Primal Screen DVD Show Reel

I designed and animated these characters for the company I used to work for, Primal Screen, in 2006. It was for Primal's DVD Show Reel. I loved working on these guys. Loads of fun. I animated them in pencil and paper and then had the drawings scanned into Photoshop, composited together in After Effects, and then exported QT movies into Flash. There, animator Joe Kubesheski traced over my rough pencil animation to create the final look of the characters and their movements. He did some tweaking here and there, as well. Both he and Jeremy Seymour worked on Flash animation. Overall design and concept by Rick Newcomb (he was also the art director). Sound design by Stephen Mank. He's the man.

I originally uploaded this on YouTube, but DANG. This looks much, much better. I'm impressed. I know that a lot of people are down on Flickr for adding videos, but hey, I'm okay with it if they can keep the quality of the videos looking like this. Very nice.

Here are some screen grabs:




The concept called for four different types of characters, with each having their own way of transitioning to a separate menu. The transisitions had to be original and take the viewer completely by surprise. I had a great time brainstorming, trying to come up with some fun ideas for these guys. For the blue guy on the far right, I thought it would be funny if when you select him, you somehow disengage his hovering ability. That's why he falls right away and reluctantly gets up.


Here's the inside menu for the blue guy, designed and animated by Rick. In fact, Rick did all the internal menus for all the characters. Wonderful work. Below is the menu for the dual-faced orange guy. He was originally designed by an intern, but I went in and re-designed him so he'd better fit with the look of the other guys.


This is my favorite transition:



Poor guy. I think we dubbed him "Cuddles." There's so much pathos going on with this green one. When you see him walk up to the main menu, he's walking very intently, like he's a man on a mission. Like someone wronged him and he's fixin' to go all Bronson on 'em. But his demeanor totally changes once he plops down and starts to caress his tail. That tail -- what a strange relationship Cuddles has with his appendage. Do you find it interesting that the same thing that provides security and comfort for him also takes his head off? So, it's a false sense of security, I guess. Go figure. Kinda demented, but cute. He's my kids' favorite, of course.

During repeat viewings, be sure to check out how each of the characters exit the scene when a particular section is selected.

Cuddles' menu:



This is the menu for the dude on the left. I love his transition, too. It was a stroke of luck for me to have his nose become some sort of alternate arm, making it easier for the guy to pry himself apart. Playing around with some visual trickery there.


For the easter egg part of the DVD, when you select the Primal Screen logo up at the top, you're taken to a whole different world (dimension?), featuring one final character. Here's the menu for that guy.

Once I posted it up on my YouTube last week, Aaron of the excellent all-Flash blog, Cold Hard Flash, immediately posted about it, scooping me on my own content! Oh well, it's nice to be noticed, anyway. Thanks for the mention, Aaron!

This project has been winning design awards left and right, including The Art Directors Club (this link features more details about the project), The Create Awards, and BDA/Promax (where it won a Gold).

It was also featured in last year's How Design Annual, voted "Outstanding Motion Design" in the April '07 issue. Designer Jeff Andrews was kind enough to scan the page from the magazine and post it on his blog. However, I'd love a copy of this magazine for myself. Anyone got an extra copy? I'll pay ya for it. The cover can be seen on the left there. Many thanks!

One last thing: If you go to Primal's website, there's a splash screen featuring other characters designed by me that were featured throughout the show reel. They just weren't on the main menu.

Demo-mania

Got a special treat for you. I don't know why it's taken me this long to finally post all this, but here we are.

First up, is my demo montage from 2000. I was working at Click 3X at the time as key animator for two directors, John Ryan and Robert Pope. Just three of us in the back corner of a boutique production company. It was tight quarters, with me inches away from John's right elbow. No privacy, no room to spread out. Looking back, I can't imagine how we made it day to day without one of us ripping at each other's throats. But somehow we managed. Doing mostly agency work, it was industry standard to have a separate demo reel for each director. Since I was a regular animator, I didn't need to have one made. No problem, I thought early on. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing: animatin'. But then, as time rolled on, I began to get the urge to branch out. I approached John and Robert to see if there were any chances that I might be able to direct -- anything, really. I was desperate. I did direct, so to speak, a "tag" for some live action Little Debbie spot. The last 5 seconds of a commercial. The tail end. It was of a mouth turning into a smile which then morphed into the logo. Not much, but it was a start. I then directed the animation for these animal characters for some Pedialyte-like product for South America. Again, not much, but it was something.

But it wasn't enough. I felt that if I was to be the third director, I needed to work on my own demo tape. So I went through all my past jobs at Click to find footage I felt was worthy for inclusion in my montage. There wasn't much. And I needed at least 2 minutes worth. Good thing I had two animated shorts to pull from, but I didn't want to overdo it, or else it would become monotonous. I then decided to create some "filler" animation to pad out the montage, giving it some substance and variety.

I then had my good friend Ann Husani do the editing. Ann was the Avid editor at Click who was about my age and knew me well enough to figure out what exactly I wanted. I gave her some direction, giving her some tent pole key moments that I wanted in the montage (mostly some visual cues that would correspond to the audio beats). For instance, near the end, I wanted a mad barrage of images that went along with the frenzied build up of drums. I also wanted the very end to fade out, pulsing. Everything Ann did on this montage far exceeded my expectations. She did an amazing job.

Ladies and gentlemen, my demo reel montage from 2000:



Guess what? It was never used. At least not through Click. It sat on the shelf until I got a call from Steve at Primal Screen. "Do you have a demo tape to show?" Why yes. Yes, I do.

Fast forward to 2006. I'm listening to Tom Knott on the phone tell me about the possibility of a 2D animator spot open at LAIKA. He then says something to the tune of "Yeah, just bring your demo tape to Ottawa, and we'll go from there." Of course, my demo tape was a wee bit outdated. I had two weeks to get a new demo together. Two weeks? And basically, I had to start from scratch. I didn't want to use ANYTHING from my previous demo. Don't ask me why, I just didn't. I know it would've been easier for me to tack on some clips from my older demo montage, but I didn't really feel that that was the true "me" anymore. That was 6 years ago. An eon, in animation years, if you think of it. I'm so over all that, I thought to myself. I know that I had plenty of work from Primal to cull from for my new demo montage (6 years worth, for pete's sake), but where to find it all? Luckily, I found them. And good thing I know After Effects, because I don't think I could've asked anyone at Primal to help me out with the editing. It would've been crazy to try and work around someone else's schedule, let alone my own. So I went in on a weekend and busted out as much as I could, then worked on it here and there, at home and at work (after hours, of course), until I had something that I felt was LAIKA-worthy. And you know the rest of the story.

So, here's what I made for LAIKA. My demo reel montage of 2006 (I would suggest that you allow time for it to load or else you'll miss out on some of the timing cues):



As you can see, music is an important key element to my montages. I feel that if you can hit a nice visual cue at the same time as a musical one, you're going to get a nice reaction. There's something about watching a character respond to what's happening in the audio track. That's why I made sure that Nate, Andrea's brother who's the DJ for Mars ILL, give me some nice breaks in the track for my '06 montage, offering me a chance to work off them. His work is phenomenal. I was so happy that he allowed me to use the instrumental version of one of his songs. Loved that gritty guitar sound -- it felt right up against the super hot rod & mod chick with the hair in the beginning. There are certain points in the song where there's a nice punch -- I made sure that there was some sort of hit or kick going on visually to marry the audio with the visuals. I think it works for the most part. I tried to maintain a certain flow throughout the montage.

That's DJ Shadow's "Mutual Slump" for the '00 montage. I was a big fan of Shadow during the '90's, so it seemed only fitting to use that song. I re-edited it in order to fit within the short timeframe.

Demo reels are a funny thing. It's like you're creating your own little movie, but you're trying to sell yourself at the same time. This is when I feel at ease, allowing only my work to speak for itself. Never was good at the interview thing. Most artists aren't. But when given the chance to put together a short clip of recent work, it offers me a chance to shine.

My advice to those who are making their demo reels (and this is my own personal thoughts and opinions here; not etched in stone, mind you):

1. Keep them short. Don't go over 3 minutes for your montage.

2. Edit to the music. It'll make a big difference.

3. Be sure to itemize what you've done for each commercial, ID, etc. that you show (animated frog in scene 2, did clean-up for all of the human characters, did rigging for the little girl, etc.). Don't forget to include the list with your reel!

4. Gear your portfolio/demo to the company you're trying to get a job from. Showing your character design skills is nice if you're trying to get a job doing just that, but it's probably not necessary when you're trying to get a job as an animator at a commercial/broadcast studio. Most of the characters that those studios work on are already established: TV shows (like Foster's) and ad campaigns (like Cocoa Puffs). Rare is the opportunity to create new & original characters.

5. Just give us the goods: if you're an animator, I just want to see you animate. I want to see if you "get it."

6. Keep it simple and to the point. Like #5, if you're trying to get a job in the industry, focus on your forté. Don't do the shotgun approach by showcasing a wide variety of things. Some might feel that this can be an advantage in trying to get a job by showing that you can do anything and everything at a particular studio. I don't. I feel that it hinders the potential hire. Sometimes I can't figure a guy out if he's showing me animation AND character design AND modeling AND background paintings AND lighting, etc. Make up your mind! Animation is a specialized industry. Find out what you do really, really well and focus on that one thing 'til you feel that you're the best at it. You'll get hired quickly if you have the knowledge and capability to do good work, and do it quickly. THEN you can showcase your other skills once you're hired. But if you try to show that you can do everything, more often than not you probably can't. You're probably spreading yourself out too thin and your work and talent will suffer. I've seen this scenario played out many, many times.

When I first got into the biz eleven years ago, animation was my thing. Once I got my first job freelancing I focused on animation only, finessing my timing, my pacing, my inbetweens. It wasn't until several years later when I branched out and started working on a "style". And it took me even more years later to actually showcase this particular look and style into jobs that we bid on at Primal. Luckily for me, we were able to snag some jobs that allowed me to direct in this style. What a rush! But it wasn't until I paid my dues first.

Like I said, these points for demos are my own opinion, not industry standard. Just some thoughts on the subject that have been rolling around in my brain for some time now.

Man, the quality of those demos on YouTube really suck. I might have to put these together on a DVD and sell them. (I'm kidding.) And maybe I'll add my two short films as a bonus. How's that sound? And maybe I'll talk about those two films on a later post. That sounds good. With high-quality images. Yes, that sounds very good.

Ava Thursday: Ava on Sprout!

Sprout is PBS Kids' answer to Noggin. When it was launched in 2005, it was the first 24 hour preschool network. Why any 2 or 3 year-old would be up at 3 in the morning to watch a TV show was beyond me, but hey, they came to Primal Screen to create their identity and branding, so why question it? The look was inspired by classic children's book art, which art director Ben Prisk took to with great fervor, even going so far as to using real ink, pencil and paint for most of the textures and elements. I didn't do much on the job (hardly anything, really), but I thought that Ben, along with Justin Winslow, Jo Davidovitch and many others did a great job on the overall look of the campaign. It was fun, whimsical and witty. It won several design awards, too.

There was a reoccurring theme to the branding: stalks. Each and every single element produced had stalks that sprouted whatever items that were necessary for that particular spot. One of the ID's was called "Arts & Crafts," with the stalks sprouting many different art supplies like paint brushes, paint cans, pencils, paper, etc. During the spot you see various pieces of artwork flying by the viewer, all ending up on a clothes line to dry.

If you look closely, you'll be able to see some artwork by your favorite 6 year old. Since you aren't sitting in front of your TV right now, I took the time to make some still frames of the ID. (Click on each image to view larger.) Check it:


We see in the beginning the growing stalks and a little girl painting at an easel. To the right, one stalk is sprouting a sketchbook. That girl isn't Ava, in case you're wondering.


As the sketchbook opens, some papers come flying out. What's this? Now who's artwork could that be? Yup, you guessed it. That's Ava's Mommy in Color on the left and her first rainbow on the right.


As the camera pans quickly from left to right, we catch a glimpse of another drawing by Ava. I couldn't find out which one, though. I have it somewheres, I'm sure.


As the camera slows down, we see all the artwork up on a clothes line and a little boy painting in the Sprout logo (my, aren't we talented?). On your left, that's Ava's Baking Cookies.


Last frame of the ID.

Very cool, eh? Ava gets all excited when she sees this come on air, as you might've guessed. I get all excited for her! It was a lot of fun for me to know that her work would be on TV for all to see. Proud papa, that's me. Thanks for indulging me.

Ava Thursday: My Desk at Primal

Before I left Primal Screen, I made sure I took some photos of my work surroundings. That is, what was left of 'em. And since I couldn't take my animation desk with me, I definitely wanted a shot of what Ava drew on my desk oh so long ago.

Judging from the look of the character here on the left, I'm guessing that she was probably 4 when she drew this. Cute little character with hearts and in a dress.

The post-it note you see taped up has a simple drawing by Ava originally drawn in March of '05, of a pencil and piece of paper. Modified (or plussed) six months later by adding arms and hands.

More Sundancing

Well it's been a week since my last post and it feels so...wrong. I'm neglecting my duties here but I'm sure that you all understand. At the same time we're packing everything and moving to Portland, I've had to try and wrap up all the animation for this Trix Yogurt spot I'm currently directing. It's a sweet way to go out, man. Some great animation that I'm very proud of -- and all my peeps working on it are doing a fantastic job. Once it airs, I'll be able to disclose more. But in the meantime, thought I'd do some tooting of the Primal horn. Ever since I posted about the Sundance screenwash I worked on, there have been other mentions across the world wide internets about it. See for yourself:



First off, Primal put up an official press release of all our Sundance work for everyone to read and enjoy. You can finally get a chance to view Spark City in motion with a (pretty large) Quicktime clip available to download. It's about 2 minutes long so you're missing a good amount of the 6 minute long cycle, but at least you get a chance to see the little guy at the bottom of the screen wipe out near the end of the clip. Pretty funny.

There was a short interview with head designer Rick Newcomb soon after the film fest in Canada's National Post. He was the guy who headed up the project.

Studio Daily did an Interview with Primal music guy Steve Mank and if you scroll down there's mention of the Sundance work we did.

We got Brew'd, too! Amid Amidi mentioned us on the ever-popular Cartoon Brew. Sweet.

And lastly, Justin Cone did a nice write-up on his fantastic and brilliant site, Motionographer. Thanks, Justin!

Northwestward, ho!

Wow -- where do I begin? It's weird to think that I'm finally writing about this. I've been wanting to say something for weeks now, but couldn't until all the fine details were worked out. Now it's official...

I've decided to accept a job at Laika for the position of 2D Animation Director. It will be for Laika/House -- the commerical division. (Laika/Entertainment is the feature film division.) Laika, as some of you may already know, is based out of Portland, Oregon. That's over 2,600 miles away from Atlanta, Georgia. Quite a move for me and my family. But after many months of thinking and praying about it (and many more weeks spent in deep discussion with Andrea), we decided that this would be the best thing for our family. It's going to be a major change -- I've lived in Atlanta almost my entire life and the majority of my family calls it home, including my parents. I've only known the Atlanta animation industry for my entire animation career. Working with individuals so far removed from the insular network of this Southern city will be quite a shock, but I'm ready and willing to face the change. Looking forward to it, actually.

Naturally, I will miss my immediate family, my fellow Primates, and all my animator and artist buddies here in Atlanta. My last day at Primal Screen will be March 16th, so Andrea and I are currently knee-deep in moving and packing plans. We definitely have our work cut out for us before we tackle the Big Move. And for kicks and giggles, we're planning on driving across the country the following week. I know -- crazy isn't it? Maybe we'll be in your neck of the woods, you never know.

This is such a huge step for my career and creatively? Extremely impressed with the amount of talent I saw housed within Laika's walls. Such an honor to become the newest member of Laika's creative family.

So, there you go -- I'm leaving Primal. (Boy, so odd to actually type that.) I can't complain, though-- The past six years have been very good to me. Many Primal jobs have showcased my personal style and how many people can lay claim to that? A spot is now available, of course, so Primal Screen is starting their search to fill that spot. If you are an experienced animation director with a strong sense of design, contact Jeff at: jeff [at] primalscreen [dot] com. If you have a website or blog featuring your work, please include links. Jeff will thank you.

If you're ever in Portland after March of this year, would love to say hello. Please contact me here via my blog and let's do lunch. Also, I'd like to add that the Platform International Animation Festival will take place in Portland, June 25-30. A great excuse to come up (or down or over) to see me.

Primal does Sundance

Click image to view a mega-large version in order to take in all the little details. Click HERE to read all the notes on what's going on.

If you're headed to The Sundance Film Festival this year, you'll be able to catch a glimpse of what I've been working on recently. Before each film screening, there's what they call a "screenwash" playing up on screen as the audience files in. Something to look at while you're settling in your seat, silencing your cell phone, chatting with your fellow cinema-goer, etc. We did a screenwash last year, which had a tremendous response. This year we created two: the more serious "Fireplay" (to play off the theme of fire this year), featuring "a rolling wall of flame with a dancing ribbon of blaze," to quote our PR write-up -- I didn't work on that one; I worked on the more fun "Spark City" (see above), an alternate version of what goes on behind the scenes in Park City during the festival. Little workers go about their business scooting back and forth between various buildings, rooms, tubes, machinery, you name it -- holding onto flames that signify a creative spark, as well as flaming film reels (the product of that creative spark). All of it done in the name of creativity and independent filmmaking. It was a load of fun to work on! I had so much fun coming up with actions and "stories" of what these little guys would be doing throughout the entire town. Lots of work, but it was worth it.

I created everything you see here: the layout, buildings, sidewalks, characters. Rick Newcomb did the colors, effects, compositing, etc. He was in charge of the entire project, while I did character and element design and directing of the animation. Animation was done in Flash by Joe Kubesheski, Joanna Davidovich, and Jeremy Seymour. I did some animation, but it wasn't much. I was working on something else by the time the animation was getting ramped up. Once I have some more time, I'll post some sketches of this project. It went through a long, tedious process to get to a point where we were happy with it. Tons of sketches and ideas were scraped, as is usually the case with us. It's invigorating to be able to create an entire town, complete with inhabitants and lots of moving items, and have all of it work perfectly together. When you see this thing moving, it's pretty wild. It's where Bosch meets Biskup.

The piece runs as a 6 minute loop, so there's something new to look at each time you sit down to a new screening. We're hoping that all the audiences attending the Festival this year will get a big kick out of it. If you happen to be there for the Festival, let me know what you think of our Spark City. And be sure to let the Sundance people know as well. We'd love to work with them again for next year.

In addition, Primal created title packages (seen both online at Sundance.org and on iTunes) for Live@Sundance, Meet The Artist, and the Short Film Series. Art director Ben Prisk worked on those elements.

Have a great Sundance-y weekend.

Knick knacks

We got new Primal cards several months ago. They're made of strong paper surrounded by some kind of plastic-like stuff that could probably withstand the worst of elements. That's always good to know in case I ever need to hand some cards out to hikers on top of Mt. Everest or something. My pal Vegas here at work (he's a 3D animator) decided to test the durability of our new cards by placing one in a glass of water to see how long it would last before it started to warp. The verdict? Over 24 hours.

I found this cool item in an antique market about a year or two ago: The Pancaker. Not the best of names for a kitchen utensil, but man, what a nice dose of mid-century modern design the box packaging provides:




The item was still inside the box, which is always a plus. Not as cool looking as the packaging suggests, but still pretty neat:


Look, I tried to pose like the design-y hand on the cover:

It's not as easy as it seems.

I came to work one day and found my one and only Dunny designed by my very talented pal Ingri posed like so:




At first glance I thought, "who's been messing with my stuff on my desk?" Then it dawned on me: Ava. She had been hanging out in my office the previous day.

I've kept him hanging on like that ever since.

Spotlight: Big Wide Action Show (Part 3)

This is Part 3 of a continuing series on the making of The Big Wide Action Show Open. Part 1 was on thumbnail storyboards. Part 2 was about character design. Today, I discuss layout, backgrounds and color, featuring an interview with the background artist for the project, Eric Garlinghouse. (Click on each image to view larger.)


Scene 1 final color.

Very sorry for the long interlude between Spotlight entries. No sense getting into explanations, so let's get into it, shall we?

After the character designs and final storyboards were signed off by the client, my next step in creating the Big Wide Action Show open was to create an animatic of the entire open. An animatic is basically a very early rough version of the piece, using the storyboard images as placesholders before we start work on actual animation -- basically a "moving storyboard." The animatic is very important at this stage because as a director, I need to know how the spot flows from scene to scene -- do the timing and pacing feel right? What scenes are working or not? Can we read what's happening? It's also important at this stage to find out the frame count for each scene so I know just how much animation is needed.

I put the animatic together in After Effects and typically I start by laying the rough audio down first as the "groundwork" and then I edit the storyboard images in order based on the audio track. Since there are no speaking parts in the Big Wide Action open, there was no need for me to worry about audio at this stage. I just started to put this puzzle together knowing that I have 30 seconds to tell my story and then Steve Mank, our sound guy, will work his magic afterwards.

After the animatic is finalized and the piece is flowing like it should, I then move on to layout. Layout is essentially creating the environments and setting for each scene -- the backgrounds, if you will. Similar to what a set designer does on a movie shoot, when I create my layouts, I'm trying my best to give a sense of place for my characters to reside in. That means I must know the path(s) of action for each and every character for each and every shot, and I must know if everything is clear and readable. Remember, animation is about communication. I need to make sure that every shot is concise and that the viewer has no problem figuring out what's going on -- especially for this particular job. For the Big Wide Action Show open there was about 30 shots -- quite a handful for a 30 second open. That means most of the shots would be on screen for at least a second or less -- I had to think BIG and BOLD. Good thing this was for Hi-Def TV -- the wider aspect ratio for the screen gave me more breathing room for most of my shots on this open. Conceptually, I went with broad camera moves and extremes -- from extreme close-ups, extreme zoom-ins to extreme zoom-outs, all to convey the frenetic outrageousness of the storyline. Since this was all about action in an exaggerated (and comical) sense, I really wanted to push it further than what our viewers were used to seeing.

Once I sketch out each of the scene layouts, I pass them onto an inker to ink the backgrounds and then I start to paint them in Photoshop. Since I had so much on my plate for this particular job, we called in a freelancer to help me out with the backgrounds. First of all, I have to say that I'm not one to pass things off to others so easily. I'm a firm believer in the addage "If you want something done right, you have do it yourself." But this is not a smart way of thinking when you're working in the animation biz. Animation is a collaborative effort. Not one person can do everything in this industry (unless if you're working on your own project, but even then you still rely on some help) -- it's just not feasible. Knowing that I was going to be stretched to the limit with all the amount of work that needed to be done, I relented and went ahead and passed off the backgrounds to another artist. Not just any artist, but someone who understood and really got my style and would understand my vision. I was a bit nervous, but man! -- what a stroke of luck when we found Eric Garlinghouse. Recently I decided to interview Eric for this post, so you can get an idea of what goes on when we hand a guy like Eric a job like this, and how he approached the job:

------------------------

Ward: So, who are you and what do you do?

Eric: I am Eric Garlinghouse, now the Senior Graphic Designer at Radical Axis, in Atlanta, Georgia. [Ed. note: Eric was a freelancer at the time of the Big Wide Action job.] Recently I've been working on commercials for Chuck E' Cheese and Cheetos [both are currently airing on Cartoon Network]. I've also been working on stuff for "Freakshow", which is on after Southpark on Comedy Central [first aired October 4th]. I've also been working on a graphic rebranding of Radical Axis including Demo Reel, Company DVD, and print materials. I've been working in motion design for about 4 years and have done freelance work for print.

Motion design is actually my second career. I taught music for about 10 years at schools such as Wesleyan, Starr's Mill H.S., Macintosh H.S. , and Georgia Tech.

W: What is your background—schooling, for instance—is it animation? design? shadow puppets?

E: I spent most of my post-high school years studying, performing and teaching music (percussion mainly). I constantly illustrated and tried to amalgamate the two disciplines into my compositions; both aurally and visually. I soon decided I would rather utilize my skills in motion graphics than become a band director so I went to school for graphic design. I graduated from Georgia State University where I spent almost a year as an intern then freelancer at Primal Screen. I currently work at Radical Axis as a motion designer/compositor and occasionally get to paint backgrounds.

W: What sort of direction (if any) did I give you for the Big Wide Action Show open?

E: You have always been an inspiration to me and I was overjoyed to be asked to paint the backgrounds for the Big Wide Action Show. You and I discussed how the backgrounds should look and we both were imagining things slightly different. The backgrounds were roughed out by you but I imagined heavy textures that complimented the lines that are so descriptive of your style. A bit later, we were watching a clip from Disney's, then recent, HOME ON THE RANGE and fell in love with the background textures and decided to use that movie as a reference. We were also inspired by TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE (aren't we all), and I seem to recall someone bringing up THE CARE BEARS MOVIE...hmmm maybe not.

W: No comment on the CARE BEARS MOVIE bit. But you're right, I forgot that we based a lot of our backgrounds on HOME ON THE RANGE. They had some great stylized shapes and textures in the backgrounds for that film. I felt that you did a great job incorporating that look but making it completely your own.

E: Thanks, I always try to draw inspiration from things I see and absorb the idea instead of making a direct copy. I think the whole spot turned out vibrant and fresh.

W: I agree. I was very happy with what you came up with. It was like you took my background drawings and added that extra "umph" that they needed. What approach to the overall look and style of the backgrounds did you take?

E: Armed with inspiration from you and about 500 photoshop brushes (some created specifically for this project) I started out painting the desert scenes. The first scene I painted was the scene where the road vanishes to the right and Big & Wide drive off after the villain with the money bags.


Scene 2 layout.


Scene 2 line.


Scene 2 final color.

I started out by creating some extra swaths of sand along the edges as if it had been blown into that fashion by passing cars. Then I added multiple layers of color to create one unified color scheme. A very painterly approach. The final result of the clouds was a happy accident. Using feathered masks on lines drawn with a pen tool, I applied varying blending modes and gradients to create the soft, distant stratus type cloud.

The underwater scene is probably my favorite. I remember showing some of these to you and you said that the appearance was "refreshingly different" from what you had first imagined. I felt that the underwater scenes needed a sense of mysticism and other-worldliness. These scenes were incredibly thick with layers and blending modes to get the right blend of color. I even worked some of the textures in Painter 8 to get a natural feel to the application of color. I made some really cool bubbles in painter, but they weren't used in compositing. This is the only scene where i used actual photography, as well. It is pulled way back in saturation and color, but it helped give reality to the surface of the water. You can kind of notice it in the shot where Big is about to catch the torpedo.


Scene 13 layout.


Scene 13 line.


Scene 13 final color.

In the city scene the colors were meant to be dark and apocalyptic. I thought this was a humorous approach given the ease of which Big & Wide remove the threat upon the city. There are a couple of funny stories about this scene. A quintessential Ward-ism is precariously placed if you look on the billboard over the top of the lowest set of buildings on the left. There you will see an homage to none other than his wife, of course. Also, in the scene where Big & Wide are looking up at the monster and the paperboy is on the corner, there is a slight zoom out from their faces. This was the last background to be painted and the zoom out wasn't working properly because there was not enough of the drawing to zoom out that far. So I went back in to add some extra linework along the edges, just continuing the rocks, sidewalk and textures. Somehow the compositor got a hold of an older version of the background and the scene went to layback with some of the textures clearly not running all the way to the edges. So we ended up with only a block of textures just inside the viewable area. I went out of town and wasn't there for layback, so i believe that that was the version that was sent to the client. Oops.

W: You know, I never noticed that. I'll have to go back and check it. And "Ward-ism?" I like it. I'll have to copyright that. So, last question: Did the characters' look, color, and design have an effect on you when you created the backgrounds?

E: Big & Wide are designed very well and I had to stick with colors that complimented them and not fight with their appearance on screen. I did change some colors after seeing the rough composite of the desert scene. I also darkened up some of the city scene as to lessen the similarity between the sky and Big's uniform.

W: Well, Eric, you did an excellent job with the backgrounds. It was so nice not to have to worry about that part of the job, and if you know me, that's a big big deal, considering that i tend to get my grubby fingers in all aspects of a particular job. Thanks for all your hard work, Eric. Fantastic stuff.

E: Back at ya Ward! It is an honor to work with you any project. It was a smooth ride and I it really turned out beautiful...um, can I un-pause THE CARE BEARS MOVIE now? Grumpy Bear is about to go belly-up freebasing rainbows again...

W: Again, no comment on CARE BEARS. Some things are better left unsaid.

------------------------

It was relaxing to know that I could hand off my background drawings to Eric and know that he would create some beautiful work for this piece. I was extremely happy with everything that he did. Big thanks to Eric for taking the time to do the interview (sorry for the lengthy delay in getting it up) and also for his incredible work on the Big Wide Action open. Much appreciated, man. (FYI, I'll post the frames featuring what Eric called "quintessential Ward-isms" for the next post.)

Here are some other examples of the backgrounds and layouts we created for The Big Wide Action Show open, with pencils by me and final painted versions by Eric:


Scene 10 final color.


Scene 11 layout.


Scene 11 line.


Scene 11 final color.


Scene 12b layout.


Scene 12b final color.


Scene 20 layout.


Scene 20 line.


Scene 20 final color -- Eric's version (here you can see where Eric expanded the background).


Here's the final color for our two boys, Big and Wide:

It was hard to figure out a color scheme that would be typical of superheros but one that hasn't already been done. THE INCREDIBLES wasn't out yet when we were working on this, but there was the teaser trailer available online and I tried my best to not get too close to that. We had to think about a multitude of things since our characters were going to be placed over a vast variety of settings -- there were going to be scenes in broad daylight, underwater and in space, so we had to find a color scheme for Big that would look great in all these settings. For Wide we just wanted something simple since he was a robot, but we didn't want your typical metal grey -- so I choose to go with an off-white with some varied tones of that original color. I think it worked really well.

Up next (and last installment for this series -- finally!): Animation. Also, I'll have a nice quality Quicktime version of the open available to download. Stay tuned!

LINKS:
Article on AWN of a book about layout artists: Animation Layout: Support Material
Don Bluth's description of layout: Don Bluth's Animation Academy: Layout.
Nice article on Skillset about layout artists: Layout Artist.

I'm koo-koo for Cocoa Puffs!

Finally I can let the cat out of the bag: I directed the most recent installment of Sonny the Cuckoo Bird and his ongoing quest to refrain from his beloved Cocoa Puffs. Titled, "Elevator," it features Sonny trying to keep from going koo-koo by riding in an elevator all day. I know, brilliant, right? Well, little does he know that anthropomorphic words are lurking by on each floor: Munchy, Crunchy and More Chocolately. As they crowd him in the confined space of the elevator, he completely looses it and finally grabs a bowl of the good stuff by the end. Whew!

I plan on talking more in-depth about the making of this spot, but things are a bit hairy here at work—I know, when are they not, right? Anyway, I am currently working on the third post for the Animania Big Wide Action Show Open (previous posts here and here), and once I finish with that, expect some behind the scenes on the Cocoa Puffs spot. Well, once I get everything cleared first (can't just start posting things without checking). Also, hopefully we'll have a nice quality Quicktime of it available to download soon. I'll let you know first thing.

So look for Sonny's latest freak-out on all your favorite cereal-promoting networks like Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Disney, etc.

Spotlight: Big Wide Action Show (Part 2)

This is part 2 of a continuing series on the making of The Big Wide Action Show Open. Part 1 was on thumbnail storyboards. Part 2 is on character design. Part 3 is on layout, backgrounds and color. More to follow -- stay tuned.

And we're back. Sorry for the delay in continuing this series. There was so much artwork, so many drawings to go through that I found it difficult to decide on exactly what to upload. But enough gabbing -- I've got a good amount of work to show you, so let's continue.

In the first installment I showed you all how I go about visualizing a particular project by thumbnailing it out first. But even before I did this, I had to create and develop the characters first. It was a pretty interesting process I went through to design Big and Wide, the two main characters in The Big Wide Action Show open, so I'll try and be brief.

It's extremely rare to create and animate original characters when you're in the broadcast animation business. Most of what we do within this field is based on pre-existing characters, characters that have already been created and designed by networks such as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, PBS (PBS Kids), and others. I've had the great opportunity to animate some of my favorites from my childhood like Shaggy and Scooby, as well as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. I kept pinching myself whenever I was working on those projects because I couldn't believe that I was getting to draw this character ALL DAY -- the same character that I got in trouble for drawing during class back in the day. It was very rewarding (to say the least). But there's really nothing to animating these characters -- they are already there with model sheets, lip synch positions, character poses all done and ready to animate. The legwork and sweating over character design has already been done for you, the animator. But what about when you have to create new and original characters? Ah... therein lies the rub. Read on:

The first all hi-def, all animation network, Animania, approached us back in 2004 and basically said, "We need you to create some original characters for us." Whenever a network says this sort of thing, it is tantamount to gold. I had to wipe the drool off my face when I was told that I would be the one to tackle this great project. And boy, did I tackle it. A little background info for you first:

Animania had a block of shows that were more geared toward action and sci-fi and wanted to have a couple of hosts to introduce and promote this block. But what to call it? This block of shows definitely needed a name and a concept to give it some identity, instead of just simply showing a bunch of shows. Animania's tagline for their network is: Animania: Big. Wide. Fun, so they decided to do a take off of their tagline, and thus, The Big Wide Action Show was born.

The clients wanted to do a send-up of all those superhero/action/sci-fi/monster genres -- poking fun at these genres, but at same time paying homage to them all. The open was going to be a big challenge for me -- tons of scenes with tons of action crammed into a very quick 20 second time frame, so the characters had to be bigger than life and memorable. The clients wanted two characters to act as "hosts:" Big, a superhero-type dude, and Wide, his sidekick. Originally, in earlier versions, Big and Wide were just regular joe-shmoes that just so happened to be a world-saving super-duo. Here was an earlier version (by the way, please click on all images for larger versions):


The joke here was that nobody knew that Wide was a robot and did odd jobs around the house. This was their "pedestrian mode." But when called to action, they would then put on their metal gear to get into "battle mode." It was pretty funny, but too much time was needed to establish who the characters were before they actually did any butt-kicking. This storyline was scrapped. For a while, both Big and Wide were supposed to be human -- Big being a superhero and Wide being this strangely wide man. I did a couple of drawings with this in mind:


Geez, it's kinda embarrassing to show you all the above drawing because it was so early in the process. I was just getting started and I hadn't had the chance to really get all the proportions and musculature right. But below you can see that I pumped Big up more because, well, he didn't seem big enough. Still needed work.



I liked that Big had this smallish head on a huge, pumped up body. Kinda taking that superhero concept to the extreme, with a teeny-tiny head. Speaking of Big's head, I did some studies with him wearing these googles, similar to the character of Batou of Ghost In The Shell. I liked the mysterious look that the goggles gave him:





Still not satisfied, I did some more explorations with Big, even giving him a Japanese jitte-like baton:


I was not digging Wide as a human character. He looked odd, being this strange, squashed, hunched-over character. He just didn't look aesthetically pleasing to me. I mean, a character like Wide would prove difficult to animate anyway, but I wanted him to be likable, and a crouching, deformed man did not seem so likable to me. I suggested that maybe going back to Wide being a robot would be better for the character. That way, the squashed look won't look so odd for a robotic character, like he was designed to be this way, plus you got your sci-fi genre. Some early concepts of Wide as a robot:





I was liking how Wide was progressing, but the clients wanted him to be more human-like in appearance. This would make Wide even more likable to the viewer and the clients were right in this bit of detail. Even though I was digging doing something "cool" by creating robots, Wide was looking mighty cold. No personality. But more on Wide later....

Going back to Big, the clients felt that we were getting "too serious" with the designs. So, I got rid of the goggles, and took a long, hard look at the stereotypical male superhero and all the send-ups and take-offs of that genre: Roger Ramjet, The Tick, Bob Parr of The Incredibles, and many others, to try and see if I could capture the spirit of the superhero that maybe the others had not picked up on. A hard task, but it was worth a shot. Getting into character, I felt that Big was a softy at heart, kinda ditzy, but was a sweetheart who would never hesitate to get that cat out of a tree for you. I began to develop a wide-eyed look for him, with that ever-present curly-cue lock on top of his head as a cutesy joke:


With his body, extreme was the main word. I wanted Big's muscles to be so grotesquely developed that there would be no way that he could move if he was a real person. To give off this effect, I drew his hands and feet incredibly small, making his muscles seem larger than they already were. He now has a tapered, dainty look to him:


With a couple of more tweaks, we finally got our guys. Below are the final modelsheets that I gave to my assistants to animate. As you can see, Wide went through more changes before we reached this final design, and I would have to say that I'm very happy with the final result. One thing that I was worried about was maintaining consistency between the two characters, and I believe that we achieved that.

Here is the size comparison for Big and Wide:




Various hands and feet for Big. His feet proved to be a strange thing to animate. Don't know why.


I love drawing a variety of faces for a particular character. It's fun to put yourself in the character's head and try and think what they will look like if they were sad or happy, excited or depressed, introspective or curious. It's a good exercise for animators to explore different emotions.


Here are Big's turnarounds, both body and head. Man, the CHIN. That was tough to figure out.


At first, I wasn't sure about the anthropomorphic eyes and face for Wide, but like I said earlier, I now see that it was necessary for the viewer to be open to him. My earlier versions made Wide too cold and lifeless. No connection was being made between viewer and character. But here, he's a very likable guy, offering that perfect comical sidekick quality that we so desperately needed. A good balance to Big's simple doofyness.


Wide was more difficult to animate, considering that he was wide and made of metal -- there was some squash & stretch going on, but not too much. Having a segmented armor thing going on made it a lot easier to pull off some of the squashing and stretching. The fun thing I added was that Wide's "hands" can convert into various tools and objects, like a blow torch. Or a plunger.

Overall, Big and Wide had to look like a true team, a believable superhero team that could save the world in all their goofy, quirky ways. I was very happy with the results, and I had a blast animating them. Even though Wide was a bit difficult to animate, I saw it as a great challenge and I enjoyed that aspect of the character.

Up next: Backgrounds and Color.