LOS ANGELES – Here are some of my riding buddies: Josh, John, and Mike sporting the new I. Martin Cycling Kits! The Munsonator snapped this picture yesterday at the shop after the boys finished their ride. Looking good, boys! Of course I would rather Charlize Theron had dropped by (nothing personal, guys – I know you understand), but there you are. Read some background on these Capo Custom kits (which I designed) at my first post about them, From Italy With Love.
LOS ANGELES (UNIVERSAL CITY) – I read the terrific Conan O’Brien profile piece in The New York Times yesterday by Lynn Hirschberg, subtitled Can Conan O’Brien’s Brand of Humor Work on ‘The Tonight Show’? My answer, like the legions of other Conan fans, is an emphatic “Yes!” The piece is titled Heeeeere’s… Conan!!! Coincidentally, I saw a Google search hit in my statistic logs the other day for nearly that exact term, for my own Heeeeere’s Conan piece. Someone was looking for it – maybe a researcher for the NYT? No matter, it wasn’t such an original thought in the first place. 17 years or so ago people were probably writing Heeeeere’s Jay articles.
All of this gibberish is just an excuse to show another potential Conan graphic, in this case a bumper frame that could be easily animated. Actually, I have animated it, or at least a version of it (I first made this graphic for E! and their True Hollywood Story Halloween Marathon promo, still frame from the animation at left.) It’s on my 2008 reel and can be viewed at my Movies! I Show Movies! page. You can also view an extended Behind the Music version at my Portfolio page over on FrankXray.com (scroll down to the movies section). In the article, Conan mentioned making use of some of the Universal Studios landmarks as characters in his new show. The iconic horror house from Psycho is on the Universal lot, and is part of the tour. The Bates Motel itself would be just off screen to the lower right in the photo illustration above. I look forward to seeing how Conan O’Brien, Andy Richter, Executive Producer Jeff Ross, Head Writer Mike Sweeney (shameless Google search terms as well as true feelings here) and the rest of the staff play off not only Universal Studios, but of Los Angeles in general. The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien debuts June 1.
LOS ANGELES (UNIVERSAL CITY) – The Oakcrest Market is just down the hill from Universal, on Cahuenga Blvd. West, 
nestled against the hills. If you’re on the Universal lot, sometimes it’s good to get out and see the world. Jailbreak! It’s also one of the closest places to get beer 
. Proprietors Eugene and Kathy are ebullient and will delight you with all the latest neighborhood gossip. Kathy also prepares Korean BBQ at least once a week. Mmm. Check in with them, introduce yourself, and they’ll treat you like the local you are (or aren’t). The reserved parking, of course, is up to your negotiating skills.
Credits: At the very top of the post is a collage with my photo of Oakcrest Market, enhanced with a few other elements from various sources along with my Conan parking sign (except of course for the great official cartoon Conan used sometimes on Late Night and on some Late Night clothing). The plate of BBQ picture is from B-Side Blog . The bottom image is a detail from my illustration for an Oakcrest Market post card.
LOS ANGELES – In the summer of ’07, Bob Barker retired from his long-running job as host of The Price Is Right. The show took a few months hiatus as the producers searched for his replacement. Many people auditioned, but most were rejected for one reason or another. John O’Hurley, Mario Lopez, Mark Steines, George Hamilton, and Rosie O’Donnell were all front-runners at various points along the way. Even the local (to California) perennial happy guy and very gooberish Huell Howser was rumored to have been seriously considered. The gig, of course, was eventually won by comedian/actor Drew Carey (‘pictured’ above with some of my graphics).
It was along about this time of transition that I contacted some people at CBS regarding possible work. My website link (with my portfolio of work) was passed around, and I soon got a phone call from CBS Graphics. They thought I would be perfect for a special project they had in mind: refreshing The Price Is Right logo. New host, fresh look. Their only stipulation: don’t change it too much. I started by drawing the type in Illustrator. 
Once the type was just right, I gave it several treatments, including the ultimate winner shown at left (yes, that’s the original logo in the first paragraph). The Art Director/Set Decorator for the show, Bente, liked some of my presentation backgrounds and used them in her set. That’s me in the photo, standing next to a huge, pre-paint set piece at CBS.
Of course, I was delighted to see the “official unofficial” Tonight Show Tweet from @BigBley on Monday (and, heh heh, the real reason for this post):
A Late Night tradition that’s being carried over to the new Tonight Show: We still watch “The Price is Right” during the morning meeting!
10:30 AM May 18th from TwitterFox
Wow. Wait, let me think… I know! Maybe my connection with TPIR will work to my advantage in trying to get a job on Tonight. At least I know they’ve seen my work. I would describe how my work is varied (that I don’t just do game show logos). I have a lot of experience in not only graphic design and illustration, but also motion graphics and effects, too. Sounds simple enough.
I also saw on Monday that the show hired a new graphic designer, Eric McGilloway. Congratulations to Eric! That makes three designers including the incredible Kevin Frank & Pierre Bernard who came out from Late Night in New York. I know from working at NBC during my brief stint at Last Call with Carson Daly that Tonight with Jay has several, maybe even eight or so people. So hopefully Tonight with Conan will be looking for at least one more. That makes sense, right? I’m working on getting my stuff in front of a producer at the show. Stay tuned (this means all four of you readers, especially you, Uncle Paulie).
Credits: original Tonight Show meeting photo from www.tonightshowwithconanobrien.com. I added the HD monitors with The Price Is Right screenshots. Drew with the microphone is a CBS press photo, photographer unknown. My friend at CBS, Vince, took the picture of me in the set department. The original for the doctored photo I did of Drew with the vintage ‘bowling team’ is from a collection at CBS Graphics. Click on it to see more doctored pictures.
BURBANK – Television sweeps time is upon us once again. It’s the semi-annual event in which television networks put forth their most sensationalized content in order to boost the Nielson numbers in their favor. It’s really a thumb on the scale, but no one really seams to care and it’s all part of the game. The results of the May Book, as it’s known in the TV promo world (there’s also a November Book, and to a lesser extent July and February Books as well), are used to establish advertising rates for the months to come.
End-of-season specials happen in May, as well as “very special” episodes including the infamous “evil twin” device employed in the not-too-distant past. Also, as we witnessed Friday night, personal diaries from celebrities on their death beds are not off limits. Farrah’s Story premiered as a two hour special on NBC Friday night. It documents the cancer journey of Farrah Fawcett, told in a combination of video diary first-person style with interviews of doctors and friends mixed in. Did you miss it? See it on hulu.
I thought I’d ask my Man from B.L.O.G. (avatar/cybernaut) to open up his Boring Load Of Garbage Television Showcase Cinema and Pie House for a little Farrah’s Story viewing party. Truthfully, the vintage movie house could use a little work. It’s a little rundown, and, if the City of LA sticker is correct, in need of some asbestos abatement. It really is Billy Bob’s Nightmare, but we didn’t mind. Our leftover H1N1 flu masks were put to good use as the whole crew gathered for a night of TV and pie.
Farrah Fawcett holds a very special place in my heart, so it was a little sad to see the show. Man from B.L.O.G. obviously feels the same way in the graphic above. She was Steve Austin‘s girl, for crying out loud. There is some controversy regarding Ryan O’Neal taking over the Executive Producer role as Farrah herself has been really too weak to perform those duties. The New York Times and the LA Times both had largely negative reviews for the “Dateline-meets-Behind-the-Music” style show.
When I was in junior high, I didn’t have this poster (at right), but I sat next to a guy in home room who did (it was fabulous and he wouldn’t let me forget it). This incident kick-started my hobby of scouring Spencer Gifts’ poster collections for the next Farrah poster. There were many copy cats (Adrienne Barbeau, Suzanne Somers, Lynda Carter) but never really any that reached the pure hormonal excitement levels of this one. It was during this time that I grew to despise black light posters because I had to flip through so many Led Zeppelin, Yes, Grateful Dead and others as I conducted my search for the girls.
The graphic at the beginning of this post is based on one created by me for Last Call with Carson Daly. It was for a bit called The Thirty Second Movie Review.
LOS ANGELES – Billy Bob Thornton was in the news recently for displaying some odd behavior during a Canadian radio chat show. After some adverse media attention, he went on Jimmy Kimmel Live to explain.
A few years ago, Billy Bob was famous for wearing a vial of blood around his neck, along with then-wife Angelina Jolie. The talented actor, writer, and musician’s peculiarities didn’t stop there. From Wikipedia:
Various idiosyncratic behaviors have been well-documented in interviews with the actor; among these is a phobia of antique furniture — a disorder shared by the Dwight Yoakam character in the Thornton-penned Sling Blade, and by Thornton’s own character in the 2001 film Bandits. Additionally, he has stated that he has a fear of certain types of flatware, a trait assumed by his character, Hank Grotowski, in 2001′s Monster’s Ball, in which Grotowski insists on a plastic spoon for his daily bowl of chocolate ice cream. In a 2004 interview with The Independent, Thornton explained: “It’s just that I won’t use real silver. You know, like the big, old, heavy-ass forks and knives, I can’t do that. It’s the same thing as the antique furniture. I just don’t like old stuff. I’m creeped out by it, and I have no explanation why…I don’t have a phobia about American antiques, it’s mostly French — you know, like the big, old, gold-carved chairs with the velvet cushions. The Louis XIV type. That’s what creeps me out. I can spot the imitation antiques a mile off. They have a different vibe. Not as much dust.” In addition to his aversion to silver cutlery, velvet, and “creepy, castle-y stuff,” Thornton confesses that “pieces from 1700 and 1800 France and England really freak me out, especially harpsichords.”
Credits: Billy Bob picture from reelmovienews.com. Chairs from s.artquid.com, dresser from ifixantiques.com, harpsichord from maserkit.com.
LOS ANGELES – This post is a late night comedy show segment pitch, seen here for the first time exclusively on B.L.O.G. It is for a segment called The Which is Which? Game, and could serve as a guest introduction for a comedy figure especially, or a celebrity with a good sense of humor at least. The idea is to take a funny fact, even one that is slightly embarrassing (and perhaps has been in the public consciousness recently), create an outrageous juxtaposition with that fact as the grain of truth, then work backwards to find other related juxtapositions. Wow, it sounds complicated. No, that’s just my bamboozling writing style. Look at the pictures.
Background for this example: Artie Lange, of the Howard Stern show on Sirius/XM, has ballooned to 300 lbs. and has had a couple of weigh-ins as part of that show. He is based in New York and has been a frequent guest on both Letterman’s Late Show and Conan’s Late Night shows. He will be making appearances soon to promote the paperback version of his best selling book. The following is a sample bit of dialogue between a fictional HOST and CO-HOST to show how these graphics might play in a game/introduction. If you don’t want to read through the entire script, you should be able to follow along just from the pictures.
HOST: We have a new game tonight! A little something we like to call The Which is Which? Game. Roll it, [DIRECTOR].
GFX: ANIMATION PLAYS. ‘THE WHICH IS WHICH? GAME’ ANIMATES ON TO LIVE MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT. BASE ANIMATION HAS ELABORATE PRODUCTION VALUE, CHYRON WIPES ON TO REVEAL THE SPECIFIC: ‘300 vs. 500‘ (SIMPLY RENDERED).
HOST: 300 vs. 500 edition. [SLOWLY]: 300… 500, [CO-HOST]. Which is which.
CO-HOST: 300 vs. 500. Which is which. Got it.
HOST: Thank you, [MUSICIANS]. In this game, we are given a set of facts and are shown two objects. We then have to decide which facts belong to which objects. Which is which. Sounds simple, eh? Boy, this could go either way. Don’t you think, [CO-HOST]? Alright, let’s give it a shot. Show us the first slide, [DIRECTOR].
SEE GRAPHIC BELOW
Ooo, it’s a shot of space. [TEXT TYPES ON TO MATCH HOST'S READ] Here are two distant galaxies. One is 300 million light years away, the other is 500 million light years away. See? 300 vs. 500. Which is which? Hmm. I have no idea. What do you think, [CO-HOST]?
CO-HOST: I don’t have a clue either.
HOST: Let’s see the answer.
SEE GRAPHIC BELOW
GFX: QUESTION TEXT WIPES OFF – LEFT GALAXY IS WIPED OFF AS RIGHT GALAXY SHRINKS DOWN IN SIZE (MOVES FARTHER AWAY FROM CAMERA – SFX: SLIDE WHISTLE). JUST AS RIGHT GALAXY SETTLES, WE SEE LEFT GALAXY RE-ENTER THE PICTURE, OBVIOUSLY CLOSER TO US THAN RIGHT GALAXY. ANSWER TEXT ANIMATES (TYPES) ON. THIS ALL HAPPENS QUICKLY.
HOST: Ah, Stephan’s Quintet is 300 million light years away. Of course, Baby Boom is 500 million light years away. Interesting, [CO-HOST]. I don’t know how funny it is, but it is interesting.
CO-HOST: I had no idea. They’re both really far away. I can’t even imagine it.
HOST: Okay, I get it now. I’m ready for the next slide, [DIRECTOR].
SEE GRAPHIC BELOW
Ah, a couple of cars, [CO-HOST]. [AS BEFORE, TEXT TYPES ON TO MATCH THE READ] These are two car models from the proposed Fiat/Chrysler alliance. You know they’re in the news now, [CO-HOST]?
CO-HOST: Seems I’ve heard something about it recently, yes. Very topical.
HOST: [CHUCKLES AT THE INANITY OF IT ALL]. One is designated the 300, the other is the 500. Which is which? Hmm. I know a little about cars. I’m gonna say the big one is the 500 and the little one is the 300. Doesn’t that make sense, [CO-HOST]?
CO-HOST: That’s the obvious choice, [HOST]. But it could be a trick.
HOST: [LAUGHS] Yes, [CO-HOST], a trick! No, I’m sticking with my answer. [DIRECTOR], show the good people that I am in the right here!
SEE GRAPHIC BELOW
GFX: CUTOUT CARS SPIN AROUND EACH OTHER (IN AN OBVIOUSLY FAKE AND CHEESY WAY – SFX: PARTY FAVOR RATCHETING NOISEMAKER) SEVERAL TIMES AND END UP EQUIDISTANT FROM THE CAMERA. ANSWER TEXT ANIMATES (TYPES) ON, (AS BEFORE) VERY QUICKLY.
HOST: Boy was I wrong! You were right, [CO-HOST]! We were tricked. The big Chrysler is actually the 300, and the diminutive Fiat is the 500! It’s apparently also called La Cinquecento. How are we supposed to know that? Is that a bonus, [CO-HOST]?
CO-HOST: [CHUCKLES] I don’t know. I just don’t know how we’re supposed to know that. Diminutive, yes. Doesn’t make any sense.
HOST: Alright. Time for the next slide. Remember, they appear to be getting trickier, so if you’re playing at home, keep that in mind!
SEE GRAPHIC BELOW
[SURPRISED CHUCKLE]. Wow, isn’t that a cute scene. Very pleasant. And isn’t that Artie Lange?
CO-HOST: Yes, that appears to be Artie Lange reclining against a polar bear. They both seem to be very comfortable.
HOST: [LAUGHS] [TEXT TYPES ON TO MATCH THE READ] These are two slumbering giants. I don’t think I want to see what happens in the next frame. Things could get ugly. One weighs 300 lbs., the other over 500. Over 500, [CO-HOST]!
CO-HOST: Well, they’re slumbering giants. What would you expect?
HOST: Which is which? They’re both – they’re both… BIG!
CO-HOST: We have been fooled before! How do we figure this one out? And look: Artie is holding a copy of his book.
HOST: Yes he is! Let’s settle this once and for all.
[CUT TO SHOT OF HOST AT DESK]
HOST: Ladies and gentlemen: his book debuted in the number one position on the New York Times Best Seller list and will be out in paperback this Tuesday, June 2.
SEE GRAPHIC BELOW
Please welcome… Artie Lange!
GFX: GRAPHIC FROM OPEN AGAIN, THIS TIME AS TALENT REVEAL TRANSITION. TITLE TYPE MOVES UP, CURTAINS PART AND MOVE OUT TO REVEAL LIVE SHOT OF ARTIE LANGE WALKING OUT TO HIS THEME SONG. HE IS WALKING ALONGSIDE A MAN IN A POLAR BEAR COSTUME. THE BEAR SHOWS HIM TO HIS SEAT, THEN LEAVES.
HOST: ARTIE LANGE, everybody!
SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC – We move today from our Great Pacific Garbage Patch Special Earth Day report to the Atlantic where we just got this Macchina Fotografica di Carico (I think that means Cargo Cam) shot from a very special Alitalia charter flight. The Capo Custom, Michael Brown-designed I. Martin Bicycle Kits are en route from Italy and are set to arrive here in Los Angeles very soon. You can see that they’re the gen-u-wine article from It’ly because it says fra-gee-lay on the crate.
For some reason, an entire Italian Deli has hitched a ride aboard the charter and of course we have to drop them off in the Big Apple before proceeding to LA. Welcome to B.L.O.G. for those of you who’ve been following the design process. If you want to keep tabs on this kit’s availability, you can always check back here at B.L.O.G., or follow I. Martin’s blog or, even better, follow @imartinbicycles on Twitter.
The kit design was heavily influenced by the Belgian National Champion’s jersey, especially the beautiful Quick Step kit as worn by Stijn Devolder last year. I liked the way the kit stood out among all of the other kits in the peloton. For the I. Martin kit, I started with the chainring logo as a medallion, added a couple of lions (again an homage to the Flemish – the lions have nothing whatsoever to do with LA), created a new Helen’s Cycles retro logo, put a Euro filter on the store’s name, and added my own FX icon to it (no words or URL, it just works almost as a beer bottle cap). Hope you like it.
