Sunday, January 23, 2011

The Pig Farmer

After ten months in production, and exactly a year since I started making it, here is my latest film, The Pig Farmer.

The Pig Farmer from Nick Cross on Vimeo.



I just want to thank all those kind individuals that helped to make this film happen by generously donating money during my funding drive early last year. This was my initial experiment in the world of crowdsourcing and I wanted to test whether a microfinancing model was workable. I think that it just might be and I will be doing it again on my next film (to be announced shortly).

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the film!

68 comments:

Crew Hudson said...

Really, really enjoyed that!
Even better than your last film which I
thoroughly enjoyed as well.

Mark Kjærgaard said...

Amazing work. So impressive!

ncross said...

Thanks!!

Steven M. said...

That was amazing! Kind of sad too, but great nonetheless.

Kenneth Figuerola said...

Thanks to you !

David Gale said...

Fantastic! So much great stuff to look at in every shot.

Kevin Langley said...

That was fantastic! Impressive animation and backgrounds. Hard to believe it was all done in one year.

Marlo said...

congrats, my dear!

Adam Tavares said...

I loved it.

Jasper said...

Cool, weird cartoon

blakeaj said...

Amazing job, Nick! That is SERIOUSLY good animation/story/painting/etc. to have been done in one year!

Juan Bauty said...

Simply amazing!

Pedro Vargas said...

Amazing!!! Really good visuals! Loved it all!

Maanav MJ Sandhe said...

this is badass man!

Sketchees said...

Good personal film Nic. Another one for your portfolio for sure.

Not my cup-of-tea in regards to dark humour but your animation was nice(*especially in Flash. I couldn`t sit at a computer all day long animating. I would turn into a hunchback)

Who collaborated or helped you colour this film? (I don't see that in the credits) Or did you do everything yourself? If yourself, you must have had a fair bit of financial support and time! Do you work on the side or simply get bank loans?

Congrats! Wish you well on future endeavours.

nate v said...

Intense stuff! loved it.

Honolulu Dogfight said...

Fantastic! Absolutely blew me away, congratulations.
I remember reading on your blog that you might be working on a dvd compilation of all your stuff, including the older films from your website. Is that true? I'll surely snap one up.
Great work, and thanks.

ncross said...

Thanks!

@Sketchees: The only collaborator I had was the musician, Neal Williams. I did everything else.
@Honolulu Dogfight: Yes, I still plan on releasing a DVD of all my stuff...I just have to find some time to get it all digitized etc. My older films only exist on tape at this point...soon hopefully, soon...

Alex Hoffman said...

Superb quality animation! I still can't believe it was done in flash. Amazing stuff. What was the significance of the "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" above the pig farmer's gate? Was there some kind of social commentary I missed? You do such a great job in hiding messages in your work that I have to ask. Great job. Keep up the great work!

Erik Robinson said...

Great stuff! This turned out even better than I thought it would!

Kali Fontecchio said...

That was amazing!!! ANd super scary! Your colors are always so nice.

Jorge said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mukpuddy said...

Amazing dude!!!

Tim said...

Really beautiful backgrounds and effects. Nice sense of depth in the shot with the tractor. Well done!

Phil Willis said...

Nick

Congratulations.

The film is absolutely stunning.

Would love to hear more of your thoughts on microfinancing of art projects and crowdsourcing.

Cheers
--Phil

dNA said...

Just beautiful! Loved it.

ZSL said...

huzzah!
also it's hard to believe it's been a year.

LeMark said...

AWESOMNESS!!!!!!!! loved it!

Timefishblue said...

So beautiful.

My heart blew up.

jazzlamb said...

Woah. That was so loaded! I love the details in the backgrounds, the color palette and the edit, it all just works so beautifully! Very well done! And congratulations, again!

JSmith said...

Yay! It's here at last!

And on my birthday too. What a nice surprise!

ted said...

Very well contructed film sir.You struck some notes that resonate strongly with those of us with their finger on the pulse of the pop culture and conspiracy theory paradigm.

More importantly, your film looks fantastic. Here's hoping there's more to come!

ncross said...

Thanks again!
@Alex Hoffman: It's interesting that I'm getting a lot of questions about the sign...I wish I had a good answer, but I like ambiguity, so I'm going to leave it as a bit of a mystery.

Adam Tavares said...

Your backgrounds are great by the way. Great colors and composition. The characters read perfectly in front of them, but they still have great atmosphere.

I guess that's something you can do when you're a one man shop... combining the background's color design, and layout and character animation into one seamless whole.

I like the Dave Cooper style vegetation too... it's bulbous in the best way and contrasts nicely with the buildings and their interiors.

I'll stop sucking up and dropping names, but I just wanted to let you know I really respect and appreciate your work.

Skid said...

This is so great!

Dylan said...

wow!absolutely loved it! totally engaging. can't wait to see the next one.

Hobo Divine said...

Sooooooooo Good!

Blair Kitchen said...

Awesome stuff Nick! You're a machine! (with thoughts and feelings of course).

Phoebe May Halstead said...

Cor! As a second year animation student mid character design project that is beyond inspiring. That is supreme!

polillasacrobaticas said...

Muy buen trabajo Nick. Llevo tiempo siguiendo el proceso en tu blog. Muy buen resultado final.

Kinetic Dan said...

Awesome, really great stuff! As a fellow animator thinking of moving into independent film maker, this is really inspiring!

Really love yellow cake too, keep it up!!
-Dan

Aurore Damant said...

I love your work. Your films are truly fantastic. Bravo!

Matt J said...

GENIUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!

Mitzipi said...

There should be a prequel to "The Pig Farmer" that explains how the hens became prisoners of pigs.

Sean said...

this was an excellent piece of work. amazing you did it in one year. well thought out message delivered concisely and with a ton of style and cartoony goodness. thanks so much for posting it online for us.

BENJ said...

I just watched it for the 5th times...

Your film is amazingly entertaining & beautiful! Congrats Nick.

K-T said...

Very beautiful!

I loved it the whole way through.

Paul Tinker said...

I was SO excited to see this, and it was fantastic to finally see the end result. Congrats Nick and thanks for sharing.

Nearchos said...

Impressive!

ncross said...

Thanks again!!

Sergio Luis Silva said...

parabens, belo trabalho ...

J C Roberts said...

Another amazing piece of work you'd expect to see a whole team responsible for.

And a unique piece of writing on top of that. It defies easy categorization.

I also like how all the "sneak peeks" here really didn't tip off where the story was really going. All the parts previewd are in there, but weren't fit together the way I was expecting.

Elana Pritchard said...

Brilliant and hilarious- can't go wrong with that!

Josh said...

Holy crap! That was awesome.

Josh said...

Holy crap! That was amazing! Ever film is better than the last.

faez daily cartoons and sketches said...

wonderful...
congrats

ncross said...

Thanks!
I forgot to check my "comments awaiting moderation" so some of your comments are only appearing now...sorry about that!

Adam Temple said...

Cool images! Thankyou.

joonasjoonas said...

Great film! Great backgrounds, Great animation!

Dave said...

"This was my initial experiment in the world of crowdsourcing and I wanted to test whether a microfinancing model was workable."

I'd be interested in hearing more about your experience with the "micro-financing" production model.

You got a lot of good production value into this short. I expect that every dime (and them some) is on the screen.

ncross said...

Thanks!

@Dave
I did an interview here
where I talked briefly about it...hope that helps some.

Dave said...

Thanks , Nick ! I had not seen that interview before. Good information to know. I love the idea of going outside of traditional film financing and distribution channels. This is a model that animators need to spend a lot more time considering and refining.

Harringtoon said...

WOW!
HOLY EFFING EXpletive!
Really great stuff, man!
I thought I had at least scratched the surface of flash animation...now I feel like I haven't even scratched it's balls!
Very inspiring work.
Do you have any tutorials Nick?

ncross said...

Thanks Patrick,

I have a background painting tutorial
here... and an animation tutorial here... I may be doing a few more soon...

Joe said...

Awesome!! Great work..!

Anonymous said...

You are a rube buddy and your film is a load of poorly animated bosh!

So 'hippies' evil because of the Mansons!? You've been had you tool!
And of course all that 'conspiracy' stuff is merely paranoia (-just because you AREN'T paranoid doesn't mean they're NOT after you)!

What exactly was he smoking to get that effect by the way... you're getting your chemistry/substances wrong bud?

You are a living (albeit -literally- retarded) example of why fluoride in the water is a bad, bad thing!
Your film is stupid and unimaginative and pretty much evil!
May you live to realise the errors of you misguided ways.

Go and do some Ayahuasca in the forest and then see if you can come back to civilisation with something worthy... I DARE YOU!!

Anonymous said...

publish that last comment if you have any balls at all

anger dwarf said...

1,2,3,4,5,6,7, all good children go to heaven