Earlier today, we announced a major initiative with the Guggenheim called YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video. Basically, we're looking for animation, motion graphics, narrative, non-narrative, documentary work, music video or even entirely new art forms. The point is to garner some of the finest video-based creative work from across the globe and then to showcase it in a first-of-a-kind exhibit at Guggenheim museums in New York, Bilbao, Venice and Berlin later this year. There's lots more detail on this competition in the main YouTube blog.
And if you've seen the cool call-out video...
...there's also a neat behind-the-scenes video about how they achieved the special effects. It's worth checking out!
ChannelFrederator's just posted an interview with Cartoon Network's Adventure Time creator Pen Ward, who talks about the show, animation in general and advice to those just starting out in the field.
He says: "Stick with it. You'll get good at it if you practice it. If you're serious, you...can't stop trying, even though there are a lot of hurdles. Keep producing ideas."
Creating any animation is an impressive feat: it requires artistic skill, patience and a vivid imagination. Creating animations that receive hundreds of awards and millions of views on YouTube: that's just downright next level. In this conversation, Joaquin Baldwin, the animator behind "Sebastian's Voodoo" and "Papiroflexia," discusses his techniques, the inspiration behind his very different films, and his thoughts on online distribution.
Can you talk a bit about using YouTube and the Screening Room as a distribution platform?
I put my films on YouTube as soon as they were finished, and I've gotten more views here than in all the hundreds of film festivals my films have played at combined. If what you are looking for is to get a large amount of people to see your work, it is definitely the right approach. The Screening Room was a big push on the views, too -- having my films as featured content brought a whole new audience and a lot of subscribers to me. Nowadays, as soon as I publish something, I get a large amount of subscribers who automatically see it so it brings an immediate response.
A word of advice: If you consider your film to be good enough to qualify for an Academy Award, wait a bit longer before you publish it online. Both "Papiroflexia" and "Sebastian's Voodoo" were online way too early, and they both qualified for Academy Award consideration after winning some select festivals, but because they were already online I lost my chance.
What made you want to get into animation?
Being a computer nerd was the start of it all, and loving to draw. I first got into computer animation, more as special effects and fun graphics to play with, while I was in high school. It wasn't until I was working on my undergraduate degree that I saw its real potential as a storytelling tool. That's when I really started pushing more towards creating full films rather than just cool graphics.
Where do you get the inspiration for your films?
I get a lot of inspiration from poetry, very visual metaphors or concepts. Usually my films start with a simple idea or image, and then evolve into a narrative trying to keep that main idea in mind the whole time. I also watch a lot of films, both animated and live action, and directors like Guillermo del Toro or Hayao Miyazaki are very important sources of inspiration.
Can you tell us a bit about your animation process? How long does a film typically take? It greatly depends on the film, so let me give you two examples:
Papiroflexia: It took me 8 months of work. It's a 2D film with a lot of motion graphics in it, but the main animation was all created with pencil and animation paper on a light table, then cleaned-up with ink, and scanned and colored in the computer. I used a variety of software, from MonkeyJam for quick animation tests with my webcam, to Animo for quick coloring, to After Effects to put it all together.
Sebastian's Voodoo: It took 10 months of work. It's a 3D film, completely created in Maya and After Effects (with textures painted in Photoshop). I went through the traditional pipeline for CG, from storyboards to modeling, texturing, rigging, animatic, animation, lighting, rendering and finally compositing.
One important part on any of my films is that I spend a LOT of time working on a storyboard before I start animating. The storyboards go through a lot of revisions before they are ready; I try to show them to as many people as possible to get a good idea if they are working or not before I settle into anything.
What would be your advice for someone who's trying to create their first computer-generated animation?
There's a lot of help you can find online, for whichever software you are using, and a ton of tutorials on traditional animation and drawing as well. You should definitely try some traditional animation (not necessarily with pencil and paper, just draw with a tablet on your computer if you want), and get a feel on how the basics of animation work. It'll help with your CG work immensely. Draw a lot!
Where do you see the future of animation going?
There's too many people concerned about Avatar, both animators and actors. I say bring it on; it's fantastic to have all of this new technology available, it will not replace actors or animators, each have their own strengths and work for different situations. And soon all of this new technology will be available for everyone, it's amazing that anyone can do an animated film nowadays, with even the most basic computer. I'm sure soon enough we'll be able to do our own performance capture at home with a webcam ;)
The stunning animation of the Raveonettes' "Heart of Stone" video marks the second collaboration between the Danish band and director Chris Do of design studio/production house Blind:
In addition, Motionographer has an interview with the director, in which he talks about the creative process, working within budget limitations and advice for others interested in dabbling in music video. We found this portion to be especially inspiring:
"At the earliest stage of conceptualizing the piece, I asked everyone to look for things they felt could relate to the song and the band. One of my interns showed me a series of images produced for the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, where musicians are illustrated playing human parts like hair inside the body.
"I was inspired by these images and wrote a story about how a female character could play the role of a care taker inside the body. From there, the story evolved. It goes to show you, good ideas can come from anywhere. You just have to be willing to listen."
We found "Action Jon" when he commented on this post about Patrick Boivin's "Ninja Unboxing," a video that employs action figures and stop motion to thrilling effect. We checked out Jon's action figures blog and admired how passionate he is about action figures. In this post, which he wrote just for the Creator's Corner, Jon distills his vast knowledge into advice for anyone interested in making a video starring figurines. Thank you, Jon!
Have a sense of what you're going to do: Are you just posing the action figures and putting them in a video, are you doing a review for other Youtube users, or are you creating a story somehow or using them for stop-motion videos? It's only when you want to create a story or do stop-motion animation that there are more things to think about. You can even use Lego figures or statues if animating them isn't the main focus, but as a general rule you would want action figures or dolls that have some degree of articulation.
Think about form vs. function: do you want a better looking figure or a more articulated one? It all boils down to what you need. Some people think articulation points on a figure are ugly. A simple solution would be to cover them with clothes so that their joints can't be seen.
Accessorize! A seemingly boring figure may turn out great when you dress it differently, so don't get too attached to what your figures are wearing when you buy them. Experiment with changing their clothes or creating your own. For example, Boivin's "Ninja's Unboxing" video features three 12-inch action figures playing the role of ninjas. They look the same, but they're different figures. The clothes not only hide their joints and add to the coolness factor, but they also mask the face. Would you have guessed that they were Bruce Lee and Michael Jackson action figures if I haven't told you just now? These are Hot Toys figures. Hot Toys is a Hong Kong company and they only sell to retailers. Refer to where to get Hot Toys action figures for more information.
Shopping Guide:
eBay is a good place to get figures, plus their accessories, props or clothing, but you should have a clear picture of what you'll be doing with them before you buy them.
One of the most popular figures for stop-motion videos are Stikfas. They're 3.25-inch action figures that are very flexible and all of their articulation points are ball-socketed joints, giving excellent possibilities for poses. They're reasonably cheap, but not very realistic looking.
Hot Toys TrueType figures are another good choice. These have 38 points of articulation while still providing a reasonably realistic look for your characters. They have male and female versions and different skin colors. If you can't find these, other Hot Toys figures will do just fine.
G.I. Joeaction figures also have very good flexibility and lots of points of articulation (and look cool). The problem with the Joes is that they don't stand very well on their own, so you would have to use some wires to get them in position or even temporarily glue their feet by using some sticky substance to get them to stand and stay in certain positions.
If your videos include cars, I'd recommend Hot Wheels because there's a lot of variety of cars and other vehicles.
You can also use clay figures, as they allow you to create characters to your liking. (For example, the popular "Chicken Run" and "Wallace & Gromit" use clay figures.) Creating them may involve some technical work on your part, but they can be useful if you're having trouble finding the right figures to work with or if you want to have a greater degree of control in how they look like and how they're animated. [More on clay-mation in a future post! - Ed.]
In honor of International Animation Day on Oct. 28, we've got four very distinct kinds of animation on the homepage. We caught up with the creatives behind two of these videos to find out the stories behind their techniques.
First up, Arthur Metcalf, who will single-handedly change the way you think about plastic packaging in "Fantasie in Bubblewrap":
"I made a very rough breakdown of scene ideas, then improvised the dialogue at my computer and pitch shifted it up by different octaves for different characters. I cut that into an animatic and my brother Sam and I then shot standard definition DV footage of me popping the bubblewrap. The faces were drawn flat in Flash, speaking and blinking, then tracked and bent onto the faces in After Effects."
Next, Nina Paley, who is responsible for the vibrant "Sita Sings the Blues":
"I designed, colored, and animated "Sita Sings the Blue" mostly using Flash, and edited in Final Cut Pro. I also used After Effects for the barely-animated paintings -- which I painted by hand -- and Synthetik Studio Artist for the colorful explosions at the beginning. The project started on a Mac laptop in 2002, then migrated to a desktop in 2005, when I committed to making it feature length. (It started as a short, "Trial by Fire," which I incorporated into the feature -- it's the part with Hanshaw singing "Mean to Me.") The whole thing took three years of work spread over five years of time, mostly between 2005 and 2008. I designed, colored, and animated everything myself, with the exception of apprentice Jake Friedman who contributed some excellent monkey-on-demon violence during summer 2005. (Jake wanted to learn Flash; I handed him monkey and demon 'puppets,' he practiced with them in Flash, I cleaned 'em up and incorporated them into the "Battle of Lanka" scene.) Of course, I found excellent collaborators for the audio: Greg Sextro was the sound designer and audio engineer, and the voice talent reads like a who's who of New York Desi actors: Sanjiv Jhaveri, Reena Shah, Debargo Sanyal, Aladdin Ullah, Nitya Vidyasagar, and many more. New music was contributed by Todd Michaelsen, Rohan, Masala Dosa, Nik Phelps, and Rudresh Mahanthappa. Just as important has been the dazzling support of the audience, who continue to fund, promote, and distribute the film. The credits at the end are woefully incomplete, since so many more have contributed since they locked."
You can read more about "Sita Sings the Blues" here, from Wired magazine.
