Blog — Mike Soricelli

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STUFF...that I do, or make, or think about. michaelgwd.blogspot.com

Portraits

16 Nov 2016

When two friends of mine decided to got married, they asked me to draw portraits of the bridal party. I was happy to:

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The Pacific Coastal Highway

03 Oct 2016

In the summer of 2015, I hopped on a plane to Los Angeles, rented a Chrysler 200 and worked my way up Highway 1 - the Pacific Coastal Highway. This is some of the amazing scenery I took in while on the trip.

McWay Falls, Julia Pfieffer Burns State Park - Big Sur, CA

Big Sur, CA

Big Sur, CA

Big Sur, CA

Big Sur, CA

Big Sur, CA

Hawk at Hearst Castle - San Simeon, CA

Indoor pool at Hearst Castel - San Simeon, CA

Butterfly at Hearst Castle - San Simeon, CA

Gold Statue at Hearts Castle - San Simeon, CA

"The Rock," Morro Bay

Sunset at Pismo Beach - Pismo Beach, CA

Sunset at Pismo Beach - Pismo Beach, CA

Pismo Beach, CA

Sunset at Pismo Beach - Pismo Beach, CA

Pismo Beach, CA

Sunset at Pismo Beach - Pismo Beach, CA

Sunset at Pismo Beach - Pismo Beach, CA

Pismo Beach, Ca

Angel Island - San Francisco Bay

Cousins! Angel Island - San Francisco Bay

Clouds behind the Golden Gate Bridge - San Francisco Bay

Seagulss - San Francisco Bay

The Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco skyline

Sister! Golden Gate Bridge

Sunset at Andrew Molera State Park - Big Sur, CA

Sunset at Andrew Molera State Park - Big Sur, CA

Pike Place Market - Seattle, WA

Seattle, WA

The Space Needle - Seattle, WA

My most American pose - Seattle, WA

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The Making Of...LUNCHBREAK (a music video)

09 Jul 2013

Back Story: Minnesota winters. That's all you need to know. They're really cold, really snowy and last a really long time. There isn't a whole heckuva lot to do besides sit inside, eat, drink and watch TV - three of my favorite past-times, but...I mean, c'mon. So, last November (2012), I asked myself, "Hmmm, what can I do to occupy the time between now and when the sun comes back out?" Duhdoy, make a cartoon, stop-motion photography, rap music video for a song you wrote in 2008.

I wrote this goofy, little LUNCHBREAK song in 2008 while - yep - on my lunch break at work in downtown Minneapolis, MN. For years, I've always wanted to make a music video, but to make music videos you need things like: money, actors, video cameras, lights, wardrobes and probably a million other things I have no idea I would need because I've never made a music video.

- Enter creativity -

I've been into art/drawing for quite some time now. From my days of sketching eggs and bagels on my childhood placemat, to making amazingly awesome, kick-ass stop-motion photography music videos, I've always had a knack for the arts. So, again, I asked myself, "Why not make the music video you want to make WITH CARTOONS!?" And from there, it pretty much took off. Every notebook I ever had in school had some sort of sketch in the bottom page corners to simulate movement; a balloon blowing in the wind, a stick figure parachuting from a plane, etc. So I knew exactly what I had to do and exactly how long it was gonna take - A LONG TIME.

The Actual Making Of:

(storyboard)

Since the song "LUNCHBREAK" had been written and recorded for a few years, my first step was to draft a storyboard. I made half of one. The rest stayed in my brain.

(Minneapolis skyline above - before)

Scene by scene, I drew what I wanted each backdrop to look like.

(Minneapolis skyline above - after)

Every color on every backdrop you see is a different, carefully crafted piece of construction paper. Sliced and diced with a razor blade and glued to paper with your standard K-12 glue stick.

Step one: Draw outline

Step two: Start cutting

Step three: Keep cutting

Step four: Put the pieces together and glue in place

Step five: Enjoy the fruits of your labor (until it's time to start taking photographs)

For some shots, I modeled. And very well, I might add.

(Real me: Mets hat, sunglasses, side profile facing left)

(Cartoon me: Mets hat, sunglasses, side profile facing left)

(Real me, right hand; I was a hand model in a past life)

(Cartoon me, right hand)

(approximately one sixteenth of the scraps I collected...and my marble tic tac toe board)

Once I had everything cut out and glued down (with the exclusion of all the moving parts), it was time to start taking pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. I had no idea how difficult this part would be. For starters, I don't own a camera, so there was that. THANK YOU GEORGE AND ERIN GONSIOR FOR LETTING ME USE YOUR CAMERA!! Aren't they beautiful:

(the best two friends and camera lenders a guy could ask for)

Now that I obtained a camera, I needed lights, a tripod and a way to make the backdrops - with moving parts, mind you - parallel to the lens of the camera without having all the moving parts slide out of position. Lights? No problem. Tripod? Came with the camera. Positioning the camera lens and backdrops parallel to each other was, for lack of a better term, an enormous pain in the ass that took way too long and way too many tries to get right. But I did get it right, because PATIENCE and DETERMINATION. Shhyeah.

You'll get the gist of it by perusing the below pictures:

Picture taking is complete! I didn't count how many unique pictures I took, but I'm willing to bet it was close to a thousand. Now that I had all these photos, I popped them into Windows Movie Maker for some good ol' fashioned video editing, sound mixing and all that fun stuff.

- 8 months

- Thousands of photographs

- Hundreds of sheets of construction paper

- 5 glue sticks of all sizes

- Original music

- A few paper cuts

AND WE HAVE A MUSIC VIDEO!!!

LUNCHBREAK:

Find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MichaelGWD

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Mike Soricelli

Product Manager - A Creative Mind in the World of Technology