Here is my first short of the year The Ditching of 2008. My plan is to do one short a month for the year, for a total of 12. There is no plan for stories, no continuity, no set style, no nothing. I’ve got some ideas for next month’s short, but beyond that, it’s wide open.
Let me know what you think!
I watched the show today. What an anticlimactic airing! The show was on at 10:30 AM here on the west coast, sandwiched between “Making Fiends” (great show, by the way) and an episode of “Jimmy Neutron”.
This is almost like a case study for the failings of network animation and the rise of internet cartoons. Why wait for years for your cartoons to air, when you can distribute on the internet instantly? There are more and more people doing this, and I can totally see why. People like Amy Winfrey, Dan Meth, and Odd Todd have all done great things in animation, thanks in no small part to the internet. How many cartoons has Channel Frederator shown since 2005? Way more than the three that finally aired today.
In my opinion, television animation is in a similar place that theatrical shorts were in the 1950’s. The audience was getting smaller, costs were getting higher, [Read more…]
After showing someone some character animation I have been working on, I was asked “Where do you get your ideas?”
My answer was “all over the place”.
Jillian Tamaki had a recent post where she talks a bit about the process she goes through in regards to idea generation. I thought it might be worthwhile to talk a bit about what goes through my head when approaching a character for the first time.
When I get a character to work on that has no animation done before hand, it’s exciting and scary all at the same time. You are defining this character, and making it appear that he/she/it is living for themselves. My process is basically the same as Ollie Johnston’s “What is the character thinking, and why does he feel that way?” Also, “Would anyone other than your mother want to watch it?”
While many animators tend to draw from literary sources, either comic, [Read more…]
Remember the writer’s strike? During the strike, and then continuing on after it was resolved, I helped out with a thing called Strike TV. Strike TV is a collection of projects, written by WGA writers, and performed, acted, animated, and filmed by mostly volunteers, myself included. I was a part of three projects for Strike TV: “The Academy” by Michael Tabb, “Sketchtoons” by Charles Horn, and “The Write Environment” by Jeffrey Berman. The projects were a lot of fun, and I got to work with many great people, all the while expanding contacts in and around Hollywood. It was a great experience, and hopefully people tune in and enjoy the programs. Strike TV had its soft launch today, and will fully launch later this month. Keep watching for great programs featuring people from your favorite movies and shows.
I did this video a while ago (last Halloween), but I really enjoy seeing these videos. If you’ve got one, let me know!
