Cecropia gets their Act together

Just found this great site and product! Cecropia studios in Florida is busy making a new interactive animation called: The ACT. I guess you could say it's a video game, but it hearkens back to the old Don Bluth Dragon's Lair and Space Ace type of play. There's some interesting looking characters. It looks like the storyline focuses around a window washer who's brother gets in trouble so he has to pretend to be a Dr. in order to save his life and get the girl of his dreams. There are a few Disney ExPats on the staff of this project and the trailer has some really nice animation. I'm going to get this just to revel in it's goodness. Check out the Cecropia Site for more information, be sure to catch the trailer as well.

China Bans Homer Simpson

An Article posted earlier this week has highlighted China's efforts to curb it's Televisions broadcasting of foreign animation broadcasting. The chinese government is putting pressure on Movie, Television, Magazine Publication and other media outlets to reduce the amount of imported content to be used.

This is being done for two reasons. The first being that the Chinese government wants to control the effect of pop culture on it's citizens. Living in the United States, this seems like an abomination. The second reason is that the Animation Industry in China is struggling. At least, those studios that are creating new content. Apparently the Chinese studios are either a) incapable of creating cartoons that have the same appeal as japanese or westernized animation, or b) can't create said cartoons because of governmental edicts. Either way the article said 80% of chinese chilren prefer foreign cartoons. click the link to get a more in depth look. Very interesting stuff.

Mouse Traps Zemeckis

This one almost triggered my WTF button. Okay so, TMZ.com posted this article on Disney Poaching Zemeckis from Dreamworks.... for the purpose of making animated films. So, I like some 3D movies, mainly Pixar, because let's face it, Pixar knows how to make a movie. And I'm glad that Pixar is now under the Disney banner and that Lasseter is now running the show. That's all great news. So, I can't seem to bridge the gab of reason on why they'd ever want Robert Zemeckis involved in any facet of Disney animation. It spins reason on it's rear. I mean this is all an effort to revive Disney Feature animation and make it dominate the industry... right? Well, why get the guy that gave us the creepy MoCap animation of Polar Express (AkA Christmas Train :P) and Monster House? I mean, those don't really stand out to me as industry leading animation. I can only hope that Lasseter takes him aside and says: "yeah, we want you to make animated films for us, but no more robokids.. they spook us out and make baby jesus cry.".

Captain Jack!

I've been wracking my brain trying to think of some good ideas for pencil tests for my demo reel. I'd like to update it as soon as possible so I can apply for The Frog Princess. So, I decided to do some Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates. What a fun character that will be to animate. Hopefully I'll have the good sense and productivity to post some WIPs here to share. In the meantime here are some thumbnail preliminary designs for the character animation.

Being Prodigal

Animated Cookbook

I know it's been ages since I last posted here. I've had so much going on! I've been working as supervising animator on a short called Stitch: Tiki Terror! I had the opprotunity to do the story treatment, Storyboards and direct and animate on it. It's a small project I know, but it's taken up the last couple months of my life. Although I'm very tired I'm really excited about the work we've done on this project.

As a treat you should head on over to Matt Williames Blog. It's a great site chalk full of traditional animation goodness. As a real treat, he's writing several articles detailing his process for animating a scene. There's a lot of good information that a lot of animators take for granted.

I'll post again soon, hopefully with more art.