By Jessica, on December 11th, 2012%
Thanks to the hard work of our creative technologist team, Mike Knowlton and Hal Siegel of Murmur, we have launched the first installment of the online interactive companion to Aatsinki: The Story of Arctic Cowboys, called The Aatsinki Season.
 Screen shot from The Aatsinki Season While the film focuses on the Aatsinki family and their deep bond with their reindeer and the land, The Aatsinki Season is an interactive debate that draws attention to the social, environmental, political, and moral issues that define what it means to be a reindeer herder in Finnish Lapland. Expanding the themes of the film, the online companion challenges each participant to reconsider his or her assumptions about technology, food production, and, most critically, man’s place in nature. Episodes of The Aatsinki Season will be released in seasonal installments over the course of the coming year, coordinated to coincide with the most important events of the herding schedule.
We ran a bit behind on the opening installment (blame Hurricane Sandy), but we are excited to finally be sharing it with you. We’re looking forward to hearing what you think!
By Jessica, on October 23rd, 2012%
It’s here! The brand-spanking-new Myriapod Productions Online Shop is officially open!
In addition to all the familiar Beetle Queen items, you can now get your mitts on the stylish Aatsinki t-shirts (Men’s and Women’s, available in various sizes) and the rugged Arctic Cowboy temporary tattoos!
We are really proud of the shop and grateful for all the help we received putting it together. We’ve added some behind-the-scenes snapshots from the photo shoot with Luke Fontana. Our good friends Camille de Chenay (set photographer) and Charlie Birns (filmmaker) modeled. They were naturals.
We hope you’ll find something you like!
Note: Kickstarter backers will receive their t-shirts and tattoos as soon as the rest of the Kickstarter rewards are in. We sincerely apologize for the delay! If you *must* have your t-shirt now, as opposed to waiting until the DVD is ready – which, we warn you, will take several months – we would be happy to negotiate a second, separate shipping fee. Please send us a message and we’ll make it happen. Thank you for understanding!
By Jessica, on October 16th, 2012%
The Aatsinki t-shirts have finally arrived!! We’ll be opening the shiny new Myriapod Productions online shop on Tuesday, October 23rd. Though we’ll be featuring must-have items from all of our projects, we’re most excited to show you the new Aatsinki swag. Men’s and women’s shirts as well as temporary tattoos will soon be available!
The series of images below is cracking me up. I asked Aarne and Lasse to let me take photos of them in their new t-shirts. Despite having allowed me to film them for the past year, neither brother is very comfortable in front of the camera when asked to pose.
And below is Julius – Lasse’s youngest – rocking the temporary tattoos.
By Jessica, on October 12th, 2012%
The finalists have been selected! We received nearly one hundred submissions to our Mysteries of Vernacular K-word contest, one of which will make it into an animated episode. After careful deliberation, we have narrowed this list down to five fantastic finalists:
knot
key
kid
keister
kinky
As promised, the runners up will each receive a set of beautiful steak knives. Not really. Though they will receive a special prize that we’ll announce in the near future, along with the winning word. Thank you all for your thoughtful suggestions!
By Jessica, on April 13th, 2012%
Kickstarter, if you’re not familiar with it, is a crowd funding website for creative projects. We have given ourselves until May 11th at 2:24pm to reach our goal of $38,000, the bare minimum needed to finish the film and get it out into the world.
Everyone who makes a contribution to Aatsinki will receive a great reward, ranging from an Arctic Cowboys temporary tattoo to a vacation in Finland, depending on the amount of the donation. The catch, however, is that Kickstarter will only collect these donations if our goal is met. Otherwise, none of the crowd’s generous pledges will be fulfilled and none of our rewards will be distributed.
We need your help! Please pledge your support now!
By Jessica, on March 14th, 2012%
After much consideration and deliberation, I’ve changed the name of my reindeer movie.
Pipe Fire is now, officially, Aatsinki.
With the subtitle: The Story of Arctic Cowboys.
The main characters, Aarne and Lasse Aatsinki, are part of a long lineage of Aatsinkis that have lived and herded in that part of Finnish Lapland. Such a long lineage, in fact, that Aatsinki is also the name of the town in which they live.
In honor of the new title, we’ve updated the site a bit. And moved it to a new domain: www.arcticcowboys.com.
Let us know what you think!
And just in case you’re wondering, things are moving forward on the film. Lots of news coming soon.
By Jessica, on March 8th, 2012%
My ideaphoria got the best of me and I had to start something new. It’s a series of short animations about the history of language called Mysteries of Vernacular.
Check it out at mysteriesofvernacular.com.
 Behind the Scenes
By Jessica, on February 24th, 2012%
New elves join the ranks!
Sam Colon on the left and Alex Bader on the right. (And trusty Anthony there in the middle.)
They are all busy busy busy prepping illustrations for the very beginnings of our fairy tale animation for The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga!
By Jessica, on November 9th, 2011%
Congratulations to Maiko on her world premiere. Wish I could have been in Copenhagen!
This looks like a great review in one of Copenhagen’s leading papers, though I can’t be sure…
The word “Ultracool” has to mean the same in every language, right?
 A still from Kuichisan
By Jessica, on November 2nd, 2011%
The team behind the animated fairy tale portion of my film, The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga, is growing. Michelle Enemark as animator and Devin Dobrowolski as illustrator are both incredibly talented artists that I am so excited to be working with.
This week Michelle, Rachael and I all convened at Devin’s studio to map out the animation. We have spent several intense days planning, testing, and story-boarding the story from start to finish.
I’m posting a few pictures of us at work, but tune-in tomorrow for some sneak-peaks of Devin’s sketches.
 Devin and Jessica discuss layout  Michelle running tests on layers and images  Rachael annotates the fairy tale narration  Devin is assisted by our intern Noreen who joined us for a few hours today
|
|
