Click here to view the embedded video.

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Doug Hogan is a VFX compositor and freelance web designer working in Detroit. He's a 2006 SCAD graduate and has worked in both the broadcast, web, and feature film corners of the Visual Effects industry.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

© Doug Hogan 2010. | Click here to comment

The premiere weekend of the new Looney Tunes short, “Coyote Falls” in theaters has come and gone. And it’s left in it’s wake some really stellar reviews from critics and audiences a like! Now I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. I am SO PROUD to have been apart of this creative team. The whole experience has just been a dream come true for everyone involved, so I wanted to give you all a consolidated list of all the reviews I’ve collected so far. The fruits of all the hard work everyone put in to make these as great as they are.

Now all that’s left to do is wait for the world to see the next two shorts. Which I’m so excited for, because each one is seriously better than the last!

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The Washington Post

The best part of “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” happens before this derivative family film even begins. It’s the Looney Tunes animated short, “Coyote Falls,” that precedes the movie.

The 6-year-old next to me, like nearly every child in the theater, shrieked in delight and gasped in wonder as Wile E. Coyote was smashed, flattened, run over and blown up in an enormous fireball. (All in 3-D!) For kids raised on the nonviolent, chipper children’s entertainment of Nickelodeon and PBS Kids, the first Road Runner cartoon they’ve ever seen delivers genuine entertainment catharsis.

Tampa Bay Times

The sole reason to buy tickets — 3-D or otherwise — to Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore has absolutely nothing to do with the movie, which belongs in a pooper-scooper.

It’s a preceding, too-short subject that almost makes the investment worthwhile, starring Looney Tunes legends Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote in richer colors and more eye-popping depth than ever. Coyote Falls needs only those cartoon icons, a bungee cord, a bridge and heavy traffic on a desert highway to muster more enjoyment than the main event never matches.

Coyote Falls seems like a trial run for a possible Looney Tunes revival, retrofitted for the 3-D generation. That makes more sense in theory and now execution than most childhood retreads do in any format. The late animation genius Chuck Jones would be proud.

Box Office Magazine

In fact, Kitty Galore’s best laughs occur during the Looney Tunes pre-show cartoon Coyote Falls. Its 3D is fast and furious and the slapstick is clever. The cartoon short has everything Kitty Galore desperately needs. Too bad the Looney Tunes writers didn’t help out with the feature presentation.

Boston.com

Very much the best part of “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore’’ is the new “Road Runner’’ cartoon that precedes it. It’s in 3-D, of course, and Wile E. Coyote and his eternal avian nemesis have been rendered in fleshed-out, “realistic’’ shadings. I prefer the flat pop colors of yesteryear, but in all other respects, the short’s a scream: fast, funny, impeccably timed, and as brutally obedient to the laws of Looney Tunes physics as ever.

The National Post

In fact, the only thing that got the kids riled up was a new Road Runner short that preceded the feature. Although it lasted only five minutes, the dialogue-free, gleefully wacky toon scored more laughs than any wise-cracking pooch, no matter how famous the voice actor. Out of the mouths of babes indeed.

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Doug Hogan is a VFX compositor and freelance web designer working in Detroit. He's a 2006 SCAD graduate and has worked in both the broadcast, web, and feature film corners of the Visual Effects industry.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

© Doug Hogan 2010. | Click here to comment

LINK: New York Times – What’s Up, Doc? New Looneys

Meanwhile, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote are going back to work in movie theaters in a series of 3-D shorts. The first of these shorts — Warner has approved three, and three more are in development — will play ahead of the movie “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” which arrives in theaters July 30.

And the fan response over at Cartoon Brew is pretty awesome too. Fans really seem to be getting excited for the CG shorts! Here are some of my favorite comments…

Rafa says:

The road runner shot looks amazing!
the bugs & daffy, not so much…

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lampshade says:

auuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh

hey, the CGI shot doesn’t look so bad though

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Fooksie says:

I agree, Rafa. Wile E Coyote looks fantastic.

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erlab says:

I was seriously SCARED of Daffy’s welcoming expression! Now that I know Bugs WILL look like that, I will just have to live with it or ignore the show.

CN is still running the original cartoons in the morning right?

That CG Road Runner series has potential to be really good.

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A.J. says:

The cgi coyote looks pretty nifty!
But Bugs is having a serious tude problem…and his feet and face..wtf?

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Taber Dunipace says:

Why is Daffey made of thistles? I hope that Coyote shot is going to be as good as it looks now!

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coyote says:

“The short will be in theatres? That’s great! The shorts were made in India? That’s really unfortunate.”

Don’t worry, the shorts aren’t being made in India. They’re being done by Reel FX in Dallas.

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tgentry says:

I guess I’m just restating what many others have already said, but the genericized, Flash-happy Bugs and Daffy make me incredibly sad. It’s odd that the 3D coyote looks much more organic and cartoon-like than the more trendy and souless look of Bugs and Daffy. Looking forward to the updated Roadrunners.

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mrscriblam says:

i like the coyote cgi shot

looks almost like stop-motion, which is a style i think would work very well for that sketch

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vfx says:

The real fun will be when everyone gets to frame-by-frame through the CG animation to see just how spot on it is to the classic stuff.

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The comments just go on and on. So I’ll let you thumb through them at your own pace.

But I will end with this. To all the fans who love the original Wile E Coyote and Road Runner shorts, the CG shorts will not disappoint. I dare say, you’re going to love them! I’m so proud to be a part of this project, as is every other single person on the team. And we’re putting in the hard work and long hours to do justice to what Chuck Jones brought to life all those years ago.

This is most certainly not all folks Just you wait.

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Doug Hogan is a VFX compositor and freelance web designer working in Detroit. He's a 2006 SCAD graduate and has worked in both the broadcast, web, and feature film corners of the Visual Effects industry.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

© Doug Hogan 2010. | Click here to comment

Check out this really well done short by Patrick Jean, called Pixels.

Using wonderful special effects and combining the upbeat music, Patrick has made a wonderful nostalgic video that features the old style and pixel look into a realistic suburban city with the Pixels taking over. With so much color, sound and things happening at the same time, I really could not attempt to explain what is going on and just urge you to press play and really soak in this amazing creation.

The cool concept aside, this short has some really superb lighting and compositing going on. And I really love the marriage between the 8bit modeling style, and the really high res particle simulations. The shot of the Tetris blocks collapsing the building? Fantastic.

I would love to see a making of!

Please, Patrick…pleaseeeee?

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Doug Hogan is a VFX compositor and freelance web designer working in Detroit. He's a 2006 SCAD graduate and has worked in both the broadcast, web, and feature film corners of the Visual Effects industry.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

© Doug Hogan 2010. | Click here to comment

Just incredibly busy.

Hince my lonngggg absence from posting on my blog. But don’t worry I’ll be back soon, I promise. I’m even spending what little free time I have designing and coding the 2010 update for DH.com! I’ve learned a lot in the past 6 months about web design, so I can’t wait to bring some of that knowledge back home to this site. There’s some really cool stuff coming to this site in the coming months, both design wise and new work! So stay tuned!

While you wait, check out this awesome episode of the television show that inspired me to do what I’m doing now. “Movie Magic”! It’s really cool to see this stuff again, especially the cat from “Hocus Pocus”. I was in awe of that cat when I was a kid. But man, does this makes me feel old, ha.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Doug Hogan is a VFX compositor and freelance web designer working in Detroit. He's a 2006 SCAD graduate and has worked in both the broadcast, web, and feature film corners of the Visual Effects industry.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

© Doug Hogan 2010. | Click here to comment

It’s not easy to make 0′s and 1′s emotionally moving, but that’s exactly what the VFX artists have done here. Really impressive work.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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Making Of:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Doug Hogan is a VFX compositor and freelance web designer working in Detroit. He's a 2006 SCAD graduate and has worked in both the broadcast, web, and feature film corners of the Visual Effects industry.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

© Doug Hogan 2010. | Click here to comment

“What is My Remote Radio? Well on the surface it’s a geek-centric Podcast and Blog. But below all that, it’s a place for Andrew and I to share all the stuff that we love. Whether that be movies, comics, toys oh umm, i meancollectibles, television shows, video games, gadgets…you name it really! In fact that’s our one and only rule on this site. We only talk about things we love, not things we hate. You won’t find us bashing people, places, or things here. Because honestly, what fun is there in that anyways?”

The entire site was designed and coded in just under a month. Taking full advantage of all the new features in WordPress 2.9. Like thumbnail support, html5 architecture, and updates to the PowerPress plugin to achieve a scalable and easy to use theme for podcasting and blogging. It features a magazine style layout, mixed with a media centric CMS. Two things that don’t usually go together, but were essential in designing this website.

That’s geek speak for “I wanted this site to not only present the content in a easy to skim format, but also to be very approachable for new listeners.” They needed to feel comfortable engaging with the show and commenting on what they thought about the posts, so that we could accomplish our ultimate goal of this blog / podcast. To create a community.

Will this experiment work? Well only time will tell. But in the meantime why don’t you head on over to MyRemoteRadio.com and check out what Andrew and I are up to!

LINK: My Remote Radio.com

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Doug Hogan is a VFX compositor and freelance web designer working in Detroit. He's a 2006 SCAD graduate and has worked in both the broadcast, web, and feature film corners of the Visual Effects industry.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

© Doug Hogan 2010. | Click here to comment

For fans of our previous podcast, Lingo: A Geekly Podcast, this new show marks the evolution of something Andrew and I started over a year ago. This time though it’s not only a podcast, but also a blog to share with you all of the random stuff that we talk about through out the week prior to recording on Friday. Movie reviews, funny pictures we find, random posts we stumble across. Think of it as your one stop geek shop! And we promise, lots of YouTube nut shot clips. LOTS.

That’s the goal of this new show. To take what we’ve learned over the last 16 months, mash it all together, and give our fellow geeks something that I think you’re really going to like. And something that Andrew and I are already really proud of.

So head on over to MyRemoteRadio.com to subscribe and check out what we put together for you! We’re building something here, so come join us!

LINK: MyRemoteRadio.com

What is My Remote Radio? Well on the surface it’s a geek-centric Podcast and Blog. But below all that, it’s a place for Andrew and I to share all the stuff that we love. Whether that be movies, comics, toys oh umm, i meancollectibles, television shows, video games, gadgets…you name it really! In fact that’s our one and only rule on this site. We only talk about things we love, not things we hate. You won’t find us bashing people, places, or things here. Because honestly, what fun is there in that anyways?

So sit back, poke around, and drop us a line to let us know who you are and what you think!

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This new podcast / blog also marks a new focus here at DH.com. The blog lost some of it’s direction over the past 6 months, and became more of a log of my tweets and life stream rather than what it really was supposed to be about. VFX, and my journey of working in that industry! But that’s something that will be changing very soon. And to make up for my long hiatus I’m even going to throw in some Nuke tutorials here and there too. So let me know in the comments or an email if you all have any requests! There are a ton of great new features in Nuke 6 that I think will really blow you guys away. But more on that later!

Right now, Jess and I gotta run into the studio. So be back soon everyone, and I promise…a real post VERY soon! Hopefully though MyRemoteRadio will give you something to check out in the meantime!

Talk soon…

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Doug Hogan is a VFX compositor and freelance web designer working in Detroit. He's a 2006 SCAD graduate and has worked in both the broadcast, web, and feature film corners of the Visual Effects industry.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

© Doug Hogan 2010. | Click here to comment

This was achieved by using a recipe card style, showing not only the date and number of comments for that particular post, but also the category icon. Breakfast, Dessert, Bread, etc. Each can be used to find other similar recipes, bringing the user deeper into the blog as it grows. A similar device was used in the side bar as well, using image sprites to keep load times fast.

In the end the hardest part of designing this blog wasn’t the navigational challenges. But capturing the unique feeling of Jess as a cook. It needed to be very simple and clean, but also cluttered. It needed to have a distinct color code, but also an overall feminine hue. Very contrasting design elements, and not easy to mix together! But thankfully Jess had a very strong idea of what she wanted, and together we went through 12 different versions of the site before arriving at the final look.

What came out after that design time is a site that I’m very proud of. It expanded my style of design, both aesthetically and navigationally. Using a solid back end design making it easy to evolve as the site grows in the future.

So go check out Jess’s blog! It’s full of, you guessed it, delicious things!

LINK: Delicious Things Bakery

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Doug Hogan is a VFX compositor and freelance web designer working in Detroit. He's a 2006 SCAD graduate and has worked in both the broadcast, web, and feature film corners of the Visual Effects industry.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

© Doug Hogan 2009. | Click here to comment

So…things a good. Busy. But REALLY good. Our new apartment is nice and swanky, Dallas is a great city, and our new jobs at Reel FX are an absolute dream come true. Basically…we feel at home. I wasn’t expecting that. I mean I thought that would come in time, but I didn’t think it would be instant.

It’s a strange feeling to have your dreams come true. I’m rolling my eyes at that corny phrase, but it’s true! At first I really didn’t want to trust it. There just had to be a catch to all of this. Something behind the curtain that would pull the rug out from under me while saying that it’s time to get back to the struggle. But then I had a moment during our first day at Reel FX where I sat back and realized, good things CAN actually happen. A simple thing to come across, but also something I had forgotten over the last 4 years. If you work hard, and are patient, it seems to be almost a certantity. How else can you explain these last few months of my life? Marrying my best friend, an awesome trip to Italy, and now a brand new life / job in a great town doing what both me and my wife love? I’m starting to see this, and it leaves me with nothing but a feeling of humility and graditude. Which is a pretty good feeling to have on Christmas I suppose.

Now, what’s next? Well hopefully not much! Normalcy maybe? Please? I honestly don’t know how much more change I can take! So I’m just hoping for things to get back to normal around these parts soon. That, and not to see the inside of an airport for a while.

Most importantly though, I want to thank all of my readers so much for sticking with me during these crazy life altering changes. That’s right, thank YOU! I promise that the new year holds some pretty exciting stuff for DH.com that will reward your patience. Daily posts again, Inspirado resurrected, a new podcast with Andrew, and PLUS…you guys are going to crap yourselves when I’m allowed to show you what we’re working on right now. I know I do on a daily basis. It’s pretty awesome.

So to all you VFX’ers and devoted readers out there I just want to say, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

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Doug Hogan is a VFX compositor and freelance web designer working in Detroit. He's a 2006 SCAD graduate and has worked in both the broadcast, web, and feature film corners of the Visual Effects industry.

He also co-hosts the weekly geek podcast Lingo: A Geekly Podcast with his long time friend and author, Andrew Marcec.

© Doug Hogan 2009. | Click here to comment