Travis Fantina (website)...
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Jul 05
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A way back, before I had the artistic talent to paint a soccer ball I painted a sweet World Cup Bear at the Plaster Funhouse. This is probably painted around France 98′ so yeah, it’s old;
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Jun 09
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I know it’s technically 12 days until summer however that’s never stopped me before. The past week and a half I have been a busy bee editing Mythical Beast Films summer project called ‘Moose The Bounty Hunter’. We shot it in Princeton at the end of May and after a fairly intense week of editing, mixing and color correction we are ready to show it to the world.
If you like it please go to Youtube and give it a like or even perhaps subscribe to the MBF channel.
Thanks for watching. Keep an eye out as I may be posting an outtakes reel soon.
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Dec 01
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About a year ago I was wondering how I could use the web to make myself be more productave, I decided that I wanted an easy to make to-do lists, share them with friends and visa versa. In July I spent a few days with my good friend Chrys and we began designing and programming the site (I did most of the designing and Chrys did most of the programming that PHP magic elludes me). Now almost six months later we have gotten the website known as “twodoit.com” to a stage where we can launch a beta version for feedback and bug testing.
I’ve embedded a demo below, if you are intrested give it a try: http://twodoit.com.
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Oct 28
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Just over two weeks ago I worked with What We See is What You Get operating a second camera at a Gaslight Anthem concert. The footage is going on their website as well as The Waster’s. Using just my footage (and none of the audio they recorded) I cut together a six minute video of the interview with two of the guys from Gaslight beforehand as well as the concert.
Check it out then tell me what you think.
(Apologies for the aspect ratio Vimeo sort of butchered the 16X9).
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Oct 27
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Welcome to the new and improved travisfantina.com, or travisfantina.com 3.0. Whatever you want to call it it’s a brand new look with the same great content.
The first thing you will probably notice is that no matter what page you’re on it looks the same, as opposed to the old version where my blog looked a bit different then the rest of the site. Also you’ve probably noticed some of the cute little animals that are scattered around, and Kilroy who not only was here but still is here.
I’m using a sweet wordpress theme- the i3Theme by Mangoorange which allows for some pretty cool functionality. For example the two side bars: notice the little green arrows, if you don’t like one of the widgets or just won’t it cluttering up the page just hit that green arrow to minimize it. You can also change the order of the sidebars by grabbing the top and dragging one above the other. Give it a shot!
Tell me what you think of the redesign in the comments section below!
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Oct 03
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What is Twitter? It’s stupid! Why do you use it? Are you by any chance stupid? These are a few of the question’s I’m faced with when I tell people that I use Twitter. My goal with this post is to hopefully educate and enlighten readers about the wonderful world of Twitter.
What is it? Twitter a micro-bloging service, it allows users to convey short amounts of information (called ‘tweets’), in no more then 140 characters; this makes it compatible with SMS messaging from cell phones.
Once you join start following people. I know it sounds stalkerish but one has to assume that people aren’t going to post something on the public web that they don’t want everybody on Earth to see, if not why post it. This is not always the case but it’s there problem not yours. Twitter makes it very easy to find people; you can search by username, first name, last name, business or brand. In addition to my friends, I follow several people who’s tweets I find particularly interesting. With famous folk (like KevinSpacey and Oprah to name two) people like to create fake accounts in their names and post stuff, recently Twitter introduced verified accounts so you can tell if your really following Oprah or 14 year old in Santa Monica. As you start to follow more and more people you will get a feel for what tweeting style you like, some people tweet fifteen or twenty times a day others only once or twice a day. Some people’s tweets are more interesting then others, which brings me to my next point…
Don’t tweet useless junk!
One of the major stigmas surrounding Twitter is that it’s all really useless junk, people tweet stuff like “Eating breakfast”, “Going for a jog”, “Going to the bathroom”, “Washing my hands” and “Gross I touched my phone before washing my hands!”. True, all these tweets are under 140 characters, however that does not mean they should be posted. A quick and easy way to become a Twitter outcast is to post lots of useless jargon nobody reads or cares about. Twitter should be used to share stuff that you find funny, cool, interesting or enlightening. When I stumble across a neat blog or a funny video on Youtube that not to many people have seen, I tweet it. If I see something cool or something funny happens to me I tweet it. I don’t tweet boring junk that everybody already knows I do (like eating), and neither should you.
So, Twitter is a fun and quick way to share links, quick stories, and see what famous people are doing. However in my opinion the real genius of Twitter comes from two features, “Trending Topics” and “Search”. Trending Topics takes all recent tweets and arranges them looking for patterns; so lets say that the Yankees just won the World Series, a lot of people would be tweeting “Yankees” and “World Series” for instance. If enough people posted tweets with the words “Yankees” and “World Series” in them, they would both appear on the “Trending Topics” list. “Trending Topics” is a way to see what’s going on in the world as it happens. “Search” is also useful, but I don’t think you need that explained.
Click here to jump to part 2.
Image: Pasquale D’Silva courtesy of Function
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Sep 15
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Fans of Matt Damon should like of Steven Soderbergh’s ‘The Informant!’ he’s a bit more doughy then usual and he rocks an odd little mustache but he’s what carries this humorous take on Mark Whitacre and the lysine price-fixing conspiracy.
The film is based on true events. I did not read the book and I don’t know much about the incident so I can’t say how well the film stuck to what really happened. But I will say the film tells the story in a way that is very believable.
Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) is climbing the ladder at ADM and earning a boat load of money. Mark Whitacre also has has a problem, the lysine his company is supposed to produce is being destroyed by some mysterious bacteria. Whitacre’s been speaking to a shady Japanese business man for a while and it’s he who tells Whitacre that ADM has a mole and that he will reveal the identity of said mole and also provide a solution to the lysine bacteria if ADM will deposit millions into his off shore bank account. As any good employee would Whitacre tells his boss who intern tells the FBI. As the FBI is putting a trace on his phone Mark decides to come clean (sort of), at the insistence of his wife Ginger (Melanie Lynskey). He tells the agent that there is actually a price-fixing conspiracy going on at ADM. The FBI opens an investigation of ADM which thorough the film grows more and more complex due to Whitacre’s habit of omitting certain aspects of the truth.
I liked this film, it was very funny. As stated before, it’s totally a Matt Damon vehicle, he’s in almost ever scene and all the laughs either come from his lines or from his character’s actions. Laughs are plentiful as are plot twists but it’s slower then what I was expecting. In a way it almost felt as if I was watching a very interesting and fact filled documentary about Mark Whitacre and the lysine price-fixing conspiracy. I mean that as a complement.
I thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Informant!’ it made me laugh out loud several times and I really got to know Mark Whitacre but as for the other characters I think if I had gotten to know them better it would have made Mark Whitacre’s story even more engaging.
‘The Informant!’ hits theaters this Friday and it also stars Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, Clancy Brown and Tony Hale
Rating: 
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Sep 08
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In today’s installment of ‘If I was head of a network’ I will take the seat of a cable network executive and choose four shows from the past decade that I would have made a bid for once they got the axe on broadcast.
With the exception of ‘Alias’ none of these shows ran for over three seasons and if you ask me a good chunk of the blame can be placed on the network.
So lets say I am the head of ‘The TF’ a channel that comes with your basic cable. (To spice it up we also have a deal with Hulu). These are my picks (arranged from, ‘I would jump in front of a train to get this show on my network’ to ‘I would like to have had a few more seasons but if not, it ended well as is’).
1)
It would be hard to have a list of great shows canceled to soon and not have ‘Arrested Development’ on it. If you have never seen ‘Arrested’ stop reading this garbage, run to your local video store and rent all three seasons. It may take a three or four episodes to warm to however after that you’ll be hooked on what was, in this reviewer’s humble opinion, the funniest show to ever hit airwaves. I don’t want to judge but from what I can tell, the network messed this show up, throwing it in all sorts of crazy time slots, even airing an episode during an opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics! Creator Mitchell Hurwitz said he felt he had taken the show just about as far as he felt he could, however I still would have made a lucrative bid to bring ‘Arrested Development’ to my cable network.
2) 
I guess the only way to describe what happened here was that ‘television was just not ready for Pushing Daisies’ seriously. This show from Brian Fuller (who left ‘Heroes’ for it), is amazing, it’s dark but upbeat, morbid but happy, and very, very colorful. A man who can touch dead people, bring them back to life just long enough to find out who killed them and collect the reward. When I think of this show one word springs to mind, ‘delightful’, it actually makes me happy watching it it’s TV’s anti-depressant.
3) 
From Joss Whedon creator of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ came ‘Firefly’, canceled after just 14 episodes. The premise was simple; a western in space. A bunch of soft hearted smugglers always just one step ahead of the Alliance, hoping from one quirky terraformed planet to the next always delivering cargo on time and undamaged. Think ‘Han Solo heads to the Ok Corral’. An elaborate pilot was written for the series which took time to carefully introduce each member of the large ensemble, but the network felt that it did not offer enough action and demanded Whedon write a faster paced first episode, that’s where things began to go array. Hungry for more action the network took the episodes they had shot, which in order told a coherent story, and aired the ones with the most action first. (Imagine watching ‘Lost’ or ‘Heroes’ in order of which episodes had the most action).
4) 
Of the four shows on this list, Alias is the least deserving. It got a great run of 5 terrific seasons fully supported by the network. I stuck it here because I love it so much and would have loved another season or two (a network exc. thinking with the heart not the head). Season 5 felt a bit rushed although they were a bit limited with Jennifer Gardner’s pregnancy and several other people leaving. I feel if we had gotten a sixth season it would have allowed a bit more exploration of Prophet 5.
There you have it, feel free to comment, argue, sympathize, weep, express your rage, (Browncoats go to town).
Finally, I was thinking about including Rob Thomas’s ‘Veronica Mars’ however I just started watching so I can’t really say for sure. I’ll give it an honorable mention.
Images: wikipedia.org
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Jul 27
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I have been away for most of July, just hanging out in New Jersey visiting friends and family. However it was not purely social (although it was mostly social), I also gave Paul Howells a copy of ‘Initiation’. Paul is in the progressive punk band Free Yon and is also something of a musical genius, he graciously consented to write the score of ‘Initiation’.
I finished editing ‘Initiation’ back in June. It took longer then I had expected because of something horrible that happened to my computer. I am very happy with the final cut. All that’s left to do is score it (Paul’s got that covered) add some gun related effects and add the credits.
I thought ‘Initiation’ would be my one big project for the summer, however I am thinking that I will do another film later in August.
While I was in New Jersey I also began working on several projects (not film related) that are so awesome they will blow your shoes, socks, pants and quite possibly shirt away (so bring a change of clothes). However at this point in time they are very, very hush-hush. I will be revealing more about these projects as they begin to materialize.
That’s basically what I’ve been up to in a nut shell. Sorry for the lack of posts, but you know you wouldn’t have read them even if I had written them.
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Mar 16
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Hello,
It’s been about a month sense I’ve pulled the motivation out from under my chair to post something here. But I am still alive and I DO still know how to use the computer, (to prove I am still online regularly you href can check out my twitter or behindthefilms.net which is my blog).
In the past month I had the opportunity to help shoot a wedding with
I have also been doing a fair bit of blogging for the aforementioned behindthefilms.net. What is this Behind The Films you ask? BTF is a fairly new (our first post was July of last year) blog which reports the latest movie news. So for about an hour every day I crawl around in the internets looking for movie related news then I post it away saving our readers the trouble of doing all that crawling around in the dusty corners of the webernet.
Thanks for reading, if I see a film soon (which I hope to) I will be sure to post a nice review as always. 