Animation Guide

Animation on a Shoestring
ANIMATION on a SHOESTRING
7 THINGS YOU MUST KNOW BEFORE YOU START YOUR NEXT PROJECT
2008 Terrence Walker/Studio ArtFX. All rights reserved.
Studio ArtFX www.studioartfx.com support@studioartfx.com
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Table of Contents
FORWARD .......................................................................................... 1 2D or not 2D ....................................................................................... 11 The Old Way ......................................................................................... 25 The Gatekeepers ................................................................................... 39 The Indie Way ...................................................................................... 47 Inspiration & Motivation ..................................................................... 75 Let it be Easy ....................................................................................... 91 Getting it Done! ................................................................................... 94 APPENDIX A: About the Author ........................................................ 98 APPENDIX B: Anigen Series Bundle ................................................. 99 APPENDIX C: Ultimate 3D Model Bundle ...................................... 100 APPENDIX D: Get Eyes on Your Prize ............................................ 101
Forward
In the year 2000, at the dawn of a new millennium, I had a vision. I was working in the video game industry five years already and all my attempts at expressing my own creativity were met with complete disinterest, or were perverted into typical mainstream drivel by "real writers". Years earlier, me and another game developer at Rainbow Studios had written a detailed treatment for what seemed could be the ultimate adventure game. We were both extremely excited and presented it to our boss. He was very impressed, and the project started to move forward. Eventually, it was handed off to a Hollywood writer who had "proven himself" writing on SeaQuest DSV. The result was less than stellar, to put it mildly. Working from that script, the project quickly fizzled and died. Basically, I was fed up. It seemed I had no opportunity to get my own ideas out of my head and onto the screen. Then one day, a friend of mine, knowing my affinity for anime, sent me an email containing information about an upcoming film festival in Tokyo. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to create something I wanted and express my own ideas. The only problem was that I had one month before the submission deadline was up. Still, I had to try.
I had been playing and experimenting with the idea of creating my own anime since the Commodore Amiga, that graphics powerhouse of a computer, came out in the late 1980's. Over the years I had developed many techniques to achieve that goal, starting with 2D drawing and eventually moving to 3D cel shading. I had never completed a long form project, but had done many short clips and trailers over the years. I knew I could do this if I tried. I went around the studio where I worked and asked the heads of different departments about equipment I might need, espeically good quality microphones, sound boxes to do music, a keyboard and other things. On the computer and software side I was already set. I knew what could be done on a standard desktop computer with off-the-shelf software. I had a 300 Mhz Sony Vaio with DV capabilities. A three day weekend rolled around and I dove into the project and storyboarded the entire thing with pencil and paper. After that, I returned to work, and each day after completing my daily tasks, I would go home, take a short nap, and then put in another 6 to 8 hours on my film. Even with the Japanese release of the Playstation II that year, to which I lost a couple of days when I imported mine, I kept steadily on working on this film. I didn't make the submission deadline for the film festival in Tokyo. I was two or three days late. But the point is, I got the film done! After a total of about 33 days, I had completed my first true short film, Understanding Chaos. With no film festival to put it in, I wasn't entirely too sure what to do with the film, so I simply put it up on my website and posted in a few anime related USENET groups about it. Within a couple of days, my servers crashed from the sheer number of downloads, and the web hosting company I was with banned me for life. A friend of mine from high school, who ran one of the first ever internet companies in the southwest U.S. helped me by hosting the film on one of his servers while I scrambled to transfer my studioartfx.com domain to a new hosting company.
Eventually I was back up and running on my own web server with a new hosting company, but my friend was shocked when I realized I had reached over a terabyte of downloads on his server. This was in the year 2000! Before long, the press caught wind of this. Major websites dealing with anime, computer graphics and even independent film were asking to interview me. I was bombarded with email from fans, critics and general admirers. It was like I suddenly became famous. Things quickly spread beyond the borders of the U.S. Major print magazines in Spain, Russia and parts of South America wanted interviews and images. I began getting offers for cross promotion deals with the makers of the hardware and software I used in the film. I started getting all kinds of things for free - software, other indie films on DVD, even advertising in other spaces. It was an overall success. In 2001, I was ready to take things to the next level. While working on Chaos, and since I had the Sony Vaio with DV ability and a Sony camera to go with it, I shot a lot of behind the scenes footage related to making the movie. I decided it was time to edit it all together and create a feature that would be a part of Understanding Chaos on DVD. This was in January. Creating the DVD would be a harrowing adventure of its own that would not be completed until November of 2001. That very same month, I was laid off from my cushy, high paying job in the video game world. I was hardly worried, though. That very same day, as I cleaned out my office, a friend came up to me surprised as he opened the current issue of Animation Magazine to a full page ad for Understanding Chaos on DVD. I was ready to go into business for myself. I had an ecommerce store setup on my website, a fulfillment service ready to go, and it was time to sell. I wasn't making nearly as much as my job in game industry, but I was making an income I could live on.
With a few lifestyle adjustments, it could been one I could live well on, unfortunately, I didn't figure that out until later. Still, things were going well and I was not about to rest on that. I quickly started on my next animation project. Originally I was going to do a project called A.M.P. It was going to be a series and I had an amazing story mapped out. I had everything except how it began. After a month of attempts at storyboards and many trash bins full of paper, I realized this was not going to work. I need to do something smaller, that I could actually get done. I created another project, which title I no longer remember, but it grew to be too big during the storyboarding phase as well. Finally I came up with an idea called Shadowskin. Around April of 2002 I was well into production on Shadowskin but the sales of Chaos on DVD were slowing down. Money was going to be a problem if Shadowskin wasn't done and released soon. In this same month, in Las vegas, was the annual National Association of Broadcasters convention. Every year I would go here to see the latest in digital technology and to meet the creators of many of the tools and software I used, like Lightwave 3D and Aura, now TVPaint. I would also hang out with the Japanese distributors of Lightwave called DStorm. In a surprise move that year, they had a big tour planned in China and Japan, and wanted me to go along to do demo what I do using their tools. Not only that, they wanted to take off on this journey in less than a week! Who was I to say no? A week later I was walking the streets of Beijing. I did a demo of my animation process and techniques at the prestigious Beijing Film Academy, from which Zhang Yimou, the director of Hero, in post production at that very moment, graduated. In fact, the people there couldn't shut up about him and Hero. Since the film starred Jet Li and Donnie Yen, both whom I was a big fan, I was happy to keep listening. The trip continued into Shanghai where I stayed in one of the most amazing hotels I had ever been, with an incredible view of this "city of tomorrow", out to the river where the old style boats were sailing. I did a demo in an incredible movie auditorium before a crowd of very interested artists and animators.
I even did interviews with big name magazines out there. It was an adventure of a lifetime. The journey continued to Japan where I did another demo for a large audience and the press was out in force. The guys from DStorm allowed me to ship two cases of my Chaos DVDs out there before hand, and with some of the graphics I sent the, they set up a booth for me outside the auditorium covered in Chaos graphics. They also made fliers and other materials for me. After my presentation I manned my booth. I quickly sold out the two cases of DVDs. I realized I had perhaps been in the wrong market all this time. The reception to my work here was amazing. I did many interviews after the show and got to talk to many of the amazing Japanese artists I had only read about up until then. The next day, my friends took me to Production I.G. where films like Ghost in the Shell and Jin-Roh were made. Unfortunately, the two directors of those films were not in, but I still got to visit their offices. Oshii-san's (Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell) office was full of guns and Okiura-san's (Jin-Roh, Cowboy Bebop: Knocking on Heaven's Door Intro sequence) office held some of the most amazing, clean and sharp drawings I had ever seen in my life. I also learned about a new indie director named Makoto Shinkai, who had just released a DVD called Voices of a Distant Star that day. He was invited to meet us at the show, but couldn't make it. Still, I had to have this DVD. My friends took me around town, but it was sold out everywhere. Eventually, though, we found a store that had one copy, and it was mine. The night ended with great eating, much drinking and karaoke. It was the most memorable few weeks of my life up to that point. I returned from Asia a changed man. I felt I had a new mission and a new market to tackle. I watched Voices of a Distant Star and its extra features countless times. I knew where I wanted to be now. Unfortunately, Shadowskin was still not finished. With the money I got fror my demo work and the DVD sales, I was fine for cash for a while, but my motivation on Shadowskin had dwindled greatly.
I decided to wrap it up quickly with a few dialogue scenes originally slated for episode II, instead of the "man versus himself, fight scene I had originally boarded. It was still tough to finish it without the motivation I once had. Once Shadowskin was finished, doing the extra features was easy. I used the very demo work I had done in China and Japan. I sent it off to the replicators and it was time to get going on my new mission. I had to get back to Japan. I even wrote a big feature article for the Japanese version of Computer Graphics World magazine. There was certainly no lack of motivation here, and I quickly scripted a project called World of Hearts, designed and built the characters, and put a little trailer together. I was very happy with it and knew I was ready to create something for Japan. When the time came for the Shadowskin DVD release, there was a big problem. I didn't have the money to pay for the manufacturing. About a week before the release date, which I had already advertised months in advance in magazines and on the web, I put Chaos on sale for $9.99 and put out a press release. That generate some income, but not quite enough. So with no other option, I released Shadowskin and started taking orders.
The sales were great. I made around $3000.00 in the first few days. I quickly payed the manufacturer for the DVDs and had them shipped to the fulfillment house vis next day shipping, so that orders could be fulfilled. I was back in business... almost. Even though sales were going well, I realized that it would be some months to complete World of Hearts as a film at the desired quality and even if I made it that far, I once again wouldn't be able to pay for manufacturing, let alone have any idea how to get into the Japanese market. So I decided to pack my bags and head off to Hollywood to "get a real job." I had a plan to work on a Warner Bros. show called Birds of Prey, which centered around a group of female superheroes managed by a wheelchair bound Barbara Gordon (Batgirl). I had even talked to the producer already. I arrived in L.A. and continued talking with the producer of that show, but it turned out to be quite the flop and canned after one or two episodes. Now I had no idea what to do next. Luckily, I got a gig for an educational, superhero cartoon series called Justice 4 All. It payed a lot of money. Once again I was set. I was working on something cool and able to keep doing my own business, but no progress was being made on World of Hearts. I even recut the trailer for Shadowskin and put out another press release about it, and sales picked up again. I was making some money, but didn't quite know what I wanted to do next. I watched a lot of TV on DVD in that day. Later in 2002, I was contacted by Stu Levy of TOKYOPOP who was interested in what I was doing. I went to meet with him in their L.A. office and it turned out they wanted to do a major release of my work on DVD and wanted to do an American made manga series. The DVD part was easy, but what would we do for the manga? I showed them all the material I had on World of Hearts, and we decided to go with that.
Things pretty much went downhill from there. I continued to move further and further away from what I really wanted to be doing and the results in my life showed it. By 2005, sales of my TOKYOPOP manga and DVD dwindled to zero, freelance work was nowhere to be found and I finally decided to "get a real job." I joined an outfit called UFO Films and started work on a number of low budget creature features for Universal, Sony and Warner Bros. I learned an incredible amount in my 3 years there that would help me with my own films, but the big problem with working in Hollywood is that the attitude is just soul crushing. It's nothing but "You can't..." You can't can't make your own film. You can't get distribution. You can't sell that script etc. In 2007 I was voluntarily laid off from that job. The company was having problems and someone had to go. It was most likely to be the new guy, but I was ready to go back to doing my own thing, so I talked ot the boss and we agreed it would be me. Unfortunately, I still didn't have direction and was not on the path to doing what I really wanted. In fact, at this point, I believed it could not be done. I casted about trying different things, an episodic web series, comics on the iPhone, article writing and more, but nothing really stuck. Nothing was even close to my original dream. In 2008 I got back into creating content for the Japanese market. Still nothing close to what I wanted to do years earlier, but at least it was making money. Not enough to continue living in L.A. though. In the summer, at the tale end of the writer's strike in Hollywood, when business was bad for pretty much everyone, I decided to sell everything I owned, pack my bags and move to the Philippines. I wanted to be close to Japan, but in place with a cost of living I could manage. Living in the Philippines changed everything. The culture and pace of life is just so different. Everything slows down. I found I was no longer in a hurry anymore. Everything didn't have to be done tomorrow. Suddenly, in this new pace, I also found my dream again.
I could not only do it, but it also didn't have to be done tomorrow. In fact, I could take as long as I wanted and make something I loved, the way I wanted to make it. Suddenly, the excitement returned. I began doing tests for a new animated film project. I started creating images that really made me happy. I wrote a story that I could actually do right now, not something so big it would take a large crew or millions of dollars. It was time to bring the dream back. As of this writing, I am just starting this new project and will be chronicling it on the studioartfx.com website in a new Anigen series. Where things go from here, I cannot say, but I am excited to be back on the path to independent animation dreams! Terrence Walker Studio ArtFX http://www.studioartfx.com
Animation on a Shoestring 10
NOTES
2D or not 2D?
That is the question. Even though the computer has taken such a strong hold on our artistic lives we must never forget the origination of our art. I used to do all of my planning, storyboards and preproduction on paper with a Sanford #2 pencil. I never want to let those skill go the way of the dodo for the sake of computer art. Still, there's so much that can be done on the computer in the 2D realm, with software like TVPaint or Photoshop, if that is your preference. Ever since Dpaint blasted across Amiga computer screens in 1987 I have been transfering those skills to the digital medium. Today, I do nothing on paper, but with a pen tablet I still use my hand and a device somewhat similar to a pencil to get my ideas across. Of course today, I don't do storyboards either. I get a vision in my head and hold to that vision and simply start creating. How each person works will be different, but the question of whether a project will be truly 2D, 3D or some combination in between is an important one to start with. Some shows in the anime world, or rather most shows these days, use a combination. Some backgrounds and certainly vehicles and mecha are usually done in cel shaded 3D.
Nothing saying it has to be be, of course, but "hard items" seem to work okay in 3D. Characters are another story. I have, personally, never been happy with fully 3D cel shaded characters, at least not until I saw "The Freedom Project" by YAMATO Morita and Katsuhiro Otomo. Still, I think even with the biggest of budgets, there is a ways to go for full 3D cel shaded characters, mainly in the face department. I often do 2D touch ups to my 3D cel shaded renderings. In my current project, I expect to be taking the combination further than that. Don't get me wrong, I would love to do a project with all 2D character drawings one day. That, you could say, is my ultimate goal. Still, it is not yet time to put away 3D, not for the indie anyway. I developed many of the 3D techniques I created because the indie needs an edge in order to "get it done!" You have to figure out what is both right for you and for your project. Most importantly, though, you have to enjoy what you do. Without that, 2D or 3D really won't matter much. ANIME I remember reading sometime last year that anime and manga fans would be treated to Otaku USA Magazine, published by Sovereign Media, the same niche market magazine publisher which publishes SCI FI magazine for the Sci Fi Channel. Veteran anime and manga journalist Patrick Macias, author of Cruising the Anime City: an Otaku Guide to Neo-Tokyo, will helm the project as editor. "Each issue of OtakuUSA will be oversized 9 x 10 7/8, with a poster bound in the center spread, and a DVD inserted onto the front cover, with full- length Anime features and game demos. In addition, each issue of Otaku USA will include a full manga feature, printed as a pull-out section. My aim is to make Otaku USA the best, most comprehensive Japanese pop culture magazine in the marketplace."
That's what he said, but this makes me wonder. We are seeing new anime magazines, books and merchandising coming out constantly, and yet all indications are that the anime and manga market in America is shrinking. We all know about the disastrous year of 2005 when over 40% of anime stock was returned to the publishers by major retail outlets suffering from over saturation of the market. Even today there are only half the number of titles populating store shelves than last year. Earlier this year, I remember the report I got from TOKYOPOP that all my stock, of both my DVD and my manga, were returned from the retailer. It wasn't just me though. Pretty much anything that wasn't Naruto or Bleach, or another A-list title was sent back. So is the market growing or shrinking? For those of us who want to make anime or other types of animation along the same lines, this is something to consider. Shows like Naruto, Death Note or Fullmetal Alchemist clearly show the growth of anime and manga, but at the same time, the pushing of too many obviously niche market titles on stores has created the appearance of less demand. The real key for those producing their own content, though, is to look at the performance of shows like Afro Samurai, The Boondocks or Avatar: The Last Airbender, which reflect a different paradigm than those made in Japan and imported.
While they were all well promoted beyond what anime companies are typically capable of, the vast difference in their market penetration must be looked at from other angles. On one hand, all things Japanese are very popular at the moment, but anime in America is still foreign and that is never going to change. This may put a ceiling on its growth. The style, however, is greatly appealing to audiences and local productions which take influence from it have been very successful. Audiences can relate to them better. While anime from Japan may always be in its niche corner, an expanded concept of anime, considering the accepted style, may have no barriers to how high it can climb. I remember recently sitting in a hotel in the Philippines and watching a show on Disney called Martin Mystery, I think. Totally looked like anime, but was clearly an American creation with American writing and other stylistic elements. I think there is a big future in this concept. Like in Korea or China, local animation can take what works locally from Japanese anime and infuse it with the local elements of storytelling that will capture the larger audience. On the other hand, don't think niche is bad. Especially YOUR niche. You do what is unique and special to you, instead of following the crowd, and you will find that group of people who will love it and follow it. They will also be willing to pay a premium for it. They can't get it from anyone else but you!
REALISTIC CHARACTERS There is much debate in the world of animation, especially anime, on character designs. Many fans are immediately turned off by the sometimes overly realistic character designs used in films like Ghost in the Shell, Jin-Roh and Blood: The last Vampire. With Ghost in the Shell, there is the problem of diverging from the popular manga designs, so that's easy to see. As for the others, I think it has to fit the type of film that is being done. The character designs of Pokemon wouldn't work in Memories: Magnetic Rose any more than the character designs of South Park would work in Grave of the Fireflies. For me, the movies with realistic character designs tend to have the darker more serious stories that I happen to be attracted to. My own projects tend toward the darker and more serious. I still like the realistic character. You have to decide whether that will work for your show or if it would be better to go more stylized. Better still, let your characters decide!
MACHINIMA When I was working on the storyboarding episode of Anigen, I came across this tool called iClone, I guess you could call it a machinima tool, which offered realtime animation and moviemaking to what seemed to already be a large user base. To this day, I've been thinking about it, or the idea behind it. My neighbors, before I left L.A. bought it and I got to see in action on quite a few of their projects. They used it for background characters for their live action vampire series ShadowMoon Diaries. It actually worked! They also used it for cut scenes in their original video games with surprising results. Pixar is by no means quaking in their boots based on the sample animations from these tools, but I still think the writing is on the wall. A new era is coming if not already here. People with ideas, who may not be able to animate one frame in a package like Maya will have the power to make their films. The reason I say this is because I am visualizing a combination of puzzle pieces. Most of the users of these tools have no concept of filmmaking. They choose bad camera angles or fly the camera all over the place like 1st year CG students. They don't know lighting, pacing and many other aspects of storytelling. Of course I also keep in mind that all of this is based on what we are used to, sometimes culturally, and none of these rules came down the mountain with Moses. The point, though, is this: I have yet to see a big time studio animator or major pro Maya or Lightwave guy pick up these tools and try something. What would this artist create? Now, are you ready for the puzzle? I have seen some examples, even on Youtube, of people using the Sony PS3 game console as a render engine, simply because of its graphics processing power. They are doing very complex stuff, even radiosity. Still, if you want the simplest idea of the power, simply find any trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4 or Resident Evil 5 on the internet.
Do you see where Machinima is going now? People will have that kind of power, in realtime, to tell their stories. This may or may not be for you, but you can easily see the power this puts in the hands of indies who have ideas but not necessarily the budget equal to those ideas. If you're not into anime style or cartoon work, or wish you could otherwise do a fully 3D animated film, before you buy that render farm, consider how you might use these new Machinima tools to your advantage. A pro artist picking up these tools and trying something is only one piece of the puzzle I see in my mind. The other is the quality of assets. Most users are creating with Quake II or Half Life or even the Sims. Not a lot of chance of getting Final Fantasy quality with those dated engines. But what happens when someone creates with the engine of Doom 3? "Not even from a video game standpoint, but from Machinima or what have you, Doom 3 is a tool for amateur developers to create stuff. Then the game as well; it's really almost unprecedented in terms of the power it provides people to do things. Obviously we're doing a lot of cool stuff with DOOM 3 the game, but now people are going to have something that approaches film quality in the level of visual presentation, on a real-time basis. So if you're in film school and looking to make animated films, this is the cheapest package you're going to get when the game comes out -- a lot cheaper than Maya." That's what the CEO of id Software said in an interview with Game Arena. But Doom 3 has, of course, already been surpassed. I mean, there's going to come a point where just like Steve Job's showed that a modern Mac can render Luxo Jr., the first Pixar short, perfectly in realtime, it will take fewer years for a realtime engine to do Final Fantasy quality. I mean if a person were to go into Doom 3, and really change out every model and create entirely new content inside, how close would it be now? What could that artist create? That's what I am looking for.
I just want to create. I realize I am not interested in tools and feature lists the next cool thing in the next big 3D package. I lost interest in that a while ago. I am interested in the package not getting in my way!
CEL SHADING One of the greatest advantages in cel shaded movie making can be found in the study of live action films and television. I have learned some very interesting techniques, having worked on a few live action films now, that allow good directors to maximize what they have available. A little bit of set dressing can turn something old into something new. A new lighting setup can turn something we've seen before into a new location for adventure. With cel shading, this doesn't just apply to sets. It applies to everything. A bit of Chaos, some Hearts, a touch of J4A, even a splash of mind animation and that which went before can be used for moving forward. Starting out it may not seem so apparent, but imagine what library you might have after one film. What about two or three? Overtime, the asset library will actually allow more freedom than one might imagine in a world of reuse. Freedom and speed. This is what I am aiming for. This is what I lost sight of for a while. This goes DOUBLE for those who use Poser and Daz and all the content therein. The first thing people think of when talking about Poser or Daz content is being stuck with what you get. USE YOUR IMAGINATION! You are never stuck unless you choose to be. With cel shading you have even MORE options. Mix and match items, change colors, break a piece off and stick it on another. A good content library is already out there at very reasonable prices. Who says you have to USE AS DIRECTED?! New tools and the embracing thereof also play an important part in freedom and creativity. I remember one night, some time ago, I tried something in modo and it became frustrating and I switched to Vue to get the results I needed. In this image, however, modo takes over for the creation of a background I could not do anywhere else. You have to know your tools well to avoid such pitfalls as spending an hour or two trying to create something in the wrong program.
I couldn't be happier with the image quality these new tools have given me. I am greatly excited for the nature of the actual show. There was a time when I began to see a big discrepancy between that which I drew by my hand, and that which was 3D cel shaded. Now there will certainly always be a difference as 3D is not 2D and vice versa. But how big need it be? That's where the artist must work. I remember some time ago I was loading some old scenes from Understanding Chaos and rendering them in HD to see how these things looked today. I was quite surprised. I still think some of my best work can be found there. I have made many changes over time and realized that they were not all for the better. Of course, some were making things much better. The thing which was missing was balance. Cel shading has an upfront cost, but then yields huge back end rewards. The reward being that after an initial investment of time, even if it is sometimes frustrating, there comes a time when the scenes begin to just roll out with little effort. This is its greatest strength. Combined with motion libraries, reusable skeletons and other time saving tools, the power of this technique cannot be ignored. It is by this that I was able to do Understanding Chaos in one month. It was my original goal when I created Skeleton Man, my first true cel shaded project. Today I have a really good pen tablet. This changes things a lot. Still, the advantage of cel shading, especially to achieve the maximum possible visual quality, considering my goal has always been to reach the level of Japanese feature animation, cannot be overstated. It just takes some tweaking to get that right look.
CLOTH SIMULATION Cloth simulation in 3D animation can be extremely tough to tackle. Luckily for us, the technology gets better all the time. As the software improves we also have faster and faster processors coming out. What that gives us is the one thing really needed to make cloth work. Time! Time to experiment is all that is really necessary to get good cloth simulation results. Usually we artists have no such time when the show has to be done next week. However that isn't the case on your own project. We have the time to get it right. The thing you have to consider, though, where time is involved, is whether or not it would be quicker to just draw that cloth or hair movement. That's where things get difficult. A lot also depends on your style of animation or motion. There is a big difference in the animation of Ninja Scroll versus, say, Jin Roh. If I Was doing a style of motion like Jon Roh, I would certainly use cloth simulation. It would almost be required if the film was cel shaded 3D. If I was doing a style closer to NInja Scroll, though, I would just do cloth and hair movements as 2D touch ups. Understanding when to do which is key. Does your project speak to you?
UPGRADES One last thing to consider with the issue of 2D or not 2D, is upgrades. I won't even get into the issue of hardware because I would hope everyone knows better than to change or upgrade hardware in the middle of a project.I want to address the issue of constantly changing software. I ask you, is it really necessary for our software to evolve out from under us between productions? I can understand improvement. Everybody wants the latest, greatest features. Still, I swear that from one production to the next things truly don't work the same. Simple things that shouldn't change in my view. Maybe it's just my perception that changes. If you're doing 2D this isn't that big of an issue. Most paint and drawing programs haven't really changed in ten years. 3D on the other hand can be a killer. Imagine if your CEL SHADER didn't work the same in a new version. I've seen this happen! There are a host of issues worth noting in the decision to go 2D or 3D on your project. The question is, of course, easy if you can't draw. If you can, though, I always think of animator Paul Fierlinger, who, with only his wife on color and backgrounds, animated the indie feature film My Dog Tulip, all in Mirage/TVPaint in about two years. He always used to say he never understood 3D cel shading. In the time it takes to get everything setup, you could have just drawn it. Sometimes I have experienced exactly that. It really depends on your tools though. Some programs make it quicker than other. As a last resort, if you're on the fence, do what I did. I created a short 30 second scene, and did the same scene both in 2D and in 3D cel shaded, to see which one looked better, took longer and was more fun. That should settle the question for just about anyone.
NOTES
The Old Way

The world of animation is changing no matter what the majors want to do about it. The world of distribution is potentially going out of their sole control and they see that coming. The real question is whether or not indies will have content ready to fill the gap, because I suspect it shall be a very small gap before new locks are made for all new gates. One animator has certainly put in the work. His name is Phil Nibbelink and he is the creator of Romeo and Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss. Now when I say he created this, I mean he wrote, directed and animated this film, a true theatrical feature that actually made its way into local cinemas in California. Apparently reviews of the film were not the most positive. Jennifer Hachigian of Celshader.com actually went to see the film, when it was released, and she had good things to say about it: "Overall, though, I liked the film. I loved the visual gags, such as when the dancing Prince accidentally knocks most of the Capulets off of the ship. I also liked the look. The flat-shaded characters and full animation made me nostalgic for the 70's and 80's animation in my collection. I look forwards to buying the DVD."
So how does the director and lone animator of a thatrical feature film make it happen? Of course there's persistance and dedication. He began working on it in early 2003. But there is also seeing new ways to get the project done rather than sticking to the old. He says: "I didn't need storyboards because I could see it in my mind and I didn't have to communicate my vision to anyone else. I wrote the script and then started animating. I didn't even bother to refer back to the script because the characters took on a life of their own and they told me what they wanted to say and where they wanted to go next. " While Phil Nibbelink's movie is certainly for children, the idea that animation for mature audiences is not to be found in the western world is crumbling as well. For a look at something very different, check out the UK film Princess, about a clergy man whose sister dies of drug abuse at the end of a failing career as a porn star. Anders Morgenthaler, the director of the film even has a blog on his site with great insight into past and future projects: "I hope my next movie will get a bigger audiens in Denmark than Princes did. Princess are doing fantastic in the rest of the world sales wise so Ill start travel the film business highway when I finish shooting Echo .... But Princess did a good job for me I will always remember her!" Now, I'm sitting in the Philippines as I write this, hoping to keep my own costs down and allow me to do what I truly want to do. Still, there has never been a better time for the indie. Go back and read the quotes from those two visionary directors. That's how it should be! I once read an article on AWN which makes clear the problems we are having with keeping costs of 2D animation down and keeping work here in the states.
Even with tools like I use on the market and many indie sources getting great results with paperless animation, the mainstream industry as still asking whether paperless is reality or myth. "Personally, seeing the work being created in my current production workspace using the Cintiq and Sketchbook Pro, I am finally becoming convinced that paperless animation production may one day become a reality,..." One day?! One day?! That's one of the things Joseph Gilland writes in the article on AWN. Contrasted with what he says of the industry with fastly shrinking budgets and production schedules coupled with broadcaster and distributor desire for greater quality, I am not surprised the artists are not running for the latest greatest tools. I've said this many times before and don't need to go into it again, as long as animators hold on to old concepts, like an animator being too good to clean up his own drawings, or that things must be separated into twenty different departments, we will never see change. In fact, we will never see anything except all the work go to China and India. I remember I posted on my old blog, which used to be on the Studio ArtFX website, sometime ago where a producer from MIPCOM was quoted as saying something to the effect that the chance of an indie getting their project broadcast on TV was slim to none. A look at how animation on TV in America has shaped up will make the reason for this clear. Aside from feature animation most of the cartoon world existed as short films which ran before feature presentations at the cinema. Back then, the moving going crowd was a grown up audience and so these shorts were often aimed at them.
As television began to take over, these shorts found themselves playing to a new market of youth on Saturday mornings. As the big three networks (yes I am old enough to remember when there were only three networks) realized this market's potential, the mid 1960's saw new and original animated content being produced for Saturday mornings. This was a golden age which led to such greats as Space Ghost, Scooby-Doo, Superman, Batman and Underdog and studios like Hanna Barbara and Filmation became known names in animation. The first big wrench in this system came from parents groups in the 1970's who objected to violence in cartoons. Before long the networks were bending to the desires of such groups and cartoons were toned down more and more. Slapstick humor replaced some of the great action shows of the age. Then came the rise of the syndicated shows of the 1980's. Since syndicated shows were sold directly to local stations, they didn't have to follow those outmoded network rules. In shows like The Transformers, G.I. Joe, Galaxy Rangers, Robotech and Voltron, the action returned to animated television. In the 1990's Saturday morning saw a new boom with newcomers FOX and the WB on the network scene. Even this was not to last though, for when the government enacted the Children's Television Act requiring broadcasters to air three hours of education programming for children, this gave the cable networks, exempt from the rule the upper hand they still hold today where Cartoon Network and Nick rule the animation world. Today many networks no longer deal with the business of programming their animation blocks. ABC, owned by Disney, simply shows Disney created products in their Saturday morning block. Likewise, the Viacom owned CBS network shows Viacom owned Nickelodeon toons in their block. FOX handed their block to 4Kids Entertainment and CW shows Kids WB programming.
The point is the programming blocks are controlled by companies that produce or own content they want shown in those spaces. Doesn't exactly leave room for an indie to sell a program to a network. In fact, it makes it absolutely impossible because the network doesn't even handle the programming. Most of the cable channels completely own what they show, such as Nick's Avatar: The Last Airbender or Cartoon Network's many Adult Swim titles. SO where does that leave the indie wanting to be on TV?
Things may not be any better in Japan. According to a Variety article some time ago, the anime industry in Japan is seriously suffering from stagnating DVD sales both locally and in the international market. As a result, some of the top studios, like Madhouse and Production I.G. are pitching their most popular properties to Hollywood studios for live action remakes. This includes a possible live action version of I.G.'s Ghost in the Shell, for which negotiations are in progress. One of the things that is not mentioned is possible reasons for this stagnation. Let's face it, anime has, with few exceptions, become very monotonous, falling into the same "command & repackage" mentality of the top video game publishers. How many times can you sell another cute girl in a giant robot or armor? I just got a news mail from the Japanese DVD site I used to import DVDs from (those who read my old blog know I gave up DVD as a format a long time ago) which had an ad for Macross Frontier, a new creation from Shoji Kawamori. ONe look at the cover art and I was done with the show. More of the same, even from this great creator. One of the reasons for this lack of risk taking in both industries is the rising cost of production. You don't dare spend millions on an untested idea and hope to make your money back. Efforts are being made to keep to the cost down. The U.S., Hong Kong and Japanese companies behind Ex Machina, the sequel to the all 3D CGI Appleseed introduced profit sharing plans, where the studios involved in the production get something on the back end rather paying all the production costs up front. The studio behind Genius Party, which I wrote about on my website back when it happened, distributed the profits among the individual directors who created it. Those were all good efforts. Variety went on to report that the problems within the industry didn't stop there. Wages for animators in the trenches, actually doing the work, remain incredibly low.
As a result, many anime studios are losing talented staff to video game companies which tend to pay much better. Also, many believe that continuing to outsource production work to low cost shops in Korea and China has lowered the quality of anime. One need only look at the quality of Naruto The Movie 3 to see where that is going. [Photo]The problem here is clearly cost, cost, cost! The studios continue to do things the old way. When that gets too expensive, they outsource the work to a cheaper country to continue doing things the old way for a lower price. Maybe it's time to start considering doing things a new way! As I mentioned before, these problems with anime are not the result of demand. The demand is there. Anime grows on TV everyday. I've seen bittorrent sites where an episode of Naruto was downloaded 270,000 times from that one site, and there are dozens of such sites. The simple fact is that the industry cannot long support itself. The vast amount of content means a necessary switch to long tail economics. Anime is going to have to be made cheaper and I mean much much cheaper. I know this is possible. I've done it. I think now is the time for indies to keep doing it and show a new road. Then maybe the smaller studios, the ones who are struggling at the bottom, will catch on and follow suit. Then they will have their own creations and a new era can begin. In the same vein, AWN's Karen Raugust wrote about how Hollywood has built in the demise of creativity in the industry. What the article basically amounts to is that the shelf life of feature products is so short that retailers actually prefer franchises and sequels to new products. Can you believe this?! The shelf life of a film is so short, says Juli Boylan, svp, Sony Pictures Consumer Products. Its literally about the opening weekend. Retailers feel theres just not enough time to create consumer demand.
What this translates into is that retailers are far more comfortable with a property that stems from books, games or some other medium rather than a first time film. This basically drives an axe to the independent in this sytem, correct? As a creator who had a DVD with short shelf life, I can tell you this is true. What gets me is that the system has become so overly convoluted one must wonder why you would even want to play in their sandbox anymore. All this goes out the window on the net and mobile devices and other forms of delivery. If you want to play their game, forget about your film. You would be better off coming from another angle, making a manga or writing a book and building up your audience. Do web shorts or even try and get a game made. Let the film arrive when the audience and demand is truly there. Otherwise, your dream could come and go in the span of a DVD's shelf life. I learned a lot over the course of what I called "a brave weekend" that, quite surprisingly, relates to this issue of where film properties come from. You see, earlier last year I preordered, and then forgot about, the special collectors edition box set of the Fuji TV, Warner Entertainment Japan and Gonzo epic theatrical feature Brave Story, based on a novel by Miyabe, Miyuki. It arrived early last week and I simply awaited the arrival of the weekend to begin the festivities. [Photo]I'm not here to talk about the movie. You can see that for yourself when it arrives in your country. But you may not get a chance to see some of the extra features in this four disc box set. I mean hours and hours of extras covering every imaginable facet of the film. It gives us a great glimpse into the process of a big major studio, yea multiple studio, project and just how different an approach it is from what an indie will experience.
A producer from Fuji TV had an idea. The company was going to enter the brave new world of animation and they wanted to enter it in a big way. Now Fuji TV doesn't do animation. They don't have animators on staff or a studio waiting in the basement to take on such an epic project. So where to begin was the big question. Producer Chihiro Kameyama decided to call up producers over at Pixar to get some information. In speaking with Pixar, Kameyama was told, after explaining what they were trying to do, that he should expect it to take five years. Naturally he was shocked. "We don't have that kind of time." he said. The producer at Pixar told him that its not the making that takes so long. It's everything that goes before it. All the development and preproduction. Either way, Kameyama didn't plan to spend that kind of time to create the vision for Fuji TV. So the question Kameyama faced was, who do you team up with to get such a project off the ground? Who can even pull such a project off? Kameyama found his answer in the the popular anime studio Gonzo. The producer at Gonzo didn't have to think for even a full second when asked if he would like to do this big theatrical project. The last partner in on the distribution side is Warner Entertainment Japan, which clearly reaped the benefits of their entry into the Japanese film market that year with consecutive hits Death Note and Brave Story. They all knew what they wanted. A family oriented story with big adventure and very emotional, so they set out to create just such a story, in the tradition of Pixar, known for great original storytelling. Many months went by working with writers and attempting to develop characters with nothing quite coming up to expectations. It simply wasn't working. Eventually they abandoned the idea of creating a story and thus began a search for the perfect story for this project.
It was in this search that they came across Ms. Miyabe's novel, Brave Story. Just a few pages into the novel, Kameyama knew they had found their story. The producer from Gonzo said, "What have we been doing for the past year? From the beginning it had to be this!" Now with a solid story and all production and distribution partners in place, the project could really begin. The Brave Studio was built up and populated for an advanced hybrid of traditional and digital workflow. Machines featuring 30" Apple Monitors running Shake composited images drawn with a pencil on paper in the same room. Maya artists created complex 3D digital elements to add to the film and in a small screening room in the back, the director could watch it all come together. Through this process, with over a year and a half of actual animation production and anywhere from 700-900 staff members, Brave Story was born! I hope this glimpse into the process gives some idea of just how wide is the gap when a major company like Fuji TV sets out to make a film and when an indie like, say, Phil Nibbelink sets out to do the same. We live in totally different worlds, not just different price ranges. When the vision is right, creativity and magic can still happen either way.
The question that must be asked for us, as indies, though, is, Is theatrical really the way to go? One must admit that Phil Nibbelink did an amazing job of self financing and getting any level of distribution for a movie the studios were not interested in. This same task faces anyone who wants to have total creative control over their work and no interest in doing yet another talking animal film. After all, the studios will only jump into the "trend of the month" type of movie. Nibbelink wanted to do 2D. The studios said 2D is dead. Well naturally, self financing his film meant that Nibbelink could do whatever he wanted, and that he did. Anything outside of the narrow window of what studios can see as profitable is only going to see the light of day as an indie project. The real question is how do you go about it? What if you are very far outside that window, like doing mature subject matter or serious animated drama? We all know that the current technology, the falling cost of animation production and outsourcing in Asia has made many independent projects possible, taking great animated content out of the exclusive domain of Dreamworks and Disney. Still, most seeking entry into this market, for all their talk of creative control, are eyeing that major theatrical distribution and thus creating more of the same thing the studios believe could sell. Talking animals and comedies. One company, Sandman Studios, according to AWN, is even going about it in a way that I personally could never trust. Sandman's goal for most of its projects is to raise $1 million or so privately for development of a five-minute animated short, and then use that to pitch the project to investors or possibly studios. Most of its films are expected to have budgets in the range of $20 million to $25 million.
I've been through this process, twice, at two different studios. It doesn't work! There may be some potential with private investors but with studios they are merely dreaming or asking to get their asses handed to them and end up with next to nothing in the end. With planned budgets so low, the studios may not even take them seriously. Just like I thought when I was at Rainbow Studios, if you can raise the $1 million in private investment, do something with that! Theatrical distribution is part of an old closed system. In fact, it's like the Holy Grail. We all know what happens to those who chase after it. Few ever find it. Many have never returned. The most important thing about Phil Nibbelink's quick theatrical stint is that it enabled him to contend for the animated Oscar, but I believe his real audience was found on DVD. The indie needs a different way. If you can muster what it takes to privately make the film and keep control, then seriously consider finding an independent path the getting it to an audience as well. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is a great example of a privately financed film and what can be achieved in the DVD market. It's marketing, while we must take to account its connection to a huge game franchise, was almost entirely internet and trade show based, and yet it rose to be one of the top selling animated DVD titles of all time in Japan. Of course, none of us have the money Square has to throw at a production, but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot we can learn from them in terms of finding the way for our products to get made and find an audience. Square built on something. It was their brand. Something they had developed while almost going out of business years ago. That brand is an important part of the equation. Do you have a brand to capitalize on?
I hope it is clear, at this point, that there is nothing for us in the old way. We have to find our own way and travel our own road. With the net we can do that. It just takes a little high tech marketing savvy. If you choose to follow the old path, there's something much worse than old ways of production you have to face.
NOTES
The Gatekeepers
You know what the biggest problem in this industry is? It isn't money. It isn't the gatekeepers, the lack of distribution or the lack of means for indies. The biggest problem in this industry is shortsightedness. You know the type I am talking about. The belief that there isn't room enough in the market for many different types of content. The idea that everything must conform to one style or type. It doesn't help if conformity and everyone falling into their place is a big part of the culture. Just a couple of examples... I remember there came this game a long time ago called Onimusha. I was a huge fan of Resident Evil from the same company previously and so I was sold on this game long before it came out. I bought the Japanese version at great expense just so I could dive right in as soon as it was released. The cinematic play style of Resident Evil combined with samurai action more than satisfied. It may still be one on my all time favorite games. Later, there came from this same company a game called Devil May Cry. Now Devil May Cry was totally different game.
It had much faster paced action and opted, not for the cinematic play style, but for a constantly moving camera, similar to Tomb Raider but not constantly stuck behind the character. I played through this game and it was short and sweet. I loved it, but Onimusha was just more my style. I was working on the console team at EA, doing Playstation 2 titles, when these games came out. Now both Onimusha and Devil May Cry were very successful games in their own right and each spawned a successful franchise. Still, the consensus among developers, at the time Devil May Cry came out, seemed to be, "Great! Now they got this full moving camera worked out. They can do that on the next Onimusha instead of the cinematic style. It'll be so much better." I was thinking, "What?!" It leads me to a very simple question. Why must they be the same? It reminds of all the people who constantly complained that Metal Gear Solid should be a first person shooter. Now there are dozens and dozens of first person shooters out there, and anyone who plays Metal Gear Solid knows that you do many more things than run around and shoot stuff. SO why must it become yet another first person shooter? Is there not room enough for all types of games in the marketplace? You hear the same thing in regards to full 3D cel shaded anime. How many people say, "Now this is how it should be done! I hope all anime is done like this from now on."? Again I am puzzled. Why can't there be both? I happen to like and prefer hand drawn anime. I prefer my full 3D anime like Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children rather than cel shaded. Still, I think there is plenty of room for all types in the market. To see otherwise is just shortsightedness. Today in the game world I am hearing the same arguments and complaints against the PS3 as were spoken against the PS2 when it first came out. The exact same arguments. Yet look at what the PS2 achieved.
I see forums where someone might dare to suggest they are thinking of getting a new Mac. There will pop up the same tired old arguments, almost word for word, against getting a Mac, that were spoken ten years ago. Shortsightedness is a plague to vision. Like Morpheus tells us in the anime inspired, action film The Matrix, we are programmed to be a part of a system. The penalty for going against the system can be grave. How often do we hear terms like, "You have to pay your dues."? How often do we hear of the struggle and pain of the one who went their own way before they found success. The system desires to run like a well oiled machine. If you desire to go and seek your own way, the system will quickly turn against you. I remember reading the words of world traveller Winston Wu as to how his travels upset the system: "...On job applications in many American companies, you are required to explain any gaps in your work history, as if having gaps in your work record means that theres something wrong that you have to explain. In their eyes, traveling, unless its related to your career, doesnt come off well. Sheesh. Not only does this put extensive travelers on the defensive, but it means they will probably lose any chance of getting hired if they tell the truth. Therefore, in a sense, corporate America condemns travelers who dont conform to the work work work year round routine and lifestyle." This very attitude of companies made me immediately think of Phil Nibbelink. Instead of being praised his accomplishment with Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss, he was nearly condemned. Reviewers, many of whom work for news agencies now owned by the major studios, trashed the film. Many theatre owners refused to show it. Even its DVD release was met with little fanfare or note such that even those interested in the film didn't know it was out.
Now think about this a moment. Many major studios like Disney often make far worse, lower quality movies for their direct-to-video, children's markets and these movies get great support from the company, marketing budgets and often sell hundreds of thousands if not a million copies. Any of these companies could easily have partnered with Phil Nibbelink, having all the work already done for them, and given his film a large release on DVD with very little risk. It's like making free money! But he went against the system. Supporting that might encourage too many other animators to leave their rigidly structured, 16 hour per day jobs where management and producers, who couldn't draw a stick figure, will tell them over and over how to do their art "right". Like Morpheus tells us in the anime inspired, action film The Matrix, we must free our minds. We must strive to make the system unnecessary in reaching our audience. We must use the multitude of tools for marketing and distribution available to everyone today to circumvent the rules. We must control our own destinies.
I remember when Youtube announced the opening of their partners program in a press release which stated that they elevated their "most popular users to partners." According to one video blogger, though, things were not quite what they seemed. In a rant posted to John Battelle's Searchblog, a popular Youtuber claimed that even though they have tens of millions of views, they were not included. "If they could, YouTube would love to become the next gatekeeper, the next network. And in fact they have, they've gently plucked their stars and anointed them with advertising dollars. And someday you too can be touched by their magic wand and granted the status of weblebrity if you pass the test." That's just one of the points brought up by the anonymous Youtube star, which I always wondered if it wasn't the makers of Lonely Girl15. The rant went on the speak of how they had been treated by Youtube in comparison to the big guys that Youtube seems so intent on signing deals with. While the majors might get high dollar value ad deals, the rant seemed to indicate that indies might be thrown a few pennies to keep them chasing after that bone. The discussion then went on the talk about exclusivity, an important point that may be a killer for indies in the near future. Just what is exclusivity? This means that when you post a video on a site requiring an exclusive deal, then you can only post it on their site and nowhere else. If it fails to perform or make you any money, you're simply out of luck. In the currently small Internet video market, you should never sign an exclusive deal. It's not like you're handing your project over to Warner Bros. You may make very little. In fact, the ideal way for the indie to make a living may in fact be to get that project seen everywhere. Have it on Amazon, on Lulu, on Metacafe, in an Ebay store, your own site and anywhere else that eyes may come to see it and cash may come to buy it.
One commenter on that rant page said, "You get what you pay for. YouTube doesn't have a sign-up/cancellation fee, bandwidth overages or any other type of service charge. It's a good promo tool -- and if your content's good, you'll be able to reap some benefits of it." I agree. I could see using Youtube for a teaser video or two, but you should always keep complete control over your valuable content. Now matter how you slice it, trying to play "their game" means the odds are stacked against you. There is only one way to circumvent this, and that is walk in the door with a high quality film DONE. Unfortunately, even that is not sure road. M dot Strange did exactly that and he met with nothing but trouble in dealing with the gatekeepers. This leads me to believe that your own site is still the nest way. Build your fan base so that they are YOURS. Ninjai, Home Star Runner and others have done exactly that. You can do the same. You just have to forget the old way and leave the gatekeepers sitting at their rusting gates.
NOTES
The Indie Way

There's a competitive world out there. People compete for jobs and compete for advancement in their companies or even in office politics. We hear terms like "cut-throat" or "dog-eat-dog" thrown around constantly. The question we really need to ask ourselves is "Do we really have to compete in it?" For people who can see all the tools available to us today and put the puzzle pieces together, the answer is a definite NO. There is a creative way of thinking. As creatives we are not limited to competing for what's available to everyone else. As creatives we natually create and that even means creating our own opportunities where none may have existed previously. This could be as simple as creating a website and publishing your stories online in ebook form because publishers couldn't see the value in it, or it could be taking all the incredible tools out there and putting them together to make a studio quality animation by yourself because no one was going to hand it to you.
We live in an age of electronic media where all the monopolistic middlemen who used to decide what gets made and what gets seen are no longer necessary. If we have something to say we can create it and if need be, create an avenue to get it directly to our audience. People are everywhere looking for something new and those fixed minds of the competitive world, whether they make movies, video games, animated TV series or music are so busy worried about what the competition is doing or worried solely about that dollar that they can't dare to create something new and innovative. They certainly can't experiment when they have to spend millions out-doing the other guy and out marketing him too. In the creative world, though, time is on our side, because we can create the answers to our media dreams. Bittorrent is a masterpiece of creativity. Youtube is creativity at is finest. All the blogs, podcasts, online social networks, Second Life, everyone is finding their way to just do it, or just say it while the big guys are spending outrageous ammounts worried about DRM. I guess now they are even competing against the consumer. Yet a small guy can spend six months making an innovative puzzle game and release it with no protection, as shareware, and make hundreds of thousands of dollars, by himself. What is it that people are missing? What is that they are missing when they compete for top positions in some animation or computer game school, so that they can further compete for a job so they can become the guy who animated the smoke on layer 39 of a complex shot in yet another talking animal film or first person shooter? This wasn't the dream when they started out. What is it that companies are missing when they "Command & Repackage" a game that's been around for years or put new skins and updated graphics on the same old sports game and dare to call it something new for this year? I doubt this was the vision of the people who started that company in a garage somewhere. Do they even continue to have a vision?
These large companies and suits and dinosaurs of old are going to miss the opportunities of the future. They'll be right in front of them but they'll miss them entirely while they try to squeeze every last drop out of the old system and out of consumers' wallets. The opportunities of the future will be ours. When sites like Lulu.com or Metacafe become household names, it will be the content of the creatives on there. The big machine may snatch up a few creatives now and present a false dream of "making it", but more and more the guys on ground are turning them down. We can see more than they can now. A lot of what I am going to mention here I am sure I have written about before, but I want to start with the state of DVD. There was a day when the extra features on big movies were looked forward to almost as much as the DVD release of the movie itself. Past releases such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and the extended edition of King Kong show that it still occasionally happens, but on the whole, most DVD releases have been very disappointing. A good example would be Superman Returns. I love the film. Saw it three times, but the extra features, though there be hours of them, it seems, leave something huge to be desired. That is post production. As soon as prinicpal photography with the main actors stop, so too do the extra features. Aside from a super quick blip on how they revived Marlon Brando to play Jur-El, there is not one frame of anything to do with editing, the score, and certainly not CG visual FX. If they're saving it for an uber-release later, I wouldn't complain, but the disc seems so complete aside from that little oversight, that I can't imagine another version coming. I first saw the potential, and still believe it to be one of the best examples of what a DVD should be, when I watched Contact. Those extra features were so amazing I took the disc to work the next day and showed the team I was working with at the studio saying, 'This is what we should be doing."
Those were the days when DVD's inspired. They put power into the hands of the viewer. They brought us a little closer to our dreams as creators. So what does any of this have to do with creating your own animation project? Well, we don't really have a flourishing OVA (Original Video Animation) market in America. You see, in Japan, a smaller studio can create a series, one 30 minute episode at a time, and release it on DVD that way, sometimes for as much as $40 or more per disc, and the series can pay for itself as it goes along. Some series which started this way, like Tenchi Muyo have gone on to become huge franchises. When they tried to release Blue Submarine NO. 6 this way in America, it did sell well, but fans and critics were in an uproar about the pricing structure and getting only a 30 minute episode on one disc. Today the market may be a bit more open. An indie title like Kakurenbo: HIde and Seek was released as a single 25 minute episode, or short film, with 50 minutes of extra features on DVD for $20 and is doing quite well for itself. The same goes for Voices of a Distant Star, both put out by major labels. This is really the same strategy by which Anime: Concept to Reality was put out by TOKYOPOP, but more importantly, it is also what I did on my own when I released Understanding Chaos and subsequently, Shadowskin on DVD. Back then it may have been as tough a sell as Blue Submarine No. 6, but today the market may be more lenient to such a concept, and in a world of direct downloads and instant gratification, they may just embrace it. What this means is that it may open the door for us as creators, who desire to create longer form series work, to have a strategy by which we can support the release of our series and sustain it over time. That strategy being to release a 30 to 45 minute episode and include with it a healthy dose of extra features to round a package of nearly 2 hours of viewing. These extra features wouldn't be the fluff of Superman Returns, but straight to the point teaching.
The extra features become a series unto themselves teaching your craft to your fan base, who likely has similar desires to create their stories. So why do this? DEFY ALL CONVENTIONS! If you do this, you don't have to worry about being fit for TV. You don't have to worry about commercial breaks. You don't have to worry about the exact to-the-second length of the video or every scene. You don't have to worry about ratings boards or trying to keep it PG-13. You only have to worry about you and your viewers, and creating something they will love and love to keep seeing again and again as the series unfolds. You can keep your vision pure and make what you truly desire without any commitee saying what will and what won't work. You can even involve your fans in the process. Have contests, let them vote on the outcome of something in the story. My point is the sky is the limit. Or well.. if you're doing digital downloads, then your bandwidth.
Imagine becoming so fed up with the animation industry, fed up with the low wages, the complete lack of creative freedom and ownership of intellectual property that you would be willing to simply quit your job. Imagine being so fed up that you'd be willing to actually leave the city, the center of all things media related, and move to the outskirts where living costs are cheaper. Imagine being out there alone, willing to do it your way, whatever way it takes, to live the dream of creating animation. That is precisely where imagination has taken indie anime creator Ryo Ono, now famous for his self published Sugaikun to Kazokuishi anime created in Flash. Ono worked for more than ten years in the traditional media industry. Even though anime is a multi-billion dollar per year industry, the creators who provide the ideas and the knewhow receive little reward for their work. Even "big" directors are not paid very well and never own their creations. Animators on the other hand may earn as little as $900 per month to live on in a city where the cost of living makes New York, L.A., or even Hawaii seem like Austin Texas. Sugaikun to Kazokuishi, which literally means Sguy and The Family Stone, a play on the 70's funk band, changed all that. Ono's anime about a black family living in Shimane started boasting 50,000 page views per day. His self produced DVD sold 5600 copies, netting him $96,000 dollars. I have heard, though never been able to verify, that with few exceptions, major studio anime on DVD in Japan tops out at 10,000 copies per volume in sales, so for an indie to do more than half that, shows a major change on the horizon. His success has led him to major deals with the likes of Toshiba, EMI and TV Asahi, and he always keeps his copyright. His work has since been seen on major TV broadcasts and in theaters.
Mr. Fire, Joe Vitale has said, "The Universe likes speed." Well apparently, so does the anime industry. While it traditionally takes several weeks and a lot of money to produce anime, Ono uses Flash and can do a 30 minute episode in days, even working alone and voicing all the characters. He is currently doing The Frogman Show for TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) late night programming, producing anime work at 10% of what it normally costs. He admits that his work does look as good as the creations of veterans, but it hasn't stopped his rise to success. As I mentioned previously, the Japanese anime industry is struggling to stay afloat. Production costs are rising even as wages for individuals are falling. This leads to mass exits from the industry and work going overseas which, in the opinion of some, drops quality. Many of the majors are looking into co-production deals with the U.S., France and other nations which have a market for anime, but it seems that broadcasters may be ahead of them in seeking newer cheaper ways to get programming on the air for their multi-billion dollar industry. Imagine a future where the industry belongs to indie animators or tiny studios producing their own in-house content using Flash, Anime Studio or even Poser and Vue. Broadcasters pay much, much less, but to the lone animator or small team, they are making so much more money than before. The old thinking has to go. Regardless of whether it is production technique, software or even content management, the way it was done, will soon be a relic of the past. We have to move forward. One of the reasons I came to the Philippines was to try and duplicate something of what this guy has done. Costs are cheap here. Even if I need help I can hire competent artists for next to nothing. I could realistically see doing original shows, even by myself, that might actually have real market potential.
I can sell them on my site or sell them to broadcasters, not just in the U.S. but anywhere in the English speaking world. Whether 2D or 3D, there's really nothing stopping the indie anymore. Everything you need is already out there! I was going through a number of 3D model sites and I started thinking, "Why aren't there more independent CGI shorts and movies?" Considering the quality of low cost CG models available on the web, someone could literally write a story, find all the CG models they need, even photoreal samples, and just start making it! Sure I am oversimplifying everything, but you get the idea, right? Has model building ever stopped your creative flow? I mean, who wants to build and populate some bookshelves? Yet I have seen some incredible, detailed bookcases on model sites for $20 or less. What is your time worth to you? I would just buy it and move on. On the UFO Film SS Doomtrooper which I worked on for SciFi Channel, we needed a particular tank to appear in one of the shots and it had to look like it was there. I certainly didn't want to build the thing. One of the artists there did a quick search online and found the vehicle we needed in a pack of four tanks for $50. Of course we bought it. That's the way you do it! My interest is in my characters and my movie, not any individual item in it. If I need a high quality car, especially a car that exists in the real world, you won't see me modeling it. That would be the first trip I make to the 3D model sites to buy that car. Prices vary from site to site. Some sites have great models for $20. Others can be as high as $300, but how much time, energy and effort will it save? Time you could put into something else to get your movie done.
Now that I have discovered the world of Poser, Vue and Daz this goes double for available content. I can find just about anything I could ever need and focus entirely on just making the show. It pains me to understand how people cannot see the same puzzle pieces I see. I read a great quote one day from veteran Mirage animator Paul Fierlinger, who has been doing his own films for decades. The quote relates to something we have heard a lot from artists like Makoto Shinkai and Timothy Albee about what is truly possible today. Before I get to that quote, though, I want to talk about why the quote is so important. Even after I and many others have done their own films, people don't believe. Even after directly seeing something I have done, or what these others have done, people will say, "man it would be great if I could get some money together and get a crew going..." They have totally missed the point, and will continue to leave their dreams and ideas in the hands of others, others who have no desire to see it made. In a CGTalk thread about my web series, Anigen, a guy called Switchblade327 wrote: "...He's incredibly inspiring and has managed to do what few here could; actually finish projects of this scope in a reasonable amount of time. But it raises the question: other then bragging rights, why would you want to? He's clearly very talented and more importantly, extremely selfmotivated. But just like the also talented Tim Albee, his work proves that no man is an island; nobody (or very few anybodies) is going to be great or even all that good at *every* aspect of film production. As a result, one or more aspects, be it lighting/rendering/animation, modeling, storytelling, cinematography, etc ALWAYS suffers in projects like these.
Maybe I could animate a whole short in handcuffs while starving myself and that would be a great "making of" story but the short probably wouldn't be so great when finished." As a result of this thinking, the only road to this person ever seeing their projects come to life is major studio funding of millions and a large crew, without which they don't believe its possible. I say that if someone is not good at a particular aspect, then they can learn! What really is beyond our grasp? This is why the quote from veteran animator Paul Fierlinger is important. We have to see the process and the projects differently. Don't look at what those other guys are doing! Paul wrote: "Our art has now joined the ranks of writer/authors, painter/ illustrators and sculptors and composers and housewife/husbands. There are no crews of writers, painters, sculptors, composers or homemakers to join and within whose ranks one could contribute as a specialists, unless you want to take into account private secretaries who take dictates from writers, computer specialists who service the needs of animators and cleaning crews who cater to the needs of homemakers. On the other hand we have the global economy to fit into; to make, all by ourselves, anything, anywhere, anytime for anyone. Whos preparing students for this reality?" That's what I agree with. Makoto Shinkai said in his interview on the "Voices" DVD that the technology had brought anime into the same realm as manga, which can be done entirely by one person. It's anyone's choice to believe or not believe, even though more artists are doing it everyday, but its a shame if they really desire to make their own project, and won't even begin because of unbelief. All the promises are unto them that believe, and unto them only.
I remember in an article I once saw on AWN the industry movers and shakers talk about the ever changing climate in the world of animation. Things are shifting faster than ever and doors can open and close in the space of a single project. That which was law a mere fifteen years ago is now as useful as a stone tablet. What does this mean for the indie swimming in this world? AWM: How serious is the potential market of podcasting and webcasting? Kenneth Locker: Very large it is cost effective and ubiquitous with very low cost of entry barriers. Success will ultimately depend on the quality of the content and which business models emerge (i.e. subscription, pay per view, ad supported etc). Ken Faier: That said, it certainly feels like its worth investing development resources to content that would be suited to podcasting and mobile. And as the larger players like Fox and CBS jump into the ring, it will create more opportunities for independents.
Sounds like nothing but good news if you ask me. I am often stuck on the idea of feature projects but more and more it is becoming apparent that there is real value in serious consideration of chapter based entertainment for mobile platforms like the PSP. Sure there are services like iTunes, but you need not fret if you can get past the gatekeepers. You can deliver content yourself, from your own site. In fact, anybody can do it. Fred Seibert: Homestarrunner.com, Happy Tree Friends, Joe Cartoon, (dare I say Channel Frederator) are only the beginning. Talent, quality, and excitement are now the only barriers to hit making and brand building. I think it worth noting that budgets, marketing dollars and things along these lines was not mentioned. Homestarrunner was very popular in UFO where I worked and they have sold a few hats and DVD's in that office. That says something. Apparently those guys make a living doing only that too. I don't just mean getting by either. A friend of mine, the guy who hosted Understanding Chaos when my server went down, knows them personally. They do 300 to 400 sales of DVDs and merchandise every single day! The opportunity exists doing a cool chapter based show on PSP or iPod to reach your audience immediately and build something that could be huge. It doesn't get any better than this folks. This is surely the direction I am heading in. I have said it many times, but now I may be in the position to do it. My next series will be what I truly want it to be and it will be available right on my site for digital download, include even an iPhone or PSP version. Why not? Would you rather play in the Hollywood sandbox? Do you think the big kids let the little kids play there?
There was, some time ago, a great article over at Cinematech which gives some powerful insights, to those interested in independent film making, on why the system is closed to us, and how it was set up that way from the start. It also lets us know that we are responsible for changing things and that the tools available to us now leave no room for excuses. The web can be our home and opportunities here are without end and limited only by imagination. From its very start, the movie industry in America has been tilted against the independent filmmaker, and designed to exclude the entrepreneur. You may remember episode 16 of Anigen covered this to some degree. "In 1908, with projected movies still in their infancy, Thomas Edison, Kodak founder George Eastman, and nine other titans of the young industry formed the Motion Picture Patents Company, which prevented anyone else from making or distributing movies without paying fealty to the MPPC. Independents couldn't even buy film from Kodak;" That's just a bit of what that article says and show's why you need to go search for it and read it. How different are things today? Only very recently have things in the independent film making world and the world of animation really opened up. To this very day you cannot go out and buy a Panavision camera and own the means of production. Before widespread use of computer technology, and software like Flash or Mirage, how much did it cost to even think about making your own animation? It wasn't enough to know how to draw anime, you needed expensive equipment just to realize it on paper, to say nothing of shooting it to film. Today you can make your own anime or independent film, with a Dolby digital 5.1 soundtrack and master it DVD or ready it for output to film all from your desktop. Of course, even getting to that point, in order to get it seen, people have to know it exists.
That's still one aspect of the puzzle the major studios have a handle on. Or do they? In the old days, studios produced big films and those films were taken to the people via distributors who handled all the promotion and marketing and took the lion's share of the profits. This hasn't really changed. In fact, it's gotten worse, as many of these distributors have merged with the studios. Universal Studios, Warner Brothers, Disney and many others have their own distribution and if you want to get in, you have to pay to play. Even a animation powerhouse like Pixar needed Disney to get their movies seen. Studio Ghibli thought the same thing. We know from the Pixar/Disney clashes before the merger, that Disney ended up owning all of Pixar's characters and creations and took the largest percentage of the profits. This is the price of entry into their world. Yet so many indies still want to walk right in it. If you truly want to get your independent film seen, or make your own anime and have total creative control, consider finding your audience the same way you make your movie. On the desktop. YouTube phenomenon LonelyGirl15 showed that finding a large audience entirely in the wired is not only feasible but potentially profitable. It's almost the end of 2008. Are we going to let a system set up in 1908 keep us from realizing dreams? Satoshi Kon, the anime director responsible for the movie Paprika, which is gained much notoriety on the festival circuit, was being interviewed everywhere in connection to this masterful work. In some of these interviews he makes some great points about the influences on his work and the process of creation of both films like Paprika and his TV series Paranoia agent. His thoughts are, of course, based on a concept of "what is" as opposed to what can be or perhaps, "should be" in the opinions of some.
"To create manga takes a great effort and it is a personal work. That is a good point, in manga you can create what you want to create. But the opposite can also be said, that you can only do what you are capable of. In anime, the staff gets together and creates together. I am attracted by the idea of a team making the best work possible." That's what he said in a TOKYOPOP interview at the time. Of course, from his perspective he is quite correct, but those of us who desire to change the very nature of the industry may see things differently. What I am basically talking about is technology opening new doors. Those who saw Makoto Shinkai's Voices of a Distant Star and it's extra features may remember than in his interview he talks about how technology has literally brought the creation of anime into the realm of manga, where it is possible for one artist to create what they want in total freedom. I also remember how manga artists like Ghost in the Shell creator Masamune Shirow, having seen works like Urda or Kakurenbo, decided he wanted to delve into that world of CGI creation because of the opportunities offered there. In another interview with Satoshi Kon on Coming Soon.net, he wrote: "I read the novel of "Paprika" right when it was first published years ago. Right after doing my first film, "Perfect Blue," I really wanted to do a film adaptation of "Paprika" next, but at the time, it was just as an idea that was floating around, and the production company that I was in talks with actually went out of business and it never came into fruition. Afterwards, a lot of the works I did"Millennium Actress," "Tokyo Godfathers" and "Paranoid Agent"the works that I was doing were original pieces that were developed. I think some of the production houses had expected or were anticipating me to do more original works." That's not freedom. No one wants to be dependent on a company which might go out of business to get their project made.
There is no longer a need to spend years with your idea floating around or looking for some studio to develop it with you. Today, because of the tools available, you can have an idea and just start making it. You can create what you desire right now and there are no forces that will prevent you from doing that. When it comes to forces that might prevent one from creating what they want, they are often only in the mind of the creator. Even though I knew for years that the technology said we can create what we want without the need for millions of dollars or major studio backing, it wasn't until recently that it really hit me that I can create what I truly desire right now. I knew there were no real world barriers preventing me from creating, but I was still stuck "in the box", so to speak, in the belief that I had to create certain types of shows, characters, lengths and scenarios. When I say create what you desire, I mean without limits. In today's world with a multitude of markets and delivery systems, a 3 minute animation for cel phones is as viable as a feature film with the hope of theatrical distribution. You can really make anything and believe there is an audience for it. Because there is.
To this day, many cannot shake the notion that animation must be some particular thing. This applies to the current state of the anime industry as well as to Hollywood animated feature films. We all know that Hollywood currently seems to be in a talking animal rut. Anime has not escaped monotony either. Although there is a general lack of risk taking in the anime world, it's not necessarily the creators of the individual works that decide this, but the system as a whole. Director Satoshi Kon makes this somewhat clear in a New York Times interview at the time of his film Paprika. "I make them with the intention of being for a general audience, a mainstream audience,but they tend to get perceived as much more artistic. Animation is supposed to be like a dream, pretty and nice. When you see a Disney cartoon, youre in a dream world of sweet animals and pretty flowers. The dream world in Paprika is quite the opposite frightening and horrible, a surprising notion coming from a cartoon." Should such a thing really be surprising in this day and age? That very article goes on to talk about how directors like Katsuhiro Otomo, Mamoru Oshii and Satashi Kon started a movement that changed the face of anime beginning with films like Akira, more inspired by serious science fiction writers like Phillip K. Dick and William Gibson than the works of Walt Disney. Still, Akira is twenty years old. (My God how does that make you feel?) How long does it take for a perception to change? Well, anime in general is a very niche market product, so from the mainstream perspective, there was very little perception to be changed in the first place. Breaking out of this notion of what animation should be, especially across borders, can be very difficult. In this "new movement" in anime, no film that has been brought to America has grossed more than $3 million at the box office except the Oscar winning, highly promoted and twice released Spirited Away.
Most gross less than $1 million for their time in theatres. It takes a very westernized Pokemon to make any real money in American theatres. One of the greatest barriers to breaking notions of what animation should be is cultural, and more specifically, the religious ideas on which that culture developed. In Hollywood films, when religion is touched upon, it is almost always Catholic. In animation religion and its associated symbols are very rarely even hinted at. Spawn creator Todd McFarlane once said that simply showing a graveyard full of crosses in animation could up the MPAA rating to an R. While he was likely being sarcastic, I think he makes a good point. What the audience can accept, or what the system believes they can accept in animation will always hinder what can make it into the mainstream. When it comes to foreign cultural or religious concepts it gets even worse. "I understand that, from the Christian point of view, animism where you give a soul and spirit to all sorts of objects is wrong and incorrect. But I dont think that is a reason to oppose any other countrys culture. In Japan, Shintoism is a polytheistic religion in which you believe in many different gods for many different people. Shintoism acknowledges the Christian God. Why not? There are many gods. But when I think about how that respect doesnt go in the other direction, I get a little bit sad. I think thats something that contributes to world cultural conflicts and problems." So spoke Satoshi Kon in the aforementioned interview. Personally, I don't think there should be some grand movement to break these perceptions nor do I think anime is going to flood the mainstream. Niche markets are what they are. If we want to see change, or see more acceptance of a certain type of film, though, there simply needs to be more of those type of films. If we want to see more animation for older audiences, then we must make more animation for older audiences.
If we want to see more cultural diversity in animation, then we must make those films which show that diversity. We must also find our own roads to get those films out because the system will not do it for us. The solution is, and can only be, to make films, and make films of all types and expand the perceptions. I actually know personally some people that are doing that, even in the anime world. I remember reading some time last year that YAMATO Morita, creator of Kakurenbo and the director of the new Katsuhiro Otomo project Freedom, was going to be speaking at Anime Expo 2007. It's been a pretty nice rise from the day of their independent creation to one of the most talked about projects in the anime world. When I first heard about Kakurenbo, I contacted Shuhei Morita through their YAMATO WORKS website to ask about thew tools they were using. He sent me a few screen grabs of Lightwave 3D in use on the project. They were two months away from completion at the time. When I saw the first episode of Freedom, I noticed the big YAMATO WORKS credit in the end titles. I was not surprised they worked on it, seeing as they previously created one of the best looking all CGI anime projects around, but I did not know that Shuhei Morita was, in fact, the director. Freedom is 6 episodes in total and the first saw U.S. release back in June. The Japanese DVD release of episode 3 was #6 on the top ten anime titles list. I started to import them, as I am impatient, but never finished as I gave up on DVD as a format around the same time. To this day, I haven't seen the entire series. I remember when a friend of mine turned me on to Custom Flix, a DVD on demand service from the makers of Amazon.com. What they offer service wise is no different than Lulu, but their rates are far more friendly to the end user. While Lulu takes 20% of the revenue remaining over the manufacturing cost, Custom Flix only takes 5% for titles sold through your site or theirs. Their manufacturing costs are also considerably lower. Any independent creator can be up and running with their title for as little as a $15 investment, leaving the creator to focus on promoting and selling their product.
This is really getting to the point where doing it yourself is starting to pale by comparison. Although you can get DVD's made for as little as $1.29 per disc at Discmakers, with a bulk order, you would have inventory to stock and have to handle shipping, customer service and returns yourself or hire another service to do that. It may cost $4.95 per disc on Custom Flix, but you are left free from all that comes after that. Custom Flix also allows you to list your title on Amazon, though for a considerably reduced chunk of the revenue, and have access to one of the largest online markets in the world. Apparently, some of their top users have had considerable success with this. This makes it well worth considering what road to take when getting your project out there. Obviously, there's nothing stopping the indie creator now. Since many of these services are non-exclusive, it may be that the best road is to do a little of bit of each. We all know that the tools are out there. I have talked about them quite a bit on my blog, in Anigen, in forums and anywhere anyone would listen. I talked about iClone, offering machinima style creation, in realtime, to hundreds of thousands of users for a very low price. I talked about Poser 7, which I myself am really getting into and enjoying the benefits it adds to the cretive process. And then there is Vue 6, which offers creative power far beyond anything I have seen recently (I haven't upgraded to Vue 7 yet). Now these tools have all sold many tens of thousands of copies. They are in the hands of the people. All that's left is for the flow of great creations right? Well, a quick search on Youtube may show you something rather interesting. The creating is certainly happening. There are people who are taking these tools and making stuff. It seems there are those that are even just having a good bit of fun with what the tools offer. There is a common thread among the vast amount of creative efforts out there, though, and it has nothing to do with the tools. Many who have the desire and have the tools and the motivation to do something are running into something else.
Many of those creating with these tools have no idea how to shoot, light, pace or cut an engaging animated project. In many of the projects I am seeing out there, the camera is just all over the place. It's like the freedom given with a CG camera was too much to comprehend and so because the camera can do anything, it does. Many of the scenes are just flooded with light, often to the point of becoming flat and boring. Rarely is there seen lighting that really separates characters from the backgrounds or that is used for mood. Then, many of the pieces I am seeing just drag on and on too slowly, and many who watched my work know that I am generally a fan of slower paced, talky, shows, but these projects are too slow to me! Proper cutting, including proper coverage of a scene is another issue. The viewer must gain an idea of where everyone is placed and how the action flows based on how the piece is cut. Often the pieces I am seeing out there leave the viewer in confusion. Now I don't want to make it sound like there isn't good stuff out there. There is. A lot of the stuff I am seeing, though, isn't lacking in ideas or story, and certainly not in good tools. It is the execution that leaves much to be desired. I never really thought about this aspect in detail before. When I made Anigen, or previous projects, I often thought from the point of view of the use of tools and the techniques to get something created based on a toolset in 2D or 3D. I never put much emphasis on the fundamentals of visual storytelling. More and more I am realizing that the tools can be learned from the manual, help in forums and many places online. These fundamentals, such as shooting with interesting camera angles, lighting for mood and emotion or pacing to keep a viewer attached, are the real roadbloack to our seeing a wealth of great indie content out there filling the many pages of the net. This needs to be the focus of the next stage of instuctional material. In fact, this may be the most important stage! The tools themselves are clearly delivering as promised.
Have you been checking out the galleries on some of the sites related to Vue or Poser lately? There really is a revolution going on and it seems to be going on quietly outside of those communities. The creative power put forth by these latest tools or versions of tools is really changing things. Think back for a moment. Remember a time when we looked at the best of game intros from Capcom or Konami, seeing the cinematic scenes of Soul Blade or the movie style opening of Onimusha. We knew that a major effort went into the creation of them, requiring enormous manpower and highly skilled artists, usually using very expensive tools. Today, images of equal quality are found in the daily gallery on the Vue 6 Website. There are equally telling images on the Cornucopia 3D galleries. This is the future! Not done by large teams or by using extremely expensive tools that have been around for over fifteen years, but done by the artist at home with tools becoming more and more accessible to everyone everyday.
One thing that is as yet telling is that we don't see enough animation at this level from the home artist. I asked this question in the Daz forum a few months ago and got some interesting answers. Render times can be a deterrent even with some of the faster computers today. Still there are ways to circumvent this issue as well. The price of machines is such that a small 5 unit render stack can be put together for the price of one main machine a few years ago. Or one can get a second, single top of the line box as a render engine and keep working on their current machine. And then there is IClone 2. The next generation characters in the IClone realtime machinima creation software are starting to look rather amazing. They are much higher res and will only continue to improve as computers become faster and more powerful. They now have really nice scenery generation tools as well. Remember, in IClone you pretty much have everything to create complete machinima movies in one package. It's only a matter time, as we can see from the latest XBox 360 or PS3 games, before IClone allows one to hit Final Fantasy quality. If you haven't been looking at what's going on in these galleries, take a look at what's out there. Some of this stuff is more than worth keeping an eye on. If you ever find yourself limiting your creative desires because you are worried about what's feasible, a trip through some of these galleries might be the inspiration you need to remember that there are no limits today! It's really matter of how you apply the tools, organize your ideas and find the time. I find myself in search of time. When I think about Vue 6 I want to time to play with and explore Vue 6. When I think of what I want to say, I want time to write books like this one, create shows like Anigen and even do original dramatic work. Even now, I want time to play with ideas I have for Poser or to look at some of the new characters released on their content site. Where does all this time go?
When I look back on the days when I created Understanding Chaos, I now wonder how I ever found the hours to do such a project on my nights and weekends. Does life get more complicated? Is the issue really time at all or is it energy? There are a dozen things that I want to do right now and what's worse is I fully have access to them in terms of ability and technology. The only thing which keeps me from them is time. One day, while still at UFO FIlms, me and a couple of guys from work went to Guitar Center on our lunch break. We got keyboards for use with Garage Band, the music creation software which is part of the iLife suite in OS X. I got the keyboard, pictured above, which is often seen advertised or set up in stores in connection with Garage Band. One of the guys hooked his keyboard up at the end of the work day and I got to see first hand what I was missing out on by not having a keyboard attached to Garage Band all this time. With this in mind, I had every intention of playing with my keyboard when I got home, but then I remembered something that I didn't have time for the day before. I picked up a copy of a book I had heard about some time ago. It was Range Murata's Robot comic anthology which features full color high quality art from a variety of manga artists, pro and indie alike. That night, instead of pulling out my keyboard, I had the opportunity to go through it and I have to say I was amazed at the work. Of course, I expected nothing less than the best from some of the names attached to the project, but I was pleased to see such an attempt to break from the mold or the tradition of how manga is done come out so well. It also seems, from what I read, that it is quite successful and spreading across the world little by little. There was something more interesting that I found in those pages though. It went beyond the amazing drawings of femme fatales with swords, eiree science fiction worlds and beautiful artwork. I saw hints of fractured time. Like with typical manga publishing in Japan, some of the stories are of decent length and appear to be continuos, which will pick up in the next volume.
Other stories, however, break from typical manga convention and are exceptionally short, 3-5 pages and they end... completely. This really made me think of how I work. Often times there are things I want to say or show which do not require the length of a full feature film. Some do not even require the length of a short like Understanding Chaos, but I still want to say them. Usually, seeing no place for such ideas, I just drop them. Why is that? With limited time, one would think these tiny things would be ideal for self expression and to keep the skills up. I recently read a book which liberally quoted Joseph Campbell, and it got me thinking about the whole "follow your bliss" thing again. I mean, if you already had all the money you wanted and were creating your dream project with no thought of financial reward, no thought of sales, just doing it for your enjoyment, how different would it be from what your are making right now? Would you follow the structure of a feature film? Would you make it the length of a TV show? Would you include things that you currently think might not sell well or go over with an audience? What audience? Would you care what other people say you should make? Are you truly making the show that you want to make right now? I find these questions to be really motivational. I think Range Murata must have asked similar questions and the answer was Robot. When I get down to the many things I want to say with my work and do with my time, I find these questions make me look at what's really mine and what is little more than a holdover of thinking someone else's way. I mean, you're just going to be spending your time right? You shouldn't be spending any money! It has been mentioned to me before that not everybody can go out and spend the money on the latest greatest tools and software out there to make their movie. As I brought up in one episode of Anigen, you don't have too, and realistically you probably shouldn't.
I know I have spent my share of money on tools and software that I didn't get equivalent use value out of. When it comes to Vue, I originally got it as part of a bundle with a Lightwave upgrade, so it was really like getting it for free. I am sure this was good for E-On Software because it probably greatly expanded their user base and gave them reach into the pro world. I was able to then upgrade to Vue 6 Infinite for a very low price. The point, though, is that you don't need the "Infinite" version to create great artwork. There will always be people who will tell you with convincing reasons why you must use some expensive tools like Maya or don't bother. These are likely the same people who will tell you their movie must be on the level of Pirates of the Caribbean or a Pixar film or it's not worth doing. They don't want to make their "El Mariachi" and build up to their "Once Upon a Time in Mexico." They want to skip the small, cheap movie that many great directors started with, like Raimi with Evil Dead or Cameron with Piranha 2, and get right to their Spider Man or Titanic level films. Well don't listen to them. You can have everything you need, computer, software and all, for less than the cost of one copy of Maya Complete (the cheap low end version). With time and effort you could make a dazzling movie for the cost of one copy of Maya Unlimited (The version needed to do anything great). Now I have nothing against Maya. We have all seen great things done by studios like ILM using those tools, but I think most of us are against spending $6000 for software and so we can't allow ourselves to think that way or we join the group who will go to their graves saying it can't be done. So what then do we think about? Well take a look at the images in the Vue gallery done with Vue 6 Esprit, the $159 version of the Vue product line. Now I suspect some will immediately complain that it lacks the features of Vue 6 Infinite, but really look at the images done with it. I think many of them are really cool.
The real key is what are you going to let hold you back? If you could be doing something right now today because you can afford Vue 6 Esprit or you have to wait for months saving for Infinite, which is the better choice? You can always upgrade down the road, and that's if you need to. I know that Vue 6 Infinite contains a lot of advanced functionality that I will never use, because the defaults are usually more than good enough for me. Another tool I have been giving far more serious consideration lately is Poser. This is made even greater by the fact that it works so well with Vue products. Poser has gone up in price to $249 but it is still very much worth the money. I still remember the days when pros, myself included, would laugh at Poser, thinking it was a toy and nothing good could ever come from it. They have come a long way since that time. It was Poser 6 that first attracted my attention enough for a revisit. Poser 7 actually blew me away. The thing is, with both Poser and Vue, when you go to those galleries and see a great image, chances are its not the pros that did it. It's some artist at home, probably just having fun! There's absolutely no reason to break the bank to get your project made. Some of the cheapest tools out there can do amazing stuff. On top of that, there is the growing popularity of Open source. Most of us are very familiar with the open source 3D package Blender, which has grown more and more competitive with each revision. Some may choose to go the machinima route with iClone. The number of options available are staggering and the quality of low price software impressive. There are always going to be bad attitudes, such as seen on some art sites, against low cost software. There will always be people who feel like you didn't struggle enough to create something great because you used great tools. If we get our projects done and have a great time doing it, do we really care about the negative attitudes? You don't have to aim for the top in hardware and software. Aim for what lets you create now and, more importantly, have fun doing it! That's really what the indie way is all about.
NOTES
Inspiration & Motivation

I was once asked "What did you love as a child?" It made me think back to what made me really happy as a kid. "What did you pretend when you played make believe? What games were your favorites? Were you a creator?" I don't know where I got the idea, but I was all about small business when I was a child. I used to draw comics and sell them to other kids in the school yard for a few bucks. I was drawing all the time, in class, at home, anywhere a pen and pad could be found. People were genuinely interested in what I created, so why not make a few bucks off it if I could? Well, my parents really frowned on that idea. My parents grew up during the industrial era. In that day, you could enter into a good company at a young age, work your way up and eventually become very prosperous or even rich inside that company. Some even gained a stake in the corporation itself. Before the industrial era, small business made up the bulk of the American economy, but at the turn of the century, people flocked to jobs in factories and huge corporations overtook the economic scene. This was not without its consequences. (it wasn't by accident either, but that's another book)
Well that day is over now. Job security is but a myth. Companies really caring about and taking care of employees is a rarity. These days if you want to make your way in the world, small business is a serious consideration. Today we live in what is called the information age and he who controls the information becomes an island unto himself. I never really lost my taste for enterprise. As detailed in the forward, in the year 2000, not unlike on the schoolyard, I created an animation called Understanding Chaos, self published it on DVD and sold it off my own website with good results. No venture capital was involved, no investors needed and no major studios helped out. Just me, just like with a pen and a spiral notebook. This time, though, it was through the magic of the latest computer technology, firewire and DV. So if you look back into your childhood, what do you see yourself doing? Are the seeds of your future business to be found there? This is one possible road to your true passion, the thing you would do for hours on end even if there was no pay involved. I was drawing all the time and I loved to draw with people and help them draw. I see my passion from my own past. Does your past show you the right track? The great thing is that it's never too late. As I write this we are approaching the end of 2008, I am in the Philippines trying to actually DO those things I write about. If you aren't yet on the right track, you can get on the right track. If you aren't following your dream, you can start. The key is to start right now! Don't wait. Don't use the upcoming holidays as an excuse. Certainly don't make it a new years resolution. Start this instant. New years resolutions are usually about fixing the things that did not go right the year before. Most of the time they involve losing weight or getting that better job or even finally writing the great American novel, but for a select few, it means finally getting that first movie done.
This is the time to forget about all the forces that are against you and lay to rest all the reasons, especially from others, why you can't do it. Now is the time to take positive action. No matter how true the statement, "Just do it." is far easier to say than actually making film. To that end, here's 5 steps to get your movie done now. 1. Be in the right mindset. What this means is that if you don't have millions of dollars to play with or major studio backing, you are not going to make a "Lord of the Rings" level epic your first time out. I've read forum posts from many accomplished animators who are convinced their movie must compete with the works of Pixar or not be made at all. Some people tell me about their dream project and it is so big that it has to have millions of dollars behind it to get off the ground, and they conclude because of this that they can't make a film. My question is, why can't that be their third or even fourth film? Don't kill your project before it even begins with this type of thinking. I am not saying don't have big dreams. I am saying work your way up to big dreams. Some of the biggest names in Hollywood started out with a cheesy horror film. Be in the mindset that your first film is just that, your first and not your last film.
2. Start with what you have. If you're sitting in your room and all you have available is a laptop, a DV camera and some decent editing software, it's not time to make Star Wars. Robert Rodriguez had a guitar case, a turtle, a bus and some areas in Mexico he could shoot in, and around this he crafted "El Mariachi". It should also be noted that he made this and other small movies before his epic "Once Upon a Time in Mexico". The same goes for animators who think they must use software like Maya or work the Pixar way. If you cannot afford the expensive tools, give serious consideration to free, open source animation software like Blender, or low cost tools like Poser. Some friends of mine recently bought a video game called "The Movies". Once you play your way through the game, building up a virtual studio, you unlock features that give you a plethora of sets, characters and costumes. You're given complete camera controls and simple editing tools that allow you to record soundtracks, add music and finish a virtual movie in just about any genre. This would be classified as the digital film making technique called Machinima. If Machinima is all that is available to you right now, do that! You can still tell your story and show your skill as a film maker even in an entirely virtual world. 3. Create a real schedule. Many film makers have the tools and the talent. Some even create bits of their project here and there, but failing to craft a real schedule, the project never gets done. Before long, they move on to some "better" idea. What could be better than getting it done? If you have a day job, make a commitment to work on your film at least one hour per night and full time on weekends. If you have other commitments, such as family, karate class or anything else, build a schedule around them, but build a schedule and stick to it. Chris Nolan, known today for the new Batman movies made his first film, "Following", on weekends. He and his friends who acted in the film had day jobs, but they went out every weekend and got a little bit more of the film done. Create milestones and set out to reach them. Decide from the start how much of the film should be done in three months, in six months, in nine months and work to reach these milestones.
Create smaller monthly milestones to reach and check them off so that you can be inspired by seeing progress. 4. Be prepared to compromise. If you're not contracting SAG actors and paying big money, you can't have the control of the major studio. If you're using your friends as actors, they have lives and commitments too. People are going to change hairstyles, gain weight, grow beards and even get sick and you are going to have to work with it. If you are doing digital film making or animation, technology can change right out from under you. I don't recommend upgrading computers and software in the middle of a project, but computers do die. It happens all the time. The next computer you get may not run your favorite software properly. You will have to work around such things. Never get stuck in the idea that it has to be one way or not at all. This is a surefire setup for failure. Be open to input from all quarters. Your actors have ideas too, and if they're not being paid, they also want to get something out of the project. Let them try their ideas and have a voice. 5. Edit your vision. Chances are your first independent film isn't going to be what you saw in your head. Even the big guys who have millions of dollars rarely get there. When your vision gets in the way of getting it done, it's time to make some cuts. You may have to lose some scenes or ideas you really love when it comes down to really completing your project. If you can't afford to realize what is in your mind on screen, and do it properly, it is better to find a work around. You may think you shot something masterful on the day, but in editing realize it just doesn't work. Let it go if you have to. If your vision sees you shooting in a particular location and it turns out you can't get it, you don't stop the film, you change the vision. Many big directors who can do anything often lament that they were at their most creative when they had nothing. It may be frustrating on the day, but changing your vision can still result in magic.
Many independent film makers will tell you that, starting out, the most important thing is not story or character development, it's getting it done. Odd as it may seem, it is better to get it done, even if it is horribly bad, than to fail trying to get it done right. How can this be, you say? Well, it is far better to have a film you can fix than to have nothing to work with at all. In fact, you should get your first pass on the film done as quickly as possible. You may not be finished, but you got it done. Now you can watch it as a movie and start to really work on making it great. You can plan a re-shoot or two, make a new scene here or there, fix some digital FX. You can do anything because it's small by comparison to starting from scratch. You already got it done. Now you're just perfecting it. Make sure to stick to your deadlines though. After all, they often say movies never get finished, they just get released.
Those who have big dreams must at some point ask themselves the question, "What's really stopping me?" Any of us can take a look around and see that we have the technology. We have a vast network which allows, with but a bit of effort, to reach masses with a message. Few obstacles stand in the way of any dream in this day and age, especially compared to any other. Old media no longer guards all the doors nor holds all the keys. I heard it said of old time that the successful make decisions promptly and change them very slowly, as needed, if at all. The unsuccessful arrive at decisions very slowly, change them frequently and rarely get anything finished. I know that I myself have been a victim of that "better idea" syndrome many times. Inspiration strikes like lightning. When you have a definite plan and conviction of purpose, that's when it usually hits. That's what ANIGEN was for me. That first idea was probably "The One". Unfortunately, consciousness often takes over and begins to second guess inspiration. Consciousness begins to ask "what if" questions in the wrong sense, the negative sense. Consciousness begins to create barriers in the form of reasons why you can't or shouldn't do the idea. These reasons are usually based on worrying what someone else will think. It's because consciousness lacks imagination.
We are creators of our art, but how often do we limit our imagination to our stories and characters. That same imagination must also be used in getting it done and in the devising of ways to get it out to our audience. Henry Ford was told by his own engineers that his imaginative ideas, like an 8 cylinder engine block cast as a single piece, were foolish and impossible. He didn't worry about what other people thought. Inspiration said it was the thing to do and so he did it, even through many failures and over two years. How far do we get in our projects before the first obstacle turns us around? We live in an internet age full of immeasurable opportunity for the one with imagination. It's like the dawn of radio all over again, where someone who has the ideas and creates programs that can capture audiences can command huge sums of money. Those who went beyond the simple comedian or news show became stars of their time. Now the internet is vast and open and opportunities are everywhere lying in wait for the imagination that will claim them. Great fortunes possibly lie right behind them. So what's really stopping us? For the last couple of weeks, though I have been moving forward creating characters and ideas for my next project, and making new Anigen episodes, my focus has been somewhere else. My focus has been on my mind. Creating a web series project or an OVA seres is more than just going through a series of technical steps to build shots, and make shots into sequences and make sequences into a completed story. There is a mindset which mst drive the entire effort if it is to succeed. Albert Einstein once said, "Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions." You have to see your movie before you begin. You should watch it just as though you were sitting in a theatre staring at the big screen in all its glory. Seeing the movie can come about in differnet ways for different artists. Some may need to flesh out an outline or treatment. Some may need a complete script in hand. Others may want storyboards or even a storyreel. In my case, I want to see the movie in my mind.
Watching scenes from the movie in my mind builds an excitement, turns on a fire of motivation that makes it necessary to get those images out onto the screen. It is the emotion associated with it, more than the images themself, which brings power to the project and its possibility for completion. For the past couple of weeks I have been doing a lot of reading about that very mindset and its application in all aspects of life. I have reading about visualization and the creation of powerful mental images, images which are really felt, that lead to the perfect execution of plans. I am getting into that mindset that removes all technical barriers from the creation of images. I am in getting in that mindset which lets me know that because I see the images in my head, I can know of a surety that they will soon be on the screen.
Inspiration can come in a lot of ways, but we should be prepared to understand its meaning. Many of my industry peers will tell you that it was the original Star Wars movie in 1977 that inspired them and that's why they are here doing what they do today. That is not the case for me. I was inspired by a syndicated animated series called Robotech. In the days of the Amiga computer, I played with some ideas and scenes involving giant robots, but on the whole, it's not something I really desire to do. Only recently did I find an important lesson here. Ghost in the Shell is and has always been one of my favorite shows. I like the movies, the TV series, wish I could play the overly difficult game on Playstation, basically I like everything about it. This is why I was quite shocked to learn that I have no real desire to make this kind of show. When I think of science fiction ideas along these lines, I may visualize them and get excited or think they are cool, but when it comes down to making, the actual doing, of them that excitement, that fire is nowhere to be found. I decided I wanted to find out why. So I did a little exercise to discover the answer. I once learned an exercise to find your purpose. The method is that you take a piece of paper and on it make two columns. In one column, you write the things you truly enjoy doing (like drawing, playing piano, singing etc.) and in the other column, you write a list of things you enjoy giving to people (like laughter, knowledge about something, material gifts, making them feel good etc.), at first making no attempt to relate the two columns. By putting as much as you can in each column you can then begin making combinations to find what may be a perfect business idea for you. You may find two things from the first column that go with something from the second column and they combine into a million dollar idea!
Anyway, I did a variation on this idea to get to the specifics of what I want to create. I made a list of what I truly enjoy creating or drawing, including what tools I use, and a list of what I want to show or say in my work. As each list got longer, some surprising things things started to become very clear to me. There are many types of movies and shows that I love to watch, but it has no bearing whatsoever on what I want to actually make. In search of the kind of fire and excitement I found creating those things seen in my recent gallery, I found that many things related to the kinds of shows I like to watch did not make the list. I love watching The X-Files type of supernatural mystery/government conspiracy shows, but I haven't the slightest interest in making them. I love watching science fiction like The Matrix or Blade Runner, but the type of science fiction I want to make is the total outer space adventure. What it comes down to is I want to create the worlds in which my characters live. What's really interesting, though, is the way ideas started flowing once I realized this! I had something of a revelation in that time. You might say this was life transforming. It goes beyond just knowing what you want to create or the types of shows you want to make. It includes everything else. You see, I remember looking through some of my old blog posts from about four years ago, and I came across something. Back then, on November 5th 2002, I wrote: "A year ago, to this very day, I was laid off from the last studio job I had doing computer game work. Since that time I finally decided to push forward wholeheartedly into the realm of independent animation. I released Understanding Chaos and Shadowskin on DVD, promoted them through various avenues. I did many interviews and a few magazine articles. I was even invited on a trip to China and Japan to promote both my work, Lightwave 3D, and Aura Video Paint, my favorite software. I moved to LA where I started interacting in different circles and becoming a bit more known. I also hooked up with PBSO and began the J4A project.
It hasn't been the smoothest ride I'll tell you, but I'd take it over that studio job any day!" Just over two years later, in my 2004 year end review, I wrote: "I am going back to work. I believe it is a necessary part of the way of Chaos and essential to doing a long term project." Now both of those were concious choices. I'm not going to say that either one was right or wrong at the time. In fact, I would say they were both right based on what I believed. It is in fact belief that is the central issue here. We have to really be careful what we allow ourselves to come to believe. As independent animators we are often faced with doing the impossible by industry standards and we need to always remember that those standards are not our own. Who was it who decided that a lone artist could not make a quality animated film, and when was this decided? People whose minds are stuck in the industry will tell you with conviction it can't be done and give you many convincing reasons why this is so, but we have to remember that this is their experience and not ours. As it is written in The Richest Man in Babylon, you wouldn't take advice on fine jewelry from a brick maker. I am thankful that I started out with but a goal and, though I saw no way to achieve it, I also saw no barriers against it. I hadn't yet worked at the studios. I hadn't yet worked on "real films". I hadn't yet encountered the egos, the attitudes, the crushed spirits and broken dreams that so pervade the industry. I wanted to do it and so I did it. Even so, as time went on my beliefs fell into corruption. I learned a lot being in the industry. I read books by masters of the trade and veterans in animation and this was good, but it also took something away. I started to believe I had to use certain tools. I started to believe I had to follow certain processes. I stared to believe I had to live up to certain expectations.
I started to even believe I had to travel a certain road, or that there was some purpose I had to fulfill or things just wouldn't go right. When the revelation hit me, I had never before seen so clearly. I didn't just see clearly at that moment. It was like traveling through the Stargate, but into my mind and into my history and I saw clearly so far back. I could see the importance of each turning point. I could see the meaning in each lesson learned. I could see what I gained and what I traded away. I could finally see my purpose. Joseph Campbell, famed and venerated author of The Masks of God, once said, "Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls." I can see now that when I did that, so many doors did open. I traveled halfway around the world to speak in China and Japan. I stood in Production I.G., my favorite studio, and watched one of the greatest anime films ever done in the making. I saw raw drawings of characters like Batou and Major Kusanagi on the desk of an artist so great as Hiroyuki Okiura. I wrote articles for major magazines and did many interviews. I got a deal with a major publisher. I got to stand in stores like Best Buy, Suncoast or Borders and see my products on the shelves. Those doors did open. I have come to realize that if you truly want to create, you are tasked with nothing else but to follow your bliss. It would be like a crime for you to do less. As an artist or creator, you have something to say and to not get that message out would be a shame. There are things that exist in everyone's life that one can let be an excuse not to go after the dream, but its only a pale shadow of an excuse. If we really want to be free, we have to be free, right now, waiting for nothing. If we really want to create animation, we have to just start creating it and believe, even know, that we are on the right path and that the film will be done because the doors will open and the obstacles will fall out of the way. Nothing should stand in the way of your dream. Everything doesn't have to be perfect right now. You don't have to have the perfect computer. You don't have to have the best software. You don't have to have a dream team of artists.
You don't have to have anything but your desire and your belief that it will happen. Just start down that road. You will be surprised how many things just move out of your way.
NOTES
Let it be Easy
The CGSociety galleries are a place where you often see incredible artwork. Unfortunately, the attitude around the CGSociety can sometimes be a little cliquish and inclusive. Those who are in are in and those who aren't well... One thing I have personally noticed is that even though there are other galleries that have equally stunning and high quality artwork, at The CGSociety, the tools certainly do matter. They matter so much so that I would venture to guess that if you had two nearly identical images, but one artist used Maya, ZBrush, Photoshop and Deep Paint, while the other used Poser and Vue, the crowd would sing the praises of the former and the latter would be largely ignored. The reason for this, it seems, is that there is an aspect that is more highly valued than the art itself. That aspect is the struggle to get there. You see, you could create the greatest image in the world, but if it was too easy for you, there are a lot of artists out there who will look down on that work and scoff. I guess they feel you didn't earn it. Those that struggle are met with comments like, "...well deserved 5 stars.. I can see a lot of work there..." Well, I am not of that school.
Personally, when I have an image in my head, I wish I could just visualize it on canvas like Isaac Mendez, the guy who could paint the future in the hit TV show Heroes, throw down some paint and it's there. The reality is that tools like Vue 6, Poser and Daz take away a lot of the monotony, struggle and boring aspects of creating the images you might want to create. Still, they're merely tools like any other. Used unwisely they can just as quickly create horrid results as they can beautiful. It still takes some effort to get great things out of them. Go to any gallery for these tools and you will see good and bad images like anywhere else. Luckily, the good does come a bit easier when the tool is learned. And why not? Why would anyone want to struggle and suffer to reach their artistic goal. I think it is a cultural thing in the US. "No pain no gain" and all that. We tend to think that if it comes easy it can't be worth it. That kind of thinking is to our own detriment. That same kind of thinking makes it impossible to do 10 minutes of anime in a month working part time. How could it not? Until we break the chains that limit ourselves, we can't know just how much one artist can do when the right tools are leveraged. And yes, leverage is what it is really about. If you use a Mirage Nomad and draw directly to your final frames, how much faster is it than drawing on paper, scanning, inking and coloring? If you use Anime Studio, how much faster is it than drawing the same thing frame by frame? If you use Vue, how much faster is it than modeling trees and leaves in a 3D modeling package? The tools must be leveraged to vault the user to the goal. That is what should be respected.
NOTES
Getting it Done!
If there is one thing I have learned this year it is the importance of finishing your movie. When I say finish it I mean finish anything. This year I have seen more than enough proof that if you finish your movie, no matter what it is, somebody's going to buy it. There is no end of proof of this in Best Buy, on shelves at Blockbuster, in Netflix and many other sites where there are movies so bad it is hard to imagine they made it on the shelf. I mean movies shot on video where it is clear the people on screen never acted a day in their life. But you know what? They got done. I saw a preview for this film called Recon 2020. I don't mean to say that this movie is bad as I haven't seen it. I have heard some things though. My point, however, is that it is shot on video. No effort made to make it look like real film. The armor suits are clearly homemade. The CGI effects look like that of a dated video game or a TV show from the Seaquest era. This movie epitomizes cheap. But it got done, it got sold, and can be found on the shelves at Best Buy. Many who would speak ill of this movie probably wish they were there.
Is it possible that the thing which is keeping you from finishing is, in fact, where you started? I mean, many of the creators of the latest blockbuster films didn't start out so big. James Cameron, of Titanic fame got his start on Piranha II, a cheap low budget horror film. He worked for low budget king Roger Corman before that. Spielberg started in TV and made his mark with Duel a film that seems so much larger than what went into it. Sam Raimi started with a super low budget 16mm film with Bruce Campbell and a few guys in a cabin in the woods. So why is that so many would be film makers want to start with their multi-million dollar, Lord of the Rings level epic? I think it gets even worse when it comes to animation. Many think you have to compete with Pixar from the get-go. I have heard so many capable artists take a "this or nothing" attitude about their project. Why is this? I have never heard of a storyteller with only one story to tell. Like I often say, they want to make their Once Upon a Time in Mexico without making their El Mariachi first. The concept of building up to the big stuff is nowhere in them. If you want to finish your project, you have to start with what you can finish. There are people out there shooting cheap horror films on video, in ten days, and they are getting sold for good money. I am not saying you should do this if it doesn't interest you. You have to first do what you love and love what you do, but if you're possibly looking at something too big, you may want to change your thinking with that in mind. Start where you are and believe that if you finish it, you're already 99% there. I could go on, at length, telling you what I am doing next, but I would rather do it than write or talk about it. The opportunities just keep getting better. Things are expanding. Aside from the web and what you can do on your own site, you have tons of video sharing and social networking sites. You have the iPhone and the PSP and other mobile devices you can create for. You many ways to get your dream project out to the people. None of it matters, though, if you don't get it done.
Look around you. Take stock of what you have and where you are. Think from that reality and consider what you want to make and what you really can make. Think big, but don't be outrageous. Start there and keep moving. You will be surprised at how things work out and you can have a project ready to show before you know it. Don't give up at the first sign of adversity. There will be obstacles. Walk over them. Walk through them. Go around them, but keep going. You have a dream to get out to he people and no one else can do it exactly like you can. Give your audience that dream. The rewards that follow will likely astound you.
APPENDIX A
About the Author
The Dawn of the new millenium gave rise to Terrence Walker's first foray into the realm of independent animation and the release of his ground-breaking anime project, Understanding Chaos. Followed by the independent production Shadowskin, this new effort gained him notoriety on the internet and in the CG community. It even earned him a visit and tour of his favorite anime studio, Production I.G. in Japan. This started his career down a new path.
APPENDIX B
Anigen Series Bundle
ANIME GENESIS: HOW TO MAKE YOUR ANIME DREAMS INTO REALITY! Get all 18 episodes of the original, hit series from Studio ArtFX and independent animation creator Terrence Walker in this Anigen Bundle! Following from and expanding on the successful Anime: Concept to Reality DVD released by TOKYOPOP, this new series looks at the latest tools and techniques that can help you create the animation you want, without the need for millions of dollars or major studio backing. You will see how standard computers available to anyone and off-the-shelf software can give you the power of a studio! Now for the first time in 640x360, widescreen, iTunes/Quicktime format this groundbreaking series is yours to keep! Get started creating your dreams now! Visit http://www.studioartfx.com today!
APPENDIX C
Ultimate 3D Model Bundle
EVER WANTED TO MAKE YOUR OWN ANIME? Now the tools to do it are here! With the Ultimate Model Bundle you get 18 anime style character models in Lightwave 3D object and scene format. Characters come rigged with easy to use bone setups for quick animation. The perfect settings for great cell shaded, cartoon rendering are included! THAT'S ONLY THE BEGINNING - This set includes the "Ken" default character with a simple animation setup which you can easily apply to other characters. This animation rig even includes a motion library giving you walks, runs, jumps and action moves for easy reuse! The mesh is simple enough that you'll be altering it into your own original characters in no time! DON'T WAIT! The tools and technology are here now. You don't need millions of dollars or major studio backing to create your anime dreams. Get the Ultimate Model Bundle and start seeing your dreams come alive on screen now! Visit http://www.studioartfx.com today!
APPENDIX D
Get Eyes on Your Prize
Its a shame that some of the best original content on the internet goes unseen. There are a lot people who have created great products, but are troubled by a lack of visitors to see them. Many have become burdened with expensive pay-per-click ad campaigns, and are still not seeing the traffic they desire. GETTING INCREDIBLE NUMBERS ON YOUR SITE DOESNT HAVE TO BE A WALLET-CRUSHING HASSLE! In this four part, step-by-step complete course, you will learn the very techniques I used to skyrocket my website traffic in a very short amount of time. You will learn how I bring nearly 100,000 readers to my blog each month, and how I achieved page one search engine rankings on Google and Yahoo. In this course you will find the tools you need to get valuable eyes on whatever web content you are creating! Visit http://www.studioartfx.com today!

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Animation on a Shoestring

2008 Terrence Walker/Studio ArtFX. All rights reserved.

Studio ArtFX www.studioartfx.com support@studioartfx.com

The Old Way

The Indie Way

Inspiration & Motivation

About the Author

Anigen Series Bundle

Animation on a Shoestring 100

Ultimate 3D Model Bundle

Animation on a Shoestring 101

Get Eyes on Your Prize

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