V is for Vladimir

japan town bus stop

2011-01-24T20:37:00.002-05:00

the Terry

2010-12-16T19:08:00.002-05:00

A few months ago I participated in a 48 hour film contest where the goal was to remake a classic film in under 3 min.

Our crew members were: Ramiro Lopez Dau, Javier Moya, Carolina Lopez Dau, myself, and starring the great Terry Song.

We got two beautiful days of sunshine at the dog patch area in San Francisco. On both days there were a couple of other photo shoots going on, one of which had models running to the car and back, changing outfits, wearing practically nothing. Besides those challenges everything went really smoothly!.. Shot on the Canon 5D mark II. Enjoy:

The Terry (good bad and the ugly SWEEDED)

11

2010-11-30T13:35:00.002-05:00

cowgirl

2010-06-19T19:34:00.003-04:00

Sketches

2010-03-11T17:34:00.001-05:00

Drawing weekend snapshots

2010-02-28T05:37:00.008-05:00

Friday night Cliff and Emma invited me to go to the Bus Stop Gallery in SoMa for a kind of costume figure drawing party. We got there around 9pm. The place was full of artists sitting all around the rooms: some on sofas, benches, pillows on the floor, and a couple standing around drawing from a corner...The models were part of a group called Bad Unkle Sista and did a quirky butoh performance with lots of sweet poses throughout!

(a couple of pics that I found online from friday:)
We were there for about 3-4 hours just sketching, taking breaks once in a while.

The music varied from a live humming/singing performance to a chill down-tempo that a couple of DJ's were spinning for out delight. So with that said, I have no camera (lost or berried in my room somewhere) nor a scanner the the moment...Well not true, I've got the laptop webcam.. so 1 snapshot for now.... and later in the week I'll scan in the rest and update this very post. deal? cool. Here is a drawing of the DJs:
(more drawings to be scanned later)...

Addition:

I missed the final (12am..., wtf?) bart subway back home, so ended up crashing at cliff's. We had decided to join the Sketchcrawl group the next day.

Saturday: We thought it would rain all day, yet after getting some In-n-Out for breakfast (hey! no judging) and solid double shot latte from Blue Bottle the clouds started to look friendly in a poetic sort of way letting in much sunlight. The meet up was at a wonderful low key area called the Dog Patch, which is from the looks of it a semi abandoned port area with a cool mix of boat clubs, ship fixing areas, waterfront bars and restaurants, various rusty boats here and there, and some day time offices in lofts, old unused port buildings and cranes that are partially decorated by graffiti (again, i dont know where my camera is, so here are the words,,,) Anyways, maybe 12-20 people showed up to sketch in the area! Super day! Snapshot 2:

(more scans commin)

Addition:

No drawing tomorrow though. Canada vs. USA gold medal hockey game. yeah! (in case you are wondering, yes I was in favor of the russian team...But that was earlier... Go CANADA!

-V

Intro of Oscar Schindler part1

2009-12-06T15:13:00.016-05:00

Recently I re watched Schindler's List: directed by Steven Spielberg, based on a book (which of course is based on a true story) by Thomas Keneally, screenplay by Steven Zaillian, edited by Michael Kahn, cinematography by Janusz Kaminski, and scored by John Williams. The film undertakes one of the more complex sensitive subjects, and transports the audience to WWII Poland to retell one of the most powerful stories in human history. The film follows dozens of characters who don't seem to have much screen time at all, yet, as they are seen at different points in the plot, we feel like we learn their entire life story.

Schindler's List was shot in black and white, the main purpose of which was to legitimize all of the documentary style footage. The main character moments, where shot with a more fancy, cinematic approach. Of these, I really enjoyed the introduction of the the leading character Oscar Schindler (Liam Neeson), and wanted to understand why I liked it. So I thought I'd analyze the storytelling and visual mechanics of this sequence and share it here.

We are introduced to Oscar through a series of close ups. In the very first shot we see a man's hands pouring a large shot of vodka. Perhaps to calm the nerves? The composition includes a radio, and a newspaper suggesting that this man has been keeping up with current events. There is a tea pot and cup; He's been indoors for a while. Was he doing research? Taking notes in the small notebook by the radio? The wall seems a little dirty and old suggesting that he is not wealthy.

The close ups that follow consist of the man picking out of 3 suits and ties (most people don't own 3 suits, so this tells us he cares greatly about his appearance). He picks out the right cuff link for his shirt, which again reinforces his class level. He puts a handkerchief in his breast pocket, and taps his chest which feels like "yeah, everything is just right". The next couple of close ups focus on him collecting stacks of money from various drawers in the apartment. He also gathers other valuable collateral like a watch, probably with the intentions of selling it. I guess this is all of the money this man has, and he needs to use it all now (thus the glass of vodka). The sequence ends with him attaching a pin representing his political party. The duration of this shot is considerably longer than all the others, thus putting emphasis on this point. It is also the closest of the preceding close ups.

The following is a continuous steady cam shot:

The camera stays behind this character, not showing his face. I suppose this is similar to the intro of Indiana Jones.

The man enters to the lobby of a nightclub and is greeted by the maître d' who seems impressed by the tall visitor.

The mysterious man whispers something into the maître d's ear and hands him a neatly folded bill. Probably no one would ever pass a bill this high over one's shoulder, but it works so well in composition that we just buy it. We stay behind the shoulder of our character, and the older gentleman looks up with a welcoming smile. Notice that Oscar is always higher than everyone in every frame. Everyone looks upwards at him, which makes him high status and important.
The maître d' leads him to the newly "purchased" table and seats him. This is still all in one shot, and now the camera begins to follow the maître d' as he walks around the table and back to his post. As he circles the table, he glances at Oscar as if he is interested to know more about his mysterious guest. The camera spins around following the maître d', and stops at the now sitting Oscar Schindler. This one continuous shot now ends on this up shot, which again makes him higher in frame than anyone else (even though he is sitting). The camera lingers here for a longer period of time creating contrast with the rest of the shot thus placing more emphasis one this particular part. The director tells you this man is important, look at his face. He sits like an emperor, and lets off a little smile of satisfaction "yeah, they think im badass, and I got away with it".

Now the camera cuts for the first time. We see the maître d' entering back to the lobby, yet he cant help but keep looking back at Oscar. As he goes around the window, we see two more waiters looking at Oscar. They say "Do you know this man?" No one knows him.

He is now a part of the crowd, and is free to maneuver within the club, which I will try to breakdown for a later post. Gotta to run, I'll leave this here for now.

This was fun though! Cheers

C BLOCK

2009-10-27T13:45:00.006-04:00

I made this in 4th year at animation school at Sheridan. 5 months of storyboarding and re-boarding, 2 weeks of design and 3 months of mad production. Its all now but a fuzzy dream. There are a lot of things that were rushed, but it is what it is. Over the last year C Block has been showing in a few festivals around the world, and I was fortunate to attend a couple of them. I will try to make a a summary of it all at some point.

Hand drawn on paper, colored in Photoshop, composited in AfterEffects. Enjoy:

a film in 10 hours

2009-10-18T19:44:00.002-04:00

This weekend I participated in a 1 day event called Cinemasports as part of the Mill Valley Film Festival. The mission was to make a 3 min film in less than 10 hours given 3 ingredients that were made public at 9am of the day of shooting. The ingredients were: A Shaman, Stolen Documents, and a Spicy Pepper.

We scrambled for a couple of hours and came up with a rough story, and just started shooting...The editing started shortly after and we built the film as the footage was coming in. We shot around the festival headquarters, in the road, the public library (somehow no one kicked us out), a scary PG&E building, and a local park. 10 hours later we were burning the DVD while other team members were saving spots for us in the line to see the screening with our films.

It was a really fun screening and we are amazed with different creative interpretations of the ingredients. Our film received a ton of laughs and even a little sincere aww..which of course made our night! Our team was titled Team Puppycat (Brandon Hyman, Emma Coats, Erick Tryzelaar, Mach Kobayashi, and Vladimir Kooperman).

Enjoy:

Agent Pepper from SoundsCrazyLetsDoIt on Vimeo.

been long time

2009-09-20T20:18:00.001-04:00

Yep, my neglected blog is getting another little post. I've got a lot to post about; just no time to do it! Still setteling in[at my new place... I'll get around to the posts soon I hope. I've got a bunch of photos to show from trips to Annecy and Israel. For now here are a couple of paintings:

Guache and color pencil. 'Best potatoes in the East'

If Vlad made Avatar, it would look like this :-) Water color. (colour - if you are Canadian!)

Future Project

2009-04-25T01:58:00.002-04:00

Sketch Crawl 22 - Chinatown

2009-04-13T13:50:00.002-04:00

Framed

2009-03-19T02:04:00.009-04:00

The first two I did for some friends. The first one was inspired by a book my buddy Oleg recommended to check out, called "Into thin Air" by Jon Krakauer. The author recalls the tragic events of a 1996 expedition to the summit of Everest. He described the mental and physical perils of attempting or even thinking about climbing Everest. What I didnt realize about high altitude climbing until I read this, is the fact that your brain doesnt function as well on the summit at 8,848 metres (29,029 ft). In fact without bottled oxygen most people begin to loose their mind, and take on child-like behaviour (simple tasks can take hours, you are cold, and out of breath all the time). These may be accompanied by severe headaches, and quickly develops into high-altitude sickness which can lead to a very painful death. There are, however, exceptional individuals capable of climbing Everest without the use of bottled oxygen. As I was reading, I realized that this is one of the furthest, most unreachable, and most isolated places on Earth. You cant call your Mom to pick you up, no taxi, no ambulance, no helicopter, only what mother nature deals for you. It either lets you pass, or it doesn't. Its probably easier to rescue someone from the space station than from these 8000 meter titans. Over the course of history this mountain claimed over 200 lives. If this notion is not enough to keep you away, there is also a $50000 ticket ($25000 permit, $25000 to the guide, sherpas, equipment) to get you to the top. Perhaps when I'm really bored....maybe....but then again, my skinny ass will freeze even at base camp. For me, free-diving with the great whites is further up on the list. Anyways, a good read! The drawing was reallyy fun to do as well, just using good old pencils. In the background is the silhouette of Everest.

The second picture is watercolor and color pencils.

The last drawing is for my Grandfather: My family boxer Julya, evil cat Billy, and yours truly in space helmets. What else can a grandpa want!

Gesture Dump

2009-03-15T23:29:00.002-04:00

Ranging from 30s, 1, 2, 3 min.

Look back

2009-02-19T20:50:00.003-05:00

from life 2 months ago. 5 min pose.

SketchCrawl 21

2009-01-12T14:38:00.009-05:00

This weekend I went drawing for the entire day as part of the SketchCrawl. It was my first time participating, and it turned out to be a lot of fun. After drawing in a series of interesting neighbourhoods, everyone met up at the end of the day in a Cafe to share what they have sketched. It was really cool to see every one's approaches and styles! Also, we couldnt ask for a nicer day; it was 20C, sunny, and we were in t-shirts in mid January (still weird for me). Here is my stuff from the day: (We were in Haight District, and Golden Gate Park)

this guy was real! He had what looked like a black band-aid across his cheeks and nose! (Maybe it was a tattoo) Cant wait for the next Sketchcrawl in April.

winter pictures

2009-01-06T00:10:00.012-05:00

1/2 a meter tall sand barrier..looks big, no?

Local Venice beach parrot at the cafe.

My governor...how cool is that?

Frozone being forced to sign a Beauty and the Beast book at Disneyland. I dont know why he's smiling?

There is nothing between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

A forgotten onion starts growing. Currently the only plant at my place...Across the street is the bedroom to one of many Berkeley homeless hippies. Arround him is brand new graffiti!

A cop makes a report of the new art.

Another view from the appartment. Downtown SF at the horrizon.

Shoes hanging on the powerline. I've heard different stories as to what that means.

Desk at work.

More posts to come soon: I've been drawing :)

Happy new year!

C Block Poster Sketches

2008-11-16T23:48:00.002-05:00

A few quick color pencil poster designs..I like the first one...thinking of developing it further.

new stuff

2008-11-16T23:09:00.005-05:00

blue angels flying in "diamond" formation.. there is about 18 inches between them...this is how the navy gets young people to enlist. sign me up! Here are some of Oleg's pictures from the day:

when the poses are long I have to time to draw the drawers. :)

Yosemite

Lunch time Gestures

2008-10-01T02:26:00.004-04:00

Trying new approaches...more focus on storytelling, attitude...

pictures

2008-09-28T02:38:00.009-04:00

-what pictures?-

My trip to Crater Lake...

this is the deepest lake in the States with depths reaching 600m! The volcano exploaded 1000years ago, and over time filled up with rain water which means its super clear; hence the blue color...no photoshop filters here...thats what it looks like!

how do i work this thing...

Sorry for the lack of posts...Its coming soon...I've been super busy with my move to Berkeley, and I just recently got myself a laptop and got back online..I've got lots of drawings to post, so keep checking in...

over and out

-V

Stuff I did last year

2008-06-10T02:58:00.008-04:00

Some design work i did at my internship between 3rd and 4th year...for about a month I got to draw monsters, aliens, mythological creatures, and hot babes for a stop motion commercial...It started off as monsters at the drive-in and later ended up in an old theater...

Laika

2008-04-20T03:42:00.005-04:00

The other day Nick, at the Sheridan animation tech office, asked me if by any chance I made my film as a dedication to Laika (the 1st space dog). He brought to my attention that recently it was the 50th year anniversary since the historic sputnik 2 flight which delivered Laika into Orbit.

So I thought I’d make a post about Laika’s extraordinary journey:

Laika is Russian for “barker”, which is now also referred to a breed of dog: mongrel (mixed breed).

She was found wandering the streets of my home town Moscow, and along with 2 other dogs began training for space flight. Training included: keeping the dogs in progressively smaller and insolated cages for increasingly longer periods up to 20 days, placed in centrifuges that simulated launch accelerations, and exposed to machines that simulated the noise experienced during launch.

Before the flight one of the scientists brought Laika home so she can play with his kids. He said: " I wanted to do something nice for her: She had so little time left to live." .

There days before the start of the mission Laika was placed inside the small cockpit and chained to restrict her movement to standing, sitting or lying down. She had access to gel form food on board, and fitted with a waste bag.

Her craft, Sputnik 2, was a rush job to meet Khrushchev’s request to launch the next satellite on November 7 (the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution). The team designed and built the craft in four weeks. So on November 3, 1957 the satellite was launched.

At peak acceleration Laika’s respiration increased to 3-4 times the pre-launch rate. Her heart rate increased to 240 beats/min from 103 (pre launch). There was a malfunction during separation, and some thermal insulation tore loose, raising cabin temp to 40°C. (the ideal temp planned for Laika was 15 degrees) After three hours of weightlessness, her pulse went back down to normal and she was eating again. After 7 hours no signs of life were received. Laika had died from overheating and stress.

Her sacrifice however, proved to the world that surviving launch into orbit was possible, and paved the way for human space flight.

A few days ago on april 11, 2008 a monument dedicated to Laika was unveiled beside the military facility that hosted the mission in Moscow.

Laika, was in fact the inspiration for my short film ‘C BLOCK’. At one point it was even titled ‘Laika’, but due to various reasons (including the fact that my dog never actually goes to space) I chose an alternate title. I just like to think that the name of the dog in the film is Laika.

Guess what I’ll be naming my own dog in the future?

Well thats all I have to say...thanks for reading my wikipedia summary :)

Oh, I also found a couple of interesting documentary clips to give us a glimpse of the space race in the 50s:

Animation Prom 2008

2008-04-19T03:01:00.002-04:00

I think this year a new trend was set. The sweatpants, superhero shirts, and beards came off for this one evening. Suit up! we are going to animation prom..hmm..semi-formal...right..

Dinner was delicious. Open bar..what? yup. well, what can I say...it was a hit! You rock Mel... Thanks for organizing this monumental event, and actually getting these lazy animators to come out..and in their suits..wowa wiwa..at first glance we almost look like normal people...almost..

Congratulations everyone!

Chart

2008-04-19T02:12:00.002-04:00

This was 10 days before the film hand-in deadline. During dinners I would look over this production chart as if it were a battlefield, strategizing were to send my troops next. hmm.. its surprising how amazingly satisfying it is to fill in those boxes. mmmm...

Actually I am posting this for my roommate Vadim. (he likes the graphic nature of this page)

Waiting room

2008-02-19T21:26:00.004-05:00

While waiting for my sister to get a 4am mri on her knee.

4th Year Film

2008-02-19T21:06:00.003-05:00

So, we are into our final year of animation shcool and all of my energy, tears, and soul are going into a 3 minute animated short. I thought maybe I should do a short post about it all.

Its called 'C BLOCK", and I am up to 3 coffees a day.

Its all about space dogs, toys, rockets, nukes, and good old brain washing. Another words its all about society!

Here are a couple of finished stills:

Half Hour drawing jam sketches

2007-12-03T03:28:00.000-05:00

Nerd

Goth

Nazi Sniper

Fashion

Gerry

Hellboy

2007-11-28T13:19:00.000-05:00

Too tired working on my film...hmm..break time..i know, lets draw hellboy!

Life - Nov 2007

2007-11-24T17:15:00.000-05:00

Space Dog concepts

2007-04-30T13:06:00.000-04:00

Star Struck: Rockets

2007-03-01T01:00:00.000-05:00

Life with portraits!...

2007-02-10T15:32:00.000-05:00

Smokin spys

2007-02-05T02:06:00.001-05:00

I love space dogs :)

2007-02-05T02:02:00.000-05:00

Some short stuff..Gerry is so cool

2007-01-22T04:12:00.000-05:00

5min

3min
3min
1min
Matt, Vadim, Rahi..just some trouble makers I drew back in september...

Caricatured Life from december..hmm..all sitting

2006-12-27T19:20:00.000-05:00

Attempts at Faces: James & Vadim

2006-12-02T00:49:00.000-05:00

life from november

2006-12-02T00:39:00.000-05:00

Life from this week

2006-11-24T20:22:00.000-05:00

5min

10min - yeah, i know..the hand is ugly..but, i like it :)..

Star-Struck Concepts

2006-11-16T15:30:00.000-05:00

Our current story takes place on a volcanic island on a moonlit night. (thats lava flowing under the water)
Wasnt sure how to illustrate this..But this is the underwater pov of the lava flow...see it? :)

Life from Nov 15

2006-11-16T15:28:00.000-05:00

Winter Fair 2006

2006-11-16T15:23:00.000-05:00

Here is one for now...

Life drawing from Nov 1

2006-11-16T15:18:00.000-05:00

Death to all starfish

2006-11-10T21:30:00.000-05:00

My group film started out about a starfish who wanted to be a star, and now it's about a fallen star trying to get back. So on one sleepless night I decided to commemorate its death.

Effective advertising

2006-11-04T02:11:00.000-05:00

Couple of hours rush job to get this little poster out for my friends at the UofT russian club. The party was awesome!! I even dressed up like this little Zorro right here...except I was a tall one. :)

Group film inspirational paintings

2006-11-04T02:02:00.000-05:00

Spy fun

2006-11-04T01:53:00.000-05:00

Random

2006-06-28T00:27:00.000-04:00

Just some various sketches from boredom:

Sketches from life

2006-06-28T00:11:00.000-04:00

Trying to get myself to sketch people more and more. This from the subway:
Friends:

Old farts sitting around the pool I lifeguard:
They all dress the same, or maybe its the same person and I suck :) ?

Fun with Charcoal

2006-05-26T02:06:00.000-04:00

20" X 12" Charcoal Illustration. I call it the "Couch Potato".

Gun deck

2006-05-06T20:55:00.000-04:00

Photoshop painting. Interior study.

Stereotypes in whites

2006-05-05T16:36:00.000-04:00

Something Peter Emslie had us do: to design clearly identifiable types in non descriptive clothing. There is supposed to be four :) but I dont think it achieved the intended type.

In case you didnt guess the types here; they are: English professor, ballerina, and a truck-stop waitress.

Penguin

2006-05-05T05:21:00.000-04:00

This is a large 36"X12" charcoal illustration I had done for my sister's 19th birthday

Galleon in asteroid field

2006-05-05T05:11:00.000-04:00

This is something our layout instructor Piotr Bielicki had us do (so you should see a bunch of these damn ships around the blog community). Made you do a little research, and think about composition without getting into too much detail (on the asteroids).

Sharmo

2006-05-05T05:06:00.000-04:00

Sharmo - the mountain climbing goat.

Royal Winter Fair 2005

2006-05-05T05:03:00.000-04:00

Figures

2006-05-04T02:29:00.000-04:00

2min
5min
5min
5min
20min
10min
10min
1hour

CLERK 725

2006-05-04T00:23:00.000-04:00

In second year we had to come up with a story idea. We were asked to develop artwork, characters and story board it. This is all to get us ready for 3rd and 4th year to get a feeling for the entire process. I have to say that although I am not proud of it, I have learned a lot about the process and hopefully will not make the same mistakes in future projects.

A couple of story sketches:

Here are some selected character designs:

Clerk 725

Pablo

Betty

Some Layouts and Paintings:

This is supposed to be a 1950-60s New York type of city

Story Reel

Because of time limitations and last minute story changes, the boards are EXTREMELY rough, although still quite readable. You can download the 15M story reel here:

right-click save target as.

Elephatork

2006-05-03T21:44:00.000-04:00

Something I had developed for one of those CG Networks (now called CG Society) contests. It was the MachineFlesh contest which required a character to be a blend of organic and machine. So I thought it would be pretty cool to fuse an elephant and a stork. Although I didn't go ahead with the challenge, I ended up doing a large charcoal illustration of this thing during the summer after first year.

I want to blog

2006-04-29T19:36:00.000-04:00

Well, year 2 of the animation program ended yesterday.
I guess now is a good time to start a blog.