Nevertheless, all of the content here is quaint, so it’s worth keeping online. It’s now here as an archive of a time long gone when things like Youtube and Spotify didn’t exist and everyone was excited about the idea of 24p standard definition video cameras and iTunes playlists.

To find out what I’ve been up to lately visit

heavytargets.com - what I’m reading right now
newmediarights.org - where I work
shaunspalding.com - emphemeral observations
twitter.com/SASpalding - even more ephemeral observations

Or enjoy the various art projects I do under various pseudonyms

I know this blog is retired and being revamped, but I thought I’d pull a Jay-z and come out of retirement momentarily after I read about the problem-filled Preview of Julie Taymor’s new Broadway show .

Pretty much to summarize, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is a new Broadway show by Julie Taymor based on Marvel’s Spider-Man character and loosely based on the continuity of the recent Spider-Man films. Its full of highwire fighting, flashy costumes, and technological sparkle. It’s also light on plot, somehow even the weak story is relatively hard to follow. This is pretty much exactly what to expect from Julie Taymor.

The problem isn’t the article, it’s the comments at the end:

I’m not one to wish anyone ill-will. That being said, however, I am hoping for the failure of this monstrosity. It embodies all that is wrong with Broadway. There are so many good writers and good pieces of work out there, but “Broadway” is only interested in what will sell to the masses. It’s kind of nice to see those big names and their mountains of money get some comeuppance. Besides, if I want to see this kind of nonsense, I’ll go to Vegas and see Cirque.

Certain types of small-minded people tend to adopt this attitude whenever a popular, highly-anticpated movie, album, or TV shows gets previewed.

How does it help anyone for a 65 million dollar show to be bad? Personally, I hope its great (that doesn’t mean it will be), but why hope someone fails? Let’s look at all the great things that would happen if the show were good:

• 1. The people who put their money into making art (commercial art is still art) can at least break even and continue being creative in the future.
• 2. The actors and crew can have a long, successful run working on a good show that makes people happy.
• 3. The show can introduce an audience (young people, male nerds, movie-goers) to the theatre who may have never seen a live theatre production.
• 4. The show can be another thing people can enjoy in a world already filled with mostly unenjoyable things.

Until very recently, theatre has been a populist medium. Many stuffy, “classics” of the stage used to be populist, technology-filed spectacles: Shakespere, yes; Greek tragedies, yes.

It’s also not difficult to find examples of works in all sorts of media that find a way to “appeal to the masses” while still being critically successful.

Maybe it would be okay to wish Julie Taymor failure if she for example, committed a war crime during production, or abused her cast and crew. But she hasn’t displayed one ounce of insincerity (at least publicly). She’s just a controversial director who has a very clear vision of the plotless spectacles she wants to create, and that rubs certain people the wrong way.

Wishing that someone’s work is bad, just so they get “comeuppance” for being successful is pretty tacky.

After over three years of acting as my stalwart, 100% uptime, ever-vigilant online presence, Is it Obvious?, is being taken down.

Take heart though. From this site’s charred remains, something better, will rise up — Phoenix-like — from the ashes. Stay turned the grand opening of a new website in place of this one within about 3-4 months.

Like a struggling network television show, the site will be retooled, new characters will be written in, and the final product will be unrecognizable to anyone who enjoyed it in the past.

For now, take a look around at some of the old posts while you still can. Some of the best, least incriminating entries may make the transition to the new site. So while a small selection of the non-embarrassing content will be available after the purge, most of it will go gently into the night without having fought the dying of the light.

If you you keep waiting for things to be as good as you want you want them to be, you’ll probably be waiting forever. This iteration of Is It Obvious? had always been planned a temporary stop-gap maneuver, in place until I could move on to bigger, better things.

Now stay tuned for the bigger and the better.

- Shaun

So you can find my new design-only portfolio at itISobvious.com which (if you’re paying attention) is a play off of this site’s name (isITobvious.com). I thought it was cute.

There isn’t all that much there. A portfolio is only as good as the worst piece, so I decided to only include the better ones or ones that I’m not bound by an NDA not to release.

Enjoy!

As you might assume, looking at how things have turned out by the beginning of of 2010, I never quite got beyond the “30 day trial” skill level using any of these programs. There was too much patience involved.

In addition to over a month of wasted time, I also got a hard drive full of animation tests (render tests, camera movement tests, lighting tests, texture tests) that I can show for myself. All-in-all, they’re mostly inept, glitchy and artless, but there are a few that more interesting than others. These are those:

Created in Vue 5

Created in Mojo World

Created in Mojo World

Created in Vue 5

Tried to do something realistic. It took a whole lot of work for what it ended up looking like.

Upon reflecting, I guess the big question is, what’s the point of all of this? I think the answer is that there is no point.

If you find a better way to spend 30 days in 2010, let me know and I’ll do that instead.

You actually asked me the question: “Are you taking any steps to keep shit real?” I want you always to look back on this time as being a time when those words came out of your mouth…

As if it can’t get any better, guess who was the DP? My boy Ryan Moulton.

Check out the trailer

and then be their fan

To put this into perspective for non-movie people: 3724 features were submitted to Sundance this year. Only 113 of those movies (3%) got the nod.

For a week or two, I’ve been spending my “me time” learning how to use a program called Apophysis. It generates “fractal flames.” Though this might have practical applications, for my purposes, all it does is make pretty pictures.

It’s simple program to use, but it seems to require complicated math to get good at.

I plan on doing no math during my “me time.”

I do realize that most of my many hobbies and diversions don’t serve much use to society. I’ve always hoped I’d get interested in some more productive hobby like auto repair or cancer research.

[click either picture to enlarge in another window]

Big thanks to Brian Offenther for the article.

[Click the images below to enlarge pages in another window]

They won’t let me just give it away (the cheapest Amazon’s system allows is $0.99), but since I plan on making no sales, I also don’t plan on making any money. I’m not asking you to buy anything. In fact, please don’t buy it. Save your cash for when the revolution comes.

Even if I did have hopes of tricking some stranger into buying it, Amazon also takes a 70% cut on all downloads, which would leave me with 30 cents (without tax). The purpose of this is really just to see how the system works from start to finish.

So that’s where you come in. I’ve reprinted the story below and in the easier to read PDF format, for free.

If you get bored and decide to read it and you enjoy it, take a minute or two to about it write a glowing review on Amazon It should be full of ridiculous, outlandish praise that couldn’t possibly be real. I’d like to fill the Amazon page with bizarre claims about how good this story is. The sillier the better. I posted a sample of what a “good” review should look like on the Amazon page, but feel free to go wild with it. In fact, review it if you want even if you haven’t read the story. It might make writing the review more fun.

If you don’t like the story, feel free to stop yourself from writing a negative review.

I enjoyed writing it, so I hope people enjoy reading it. Without further ado, reprinted in all of it’s glory is the short story A Firework Over Lake Michigan along with some boss cover art that I threw together. Click Read More, to check it out…

(more…)