So, the competition for Crash the Superbowl Contest for Doritos is getting stiffer. Although, right now, this is a JUDGED contest, people are hedging their bets by launching campaigns to rack up views for their entries. Also, contestants are encouraging people to leave comments. It occurred to me that this ability to promote your video might actually affect the judges' decision, so I thought I'd ask anyone reading this to at least Click HERE or the above image.....while you are there, create a quick account (its easy!) and leave a comment!
Last weekend was a blast. Thanks to MyToons for sending me to NY and putting my animation on the Clear Channel big screen! Raleigh Melancon at Mytoons, was so great in planning and setting up this trip. I brought a friend and we had a great time kicking around NY. I also took the opportunity to network a little.
We stayed at the Millenium Broadway Hotel in Times Square which was really convenient. It was just a block away from the Metro, and a block away from the big screen which I visited several times. I chatted up the front desk clerk, Terrance, and when he heard about the contest was really cool and upgraded us to a "superior" room on the 51st floor.
View from hotel room
We walked over to the screen. Times Square is really kind of overwhelming at first. Animation, ads, vids and screens everywhere. Feels like Bladerunner. It took us a second to figure out which screen it was on. But sure enough within a couple minutes, there it was! And immediately, I could see what great exposure it is. There are hundreds of people around, including families with kids. There are these big red riser steps that overlook the main drag and people are just standing there taking in all the pretty pictures.
Times Square view from the riser steps
Jane, all huge and stuff
Me, on the riser steps below the Clear Channel screen
Raleigh set up for us to have dinner at a place called 2 Times Square. The restaurant overlooks Times Square (window is basically looking out the same direction as the red riser steps). And has a view of the big screen. It was then we realized that the animation plays every 10 minutes (actually it turned out to be at 5 and then 10 minute intervals), which was WAY more than we expected, and every time it came on, we broke out the camera. For some reason, even though the view is amazing and interior is fantastic, the place was empty. Which worked out because we took a bunch of goofy pictures.
2 Times Square bar area
2 Times Square
This picture was taken from our table
Oh my god, there's a resemblance
The next day, Friday, I went out and used my digital camera to take some videos. Which turned out to be difficult because I couldn't quite figure out when it would come on.....There are so many repeating commercials (every other ad was either Quantum of Solace or the EA Game "Left For Dead"), that it was hard to anticipate when it would start.
After that, I had arranged a couple meetings to meet people I had only interacted with over email or by phone.
First I took a taxi to Frederator to meet Carrie Miller and Fred Seibert. I have submitted a few animations to Channel Frederator which lead to Carrie calling me up and commissioning a small bumper for the 2008 Frederator awards. They had a very cool office and Carrie and Fred were super nice. Fred Seibert took a couple minutes to chat and give me a lot of great creative and business advice as a freelance animator. He totally relates to what you go through. I was kind of hoping to catch Jeaux Janvosky there, but he was in my home state, California...go figure!
Carrie Miller, Me, and Fred Seibert in the Frederator offices
Then I walked about a mile and a half through SoHo to meet Megan Butler At Scholastic, the producer of a Leapster title I am working on for them. I met the other producers, in-house designers and technical people as well. Looks like a fun place to work!
With Megan Butler and the (much) smaller screen of the Leapster
A Happy Tree Friend handing out flyers (maybe their show isn't selling well on DVD?)
On Saturday and Sunday, I did random things like visit the NY Modern Art Museum, and saw Monty Python's Spamalot...which was SUPPOSED to have Clay Aiken(!), but there was a sub for that show :( . It was hilarious anyway.
No shortage of weirdness at the NY Modern
The Shubert Theater
Oh yeah, almost forgot. Everywhere I looked, I saw lots of reminders to vote....
Christina Aguilera, made up within an inch of her life, makes her case
Vote for Obamama!
This is officially the longest blog post I have ever written, but wanted to show that the trip ended up being a blast. Once again, thanks to MyToons for everything!
Okay, not really. I just posted a picture from a differen project, but it is just a sad reminder to vote for Jane in the Nicktoons viewer's choice. The short is on at 11PM ET, 8PM PT on nicktoons. But more important: Somewhere in the next 24 hours after it shows, go and vote for it on the nicktoons site: the link is here:
If you see the short Dive and not Jane, its because it hasn't changed over yet. If you see something else, voting is over! Thanks a bunch. Oh, and the pic above is from a secret project :)
So, as if having Jane appear on Times Square isn't enough, she got in to the 2008 Nicktoons festival with the title "The Adventures of Jane" ( a last minute decision to retitle on my part....for obvious reasons) . I saw the list of entries and they all look like they put my work to shame. I'm just honored my little flash short made the cut. One of my current faves, Paper Cut-also Flash I think-, by Pedro Eboli, is in there....but don't even THINK about going to the site and voting for him! Jane is showing Oct 9, 11 PM (ET) --- i think that's 8 PM PT? Am I right? Watch out for it and go to the site that night and vote. I'm driving down on Friday to attend the Nicktoons party.....i mean, HELLO, Stan Lee is speaking!
So, I get this call this morning from Raleigh Melancon at Mytoons. I had written a thank you for the weekly winner prize of a ipod nano and I thought he was responding to that. Then he tells me Jane won the grand prize of the Get With the Times contest! I nearly fell over. Considering all the really great entries (and the two runner ups, Moon Boy and World War are AMAZING)...i was seriously shocked. When you spend as much time as I did on the project, its so great to get recognition for it. The prize is that the animation will play on Clear Channel's big screen in Time Square for a week...plus a trip for two to go there and see it!!!! What an AMAZING prize! Not to mention a copy of Adobe Creative Suite. I really am completely blown away and want to thank My Toons for such a great honor. If you haven't checked out the site, it really does have some fantastic functionality, including high quality HD delivery...a portfolio section . Click HERE to see my My Toons portfolio, and super-clear video-embedding (see my embedded video below on this blog).
I'd also like to give huge props to the other entries in the contest. there were some great ones.
A project I'm working on is a sizzle video for a company called Double Fusion. They are involved in in-game advertising.....putting Cola ads in GTA, for instance. They want animated vignettes for the different demographics the advertising will aim at. These images are from an animation about girls who are into social networking games.
Just in case this blog makes it look like I haven't been doing anything but personal projects all summer, I thought I'd blog one of the projects that was completed last month, an online flash game for Randomhouse for a book series called The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell. Eliya Selhub programmed and I did the visuals. It is the first project of Eliya's fledgling company Garbanzo Games. In the UI, I used actual illustrations from the book, but in the game I had to design backgrounds and redraw and animate the characters in the style of the book illustrations. The illustrations in the book have very intricate ink work, so I simplified them considerably.
A.D.D. Jane is one of the weekly winners for MyToons Get with the Times contest! And I won an ipod nano! Woohoo! The short goes on to be a finalist in the contest. Not that it has a chance. Not being modest. There are some quality entries that people spent years on....But its nice to have gotten enough votes to win the weekly though! Thanks, if you happened to vote.
Read the article here...and if you're so inclined, leave a comment and show the love :)
I posted my short A.D.D. Jane on My Toons. And although it hasn't been a featured animation, it still has managed to creep up in the ranks as one of the most daily watched shorts. And its racked up a few votes for the contest (although i don't think its near enough)....Anyway, if you have an account or are bored and want to support me in my endeavors. Go and watch it in HD and give it a vote!
For fun last fall I started an animation based on a business card design, but abandoned it. Gearing up to do other projects I went ahead and finally finished it. Now that it exists, I realize it serves very little purpose! Oh well, here it is....click the above image to watch!
Carrie Miller at Frederator contacted me a few weeks ago and asked me if I had time to quickly produce a 5 second bumper for the 2nd Annual Frederator Animation Awards. They had become aware of me because I had submitted "A.D.D. Jane", and participated in the 2 second animation jams. They wanted the motif to match the "Metropolis" theme they had going. I submitted the above storyboard which they approved. Notice the futuristic Kiwi and Bunny (in Fredbot glasses), references to the Kiwi award and Badass Bunny award. Plus they asked me to put an ad for Samurai Jack the Movie which they just bought the rights to. The most challenging part of this is faking a camera move through the buildings. I have about 5 layers of buildings moving at different rates. It goes by quickly but was surprisingly difficult to maintain a smooth feel. You can see the awards show at Channel Frederator, or just CLICK HERE.
Scott Young, Pottery Barn Media Producer, commissioned me to create a flash animation talking about Pottery Barn's line of organic cotton products. I finished it a couple months ago but its finally been released on the Pottery Barn Kid's website and PB Teen website. Apparently it has been well-received within the company. Click here to see it on the Pottery Barn Kids website. Or click here to see a bigger version.
Call me a hopeless romantic! Here's a little love-dovey animation I created...Like the previous card, I also used it for a Channel Frederator animation jam. This one was called "Love Fest". Click here to see it big and clear...Or watch it at Channel Frederator with a bunch of other cool animations.
Well, to be more specific its the San Francisco Bay Area International Children's Film Festival, which is held at Wondercon in San Francisco. Its showing at the Moscone Center Satuday Feb 23 at 3:30. For more info, click below to link to the site (currently it is listing 2007 information and will be updated soon):
I decided I needed to put together a montage of games I've designed over the last few years, so I spent a few hours playing the games and screen capturing. It took a long time. It was kind of hard to edit it down because, believe it or not, there was 20 minutes of video to pair down to 3. But this is probably good enough and will tax anybody's attention span. All programming was done by Dave Castelneuavo (boltcreative.com). The random song choice is from two guys who call themselves Junior Senior.
