I’m sitting here watching the extras on the 2-disc deluxe edition of Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, which are even better than I’d expected. The featurettes are really and truly fantastic; one is all about the mythology behind the films, one is about del Toro’s color and symbolism, and another is about the special effects of the film. The SFX one is right up there with the extras on the Lord of the Rings extended editions (and one of the SFX guys has the same Hellboy t-shirt that I do, which is cool). One part explains the cheek scene, which is sort of comforting, but the scenes with Doug Jones in the Pale Man and faun costumes are unexpectedly deeply creepy because they’re so bloody convincing. Jones is talking to the camera, explaining what all the parts do, but for some reason the disconnect between ‘creature’ and ‘man in suit’ is largely oddly absent, so it feels like a giant freaking faun walking around the set, which is somehow even creepier than the scenes in the film. It’s bloody brilliant.
Storyteller, scholar, consultant. Loving son, husband and father. Kindhearted mischief-maker.
I'm the Director of the Games and Simulation program at Miami University in Ohio, where I am also an Assistant Professor in the College of Creative Arts' Emerging Technology in Business and Design department. I'm also the director of Miami's Worldbuilding and Narrative Design Research Laboratory (WNDRLab). I have a Master's in Comparative Media Studies from MIT and a PhD in Media Arts and Practices from the University of Southern California.
In past lives I've been the lead Narrative Producer for Microsoft Studios and cofounder of its Narrative Design team, working on projects like Hololens, Quantum Break and new IP incubation; in a "future of media" think tank for Microsoft's CXO/CTO and its Chief Software Architect; the Creative Director for the University of Southern California's World Building Media Lab and the Technical Director, Creative Director and a Research Fellow for USC's Annenberg Innovation Lab; a Visiting Assistant Professor at Whittier College and director of its Whittier Other Worlds Laboratory (WOWLab); the Communications Director and a researcher for the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab; a founding member of the Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT (now The Futures of Entertainment); a magazine editor; and a award-winning short film producer. more »
The opinions put forward in this blog are mine alone, and do not reflect the opinions of my employers.
