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Previous News
FEBRUARY
2005
02.24.05
*
I
slightly changed the Stop Motion Works home page. I added some quick access
links to give new visitors a faster entry into
website. This website is small and from some emails &
questions I get, it seems they have not even made an
effort to go deeper into the site ......sheeeeeesh. Some
of you that have your own Stop Motion related
websites may find a link to your site on the SMW
home page.That's okay, I will not accept
payment. No charge  Treat
me nice, because I may periodically change those
links 
* Well, Robot Chicken
premiered on Sunday. Mixed reaction from so-called
pundits in the entertainment reporting media. I don't
have Cable TV. I only watched brief quicktime clips of
the fast paced skits. My reaction seems to be
favorable to RC. Each episode only about 10
minutes long. This might work for this show ..... so
audiences get a quick shot of RC and
they don't get jaded .... audiences short attention span.
Some discussion going on here. Some that have posted, liked
it, others are lukewarm to it, and a few gives
it a thumbs down.
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02.17.05
* If you scroll down to 02.12.05, you
may or may not have read the piece about Seth
Green's Robot Chicken
TV Stop Motion comedy series in which the
reveiwer did not seem too thrilled about
the show. Remember, I am only delivering the
message .... do not persecute me! Why did I ever
take on this responsibility of being the Matt
Drudge of Stop Motion!? It is a dirty thankless
job but I suppose someone has to do it. Of course, I
actually do not get paid for this  Oh, what
was I talking about? Ahhhhhh yes .... Robot Chicken.
To be more positive, here are a few more
articles about the show that are a bit more
cheery ...... Toys with Attitude, A ' Chicken' that makes you cackle, and Fast, furious and totally loopy:
That's Robot Chicken Starts this Sunday, Feb
20, 11:30PM on the Cartoon Network
* I just found a few more
Stop Motion animation capture programs .... TePee
Animator and Animaatiokone Studio.
Last weekend, I did update StopMo
Software & Tools page but if you go there again,
you will see the new ones and once
again I re-edited and have some new comments there.
It's starting to look "Hella Good!"
I removed Video Capturix which was not really designed for
Stop Motion. In general, some of these animation
capture-record programs cost very little and a
few are actually Free.
Even with the very affordable price of
these programs .... I read & hear people whining
in some emails or at forums I visit ..... BrickFilms Board (as example) .... some wanting almost every
bells & whistles in a program but either say or imply
that it should be reeeeally cheap price or free.
You can see that it can be difficult for
software writers to make profits in this
very niche market. A few though, are very
generous and donate their expertise at reasonable cost to
YOU Stop Motionists. I think, without bragging
too much, the frame grabbers programs listed here at Stop
Motion Works, that are created specifically
for Stop Motion and are of reasonable cost .... is the
most complete listing
as to what is available on the internet (as of today).
I DARE YOU to
find other programs that are just for Stop
Motion, that is either for PCs or Macs only, and
affordable and easily-readily
available to the public. I think, I pretty much
scoured-surfed the internet. As I said, only a few of
these programs are free and some work pretty decent and
other's are very affordable. Most of the pay-for
programs offer temporary demo versions
so you can test it first to see if they
are compatible with your computer or set-up.. That is
what I did with some of them. So .... just try
the programs out and give them feedback
so that they know people are interested in their
Stop Motion software.
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Weekend edition - 02.12.05
* I
suppose everyone here has heard of Seth Green's
upcoming Stop Motion series called Robot Chicken?
It is about to premiere very soon on the Adult Swim series on the Cartoon Network. Here is Animation Insider's Review . Unfortunately his opinion seems
to be lukewarm. I do somewhat agree with
reviewer, in that Stop Motion has to have many elements
done correctly and especially, story &
characters. For some reason, Stop Motion seems to be held
to a higher standard than other
animation mediums? (example: mediocre
CGI seems to be tolerated more by the "suits"?)
Robot Chicken uses toys & dolls, and simple
miniature sets as backgrounds, props and animation
puppets. Perhaps, to the reviewer, it gives the
perception that Stop Motion has a more cheaper or cruder
aesthetics? I don't know .... I am only pondering.
Hopefully, it is just his opinion and the show
will gain an audience and have a chance to survive. Robot
Chicken will be on cable/satellite TV so maybe it
will reach a more niche market. You will
recall the fate of Drew Carey's, Green Screen (had some stop motion in it) which
became victim of the ruthless TV ratings war and was
cancelled. GS show was broadcast on the WB
network which caters to a more generic audience.
* I recently updated
the StopMo Software & Tools page and did some slight
re-editing, fixed some old links and added a few more
products with my comments ..... MonkeyJam,
MotionMage, iStopMotion and updated a new link
to ABC VideoRoll 2.5, a video editing
program with many features (for PC-Windows), which to my
surprise is still available (it is a free program)
The original company that created VideoRoll has
gone under and obviously there is no customer service to
support it, but the software & some patches are
available at the new link which has some download mirror
sites for VideoRoll. Also, I updated link to the
Sanyo IDshot camera. This camera with its video
recording-to-high storage disk, can do true single frame
animation without computer, and with firmware update, it
adds a built-in onionskinning & frame toggling
feature. IDshot also takes higher resolution
(than video res) digital still pictures and then you
download to computer hard drive and assemble the still
pics in sequence using another program. Okay enough
hyping of this camera .... I just always thought it was a
unique cam and nothing on the market that is even close
to it.
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02.10.05
* Do not panic, you Stop
Mo Fanatics! Since today Wednesday, the
Stop Motion Animation Message Board has been down .....
read Anthony Scott's notice If you have not done so already,
you might want to bookmark Marc Spess' Clay Animation / Stop Motion message board and perhaps visit
there too when you do your online Stop Mo
addiction "fix"
____________________
02.09.05
* Just a reminder to you all
..... that whatever I put here in News, is
for all to share. I get my information from
online and other sources and also my underground spies.
Again, one of the headings for this page is NEWS
..... which is for YOU. Feel
free to take it and post it on your site, message
board-forum or whatever venue. You do
not even have to say where you got the info
from. The reason I bring all this up, is because lately,
the StopMotionAnimation.com forum seems to be going through
more frequent recessionary quiet periods. There are over
2000 members at the message board BUT
only a microscopic percentage post anything.
Those that do have some knowledge or experience,
seem to have been slowly vanishing.
Understandable that life, work, and family are first but
it doesn't hurt to visit message board once in
awhile and just say "Hi" or update or remind
members that you are alive? My gut feeling says
that Anthony Scott's message board
probably is significantly helping to keep Stop
Motion in the public consciousness and
especially those who work in the business
probably lurk there. SMA.com has been
online since 1999. Sure, there is currently a brief
comeback of Stop Motion in mainstream but it will always
be an up & down cycle. Not mentioned as often is Marc Spess' message board which seems to be more active than
SMA? Anyway, whatever message board you visit ..... Show
some interest? There is no communication
(it's a two way street) just by Lurking.
The board is suppose to be a community.
* The 1933 original King Kong
finally available on DVD? Someone notified me
about it. Here it is CheezyFlicks.com. The website title does not seem
to inspire confidence or kind of a put-down of films that
you may not consider "Cheezy", however they put
King Kong in their "Not so
Cheezy" category. As far as I know, there is no
"official" DVD release of the original King
Kong, from whoever owns it. Kong has
been available on Video and in the past,
released on Laser Disc. I do not
understand how Cheezy Flicks works or how they
can have rights to produce DVDs of copyrighted
movies and sell them. Cheezy Flicks in
their About link say that they have state of
the art DVD post production & duplication facilities.
Is it possible that they are duplicating DVD
copies from the King Kong laser disc? How can they can do
that without sanction of studio? Maybe I am
missing some information. If you have any comments or
thoughts contact me or better yet, post this if you visit the
message board where they discussed something similar King Kong 1933 Release? I could post it at the forum
myself, but I am first reporting it here as news
and I do nor want to shamelessly promote myself at the
message boards ..... but ....I have been known to be
guilty of tooting my horn sometimes
____________________
02.04.05
* For you satellite or cable TV
subscribers .... I serendipitiously discovered .... no
more TechTV? I remembered watching it when I briefly
tried cable in my "other life". I did like some
of the shows. So now, ownership has changed and it's now
known as G4TechTV with its focus on video
gaming. An entire network just for that?
Sheeeeesh .....Gaming. Something I never
ever could get into it .... sitting your
butt in front of monitor-TV and reacting crazily
to your push buttoning manipulations.
Whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Whoaa, going off on a tangent. There is article segment
at G4TechTV site called "Two
Minutes with...." There is one on Ray Harryhausen and also at that link, a brief
online clip of him talking.Hmmm .... the article
interview seemed more than two minutes (but
catchy-gimmicky title though). Marc Spess said I perhaps should have done a more
detailed review of Uncle Ray's new DVD or have a points-star rating
system. Good suggestion Marc, but I am trying to
get a "life" ! There
are plenty others who have 24-7 to write them.
Here is one .... can you believe .... a 6 page Review of The Early Years? Very, very,
very, detailed (too much?) and maybe spoilers
for you. Personally, I want some surprises
and in the moment unpredictability experiences.
Here is another interview with Ray and he also does a separate
semi-moderate length, review of DVD. This was just an
opportunity that presented itself for me, to get
privilege of talking to Ray! It was fun
to do and I will think about doing interviews
"sometimes" but it will not be my
"career" .... too much other stuff to do and I
have to pay bills & rent!
* Life
after Vinton Studios? I assume you already know that Will
Vinton himself is now completely divorced from
his old studio (Nike king, Phil Knight
now owns studio). An article As Animated as it gets about Will's current ventures. He
is doing some teaching and looks like getting his own
company off the ground Freewill
Entertainment. I
posted sometime last year about Will and site was under
construction but now, it looks like there is more
information.
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