Christmas Guillermotion! Or how I spent my holiday season...

Here is the intergration (aka commercial built into the JKL show*) I worked on back in November and December. It was a very intense 3 weeks before and after Thanksgiving, and we shot it the first Friday of December. The costumes were designed by my boss, Rodney Munoz, and almost all sewn by me. (We jobbed out the dancing girls.) The moment I am most proud of is Guillermo's break away Tiny Tim outfit that reveals his 100% sequined Santa suit. (okay, giant paillettes too) Guillermo's wife had their first baby that week, so he was not around for fittings too much. That Tiny Tim costume was a pile of clothes and a dream less than 24 hours before we shot this, and I got it built and rigged in time for it to be the second shot up. (tip o' the hat to the stitcher, Maria Haro, who came and worked for us on this job)

We did the breakaway sequence in one take, which is amazing. Jackie, Rocio and Nina had never done something like this before and didn't expect to have a fishing line thrust in their hands at the last second and they all rose to the occasion and pulled like champs. I was very proud, because the entire crew was standing by and executing this bit flawlessly set the tone for the entire evening's shoot.

*I like these intergrations, because it harkens back to the golden age of radio and television when the hosts would drop in these blatant sort of mentions of the sponsors and build comedy bits around them. You know it's a commercial and I think it's less sneaky than product placement or the discreet use of the products in bits. I am always amazed that the clients let us do all sorts of dumb nonsense, but it just shows you all press is good press.

Holidays are here!

First, I'd like to welcome Fabric.com as my very first ad. In honor of that, I'm going to talk about my work. Where I use fabric. Every. Single. Day. Fabric, fabric, fabric. Sew it, glue it, tape it. I craft stuff for money. Out of fabric. (I think that is what is called optimizing) I have used Fabric.com, and they are great, which is why I asked them to place an ad. BTW, click on that link and get free shipping. How awesome is that? I should use my own link!

I've been very busy professionally over the last month or so making Christmas happen. Here is the first of the spots to air...

Simone Williams, Carol Binion and I made all the little costumes for Bix Pix animation studios in Burbank. I'm not sure where the costumes end and the computer sweetening begins, but I assure you, there are tiny little clothes made of felt and polar fleece in there somewhere.

Last week I wrapped up about three weeks of crazy busy work on a Christmas commercial for Ford Taurus that will run on Jimmy Kimmel Live next week. It is spectacular, and involves breakaway costumes, dancing girls, dancing boy elves, Little People elves, miles of rick rack and a crap ton of sequins. Both myself and Maria Hora who was my stitcher on the job each ruined a pair of scissors working on it all. Anything that could get snow or glitter on it did. I will link and show photos as soon as it airs.