H.G. > F.G.? (and also some other news.)

So I just completed my first week over at Disney TV Animation. I'm working in the Frank G. Wells building, which seems to me just one initial off from being a far more fantastical and perilous workplace. Despite that, I'm in the development division, working on storyboards for show pilots created for the new XD channel. It's pretty fun, but I still don't know what the "XD" stands for. Rest assured, finding that out will be my first priority for week #2.

In other news, the short I pitched at Cartoon Network has been moved out of the Cartoonstitute shorts program and into "regular" development. I can't really comment on this further, because I have yet to meet with the new stewards of my show, but the only thing I know with any certainty is The Sloppy Seconds will not be made into a short. At least not in its current form.

I do hope the Cartoonstitute continues, though. The first batch of shorts produced both in-house and overseas was screened for the Flash crew recently, and word is they're looking good. Pringle and the crew are running a clinic on spinning straw into gold over there, raising the bar on what's possible with Flash. There's a wide variety of art direction among the shorts, and it seems Pringle is translating that into a variety of animation styles as well. It's cool to see them stretch out and show off where they can take things.

Rubber Scars returns

Anthony is bringing Rubber Scars back. The original podcast consisted of odd moments recounted by emotionless synthesized voices as though the speakers were unsettled by their memories, like robot radio theater of hypnogogic hallucinations. You probably missed it, which is too bad. The good news is, he's rebooting it in blog format. Check it here.

It Lives…

My Cartoonstitute™ storyboard pitch was today.

I stood before a Crush or Clobber or whatever the collective term for Development Executive is and pitched my short, The Sloppy Seconds, without once having to summon my mastery of jazz hands. I got a lot of laughs, which seemed to coincide with the jokes and gags in the board and not from my haircut or anything, so that was good.

The verdict? I got a solid Non-No, which means I haven't been cleared to go straight into production yet, but I also haven't been shut down. I've also apparently broken a short streak of flat-out "No's", so I'll take that as a positive.

Thanks to everyone who crossed their fingers for me and a special shout-out goes to the guy who sacrificed the chicken. I do appreciate it.

Subversion City

Dear Interwebs, that previous description (now deleted) about my kiddy cartoon in-the-works being "like The Tin Drum, only more upsetting" was a joke. I mean, c'mon people, really?

But regardless, it has been brought to my attention that the speculative echo chamber of the blogospere may be starting to cement this little red herring into fact. So just for the record, my cartoon will be completely devoid of characters willing themselves into Dwarfism, Polish street thugs, percussion instruments, or any traces of the Third Reich. Although at least three of those elements do sound like a winning combination for capturing that tender and elusive 6-12 y.o. demographic.

Anyways, sorry for misleading anyone earlier. I'll post some info about the short as soon as I have something postable. Until then, I think I can safely reveal that it's tentatively titled The Sloppy Seconds. No joking.

In development

Hey, here's a brief update. The idea I pitched to the shorts program at Cartoon Network (The Cartoonstitute) was given the go-ahead to move on to storyboards, which I've just completed. So, next up is the board pitch, which is currently scheduled for an unspecified time in the near future. If that goes well and doesn't conclude with me falling through the trap door in the floor of development's conference room, then I actually get to direct my own one-off short cartoon at the studio! Purty cool.

♪♫ Meet The New Bike ♪♫

Thanks to Benson and the crew at Jones Bicycle, my chainline issues are resolved, so my Xtracycle project is no longer a project. It's for reals.
VegOil wagon, you've just been put on notice.

Automotive transport will soon pass into quaint obsolescence, joining the Geneva Convention and United States Constitution. And my money's on longtail bicycles emerging as the official vehicle of The Outquisition. Are you ready? Meet me at Bartertown!

M @ BCAM

We took the little guy to BCAM at LACMA over the weekend. He liked both Hirst & Koons (whod've guessed?) but running around inside Serra's Band was by far his favorite. He may have liked it even more than riding in the elevators.

One Less

Yesterday we wrapped up animation on the sixth and final season of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Three-and-a-half years is the longest I've worked on one project, and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to work with a group of such fun and talented individuals.

The dissolution of the crew is unfortunate in itself, but what's really lamentable is how there are very few shows that are produced from start to finish, 100% in the U.S., with zero outsourcing. Foster's ending means there is now one less. Hopefully the trend will swing the other way again before too long,

It's a Wrap. A carne picante wrap con queso.

UPDATE: I just got word that this will be featured on Channel Frederator starting on Tuesday August 26. Please check it out, and don't forget to give it a high rating! YouTube version is here.

Dripping With Pathos

Vocal chameleon Eric Bauza put his golden pipes through their paces today as we recorded the voiceover for the film. It went very well. Not only is he a true pro, nailing multiple takes, but he's dang funny to boot. I had to stifle outbursts of laughter while he was performing. I really hope the recording didn't pick any of it up, but if you hear any muffled guttural noises in the film, that would be yours truly trying not to yuk it up on a hot mic. We recorded in the studio behind his house, which is essentially a giant solar oven with a really nice microphone setup. And man, was it HOT! But Eric graciously went above and beyond what I asked of him, and I think the film is going to be much better for it. Thanks, Eric.

SIGGRAPHIN'

We all live with unanswered questions. For some, it is how to make the world a better place. For others, it is a gnawing ponderance on the nature of human existence. Still others lie awake nights, obsessing over Flash's Increasingly Vital Role in Games, Online Entertainment, Art, and Academia. Well, if you count yourself as someone who falls into that last group, you're in luck! I will be part of a tribunal discussion panel assembled to examine this very topic, which is part of SIGGRAPH's exhibition program this year. Other people sitting behind the long table with me will be Evan Spiridellis, Ken Martin, Ashley Postlewaite, and Dave Markowitz, all highly esteemed experts in their fields. Rita Street will be moderating, preferably lobbing me some softballs. I will also be doing a technical breakdown of my thesis film, probably using portions of this blog as visual aid. So please, please come see us and absolve your soul of this crushing, crushing weight!

Picture? . . . . . . Locked!

Here's what my sound collaborators get to deal with:




Whoa, this cartoon has so much pink and green in it that John K would probably rip me a new one.

Color Cards

Close-ups of shifters 'n' throttles...

Some animation

So here's a taste of the animation. There's still some things to be done, like fixing some BG's and adding candy jiggle layers and stuff, and of course some audio to replace the metronome, but the timing is pretty much done.

Mission: Accomplished

I've graduated. I'm certain that I have. Last Friday, I met with the Thesis committee and showed my assembly reel, which has the character animation completed, but lacks the tight editing and effects layers that will imbue the film with a nice lustrous sheen. And sound, it needs some sound, but I've got that angle covered.

So despite most of my presentation being fraught with technical snafus, it went very well. Well enough that at the end, I filled out a form and was warmly congratulated by all present. It was very nice, but also something like running a marathon for so long that when you cross the finish line, you continue running past the cheering crowds and out of sight, with the fat ornamental finish line ribbon trailing from your face.

I'll post some BGs when I get a moment, and also some clips when I get the effects dropped in. Keep checking.

Also doing some writing...

It's a walking bomb that can throw a punch, and Tokyo SWAT uses it to kick beaucoup kaiju ketsu.
Smart Bomb began as a pitch for an action show where I work at CNS, and now as Sumato Bakudan, it will be a mini-series independently published by Standalone Comics. Shawn Toshikian and I just finished writing Volume One. Jeff Wamester is doing the art, with Joe Suitor designing the monsters. Check the Standalone webpage and blog for status updates. It's going to be chou sugoi.

Star Wars by Saul Bass

Just saw this on the BoingBoing.



Very nice.

You Call This a Crime Scene?

By this point, you may have noticed that pretty much everything is lacking outlines. This was a decision I made before I started animating, which grew out of a test to see if I could animate characters without drawing and inking and coloring. Instead, I'm animating layers of colored shapes that make up the characters, if that makes sense.

I decided to do it this way for two reasons. First, it can be a time-saver. Not having outlines means eliminating a cleanup/inking stage, and sort of eliminates a coloring stage as well.

Secondly, I'm not crazy about Flash's brushes, so getting decent lines means going back and forth to Illustrator, which isn't worth the hassle, especially since cut and paste between Flash and Illo has been broken since 2004.

But I'm kind of missing having outlines. I still have them as a first step, drawing stuff out in Illustrator:



I'll use that one Illustrator drawing as a starting point for when I get into Flash, so there is a little cleanup, but usually just once per scene, not for every extreme or key pose. Here's what this guy looks like all Flashified:



I can live with no outlines this time around. But having no inlines means I have to find some other way to define where the character overlaps itself. I thought I might avoid overlap all together by forcing myself to have strong silhouettes for every pose, but it's a lot harder to not overlap once stuff starts moving. My solution is to separate overlaps with gradients. It looks okay in still images, but in motion, it looks like everyone has dirty forearms.

So, back to animating by building up layers of shapes. It's really not any different than what you would do by roughing things out on paper. I still do the big masses first and layer on top until I get to the secondary action passes. Here's a wireframe version of a grappling sequence. Click on the thumbnail to see the animated GIF:


Each colored outline is a separate layer. Almost everything is shape-tweened, except for the hands and heads, which are symbols. The luchador's face appears to hang off his head because it's masked off except for the top corner of his brow. It looks correct when it's rendered.

Smoke & Pixels

So I want the exhaust trails for the vehicles in this film to be scribble lines that expand or "bloom" the longer they hang in the air. I figured I'd try to implement Maya's Paint Effects for this.

In order to be truly lazy, I found a way to have the paint strokes derived from curves that trace through particles affected by a dynamic field. Geez, did I really just write that?

It is a bigger pain than it sounds like, but now that all the work on the front end is done, I have a way to generate a variety of scribble styles and and shapes with relatively little effort.


Firstly, make lots of dots.


Then, connect them.



Add texture, and call it done.
Also handy for endorsing checks.


Big Thanks to the indestructible Brian Coffee for his Melscripting help!

Animation Nearing Completion

So I'm plugging away to get this film wrapped up in the next couple months. The animation for the shots is nearly complete, and then it's moving on to effects and BGs. Oh, the BGs.

Anyways, here's a pre-grappling showdown between our lucahdor protagonist and a hot rod UFO-flying goon, complete with amped-up metronome track.

And yeah, it's on 3's. Is that a problem?