Unicycle Jester News

Unicon XIV in Copenhagen

2008-08-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

Howdy! I just returned from an awesome trip to Europe that included competing in the Unicycle World Championships.

The 10-day long Unicycling World Championship and Convention was a fantastic event, bringing together over 1000 competitiors, and hundreds of non-competitors. I am producing a segmented documentary of the ordeal, which will be available online in a couple weeks. Contributions to my project were made by municycle.com and unicycle.tv. Thank you!

The photo above (by Kristian Sommer) shows me competing in the Muni Uphill race. I ended up winning two silver medals in my age group: for Uphill, and for Muni North Shore (technical downhill). In Expert Muni Overall, which also includes the Cross-Country Race and Downhill Race, I ranked 5th.

My Unicon T-shirt 2008

2008-07-15T12:37:00.000-07:00

Here is the T-shirt I designed for Unicon this year. I'll be selling and trading the shirts in Copenhagen in a little over a week!

Newspaper, TV, blog, oh my!

2008-07-06T11:31:00.000-07:00

I compiled a list of links to old newspaper articles and TV segments that I have been in. Located on my "Stuff" page, meet my press page.

Harmony

2008-06-26T08:27:00.000-07:00

Here is a three minute video I produced from footage I shot at Harmony Festival.

I premiered the movie inside of an installation I created as part of my Form + Color + Content class at UCSB. Try to watch the film with a good subwoofer...

Harmony, 120 mb

note: there is no sound at the beginning of the film.

REEL LOUD Film Festival

2008-05-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

Another Film Festival!

Tonight, May 23, I have a 16mm film in UCSB's annual REEL LOUD Film Festival.

I made a film called "Simplicity" with the help of Eyal Aharoni, and Danny Jolles.

If you are in the area, come check it out! Here's the website for more info: http://www.reellouducsb.com

IVDV film festival

2008-05-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

My latest unicycling film, The Payback, is a selected film for the 1st Annual Isla Vista Digital Video festival! Come out this Saturday to enjoy the festival.

Saturday, May 10, 2008
7:00pm - 11:00pm
I.V. Theater, 960 Embarcadero del Norte Isla Vista, CA

Facebook Event!

See you there!

Coker-muni and Hoover visit

2008-05-06T23:27:00.000-07:00

This last weekend Nathan and Beau Hoover came to Santa Barbara for some coker, muni, and juggling. Hans joined us for this sweet coker-muni ride that starts at my house and follows the trails along the bluffs.

Check out the photos (and videos!) Nathan captured.

Northstar Nincumpoops - high quality quicktime

2008-04-24T18:37:00.000-07:00

In 2005 I made a unicycle film called "Northstar Nincumpoops," starring Zack Baldwin and myself. Unfortunately, the highest quality version I put out was a choppy windows media video. So here's a couple of quicktime versions, it looks MUCH better. Also, I added some sweet animated credits at the end. Enjoy!

High: 286 mb

Low: 102 mb

Unicycling videos: "Ça Péte sa Mère" and "The Payback"

2008-03-23T14:10:00.000-07:00

Here are two new unicycling videos I finally finished editing:

<— 1. Ça Péte sa Mère! (93 mb)

Lyon, France 2007. Rémy and I attack Les Berges du Rhône.

<— 2. The Payback (103 mb)

Santa Barbara, 2006. Eyal, Dennis, Eric and myself rip up one the best Muni trails in town, Saddle Rock.

Sweet soundtrack!!

Oh, if you have a fast connection, watch the high resolution version (211 mb)

Update and movies!

2008-02-02T15:50:00.000-08:00

Wow! It's been a long time since I updated anything... I moved back to California after my semester abroad, and here is a little video I made right before I left France. Enjoy, and bon appetit!

"La Boule au chocolat blanc!"

Here's a video a made yesterday morning. I had to use a piece of "inspiration," which is the blue card in the beginning. The rest of the project was up to me, and I could use any medium I wanted... so I chose to make a little video. Thanks to my roommate Eric who helped with the movie even though he was sick with Pneumonia!

"Russian тигр!"

New Photos, all kinds of stuff

2007-10-15T01:18:00.000-07:00

I just added a bunch of photos that have been collecting dust on my mac and I added a sweet "T-shirts I Have Made" section to the stuff page.

I added some behind the scenes shots from "Invisible Harleys" to my gallery. (See the blog post below if you have not yet seen the film.) Figge, Alex, Gilli and I on set, as well as propmaking! Check out the album.

Browse the Miscellaneous Pics for some surprises, like the underwater photo here.

Yoni Berk took some photos of me in March by our house in Isla Vista. Some beautiful sunset photos.

Finally, check out some photos from my current semester abroad: Lyon, France! That's all for now!

Daily Nexus Illustrations

2007-09-14T08:58:00.000-07:00

I finally photographed my mounds of newspapers I have lying around. Since Winter 2006, I've been an illustrator for my college newspaper, The Daily Nexus. I love this job... I get to read someone's article, figure out what I want to draw for it, and then doodle away. Here's a collection of 37 images that include my illustrations.

Most of these are illustrations drawn for an article, or a letter to the editors, and they're pretty obvious they go together. There are also some that are small comic boxes called THINK. On those drawings, I'm just given a blank rectangle and the freedom to do whatever I want. On the boxes that are called DRINK, I'm given the information, I just make an image for it.

I put this under my "Stuff" page. Enjoy!

http://unicyclejester.com/gallery/art/nexus

Pa'ia Maui

2007-08-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

Just posted this old video from 2005 in unicycling videos...

Konichiwheel !!

2007-08-24T17:37:00.000-07:00

Wow, this is exciting. So, I when I went to Japan in 2004 for Unicon 12 (Unicycling World Championships) I made a feature documentary of the whole ordeal. The movie turned out pretty cool, although very lengthy. I published it to dvd and even made a sweet label. Unfortunately, I've had major problems trying to get it online for the past few years. Finally, it's up, in all the glory of a tiny quicktime screen! I think the intro/credits are my favorite part of this movie. It's actually very informal if you want to see what events happen at these huge unicycling conventions.

You can find Konichiwheel (59 min) on my video page.

Also, I added a couple animations to my ANIMATION VAULT. They were some projects from some general art classes I took the beginning of this year, 2007. Enjoy!

Finally, I put Invisible Harleys on my video page.

Taking over UCSB by unicycle

2007-08-08T22:06:00.001-07:00

Originally uploaded by unicyclejester

One class I took last quarter, Art 7a, asked us to take over a personal space for 2 hours on our University Campus. I chose to take over the central bike roundabout, by riding my 6 foot giraffe around and around while shouting to bicyclists over a megaphone. Check out a handful of photos taken by the almighty Yoni Berk here:

Seven Photos

Broken Hand + Surgery

2007-06-29T00:05:00.000-07:00

So on April 28 I was playing soccer on the beach at about noon with my roommate and a dog named Bo Jangles that was really interested in our ball. I fell over backwards at one point, and my left hand drove straight into the ground. I heard a loud "pop". I tried to make a fist, but my middle finger was bending completely crooked! It was like out of a movie. For about 30 minutes, I thought I just had dislocated a finger, but then it started hurting... bad. It turns out I broke my 3rd metacarpal, and it was rotated at the break, with an additional hairline fracture. To ensure my finger would bend straight again, I had to have surgery which included a titanium plate and 8 screws. You can see the post-surgery photos of my hand to the left. What a weird accident.

Spanish TV segment

2007-06-28T23:42:00.000-07:00

Cuatro, a tv station in Spain, did a short 3 minute segment on Muni and Street unicycling. They filmmed a bunch of us in Southern California, and I participated in the Muni section. The piece was broadcasted in Spain June 2nd. It's all dubbed in Spanish, so it's really fun to watch!

You can check it out here: Monociclo

Invisible Harleys

2007-06-06T02:01:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: We won! Check it out (scroll down)!

The last 7 weeks of my life have been devoted largely to this five minute movie. Michael Figge and I created a Mario Kart parody film, using no greenscreens, shooting 13 nights, and spending over a 100 hours slaving over After Effects.

The project was part of a Harley-Davidson viral video competition, an experimental class held for the first time here at UCSB. Our Film Studies Dept. is hosting a page that includes all 10 projects that were made in the class. The top three voted films move on to Harley-Davidson where they will select a winner. They win $5,000.

Please check out our film, as well as some of the other projects. The voting closes Friday, June 8, at 4 pm. Here's the link: http://www.invisibleharleys.com.

Tuxedo Junction - uni film

2007-05-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

Whooo! I made another unicycle film, starring my 36" Coker. Not a lot of tricks, but still a fun watch.. it has a small thread of a narrative. Anyway, check it out, the music is bitchin' and the cinematography rocks (filmed by my friend Figge).

Watch here!

P.S. This film was featured in HopeDance's Bike Film Festival. The Santa Barbara Independent mentions it here.

Featured in Boinx's February Newsletter

2007-04-05T08:47:00.000-07:00

Boinx, the company behind my favorite stop-motion animation software, istopmotion, wrote an article on me for their February Newsletter. You can check out the full newsletter here. Here's a direct link to my article.

A fresh stop-motion: Hatisporet

2007-01-31T01:42:00.000-08:00

This is a crazy stop-motion that was made last Saturday, all in one day. My housemate Elie and I came up with the idea, and I set to work animating his, uh, body. My friend Emil Margolis once again composed the music, which originates from a variety of sounds from around our house: skateboards, bottles, insense, drums, etc. The final video is getting mixed reactions... some say they love it, some say it's "uh, bizarre."

You can find it on my video page, but here's a quick link to the small quicktime version (20 mb). The Haircut.

Santa Barbara Film Festival

2007-01-29T20:28:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my film Trials Course Love 99 showed as part of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. This massive festival uses 9 theaters, and my film was shown at Center Stage. After they played my movie as well as two others, we had a Q&A with the audience. Most questions were about unicycling itself, not about my movie, but it was a great discussion nonetheless.

Revamping my website, finally

2007-01-22T07:58:00.000-08:00

I'm in the process of changing my whole site! As you may notice, things look much different. I plan to get everything finished and uploaded soon. I'm really excited about the "Stuff" page, it's going to be a spot where I can put all the projects, additional hobbies, and whatever I feel like posting. Stay tuned....

Rate my short film!

2006-11-20T12:47:00.000-08:00

I made a short last weekend (Nov 10-12) with two friends for a 24-hour student film festival put on by Apple.
(http://edcommunity.apple.com/contest/contest.php)
On Friday at 2pm, they put out 11 required elements, 3 of which had to be included in the film.
The films could not exceed 3 minutes, and the films had to be done within 24-hours of the prompt.

After reading the prompt, we brainstormed and threw a bunch of stuff in my friend Jon's station-wagon
(including costumes, unicycles, food, and a monkey). We worked until 4 am, then got up the next morning
to finish and upload the film to apple.com before 2pm. My friend Jon and my housemate Yoni performed
the music a mere 1.5 hours before the deadline. Here's the film we made:

1 (on apple) http://edcommunity.apple.com/contest/item.php?itemID=178
2 (on my site) http://www.unicyclejester.com/vids/cowboy2.mov

Now until December 3rd people can go and rate each film that was submitted. (There were
teams of college students from all over the country). The top 25 rated films get to be
reviewed by a jury after Dec. 3rd.

If you like it, please vote and tell all your friends to vote!!!

-Jess

p.s.

Here's a list of all the given elements the teams could use:

Required character named: Alex Kona
Required Dialog line: "No, you don't understand what it's like growing up here."
Required costume: Leather jacket and dark sunglasses
Required prop: Ice
Required side kick: Pet monkey
Required setting: Abandoned building
Required shot: Clock with 4:11 on face
Required makeup: Fake eyelashes and blue eye shadow
Required genre: Sci-fi/fantasy
Required Camera effect: Crane or boom shot
Required editing device: Musical montage

I was on MTV

2006-10-22T22:05:00.000-07:00

I was on MTV last month, in a promo for a new show on MTV, called "Sportsblender." I sold them the rights to hack up my films "Trials Course Love 99" and "UCSB Unicycling" and they created a couple 22 second teasers. I never actually saw myself on TV, but someone put one of the promos on YouTube.

So why did they contact me about this? They saw my video.
You can read more about all this here.