Blarbus

Is it all over you?

    I made this ad for a sketchy looking website that claims to be offering a $2000 prize to the winner of it's video contest.  I had nothing to lose, seeing as how they weren't asking for any personal information, so I made a video to fit the topic and uploaded it.  The challenge, as you may have guessed from the thumbnail, was to create a short parody of a sports drink advertisement.
   Worst case scenario, my video copyright is stolen and becomes used for promotional purposes.  Best case scenario, I win two grand and plug it into the budget of my next short film.  Either way, lots of people get to see a video I made.

UPDATE:  The competition is legitimate but very poorly run.  I decided to withdraw the video.

And don't be surprised if your body gets up and moves around awkwardly while you watch; the music was arranged by yours truly from sound loops in soundtrack pro.

Avant Garde, you swine!

    I hesitate to post these two videos, seeing as how they are both rather disconnected and unsubstantial.  But they are doodles nonetheless, and doodles belong in sketchbooks.
    For all you esoteric, beret-toting cool cats out there who have been sitting unamused on the sidelines during "Captain Rork" and "The Dusky Place," here's a little video you might be interested in.  It was for another class project in which we were told to "tell the story of a building" using less than ten shots.  I decided to take this opportunity to explore the depths of the human soul, specifically focusing on the crushing weight of isolation and the black void that is eternity.  Yeah, no.  Sorry.  It's just an odd little editing experiment that diddles around with jump cuts, rack focusing and music.  So light your cigarettes, put on a black shirt and start snapping your fingers, because this is about the "artsiest" thing you'll see from me for a long time.

    Ok, I lied.  This next one has a bit of an elitist tone as well.  It's actually a lighting test for a fake sports drink ad I'm making at the moment.  I think you can guess which one.  Also, the intense, self important expression on my face is very misleading.  That's actually me straining my eyes to see how well the snow was showing up on the camera's little LCD screen. 

Actually, now I think it kind of looks like I'm blessing somebody.

Download Gatorade Test

The Transfer

    For our final project for Digital Foundations, we had to create a short "microdoc" documentary about any subject of our choosing.  David "the Davish" Bliss happened to be visiting the campus at the time to pursue his goal of transferring to Carleton, so I convinced him to step under my microscope and let me have my nonfiction way with him...

Captain Rork and the Professor's Map

UPDATE: CAPTAIN RORK IS THE WINNER OF CARLETON DVDFEST 2008!

WRITTEN, DIRECTED, AND EDITED BY
Alexander Cooney
Robert Kennedy

CAST
Captain Rork - Max Herzl-Betz
Professor Mulberry - Davey Bendiksen
Agent 1 - Alex Higgin-houser
Agent 2 - Carl Smith

CREW
Assistant Cameraman - Caitlin Magnusson
Props Designer - Galen Wetterling
Costume Designer - Emily Green
Costume Designer - Laura Stratford
Visual Effects Artist - Alexander Cooney
Sound Designer - Robert Kennedy

MUSIC
Composer and Conductor - Sara Rothwell
Horn - Gwen Anderson
Horn - Rebecca Hahn
Violin - Bill Parks
Percussion - Hilary Rosenhelm

SPECIAL THANKS
Paul Hager
Wain Lee
John Schott
Alex Fisher
Davey Bendiksen
Kenny Bendiksen
Lara Silverman
Kevin Chapman
Carleton CAMS Department
KRLX
PEPS
APPLE
SSAM
Detonationfilms.com
Blender.org
DVDfest

    Thar she be.  Thanks to everyone who helped out.   Sound was done in Soundtrack Pro, compositing in After Effects, Modelling and Animating in Blender, texturing in Photoshop, and--in order to stay faithful to the DVDfest 2008 entry rules--editing in iMovie.  The latter proved to be about as effective as trying to carve a thanksgiving turkey with a plastic spoon, and then force-feeding entire said turkey to a squirrel.  I know, right?  They don't even eat turkey.  But with a little luck and elbow grease, it all came out in the end, and when the smoke cleared, the finished product seemed to have most if not all of the elements we had planned for.  Success!

INDY!

    The Indiana Jones IV trailer has been released!  I must admit, I wasn't expecting too much.  The hurt was deep from the Star Wars prequels.  But I now have renewed confidence that Spielberg and Lucas are a fail safe, transcendental combination.  How do they do it?  I look at this trailer and it's as if the action adventure flick, which has seen hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of repetitious iterations over the past few decades is suddenly fresh and new.  But there's not even anything fresh and new in this trailer!  Magic, or expert craftsmanship?  Maybe it's just Harrison Ford.

I don't think there's any question as to where you can find me on May 22nd.

The Stick Peoples of Old

    A couple months ago, one of my friends dug up a bunch of old animations I'd submitted to the "Stick Figure Death Theatre;" an odd little corner of the internet that showcases user-submitted, animated stickman battles.

    Sounds a little weird, I know.  But believe it or not, there is an entire internet sub-culture of bad animators out there who are constantly pumping out random, ultra violent, often hilarious Flash cartoons.  It might not be the classiest stuff, but it deserves a lot of the credit for getting me interested in animation.  I think I was in sixth grade when I first saw "XIAO XIAO No.3;"  quite possibly the best stickfight ever created.  I'm not going to try to explain why it is so awesome.  Just see for yourself.

    So I tried making some of my own.  My very first animations were done on a crummy little GIF animation program called "Webpainter," but unfortunately those are long since lost in the deepest, darkest places of the internets.  Then in seventh grade, I got my hands on Flash, which opened the possibility of sound, allowing me to make it so you can watch AND hear my stick people randomly fighting each other to the death.  I must have made more than these, but what you see here are the lone survivors of my poor archiving habits.  I must warn you, they are very strange, very violent, and very strange.  Lots and lots of stickmen were harmed in the creation of these movies.

Note:  Some are even interactive.  Oh my!

Go there now!

Go there now!

Go there now!

Go there now!

Go there now!

Go there now!

Bank Holdup: The Alexander's Cut

    As part of a class assignment, we were given a bunch of raw footage from some god forsaken B-movie and told to turn it into a coherent story by re-cutting and adding sound.  I came up with a bunch of WoW addicts who try to rob a bank to pay their online subscription fee while at the same time managing to get themselves mixed up in mistaken romantic language barriers.  It's a little confusing now that I look at it with the time not being three o'clock in the morning...

    This is the first video I've edited from the other side...  Yes, I used Final Cut Pro.   Thankfully, it is in many ways identical to Premiere, except I would say in some areas a little less intuitive.  Soundtrack Pro, on the other hand, completely blew me away.  All of the foley, ambient sound and music came from there.