How to Train Your Dragon
And here’s just a little talk with some animators from the film who graduated from the animation school I’m currently attending, Animation Mentor:
Finally, here’s a podcast interview with the directors of the film. Fun stuff!
Beauty and the Beast
Google TV is coming out soon. I’ve been watching it for a while and I think it’s pretty exciting. The technology for the Internet and TV to merge has been with us for a while, but I think most content providers (TV channels, DirecTV and Dish, ISPs, etc.) are not willing themselves to fully initiate this merger. After all, it will force them to make huge changes to their business models. I’m sure they know they’re going to have to eventually (many TV channels do now put shows online for a limited time), so it’s only a matter of resisting it as best they can for as long as they can.
Two things about Google TV: First, it’s only a first step. Or maybe a fourth or fifth step, since things like Apple TV are already available. But Google TV is a significant step because it allows users almost complete access to the Internet, and it offers apps that are designed to be used on the TV. (And, just as popular sites have “mobile” versions, many will eventually have “TV” versions as well.)
But it’s not a final step. That will probably not come for another decade or two (or three). The separation between computer and TV is still a strong one, as is the separation between TV content providers and ISPs. Unfortunately I’ve read that Hulu.com is blocking access from Google TV. This may seem like a bummer for us excited about Google TV, but it’s actually rather revealing just how important that control over your TV screen is to the networks. Very revealing indeed. And, to me, makes Google TV seem more exciting. Because Hulu’s weary of it.
The other thing: yes, I know, we can all already hook up our computers to the TV (and watch Hulu on our TV). Geeks have been able to do it for a while. But I still think hooking a computer up to a TV is too inconvenient even for most geeks; they only do it when they need to, and it’s still hard to get comfortable using your computer from a couch without a desk in front of you.
TV is extremely easy to watch; users just have to know how to turn it on and change the channels. Computers and the Internet and Internet connections can be more of a hassle. Maybe not for us geeks, but for the rest of the population. It’s easy to underestimate how many people out there either don’t have the Internet, or don’t really understand how to use it effectively. Google TV won’t give people an Internet connection, but it will make TV Internet browsing significantly easier for non-geeks. I think that’s what a lot of geeks might not realize. And that’s why it has the potential to be pretty powerful. (Especially since Google TV’s OS, Google’s open-source Android, allows anyone to develop apps for it, which is more freedom than Apple likes giving to developers.)
Nobody knows what anybody wants.
Consumers do not know what they want until it’s actually available to them or until they try using it. (Like how Facebook is now mostly pretty much a private fancy Twitter with comments, likes, and apps. Users didn’t want it or ask for it, but now many users use it almost every day. If it were up to the users, Facebook would probably still be plain old profiles with wall-writing. And it would probably be as unpopular as MySpace.)
Similarly, producers and content creators don’t know what people want. They don’t know if their products will be successful until they’re actually out there, until people actually have a chance to see and play around with the products.
This is why it always annoys me when companies say they will evolve based on customer feedback. That’s great, but you can’t rely on that. You have to be constantly thinking of ways to improve and change and experiment on your own as well. Just listening to customers won’t make you successful.
The future, eventually
Eventually, the TV networks like ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, will simply have to give up their control of showing shows when and only when they want. VCRs first started giving viewers more control when to watch TV content, then DVRs, then cable companies offering certain on-demand options, then sites like Hulu. Eventually, when our connection to TV and the Internet are combined, sold as a package, and come into the home via one connection, most content will be on-demand. It’s probably still decades away, but I think it will be a good future. (And us geeks may get there sooner, yes.)
Also, there are a few things that will really change how TV content is watched, but they are unpredictable… I predict some unpredictable things will happen.
Hey, I thought Google Wave was really exciting, and I don’t think Google ever really let it do what it was supposed to do, and it became an epic flop. I also thought the iPhone was a dumb idea, and now tons of people love it. So who really knows what the heck is going to happen…
As I continue to plan out the cartoon I’ll probably never make because I’m too busy and lazy and untalented, I’m having trouble deciding what kind of cartoon it should be. Should it be one of those continuous story cartoons, in which there’s an entire “season” that has an overarching story? With those, you can really build up the story, but viewers have to watch the shows in order to completely understand what’s going on. Or should each episode be a self-contained story?
What kind of cartoon should I make?
Total Voters: 6
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Just a few animated shorts I thought were great:
Margarita – This short looks like it came from a full-length feature and the music and art are just fantastic and match each other perfectly. And there’s no dialog, which you hardly notice. The story might seem a bit odd until you understand that the “star” is like a achieving a dream… well, you’ll have to figure it out for yourself. I love the flight in the boat and the whales in the clouds. Very awesome and fantastical.
MARGARITA from HAMPA STUDIO on Vimeo.
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The Third and the Seventh – This really isn’t a story-oriented short, it’s more of a… non-story short. I don’t know what you would call it. It’s more atmospheric I guess. It’s all computer rendered (as far as I can tell), but some of the rendering is so awesome that it looks completely real. (Well, I’m not sure mapping textures from photos really counts as “rendering” if one wants to get technical about it.) It explores some very welcoming architecture and features music from the wonderful sci-fi film Gattaca. (At least, I think that’s where the music is from…)
The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.
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Alarm – A fun short. Love the Pixar references in the background, and the character and world design are wonderful. Nice clean animation as well. And it’s the first ever time a CGI character brushed his teeth and went to the bathroom at the same time, so it makes animation history!
Enjoy!
And I don’t mean pants.
I hate posting a link like this, since they go out of date so quickly, but it looks Disney is bringing back the shorts.
Perhaps they are following the tradition of Pixar, or perhaps John Lasseter made them, but I’m hoping there’ll be one of these shorts before Tangled and one before… er… is anything else coming out from Disney Feature Animation anytime soon?
Right now, they’ve got clips of a computer animated short called Tick Tock Tale, which looks great, and How to Hook Up Your Home Theater, bringing some nicely animated Goofy to the modern world.
I also noticed on their feature projects page, King of the Elves is no longer listed. Too bad, since that looked like the most interesting one, but then again, they might’ve completely messed up the story. I don’t think they’re cancelling the project, just putting it on hold for now.
(Speaking of shorts, it was also nice to see that Looney Tunes short before Legend of the Guardians. Hopefully the habit will continue! Now they just need to put shorts in front of live action movies as well, bwa ha ha ha! Create more animation jobs so I can have one!)
There are, of course, a ton of animation blogs out there, but here are a few random ones I’ve been visiting recently:
Pencil Test Depot – This has a lot of great pencil tests, as the name might suggest. 2D animation, yes, but the principles of animation don’t change. Lots of great stuff there. I came across this blog some months ago before getting into Animation Mentor, but it came up again last night during my Animation Mentor Q&A and I was reminded of its goodness.
Blue Sky Disney – More of an entertainment business blog, but still lots of interesting animation news there.
The Pixar Blog – What Pixar fan hasn’t come across this blog? Dedicated to Pixar news, with a dash of its parent, Disney.
Good stuff.
Here’s my reel of animation assignments after completing the first semester of Animation Mentor.
It was a tough 12 weeks; you have to get used to the busy workflow (especially if you have a part-time job), and there’s just a lot to learn. I had never done any serious animation before, and even though I had read some books on animation, actually working with the software and applying all the principles take a lot of time to get used to.
Anyway, there’s the reel. There are definitely some things I would change if I could, especially with those walks. But I’m not going to use any of this stuff on my final reel of superb quality, the one I’m going to use to try to get a real job, so better to focus on the current Animation Mentor assignment and nothing else…
I don’t think I get enough blog traffic for this to be that useful, but with the changes in design, I thought I should just go ahead and add Skribit.
On the right, you’ll see a tab that says “Suggestions?”
By clicking on that, you can either suggest something for me to blog about, or vote for (“follow”) someone else’s suggestion.
Not sure anyone will use it, but I’ve been watching the tool for a while. It seems like a fun idea for a tool (for blogs that get more traffic than mine), but I’m not sure how well its makers can monetize it. It looks like on their website, they’re selling “premium” accounts for about $25 a year. I wonder how many are really interested in that? It’s better than having ads all over the place though!
As you can see (if you’ve been to this blog before), I’ve tweaked the theme a bit, moving some things around, changing the font from Tahoma to Verdana, and widening the width. Hope you like it! If you don’t, well, too bad! Please let me know if something looks wrong in your browser. Seems to look fine in the latest versions of Firefox and Chrome.
That’s all. Bye.
Maybe it’s a sad thing to think about, all the things you could’ve been… if only you had practiced more, applied yourself more, not have had to go to school which made you waste your time… but you’re not dead, so it’s not too late!
There are a few books that are centered around the idea that “genius” or “greatness” is not some inborn element that only a lucky few are born with; it’s something anyone can achieve with proper (albeit sometimes difficult) dedication. Those books are The Genius in All of Us
Anyway, I’ve already blogged about that issue several times, so I won’t again. I just wanted to mention a funny twist on the issue. On April 27th, while reading one of these books, I tweeted:
There once was a brilliant artist who never bought paint and never practiced, so no one ever knew. The end.
Ha ha, I’m so funny. Anyway, The Onion recently stole my idea for an article, 97-Year-Old Dies Unaware Of Being Violin Prodigy:
Retired post office branch manager Nancy Hollander, 97, died at her home of natural causes Tuesday, after spending her life completely unaware that she was one of the most talented musicians of the past century and possessed the untapped ability to become a world-class violin virtuoso.
OK, it’s not a completely original idea anyway…
But it’s funny, and it has a point. So, get to work, you can be great! Or don’t… you won’t be missed if people don’t know you exist.