Channel Frederator Blog

This music video has a catchy tune, highly stylized Flash animation, and one of the best lines in history: “You say ‘tomato’, I say ‘video game’”.

Animated by commercial production agency Ghostbot, the music video was composed by Five Iron Frenzy whose off beat lyrics and quirky sensibility really make this a video you can’t help but get sucked into.

Why does the wizard need food badly? Channel Frederator viewer Bartus enlightens us: “Wizard needs food badly is a reference to NetHack- an old, but really cool game! The guy is saying he needs his gaming fix! I love it!”

Ghostbot was formed in 2004 by Alan Lau, Roque Ballesteros, and Brad Rau. Collectively, they have collaborated with award-winning studios such as Walt Disney Television, Nickelodeon, (C)olossal Pictures, Curious Pictures, Wild Brain, Vinton Studios, Mondo Media, Madhouse, and Leap Frog.

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If there’s one thing that makes Dan Danger run screaming like a little girl, it’s…danger. To quote Dan, “I am NOT going to my happy place. I am NOT going to Bunny Land!!”

This short is hysterical. Which isn’t surprising, because it was created by “Fairly OddParents” creatorButch Hartman and former FOP Producer, Steve Marmel. It was produced as a Frederator short for “Oh Yeah! Cartoons” in 1998.

Says Butch Hartman, “When we (Steve Marmel and Myself) decided to create a new action hero, we thought it would be funny if he was terrified of action. Plus, you can’t spell “Danger” without “Dan”!” How right you are, Butch.

Thanks so much for the great work!!

Melissa

directement de l’interweb

That’s it. I’m done. I’m moving to France. have you seen the fantastical animation being pumped out of there? No?
Well then check out one of the films done for Annecy, it’s called Pyrats

enjoy.

-Lee

Michael Fallik, creator of “Heart Collector”, wrote such an intriguing email about his creative process, I couldn’t have said it any better myself. So I won’t try.

Says Fallik, “I wrote the Heart Collector as my final project on my third year in Camera Obscura School of Arts. The main inspiration came from a song that I heard called ‘The Heart Collector‘ by the band Nevermore.
The contents of the song (as much as I love it) have nothing to do with the film; when I heard the title - an image popped into my head. This was an image of a tall skinny man wearing a cloak and a straw hat who comes out of a fire place and collects hearts in jars. I took this image and developed it into a story about a man that discovers emotions for the first time, but finds them to be a “double-edged sword”.

Two [Read more…]

From the moment we started watching “Engrish Bwudd”, we were captivated by Lindsay Kovnat’s style, point of view, and creepy yet fun animation. The song and animation perfectly compliment each other.

Says Kovnat, “For this piece, I was asked to create a music video short after someone related to the Philadelphia-based band Manman saw my first film, “Welcome Home Ugly.”Fellow animator Kent Boersma was the co-director. Kent and I did about equal amounts of work, giving artist Adam Cusack parts to animate on as well.

The song is a narrative about a girl and guy who are in love. The guy happens to be a really uncivilized woodland guy. The girl is a sophisticated lady and her father is a very rich egg-man who resides in a Barbie Dream House. There is a stop motion giant who threads the scenes together in a Fee Fi Fo Fum style. Again, I used various animation techniques [Read more…]

Straight from the Interweb!

What can be said about Anna & Bella. In 1984 it got 2nd prize at the Ottawa International Animation Festival and in 1986 it won an Oscar. Now its on YouTube for the world to see.

Please enjoy it, it’s a touching good story.

-Lee

An intense meeting takes place in a bookmark factory. A meeting that will change the lives of the employees forever…a meeting that will ensure no water cooler is left empty…

Alan Saunders, whose film “Charlie Horse” was just featured on Episode 33″, has this to say about “B&W Drama”: “My friend John Grkovic sometimes does something that can sometimes almost be considered freestyle rapping. and he once, several years ago, stumbled upon a rhyme about a bookmark factory. The thought of a bookmark factory instantly struck me as being a pretty great place to set a story. and I had always wanted to have a really ridiculous office-based witch hunt. So, I decided to merge the two. and I think I ended up using a watercooler because it made for a more interesting title then, say, “the stapler” or “the copy machine.”

Thanks Alan! We love the film.

Melissa

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Dinosaur Ernie gets grilled by a tough cop at the station when he tries to explain just how the dinosaurs became extinct. This terrific short film was done by Loose Moose, a fine filmmaking establishment in London. Check out their website, and shoot a moose to see what other films are in their chache.

Loose Moose In Charge, Ken Lidster, had this to say about Interrogating Erinie: “At the time (we made this film) Scientists were bringing forward the theory the Dinosaurs died from a meteorite and not from an ice age. This I thought was kind of humorous as there had already been several other theories and this brought up the idea that only the Dinosaurs knew for real so you would need to get the truth out of them. Our company Loose Moose was moving from model animation into a C.G. model mixture so needed a project to help [Read more…]

This fabulously dark and equally humorous short promo for “The Toll” by Hatchling made me wanting more! The way that the studio was able to give such a documentary feel to the piece, and also the way they were able to capture the personality of the Troll was exceptional.

It was Marc Dole, CEO of Hatchling, and producer on the project, who suggested the common film making errors that plague first time filmmakers, such as bad camera moves, focus problems, and sounds being off mike. Lighting design was set up by artist Robert Cole to mimic the natural lighting of the troll’s hut, along with one studio light that Harvey brought along. The troll himself was modeled and rigged by Technical Director Brian Day. The troll consists of 25,000 polygons rigged with over 170 controls, most of which reside in his face. Rather than using pre-sculpted morph targets to animate the troll’s [Read more…]

Straight From the Interweb!

Unicorn vs. Narwhal is a pencil test film that I found on YouTube. I can’t believe this is only a third year film at CalArts! sooo goood!

But it’s so much more then a pencil test, it’s an aquatic-unicorn mini- epic in the sky!

-Lee