Unicycle Jester News

Recent Illustrations

2009-01-06T21:27:00.000-08:00

[download]

Here are eleven illustrations I drew that were included in two books I wrote and produced last month: The Most Productive Day, and Santa Claus at 2 a.m. and Five More.

The Silk Hill

2008-12-17T02:49:00.000-08:00

I shot this video while studying abroad in Lyon. The second largest city in France is awesome for unicycling: trials, street, flatland, lots of gliding, and especially unicycle basketball. In this film we make our way to the top of La Croix-Rousse, one of the hills that forms Lyon, and blaze all the way back down. It's truly a sloped unicycle paradise.

Watch "The Silk Hill",
Lo-Fi, 47 mb.
Hi-Fi, 80 mb.

Simplicity

2008-12-15T21:11:00.000-08:00

I finally posted Simplicity, an experimental 16mm film I produced earlier this year. My friends Eyal and Danny helped me make the film, which was selected for UCSB's annual Reel Loud Film Festival this past May. Also, I entered Simplicity in the video contest at Unicon 14 in Copenhagen.

Photos from my first solo art show!

2008-12-08T14:22:00.000-08:00

[download]

Thanks to everyone who came to my reception! Checkout these awesome photos from the event by Jon Kalan, my sister, and myself.

ANIMATION - drawings, films, and prints by JMR

2008-12-01T18:45:00.000-08:00

Ahoy! I'm excited to announce that I have my first solo art show this week! If you can make it to UCSB this Thursday, you MUST come to the reception.

Details:

ANIMATION! Drawings, films, & prints by Jess Michael Riegel

Dec. 1 - 6 at the College of Creative Studies Gallery [directions/map]

RECEPTION: Thursday, Dec. 4, 5-7 pm

UNICON 14 DOCUMENTARY FINISHED!

2008-10-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

It took me much longer than I imagined to complete, but its done! The 52-minute feature documentary covers many events at this year's Unicon, including: Freestyle, Street, Flatland, Trials, Downhill Gliding, Track events, Uni-Basketball, Uni-Hockey, Opening & Closing Ceremonies, and the Parade. The film also captures a bit of the fun that takes place in between the daily competitions. This documentary was made possible by the generous support of Municycle.com and Unicycle.tv. Thank you!!

The BEST way to watch the film is to download and burn the zipped DVD. This includes the full quality film, chapter index, director's commentary, and more. The feature is conveniently broken up into 12 segments so the viewer has more control over what he or she wishes to watch!

Directions: First, download the Full Downloadable DVD below. Next, unzip the 2.6 gb file. Then use a program like Nero or Roxio's Toast to burn the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders to a dvd disc. Pop it in your DVD player and enjoy!

3 WAYS TO WATCH:

FULL DOWNLOADABLE DVD (2.6 gb)
[link 1]
[link 1 mirror]

High-Quality Quicktime (460 mb)
[link 2]

Unicycle.tv Mulit-Format Viewer (WMV, FLV, & MOV)
[link 3]

Enjoy! Thank you to everyone who helped me with this project!!!

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.