Aperture Investment Opportunity #2: "Bot Trust"

Aperture Investment Opportunity #1: "Panels"

More fun from work. I may be biased (OK, I am), but I think this game flippin' rocks. You folks are gonna dig it.

Goosed Up Rhymes

I don't have an iPhone or iPad, but if you have one and you have little kids who are learning to read then you might want to take a look at an app called Goosed Up Rhymes. It's made by a a couple of former colleagues of mine from days of yore, Joe Spadaford and Tod Carter. I had a chance to mess with it a little on a friend's borrowed iPad and it was fun. I can see where kids would dig it. Fun animation, clever writing, whimsical little interstitials, nice art, neat little mini-games for the kiddos and all that.

Here's a little vimeo video review ...

Goosed Up Rhymes HD iPad App Review - DailyAppShow by iphoneapppodcast

spring cleaning

The old site design was starting to feel creaky. HD video is becoming more common online and I wanted a new template that allowed me to post HD from YouTube and Vimeo without needing to sample them down to fit the column width. So thus the new look. I tinkered with the design some, but I'm still not 100% settled. Heck, I'm not even 80% settled. Still I probably won't spend a ton of time customizing it. I figure at this point the blog is what it is and most folks probably come to the blog via a feeder of some sort, so the layout and graphics are not as big an issue as they once were.
In other house cleaning news, I've taken down some of my older obsolete links. The link to my animation examples has been removed since every bit of animation in that gallery was at least 5 years old, most of it much older. I will probably utilize YouTube or Vimeo more for stuff like that. We'll see. Short film links are removed as well because not a one of those is less than 10 years old and it's kinda pathetic to keep the links up I think. I seriously need to actually finish one of these 4 or 5 shorts I have in various stages of development. Maybe this year? Again, we'll see. Also I took down the FAQ's regarding my VTS subscription and APT training programs since those are pretty much in retirement now. Folks can still get older VTS videos from my AnimationClinic.com store (at a pretty good price, too), but I stopped making new VTS videos in summer of 2009. As for the APT, I have put that into retirement as well. With work and family it was just too hard to put in the proper time to teach the students the way they deserved to be taught. Another factor is that online animation schools have launched and it feels like that market is getting a bit saturated. Rather than expand the APT to remain relevant in the space I decided that it was time to move on. So with those facts in mind I figured I ought to take down the FAQ pages related to them. I may start up training efforts again in the future, but if I do I'd like it to be done differently than what's been done the last 6 years or so online. No idea what that would be, though. Not really worried about it, either.
OK, enough useless rambling.

Portal 2 TV ad

I didn't work on this (off on another project now), but it's still too fun not to share. Nice job by my co-workers.

Rango

I just got back from seeing Rango with my son. We thoroughly enjoyed the film. Big congrats to those who worked on it. On the technical side ILM definitely showed off their chops, but we've come to expect that to some degree. However for me the real win for this film was the directing and storytelling. This is NOT your typical CG family animated film we've come to dread expect over the last 10 years. This film is definitely not cut from the Pixar mold, and not in the Dreamworks or Blue Sky ones, either (those studios really aren't nearly as rebellious as some would have us believe). And that's why I loved it. It's probably become rather evident to those who insanely follow my scribblings over the years, but I figure I'll come straight once and for all-- I must confess to being more than a bit put off by most of the larger U.S. studio CG animated films over the last 5-8 years or so. It actually started with Finding Nemo. Outside the occasional breath of fresh air like The Incredibles or Kung Fu Panda (which hasn't held up as well with me over time as Bird's film does), in general I've been less and less interested in the Hollywood modern animated products as films. Mind you I am a CG guy, I think they're technically brilliant and aesthetically pleasing and all that, so this is not some nostalgic predilection toward anything old and hand drawn, a point of view that many vocal critics of modern CG films often tend to operate from. It's just that the films taken at face value as films (and not viewed in context of their being animated) are just not that rich to me. Worse still, they're not honest. Despite their obvious skill and success, over time Pixar's storytelling has become predictably, cynically manipulative-- something I resent as an audience member and think poorly of as a filmmaker. It feels cheap and slimy. I steadfastly refuse to tolerate being told when to cry or care. Film is a dangerously powerful medium whose greatest ability is to make people feel things. It's not particularly difficult to do, either. I don't like it when filmmakers are so brazen about that. To me it's a bit like wielding a loaded gun in a room full of people just to see them cringe at your power. It's unseemly, and not just a bit infantile and vulgar. However it has made them tons of money over the years so other studios have followed suit. It's pretty rare that I'll even go see a CG animated film in the theaters anymore. Or even watch it on Netflix later, actually. The last CG animated film I watched was Despicable Me, mainly because my son really wanted to see it for the minions and I wanted to see if the French director Pierre Coffin could bring something fresh and honest to the table (kinda not, even though it was a fun cartoon of a film). The thing I liked about Rango was that the director really didn't have those moments where he tried to evoke specific catharsis in the film. He let the characters play out their roles honestly (and I might add, oddly) and let you the audience member see the film on your terms. I liked the production design choice of making every character in the film just plain dirt ugly. It's clear to me that they decided that classic Disney inspired appeal would set the wrong tone and so eschewed it in favor of something different. The barrier to entry to getting to like the characters was set fairly high, and yet by the end of the film I found I liked them. They weren't cookie cutter design solutions making cookie cutter acting choices. It's not a perfect film, or even a great one. Rango has its flaws, like all films. It drags a bit in spots, gets a little pedestrian here and there and a few times clunkily sets up a moment just to turn it on its head for time tested plot turns or gags. The plot is as ridiculous as most films, but that's neither here nor there for me. For me it's about the characters- are they honest? Do they grow naturally? Do I believe in them, in their story, in the moments they live out? I liked the film simply because it let me watch as a real person, not as an emotionally underdeveloped consumer of plastic things who must be told when to laugh, when to cry and how to feel. For this reason alone it's already become a favorite.  We'll see how I feel about it in a year.

Here's a 6 minute chunk of it in case you haven't see it online before.

You May Now

Fun little short film by Dane Winn and Daniel Keeble. Dane tells me they whipped this out in "a few days". Nice!

VTS discount sale extended one week

I've had some folks ask if I could extend the sale into January a little bit so they could get some VTS videos at the huge discount price. There's been good response to the sale, so my inner Scrooge can't really see a good reason not to extend it. So there you go-- the 75% (or more) off sale on VTS back issues will be extended until January 7th. That way if you did the nice thing and spent all your money on holiday gifts for your friends and loved ones in December, now you can blow a little of that money on yourself. Or, if you neglected to get a holiday gift for the animator in your life, you can now try and make up for it and claim that you're really celebrating something like the Greek Orthodox Christmas on January 7th instead. Or for your Armenian friends that'd be January 6th. No matter what, we got you covered. Anyhow, after the 7th the prices will go back up. Thanks again to everybody for the support over the years.

Storyboards

Here are a few panels from a story animatic I just finished cutting together.

What does this mean? What are these for? We'll see what 2011 looks like.
Happy New Year to all and may you all find God's best for you this next year.

Xtranormal starts charging to make & post content....

I (sardonically) talked about this software some time back. Regardless of what animation pros think of it, Xtranormal seems to have gained quite a user base and following. But with popularity comes cost. From Yahoo news...

Animation website Xtranormal — whose cartoon-making tools have spawned viral videos of cuddly puppies debating such topics as quantitative easing and the iPhone in stilted monotones — is no longer offering free, unlimited use of its tools.
The change reflects the higher costs of running Xtranormal as the site's popularly grew.
More than 2 million people now use its simple moviemaking tools, up from about 500,000 in June. According to Xtranormal, those users have published about 9.3 million videos so far. Some of the videos have received thousands or even millions of views, further boosting Xtranormal's popularity and usage.

This will be interesting to watch develop. I recall having some lively conversations a few years back with friends in the media biz and stating that the day will come when the cost for user-made content will shift from the consumer (via micro-payments, paywalls, ads, subscriptions, etc.) to the producer. my logic was simple- hosting these things costs a lot of money and somebody has to pay for it since viewers have proven rather unwilling to do so. A ton of hot social media sites are facing this issue. Twitter, Youtube, Vimeo, etc. Youtube is a bit of an exception since it has the Google sugar-daddy to keep it in heels and fur, but for the rest it's not as simple. How do you make money and not sacrifice the user experience which was so vital to getting popular enough to survive the start-up and attract some nice Series A capital investment from VCs? The Dot.Com boom of the late 90's taught us that investors are only so willing to keep pouring money into hot online spaces with no real business plans. As noted, consumers of user-created content have shown little willingness to pay for content and online ad rates are so depressed that only the largest of aggregators (ie: Google) can survive on the micro-finance level of online ads. Sooner or later someone was bound to try and see if the content makers would be willing to pony up some cash in order to have access to the big microphone that is the internet. Vanity publishing goes digital age.

A reminder...

"At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary, his fiancée, who was now obviously pregnant.
And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them.
That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”


Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”
When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them."


Wishing you and yours the very best this Christmas.

It's not Maya, but hey....

.. for non animator folks this CrazyTalk Animator app could be interesting. I think tools democratization is an interesting thing. It certainly doesn't remove the need for talent or skill in story telling (no more than using a word processor makes you a better writer), it just removes barriers. Certainly not suitable for all needs, but I could see it being a fun way to do a quick little short film. Watch the cheesy promo video below.

Call me crazy, but I like this trailer...

Who knows if the movie will be any good, but they've succeeded in getting me interested. Indeedy.

Yeah, I'm behind a day or so....

Meet Buck from TeamCerf on Vimeo.


Lots of fun stuff to look at. It's a good example of animation on 1's mixed with a natural media type rendering style that works- mainly because the animation is pretty over the top. Most typical on 1's CG animation when mixed with natural media emulation just comes off wrong. Congrats to the crew.

VTS December blow out sale!

In time for the holidays I'm offering an absolutely bonkers blow out sale on the entire catalog of back issue Video Tutorial Service (VTS) animation training videos in my online store. For those of you who don't know, the VTS videos were made over the course of 5 and a half years where I made a new video each month for my paid subscribers. Earlier this year I shut down the subscription service due to work obligations and time constraints, but the videos are still available as back issues. Overall there are 64 videos (the first two I made are free on my Youtube channel), covering a ton of different topics on animation. Each video is about 45 minutes long on average, so we're talking about nearly 60 hours of animation training videos (that's a lot of video). Anyhow, the regular price for each back issue VTS video is $18.95, but starting today the price has been slashed by almost 75% to just $4.95 each. 

That's not a typo. Each VTS video is now under $5. You think that's crazy, wait until you hear this: If you buy all all 60+ videos in a bundle you can get them for $3.95 each, or $240.00. What does Otto think of these prices?

Even Schmitty is at a loss for words....

So if you never got any VTS videos now is your chance to get them. Did you buy some in the past, but couldn't get as many as you wanted? Now is the perfect time to complete your collection. Has downloading them from a pirate torrent left you feeling guilty? A clear conscience has never been so cheap!  Heehee. 

So if you're an animator, an animation student, or even just mildly interested in animation- this is the deal for you. Want to get a cool, practical holiday gift for the animator in your life? VTS videos are the way to go. Purely 100% digital delivery means no wrapping or postage. I'd even say these videos will make you a better person/laundry washer/lover/pet owner, but I don't want to over-reach.

Anyhow, even if you're not interested in getting any VTS videos, feel free to pass on the news. The prices are scheduled to go back to normal Jan 1st, 2011, so get cracking!

TD Matt blog

Matt Stoneham, a Sr. TD at Ninja Theory, has started up a good blog for those of you who are into rigging and other TD type stuff. He offers up some cool detailed how-to's, scripts and such. Some nifty nuggets for sure. There's not enough of these types of blogs out there, if you ask me. Definitely check it out...

http://td-matt.blogspot.com/

Citrus Cel Animation festival call for entries

This rolled through my inbox recently and I thought I'd share it.

Citrus Cel Animation festival is in its second year and they're looking for animation to showcase. Anything made in the previous 2 years works for them. There's no entrance fee (which is cool) and it seems they have a schedule of speakers and events surrounding the fest as well. Could be neat. Find out more at http://www.citruscel.com.

email

I get a lot of email.
I kinda always have, really. The problem is that lately it's been increasingly difficult to answer it all. In fact, it's pretty much become impossible. And it has been for at least a year if not more. Between work, family, other life commitments, APT students-- I just don't have the time to get to everybody's email. Going forward I'll do my best, but I can't promise anything. Please don't take it personally, though. I appreciate everybody taking the time to write me.

So if you sent me a kind note of thanks- thank you so much! If you sent me a demo reel to get some feedback on, I apologize, but I just don't have the time to look at all the reels I get sent to me. If you sent me an email asking for career or school advice, I apologize if I couldn't answer you. I try my best, but I am but a solitary man and the days only have 24 hours. I feel like a heel not being able to reply to everybody.

In the meantime I am going to try the three sentences approach to email and see if that helps me. I don't have high hopes, though. :(

Les Metiers

Very charming! I love the simple (but robust) character designs. Animation style isn't overly fluffy, but it doesn't need to be. Nicely done.


LES METIERS : LE BOULANGER from lam le thanh on Vimeo.


Found via 3dTotal.com

Manfred

I liked this little short by Arjen Klaverstijn. Nice style, simple idea, clear characters. Pretty solid for student work.


'Manfred' an animated short by Arjen Klaverstijn from Arjen Klaverstijn on Vimeo.


found via 3dtotal.com