Wha?
I wasn't planning to put anything on this URL when I bought it. I got it to prevent some other Mike Upchurch from using it to display his bottle cap collection. When I first checked around 1997, another tech savvy Mike had snagged ".com" and ".net." I checked back occasionally, but nothing ever showed up. Apparently, "net pioneer Mike" got so preoccupied cataloging caps and whatnot he let the domain lapse, and in 2003 I, "carpetbagger Mike," nabbed it.

My first thought was to put up a mailbox, which would have been a great way for strangers with exciting business opportunities to reach me. Instead, I let the URL sit gathering cyberdust, just like that lollygaging "net pioneer Mike" before me. I took a six-hour Flash animation course at this shabby multi-media school in Studio City, and retained very little, except the knowledge that anything imported into Flash automatically displays as a loop. With that speck of knowledge, I started doing bizarre little flash loops for my own amusement, and the Mike-O-Tron idea came shortly thereafter.

Then the obvious and practical Online Resume struck me as a great way to save resources. My agent sends resumes and reels of my work before meetings, but often executives will look my resume up and down right after shaking my hand, while my reel sits atop a stack of reels so tall and crooked that it rocks from the earth's rotation. Sometimes when the exec is barely familiar with the shows I've worked on, I wonder why I even got a meeting, then a 22 year old office assistant will pop in, shake my hand, and say, "My shoes hurt!" or "Pooty, pooty, pooty!" and I realize how the meeting came about. (NOTE: the previous two quotes are inside references to shows I've worked on.). So, I'm proud to stand up for the conservation of paper and plastic in the pursuit of more efficient self-promotion.

The RealPlayer files are solely for potential employers. My 9 dollar per month web account prevents more than a couple concurrent users, and this website is neither intended, nor equiped for a mass audience. (so please don't sue me HBO, NBC, or Time Warner.)

Loopy Loops
Many people have been curious as to how I did the loops, some ask why I did them, and almost everyone suggests they are evidence of insanity, drug use, or both. I believe there will be a day when everyone will have their own "John Loops," or "Larry Loops" and my Mike Loops won't seem so crazy after all. (Also, in my version of the future everyone is crazy and does lots of hallucinogenic drugs.)

Last fall I became fascinated with the idea simulating continuous action through looping, so I went to the video store hunting for footage of racecars, galloping horses, speed boats, tunnels, and anything else to plunder for loops. Then I shot footage of me in front of a green screen running, hopping and spinning like an elf. That 20 minute hopping session has supplied the footage for all the loops since. I did the first five in October of 2003, and the rest every couple months thereafter. You may recognize footage from 70's car chase movie Vanishing Point, 80's western Silverado, and cult British TV classic the Prisoner. I found a lot of images on the official NASA site for the "RingRunner" and trolled most the rest of the various objects from Google Images. I call these loops Flash animations because it sounds cool, but I did most of the work in Final Cut Pro. I still know barely anything about Flash, except how to import and do buttons.

I put this site together with the generous help and special education of Andrea Levin of North Hollywood CA, and Trip Ross of Portland OR.

My name is Mike Upchurch and I'm honored to be the web master for MikeUpchurch.net. Feel free to contact me at the mail box on the main page.

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