Ivan the Unbearable

Your color work is awesome..I am really enjoying it!

Thank you for the info!

Any tips on color work? Some of my characters just don’t seem right with there colors.

If you color them on the computer, you can find which color would look best.

Very nice site!

Im making a story board for the oh yeah cartoons season 4 to try and get my storyboard accepted. The problem is, i live in NY and the studio is in CA, so frederator told me to mail in the storyboard when im done and that they will be happy to look at it. Now lets say my storyboard is good and they accept it, im afriad my work is going to be taken and im not going to get any money at all. What should i do? if anyone can help, please reply!

Life contains a particle of risk.

Should i copyright my work? Thats the only thing i can think of…

Realy good site!

Yup.

Here’s a good link for more info.

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#hsc

The copyright registration will protect your artwork and story. Technically and legally your materials were copyrighted to you the minute you wrote or drew them. Registration would help your case if there is any possiblity of a dispute. Always save mail receipts, business letters, and emails with dates when work was done. You may wish to protect your individual animation characters by registering them as trademarks if they remain in use for business purposes.

From what I can tell, Frederator looks like a reputable outfit.

To clarify what I wrote above, copyrights are not the same as trademarks.

I had emailed Doug Tennapel about it and he said, if i have my signature on it, it shows that i own it. He said they wouldnt risk a 60 million dollar lawsuit when they can just pay me $20,000 for the storyboard. This is a quote from the email i had recieved from Doug. “Stephen,
In America, if you come up with a character, I can’t just take it,
copyright
it and call it mine. Listen to me, THEY…CAN’T…TAKE…YOUR…IDEA. I
do
this for a living and I know what I’m talking about. Your signature on
a
storyboard shows that you own it.”

Im sure he knows what he’s talking about. Plus i’m planning on sending in a video of my pitch becuase im un-able to visit burbank, and i can definitely put the date in that showing that its mine. I would definitely include my signature on all pages of the storyboard… Tell me what you think of that.

Steve

Creating more documention is always a good idea. Doug Tennapel may know of some quick easy judgements that went in the original artist’s favour, but not all court cases work that way. Joe Simon, the co-creator of Captain America, went through decades of legal battles with Marvel Comics until he finally won his claim. If it only costs $30 to register a copyright. It’s probably worth it.

Very interesting blog!

It probably is werth it, but it would take 4-5 months to get copyright. (i think thats what the copyright.gov site said) And by then, im sure all the slots would be filled. Another thing is, that when you pitch the storyboard, they’ll go over parts they need clarification with, and they may ask you to revise the storyboard. On this website Melissa Wolfe said that it may take 4 or 5 times to revise and pitch until they give you the greenlight. So copyrighting it 4-5 times isnt something im too intrested becuase it’ll cost more than $30, and it’ll take MONTHS and MONTHS to officially get it copyright.

Your site is realy very interesting!