Simmer Down

Simmer Down with Sharon. Click for the full animation.

Another half-completed idea. I created this in 2004, not long after meeting Sharon, turning her real-life career as a pastry chef into an animated mockery. Not really. But it was a fun little experiment in creating an animated version of the woman who would become... my wife (I tried to make that sound dramatic)


Umberto, the irrepressible spatula with the overdone Italian accent.
I did the voice, and I'm 100% Italian, so it's okay - I cannot get in trouble
for the ethnic stereotyping.

And yet, it's really more of a rough idea awaiting completion, which will hopefully happen someday. The lip synching for Sharon is rough - I just created some semi-random movement and never got around to finalizing it. In fact, the sound is a clipped, giving it a static quality when the sound peaks. Blech. The theme song was done in Easy Beat, a program I used for music recording pre-GarageBand, so it's pretty weak. And Phillipé the Whisk is only shown in the intro - the scene ends abruptly and he's not even shown. Poor Phillipé.

I did enjoy voicing Umberto, brief as his lines were, and his interactions with Sharon seemed pretty funny. And I like the way the kitchen "set" turned out. So I'll consider this post a kick in the butt to revisit this project someday and at least get one episode done. Then Phillipé can finally have his moment in the spotlight.

SugarPlum Studio

When Sharon O'Connor Spatucci asked me to design a website showing off her fanciful pastry creations, I responded with an enthusiastic "yes!" - not only because I'm married to the woman, but because... wait... that really was the reason for my excited reaction. But I also knew I could give her online portfolio the kind of treatment her tasty treats deserved, and that started filling my head with website concepts.

I'd already designed a logo for Sharon - a straightforward interpretation of the name "SugarPlum", which implied fairy, which is what Sharon wanted (note the whisk instead of the wand - her clever suggestion):


So the basic feel and color scheme would be derived from the logo, as is usually the case. I designed a layout (approved by Sharon on the first round!) and began building the Flash-based website. Besides the typical "Bio", "Events", and "Contact" sections, the main feature of the site is a set of categorized galleries featuring Sharon's work. We did all the photography in-house (get it? in our actual house!), building a green screen which allowed us (okay, me) to easily mask the pieces out of their backgrounds, letting them stand on their own - really, on the purple.

I also built an interactive Cake Constructor tool, which allows visitors to visualize a cake, adding, subtracting and modifying the number and shape of the tiers, color, size, and other decorations (elegantly called "adornments" in the dessert industry - I've learned a lot of cool terminology being married to a pastry chef). Once a visitor is happy with their creation, they can click a "calculate servings" button to get an idea of how many people could eat their custom cake, were it only not made of pixels.

We launched the site in 2007, and for my efforts I was paid a handsome fee of seventeen cupcakes - with sprinkles. Not really. But I wouldn't have complained if I was. I like cupcakes.

Visit SugarPlum Studio.

Oh and hey - see if you can find the zombie cake. The week Sharon was making it, I knew it was in the refrigerator, but when I saw the life-size decomposing head and hand emerging from the cake, I actually got a little scared. Just a little, though.