Vergara joins The Smurfs and Happy Feet 2

Sofia Vergara ("Modern Family") has landed a pair of film roles, beginning with The Smurfs in which she will play one of the live-action roles as Odile, a powerful executive at a high-end French cosmetics company who is the boss of the live-action character played by Neil Patrick Harris. The second film is a voice role in Happy Feet 2, which George Miller is already working on down under. Vergara joins a voice cast already made up of Brad Pitt, Robin Williams, Elijah Wood and Hank Azaria.

From:
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/hanks-casts-crowne-vergara-joins-smurfs-and-ronan-moves-to-palos-verdes

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So this is interesting because it looks like Smurfs is mixing live action with 3D, a successful formula for Happy Feet (although it was mostly 3D), Scooby Doo, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Flinstones, Casper, and Garfield (although barely successful for Garfield). Interestingly, Spielberg was behind Flinstones and Casper, but he seems to have given up on the cartoon revitalizations.

Enjoy!

Our new music video: Ballad of Moses

Moses' life gets flipped, turned upside down when God tells him to lead the Jews into the promised land.
Also, killing that first guy was probably not the best move.



SONG CREDITS
Performance and Music Composed by OTizzle
Lyrics by Ed "word" Price
Produced by MattyO
http://youtube.com/mattyobrien1
(Note: a music producer is essentially the director of music, who directs the performer to tweak the music, tempo, voice, and lyrics in order to get the song to fit right)

VIDEO CREDITS
Directed, animated, and edited by MattyO
Produced and written by Ed 'word' Price
Starring O-Tizzle

Enjoy!

- TAE

Friends of the Empire: OTizzle - Fast Strumming

MattyO directs, OTizzle strums, and Ed dances! Enjoy!

- TAE

Creative Writer: Brian Williams - "Musings of Royalty"

Musings of Royalty

Written by Brian Youngjoon Williams, former English teacher and University of Washington graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing. Brian is a content writer and game writer and editor.


She writhed in pain. I find no joy in watching her, even though she is pretty enough by any standards. I do find it weary that they always assume a white dress is required. The white always gets dirty with dirt and blood. Not that I care, mind you. In the end only the quality matters. I closed my eyes and settle down in my cave, darkness hiding my bulk from my next meal. I’m too tired to be bothered at the moment.

They say I prefer highborn and that is true, but a maiden is a maiden. All else just tastes…sullied. High born ladies tend to run to promiscuity at an earlier age. Whether or not that’s an attempt to hold me off or a castle full of sows that cannot wait to begin breeding I do not know.

The funny thing is the knights who come and attempt to pacify me, as if I am some sort of creature to be reasoned with or defeated through valor. It amuses me. Year after year knights ride up to rescue fair maidens and I get a free celebratory meal. A deal worthy of a king. They typically appear if there’s a noble blooded creature tied up outside, as if noble blood is somehow more pure. They all taste the same to me. Towards the end it’s the peasants girls I’m more inclined to pity. They don’t blubber and cry at the end. They tend to go quiet and accept the fate that has been doled out to them.

This one wasn’t crying. Yet, anyway. She’d only been tied up for a few minutes. I’m not sure why they gave her to me. Usually it’s appeasement for ignoring their flocks and villagers. The king uses me as a last line of defense, sending a highborn noble as payment when I kill off bandits or invading armies. Only reason I’m still here, really. Give humans too much grief and even the most cowed peasant will charge into a ball of fire. It’s not hard to kill them but eventually you’ll get some hero who specializes in killing beings like me.

“Hello?” She spoke. Interesting. Most merely screamed till their throats bled.

“Is there anyone there?” I slit open one eye. I can see her, standing now. Her arms are still hobbled above her, fixed to the chain that has held countless numbers of my meals. She’s tall but thin, too thin. A shame that this one would hardly serve for more than a snack. It has been ages since a proper meal. My kind can survive on precious little. It depends on what you want to be. A lizard who hordes gold eats metals of all kinds, little more than a scavenger that is too lazy to find food.

Royal dragons now, we subsist on human sacrifices. Every human sacrifices many times in a day. Ask any peasant toiling in the field or a king presiding over a treaty. Ask them what they sacrifice for. The peasant sacrifices his time and energy to provide for his family, the king sacrifices his pride and family for the sake of his country. I ask for human sacrifice for action or my lack of action.

The difference between me and humans is that humans sacrifice. I do not.

“Do you know where you are?” I ask the girl. She recoils at the lack of sound, hair splashing around her face and she searches for me. Primitive humans, depending on their ears to communicate.

“Where are you?” She cries. Humans, always failing to answer even the simplest of questions.

“I ask again, do you know where you are?” Comprehension settled on her. Her head bowed first, then her shoulders shagged. The rest of her posture quickly fell, dominoes of visible despair quietly settling into acceptance.

“I do.” Her voice barely passes her lips.

“Why were you placed here?” She looks up, an almost cliché spark of defiance in her eyes.

“My stepmother fears that my father, a duke, favors me above her own children. She told him I was chosen by fate to be sacrificed.” The voice is clear, echoing against the shattered bones and rocks, shaking up the pure souls that haunt them.


Picture: She's not in chains, but it still helps with the visual.

“What is the sacrifice for?”

“I am here to be eaten by you.” She says it with no malice. She accepts.

“But for no purpose. A debt that leaves me in the hands of humans till it is repaid. I am not a servant. I am Royal.” I can feel the fire within me begin to leak out between my teeth. I cannot see my own eyes but I feel the blood rushing through my head, changing the color from gold to ruby. The girl, the maiden, stood. Her blond hair fell over part of her face, obscuring her eyes.

“I can tell you the price of my death.”

“You do not die. You are the sacrifice humans deem necessary for me to act.” They never understand. The king does, or perhaps did. A king knows he must give up his family for his country. Sometimes in marriage, sometimes for me.

“I am a sacrifice?”

“Yes, a sacrifice for me to decide whether to fulfill my function. I am the Royal dragon, above the king, below the lowest peasant.” She looks at me bemusedly. I see in her eyes that she is a smart one. Perhaps her stepmother was not wrong to destroy her before she could be a true threat.

“Then…the reason I am being sacrificed is this: the wife of Duke Copeland, Duchess Aleshia Copeland, must perish before she can harm my father and the rest of the kingdom.” The girl says this in that same clear voice. I cherish it.

“The agreement is made.” I emerge from the cave. She doesn’t scream, doesn’t weep. She just looks at me as I approach.



About the author:

Brian Youngjoon Williams lives in Washington state, outside of Seattle. He is a creative writer, content writer, game writer and editor, a former English instructor and a graduate from University of Washington with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing.
For another amazing story from Brian Williams, please read Playmates, a wonderful story of a girl exploring the forest.

Enjoy!!

Creative Writing: Playmates, by Brian Youngjoon Williams

Playmates

Written by Brian Williams, former English teacher and University of Washington graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing. Brian is a content writer, creative writer, and aspiring game writer and editor.


In my house, there’s one rule: don’t go into the forest by yourself. We live on the edge of a forest with a ravine, nothing too deep or steep, just dangerous if you fell into it alone. My husband Alex tried fencing it off when we first moved, before we had our second child. However, he was from the city and didn’t understand the need to have concrete bases for the beams. He thought that pounding it in deep would hold it steady. Though it stood proud and tall with whitewashed planks holding back the wilderness, the first rains came and it failed miserably. If you’ve ever seen the slo-mo collapse of a bridge, you’ll understand what it looked like. Planks flailing every which way as the soggy ground no longer supported it. I suppose he could have rebuilt it, putting in concrete posts, but, honestly, I liked seeing the trees and the way our lawn gave way to wilderness.



So it went that we made one rule about the forest, never go in alone. Our first child, Luke, didn’t mind. He wasn’t really the adventurous type, preferring to stay indoors to watch Barney or play with his legos. We usually had to coax him to go outside, and when he did he always stayed well away from the edge of the forest. Even if he lost a ball or a Frisbee through the trees and down the ravine, he would come and find us and have us go down and get it.

Our second child, Alana, was different. She hated being inside, often screaming when we tried to force her in. Even at the age of four, she was a handful, spirited, always wearing me out, making me feel as if I was chasing down a rabbit on foot, always bumbling behind her. Full of mischief and quick to anger, her eyes darted around the room like they were following hyperactive molecules bouncing off the walls. She was often clothed in brown, regardless of whatever I had set out for her in the morning, covered in enough mud or dust to make it seem like she was trying to bring the earth with her. However, to see her at the best was when she was in the forest, playing among the trees. She danced among the flowers, gathering energy from their swaying motion in the wind. I loved watching her play in the thin strip of land before the ravine, jumping through imaginary hoops and landing with a whumph before doing it again. When it was sunny she seemed to gain another energy source, playing almost nonstop in that stretch of forest. Her hands scrabbled in the dirt, feeling and absorbing the mess as if it gave her life. Despite all her chirps and squeals, the forest is what gave her spirit. Lanky trees with splayed limbs seem to reach out to her to dance, Alana pulling on their arms briefly before spinning away to another partner. The few great pines between our lawn and the ravine served as soldiers in her imaginary world, standing tall and proud as she addressed them with orders. Whenever she played, even on the drabbest of days, the trees seem to spread their branches to let more light in, illuminating her in her world.



Some days, when it was raining, she would spend the afternoon staring out back into the trees. The rain pounding on the leaves seems to reflect her frustration at not being able to play, each drop representing a personal affront to her. The darkened clouds were some sort of personal enemy to her, I think. Thunder was the worst, making her scream whenever a crash pealed down from the clouds, as if a giant beast was roaring and flashing teeth of lightning.

One night, after a particularly bad storm, a tree blew over into the ravine, crashing and tumbling the fifty feet to the bottom, waking everyone in the house. Luke went right back to bed and apparently didn’t think much of it. Alana, however, ran into our bedroom, crying.

“Mama, Euraka died! He fell over!” She was hugging me and crying. I assumed that she had a bad dream about some animal and the noise had woken her. I hugged her, telling her it was going to be alright.

“No, mama! He fell over! He’s fell over!” I managed to comfort her and she eventually fell asleep in our bed, whispering about how he fell. In the morning my husband went out to observe the damage.

(Story continues after the break...)

Click here to read the full story: http://theanimationempire.blogspot.com/2010/03/creative-writing-playmates-by-brian.html

Granny O Grimm's Sleeping Beauty

Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty



directed by Nicky Phelan, produced by Brown Bag Films, and written/voiced by Kathleen O'Rourke

This was nominated for an Academy Award. Lost though.

Check it out!

Walt Disney's "TANGLED" (2010) First teaser OFFICIAL

First teaser of the film formerly known as Rapunzel.

Coming November 24, 2010

- TAE

Mickey Mouse - Symphony Hour

Mickey is to conduct a grand concert at Symphony Hall, but after a "goofy" accident, the band can't carry a tune. How will Mickey get out of this mess?

Enjoy!

- TAE