* Asterisk Animation *

February 8, 1991 - Some Notes On Walks

2009-11-22T05:56:00.001-05:00

Here are notes from Tissa's talk on walks.

Click to enlarge.

1) Leg is always in the middle of the body
2) Foot is never level
3) Leg is always in an arc
4) Size of leg is always the same

In a walk, one foot is always on the ground.
In a run, one frame where no foot is on the ground.

Whatever your animation is on (ones, twos, etc), move the background on the same exposure.

Run: shorter the amount of drawings the funnier the run.

Huevos

2009-11-21T05:39:00.002-05:00

I can't remember exactly why I wanted to post this.

Oh, the animation. Tissa David animated. Igor Mitrovic assisted. From boards and design by Carlos Aponte.

A great animator can one thing very well. Tissa excels at soft, flowing animation with loose and beautiful lines.

But an even greater animator can do more than one thing.

Here the design is stylized and the movement, although on twos throughout is also stylized.

She told me that she hated animating these characters because they were so "hard" (the line and the angles -opposed to "soft"). Despite the difficulty she had, she did a great job. This is one of my favorites from The Ink Tank.

These Anarchists Mainly Drink Beer

2009-11-20T06:15:00.003-05:00

Once the E-Z post 9/11 credit dried up and very few were willing to drop a million plus on an ugly condo two stops from Manhattan, all the Bloomberg re-zoning East of the Hudson (and all of his horses and men, to boot) couldn't finish all the construction begun in the era of low interest rates.

Two years ago I counted seven (7) construction sites on my direct walk to the L train. All 7 were confined to the three blocks between Borinquen and Metropolitan -formerly zoned as industrial. If we were to expand our count by a single block East to Union Avenue, this span would have recorded an additional four or five building sites.

Today I noticed an "open house" at one nearest to the subway. The construction remains in progress. Only one site is actually housing residents, that opened several months ago and still seems at partial capacity.

The positive to this positive waste (no, not the Pyrrhic victory of desolation over greed) is the permanent reminder wheatpasted to a "post no bills" wall.

I hope these posters for "Persepolis" stay up forever. It's going on two years since they first appeared. The cat walk construction has protected them from the elements, so they remain pretty well preserved.

It happens the film also screened on cable last night.

The film holds up after two years. No screening could compare to the impact of the first, when I watched it sitting next to two children of Iranian parents who's sisters, cousins, aunts, and mothers shared the story. Out of that context it remains a powerful film -and one of the few instances when the animation design exceeds the illustration of the original comic book.

The animation itself is nothing special -on the level of well made TV special, but the gesture drawings are especially effective. An illustrator can often do with one drawing what an animator needs dozens to convey.

Delivery Systems

2009-11-19T07:30:00.014-05:00

It's no secret that budgets have decreased dramatically in the past ten years.

Costs have decreased too, but not nearly as far.

Within this time one of the great cost cutters has been the ability to "post" pieces -at least partially, if not entirely -in house.

TANGENT: When I first heard someone (in this case Shawn Atkins) say they were going to "a post session" I immediately thought there was some sort of wall or pole onto which the film needed to placed. I kept my mouth shut and shortly learned it's full name was "post production" and entailed sitting in dark rooms with men -and occasional women -behind a control board with lots of dials.

In the days when the money flowed, one had to go to a facility which charged, on average $1200/hour to get you film to tape and your tape edited and up to broadcast snuff.

A producer would walk out a little lighter in wallet but laden with digital tapes of all sorts; D1, D2 and the new kid DigiBeta as well as a slew of 3/4 inch Umatics and some VHS for good measure.

Once that master tape was delivered the producer was absolved of any further practical duties. And that master tape was one format 720x486 NTSC (unless it was D1 which uses a square pixel). The job of duplication, distributing, broadcasting, etc fell entirely to the client.

Now much of that post-production work is done in house. Now the animator can deliver directly to the client for broadcast.

Moreover, the delivery standard is now variable. Not simply variable in file formats and codecs (which can be maddeningly unlimited) -variable in shape and size.

Nearly every project has a web component which can require creation of versions in dozens of sizes and compressions.

The upshot is that a job which would formerly end with the FedEx of a master tape can go on for weeks longer with the creation and re-creation of versions. Since there's no hardline delivery as there once was, these costs wind up rolling on. Even when the specs are agreed upon beforehand the pieces can go on for weeks.

Pip Up

2009-11-18T00:13:00.003-05:00

Saw The Private Lives of Pippa Lee finally last night.

There was a special screening at the Landmark Sunshine hosted by Variety and the American Museum of the Moving Image.

As we've written in the several posts on the production, we always felt it was a remarkable script. The film is interesting, but it would hard to top the excitement of the script. It's still a special picture.

It was disappointing that they cut off the projection before we got to our credits (John Dilworth tells me he saw our credits at an Academy screening). They're pushed behind all the drivers and assistants and hairdressers assistants. No belittling their work, or the work of colorists and other technicians -but our contribution was actually filmmaking, albeit brief in screentime. Animation is treated as an afterthought, even though its the equivalent of handing over 30 seconds of a film to another director to make.

Producer Lemore Syvan was on hand to answer questions. The host from Variety did an excellent job interviewing her.

Her story is interesting. She began in journalism. Said she wanted to work in film. Was turned for a job, then called back when no one else would do it for the rate. She was hired as a PA, ended the production as Line Producer. She admits she didn't know anything about the technical aspect of film. She learned on the job. But she's intelligent and clearly had something to offer, because of that she quickly worked her way up the ladder.

The opens in select cities at the end of November. It's an honest, literate film that is full of terrific and honest dialogue. And a decent little sequence we did.

Expectations

2009-11-17T00:05:00.000-05:00

My Dog Tulip screened in Ottawa. I was a little disappointed. This was no Still Life With Animated Dogs or Drawn From Memory -Paul Fierlinger's masterpieces. Where was the personal revelation? Where was that halting voice?

It didn't help that a festival setting caters to quick and the flashy, and that I get particularly waterlogged after two or three days of non-stop screenings.

Film Forum hosted a special screening of the film last night.

The personal revelation may be dialed back in this film, and the narrator may not speak with Fierlinger's accent and his words may be purple but the voice is clearly his.

The format is in line with many of Fierlinger's films -first person narratives.

Going in, I was expecting this film to be something it wasn't. On second viewing, it's a beautiful meditation on love and companionship. I wonder what it will be the third time.

Let Me Write That Again

2009-11-16T05:16:00.003-05:00

Expectations are important in film.

A film must set and meet (and hopefully exceed) expectations in the viewer.

Conversely, pre-conceived expectations in the viewer typically do disservice to the film.

Wes Anderson has been a leading figure in a Cinema of the Leisure Class. His films from "Bottle Rocket" to "Darjeeling Limited" celebrate priviledged parties in a world with little consequences while showcasing the director's really cool record collection. The result -films that are generally enjoyable, though not particularly likable. Like the kid with easy good looks, quick wit, and a nice car who can never remember your name.

"Fantastic Mr. Fox" uses almost all of Anderson's tropes -characters staring blankly into camera, cool pop soundtrack (primarily Beach Boys here), smarter than you leads. Missing is the overcranked slow motion shots -thankfully, (once is cute, twice is pushing it, three times is just garbage).

The technique, a Rankin Bass style stop motion, recalls the backyard home movies budding filmmakers create with their action figures and dolls. The glossy film school gimmicks of "Rushmore" are in the distance.

What does this all add up to? "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is a remarkable achievement. The peculiarities of the technique reign in the director's indulgences. The director's "auteur" vision opens previously uncharted territory for films that use animation.

I've heard some animators complain about Wes Anderson rarely visiting the shooting set. I suspect these are either amateurs or pixel pushing cubicle monkeys with little experience working with creative animators. Animators don't need a director looking over their shoulders eight hours a day, they need a person to tell them what needs to be done and give them the space to do it.

And, really, the proof is in the results. The animation, under the supervision of Mark Gustafson (who, if I recall correctly, was a big cog in the Will Vinton machine) is exceptional. Compare to the overwrought flourishes of "Coraline" which moves around so much but says so little, the idiosyncracies of the animation in "Fantastic Mr. Fox" are not simply hurky-jerky but statements of purpose. The animation reveals truths about the characters.

Let me write that again. In "Fantastic Mr. Fox", the animation reveals truths about the characters.

When the foxes eat, they sit down properly, tuck in their napkins then voraciously devour their food leaving a mess of flotsam and crumbs. It's funny. It's simple, goofy animation. It's a pure gesture that reminds us -they're wild animals.

If he releases another film like this Wes Anderson may vie with Richard Linklater for the best director of animated films working today.

New York Aquarium

2009-11-15T01:53:00.000-05:00

In New York, we're surrounded by water.

We typically don't think about it. Even if you have to cross a bridge twice a day.

Junk, certainly, but what other treasures lurk beneath.

More Gowanus Oysters?

Life and Death

2009-11-14T06:07:00.000-05:00

More from the land of Sesame, but this a far off Mexican land.

Und was bekam den soldaten weib?

A giant purple hand.

We did three of these "wrap arounds" for CTW (I think they were still Children's Television Workshop at the time) in the course of four days -including the weekend.

In Mexico, where "Sesame Street" is produced as a local versioned "Plaza Sesamo", the program airs on a commercial network. The producers wanted to create little bumpers to run before and after the breaks to remind kids to "STOP LEARNING" and then start again once the adverts finished.

We came up with three variations on the same idea. A cat running, it's stopped by a duck with a whistle. A fish swimming, stopped by a snorkeling penguin.

And this dog and giant hand. Or is it a really tiny dog?

I did the sound effects, including the dog and voices (and the fish -blowing through a straw into milk).

Krystof Giersz -a phenomenal animator, truly one of the best I've worked with dig the animation and Helena Uszac took care the art production on their then brand new Toonz system.

During this production, while I was fretting in their kitchen over getting the job done, Helena said to me: "It's only animation, yes we do it for a living, but it's not life and death. No one ever died over a cartoon -they're just not that important."

That bit of advice was perfect for a young producer -something all film and tv producers should keep in mind.

We're Just Living In It

2009-11-13T02:41:00.000-05:00

Looking through "YouTube" for some of Joey Ahlbum's "Elmo's World" clips to help commemorate the show's big birthday. Could only find this one:

We produced the first season of this series at The Ink Tank (13 episodes, the clip above was not one Brian or I worked on). The production was the first time I disputed any production choices there. It was decided these would be animated in Poland, I didn't like that. Then, the production was never acquitted the proper resources to make it work.

Joey, rightfully, decided to just make them all under his own roof after that. The decision paid off -creatively at least.

His work is very specific and idiosyncratic -the way the characters move, the perspectives which turn from normal to rubber extreme to a new angle all in the course of 20 or 30 drawings.

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During the YouTube, encountered this treasure as:

Paul Fierlinger.

Striking how he has the ability to craft a long emotionally involved story just as well as succinct witty pieces like this.

Buddha and the Morning Star

2009-11-12T06:10:00.001-05:00

Veteran's Day

2009-11-11T07:11:00.000-05:00

Hard to imagine in the satellite age of smart bombs, Burger King commissaries and special operations -when two active theaters of war hardly register in the New York Times' "Week In Review" -that someday a great conflagration could well consume us and our colleagues as it did our forefathers 65 years ago.

Above: a photo published in November 2, 1945 "Top Cel", the newsletter of the NY Screen Cartoonists Local 1461. Animators shipped all the way to India. I wonder what action the Animation Unit got up to on the subcontinent. Pictured are: Neil Sessa, William Cookrish, W. O. Field, Joseph Magro, Harold Goddard, Nat Friedland, Reah Ehret, Carmen Eletto.

Many animators were drafted into the Signal Corps. Many more were enlisted into fighting units.

Below is the interior from that newsletter.

It contains a letter from Jack Baldwin in Gushkara, India (presumably the photographer). It describes one of their duties to record the news dictated from the Army News Service in Hawaii.

Also in "The Duffy Bag" section:

NICK POPPA GEORGE, TED BERMAN, ED LEVITTE and CARL FALLBERG are civilians now. Nick is planning to work for Tom Codricks outfit and Fallberg is doing it already. Berman is back at Disney.

Marine GLENN COUCH promoted to S/Sgt.

LT. TOM GOODSON a proud father of a baby girl.

LEO ELLIS in a hospital in Long Island.

Cpl. PERRY ROSOVE visiting NY again?

GEORGE BAKER getting out of the army.

CAPT. BILL MC INTYRE now in Japan.

RUSSELL BALDWIN passing through New York. We are sorry we were unable to see him.

MORRIS GOLLUB out of the service and in New Rochelle with DAN NOONAN.

CAPT. BILL TILTON from the Philippines and in his way home.

A. KEITEL, C. GLENAR and R. STOKES leaving the Anacostia group very soon. PAUL FENNELL is out already, his place as head of the Unit being taken by JOHNNY BURKS.

CHARLES BYRNE from Anacostia in Screen Gems and HENRY BENDER in charge of personnell.

Ex-service men that just started to work at Famous: AL EUGSTER, TOM JOHNSON, G. GERMANETTI.

ZEKE DE GRASSE out of the service and in Hollywood.

The Air Corp assigned LT. GEORGE GIROUX to his home, so he went and got married.

We may not be familiar with most of those names (I only recognize one), but if you were working on the 1942 equivalent of "Blue's Clues" or "L'il Einsteins" one of these men likely would have been in the next cubicle.

Above, an illustration by Dave Tendler (lettering by Joe Goteri) from the 12/10/44 newsletter containing all the NY Union animators in the service. Many recognizable names here -some, like Art Babbitt or Myron Waldman, were Signal Corps. Others, were surely in fighting units.

Process Makes Perfect

2009-11-10T07:29:00.000-05:00

I'm going to be lazy and post something we wrote up a few years ago to help clients understand how animation works. This was prepared specific to an anime styled project, but the essentials are the same.

Feel free to use it (with proper credits).

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New technologies give us a lot of flexibility compared to ten years ago, but ultimately, animation is the same production process as it was for Daffy Duck or Popeye.

In this case, it’ll be closer to Astroboy or Star Blazers –but the idea is the same.

Here are the key steps to the process and what to look for at each point.

Script

Everything stems from this. Any jokes that need tweaking, or characters changed around, or locations altered –this is the place to do it.

There’s always some flexibility with this up until the voice record –which happens before animation begins –but once the track is laid down, any alteration to dialogue involves additional time for talent, audio facilities, voice direction, video edit, and depending on how far into production we are, animators, inbetweeners, trace and painters and compositors.

Storyboard

The storyboard will represent the final film in single frame, black and white drawings.

Here we look for narrative continuity, dynamics, general framing and camera position, shot sequencing and visual pacing.

Along with the storyboard, an “animatic” or “leica reel” is created. This is a simple edit of the single drawings against the voice track.

Character Designs

Character design is a bit like casting for type. The look of the character is defined. At this point we’ll work up several poses of each character. Here is where art direction and knowledge of the medium are critical. The character designer anticipates how the illustration will work in motion and in the context of the narrative environment.

Once we go into production, any changes to design will lead to substantial work. Further, design revisions after this phase invariably compromise the final quality of the picture.

Animation

Traditionally, a drawn animation will have a “pencil test” which serves as a full, sort-of, rough cut. The pencil is line drawing of animation, often double-exposed onto a background. It shows the acting performance of an animated character.

Understanding a pencil test is a learned skill. Most people can’t look at one and make intelligent comments without examining the film for a prolonged period.

Pencil tests have come to be a luxury, as drawn animation is difficult to produce on 21^st Century budgets.

Nevertheless, we do create motion tests throughout production. Considering the simple nature of this animation style, and the necessity to create much of this work digitally many of these motion tests will be in color.

At this point, it is sort of like a rough cut and “good” take in live action. Some acting changes can be made –along the lines of “is there a better read of that line?”. Different angles, additional shots, and other changes are the equivalent of calling a re-shoot in live action. It’s possible, but just like a re-shoot in live action, it requires a great expense of resources.

Rough Cut

By the time the rough cut comes around in animation all the creative decisions have been made. This is a point for fine tuning of edits/transitions/special effects.

What can be done at this point is the same as what you can do in a live action edit when there is no possibility of re-shooting.

Where They Never Heard of Wild Things

2009-11-09T07:08:00.000-05:00

In the spring of 1998 we got a call at The Ink Tank from a U. S. agency that served as an intermediary between Japanese advertising agencies and American production companies.

A Japanese beer was launching a new brand and were planning an animated advertising campaign to go with it.

We were asked to work up some designs. I think they gave us something like $1500.

The concept was this beer was an ancient recipe passed on by Germanic "master brewers".

Maciek Albrecht worked up some characters, some one else I don't remember, but we wanted to come up with the best pitch possible.

R. O. Blechman was in Florida at the time, visiting his mother. I go over the prospectus with him over the phone.

He says, "We should get Maurice Sendak to do it."

"You think he will," I replied. "I didn't think he did advertising."

"Even Woody Allen does commercials in Japan."

So I flip through the rolodex and dial up the Connecticut phone number.

I should note here that "Where The Wild Things Are" was not an important book to me. In fact, I never even heard of it until Tasca Shadix tossed it at me in 1993 during a collegiate visit to Austin.

"Really Rosie", on the other hand, was a film that did have an impact on my young psyche.

More than anything that was likely due to the terrific soundtrack by Carol King.

I'm thinking of starting a "Twitter" account so I can "Tweet" while listening to "Tapestry"

Back to the telephone.

Maurice Sendak, for those who don't know, had his signature reproduced on the Brooklyn Public Library Card. Him Walt Whitman, and two people I don't remember. Maybe Marianne Moore.

He's also a giant amongst illustrators. His mechanics are beyond comparison and his ability to convey emotion in his drawings is practically magic.

So I was a little taken aback when he answered his own phone. Even more when the "voice of god" was disturbing similar to an old Jewish guy from Flatbush.

I laid out the job for him. Told him the whole scope of the project, what his contribution would entail, how we would staff the production (promising him Ed Smith who did a phenomenal job 20 years earlier with a drawing of Sendak's for "Simple Gifts").

He hemmed and hawed. "I'm busy designing sets for Julliard".

"Oh, what production?" Smoozing.

"Hansel and Gretl."

"The Humperdinck," my salemanship was in full force -naming checking 19th Century operas on the beat, "That's a great piece. I'd love to see what you do."

And round robin for the next few minutes. He would think about it.

Then he called back. "I'm sorry, I'm just too busy."

Deflation. I phoned R. O. in Florida.

"Bob, Sendak doesn't want to do it. I've tried everything I know. He's just not interested."

"Give me his number, I'll talk to him."

Five minutes later, R. O. calls back: "Maurice will send something FedEx in the morning. It'll just be line work though."

10 am, FedEx rolls in. He didn't deliver what he said. He claimed he would do a line drawing of the main character and that was it.

In the package were four pages of full watercolors. Beautiful, beautiful illustrations. The character in nearly two dozen poses. And the character, to us, was perfect.

We scan them, and send the disk to our client. This was the age of dial up 56 baud modems and sending 5 MB worth of files to Japan was still a bit of a trick.

A couple days later I ring up our client. "What's up, I thought we had a great presentation. Is there a problem?"

He then confessed that another studio presented nearly 30 designs.

"So," I was a little snippy, "we've given you Maurice Sendak. You can go through one hundred illustrations and not even get close."

He then dropped one of my favorite sentences ever, the one line which could deflate our well constructed pitch: "The client in Japan never heard of Maurice Sendak, and frankly, they just thought his drawings were weird."

February 1991 Animation is Acting

2009-11-08T06:25:00.000-05:00

Here are notes from two of Tissa David's lectures in February of 1991.

Below she goes over some basics (isn't that all there is?).

Stretch (as long as the volume remains the same).

Motion in arcs are important to flowing animation.

Action should be in the clear and very visible.

Don't do two actions at the same time.

Map out a diagram before animating.

Notes on a treadmill walk (walking in place while the background pans), along with notes on a horse's tail.

Has 'Sesame Street' Really Done Any Good?

2009-11-07T04:23:00.000-05:00

As you've probably heard, Sesame Street is celebrating it's 40th Anniversary this week.

While the program's impact on education has been debated, it's influence on animation can not be contested.

Here's an article from an October 1976 "TV Guide" entitled "Has Sesame Street Really Done Any Good?"

A title like that is why I love language. Can there be any other answer than "Of course not! Harumph!"?

Great illustration!

On this last page Joan Ganz Cooney makes a few terrific statements. Here's the pull from the article:

"There have been other proposals that the show be made 'more black', showing a ghetto street as it actually is and helping children cope with the horrors and hazards of their actual lives. 'That would be something called The Poor Children's Hour,' says Mrs. Cooney. 'If someone wants to produce that, fine. I think they'd get maybe five viewers in a city. I think ghetto children have enough of the reality of their neighborhoods. They out to see what a better world might look like.'"

TV Guide, not surprisingly, looks to television to educate children. Clearly that's foolish. What Sesame Street offers is television which, at the very least, doesn't make you dumber.

Fire

2009-11-06T07:31:00.001-05:00

Here are some color models for The Buddha.

This is for a sequence based on Buddha's "Fire Sermon". It's sort of like the Christian "Sermon on the Mount", but instead of a litany of "blessed are's" we're given a list of thing which are ablaze.

Everything, it turns out, is in flames.

Even the oceans. Everything you see, hear, smell, touch or think is on fire.

This sequence is mostly animated by Ed Smith. It's a far cry from "Moonbird".

Then again, not too far, I hope.

Aragones on Animation

2009-11-05T07:56:00.000-05:00

We're doing a series of short films for The Sundance Channel which use footage of Sergio Aragones and Al Jaffee which was shot last year.

This clip won't be included in any of the segments. He talks a little about the animation he has worked on and the different process compared to comics and cartoons.

I couldn't find any of the "Laugh In" segments he referenced, but if we can dig them up I'll post them.

The Worst Book About Animation Ever

2009-11-04T07:32:00.002-05:00

Not to sound too full of complaints, because really, who needs it?

We just got in "Historical Dictionary of: Animation and Cartoons" by Nichola Dobson, part of a series edited by Jon Woronoff for Scarecrow entiled "Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts."

Other volumes include "American Radio Soap Operas", "Japanese Traditional Theater", and "Sacred Music". In this light "Animation" is a broad subject. I'm glad the editor understood the value of the field's inclusion. The value of this volume, however, is minimal.

It's a sad waste of a possibility. Even worse than no volume at all.

Whenever I look I look at an animation history book, I flip to the index and look for "Tissa David", I'll then look for "Blechman". Maybe it's West Coast centric, so I'll see what they say about "Bob Kurtz" or "Fred Wolf" or "Bill Littlejohn". OK, what insights or information do they have on "Frederic Back"? How about "Harry Smith"?

How about "none"? Not even "Bill Melendez". Not even -I shit you not- "Richard Williams".

This book references none of them -and more!

It's a dictionary, insight isn't required. Just a simple: Fierlinger, Paul (1936 - ) director of numerous independent and commercial shorts including "Teeny Little Super Guy" for CTW, "Amby & Dexter" for Nickelodeon and "Drawn From Life" of Oxygen. He is best know for his longer films including "Drawn From Memory", "Still Life With Animated Dogs", "A Room Nearby", and "My Dog Tulip." These are marked by strong narration, often by the animator himself, and deep personal revelations.

There. Was that so hard? No. I did it in two minutes while talking on the phone.

Quizzically, there is an entry for J. J. Sedelmaier Productions. Good for him, I know he works hard to get his name out there. But there's no Curious Pictures, no Passion, no Filmteknarna nor Jonas Odell, no Duck Soup, no Wildbrain nor Colossal.

Does this same series' "Historical Dictionary of African American Theater" exclude Ntozake Shange, Derek Walcott, August Wilson or Suzan-Lori Parks in favor of page after page of Al Jolson and blackface "mammy" shows? Why, then, would the volume on animation -ANIMATION AS ART - exclude dozens of men and women responsible for making this craft an art in favor of entries on Trey Parker and Matt Stone (who's work I love), The Muppet Show, and Jonny Quest?

Yet no Suzan Pitt, no John Canemaker, no William Kentridge.

Nichola Dobson's "Historical Dictionary of Animation and Cartoons" is a terrible and insulting book. A wretched, horrible waste of time. If you come across it in a bookstore, bring it to manager and tell them to ship it back to the publisher. The world would be better if it was never published.

I'm often reminded of the Winsor McCay (he made the book!) quote "Animation is an art. That is how I conceived it. But as I see what you fellows have done with it is making it into a trade. Not an art, but a trade -bad luck." Dictionaries and histories like this will forever relegate the technique of animation to a second rate pornography for children in the eyes of the public.

Tear It All Up!

2009-11-03T07:23:00.000-05:00

Here's the conclusion of our multi-part post on paper tears.

This is what the tear finally looks like.

It was shot with a still camera, photoshopped like mad and ultimately composited. There's a Flash version which simply pops from no rip to fully open for bandwidth sake. The swf file for a banner ad needs to be below 30k so its an exercise in economy.

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While looking for our Infor ad on the Wall Street Journal, I found this article about Disney's new hand drawn feature film, "The Princess and the Frog".

Frog legs, tres cher

The article estimates that the film costs about $150 million to produce and that's in line with CG fare as well.

Pardon my French, but HOLY FRIKKIN COW PEOPLE! I have no doubt that the production value is terrific and infants will love it -but $150,000,000! How much paper are they going through on this project.

That budget, I'll add, does not include overhead or marketing. Are the animators getting paid $1000 a foot? Even so, that's only $8.1 million dollars tops. Considering that I was taught to target 10% - 15%
of a budget for the "lead" animator Disney must be paying upwards of $2000/foot to their guys.

Here's an idea for Disney, if they really want to make a profit, forget these grotesque behemoths and contract 20 films for $7 million apiece. Look at the cash those Tinkerbell movies rake in. Heck even, "The Triplets of Belleville" made $7 million in its modest theatrical release. Can "Brother Bear" claim to have recouped its budget?

Not only are these studios being run by men of questionable creative merit, their business decisions don't even make sense.

Down With Big Erp!

2009-11-02T06:43:00.002-05:00

As advertising is in the throes of a punctuated equilibrium evolutionary period, so is illustration.

The technique of animation -often used in conjunction with illustration in advertising -has experienced fallout from this.

Broadcast commercials have all but disappeared -those that remain are either Flash driven neo-retro (enough already with warmed over 50s style!) or high end graphics styles. The latter is interesting visually, but limited in terms of narrative possibilities, a :30 commercial pretty much represents the creative apex.

For illustration, the magazine and newspaper market has withered. If the rise of the internet was the death knell for illustration, those publications that continue on after the economic collapse as surely the walking dead.

Today a campaign we worked on for Infor "launches". It's running on several websites, including the Wall Street Journal. Additionally we did some components for their microsite.

These are mostly Flash-based as well. Click HERE to see one.

Steve Brodner was approach by PJA in Boston to create print advertising. He suggested making the drawings move. That's essentially what this series of banners amounts to: moving illustration. The work (apart from the constant attention demanded by advertising clients and the arm's length list of web deliverables) is nothing that a tech savvy illustrator couldn't do. The next generation of illustrators, they may lack the broad intellectual scope of David Levine or Richard McGuire or Mirko Ilic but they'll bring a facility with media which will further cut into the traditional advertising client base of the animator.

Subway

2009-11-01T08:31:00.003-05:00

A piece of the daily drive.

Trick or Treat

2009-10-31T07:12:00.000-04:00

Here's what little Canadian boys are girls might find in their sacks tonight.

The Northern version of Popeye candy is a little sharper packages than our Janqui brand: as noted here, although I think I prefer the weird drawing of the U. S. brand.

Dear James

2009-10-30T07:45:00.001-04:00

R. O. Blechman's "The Juggler of Our Lady" is a well written book.

The art, on the other hand, is serviceable at best. It's stiff. Unexpressive.

In his later books, "The Life of Saint Nicholas" and especially "The Book of Jonah" it's just the opposite -the art if fluid, precise and beautiful. The writing, not so much.

His eagle eye became more and more developed over time (even if sometimes it was more like a hurricane's eye), I figure the trade off was a gradual tinning of the ear.

Simon and Schuster has just published "Dear James: Letters to a Young Illustrator".

And, wow, is it a good little book. And well written.

Since Halloween is upon us, we can say it's written in "Dracula" format, all these letters from Blechman's hand to a fictional young illustrator.

Having worked closely with Blechman for many years, I was familiar with most of the anecdotes shared. I've also recounted several of them on many occasions -his presumptive fan letter to Steinberg and its response, his immediately wastebasketing of handpainted Warhol postcards from the 50s, a mutual friend by the aforementioned artist his first camera.

Particularly pleasing to me is how he refutes Rilke's remark to an aspiring poet: "Ask yourself in the most silent of the night: Must I write?" His reply is inspiring (Rilke's position is deflating).

Most impressive is the easy range of literary he shows in this book. It should be handed out to aspiring artists and illustrators the moment they send in their first art school application.

Blechman can cite nearly any illustrator from Hogarth to John Hersey (illustrator) and he makes easy reference to Horace as well as Phillip Roth (with a little John Hersey, novelist, too, I'm sure).

He's not as fluent in animation literature. Film, I think, was always thrilling fling more than deep burning passion for him. His approach to animation was more like an illicit hot trot whereas illustration -that was his wife. Maybe that's why this terrific volume looks like it will be roundly and unjustly ignored by "animation people".

Today's Tom Sawyer

2009-10-29T06:38:00.000-04:00

We just did a quick "talking storybook" which will have limited use -direct to teachers, apparently.

It was done as a favor, essentially, to Steve Brodner's print agent. We have a little over a week to make it (discounting my time in Ottawa) and had to cut the "script" down from seven minutes to three.

I recorded a scratch track -we were adamant they would handle audio. They wound up "liking" my track and using it anyway.

We asked ZEES to work up some art based on some extraordinarily crappy sketches that I did. Something a little 19th Century was the direction.

Jonny A put the motion graphics work together in a day or two, based solely on an annotated script and the voice track.

He then went home and recorded banjo track for the music. I knew the client wouldn't do anything and a piece like this can come to life with music. Listen here.