Back to London Tomorrow

Popping up to the telly studio in London again tomorrow to show my animation to them, which I just added a rough soundtrack to today. Here's hoping they'll like it enough to want to put a real soundtrack on it and air it in the near future. It does feel a lot better with sound effects on it, as I was a little put off by it when it was mute at first. If they don't use it it's not a big deal either: if anything it got me back into animating stuff again for the first time since I finished the first year of Uni with Traffk! I'm actually animating a couple bits at the moment, including a few avatars for DeviantArt, here and here. I'm sure you'll recognise one of them, as it's that "Time Paradox" Space Hopper I posted a GIF of the sketched version of. It's a lot smoother now, though, as I finished it up in flash with a lot more frames.

I'm not sure if I will be able to show any previews of the stop-motion animation until it airs or until they approve/disaprove it, so instead I'll post screens from the movie scene it is based around:

'Everybody Needs to Draw Mickey Once'

Cartoon Brew linked to this site today called Everybody Needs to Draw Mickey Once, and it's a pretty darn good idea, and painfully simple to upload to, although the idea has actually been done before with this DevinatArt club called SuperMickey (although you have to be a member of the website to upload anything there). Some truly bizarre and downright freaky (yet awesome at the same time) art has been posted at both of these sites, and they both prove how iconic Mickey is even when you abstract him to the point some of these artists have. You can still recognise who it is just because those ears of his. While my first and currently only drawing of Mickey Mouse (see above) is hardly what you would call arty or abstract (the poses are drawn directly from the films, for starters), I still posted it that website, for the hell of it.

What's rather co-rinky-dinky about this website popping up today is that I'm actually wearing my only Mickey T-Shirt today. Not one of those ugly souvenir type T-shirts, however, but a Black and White Mickey with an angry face and the text "VINTAGE 1928". In other words, the old-school Mickey Mouse that could kick arse if he wanted to, that only turned up again late into Runaway Brain. Here are some screenshots of the last, and most under-rated, Mickey cartoon ever:


One day I'll have to make a full review of this short. If you haven't seen it yet (and you probably haven't, as those big wigs that run Disney would like you to think it doesn't excist), grab yourself a copy of Mickey Mouse in Living Colour Volume 2 (They still have both volumes on play.com for £6 each!) just for this and Symphony Hour. Most of the other cartoons on the set suck but trust me, it's worth buying it for that money for just those two cartoons. Where else can you find Mickey threatening Donald Duck with a gun?

Lackadaisy

A quick link here to a online comic that has had me hooked the last few days (click the image above), that needs more loving (and more points to it's hit count). It's only just recently been set up, but already it is showing signs of greatness thanks to the incredible drawing skills of it's author Tracy J Bulter, it's cleverly written dialogue and film noir shine. Now, look through all the character design art, read the comics and then imagine this as a traditionally animated feature film quite unlike anything we've ever seen. At least that's what I see when I read through this, I don't know about anybody else.

Film animated. More work to do.

Ok, I finished animating the 50 second thing today, and plan to get the DV footage onto my computer hopefully tomorrow. Turned out to be more difficult to animate than I imagined, and I'm not too sure if I'm all to pleased with it, even though I re-did a few scenes multiple times. A lot of the timing doesn't feel right, so I'm going to have to edit a lot of it in Premiere Pro. If the channel decides to use it, however, they said they would throw whatever money is needed in the post-production to fix the colours/lighting so they are consistent (lighting is the hardest thing to get right in stop motion). Wherever or not the animation will be good enough is another thing. Hopefully, I'll spend the weekend editing it and pop up to London with it some time next week. Sneak peaks will be coming soon.

Just before I'm off..

Here's a fun clip I found at Kotaku, of Tennis geezer Andy Roddick taking on...what else? Pong.

Into Hibernation I go..

...for I finally got my hands on the kit I need to animate my 50 second TV spot! I was supposed to get my mitts on it all Friday, but the guy who was currently using it needed it for just a little longer, but now it’s mine, all mine! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Ahem. I'm not sure how long it will take to make, but I'm gonna use it for some other experiments while I have it all to myself. See you in a couple days, or something.

Uh oh...the censors are out in force again..

As if classic cartoons on TV aren't edited enough as it is..

"Cigarettes will have to be painstakingly painted out of thousands of frames in old favourites like Tom & Jerry and The Flintstones.Animation giant Turner Broadcasting has volunteered to clean up 1,700 of the famous Hanna-Barbera shows.Some date back to the 1940s when smoking was considered fashionable.""CLASSIC cartoons are to be wiped of smoking scenes after regulators ruled they were bad for kids."

The full article was in the paper today, see it online here. After having all black characters wiped out (or even re-coloured and dubbed over) of old cartoons, and the failed attempts to flat out ban Speedy Gonzalez from the air, now they're gonna do a 4kids and attempt to remove all the cigs out of them too, and all because a single soul complained. I suppose this as good time as any to post this then..



While on the subject of classic cartoons, it was Friz Freleng's 100th Birthday yesterday. Make sure to check out the Blog-o-Thon tribrute over at Frisco bay.

Favorite Animation books #1: The 50 Greatest Cartoons

As a sort of new feature here at my Blog, I want to feature some of my favourite books from my collection. I'll start with this long since deleted book by Cartoon Brewer Jerry Beck that was released back in 1994: The 50 greatest Cartoons; as selected by 1000 animation professionals. he book appears to be pretty hard to find nowadays, but I was lucky to find a copy of it in perfect condition at a boot sale of all places. Suffice to say, the front cover made me squeal like a schoolgirl at a boy band concert just from the sight of it. I've done my best to try and scan the cover image here. Unfortunately a bit of the middle got cut off, but it's gives you the idea:

Click to enlarge, dummy!

When the woman selling the book offered me a pound for it, My wallet couldn't have been whipped out of my pocket faster. Who could possibly resist a book featuring Red Hot Riding Hood and Betty Boop dancing together on the cover? Even if the contents of the book were blank, I would have bought it just for the cover image. I want to get a poster print of it.

What really makes this book is the content inside. 50 Classic short films are listed in detail with interviews, commentary and plenty of lovely full colour images, and these include shorts that rarely ever even get a mention in other animation books. These include a total of five Bob Clampett films (The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, Porky in Wackyland, Corny Concerto, Book Revue and Coal Black. Hell yes!), some classic betty boop including Bimbo's Initiation and Snow White (but sadly no Mysterious Mose, my personal Betty Boop favourite), Freleng's Little Red Riding Rabbit, You Ought to be in Pictures, plenty of Chuck Jones and Tex Avery toons, the GOOD Disney shorts (Band Concert, Der Toot Whistle Pluck and Boom, and the Skeleton Dance) and even some independent films like Bambi Meets Godzilla, The Cat Came Back and the Big Snit.

After finding so many books on Disney, it makes a refreshing change to find all these other studios films all in one place like this. I can't agree with every entry in the book of course. UPA's The Tell Tale Heart? Ew. And why only one Tom & Jerry short? At least they picked one of the best ones (Cat Concerto). This is certainly one of my favourite books I own, however, and one I can't seem to put down. As Beck says himself in the book "This volume is a elaborate program for the cartoon festival of my dreams", and hell, someone make it happen or at least get this book re-printed for today's audience, who are not quite as lucky as we were back in the early 90's. Not bad for a quid, eh?

Coming this September...

It's been some time since I've done a radio show. Roughly 2 years, in fact. Well, I'l be back on the (online) air on a station called Catnip Radio, sometime in September (when I have this animation I'm working on sorted) on Sundays. Music I will be playing includes The Polysics, Mad Capsule Markets, The Pillows, Nuclear Rabbit, They Might Be Giants, The Hives, The Zutons, and just about anything I have on my hard dive. I'll start creating jingles and the like at some point, which I may even post on the radioblog at the side there as teasers, but I really need to get started on that animation. For the fun of it, here's some images for previous Radio thingys I did a while back, of my previous shows:

New animation coming soon!

I've finally been given the nod to start working on my 50 second animation for a TV channel, after sending an e-mail of the idea. I don't want to reveal much yet, but the animation will be stop motion, using nothing more than grid paper, felt tips and my hands. Remember that scene in The Fuji's where you see a hand drawing on then screwing up a piece of paper? Well, this animation is going to be a extension on that brief experiment. Oh, and as a requirement of the project, the movie subtlety references a classic scene from a movie. The clue is in the grid paper.

The deadline is the 1st of September, so you'll most likely see it by then, if not a short while after. Once I have a storyboard and Dope sheet sorted, I'll go up to my Uni and ask to borrow the Lunchbox kit I used for The Fuji’s and Rocket Number Nine (I'm sure I've mentioned how much I love that Lunchbox thing before). This should be fun!

I really want one of these. Oh, the experimental animations I would do if I owned one.

Oh, and for those want to see me animate cartoon-y stuff, this animation will be more of an abstract piece. I am going to be practising character animation more soon though, as one of my projects for the new Uni semester is exactly that. I plan to bring Scissor-Man (who needs a new, more interesting name) and that guy with the eye brow (who, on the suggestion by someone at Deviant Art, will name Oscar for now) to life for that. Watch this space!

Tea N Crumpets Birthday Happy for all!

8/8. I launched the website Tea N Crumpets this time last year. Whoo. To celebrate, I've given it a bit of an update, mainly in the illustration section where a few new bits and bobs have been added and replaced. This is the only major update the site has had today, but I have also added a bunch of new hidden treats to the site. I won't tell you where they are, you'll have to find them yourself, haha! I might also add the Afro Lady animatic to the site later today, when I can find a way of squeezing it in.

I did actually want to release a completely new version of the website today, but obversely I've barely even started working on that, let alone finished it. The fact that this original version took about 3 months to finish probably has something to do with it, and it's been improved on many times throughout the last year. he most dramatic changes were to the Animation and Illustration sections, to make them easier to edit. The desktop section also eventually got replaced with this here blog.

Speaking of this blog, the way I've designed it is kind of how I want the new version of the site to look, with that new title font. Instead of little boxes of flash pages, the pages will take over the entire page, sometimes going far downwards and far right to search for things, if that makes any sense. I want to make he site more fun to explore, with loads of random things that don't have any real point, and a lot more interactive stuff, maybe even a few games. I've shown you sketches of how I want to animate the characters before, but here's some of those sketches as animated GIFs, for the fun of it. These would be improved on when drawn in flash, of course, plus they are only the key frames. Some work better than others too, as these were drawn all over one page.

I have way too many toys.

While grabbing that photo of all my animation books, I decided to wobble around the house and take some more snaps, as you do. Now if that wasn't enough to prove that I eat, breathe and sleep animation and video games, then this will:

I still own most of my Fuji’s models. I had to chuck out the ones that kept falling apart.

But animated character don't just evade my room, oh no. You can't turn in this house without spotting one. It's not just me who love to buy toys you know. A lot of this stuff is picked up on the cheap from boot sales, charity shops etc.

This sofa appears to belong to the golden era..

..and this could almost be classed as a Pixar/Stitch shrine of sorts, that is located just behind where I sit with the computer. Oh, and we have many more of those Disney globes where that came from..me mum collects 'em.

..they've even ended up in the garden! I get the feeling we'll probably get kicked out of our own house soon enough for being too live-action.

Mouths! Exciting.

Bought a little mirror the other day, with normal reflection on one side and 2X reflection on the other. Not because I love looking a my ugly mug (although I must admit it's fun looking at all the little imperfections zoomed in like that), but because it will prove handy dandy for animating expressions. This way I won't be just making rubbish guesses. To try it out I had a go at drawing me mouth in various weird expressions. I don't really have little beady eyes and no nose like that, you do understand.

Oh! I just remembered! Tea N Crumpets will be a 1 year old little boy (That uis, 1 year since it was sent out into the online world) this Tuesday. Must prepare something!

There goes my train of thought..

I must of lost about 342 Brain cells on this short animation I found on YouTube by pure accident so far, but I can't stop watching it. All I can tell it that it was (presumably) animated by a guy who goes by the name of Sonicspin on the site, that also has animations of clay people driving about in cars and a 2D animation about mobile phone texts. I can't get enough of that green thing in the bouncy taxi, though. In other news: I wanna know what the music in it's from. It's additive.

And so this post doesn't feel too short, here's another great Polysics video, involving a bloke in a robot costume that acts like a jerk, and gets a way with it, because his a robot dammit. Fantastic*. Posted at Youtube by Kobamaskobamasa (try saying that while drunk, or even try saying it at all).



* Warning: Fantastic is now officialy a word I use far too much in real life and in typing. Beware.

Making Blog topics is so easy now thanks to streaming videos..

London, Books, and Cars

Met up with an previous tutor of mine who now works at a TV studio (best not mention which one, just to be on the safe side) yesterday in London, who has along with a few other guys from my Uni have been given a brief to produce a 50-secound animation. I they like it, they'll air it! Be will even be able to use their sound studio to direct the soundtrack of our pieces! The minor snag is we only have till 1st September to complete an animation each, so I need to come up with some ideas. Still, sounds like fun, and could be a good foot-in-the-door for me, so 'm going to give a shot, especially since I'm not doing a lot else at the moment anyway, unless sitting around playing on my Dreamcast a lot and going shopping for Dreamcast games in various towns counts.

On my travels around these towns last week, however, I did come across a copy of The Art of The Incredibles sitting in the discount area of a The Works shop (That place I got he Tin Toy book from) for a measly £5, which I naturally snapped up. I already have The Art of Finding Nemo from the same series of books, and intend to get the rest of them eventually. My collection of animation books is staring to swamp this shelf right next to me, actually. Not too long ago dad had to strengthen one of the shelf’s from the weight of these things, especially thanks to the monsters that are The Illusion of Life and Fantasia 2000: Visions of Hope. (I've added a photo now.)

Oh, and while I'm posting here, I may as well leave my views on Pixar's Cars, which I saw last Sunday. I certainly enjoyed it even if the concept of a whole world of cars with no humans is a bit had to get my head around (especially when every other Pixar film involved humans relations with Toys, Fish etc. Oh, except A Bugs Life.), and they missed out on a lot of car-related gags they could of done (like maybe a operation that involves opening a cars' bonnet), but after so long of watching the film, you start to forget the rather odd premise and the fact that they’re all cars with massive eye-windows and gaping mouths sticking out and start feeling for the characters, which is something Pixar seem to be so darn good at: you don't see many animated movies from other Hollywood studios that have heart, and the moral of the story wasn't thrashed down your throat at the very last moment *coughoverthehedgecough* and hell, that final race was slightly unpredictable to me (mind you, this is coming from the same person that never saw the twist in Curse of the Were-Rabbit coming). So, the Incredibles was going to be a very hard film to follow-up (if anything, I'll be surprised if they ever do.), but cars is still another great film to add to their so-far faultless string of films. Oh, and it's worth going to see just for the credits scene and Paul newman as the Hudson Hornet alone. Bring on Ratatouille!