A Gran Red Carpet Premiere

Last weekend, I participated in a super fun event to celebrate the release of Season 3 of Dawn of the Croods on Netflix. Starting last year, I have had the immense honor of working on this hilarious show! The event was held at the comic/coffee shop The Perky Nerd in Burbank, and included a live table read of one of our scripts by our illustrious voice cast...as well as a live drawing demo done by yours truly and some of my insanely talented fellow crew members! All of them are so inspiring, to be able to take part in this celebration alongside them for the first show that I've worked on as a Storyboard Revisionist, was such a special moment for me!!

For my portion of the drawing demo, I chose to draw my absolute favorite Crood - the sassy and self-assured Gran! I was thinking, if there were a big fancy Hollywood red carpet premiere for Dawn of the Croods, what (or who) would Gran wear?! The answer that I came up with was this elegant gown made from the fur of a Bear Owl...but no need to worry pre-historic PETA, no Bear Owls were harmed in the making of this dress (I'm pretty sure). To tie the look all together, Gran is also rocking a broach lent to her by my other favorite Croods character, Amber. That's right, that broach is actually Amber's eye patch...but Gran promised to return it as soon as the premiere is over. "Amber need that back!"

Once my drawing demo was done, I was able to meet Laraine Newman, the voice of both Gran AND Amber (that's right, she voices my two favorite characters)! She was one of the original cast members on Saturday Night Live, and has had a legendary career in comedy ever since. She was incredibly nice, and was sweet enough to sign my drawing of Gran!

Our drawing demos were streamed on Facebook Live, but it can be played back below. Unfortunately there were some technical glitches, so the video cuts out at around 12:00 and then comes back on at around 22:30. What can you do, that's live TV...er, Facebook for ya!

And you can see the table read with Laraine Newman and the other fantastic cast memebers below. They're being led by our incomparable Executive Producer, Brendan Hay.

Gaga Ooh La La

As if it were any surprise, my ultimate Post Modern Muse is my long lost fraternal twin sister Lady Gaga. The amount of creativity and boldness that bursts out of her on a daily basis is staggering. Madonna (dare I mention her name in this post) changes her image every couple of years, but Gaga does it every couple of hours. And it's more often than not with sharp wit, a hidden message and a ton of make-up. Her music videos are always an event, mini-movies that explode with high concept. Her live performances are a sight to behold, with enormous elaborate sets and relentless choreography. But when she sits at a piano (which is sometimes on fire, but still), all she needs is her full voice and musical genius to back her crazy sh*# up.

So with all that said (and seeing as how I've listened to each of her songs an almost unhealthy amount of times), it's clear that Lady Gaga is the Post Modern Muse answer to Euterpe, the Ancient Greek Muse of Music. I must admit choosing her outfit was daunting, but I had to go with my absolute favorite performance of hers...or anyone's who has ever performed ever. It's her remixed version of "Paparazzi" on SNL in 2009. Unfortunately, the video of it has been pulled from the interwebs for copyright reasons...but hopefully NBC releases it again somehow, because it is awe-inspiring! Here's an image of her costume at least: