistake and they're squeezing it into a 1-day block instead of their original plan to expand it to 3. Chowder has new episodes until Januray 2010. no word on Flapjack season 3. Adventure Time comes spring of next year.
· Lauren Faust's (Craig McCracken's wife) MWGG characters are coming to toy stores Toys 'R Us and FAO Schwartz this holiday season. they're thinking about doing flash websidoes of the characters as well. their contracts with CN expired in June, and CN did not renew them. that's right - CN did not re-hire the two people who made their most popular show of all time. guess they need more room on their payroll for talentless child actors.
· i got chris sabat (voice of Vegeta) to say mondo cool. i'm sure he's been asked to say that over how many times? that's right, you guessed it! you're a funny kid.
· despite appearing at a Newgrounds/Behemoth event, I was not forced to go super saiyan and kill anyone. arguably, many lives were spared this night.

overall it was the most eventful year thus far, but the crowds are getting unbearable. they need to expand the convention center or move it to another city. they havetalked about plans to expand, and there is room. i mean for god's sake they're getting to the point where they have to redirect human traffic inside the exhibition hall. i didn't like going in there because i felt like cattle.

here's a cell from ponyo. it looks amazing