iPhone from the Future

I know I just swore off Apple a few posts below, but I am cheating on my Vista PC with my new iPhone. I have been sneaking around surfing the web with real handheld browser, checking my email and taking great pictures. I can't believe that some people are out there bashing this device. It is truly amazing. Ra ra ra! Go Apple! I think my PC is suspecting something - gotta go.

The Von Maxwell Family Singers

I went way out of my comfort zone on this one. I have been taking Speech Level Singing lessons for a few months and a few nights ago was my first recital. I sang Round Here by the Counting Crows in an ampitheater at Wheeler Farm. It was a rush - I did pretty well considering I have never been a singer. My relatives (also shown but smaller because this blog is about ME) also did well - much better than me by a mile.

Afternoon with Travis Pastrana

Working on nitrocircus.com has been a blast. They are the best clients ever and there are a few perks. The most recent one was spending the afternoon with the Nitro Circus crew and Travis Pastrana. I was a little freaked out first meeting him, but after a few minutes I felt more comfortable because he is such a nice guy. We were doing a green screen shoot for his upcoming biographical film. I got to watch him for about 4 hours as they shot different green screen scenes and angles. He is a very good ad libber. I told him I thought he was good at it and I think he thought I was just kissing up. He sat by me for a while and I showed him my designs for a new site I am doing for them and he was very complimentary and genuinely interested. Also, a funny thing happened during the shoot. A cricket kept chirping on the soundstage that we were shooting in. I became the "cricket wrangler", walking around between takes clapping my hands trying to spook the cricket into submission. The reason I was there was to have Travis do a favor for me - I asked him to shoot soundbite for my upcoming Flashforward Film Festival Trailer. He did a great job heckling the other nominees - Travis style. The guy has class.

New Blog for My 3D Engine

Have you seen http://www.nitrocircus.com and wondered how I did the 3D effects? Well, have I got a blog for you! http://mattmaxwell3dengine.blogspot.com. I will be adding to it as time progresses. Check it out!

Flash Forward Nominee: NitroCircus.com!

The good news: My nitrocircus.com site and 3D engine is one of four finalists at FlashForward Boston! The bad news: I am up against Papervision3D. Papervision3D is an opensource 3D engine for Flash that is very powerful, has lots of support, and is very popular. I wish they would have put Papervision in the Technical Merit category, but that's life. And I still haven't seen too many implementations of PaperVision. Just a shark that swims around with nothing to click on. Still, it's an honor to go up against it. Please vote for NitroCircus (even though Papervision probably deserves it more - sort of David and Goliath here)