Well, 2014 sure was a fun year! I got to meet some great people in animation, set things up for some great independent projects this year and witness some spectacular moments.

I had fun at Reel Spirit this last year teaching kids a little bit about traditional animation. While there, I also got to meet the current voice of Mickey Mouse, Bret Iwan. That was swell!

Then came the Kansas City Film Fest which had a great focus on animation this last year. I got to meet and hang out with the King of Indie Animation, Bill Plympton. And thanks to my friend Scott, we got a personalized tour of Thomas Hart Benton’s paintings at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Thank you Scott! Thomas Hart Benton is one of his favorite artists and he said Benton’s work has influenced his own. I hope one day he’ll be able to come back and give a talk about that at the Nelson-Atkins. Are you listening to this folks over at the Nelson-Atkins?

During Kansas City Film Fest I also got to meet and hang out with Animator/Director/Graphic Novelist Stephan Franck. He gave a great talk on his work directing the 2D Smurfs short, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. He has also just put out his first graphic novel called Silver. It is fantastic! I highly recommend you make your way to your local comic book store right now to get it or order it online here. I hope he will come back to Kansas City again as well to show off his latest work on the series.

2014 also saw Lyn Elliot’s short film, A Good Match, (which I did a little bit of work in) get selected for LUNAFEST … which is huge! You can read more about that in the blog post here. It was also announced this last year that I will be one of 5 filmmakers working on a new collaborative film project of Lyn’s called Lessons from Exes. You can read more about that and another independent animation project I’m working on in this blog post.

This last year I also had my first trip to the east coast attending my family reunion in Gettysburg, PA. It’s a great historical place to visit if you get a chance. And be sure to do a ghost tour if you dare. The spirits abound there. While there I also got my first taste of sarsaparilla. Not bad at all. Then it was off for a side trip to New York City where I did all those touristy things you must do at least once … the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Times Square and of course I got some of that delicious Junior’s Cheesecake!

And who in Kansas City will ever forget that spectacular run to the World Series by our Royals. You can see my little animated gif about it here.

Thanks for the fun 2014 … I look forward to another fun year in 2015!  Happy New Year to you all and may 2015 be a fun year for you as well!

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