The Homebaked Films Blog

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 21:36:00 +0000

New Jersey Dad Dazzles Kids with Jedi (and Animation) Skills Created by IdeaRocket

Looking for an Academic Copy Editor?

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 21:37:00 +0000

This is the Academic Copy Editor for you.

Bye bye blogspot!

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:40:00 +0000

I've got a new WordPress blog over at my site, so reset your bookmarks/RSS feeds to it! This site will no longer be updated.

The World on Spin Cycle

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:43:00 +0000

The very talented (and very nice) Andy Kennedy, who I used to work with at Animation Collective, is out with a new stop-motion short that I think you'll love. Don't miss his 'making of' material, which makes clear what a herculean effort this was. This is a new medium for Andy, who usually works in Flash -- seems to me he's a natural!

A Little Animation Nerdery

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 13:49:00 +0000

Usually when I teach the walk cycle I have the highest point of the arm swing come at the heel-toe position. I recently took a look at Richard Williams, however, and I noticed that he has the highest point of the arm swing come at the landing position.

Oh no. Had I been teaching it wrong all this time? This didn't seem right, from observation. So what did I do? The same thing animators have been doing for decades... I went to Edward Muybridge for reference. Muybridge was a 19th century photographer and flagrant genius who became fascinated by human and animal motion, and documented it in serial photography.

As you can see, the highest point of the arm swing here comes at the heel-toe. And it isn't a fluke either... on other Muybridge plates you see the same thing. Is there some kind of consensus among animators that the arm swing should come later? Apparently not. Here's Preston Blair:

So is Richard Williams just wrong? I don't think so. I think he's trying to improve on reality. It's a subtle difference, and both walks seem natural enough, but by overlapping the actions the Williams walk seem a little more integrated, a little more pleasing to the eye. The walk has less of that nordic track feel.

An Ordinary Joe

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Sun, 30 May 2010 14:47:00 +0000

Here is a style frame from a current project, still very much in progress. The style is a bit of a contradiction: very flat, textured shapes with shading. I suppose you could call it a frieze or relief style. Here's a turnaround of the character, sans texture.

A Magical Education

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 19:33:00 +0000

This was a fun job that I did in a couple of weeks. The client, Babbage Net School, wanted a web video to market its educational services. I pitched them this concept and they liked it; it went into production with only minor modifications. The character of 'the Kid' was meant to appeal to both parents and children. He was created in Illustrator and brought into After Effects, where I combined him with a photo-montage style background. We were lucky to get Dylan Sanchez as the voice-over; he has just the right knowledgeable-friend tone for this. The music is library-licensed, but I like it because it reminds me of those Charlie Brown TV special jazz scores that I loved. My favorite part of the spot is, of course, the Rube Goldberg style shed featured in the photo above. Here is the full clip.

Oh, and Merry Xmas to all!

A Teaching Foray

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:57:00 +0000

I just finished teaching a 4-week intensive workshop in 3D animation at the New York Film Academy. The students made a short film using Maya, After Effects, and Final Cut Pro. As a first-time teaching experience, it was certainly a jump into the deep-end of the pool. For the first two weeks I was in front of the class from 9AM to 5PM; any waking time spent not teaching was dedicated to prepping for the next day. The last two weeks eased off somewhat, as the students worked on their projects and I provided assistance and counsel, with an occasional review lecture thrown in. It was a demanding but very rewarding experience.

Here's graduation day.

Xmas Cheer (a little early)

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:26:00 +0000

Fox and Aniboom are having a competition for holiday animations. The winner gets a development deal with Fox. At least one entry is pitch perfect. Whoever you are, monkeyboy... great comedic writing.

Under the Cleavers' Sink

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 21:08:00 +0000

Leo Vainshtein from Beyond Compare Innovations called me up about a month ago wanting a 3D demo for his new hardware product, but he wanted it warmed up with a little flash character animation. His site has a bit of a retro feel, so we decided to follow up on that.

Perhaps because Ed McMahon had just passed away, it occurred to me that an old Tonight Show-style intro might be in keeping with the retro theme. I had also just seen this very funny rant on Vimeo about fifties-era signage, so I looked up a lot of reference and came up with a style frame for the opening:

Leo already had a (patchy) character design that he wanted to build on. The incomparable Natalie Butler took it and cleaned it up nicely, again taking care to view period reference. You can see the before and after designs here:

Here's the final product. I did the 3D animation and Natalie did the flash animation. C.L. Andrews and Brian Roberts provided the voices. Thanks everyone!

Plato's Retreat

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:50:00 +0000

eRepublik is a game website. Imagine if Risk were a massive multi-player online game, or if Second Life had a political-military angle.

I recently produced a tutorial for the site and had quite a bit of fun doing it. Here are the character animation segments. (If you want to see the whole thing, here it is.) I did the motion graphics and compositing, the conspicuously talented Patrick Tuorto did the character adaption and flash animation, and the estimable Nestor Taylor painted the background. Kudos (and thanks) to both.

The new thing I tried was a method of softening the shadows in After Effects. Patrick created the shadow layer, and I created another layer in Flash that told the compound blur filter in After Effects to soften certain edges of the shadows, and keep other edges sharp (the soft edges were painted in white, the hard edges in black.)

Thanks to Erin Ridley at eRepublik for trusting me with this job. Meanwhile, I've been working on an industrial for a new hardware product, while also helping out the good folks at Launch.

Onwards and Upwards

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:03:00 +0000

Sponsored films are an exciting new filmmaking opportunity, but sometimes you feel like the brand and the filmmaker are fighting each other. Not here. James Jarvis and Richard Kenworthy have made a film that is both all them, and all Nike. (Click on image to play movie.) James Jarvis has more on his blog.

And Sister Sue Joins In Too

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:40:00 +0000

Lately I've been coming upon requests for logo design and animation. Since my sister Susie is an accomplished graphic designer (and truly the talented one in the family) I thought perhaps we should join forces. You can visit her portfolio here. Susie also designed the Homebaked Films logo, which I animated on the site's splash page.

Coming up... Up

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 13:42:00 +0000

Sigh. When are people going to learn that Pixar is infallible and can do no wrong?

Smith and Foulkes

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:00:00 +0000

My friend Shirleyann, who was in my film It's About My Brother, appears in this charming commercial that Smith and Foulkes directed for Comcast. It's a good excuse to link to their reel (just click on Smith and Foulkes). I love these guys' work... they use different techniques, but always there's great sense of timing, lovely design and a wry wit. The Coca-Cola spot they made in a video game style is probably my favorite. Also, it's not there, but the MasterCard girl-and-piggy-at-the-hotel spot is theirs too. Smith and Foulkes missed out on the Best Animated Short Oscar this year, but they probably are the premier commercial directors of animation these days. Bravo to them.

Pinnochio On DVD

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:07:00 +0000

Pinnochio has recently been released on DVD. It had been the only one of the Disney classics that I hadn't seen as an adult -- the company has an annoying practice of locking away their animated films for years at a time so that the reissue can be an event. I suppose it works... I'm writing a blog post about it, aren't I?

According to Michael Barrier's bio of Walt Disney, Pinnochio was a troubled production from the start. Disney was distracted by other projects, indecisive, and ambivalent about the story: he wanted to warm up the character of Pinnochio, but when he did he made him passive and bland.

Even though I'm not familiar with the source material, I can see that. My own take is that the storytelling isn't as sure-footed as Snow White and the animation is not as good as Jungle Book or other later projects. Yet it's definitely worth watching. The story starts as a small, earthy fable and morphs into something more mythical and strange. I'm more fond of that second half: the scene inside the belly of the whale* is haunting, and the Pleasure Island sequence is really quite scary.

* Lest we forget, one of the chapter headings in Joseph Campbell's Hero With a Thousand Faces was "Inside the Belly of the Whale." The image is sort of a mythological road sign and appears in different variations in many stories of many civilizations.

The Case for Staying in Bed

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:08:00 +0000

Here's a lovely stop-motion piece that's making the rounds.

3D Animation Noodling

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:53:00 +0000

Here's a little animation I cooked up during a slow time. The first draft was a light week of work, but I've been noodling with it off and on for about a month. Thanks to the people who gave me feedback to help make it better (you know who you are.) The voice is Albert Brooks and the movie is Lost in America.

Captain Macaroni is Safely to Harbor

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:44:00 +0000

I just finished a couple of weeks at Animation Collective where I helped the compositing crew put some final touches on Captain Macaroni, a AC production for Daystar Networks. The show is another flash/3D hybrid, as Speed Racer was, but all tasks were performed in-house. The studio really is getting good at this: the flash animation is very nice, and Scott Strong came up with some good tricks for marrying it into the 3D backgrounds in a cost-effective manner.

Above is Soonmin Chung's design for Captain Macaroni's ship.

Spreading the Faith

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:35:00 +0000

I'm a rabid Hayao Miyazaki fan, so when I visit my friend Bob in L.A. I usually take a DVD of one of Miyazaki's films as a present for his daughter, Gracie. Well, Bob sends me a photo of Gracie from Halloween this year. Gracie, as you can see, is dressed as Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service. My scheme is going perfectly to plan!

If you don't know Miyazaki, rent him. Kiki is very charming, but I also have a soft spot for My Neighbor Totoro. Our culture doesn't create many empowering heroines for young girls... Miyazaki-san has made it his mission to try and remedy that. If you have a young daughter (or son) run to the video store!

Inking the Water

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:27:00 +0000

This is an amazing technique! (h/t Drawn!)

Speed Racer Is Over the Finish Line!

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:26:00 +0000

Season 1 of Speed Racer is finished! After starting out with 3D, I migrated over to the special effects crew, which you can see here (L to R): Samantha Olschan, Chris Scales, Mois, Speed Racer, Scott Strong, and Mitch Lucas. Great working with you guys!

BGRG Featured on Channel Frederator

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:16:00 +0000

Blue Guy vs Red Guy is being featured on this week's episode of Channel Frederator. Apart from its website, Frederator is one the most popular podcasts on iTunes. Thanks to people at Frederator for including me!

Go! Go! Go Speed Racer!

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 20:20:00 +0000

I spent most of January and February helping out the folks at Animation Collective with their production of "Speed Racer: The Next Generation". I had the pleasure of working with Chris Leathers and Kostya Gorbachev on the CG side of things. This new and updated version of the classic anime cartoon is being produced to coincide with the Wachowski Brothers' film, which if you've seen the trailer, is a good bet to be the big blockbuster of the summer. The AC production is a flash/CG hybrid... the backgrounds, cars and props are done in Maya and the characters are done in flash.

December Sit-downs

noreply@blogger.com (William Gadea) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 20:08:00 +0000

While I've been busy with a motion graphics job that's due in early January, I did have a chance this month to meet with some people and talk about plans for next year.

Speed Racer is coming to town! Animation Collective is extending the Japanese franchise with a NYC-produced flash/3D hybrid series. I had a chance to speak with Kostya Gorbachev and Amy Ackerman about possibly helping them with a crunch in their CG department. I'm not sure whether our schedules will mesh, but it was nice going down to 37th Street and catching up with some old friends there.

This last week I also met with Megan O'Neill from AtomFilms. I'm hoping we can work together on a short I've been raring to make which I'll call the Sid Cyborg project. We talked a little bit about Atom's plans to become Comedy Central's shorts hub on the web. It's a good time to be a maker of film shorts! (Well... a better time, at least.)

Finally, I had lunch with Xeth Feinberg and we talked about his Papu series. Here's a holiday-themed (sorta) toon from Xeth that had me laughing all the way through:

Merry Xmas and best wishes for the New Year!