It's been a month since my last Scrapbook appearance - a lot of the delay was caused by travel, a lot by trying to finish "Hair High" by the September 30 deadline, and a lot by just plain laziness.

In any case, I visited my folks and friends in Oregon for a week in August. Movie Madness (a great video store) and the Northwest Film Center set up a work-in-progress preview screening of "Hair High" at the Guild Theater - it was organized by Steve Tenhonen, who did a great job!

The screening was a big success, and I got a lot of great feedback on the parts I showed.

While in Oregon, Matt Groening finally found time in his busy schedule to do the voice of Will for "Hair High". I was on the phone, directing his session as he read his lines. He was perfect! He's got a real fun character voice - thanks, Matt! His opposing character is voiced by Don Hertzfeldt, so they should be a lot of fun together.

While returning to New York, I got trapped at the Motel 8 in Dallas, Texas because of the great Northeast blackout - it was an opportunity for me to do some writing.

On September 4, Don Hertzfeldt and Mike Judge were in town presenting "The Animation Show", a wonderful compilation of the greatest animated shorts from around the world. A group of my co-workers and I went up to Lincoln Center to watch the East Coast premiere of the show - it was great! Then we all went out for Mexican food after the show - check out the photo.

The next night, I had a small animators' party on my roof, to introduce Don to a lot of the New York animators - he doesn't travel very much.

Watch for "The Animation Show" coming to your theater soon, and tell your friends about it - my short film "Parking" is included in the program.

The next week, we had our wrap party, again on my roof. Although the film isn't completely finished - there were a few more days worth of art to complete - we felt we all needed a party. It was a wonderful evening - the guests were 2 of the stars, Martha Plimpton and Tom Noonan, and all the interns, artists, the editor, sound editor and cameraman John Donnelly. John Holderried and the art department brought a terrific cake, with an image from "Hair High" on it, and I hated to eat it, but it was delicious. Also, my neighbor loaned us his Segway, and we all took rides - it was a lot of fun.

Even though the 2-year production of "Hair High" was very grueling, it was a great experience, and I had a great time making the film - but it's still not over. The next step is editing, getting feedback on the film, and polishing it up for Sundance.

Last week Signe, Pat Smith, Pes, Ellana Allen and I went up to the Woodstock Film Festival, one of my favorite festivals. The films are great, the people extremely friendly, and the parties are fabulous.

I put together a show of animated shorts that was extremely popular, and we had a great Q + A session after. At the awards ceremony the next night, I awarded the Maverick prize for best animation to Shelly from the film "Dear, Sweet Emma", a hilarious computer-animated short.

The closing night party was so much fun, I missed my bus and stayed an extra night in our log cabin up in the mountains.

This session's cartoon is an early comment on pollution. It's a joke that's used a lot - taking a cartoon convention, such as smoke exhaust in this case, and making it solid when the plane lands. I believe this cartoon is from the early 70's, when I was still in my primitive-look stage.

Bill