Episode 73

A new one this week from Channel Frederator featured favorites, “Mukpuddy! The word “stomping” is mentioned 47 times in this video, plus, “When you bang your head to this there’s no need to player hate”. You can check out some of Mukpuddy’s other work on Channel Frederator Episode 18 and Episode 56

Tim, Ryan, Alex, and Jeremy comprise The Muks”, and unfortunately, I’m never sure which one is answering the interview questions…their goodness all melts together. So I’m going to toss a coin. Ryan, you’re it! If I’m wrong, let me know!

MELISSA: What was your creative process in creating this short? How did you come up with the idea? How do you know the musician?

RYAN: “Stompin” was the first major project Mukpuddy picked up (in 2003) after finishing our 4 years of animation training. Mukpuddy had been going for about a year, trying to make waves in the web cartoon world, when we met Samoan musician/rapper “King Kapisi” at a New Zealand comic con. He had always wanted an animated music video and we were the chaps to do it. We pretty much had complete creative freedom on the video, so our crazy animator brains went into overdrive, hense the idea got way too big really fast. We wanted to have King Kapisi as this kind of Universal Hero, who travelled from place to place defeating monsters, aliens and other such bad folk. By the time we had all our ideas down on paper we had enough to make a feature length Michael Bay-esque music video……but it had to be 4mins……oops! We managed to narrow the ideas down to our 3 top scenarios, storyboarded the video, made an animatic and then split the sections up between us. We made this vid back before we really had a grasp of Flash, so we did the whole thing traditionally.

MELISSA: How long did it take you to make this?

RYAN: From initial concept to finished video was about 4 months. Which sounds crazy to us now, as we churn out an 3 minute episode of our show Sparkle Friends in a week. That’s slave labour for you!

MELISSA: What do you do when you get stuck creatively?

RYAN: We’ve always got along really well, we’ve been friends for over 8 years, so working has always been like a bunch of pals hanging out, so if ever we get stuck creatively, we stop and maybe tell some stupid stories, muck around for a bit, play a game and it usually ends in us all fairly re-invigorated. It’s 100% a team effort with everything we do at mukpuddy from writing to animating, so no one thing is really ever lumped on one person (except for Alex who is kept in a cage until he finishes drawing).

MELISSA: Who are some of the artists who have influenced you?

RYAN: That list could be a mile long, so here’s just a sample of the few who really get us motivated. There’s the obvious greats Mary Blair, Jim Henson, Chuck Jones, Walt Disney, Genndy Tartakovsky, Ward Kimball, Ed Benedict etc. But lately we are truely inspired by heaps of the artists who have amazing blogs out there like Lou Romano, Nate Wragg (and numerous other Pixar folk), Todd Kaufman, Paul Watling, Miah Alcorn, Anna Chambers, Mike Kunkel, Ben Balistreri, Saxton Moore, Peter Michail, etc, etc, etc,…..
Most recently we’ve been really digging on all the stuff the El Tigre team of genius artists have been blogging, guys like Steve Lambe, Gabe Swarr and Dave Thomas have a tonne of cool stuff to check out on their blogs!

MELISSA: What program did you use to animate this?

RYAN: Everything was animated and cleaned up by hand, then scanned in and put together in Flash. Old schoooool! That is sooooo 2003!

MELISSA: What was the most challenging part of the video to animate? What is your favorite part?

RYAN: It would have to be the zooming through the city intro. Even though there’s no real animation going on, it was an epic scene to put together and there were a few times when we weren’t even sure it was going to work. Our fave part? That’s a tough one, we are always quite critical of our older work, and there are things about Stompin’ that make us cringe (particularily the pacing), but the break-dancing nerd still tickles our bits.

MELISSA: What other projects are you working on now?

RYAN: Right now we are working on a 2nd series of Sparkle Friends. It’s heaps of fun, we’re spending a little more time on each scene, whilst still limited animation (thanks to our crazy 1 ep a week schedule) it’s a massive improvement over the first series (which you can see here ) . We pushed ourselves to go a little crazier story wise and humour wise, which is why you’ll see such wonderul sights as a pissed off chicken fetus, a beatboxing dinosaur, a pirate who cant determine gender, a singing french bread stick and so on…..

Guys, you’re the best. Thanks so much for your continued support!!

Melissa

Episode 73

Two chickens race through a hellish obstacle course while the cheering chefs place their bets…

As a stand alone, “Cocotte Minute” is fantastic. The fact that it was created by six students just learning CG blows me away. The filmmakers are from a French school called Gobelins, which consistently produces top of the line animation. The filmmakers responsible for this film are: Thibault Berard, Loic Miermont, Romain Vacher, Nathalie Robert, Amandine Pecharmand, and Sylvain Marc. I had the opportunity to interview one of the filmmakers and submitter, Sylvain Marc on the creation of this piece.

MELISSA: So how did you guys come up with this idea?

SYLVAIN: We sat all together and anyone could pitch about anything, the others reacting about it. A small video about people doing a toy-car race gave us the very first idea. And this very first idea is not in the film anymore.

MELISSA: How long did this film take to produce?

SYLVAIN: 6 months

MELISSA: Did everything go as planned, or were there stumbling blocks along the way?

SYLVAIN: We redo things from the beginning. We went very far with another idea that was too complicated for one minute, a character was even totally designed and modelled for nothing and it didn’t work well. So we changed the story…to make it work.

MELISSA: Who are some artists that have influenced you?

SYLVAIN: So many from our early age…but not one precisely for the short.

MELISSA: What software did you use to produce this short?

SYLVAIN: Maya for 3D, flash and after effects for 2D.

MELISSA: Were there any aspects of the filmmaking process you found to be very challenging?

SYLVAIN: The most challenging part was the overall cartoony style, because we learnt how to do 3D while doing this film. And we have a 2D background so we approach the film with a 2D point of view…So we wanted exagerations,deformations….The blue chicken was pretty tricky with its weird proportions we had to cheat a lot working the poses.

MELISSA: What scenes were the most fun to work on?

SYLVAIN: Our favorite part is the stunts in the corridor and kitchen with the blue chicken..And when the red one loses its head.

MELISSA: What are you working on now?

SYLVAIN: We all work in companies for commercial or features but we have ideas about short films.

Thanks so much to everyone who made this film! There’s a great montage of the process HERE

This is a great piece on Ollie Johnston. Enjoy.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

-Floyd Bishop

In this week’s Channel Frederator episode…

— Dealing With Women, submitted by Julia Vickerman. Women. Can’t live with ‘em. Here’s one man’s story of boobs, hair extensions, and superman capes
— Cocotte Minute, submitted by Sylvain Marc. Two chickens race through a hellish obstacle course while the cheering chefs place their bets…
— King Kapisi: Stomping, submitted by Mukpuddy Animation. The word “stomping” is mentioned 47 times in this video, plus, “When you bang your head to this there’s no need to player hate”.

You’re now able to embed Channel Frederator in your very own website. Go to Channel Frederator to learn how (it’s easy!).

If you’ve been enjoying my little articles on the nation of Kelv and want to know more, please contact the following resources:

The Kelvic American Heritage Museum
31-98 293rd Road. Queens, NY
open the last Monday of each month (noon-2pm)

The Kelvic Consulate and Embassy
279-82A 294th Place. Queens, NY
closed until further notice

**What the hell is this all about? It’s an excerpt from my upcoming magazine piece “The Kelv Enthusiast” to be published in Mammal Magazine, Spring 2007. Tune in for details.

-DAN METH

YouTube is more than bad lip syncs and skateboard videos.

In this video, you will see just how easy it is to create an animation using Photoshop and After Effects.

Start making those films!!
-Floyd Bishop

Keep an eye out for this cover of Cartman using his camera-phone to tape Saddam’s fateful hanging, celebrating 10 years of South Park breaking the envelope wide open.

Among other things, the magazine lists top moments from the show,

Click HERE to read it.

Enjoy!
-Jake

The YouTube Award Winners were announced today, and we would like to extend a hearty congrats to Dony Permedi and Doug Bressler of Doogtoons for winning their respective categories. Bressler took home a win for “Best Series”, and Permedi took home the coveted “Most Adorable/So Cute It Hurts” Award for his film, “Kiwi” featured on Channel Frederator Episode 59.

Don’t get me wrong–I think Dony’s film is spectacular. But I’m confused as to why it would receive the “Adorable” Award. Is it just me, or does the film have a very poignant, sad ending? Yes, the character is cute, but what I got from the film was that this poor little bird wanted to fly so badly that he plunged to his death. Maybe I’m misinterpreting…could anyone enlighten me?

Here’s Dony Permedi at our Channel Frederator Awards bash

As many of you know, the Channel Frederator Awards which took place in January had a “So Cute It Hurts Category” Coincidence, YouTube? Or do we just ROCK with the first dibs? Amanda Spalinski won the coveted “Cute” award for her film, “Skippy”.

Amanda Spalinski (in green) poses with Erik Knutson (top left), Mike Hollingsworth (next to Eric), and friends

Melissa

Here’s a fun clip from HANDYCAT that features an animated cycle.

The beginning and the end of this scene consist of animation that is only able to be used once. The middle part, however, uses the same cycle of animation several times over - it’s just repositioned. It’s an economical way to get a lot of “mileage” out of a few drawings, yet the scene looks great.

If the controls at the bottom of the video work on your browser, you can step through the animation and see where one cycle ends and the other picks-up.

Click here to see it.

Click here to see it in COLOR.

So there you have it – Animation 101

Russ Harris

Episode 72

Featured a while back with her film “Fetch” in Epsiode 39, Nina Paley is at it again, this time with a trailer for her upcoming animated feature, “Sita Sings the Blues”. The colors, the animation, the story, EVERYTHING about this film looks wonderful!

MELISSA: How did the idea for “Sita” originate?

NINA: Oy, long story, you”ll have to read itHERE

MELISSA: How long has the project taken you so far?

NINA: 3 years down (on and off), one to go.

MELISSA: Is it all done in Flash?

NINA: Mostly Flash with Final Cut Pro, but lately I’ve done a few scenes in a different style, all raster images (scanned paintings) using After Effects. I much prefer Flash, it’s so much lighter and faster, it allows for more spontaneity. But After Effects handles large raster images better, so what can I do?

MELISSA: How many people are helping you with it?

NINA: Greg Sextro’s been guiding the sound design and engineered the voice actors’ recording sessions. Reena Shah danced for a rotoscoped section. Todd Michaelsen and Rohan have both composed and produced new songs - the main track in the trailer is by Rohan, the music at the very beginning is by Todd. I’m doing all the design, drawing and animating myself, although Jake Friedman apprenticed with me for several weeks a few Summers ago, helping with “Battle of Lanka.”

MELISSA: What has been your favorite scene to animate so far?

NINA: Gah. No idea.

MELISSA: Fair enough! What was your process? Did you write a script first, or work from storyboards?

NINA: The movie’s just in my head. I never made an animatic, and only storyboard when I get stuck - and then it’s in very primitive sketches. Since I’m doing everything myself, I already know what I want so I can skip the usual intra-studio communications. The only script I wrote was dialog for the voice actors.

MELISSA: Have you ever made a feature before?

NINA: Nope.

MELISSA: What do you usually do when you get stuck creatively?

NINA: Complain to my friends.

Thanks for the interview, Nina! We can’t wait until the feature is finished!

Melissa