Nick Cross Animation

New trailer for Black Sunrise

2012-01-16T16:06:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

As it has been almost a year since I produced the first trailer for Black Sunrise, I decided to make up a second one to give everyone another peek at the progress.

I'm hoping this year to try to finish off a large chunk of the film. Presently, I have about 10 minutes fully completed. However, I'm still polishing a few sections of the storyboard. Writing for a feature-length film can be quite challenging, I've discovered - especially when you are dealing with no dialogue!

Also this year, I'm going to try to make up some tutorial videos since I get a lot of requests for them. I imagine I will be doing one on background painting, and animation process but if there is any particular thing you'd like to see, just let me know in the comments.

Anyway, here's the trailer. Hope you like it!

Motel Monstre opening credit sequence

2012-01-06T06:50:00.001-05:00

Recently, Dave Cooper and I created this opening title sequence for a TFO kids show called "Motel Monstre". Dave designed the characters and backgrounds, and I did the animation.

The rest of the show is live-action, so it was really great that the producers allowed us pretty much free reign to create a cartoony opening for the show.

Enjoy!

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Another background

2011-12-18T12:57:00.000-05:00

Another simple background I just finished for Black Sunrise. A poster on a subway wall.

Animation festival poster and film

2011-12-17T15:06:00.000-05:00

Back in 2003, I was commissioned by the Ottawa International Animation Festival to create their poster and signal film for the student version of the festival, which at that time happened every other year from the main festival. Above is the poster I created and down below is the signal film - which is the film they play at the start of all of the screenings.

The film is a continuation of the oddball style of animation that I was experimenting with in the early 2000's. The crazy run/dance at the beginning was influenced by two of my favorite pieces of animation: Disney's Silly Symphony, The Goddess of Spring...in particular, this part: a piece of animation that I always get a laugh out of...

And the opening run/dance from Ub Iwerk's, Fiddlesticks...one of my all-time favorite cartoons:

The animation was all drawn on paper and then scanned in and coloured in Photoshop. It was a very tedious and time-consuming process. After I coloured all of the individual drawings for the animation, I exported them as tif files and assembled them one-by-one in Adobe Premiere, making each one 2 frames long...this was how I made all of my first few films until the Waif of Persephone, which was where I started using Flash as a compositing tool.
The music was from a stock library that I sped up to match the beat of the animation.
I love doing these short little pieces of animation, it gives me a chance to be more bold and experimental than I would be in a longer form film.

Mr. Floaf

2011-12-14T16:25:00.000-05:00

A brief comedic interlude...Here is a film I made back in 2002. It was my attempt to learn how to use Flash. I drew all of the animation on paper and then scanned it in and coloured it in Flash. My theory at the time was to just do key animation without inbetweens - sort of like early Hanna-Barbara TV cartoons. I was also experimenting with loose crazy animation, having been introduced to Jim Tyer's work which blew my mind apart...trying to see how far I could push things...I refined this somewhat in Waif of Persephone which I finished in 2006. I have a couple other films that I have to get transferred from tape...one day I'll put those up online as well.

Work continues

2011-11-29T19:54:00.001-05:00

After a couple of crazy months of commercial jobs, I'm back to work on my film. Here's a BG I just finished up today. I should have a few more done that I'll upload sometime this week...

November!

2011-11-02T07:27:00.002-04:00

Crap! I went a whole month without posting...that breaks one of my 'blogging' rules...oh well. Sorry about that, I've been super busy this past month working on stuff that I'm not allowed to talk about...hopefully I will soon though.
As usual, this busy time means I have to put aside my own work on Black Sunrise. But, here's a couple more images of what I was doing right before my life went into overdrive. There's light at the end of the tunnel though, so I should be back to work on getting this film done soon...

OIAF

2011-09-27T20:10:00.005-04:00

The Ottawa International Animation Festival this year was pretty fun. Not only did The Pig Farmer screen in competition, but I was also honoured to be included on a panel entitled "How to Survive as a Short Filmmaker".

Here is a brief review of that panel by Grant Moore via Canadian Animation Resources.

I hope to have more updates for you soon on the progress of my recent film and other projects that I'm working on...

Article in Animation Reporter Magazine

2011-09-07T16:53:00.004-04:00

Here is a scan of a feature article about my film, The Pig Farmer, in Animation Reporter Magazine!
Yay!!

Black Sunrise funding drive over

2011-08-04T16:32:00.003-04:00

The funding drive for Black Sunrise is now complete and I reached just a shade over 50% of my funding goal...not too shabby. Around 150 people contributed and I'm really grateful for all the support.
Right now, I'm working hard to make some progress on the film. I have 3 sequences finished at this point, which amounts to about 5 minutes of completed film. Also, I am looking into poster printing companies so that I can get good quality posters printed up and sent out to everybody, as well as offering up some for sale.

I will also be going to the Ottawa Animation Festival again this year, and I hope to have some animation done to show some folks as well as other swag...stay tuned for more.

Thanks again, everybody!!

Bunny Jam

2011-07-13T15:05:00.003-04:00

As mentioned in my previous post, I had a short piece of animation in the TAIS showcase last month. The idea was called BunnyJam, a series of short 10 second clips with the theme of RABBITS.
My film ended up winning the Audience Award which was amazing! The prize was a book by Nick Cave, "The Death of Bunny Munro". See photo below:

Anyway, here is a compilation of all of the BunnyJam films. Mine comes in at the 4:30 mark.

Enjoy!

TAIS screening on Thursday

2011-06-20T20:40:00.003-04:00

Quick note to say that I will be attending the Toronto Animated Image Society screening on Thursday night. I have a short 10 second piece playing in the Bunny Jam - a screening of short 1o second clips featuring rabbits, in honour of it being the Chinese Year of the Rabbit.
See you there!

Black Sunrise still 3

2011-06-02T18:38:00.002-04:00

Here's another still from Black Sunrise.

Two months to go on my funding campaign for this film and we're at 1/3rd of the way to my funding goal...can i make it in time??
Please help out if you can...http://www.indiegogo.com/Black-Sunrise-1, funders get access to a secret production blog for the film, posters, DVD's and copies of a book that I'm working on, plus your name on a feature animated film!

Thanks to everyone that donated already, you're awesome!

More soon!

Black Sunrise on TV

2011-05-25T10:54:00.003-04:00

There was a cool piece done recently on the French animation show Catsuka on the NOLIFE TV channel about my films and Black Sunrise in particular...CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO

Thanks Marc Aguesse!

New poster for Black Sunrise

2011-05-17T14:02:00.003-04:00

Here's the new poster for Black Sunrise. Thanks for all the support everybody! I'm working away on this film right now, still a loong way to go, but I'm making good progress!
More soon!

Black Sunrise still 2

2011-05-04T18:36:00.002-04:00

Here's another still from my feature film currently in production, Black Sunrise. Painted as always in Photoshop. I may be posting a background painting tutorial on the Black Sunrise production blog in the near future. Click here for more details...

Black Sunrise still

2011-04-25T18:58:00.002-04:00

Still from a scene I just finished for Black Sunrise. This was a very difficult scene and took me the better part of a week to complete(!) I've uploaded a video of it that can be seen on the Black Sunrise production blog...(I've made that blog as a special perk for people that donate money towards the film here.)

Black Sunrise

2011-04-03T20:15:00.009-04:00

The secret can now be revealed. Here is the trailer for my next film, Black Sunrise.

Black Sunrise - Trailer from Nick Cross on Vimeo.

What sets this film apart from all of my previous films is this one will be a FEATURE. That's right, I'm going to make the leap from the comfortable world of short films and enter the big-leagues. I've already storyboarded about 90% of the film and it's going to be big...It's going to be such a large project that it is going to be a challenge to complete at the same time as working on commercial projects to pay the bills. I am going to be trying to get funding for this film but I have also set up a fund-raising campaign at IndieGoGo, so please feel free to donate and help this mammoth undertaking happen.
In conjunction with the production of this film, I will also be producing a book to document the making of an animated film from start-to-finish. I think that this is something that many of you out there might be interested in, since the majority of the emails I get are questions related to this topic, and it seems like there aren't too many specific books on this subject out there.

Thanks everybody, more soon!

Prints for sale

2011-03-30T12:36:00.006-04:00

Hi

I've gotten a few prints made from scenes from The Pig Farmer. These are a numbered and signed limited edition trial run of giclee prints. I only had 10 of each made up, and now only 7 are left of each, so it will be first come first serve with these.

Order information is below:

"Conspiracy"
9" x 16"
$35.00 + tax

"Pillars of Society"
16" x 11"
$35.00 + tax

Wizard-Con

2011-03-10T17:35:00.003-05:00

Next weekend (March 18-20 ) I will be attending the Toronto Wizard-Con. I am sharing a table with my beautiful and talented wife, Marlo Meekins. And will be right next to fellow Angora Napkin creator, Troy Little.

I finally got a first run of prints which I will be selling there, as well as DVD's etc.

Here's the prints:

See you there!

New things are in the works...

2011-02-19T18:32:00.005-05:00

Here is an image from my new film that I am working on.

More about it soon!

Also, thanks to everyone that watched The Pig Farmer and left me comments! And a special shout-out to those that re-posted it on blogs, Twitter and Facebook, I really appreciate it.

Inspiration from Francis Ford Coppola

2011-01-31T14:19:00.003-05:00

I just read a really good interview with Francis Ford Coppola and he had this nugget of sage wisdom:

"How does an aspiring artist bridge the gap between distribution and commerce?

We have to be very clever about those things. You have to remember that it’s only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money. Artists never got money. Artists had a patron, either the leader of the state or the duke of Weimar or somewhere, or the church, the pope. Or they had another job. I have another job. I make films. No one tells me what to do. But I make the money in the wine industry. You work another job and get up at five in the morning and write your script.

This idea of Metallica or some rock n’ roll singer being rich, that’s not necessarily going to happen anymore. Because, as we enter into a new age, maybe art will be free. Maybe the students are right. They should be able to download music and movies. I’m going to be shot for saying this. But who said art has to cost money? And therefore, who says artists have to make money?

In the old days, 200 years ago, if you were a composer, the only way you could make money was to travel with the orchestra and be the conductor, because then you’d be paid as a musician. There was no recording. There were no record royalties. So I would say, “Try to disconnect the idea of cinema with the idea of making a living and money.” Because there are ways around it."

I urge you to read the entire article here.

And on a side note, thanks to everyone for the great feedback on The Pig Farmer! It's rewarding to know that after all the hard work, people got some enjoyment out of it.

Thanks!!!

The Pig Farmer

2011-01-23T22:52:00.003-05:00

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!

Last post of 2010

2010-12-31T16:39:00.002-05:00

Well, it looks like 2010 is coming to an end. This year I completed two film projects. One, I'm still not sure that I can talk much about publicly but the other as any regular readers of this blog will know, is The Pig Farmer.
I am planning on releasing it online in January. Most likely somewhere around the 15th. I have sent out advance DVD copies which have either arrived or are in transit as I type this post...
I have also started storyboarding my next film. I began writing ideas down for this one a few years ago but only in the last month has it started to gel into a cohesive story. I won't reveal too much more about it since I'm still working on the board and I like to get that pretty much nailed down first before I talk about it. Remember, don't talk about it, DO IT.
Anyway, have a Happy New Year!

"The Pig Farmer" to be released SOON!

2010-12-01T17:24:00.004-05:00

Well folks, it looks like I've finished up this here film. I will be releasing it directly online very soon. But first, I will be sending advance DVD copies to all those that generously helped to finance the film during my funding drive earlier in the year. You paid for it, you get to see it first!

Hopefully, I should be getting those made and sent off within the next couple of weeks. After that, I should be uploading the film to my channels on Vimeo and Youtube. That most likely will be very early in 2011.

In the meantime, here's a few stills from it. It's hard to find too many good ones to show, since I don't want to give away any plot points for those that hate spoilers etc...

Anyway, thanks again to all that gave their hard-earned money to help out. I hope you enjoy it!

From the vault...

2010-11-22T19:22:00.004-05:00

I just remembered this old comic I did a looong time ago (2002!) as a backup in Troy Little's Chiaroscuro series. It is on my old website as a really low-res version, most people probably haven't seen it, so here it is. BTW, the page at the top was never printed in the issue due to space restrictions, this is sort of like the "director's cut"...Enjoy!

Angora Napkin pilot

2010-11-17T09:12:00.003-05:00

At last, the full version of the Angora Napkin pilot that I co-created in 2009 with Troy Little is online for the world to see.

Angora Napkin - pilot from Troy Little on Vimeo.

Enjoy!

Back from Ottawa and onward into the future

2010-10-26T15:10:00.006-04:00

Another Ottawa International Animation Festival has come to a conclusion, meaning it won't be long before winter is here once again. We had a great time at the festival, and it was my first opportunity to watch Yellow Cake with an audience which is always interesting. And here's my beautiful wife Marlo, taking her first ride on an escalator.

The best part of the festival is meeting up with friends and making new ones. The parties are one of the best opportunites for this.
The morning after my competition screening, I was on a "Meet the Filmmakers" panel. This was my view of the audience.
Here I am at Dave Cooper's book signing just before security whisked me away...

In honour of the event, we gave our pal and hotshot cartoonist Rex Hackelberg an award. He earned it!
And now on to the future! The Pig Farmer is nearing its completion. I am just putting the final touches on the sound design while my genius composer, Neal Williams, finishes off his awesome score. Hopefully, if all goes well, it should be all finished up in about a month...

You may have noticed the new banner at the top of the blog. Angora Napkin, (the pilot I made with Troy Little in 2009) will finally be shown on television. It will be airing on Teletoon on Hallowe'en night, so if you are Canadian or plan to be in Canada at that time, why not tune in?

What's next? Watch this space....all will be revealed in due course.

Yellow Cake at OIAF

2010-10-15T19:45:00.003-04:00

The Ottawa International Animation Festival starts next week and I just wanted to get the word out now. My last film, Yellow Cake, will be playing in Short Competition 5 on Saturday night. As always, I will be attending the festival, so if you spot me, feel free to say hi.

See you there!

More Pig Farmer imagery

2010-10-14T13:06:00.002-04:00

Here's another scene for "The Pig Farmer", drawn and painted in Photoshop.

I'm going to be selling prints of some of the backgrounds from the film, coinciding with the release of the film. Hopefully, that will be in December.

Stay tuned...

Slitscan animation

2010-10-03T16:21:00.003-04:00

I always loved the 'stargate' sequence in 2001-A Space Odyssey and decided to indulge myself and add a short scene to The Pig Farmer utilizing this technique, known as 'Slitscan animation'. The actual process itself is very elaborate and confusing and so I used After Effects to avoid constructing a huge camera rig etc. It still took a lot of research and time to get the desired effect. Anyway, here it is:

The Pig Farmer - Slitscan animation from Nick Cross on Vimeo.

Pig Farmer incidental scene

2010-09-24T19:47:00.003-04:00

Here's a small scene from my film in production, The Pig Farmer. It is based on a painting by George Grosz, one of my favorite artists.

More Pig Farmer BG's

2010-08-29T15:35:00.006-04:00

Here's some more backgrounds from "The Pig Farmer". I'm about 25% through painting the bg's for the film. I've uploaded a selection here:
In this film, I'm trying for a few different moods expressed through lighting and colour.

More to follow soon!

My BG painting process 101

2010-08-08T07:25:00.021-04:00

As of this week, animation on "The Pig Farmer" is now complete and I have moved on to painting the backgrounds.
For the first background, I chose to paint the opening establishing shot since it contained a lot of the elements that I would be using throughout the film. As I promised earlier, I saved a few versions along the way to make a brief tutorial of my process. It's kind of a broad overview, in the near future I will do more detailed posts about specific steps as I finish other paintings.

Okay, here we go, first we start with a rough drawing.

By 'rough' I mean, tightly drawn but not super clean. Since I'm doing the whole thing myself, I can leave a lot of subtle and small details for later. This saves time since it's sort of a pain to trace over small details and there isn't much point doing something twice if you don't have to.
At the layout stage, it's important to remember what the focal point of your scene is supposed to be. In this case, it is the farm house in the distance. You want the viewers eye to immediately go to where you want it to, especially since this painting is intended for an animated film. Therefore, you have to be sure to keep in mind that the audience will only get a few seconds to take in the entire image.
As you can see, I made the roadway lead up towards the house. But I also had other elements in the image point towards it as well to keep the eye from wandering aimlessly around. Also, note that the focal point is not in the centre of the composition. It's a more natural and more interesting if objects are not centred and aligned symmetrically.

The next step is to block in some rough tonal areas.

Since this part of the film takes place in the morning, at sunrise, I had to be sure that the lighting represented a sun just peering up over the horizon. Clouds at that time of day tend to be darker than the sky and shadows are longer. I also wanted to be sure that the lighting didn't compete with the composition. So I placed the house in a pool of light surrounded by darker shadows. Since this is a cartoon, and therefore doesn't necessarily have to follow real-life logic, I can put spots of light where ever they need to be. In this case, I wanted to have the house sitting in a pool of light.

Next, comes the colour block-in stage:

In this painting, because it is morning, I kept the colours in the warm range. Even the greens are warm (more yellow than blue). Notice that the sky is orange but not a garish vibrant orange, and it gradates to a warm gray as opposed to a vibrant "sky" blue. The most important thing to remember when dealing with colour is to avoid using intense and saturated colours. Never underestimate the value of using gray. Grays and neutral colours gives the eye a place to rest and this allows you to save the brighter colours to use as an accent. There's a million other colour theories, but I can get into them more specifically in future posts.

Now I block in the secondary details. I also further refined the sky, adding a sun and lighting to the clouds. Again, notice that the colours in the sky are muted. The 'blue' is actually a cool gray. It only looks blue because of the relation to the warm colours next too it. I tried to look this up online, but no one seems to be able to explain it very well. But here is the colour in the color mixer in Photoshop to show where it actually exists value and tone-wise.
The other major change I made at this point was that I found that some of the shadows were too cool, notably the front of the house and the tree. They looked a little too out of place and didn't suit the mood of a warm summer morning.

After this, I went ahead and added all the finishing details. I forgot to save any more steps, but I'll try to explain what I did. The main thing is I went into the larger colour forms and added smaller forms of subtly different tints. Here is an example:
Although there are quite a few different colours within the main form of the tree, they are all tonally similar to each other. This helps to give life and variety to the main shape of the tree without breaking it up into separate random unrelated clumps.

Here's a detail of the road. I tend to avoid using too many textured brushes. I like to use texture sparingly - much like colour - I find a little can go a long way. Here, I used just three tones of the same colour to represent the stylized ruts and ripples of a dirt road.

A detail of the sky to show how loose I kept everything. Again just a little texture for variety.

Well, I hope that this was somewhat helpful. I will be doing more posts shortly as I get more backgrounds finished. Keep watching this space!

Thank you

2010-07-17T07:42:00.002-04:00

Well, my current film in production, The Pig Farmer, has completed its funding drive on Indiegogo. It reached 80% of the funding goal which is amazing. Thank you so much to everyone that contributed funds!
To update you all on the status of the production. I have only 5 scenes left to animate, so if all goes according to plan, I should have animation wrapped up in a couple weeks. Then I am moving on to BG painting. Once I get started on that, I am planning on doing another step-by-step process on my approach to painting backgrounds; so look forward to that...

Also, you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook if you aren't already...I sometimes post stuff there that I don't publish here. And while I'm at it, here are my Youtube and Vimeo channels.

Thanks again everybody!!!

Last chance to fund "Pig Farmer"

2010-06-28T12:18:00.004-04:00

This is a last call for all of you out there that want to throw some money at my latest film in production, "The Pig Farmer". So far I am at 60% of my funding goal. The campaign on IndieGoGo ends on Wednesday so if anyone has been putting it off, time's running out fast.

Click on the link in the sidebar ---------->

As far as the production itself is going, I have about 85% of the animation completed. I'm hoping to have the entire film finished by December at the latest.

Here's some animation from the film:

More updates to follow soon!

Angora Napkin comic!

2010-05-09T17:49:00.006-04:00

Okay, so the graphic novel for Angora Napkin was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Teen Publication. The Eisner Award is the Oscar awards of the comic world, so it's a pretty big deal. In light of this great achievement, here is my comic that I did for the book. And after you're done reading, why not buy it here on Amazon!

Moonchicken - Promo animatic

2010-05-05T07:36:00.007-04:00

I just saw this linked over at Canadian Animation Resources, so I guess it's kosher to publish here. This is a storyboard animatic that I did for Amberwood Entertainment a few months ago. This is a proposed kids TV show written and created by Craig Young. I drew it in Storyboard Pro, for those folks out there that are interested in that sort of thing...

Anyway, enjoy the weird strangity that is MOONCHICKEN. CLICK HERE

In Defense of Flash

2010-04-30T19:42:00.005-04:00

So, it seems that over the past year, more and more folks have been downgrading Adobe Flash as crap. The iPhone and iPads don't support Flash and most recently, Steve Jobs has published an article defending Apple abandoning it. I realize that he is referring mainly to the use of Flash to design and build websites. I know very little (in fact nothing at all about CSS, HTML5 etc) so I can't really comment on that. However, I've read comments on a few animation blogs by animators talking about how crappy Flash is as well and I figured I would chime in with my two cents on the topic.

Personally, I love using Flash. It has changed my life. It meets just about every criteria for an animation program. It is simple to use, doesn't use up tons of RAM or slow down your computer-allowing you to do long complicated scenes without too many crashes or hang-ups.

The only thing I don't like is that the drawing tools don't produce a very elegant rough line that mimics pencil on paper in the same way that Toonboom software or Photoshop and Sketchbook Pro do. However, in order to get such a line you end up with giant file sizes and slowed performance which for me is a lot worse of a headache. Drawing with the brush tool in Flash is kind of like drawing with a fineline marker which I do on occasion anyway, so it's not that outside of my comfort zone. The other negative to Flash is the lack of a "camera" which means camera moves have to be done in reverse-when you want to zoom in, you have to make the scene larger on the timeline. But, I've been using the program so long now that I'm used to it and it's not really an issue for me.

Another thing that I like about Flash is that it is a relatively cheap program to buy. I am really disappointed with the fact that Toonboom Animate Pro, which I will admit is a great program, is $2000 to buy. That puts it out of reach of a lot of young artists just starting out. Flash costs about a third of that, putting it in the range of most independent artists and animators.

For me animation has always been about experimentation and finding the best tools to do the job and get the best results. I use Photoshop, Flash, Storyboard Pro, Final Cut Pro and After Effects to do my animation. None of these programs alone can give me everything. I use the best and most useful features from each and it I love it. I'll never go back to pencil on paper again. And hopefully my work will be better because of it.

Interview on Cartoon Funland + Trophy

2010-04-14T10:22:00.004-04:00

It seems I've been doing a lot of interviews lately...there's a new one on Cartoon Funland.

I got a special treat in the mail today:

My trophy from the Canada International Film Festival! It's really nice and heavy too...

Also, animation on my latest film, The Pig Farmer is moving along at a steady clip. I have less than 20 scenes left to complete. Once animation is complete, I will be moving on to backgrounds. There have been a few requests for a post about my process on those so look forward to that.

Interview on Animation Archive

2010-04-08T09:11:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago I was in Los Angeles and had the opportunity to be interviewed at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive by two great fellas: Danny Young and Michael Woodside. Well, that podcast is now online for the world to hear.

Click here for a direct link to the interview.

'Inking' in Flash demo

2010-04-01T14:00:00.002-04:00

Here's a demo video I recorded of myself inking a drawing in Flash CS3. I accidently exported the video in grayscale...oh well.

Enjoy!

Also, I'm on twitter now: CLICK HERE

Animation process with video

2010-03-30T18:49:00.019-04:00

Okay, after intending to do this for ages, I finally took the time to document my steps in taking a scene from animatic through to finished cleaned up animation. I've recorded each stage as a video so hopefully you will be able to see the progression.

STAGE ONE - ANIMATIC

This is the rough storyboard panels timed out from the animatic. These are simply rough sketches that define the basic action for the scene.

STAGE TWO - LAYOUT

Here I've done layout poses to solidify the storyboard sketches. I did the drawings in Photoshop and then brought them into Flash to time them out according to the animatic which can be seen as the small window inside the main fielding.

STAGE THREE - REFINING POSES

Now that the poses are in place I can go in and add the extra rough poses to help flesh out the action. The main idea of the scene is that the character is looking around him in horror and then becoming remorseful. Something from off-screen surprises him at the end of the scene. The first thing I did was add a couple key drawings of him looking around quickly. There was also a lot of time in the scene after he holds up the knife, so I added a couple drawings to show him putting his hand to his forehead and dropping it down to enhance the mood.

STAGE FOUR - KEY ANIMATION

Okay, now that the scene is all posed out I can go in and add the key drawings. For the most part they are there to help define the action. The only major thing is I added a take at the end before the head turn to give an extra accent and make it clear that he is reacting to something from off-screen.

STAGE FIVE - BREAKDOWNS

Breakdowns are the name given to the drawings that go between the key drawings that further smooth out and define the action. It's important to note that these are not simple "inbetweens" or drawings that fall in the middle of the action. It is very crucial that these drawings are well thought out and give life to the animation. A lot of the cheap animation that gets done for Saturday morning cartoons leave out this step and that is why the movement in those shows tends to be flat and lifeless. Since I added the take, I went and added a few more keys to make the action smoother. I had an idea to make the eyes lead the action as he turns to make it a little weirder. I kept it subtle so as not to be too funny and spoil the mood of the scene. Also, after playing the scene through a few times, I slightly adjusted the timing on some of the keys to help make the action read clearly. This is a constant thing that I find needs to be done when animating and working in a completely digital environment makes this possible. You can make constant adjustments on the fly to help make the animation as good as you can get it.

STAGE SIX - KEY CLEANUP

Alright, now that the scene is pretty fleshed out it's time to clean up the drawings. I start by adding a clean line to the most important drawings. It's a good idea to do it this way as opposed to starting with the first one and working consecutively until the end. This way will make inbetweening a lot easier since we have a clean line to use as reference instead of a rough scratchy line. The red lines are going to be "self-trace" lines, which means that the lines will be the same colour as the fill colour. For basic tips on my cleanup process you can refer to a previous post I did a few years back. It was on inking on paper but the basic rules still apply. CLICK HERE. Oh, and the brush setting that I use in Flash has the smoothing set to 20.

STAGE SEVEN - CLEANUP

Once the main drawings are inked, I go back and finish the cleanup on the rest of the drawings. I use the 'onionskin' function in Flash to help get the finished lines in exactly the right place so that the lines don't boil. This is the part that is very time consuming but I feel that the labour is well worth it in the end. If you've gone to the trouble of doing really nice animation you really should make sure that the lines look nice and pretty. It just shows that you care.

STAGE EIGHT - INBETWEENING

Now that all the drawings have been cleaned up, I do the final inbetweening. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that most the animation process on most traditional features do the inbetweening before the cleanup which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It is way more efficient to do it from a finished clean drawing with one solid line than a scratchy rough. I just find this saves a lot of time and trouble, and in animation any way that you can save time is a bonus.

STAGE NINE - FINISH

Okay, now we clean up the last of the inbetweens and we are done. Also, I added a couple extra inbetweens to cushion into some of the holds since some of them seemed come to a stop a little too abruptly.

Well, hopefully this was of value to some of you out there. I've been asked quite a few times for tips on my process of animating in Flash and I figured this was the best way to show it.

I didn't time myself, but from start to finish, this scene took a full day of work to do just to give you an idea of a time frame. That's not too bad for a 4 second, fully animated scene....right?

Anyhow, I just upgraded my Mac OS to "Snow Leopard" and I see that Quicktime now has a screen recording function so I might do another process video of me doing some animation or BG painting etc...keep watching this space!

Crowdfunding article - Microfilmmaker

2010-03-29T13:46:00.002-04:00

Just a quick note to mention there is a 'crowdfunding' article up on microfilmmaker.com. I was interviewed about my IndieGoGo involvement with my current in-production film, The Pig Farmer.

Here's the article.

Royal Reel Award

2010-03-19T15:32:00.003-04:00

Going on right now is the 2010 Canada International Film Festival in Vancouver. My last film "Yellow Cake" was selected as a recipient of the Royal Reel Award for Excellence in Film-making.
It's quite an honour, unfortunately I won't be able to attend the award ceremony on Sunday...
Oh well, such is life....

More posts soon!

Pig Farmer - animation

2010-03-06T20:12:00.004-05:00

Hi,

Animation has begun on my newest short film, The Pig Farmer. I am experimenting with a more delicate clean-up line on this film as well as hopefully a more fully animated and flowing style.
I remember reading quite a few things people had written on the internet about digital 2D animation, and Flash animation in particular. It was along the lines of "a film like Disney's Pinnochio can never be done using Flash". I took those comments to heart and believe they are 100% wrong. I think that is exactly the sort of animation that can be done in Flash and the look of that film can indeed be achieved using this program. I may not hit those heights this time around, but it's good to have a goal, and that is mine.

Anyway, here's one of the first scenes I've completed.

The Pig Farmer - Scene 2 from Nick Cross on Vimeo.

More to follow soon...by the way, if you like what you see and are feeling generous, why not click on the IndieGoGo link on the sidebar to donate a few bucks to help get this sucker finished ----->

Thanks!!

Interview on Shrew World

2010-02-09T20:50:00.002-05:00

Hi,

I was recently interviewed by Tyler Roberts for Shrewworld.com.

Click here for the interview.

More soon!

New Film

2010-02-05T11:21:00.003-05:00

***NEWS FLASH****

I've started a new film. It's working title is, The Pig Farmer.

I'm trying something new with this film. As with the Waif of Persephone, I am asking for funding donations to try and get it done faster. But this time, I'm using a crowd-funding site called IndieGoGo.

Here's the link.

This film is going to be much shorter than my last two films. It will be timing out to around 4 1/2 minutes in length, so I hope to have it done this year. That's where you come in, friends. Funding is always a help and it comes with perks that are explained on the IndieGoGo page.

Interview on One Huge Eye

2010-01-07T10:49:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year everybody!

Here's an interview that I recently did with Alex at One Huge Eye.

Also, Yellow Cake will be getting it's real world premiere at the Idyllwild Festival of Cinema which takes place from January 11 - 15, in the mountains of Southern California.

More posts soon!

The Music of Sound -Yo Gabba Gabba!

2009-12-08T14:52:00.003-05:00

Here's a short animated piece I made for the second season of Yo Gabba Gabba!

The Music of Sound - Yo Gabba Gabba! from Nick Cross on Vimeo.

I kind of like the colours in this one. I tried to keep the background rendering to a minimum, making it as simple as possible.

This was the first film I made using a Cintiq and consequently, it was also the first time I did everything digitally in Photoshop and Flash.

Enjoy!

From the vault: Waif of Persephone now online.

2009-12-03T13:29:00.002-05:00

Happy holidays! As a present to humanity, here is my 2006 film, The Waif of Persephone online for the first time!

The Waif of Persephone from Nick Cross on Vimeo.

Of course, the DVD is still available for purchase (Click on the button on the sidebar) It contains extras that you can't get anywhere else all for a low price of $13.99!

Article in "Ottawa Magazine"

2009-11-10T10:47:00.002-05:00

Animation test and interview

2009-11-07T22:15:00.004-05:00

Here's a short (very short) piece of animation I did a couple months ago as a test for a proposed series based on the children's books by Tomson Highway.

Also, here's an interview I did about my most recent film, Yellow Cake, for Motionographer.com.

Angora Napkin "Airdate"

2009-10-26T12:46:00.003-04:00

Hey everybody.

Angora Napkin, the pilot I made with Troy Little last year will finally be broadcast...on the internet. I believe they are calling this a "non-linear launch" Which is both good and bad. Bad because we were hoping it would be shown on television, which was the original intention, but good because now everybody can see it even if you don't live in Canada.

So it will be shown on October 30th at thedetour.ca
It will also be available on iTunes but I'm not sure of the details of that...but the important thing is that it will only be online for one week so watch it while you can!

In the meantime, here's the original opening bumper that we wanted to have at the start of the show, but the network didn't like....so here it is for posterity.

Wow + interview

2009-10-08T08:57:00.003-04:00

Woo...I've overwhelmed by the positive response "Yellow Cake" has gotten. Anshuman Iddamsetty has just posted an interview I did for his blog, Slow Decade about the film.

Click here for the interview...

Thanks again everybody!

Yellow Cake complete!

2009-10-04T19:07:00.006-04:00

It's finished! I started working on Yellow Cake in November of 2006 right after I finished production on 'The Waif of Persephone'. So, after almost exactly 3 years it's all done!

Yellow Cake from Nick Cross on Vimeo.

I've decided to make this film a 'direct-to-internet' release. I will also be sending it around on the festival circuit, so hopefully it will be coming to a screen near you sometime soon.

Until then, enjoy!

***UPDATE***

I added a 'zazzle' store to my sidebar. I'm selling "Yellow Cake" T-shirts with the above design on them. I might be adding some more stuff in the near future if these sell well.

Thanks for all the great comments everybody!

News

2009-09-23T11:37:00.002-04:00

Wow...time flies. Sorry about the lack of updates but I have been putting the finishing touches on my latest film, Yellow Cake. It should be finished in the next week or so. Updates to follow, but in the meantime here's some backgrounds to whet your appetite,

In other news, King of Magazines, has been accepted in the 2009 Holland Animation Festival. It will also be showing in the Ottawa Animation Festival next month. It will be playing in Short Competition 2 on Thursday, October 18th at 9:15pm.
Also, the pilot I co-created and directed is premiering at the Ottawa Animation Festival this year. It is showing on Thursday, October 18th at 11:30 pm, which is past my bedtime, but I'll make an exception in this case.

See you there!

King of Magazines - Official Selection - Ottawa '09

2009-07-23T21:13:00.005-04:00

I just got the word today, the music video we did for Danko Jones will be in the official competion in the Ottawa International Animation Festival!

The festival runs from October 14 to the 18th. Both Dave Cooper and myself will be at the festival so feel free to come up and say hello.

Here's what I look like:

Expertly drawn by Marlo Meekins.

Yellow Cake update

2009-07-17T22:19:00.006-04:00

I'm still making progress on my latest short film, Yellow Cake.

All of the animation is complete and I've started work on the backgrounds. I'm hoping to have this film finished by the end of the year. Meanwhile, here's an example of my most recent finished one.

I'm trying some different types of lighting effects for the backgrounds in this short. Sort of a more high-contrast look combined with muted colours, all for the purpose of adding DRAMA!

Enjoy...

King of Magazines - High Fructose

2009-07-07T16:40:00.003-04:00

For some reason, I must have forgotten to mention this before, but here's a link to an interview Dave Cooper did with High Fructose about the music video we did for Danko Jones earlier in the year.

It's got a bunch of the storyboard sketches Dave did for the video as well as a bit of insight into the process.

Enjoy...

Unused concept art

2009-06-12T21:00:00.005-04:00

This week I was asked to submit a proposal for a 2 minute music video for Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds" for Nickelodeon.
Mine wasn't selected however, so I'm assuming that it is safe to post an image of it here for posterity.

Angora Napkin preview

2009-05-29T19:50:00.003-04:00

Here's a super fast montage of ANGORA NAPKIN, the pilot I made with Troy Little for Teletoon's Pilot Project. Hopefully it will be airing sometime this year....I will keep you posted...

Frederated

2009-04-28T12:39:00.002-04:00

I just saw that the signal film that I made for the 2003 Ottawa Animation Festival has been put in a compilation video by Channel Frederator. Mine is near the end at the 7:29 mark.

Enjoy.

Rough designs

2009-04-05T22:05:00.005-04:00

Here's some rough design work I did a couple years ago for Chuck Gammage. It was for a promo for a tv series called "FatAss Cat".

The spot can be found here (no direct link - scroll down to the bottom of the page on the right) It was directed by my good friend Graham Falk.

Enjoy!

Work in Progress

2009-02-22T17:52:00.003-05:00

Hello

Here's a photo of a painting that is in progress...it's ultimate function will remain unrevealed for now. But really, does 'art' need a function?

Waif of Persephone in Tokyo

2009-02-18T14:41:00.003-05:00

I just got word today that my last film "The Waif of Persephone" will screen at the Canadian Embassy booth at the Tokyo Anime Fair market. So if you somehow find yourself in the Tokyo area on March 18 or 19, why not drop by...Here's some images from the near future to give you a taste:

Angora Graphic Novel

2009-02-09T10:39:00.006-05:00

HEY GANG!!

I got something special in the mail today, tossed onto my snowy doorstep with the willful abandon that only a disgruntled civil servant can muster - the Angora Napkin graphic novel!

It was written and drawn by my good friend Troy Little. It's got a bunch of stuff in it. One main story plus two more backup stories and comic strips. I also did a back up comic for it. Here's a page preview of it:
Well, what are you waiting for? Be the first person on your block to own this modern-day classic! Order it here on Amazon. Or go to your local bookstore and order yourself a copy...it's worth it!!

For more information, visit the Angora Napkin blog here.

Happy Obama Day

2009-01-20T15:10:00.003-05:00

Hi Folks,

Well work is progressing on the pilot cartoon I'm doing. For updates, as always, go to angoranapkin.com

I just discovered that this has been posted online. It's an animatic of the storyboard I did for a never completed episode of Ren and Stimpy called Life Sucks back in 2002. Sorry about the crap quality...in a way it's not even worth linking to, since it is so pixelated, but since some folks might not have seen it, here it is.
LS2
Uploaded by chuckchillout8

Basically, we were going for a Mary Blair style of innocence with the Children's Crusade Golden Book which was fun to do....too bad we never got to paint them up properly...oh well, now it's consigned to the scrapheap of history called the internets....

Fun Factoid: The drawing for the scene where the children drown and the camera follows them down to the bottom of the river was about 3 feet by 2 feet in size and took me a couple days to draw...yep, and that's for one storyboard panel...

Danko Jones' "King of Magazines"

2008-12-12T10:21:00.002-05:00

Today marks the official launch of the music video that I worked on with Dave Cooper.

Danko Jones - King Of Magazines from Bad Taste Records on Vimeo.

The animation was all done in Flash by myself and Steve Stefanelli, working from Dave's storyboard and rough designs.

Enjoy!

Waif of Persephone review on AWN

2008-11-26T19:10:00.002-05:00

As the title suggests, my last film, The Waif of Persephone, has been reviewed on AWN's Fresh from the Festivals column.

Here's the direct link!

Right now I'm just doing the final polish on a music video I'm doing with my good pal, Dave Cooper for the band Danko Jones. Here's a little taste to whet your appetites...

I can't show anything more yet but it will be online soon, my friends...very soon.

Obligatory post....

2008-11-15T18:05:00.002-05:00

Sorry about the lack of updates, my friends...so very very busy.....I'll have some very cool stuff to show soon.....

For your patience, here's some video shot at the voice records for Angora Napkin last week.

Help wanted

2008-09-13T17:34:00.003-04:00

So it looks like my busy schedule just got a little busier...on top of this pilot for Teletoon, it looks like I may be doing an animated music video as well....I NEED HELP!

If you live in the Ottawa area and have good drawing and animation skills, and know Flash, Photoshop etc....please contact me either here on this blog, or via email....nick [at]pyatyletka[dot]com. I will also be at the animation festival in Ottawa this year, if you want to track me down there.....

Basically, the job will run from now until the end of December(roughly). I need an assistant to help out with animation, layout etc.

Thanks!!

More from the Angora Napkin pilot

2008-09-08T10:52:00.003-04:00

My friends,

Here's some still frames from the ongoing production on the Angora Napkin pilot that we are doing for Teletoon.

This show will be a nearly 100% digital production. I'm working on figuring out a good system to avoid the generic flash production method in favour of a more classic television animation model which utilizes less animators. Basically, it will be along the lines of the old Hanna Barbara system, limited animation using strong layout poses and interesting designs. My theory is that if the scenes look really good the audience will forgive the lack of "slick" modern-looking animation, which is based on pre-existing character models and computer 'tweened' symbols.

This show's got it all, folks:

Death!

Rock and roll!

Natural wonders!

Gossip!

And sport fishing!

For more television delights, visit ANGORA NAPKIN.COM

Angora Napkin imagery

2008-08-29T17:04:00.003-04:00

It's been a busy summer...production is ongoing on the Angora Napkin pilot....not too much to show quite yet, but if you're interested you can always head over to www.angoranapkin.com for updates and images like the one above.
Anyone going to the Ottawa Animation Festival this year? I'm going to be on a panel...not sure of the details yet but I will strive to keep you updated as time creeps closer.

Talk to you soon!

Hymen comic

2008-07-03T20:23:00.003-04:00

Hi Folks,

Whilst digging through my digital archives today I stumbled across this artifact from 2003...

It's a comic that I did for the latest issue of Animation Blast. Basically, this character is a little panda with a huge chip on his shoulder. He is always really keen on getting a job and always tries super hard to get hired, and then instantly hates having it and resents the boss for hiring him. I kind of like this character, and I hope to someday put him in a film or something...too many ideas, not enough time. Well, if what you see whets your appetite for more or less of the same, click here for his first appearance!

Angora update

2008-06-30T11:33:00.005-04:00

So, as mentioned previously, my friend Troy Little and I are doing a pilot for Teletoon-the animation station here in Canada.

www.angoranapkin.com

It has been slow getting rolling but it looks like the actual production is going to be starting soon, and hopefully it'll be done by early next year. The image above is a strange idea that came into my head last week and I was compelled to do it...it's a good idea of where my headspace is at these days ha ha. George Orwell was right!!!

New interview

2008-06-24T12:52:00.003-04:00

Hi!

Just to let everyone know. I was recently interviewed by Jason Anders for his blog right here. There's also an interview with Kristy Gordon there too. He's got lots of great stuff on there.

Character paintings-Yin, Yang, Yo

2008-06-21T08:50:00.006-04:00

Here's some character paintings that I did last year for Yin, Yang, Yo. These were done as traditional paintings which were then finalized in Photoshop.

The idea behind these were that Yin and Yang were supposed to look really sick and disgusting. I tried to base the style on the old EC comic covers where the faces would always be underlit by a sickly green light.
The paintings of Yin were particularly difficult because she has really pink skin. That really made for a challenge when it came to making them look gross since yellows and greens can really clash with pink.

It always makes the job so much easier when you have good layout drawings to work from. All of the drawings were by Warren Leonhardt (boards) and Mark Ackland (director).

Call for help from students

2008-06-01T17:43:00.005-04:00

Hey gang!

Just to let you know, superstar artist, Kristy Gordon has applied for an 'O-grant' which is a grant to help students and young people who are making a difference. Here is the video application she submitted:

If you are a student, and have a school email address, you can help by going to the O-grant website, and after registering click here to vote. Just 2 minutes of your time is all it takes to advance the cause of artistic genius!

Thanks!!

Apatoons inteview

2008-05-23T09:21:00.006-04:00

Hi Folks,

Here's an interview of me done by board artist extraordinaire Warren Leonhardt for a recent issue of Apatoons magazine. It's a pretty slick article, that Warren fella's got a future I tells ya!

Click on the images to enlarge.

Enjoy!

A new era begins...

2008-05-02T19:13:00.002-04:00

Yep, I finally broke down and got myself one of them fancy Cintiq contraptions...see photo above. I can't wait to get down to doing some work on it....stay tuned for the results.

Critical response - expanded edition.

2008-04-08T17:54:00.002-04:00

As some loyal readers to this humble blog may remember, my last film "The Waif of Persephone" was given a short, terse review by noted animation historian, Michael Barrier after seeing a screening of it at the 2008 Ottawa Animation Festival.
Recently, he purchased a DVD and promised to give it a second look. His new review can be found here.
Although, I don't agree with all of his opinions, I really have to tip my hat to him for taking the time to write such a thoughtful review.

In other news, "Yellow Cake", my newest film has been put on a tiny hiatus as I shift my workload over to a half-hour cartoon pilot for Teletoon. A production blog for that project can be found here. However, that doesn't mean this blog will go unattended in the meantime. Updates, artwork and news will still be forthcoming....

Important news!

2008-03-20T20:19:00.003-04:00

The greatest artist in the history of cartooning is now online. I cannot begin to overstate the influence his work has had on me. Click here for the brilliance...and if you don't agree, I pity you....

I heard the news today, oh boy....

2008-03-15T15:05:00.007-04:00

Okay...so, I guess it's official. A concept dreamed up by Troy Little and myself a while ago has been greenlight for a pilot by Teletoon. The project is called "Angora Napkin".

We've set up a production blog type-thing here which will contain all the news that's fit to blog.

This is pretty crazy news.... I'm pretty excited about this...now we've just got to make the damn thing.

More layouts - Yellow Cake

2008-03-08T20:40:00.007-05:00

Well, it's been a busy winter, commercial work mixed with shovelling snow. I would complain, but who'd listen. So here's some layouts from Yellow Cake for y'all t'have a gander until I can get some more animation done:

A few more:
Click here for that last layout in final animation.

More soon, hopefully!

More Yellow animation, my friends

2008-02-04T17:46:00.000-05:00

I gotta give you some straight talk my friends, it's a tough war we're in. It's not going to be over right away. There's going to be other wars. I'm sorry to tell you, there's going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.

But until then, here's some fun for you folks that like sports and cartoons (don't put me in that camp, my friends)

Yellow Cake-stills

2008-02-03T10:43:00.000-05:00

Hi Folks,

Work continues on "Yellow Cake". I am about halfway through the animation on this film. Hopefully, it will be completed by sometime late this year.

Here's a few stills:

More Yellow animation

2008-01-05T19:15:00.000-05:00

To kick off the new year, here's another piece of animation from "Yellow Cake" for you. It's a short scene again, but for some reason most of the scenes I've been doing have only been a couple of seconds in length.

Click here for the fun!

2007 - Plog year in review

2008-01-05T19:03:00.001-05:00

Well, it's been three years since I started this production blog. Quite a long time in internet terms...

Overall, it was a pretty good year. It started off well with the release of "The Waif of Persephone" on DVD in January. I was quite surprised by how many orders I received within the first week (thanks mostly to a great plug by Amid Amidi on Cartoon Brew.)

Also in 2007, I started the animation on my newest animated short film, "Yellow Cake." I've actually been making fairly steady progress on it (albeit with a few delays here-and-there). "Yellow Cake" is my seventh independent short film to date. I actually started making my own films in 1998-ten years ago!. Click here for digital versions of most of them. My goal for this year is to try to get this film finished and put out a DVD containing all of my films, plus as many extra goodies as I can find.

The professional highlight for me this year was getting the opportunity to do a short animated piece for Yo Gabba Gabba! This was one of the most enjoyable projects I've ever done and working for them was great.

The other highlight was the Ottawa Animation Festival wherein "The Waif of Persephone" was in competition. Although it didn't win an award, it seemed to get a good reception and I got to meet a bunch of really cool people. In 2007, it played at quite a few festivals around the world and I'm hoping to enter that film into a bunch more festivals this year before retiring the film to possible internet broadcast.

And last but not least was a really cool article that Chris Robinson wrote about me for Guerilla Magazine.

Well, that's about it for 2007. Hopefully there will be some big news happening this year. There's a couple of cool things bubbling away that can't be disclosed as of yet...but keep your fingers crossed!

Another year is over...

2008-01-01T10:58:00.000-05:00

And I don't have time to give you my new year's update...so until then enjoy one of my favorite all-time cartoons!

Happy Holidays

2007-12-21T08:38:00.001-05:00

"Yellow Cake" short scene

2007-12-13T21:31:00.000-05:00

Here's a recent piece of animation I did for "Yellow Cake". All done in flash, using traditional penciled keys.

Click here for the animation fun:

Also, a quick shout-out of thanks to Amid Amidi for a recent mention on CartoonBrew.

Lies

2007-12-01T08:32:00.000-05:00

Here's a link to an article/interview that I did with Chris Robinson for the online magazine Guerilla.

They asked for a 1 minute clip from "The Waif of Persephone" which they posted up on the Youtube. So I'll link to it here as well...(Sorry about the ugly quality-I personally despise the way Youtube compresses video, especially animation for some reason, oh well...)

By the way, I still have DVD's of The Waif of Persephone" available. Now that the US dollar is in the toilet, $13.99 USD is a real steal! They make great gifts for the holidays too.

Boring post...

2007-11-28T17:03:00.001-05:00

I was avoiding work and managed to find some clips from "Wayside" that I storyboarded...

I will soon post some more production stuff for the upcoming "Yellow Cake" cartoon...until then...

Back up and running

2007-11-21T09:56:00.000-05:00

Okay...so I'm back in production with "Yellow Cake" (my next film) after a bit of a hiatus. My old computer - a Mac G4 - died on me. Luckily, I had all of my files backed up so I didn't lose anything important. I had been putting off getting a new computer for as long as I could, but this unfortunately, forced my hand. But now I've got myself a brand-new MacPro and it is great.

I'm still debating over whether I should invest in a Cintiq tablet. It seems like the animation world is fast moving towards the paperless workflow...and I do think that it would help me speed up my output...it's just the price....I was hoping they would eventually come down in price but it seems that they are remaining at around the $2 - $2,500 range. Of course that is US dollars....

Well, now you're updated...it's back to work for me!

Critical response

2007-10-28T14:50:00.000-04:00

I was browsing through noted animation critic and historian, Michael Barrier's website today and discovered an interesting but brief review of my last film, "The Waif of Persephone" here.

"I wound up skipping all but the first of the five programs of shorts in competition, too. I'm a snob, I suppose, but I don't like most student films, and there were a lot of them not just in that first program but in the ones that followed. The non-student films weren't particularly ingratiating, either. I would have thought that screenings of Nick Cross' The Waif of Persephone, an interminable twelve and a half minutes of pseudo-Kricfalusi ugliness, were banned under the international agreements prohibiting torture. But evidently not."

I find it interesting that he took the time to single out my film in order to mention how much he hated it. I won't bother to speculate on the reasons...

Yo Gabba Gabba - Process, Production

2007-09-28T18:52:00.001-04:00

KITES ARE FUN

PRODUCTION

(sorry this post has taken so long but I had to do jury duty for a week and also my computer died on me...well, enough with the excuses...)

Layout
After the animatic timing was locked down, I started on the layouts. This stage for me is still one that I draw on paper since it's the easiest and fastest way to do solid drawings. The layout stage is where I take the rough storyboard sketches and refine the composition as well as add poses to flesh out the basic movement. Essentially this is key animation, I have found that this is absolutely essential for doing "flash" animation to keep it from looking cheap.

After these poses are done in each scene I draw up the backgrounds. When doing layouts it is important to be certain that the characters and the background work together to complete the composition of the scene. Here you will notice that the action of the boy as he rises up into the sky is framed by the clouds and the action is mirrored by the line of the trees.

The next step once the layouts are completed, the key poses are inked in. Here's a brief step-by-step on inking process.

BG Painting
Since there were quite a number of BG's to paint for this video, I kept them relatively simple. I used large areas of flat colour, saving the textured and more rendered areas for clouds and trees. This gave the bg's a bit of depth without being overly complicated and also gave a bit of contrast between flat and textured areas. Also, a lot of the detail was simply linework over a flat area of colour or a simple gradient...like the grass for example. The lines help to give the appearance of texture or brushwork with out too much fussing around. As far as colour goes, I kept those simple as well. Since a lot of the action takes place in the sky, I went for a very deep blue. The rest of the colours I kept muted to help contrast with the relative brightness of the sky blue. The bg's themselves were done entirely in Photoshop to save time. I would have liked to have done them traditionally but time didn't allow for that.

Animation
The animation as noted earlier was all done in Flash. Using my layouts and my timing from my animatic, I draw all the extra poses needed directly in Flash. I rarely use symbols to get my movement. One main trick that I do is to be sure to animated entirely on 2's, which means every other frame at 24fps. This keeps the animation from looking floaty and gives it a little more of a handmade feel. This part is the hardest to describe since I didn't save any step-by-step examples as I worked...but basically I don't do anything new or innovative-I just make 'em move.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful to some of you...I wish I could go more in depth, but maybe I'll save that for another post.

Yo Gabba Gabba - Process, Pre-production

2007-09-27T19:25:00.000-04:00

KITES ARE FUN

PRE-PRODUCTION

Essentially, the film I did for "Yo Gabba Gabba" is a very short music video. The approach to it is very similar. I was given the song and asked to come up with a written and visual treatment. I listened to the song a few times and images started to come into my head. Since this is a show for little kids, and the song is called "Kites are Fun", it seemed obvious that the video should center around a little kid having fun playing with a kite.

The first step was to doodle out some character ideas, just roughly at first to get some ideas. During the process of thumbnailing, the story started to materialize. Since the film is only a minute and a half, I had to make sure that the story was simple without too many things happening. A boy and his dog play with a kite. A strong gust of wind blows the kite so hard that the boy is carried around the world.

Next, I wrote up the outline and drew some concept sketches. These were then sent to the directors for approval. The network felt that the boy should be younger and cuter so I redesigned him and came up with this.
A bit more like Ralph Phillips.

Once this new design was signed off on, I began to storyboard the film. This was a relatively easy process since the story was already pretty solid, it was basically just a matter of getting it down on paper. Here's a sample:
Since this video was to be completed within a month, I had to make sure that I wasn't going to be making everything too complicated for myself. However, I didn't want it to look to cheap either; I staged the shots fairly simply and had a fairly long sequence without animation so that I could save time for a few more elaborate scenes. During the boarding stage, I made sure that I listened to the song lots of times to plan the beats of the story would correspond with the music. Once the storyboard was complete, I sent that off for approval. Luckily, it came back with no revisions! And so, the next step could begin in earnest; cutting together an animatic.

Maybe I'm weird but this is one of the funnest parts of the process. You often here it mentioned that films are made in the cutting room, well that is totally true. It's a great thrill to see your pictures sync up with the soundtrack. A lot of time, once the firsts cut of the film is done, you can see whether it is working; which parts are flowing nicely and which parts are lagging or dragging. I was really lucky in the case of this film because I ended up not having to either cut anything out or add any scenes...it timed out (almost) perfectly. The only adjustment I had to make from my storyboard was the order of 2 scenes.

Coming up next:

Production.

Yo Gabba Gabba

2007-09-24T21:25:00.000-04:00

Since this has already aired I'm going to post the "Jingalong" that I made for Yo Gabba Gabba earlier this year.

Click here and enjoy!

I was thinking of posting an article on how I went about making this film....let me know if you are interested in seeing something like that...

Press coverage

2007-09-18T18:51:00.001-04:00

With the festival starting tomorrow, the mighty press juggernaut known as the Sun Media has deemed it worthy to take time out from endless sports coverage, celebrity gossip, and neo-con propaganda to shine a spotlight on yours truly. Actually, it's a pretty good article.

Click here for the digital (online) version.

Anyway, in case you didn't already know, "The Waif of Persephone" is going to be playing tomorrow night at 9pm at the Bytowne Cinema. I will be in attendance, I'll be the one barfing in the aisles.

Have fun!!