I just finished the animatic for the 30 second intro for “What a Prikk”. I think it came out very well and believe it will make a great intro!

So how exactly does someone make an animatic?

After you have a script written, whether you have audio or not, you need to have storyboards. Storyboards are images, like in comic books that tell the story visually. It is used so that the animators know what to animate, as well as giving the producer, or director or anyone working on the production an idea of what the cartoon will look like when it’s done. Animatics are very important parts of production. It helps time everything out and keeps it organized.

Typically storyboards are drawn on paper and then scanned into the computer. For What a Prikk, to save myself time, I’m doing something alittle different.

My process was first writing a script. After I got the script nailed down, I’d send it to the voice over artists. They would return with their audio files and i’d check to make sure everything came out well. After that I import the audio files into flash. I’m using flash for the animatic because in flash you can have a layer of audio, and a layer underneath where you can draw. This way, you draw the storyboards WHILE you time the animatic! It saves a whole lot of time and is much faster than scanning in storyboards, then timing them.

Since I’m going to be animating this myself, I know exactly what I’m going to animate from the drawings. It’s important that if you have someone else animating, the storyboards should be very detailed! Keep the drawings clean, and the action detailed…The animator shouldn’t have to constantly ask what’s happening in the animatic.

After the animatic is done, I export it as a .mov file. Then with quicktime pro I cut up each scene into separate movie files. Remember, a scene is every time the camera changes. In the animatic above, there are 3 scenes. The earth, the guy and then nuclear poweplant. I import each scene into it’s own flash file so that I can keep my computer running at optimum speed, as well as not having enormous flash files. After I animate ( which i’ll show you how I do when I do it) I export each scene and then re-combine them in quicktime.

So now, please enjoy this extremely short clip of the beginning of the intro. The stick figure is just a place holder for the to-be character. I did that so I could save time when making the animatic. Also, I cut it at the point right before it gets a little…doodie dirty! By the way, that’s Prikk narrating

More to come soon!

Steve

video © 2008 Stephen M. Levinson.

What a Prikk products HERE or HERE! I’d appreciate anyone’s interest in the products to help me fund my low budget ( but not low quality ) “What a Prikk” pilot! It would mean alot to me!

Reposted from Indy Mogul!

Not to sound too much like a shameless plug, but our friend Rob Schrab (who recently put together an episode of the 4-minute Film School) is encouraging fans to recreate the energy of his popular comic book series “SCUD: The Disposable Assassin” by means of a fan film contest. Rob co-created Channel 101, so he knows how valuable deadlines and obstructions can be to creating something.

If you’re a fan of Scud, or just like making stuff, check out all the information on his site. You can make whatever you want about SCUD, make it three minutes or less in length, and send him a link by July 31st.

This past Wednesday I attended a panel discussion entitled, Cross Cultural Traffic: Toying with Brands, Borders and Bootlegs.

It was hosted by The Korea Society and was a lively talk on and about Korean Toys, their origins, how they interrelate with Japanese, American, and their own Korean Pop Cultures.

The panel consisted of Eric Nakamura (publisher of Giant Robot Magazine), Joshua Bernard (editor of CollectionDX.com), and The Korea Society’s Seho Kim (creative director).

I think Eric summed it up best on his GR blog:

“The robots and such brought out a generation of creatives. Imagine a filmmaker like Joon Ho Bong, who made the Host. Did he watch monster films as a kid? Did he play with toys? Of course he must have. The geeks who collected toys are now in power at creative places, and look at what they’ve brought forward? A new world of creative minds.”

Of course, I eagerly took down notes and snapped a few pics. Enjoy!

-Jeaux Janovsky

The cult hit (and WAY ahead of it’s time) television series “ReBoot” is poised to make a come back. For those that don’t know the show, it was the first 100% CG series on television. It ran from 1994 to 2001. It celebrated all things computers, and is thus a great geek show.

From the site for the new film:

The last television episode of ReBoot aired in November of 2001 with a cliffhanger episode that left viewers wanting more. Through websites and online forums, die-hard fans continued to speculate, predict and in some cases fictionalize the next chapter in the ReBoot story.

Fast forward to 2007. Rainmaker Entertainment teamed with Zeros 2 Heroes Media to give ReBoot fans the power to decide which of five new concepts have the most merit. Over four weeks, thousands of comments, ratings, blog posts and votes poured in.

If you were a fan of the series, head on over to the site and give them your input.

-Floyd Bishop

Well, I was hoping to get the chance to do all the griffin turns, mouthcharts, and expressions before posting again, but things have been too busy. In the meantime, enjoy these “Crabulus-Destroyer of worlds” designs that we just nailed down. From episode #107, “Hard Sell”.

More coming soon!

-Steve and Eric (Homan)

Okay. Inspired by this blog post, I figured I’d ask which four cartoon characters you’d choose for a Mt Rushmore of animation. If you’ve been by the Warner Bros studio here in Burbank, you’ve seen their giant mural/billboard of Bugs, Fred Flintstone, Scooby, and Batman. But which four get your vote? Remember, they can be stars from any time period, TV or feature, as long as they’re animation characters and as long as there are but four.

Go!

– Eric

Here is a touch up of Prikk. After drawing Prikk several times, and more notably the action pose, I thought Prikk needed some angering up! Here’s the new Prikk face! I think it looks much more mature, and angrier. What do you think? I’m still going to use his old mouth, but that will be a special mouth when he’s disgusted and not in the regular sad and happy mouth charts ( I know what you’re thinking! Prikk needs a happy mouth chart? Don’t worry, it’s only when he’s rubbing something in either Jon or Martha’s face and is being very sarcastic and obnoxious.).

Steve

What a Prikk products HERE or HERE! I’d appreciate anyone’s interest in the products to help me fund my low budget ( but not low quality ) “What a Prikk” pilot! It would mean alot to me!

One of the most exciting categories in the Channel Frederator Awards is our “Cartoon of the Year” category. Normally, Cartoon of the Year is the highest rated cartoon on Channel Frederator. The only problem we ran into this year, however, is that we spent a good chunk of the year revising our star-rating system. Hmmm… What’s a producer to do?
Well, based on viewer feedback, we at Channel Frederator can usually get a handle on what our most popular cartoons are. So what we’re doing is offering up this list of 12 of our hottest cartoons. Your job is to e-mail us at vj@channelfrederator.com and tell us which cartoon you think deserves the distinguished award of Cartoon of the Year. You only have until Wednesday June, 4th, so make your voice heard! - Carrie

Here are the contenders. We’re counting on you folks!

Fumi & the Bad Luck Foot

Hot Cross Bunnies

Yeah, You Can Be My Muse

Max and the Pigeon Incident

A Great Big Giant Robot from Outer Space Ate My Homework

Kiwi

Make Mine Shoebox

Trapped In the Drive-Thru

Sub!

FredEx

Art’s Desire

Giant’s Kitchen

One of the most exciting categories in the Channel Frederator Awards is our “Cartoon of the Year” category. Normally, Cartoon of the Year is the highest rated cartoon on Channel Frederator. The only problem we ran into this year, however, is that we spent a good chunk of the year revising our star-rating system. Hmmm… What’s a producer to do?
Well, based on viewer feedback, we at Channel Frederator can usually get a handle on what our most popular cartoons are. So what we’re doing is offering up this list of 12 of our hottest cartoons. Your job is to e-mail us at vj@channelfrederator.com and tell us which cartoon you think deserves the distinguished award of Cartoon of the Year. You only have until Wednesday June, 4th, so make your voice heard! - Carrie

Here are the contenders. We’re counting on you folks!

Fumi & the Bad Luck Foot

Hot Cross Bunnies

Yeah, You Can Be My Muse

Max and the Pigeon Incident

A Great Big Giant Robot from Outer Space Ate My Homework

Kiwi

Make Mine Shoebox

Trapped In the Drive-Thru

Sub!

FredEx

Art’s Desire

Giant’s Kitchen

Check out the LATEST Episode of Refrederator, RIGHT HERE!

Last week we asked you to come up with your own theories on Casper’s demise.
They ranged from weird to surreal, wacky to morbid, psychotic to gore filled grossness!!!
We picked a few theories and gleefully combined them with Jeaux Janovsky’s illustrations of Casper’s many deaths for you.

Daniel Benaymini:
What people don’t know about casper the friendly ghost is that he was richy rich.
He tied one end of a diamond studded gold chain to the railing of the balcony on his mansion, the other end around his neck, and jumped off.

mtovarf
Casper was the first EMO who had the guts to commit suicide…
(by sucking helium balloons)

ptobcracker
Casper died by eating one too many cupcakes.

Jason P
One day,Casper became constipated, and couldn’t go to the bathroom.
Then he died on the toilet.

You guys are weird.
Thanks.

Hey Gang!
Check it.

We got Bosko and his Honey, Honey, in Looney Tunes’ 1932 classic Bosko and Honey.

(Clever title.)

And guess what?
Bosko and Honey go on a picnic.

Again.

Reheating the Classics up for you.
Refrederator
-Jeaux Janovsky

I know you’ve been waiting for it.


Mary J. Hoffman

Nicole Burch

Chris Battle

Shawn

Pedro Eboli

Stephen M. Levinson

Wired

-angie

Hi All You Cartoon Kats and Kittens!!

I’ve been off the Finster Finster Show blog for a while and thought I’d catch up with you. I’m preparing to pitch The Finster Finster Show! as a series and produce a second episode. Meanwhile; I’ve been busy with my Dragmaster dragster and getting to race this summer. The car will be on display here at Nickelodeon with my drag racing art. I’ve also been named Ed “Big Daddy” Roth Rat Fink artist of the year for 2008. Ilene Roth is charge of all the Rat Finky business and is hosting the Rat Fink Reunion in Utah during the first week of June. I’ve enclosed the artwork I did for the event. Enjoy!!! The Finsters and I will talk to you soooon! Take care!! Your Cartoon Pal……..Jeff

Well here it is. The finished drawing of the Prikk in action sketch. I’m going to blow it up as a poster and hang it up in my room! In case anyone else is interested (in the poster, or small sticker version), you can buy it HERE or HERE! I’d appreciate anyone’s interest in the products to help me fund my low budget ( but not low quality ) “What a Prikk” pilot!

Steve

Watch the New Episode Here! 

We bet some of you are still partying while the rest of us are at work suffering through post BBQ hangovers.

Us? Way too much root beer and a HUGE hot dog/hamburger/ketchup/mustard food-fight.

Luckily, we (and you) have this episode of Channel Fred to get you over the post-Memorial Day blues.

And lots of aspirin.

—Boxhead and Roundhead - Safari, submitted by Elliot Cowan
Our favorite Black and White Duo go on a safari! Watch them stare Nature and Death right in the face! Another death defying adventure from Friend of Frederator, Elliot Cowan.

—Str33t, submitted by leBeat
Skateboarding is NOT a crime, but killing cute cartoon creatures while doing so is. In some states at least.

—Hold On, Hold On - Thief, submitted by Catherine Richardson
Animated music video for the band Thief by Catherine Richardson, featuring a cast of furry animal people who discover a magical diamond in the rough.

—The Idiotic Adventures of Philippe and Pierre - Teleportal Trouble, submitted by Dave Schlafman/Pileated Pictures
In perhaps their most poignant piece yet, Phillipe and Pierre, of “The Idiotic Adventures of Phillipe and Pierre” Fame, star in the touching sci-fi drama, Teleportal Trouble.

This Thursday on The Meth Minute 39, Dan Meth takes us for another round at the intergalactic *saloon with a “Live-Action” Space Cowboy Cartoon. *Saloon not featured, I was just trying to come up with something witty for the Meth Minute portion of the newsletter.

Stay Frosty.
- Jeaux Janovsky

Cool Things We’ve been Eyeing on the Web:
OhOh! Divorce in animated tinsletown!!! Lisa Simpson’s voice files for Divorce!!! Gasp!

In the market for a bomb a$$ grill? Try Hip Hop Dentistry with the Rapper Dentist Daddy: Dr. Cunning. Awww Yea.

President’s Day Nightmare.

Soundtrack to this Newsletter: Fun, Filth And Fury! 18 Prime Punk Cuts

Lincoln Peirce, creator of the Random! Cartoon “Super John Doe, Jr”, has a brand new book out starring his comic strip character, Nate Wright, AKA Big Nate. I Smell a Pop Quiz! is available through Lulu.com. Please buy a copy to keep Lincoln distracted until “Super John Doe, Jr” airs on Nick and makes him super famous. The book is 128 pages, so maybe we’ll finally get to see Jenny come around.

– Eric

“Der Fuehrer’s Face”

During World War II, animation was a popular way to rally support for the troops, educate the country about how they could help out with the war effort, and serve as propaganda for the world.

“Daffy-The Commando” 

In addition to traditional length shorts, there were also several interstitial pieces created, such as “Any Bonds Today?”

As you can see, many of these cartoons featured charactures that played upon racial stereotypes… many of which are not politically correct in the eyes of today’s audiences. The big studios have gone to great lengths to keep many such cartoons as hard to find as possible for fear of a backlash. Maybe this is why we don’t see many war cartoons like we used to? There are still a few cartoons that handle such material, but do so in a much different way. For instance, have a look at this fight between Cartman and Saddam (explicit language):

It seems war and cartoons go together in some weird way.  While many main stream studios won’t touch such subject matter with a ten foot pole, we now have YouTube and the internet in general to fill the gap.

-Floyd Bishop 

Amazing illustration made by Kiichi for this month from the New Jenny-San Calendar english site. XJ5 icon created by gashi-gashi. Via the Teenage Roblog.

Four years ago, my partner Emil Rensing suggested I start a blog when I asked him what we should do online for our (Oh Yeah! Cartoons spin off) series My Life as a Teenage Robot. “You’ll learn something,” he said.

Boy was he right. All the Frederator blogs, Channel Frederator, and Next New Networks are all the direct result of the learning, and of course, that’s been in addition to all the great series, movies, and shorts, the great talents have been working on with us during those years.

A particular shout out and thanks should go out to a few folks:

Rob Renzetti created MLaaTR in the first place, inspiring us to create the first blog.

Eric Homan took my challenge to get the thing going, and keep it going.

Scott Peterson, MLaaTR’s story editor, wrote the blog for a couple of years when the rest of us were too scared to try.

Wichobot is the loyal and talented fan who took over the Roblog when the series was over, and has kept it going with our great fans over the last couple of years. It’s better now than we ran it, and proves the complete value of community in the modern, interconnected world.

And, of course, most of all, our loyal fans and readers who have read, suggested, commented, contributed, complained, and supported all of our efforts during the last four years. Without you we would literally be nothing.

Watch Stephen Silver as he draws a couple he saw standing in line at a theater. It’s a great insight into how he goes about creating characters, what he keeps from real life, and what he embellishes. It’s also nice to watch how he uses Autodesk’s Sketchbook Pro software.

-Floyd Bishop

I’ve been in a MAD frame of mind recently because of our friend, producer David Levin, who introduced us all to the magazine’s inner workings on Pulp Secret last year, and brought by a couple of his MADdest friends (editors actually) to talk a few weeks ago. Meeting them put me into the frame of mind to read David Hadju’s The Ten-Cent Plague about the repressive moment in the 1950s when states across America actually tried to censor books (in this case, comic books).

So much of it revolved around the mythology of EC comics’ and MAD’s publisher William Gaines that I started routing around for something to read on the history of MAD. Unfortunately no one’s seen fit to research anything resembling an objective view, so I settled for this 1972 virtually authorized biography. Which made me try and find one of his obituaries that so influenced me on the eve of my joining Hanna-Barbera and the cartoon business full time in June 1992.

Why such an influence? I was new to the cartoon business, never having had anything to do with making anything with characters or stories (I’d produced quite a few animated commercials), and I was scared to death because I had no idea what to do. Then I read one of Gaines’ mythologizing quotes and I started to feel like, even if I couldn’t begin to be the kind of eccentric character he was, maybe I’d have a chance.

“My staff and contributors create the magazine,” Gaines said. “What I create is the atmosphere.”

WALL·E toys are showing up in toy stores everywhere. Today I dropped some money on the U Repair WALL·E figure that you can take apart and reassemble.

Here is a quick video of some of the various WALL·E toys that are available…

For the mid range collector types, the InterAction Talking WALL·E might be a good choice. It seems to be the equevelent of the talking Buzz Lightyear figures that were so popular during the first Toy Story film release.

If you are a really hard core collector, and you have around $190 bucks to spend, you might want to look into this toy…

I usually don’t buy the Pixar toys (I think the last one I picked up prior to my purchase today was a Zurg figure) but I may have to pick up some more WALL·E figures.

-Floyd Bishop 

So here’s the schedule for the production of “What a Prikk”! (yes, I did create it 127 years ago) I’ve given myself a fairly good amount of time for each step of the production. I definitely believe I will finish many of the deadlines early, which will give me more time for the animation, which is planned to be 11 weeks. I’ll post about everything along the way, you can count on that! Sunday my friend Jeff is coming over to record for the voice of the BUMblebee! That will be the final of all the voices, and then I plan to cut the audio for the animatic. You might be wondering who has done the voices of the other characters…Well, not me BUT more on that soon!…I’m just all the background characters.

More to come soon!

Steve

First, we had “Fan Fiction” in which the viewers wrote and animated segments with any Meth Minute character they wanted:
Then I took all the real voice messages we’ve recieved from fans and animated the best bits into the way I imagine the callers.

The fans are more important than ever to the Meth Minute. They know and love the characters, they can quote catchphrases and know all the inside-jokes. We got a Meth Minute Universe here, folks, and you’re all welcome to come inside! I love it!-

Dan

The song “P-Cok” from the cartoon of the same name turned out to be a surprise hit. Download it right now, playa.

-Dan

Take a look.now watch the ORIGINAL:

Now look at the ORIGINAL:

Hey folks, Steve Lambe here! I was recruited by the Erics to start posting up some of the super cool stuff we’re working on daily for Fanboy. Mr. Homan just gave you guys a glimpse in the last post of the final Griffin design we did, so I thought it’d be interesting if I showed a “behind the scenes” on how we arrive at the final designs. I don’t know about you, but I love reading through “art of” books” just to see the evolution of characters. So here we go!

Step One : Read the script!

Knowing who the character is, and what they’re going to be doing is crucial. You don’t want to design a robot with cool tank treads, and then find out later in the script that he has spring loaded copper feet. Time is valuable so doing the research can save you headaches later.

Step two: Rough sketches.

With this being a CG production, there is a limit on new characters, so each character is precious. Eric loves to see exploration, so here’s what two versions I came up with to show him. (Digital sketches in Flash. I’m addicted to the cintiq.)

Step 3. Notes and Revisions.

Once Eric’s seen the sketches, he’ll go over it to suggest any improvements that can be made. Since he’s a badass designer, he usually has buckets of great advice and tweaks that help make the character really sing. (He probably did this in 2 minutes while listening to a voice track , making storyboard notes, and sculpting an ice monster. He’s magic like that.)

Step Four: Cleanup:

Once I get Eric’s notes, I incorporate his feedback into the final cleanup in Flash. After the lineworks done, I export a nice high rez jpeg for approval, and color.

Step Five: The Texture Wizardry of Chris Near.

Once everythings approved, the cleanup is wisked to the desk of texture wizard, Chris Near. Chris is fantastic at taking 2-D designs and bringing them into the third dimension. I heard he hunted down a real griffin with his digital camera just so’s he could use it’s feather textures in the final model.

I guess that brings us fully through Stage One of the design process. Coming soon…..Stage Two: Turnarounds, Mouthcharts, and Expressions. So please stay tuned!

-Steve.

That’s right folks! This is your chance to participate in the Second Annual Channel Frederator Awards.
We’re looking to get your input and feedback for our episodes. So upload a clip, send us an e-mail or call the Channel Frederator hotline at 888-414-8148. Tell us your thoughts on:

Your favorite nominees
Why Cartoons?
Who should be Cartoonist of the Year and why?
or
Just give us a shout and tell us you’re excited for the awards!

We want to make sure that our viewers, the most important aspect of the Channel Frederator Awards, get heard! - Carrie

That’s right folks! This is your chance to participate in the Second Annual Channel Frederator Awards.
We’re looking to get your input and feedback for our episodes. So upload a clip, send us an e-mail or call the Channel Frederator hotline at 888-414-8148. Tell us your thoughts on:

Your favorite nominees
Why Cartoons?
Who should be Cartoonist of the Year and why?
or
Just give us a shout and tell us you’re excited for the awards!

We want to make sure that our viewers, the most important aspect of the Channel Frederator Awards, get heard! - Carrie

This piece is described as: “An animated cartoon debunking the lie of evolution”

“If you believe in Macro Evolution, then you also believe we evolved from a rock”.

That’s a bit of a stretch. I don’t buy into the argument made in the piece but it’s nice to see some animation used to help explain the thoughts behind creationism. It was produced for the website Revolution In Christ.

-Floyd Bishop