Jayel Draco’s News Blog

“She Will Eat You” – 3rd time golden map award nominee, Critically Acclaimed! “Short, Silly and Undead!” raves Jonathan Lourenco of the New York Paper “She Will Eat You” – A short impromtu video filmed during a zombie apocalypse themed photoshoot. After we got the photos we needed, AR Brookl Lynn conceived this character, the green screen was quickly thrown up last minute and the Cannon Digital Rebel was switch to video mode. The post video effects and editing by Jayel Draco, where mostly an after thought. Fun was had by all. Starring AR Brook Lynn Costume design and video effects by Jayel Draco Hair and Make up by Corinne Alexis Hall and Jayel Draco

The first one is “Verse of MaryBlue” was a photomanipulation illustration. Which essentially means that I used photographic texture reference to create the image with photoshop. I also made the costume that Mary (the model) is wearing. Artist/Designer Corinne Alexis Hall worked with me on the set decoration, hair/makeup and photography.
This is a piece that I am particularly proud of. Many hours of tedious pixel painting, vector tweaking, and chaos math engineered fractals went into making this piece.

I chose to use a particularly moody photo from a very light hearted and fun shoot for this manip.  Mary is an excellent dancer with a high metabolism. She has an intense spirit and I’m used to her radiating intense joy, creativity and fun. It was very interesting for me to explore seeing her in a light that she doesn’t often portray. Interestingly enough not long after this photo was taken she had knee surgery and had to take time off from dancing and spent allot of time in her room while recovering. Her description of how she felt, was eerily akin to the way I was synchronistically depicting her in this “Verse of MaryBlue”.

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This Second piece is a concept sketch for “How Doyou Nomi?”, a photoshoot that I’ve had in mind for a little while now. The composition and poses here are more or less insignificant to the piece as interaction with model tends to allow for a superior organic development. I illustrated this to send to the model to give here an idea of what we’ll be wearing/doing. Even though it’s just a concept sketch, I’m happy with the way it came out, so I decided to post it. The idea of the piece is a sort of Klaus Nomi reference in the form of a glamour/lingerie/burlesque photoshoot. It will end up being a photomanipulation piece. The costume is finished and the shoot is scheduled.

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Thanks for reading my blog!
keep rockin. . .
=j=

The latest animation by Jayel Draco. “Jayel Versus Akuma” is a short animated parody expressing the power inherent in being an animator. This animation is a reel piece intended to show of some of my flashy animation and compositing techniques, as well as Corinnes character Illustration and Jacks music.Truly this was done for fun, and fun was had.

Written, Directed Animated by
Jayel Draco -- www.jayeldraco.com

Co-Animated and Illustrated by
Corinne Alexis Hall -- www.corinnealexishall.com

Music by Jack Schell -
www.thesoundweaver.com

Jayel -- versus -- Akuma

*Note: I do realize that Akuma is absolutely badass. . .
If he were real, and I were to fight him for real, I probably would not fair quite as well. Thankfully, in this scenario, I was animating him, so he didn’t stand a chance.

The latest music video that I worked on with Director Christopher Piazza for Neil Halstead’s “Elevenses” was a fun down and dirty job. My job was threefold. My first task was collaborating with Chris to figure out how to make the special effects in his video idea work using less than $100. My second task was to make the costume fast and cheap then stand by on set as Wardrobe, Art department and effects director. The third part of my task, on the post-production side,  was using compositing techniques along with some fancier cgi sorcery to compose some quick effects that look top grade. I’d say it was a fun project to have worked on.
“Making of Elevenses” | 99DollarMusicVideo

The Premiere of the behind the scenes is currently being shown on the front page of 99 Dollar Music Videos. The video itself will premiere on Thursday.

Hello,

Since my last blog update in September of 08, much has come to pass as I’m sure you can imagine. Lately I’ve been too busy to keep up with my blog, which means I’ve had allot of blog content brewing. I’ll do my best to fill you in while keeping it brief.

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Animated “Salar Inc. Software Demo” Premiere:

The Salar Inc. Demo project was a work for hire CGI demo animation. I did the graphics and animation solo from beginning to end on this project which is viewable on their website at, salarinc.com/demo.

Salar Inc. is a medical software design company which has transformed traditional paper clinical documentation into electronic “smart” paper. Their software allows physicians to make their documentation directly in electronic format which instantaneously communicates to all systems within the hospitals network greatly expediting communication required for patient care.  The purpose of this demo was to show potential clients (hospitals) how Salar’s software will improve the quality of their treatment,  staff work flow, and financial management by improving the efficiency of their documentation and inter-department communication.

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Animating “The Astonishing X-Men” motion comic:

Since my last blog update, I have been subcontracted by the renowned Comic Book Artist Neal Adams’ of Continuity Studios to work on “The Astonishing X-Men” motion Comic as an animator.
Below you can see the teaser.

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Zombie Fu Remastered 2008:

A remastered high quality HD render of “Zombie Fu” has been uploaded to both the video section of jayeldraco.com’s Video Section as well my Youtube Channel. Watch “Zombie Fu Remastered” below.

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Music Video for Neal Halstead’s “Elevenses”:

The assignment for this video was commissioned in response to a treatment written by Director Christopher Piazza for 99dollarmusicvideos.com. Their practice consists of granting selected production teams a 99 dollar budget and 24 hours to make the best video they can. As you can imagine it’s quite a burly proposal requiring quick thinking, creative on-the-fly problem solving, and impeccable action from everyone on the production team.

My role on this production was diverse as where each of the three crew members roles. I was essentially a one man art department and special effects tech. I made the costume for the hero character. I played the hero character for part of the video, was an extra for another chunk of the video.  Supervised the shoot for post effects, and created the post-production special effects.

The Official Behind the Scenes footage is scheduled to premiere April 28th, and the video premiere is scheduled for April 30th at 99dollarmusicvideos.com. After the official premiere, the video will be added to my Video Section here, as well as Director Christopher Piazza’s website www.panopticonnyc.com, which I designed.

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Updates to websites designed by Jayel Draco:

Over the past few moths I’ve updated a few of the websites that I’ve designed including:

• www.jayeldraco.com
• www.thesoundweaver.com
  
• www.panopticonnyc.com
• www.nypilatesfitness.com
• www.gettingtonomi.com

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“Nomi Now!” off the back burner:

Production has recommenced on the “Nomi Now!” musical animation short project. “Nomi Now!” is an ambitious multimedia audio/visual collaborative project designed and engineered by Jayel Draco. The latest on this project has yet to be posted to the WIP website: www.gettingtonomi.com, however you can see past updates there if you haven’t already.

-The song tracks by Jigsaw Soul, Jack Schell, and Jeff Saphin, have all been recorded and are in queue for mastering by Matt Geldoff of  nysoundmixer.com. The Animatic is complete with much of the final animation almost complete.
-Once the audio is finalized, the lip sync animation by Corinne Alexis Hall of lovenico.net, will be added to the stop-motion animation.
-Video footage (which currently stands on an open schedule to be directed and shot by Christopher Piazza of www.panopticonnyc.com) will be added to the CGI which is being done by Christopher Covelli of kylevargas.net.