Now that the campaign is over and I've caught my breath, I'll be diving back into production and deciding where the money we raised will do the most good. As I mentioned earlier, we won't be able to swing the full month of dedicated production that we had planned, but I'm still confident that we can get the film done in a reasonable amount of time and the money we raised will be a huge help towards making that happen.

Thank you again, and stay tuned for updates!

Use the thumbnails at the bottom to scroll through the pages of Nic's PDF presentation.

And finally, I already had a test render done that worked perfectly for concept #6, so I went ahead and did a mockup of that idea. NOTE! THIS IS NOT THE FINAL POSTER!!! This is just one of the ideas fleshed out so you can get a better sense of how those sketches might translate into reality.

Our primary objective was to get an up-close look at the Mohawk OV-1 which is the basis for our hero plane...

The museum also had a restored  PBY Catalina, which was the inspiration for the top wing that transforms an ordinary Mohawk into a junkyard bi-plane.

Sadly, both of the planes we were most interested in had been restored to mint condition... so it was off to the rest of the museum/boneyard where things were a little less pristine... (Click to enlarge)

It was so cool to see so many old, beat up planes in one place. But I signed up for an airplane GRAVEYARD. This felt more like an airplane retirement home. Fortunately, the scrapyard out back proved to be more my style.

The last order of business was getting textures. We shot about 300 close-up photos of dials, rust, knobs, panels, bullet holes, exposed superstructures... in particular, being able to get inside a few cockpits saved our texture artist Tad Catalano literally weeks of work by not having to detail every switch and instrument by hand... of course it was still an incredible amount of work.

Finally, on our way out we found this little gem tucked away in a corner. Now THAT is what I wanted our planes to look like!!!

So take all of those elements, put them together, and you'll get our hero plane: The Fugly Duckling.

Stay tuned and follow us on Facebook/Twitter because I'll be posting more pics including some images of the big bad plane: The GunBus. And if you haven't visited our IndieGoGo page, check it out and help us put the finishing touches on this awesome film. Thank you!

We're pleased to announce a brand new Animated Short Film Masterclass with Lucas Martell, the writer/director of Pigeon: Impossible! Check out the above intro video and enroll in the course HERE.

In addition to several advanced production techniques, this masterclass will focus on how to create, write, fund, direct, produce and distribute your own animated short film. Several topics will be applicable to any type of animation, but some segments will be specific to CG.

The class will be broken up into 8 sessions at 1 hour each, starting the last week of May. You'll be able to tune in and participate live via streaming, but we'll also record all of the classes in case you can't be online during one of the sessions. The more people who sign up, the better the class can be. So enroll HERE and help us spread the word by reposting the above video!

SYLLABUS:
Because this masterclass is designed to get you to see the animation process as a whole, sessions have been structured around themes rather than the usual linear process of write, design, model, animate… This means that each class will talk about how the central topic of that session fits into every stage of the process: from conception, to the ins and outs of production, all the way to how that topic can help your film find an audience.

• Session 1: Story - This first session will talk about generating ideas, and some essential elements that will help grab your audience's attention and keep them glued to their seats. We'll also cover 3-act structure, a quick intro to screenplay formatting, comedy vs drama, ideal length, and some of the key elements that will help open the door to getting your short made into a feature.
• Session 2: Characters - Here we'll talk about what goes into creating great and memorable characters. We'll touch on not only the writing process, but also character design, rigging, animation, and a few simple decisions that will have a big impact on how easy or difficult it will be to get your film in the can.
• Session 3: World - The world of a film is more than just environments. It's also the tone, look and feel of a film. Its the reason a Wes Anderson film feels so different than a James Cameron film, and it's one of the best ways to elevate a simple story into a mesmerizing work of art. And if you're really into the tech, don't worry. We'll also talk about building really cool environments.
• Session 4: Directing Animation - In addition to discussing a few different directing approaches, we'll talk about directing animators, designing shots, using cuts and pacing to your advantage, sound and music, advanced composition techniques, and ways to make your cameras more cinematic.
• Session 5: Producing Animation - This session will focus on the business side: How to best use your resources, raise funds, build a crew, budget and track production, market and release your film, and just a few legal things that will save your butt when dealing with distributors and movie studios. We'll also cover one of the least talked about, but most important sides of Hollywood: Development.
• Session 6: Software & Pipelines - The most tech-heavy class in the series, this session will go deep into the theory behind various aspects of 3D animation, simulation, and rendering. We'll talk about some great off-the-shelf software, and show how you can use it to make your film look awesome, without having to employ a small army of TD's.
• Session 7: Case Studies - This session will show the principles applied in other productions, give us a chance to tie up loose ends, address some tips and tricks that didn't fit into other sessions, and bring all the topics we've discussed together in one glorious stew of animation goodness. Mmm… stew...
• Session 8: One-On-One Session - The final session is a one-on-one Skype discussion with Lucas Martell, where you can talk about your project, ask more specific questions, review work in progress, or anything else you may want to talk about.

We hope you'll JOIN US!

First up is the short film Caldera... I had the opportunity to see this gorgeous film on the big screen and chat with director Evan Viera. So great that its online for all the world to see!

Next up is Booty Call, a new short from Kenny Roy. I love the super-cartooney animation!

On the totally opposite end of the spectrum, Pixar announced the sequel to Finding Nemo. I have to admit, probably my all-time favorite animated film is Finding Nemo, so I'm glad to see that Andrew Stanton is back on board. Curious to see how all these sequels stack up...

And finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't put a plug in for The OceanMaker, a project of my own that we just launched an IndieGoGo campaign for. Here's a quick intro to the project, plus a little surprise... ;)

You may have heard the rumblings in the last few months... you may have even seen the teaser images on our website. Well today we're proud to give everyone the first real glimpse at our upcoming animated short: "The OceanMaker."

This project has been a dream come true in more ways than one... from the exciting and emotional story, to the stunning visuals, to some revolutionary new production techniques that have turned this film into something truly groundbreaking.

So we invite you to take a look at our brand new IndieGoGo page. If you feel inclined to spread the word or lend your support, we'll of course be forever grateful. But, even just a few minutes to watch the video will be well worth your time, as you'll see not only the teaser trailer, but also a little something else we've had hidden up our sleeve... ;)

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-oceanmaker-animated-short-film

Flamingo Pride from Talking Animals on Vimeo.

I've gotten a lot of questions along the lines of "the short is great, but how do you make any money doing it?" The answer is of course that you don't. People have been trying for decades to make short films profitable, and to be perfectly frank... it just doesn't happen. Please feel free to flood the comments section with objections to this statement. However... let me first try to address most of the examples you are already thinking of...

Serialized Content.

Red vs. Blue... The Guild... Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog...

These are not short films, they're episodic shows similar to TV, only each episode is shorter and designed specifically for the internet. Even Dr. Horrible which is the closest example to a short film still had a total running time of 42 minutes. Definitely NOT a short.

DVD

Let's face it... very few people want to buy a DVD of a short film. I have sold 122 DVDs to date, earning a grand total of $752.86. I am extremely grateful for everyone who bought a DVD, but I'm not really making any money, that goes towards paying off the $20,000 that was spent on the film and the festivals. Oh and did I mention that the film took approximately 10,000 man hour to produce? Yeah... its safe to say that a third world sweat-shop laborer does better.

iTunes.

For years, people said that iTunes would be the key to unlocking the potential of short films. However, there's several problems with the iTunes model...

1. It's nearly impossible to get shorts onto iTunes. You can't just send your short to apple, you have to go through a distributor. When PI was released, the only distributor who had access to iTunes was Shorts International who handles many of the Oscar Nominated shorts. There may have been new distributors that popped up in the last few years, but it's probably not more than a handful.

2. In the event that you do manage to get your short onto iTunes... you are now faced with the problem of how to get people to watch it. Feature films have marketing budgets and compelling trailers, but how do you do a trailer for a 5-6 minute short? I cut a trailer together for Pigeon: Impossible, but it was really just a teaser for people who were already following the project, and a promo piece for festivals to use. Not many people would have actually bought the film because of that trailer.

3. Lets say for the sake of argument that you somehow accomplished the first two. You got your short on iTunes and managed to attract people to the iTunes page. The only way to watch the film is to buy it, because you can't rent short films. Plus, every short I've found on iTunes costs $1.99 and up. You can rent a feature-length movie for the same price. Honestly, how many people are going to buy a 5-minute movie they know very little about when they could instead rent a feature film that they've seen tons of ads for, heard people talking about, and have read the reviews for? These three issues have effectively killed iTunes as a potential distribution model for shorts.

YouTube Partnership Program

This is probably the one that most people consider when they think of making money off of short films. There are tons of examples of people who have made a living off the YouTube partner program... however, all of these are examples of Serialized Content. (see above) They put out 1 or more videos a week, all made for essentially no budget, and have developed a fan base that tunes in for every episode. Their videos seldom hit a million views, but if you have a ton of videos, you can make up for it in volume. However, lets try to apply this to the world of short films. The cheapest, dirtiest example of short filmmaking is the 48-hour film festival. The average team is 15 people, and let's optimistically say that they only work two 8-hour days at the dirt-cheap rate of $10/hour. If you were able to get all of your equipment and locations for free, then every film would still cost $2400 (15 people * 2 days * 8 hours * $10) just to pay everyone for their time.

Now lets look at the revenue generated by the YouTube partnership program. This is a sticky question that is answered in more detail here. Unfortunately, YouTube still specifically forbids partners from revealing what they make off of their videos. Since I am not a partner, (I've been invited, but declined for the reason you'll see in a minute) I can only guess... the most optimistic number seems to be that 1000 views earns $2.50 for a total of $.0025 per view. However, several YouTube partners have said that they don't earn nearly this much per view. Another stat estimated that it would take 2000-3000 views a day to generate $100 in monthly income. That puts the per-view rate at $.0013 ($100 / (2500 views * 30 days)) Lets put together a hypothetical scenario using the best-case numbers...

Say you make a decent short film, 48-hour style at $2400 each. You put it on YouTube and it gets a million views... 1,000,000 views * .0025 = $2500. That means that for your extremely successful, dirt cheap but awesome film, you made a grand total of $100... which lets face it... you'll probably spend feeding everyone while you work your butt off trying to make a decent movie in 48 hours. Now is this possible? Sure... but in order to make a living... you'd have to make at least 2 of these hit films a week. Forever. Not exactly a small order. Plus... you've become the thing we were just discussing... a serialized content provider. There's nothing wrong with this... it IS possible to make a living for the few people that can pull it off. But remember... the name of the game is fast and cheap, which means that the quality will have to take a backseat. What if you want to make something a bit more ambitious? Something that requires a bit more time and money, but will REALLY blow people's socks off?

The answer to that question is simply that you need to look at short films as stepping stones... You won't make your money back directly from the short film, but it could lead to more and better commercial work, possibly a studio career, or as most people hope, the opportunity to do a feature film or TV series.

The world is one of the most important elements.
There's still a major obstacle to overcome when pitching an animated film... and that is WHY does it need to be animated? For a while, a lot of it boiled down to non-human characters, but that's less an issue these days as more and more animations feature stylized humans. However, one thing that remains is that the world needs to be visually arresting, and something unique that we haven't seen before.

The rules of the world have to be established up front.
This is screenwriting 101, but in animation, the rules are even more important since they can vary so drastically between different films. It's all going to be unique to your story, but the further you get from reality, the more you have to spell out what is and isn't possible in this imagined world.

Animation scripts can be more visual.
Writers are often told not to include anything in a script that falls under the responsibilities of the director: camera moves, detailed visual descriptions, etc. Well first off, if you're writing for yourself to direct, like I usually do, this doesn't apply. But more generally, animation is inherently more visual than live action. Some scenes require more elaborate description for them to make sense. There's also a LOT of moments in animation that are played through pantomime actions. While you would never want to tell an actor how to take a drink of water in a script, a visual gag might require a bit more description for the joke to land. The script should still be as lean as possible, but choosing a few moments to add more visual detail can pay off.

Writing for nonhuman characters requires careful forethought.
This is related to the previous note about being more visual, but when you're writing for a non-human character, it helps to think about the physical capabilities and limitations in advance. One thing in particular, is whether the character has hands? In one script I'm working on, a character needed to be able to interact with objects, but didn't have any way to do so. The solution was to invent a robotic device to help him out, and then mention the device often enough that the reader would know whether it was in the scene or not. On a similar note, it helps to drop clues to remind the reader what type of animal/alien/monster a particular character is. You don't have to beat them over the head, but occasionally dropping in a bit more detail like "Bill cups the journal in his tentacles" helps remind the reader that Bill is a 16-legged squid monster from the planet Argon. I've also seen writers include the species in dialogue slug, so that every time Steve the Penguin speaks, you're reminded that Steve is a penguin. Which approach you use comes down more to a personal preference on style.

Hands down, the most important factor to breaking into this very competitive industry comes down to talent. Put bluntly, you need to be GOOD at something. Modeling, rigging, lighting, animation, or a host of others... Personally, I'm a generalist which means I do just about everything... But, I didn't learn it all at once. You have to break it up into bite size chunks. Once you've gotten good at one part of the puzzle, then you can make the decision whether you want to dive deeper into that particular specialization, or branch out into more of a generalist role.

Now, how do you tell if you're good enough? That's a trickier question. The quick answer is that you're never "good enough." One trait you'll find amongst everyone who has worked in this industry for a while, is that they constantly have their sights set higher than where their current skill set lies. Even rock stars at large studios look at their work and pick out all the little things they could have done better. The number one thing that makes someone successful is their ability to see that room for improvement. If you can't see it, you can't grow as an artist.

The bottom line, is that this industry craves good talent. It might seem like there are very few jobs out there, but the higher and further you push your skills, the more opportunities start to open up.

Right after I posted my thoughts on HTTYD, the publicity image I included really caught my eye, specifically how the animator used the pose to lead the audiences' eyes through the frame.

Here's the untouched version:

And here's a version where I've highlighted several of the key lines.

I'll talk more about this concept in an upcoming podcast, but this still is just so perfect in many ways that I had to share. First off, if you're not familiar with this idea, the basic rule of thumb is that you want the lines of your pose to lead the audiences eye towards the most important part of the image. Usually this is the eyes of the main character.

I'd argue that the most prominent line is the one I highlighted in red, and the reason that its so great is that it not only shows off a perfect use of this technique, but a perfect example of how you can break the rule to achieve a certain effect. Notice how Hiccup's right hand isn't pointing towards Toothless's eye? You'd think that would be such an easy way to make that red line even better right? Well, in the context of this shot, its clear that Hiccup is protecting toothless. And guess what happens if we pull out all of those extra "pretty lines" to highlight the two most important ones in the shot?

Boom. Hiccup is now forming a perfect triangle with his body that encompasses Toothless's head. Its a very protective gesture that uses this concept to enhance and re-enforce what the shot is trying to convey.

A huge congrats to whoever did this shot. If anyone does know who did this shot, I'd be very curious to hear if that really was their intent, or if I'm just intellectualizing. Something tells me that you don't just get something that beautiful and simple without a whole lot of planning.

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