Channel Frederator Blog

Channel Frederator on MySpace?

Am I dreaming?
No. You’re just hung over.

myspace.com/channelfrederator

Go there. Sign up. Make friends.

Produced by Tatsunoko Productions, Karas: The Prophecy is an anime direct-to-DVD scheduled for release this April. We were fortunate to get our hands on this short trailer for Channel Frederator. The good folks at distributor Manga Entertainment forwarded to us a brief synopsis of what to expect this spring:

“Tokyo: a city populated by both humans and by ghostly beings. They exist in both dimensions, seen and unseen: spirits, apparitions, demons. The balance between these two dimensions has long been upheld by the city’s guardian raven Karas and his masters. But that balance has been thrown into disarray as Eko, a city magnate and former Karas, has attempted to seize power and bring order to the streets through force. The entity Yurine, who represents the will of the people, stands in his way with her newly risen Karas. Now an ageless battle stretching across both dimensions and killing humans and spirits alike is [Read more…]

I gotta tell you, we here at Channel Frederator were shocked - shocked! - when it was pointed out to us that there was some sort of “message” in Greg Saunders and Tom Neely’s “Brother, Can You Spare a Job?” We had been including it in this week’s episode based on the Harry Reser music alone. Here’s what Tom and Greg have to say about their film:

“Following in the footsteps of the early propaganda cartoons of Disney, Fleischer, and Chuck Jones, this original animated look at the underbelly of Bush’s economy juxtaposes a depression-era style with modern-day political rhetoric. Originally a “Best Animation” finalist in MoveOn.org’s “Bush in 30 Seconds” contest, the commercial spot has been expanded to a seven minute short cartoon that tells the rest of the story of Melvin McBean and his family’s struggle to make ends meet in Bush’s economy. This film was a part of the Official Selection of the Ottawa [Read more…]

Hey everyone. Melissa here to talk about the genius behind “The Touchtone Genius”. When I look for films I’d like to put on Channel Frederator, the ones that stand out the most for me are simple, short, and funny with an interesting point of view. David Baril’s “The Touchtone Genius” covers all of those bases. The fact that I wanted to watch it about 200 times when I first found it wasn’t a bad sign either. When I showed the short to Eric and sang along to: “I am so rich! I have won the lotteryyyyyy!!!” I think he was scared. Okay–so I’m a fan girl. What can I say? The wonderful music Barill animated to was a song he requested from Songs To Wear Pants To The guy who composes on that site will write a song about anything you want. ANYTHING. This was David’s Request (#219 on the site) “Let’s imagine [Read more…]

So last week we gave you “Hell Yes” Version 1. I had spoken to Interscope Records about using a “Hell Yes” video I had seen produced by Anonymous Content featuring robots. In a fortunate mix up, I found out that there were actually two “Hell Yes” videos out there (Interscope ended up sending us Version 1 first). And now we are pleased to bring you Version 2. Evidently, our viewer ESPMagus also knows about this robot version, which was directed by Garth Jennings at Anonymous Content. This video features two of our favorite things: music, and of course, robots.

This morning I was enlightened by blog reader Erronius Monk who pointed out that these robots are not CG like I thought they were, which completely blows me away. Says Erronius Monk, “They’re called QRIOs, so-called “dream robots” developed by Sony Japan as high-tech playthings for children.” Why couldn’t I have grown up in [Read more…]

On our continuous search for Channel Frederator films, I came across a music video for Hell Yes by Beck. They have a couple different remixes of the song, both featuring music videos with completely different and equally outstanding animation. This first one we’re showing is called “Ghettochip Malfunction”, and was directed by Mumbleboy. It was produced by Rubin Mendoza atH.S.I I loved the old school look of it (sort of like a video game from 1981). I contacted Interscope Records to see if podcasting the video might be up Beck’s ally, and lucky us, it was. For those of you who aren’t too familiar with Beck check him out. Seriously. Hell Yes is available on the album Guerolito. Good stuff.

Melissa

You’ve heard the story a million times. Impassioned director pitches his heart out. Idiot executvie doesn’t get it and passes. Another pitch, and the moron passes again.

Well, in the case of Dave Wasson’s amazing mini-series Max (he made two films) yours truly is the idiot executive. If it hadn’t been for a big push by Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter’s Laboratory & Samurai Jack) I would not have sat down with Dave to figure out why I’d been so dumb in the first place.

As you can see in this week’s episode of Channel Frederator. What a fantastic picture. Sublime, hilarious, beautifully designed, amazingly directed. Max & his Special Problem has got it all.

Just ask me. I’m the moron.

–Fred

PS: You can watch all the Channel Frederator episodes by subscribing to the series over at iTunes or by downloading them from our website.

“Cartoons feel right at home on an iPod. Channel Frederator assembles slick, Adult Swim-style collections of user-submitted shorts into 12-to-15-minute podcasts. The toons run the gamut of animation styles, from Flash to pencil to Pixar (check Episode 1’s In the Rough for some truly dazzling work), making Frederator essential viewing for fans of the form.”

Thank you PC Magazine.

You may have noticed an extra episode in your Channel Frederator free subscription queue. The Wubbcast is the world’s first pre-school video podcast, for kids under six years old. (It’s about time.) We’re proud to be a part of this venture and introduce it to our loyal viewers.

Some background: Frederator Studios has a joint venture called Bolder Media for Boys & Girls, with Susan Miller of The Mixed Media Group, focusing entirely on pre-school books and programming. Our first TV series is called Wow!Wow!Wubbzy!, debuting on Nick Jr. in September. It’s created by the wonderful Bob Boyle, the producer and art director of The Fairly Oddparents and Danny Phantom, and an Oh Yeah! Cartoons alumnus. Our great production partner on the show is IDT Entertainment.

The Wubbcast will be a weekly video podcast featuring a music video from the show, and other submitted animated films from around the world, all of them just right for a young [Read more…]

“What?! Bill Plympton made what?”

You heard it right. Bill Plympton, arguably the most important indie animator of our age, enters the complete mainstream with his interpretation of one of the great hip-hop artists of the age, Kanye West with Maroon 5’s Adam Levine, from Kanye’s CD Late Registration. I’m not really sure the story behind there being two videos for this track, but aren’t we lucky that Bill did one of them?

Personally, one of the many things I admire about Bill’s work is the resurrection of the classic cartoon morphing of the images. He’s brought back a lot of Felix the Cat -metaphorically speaking only, of course- in a context that couldn’t be more contemporary.

Thanks for the film Bill. Thanks for the permission Kanye. As usual, we’ll be looking forward to more.

[Read more…]