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Previous News
DECEMBER
2003
12.27.03
* Special Weekend Edition....
It seems that Aardman Studios in Bristol, England
may be undergoing some expansion of their operation. They
suddenly put out a call and are looking for
people and as usual, it seems like this is sort
of a rush situation .... applications
due by January 31, 2004. They have a
number of categories that includes CGI to actual
traditional modelmaking and the most unique one of
course, is the position Stop Motion Animators! (kind of
rare these days) You should know, that they might be
flooded with applicants so competition may be
fierce. Looks like there might be a
glimmer of hope for Stop Motion to survive outside the
CGI entrenched USA?? Unfortunately, Stop Motion
today, usually does not provide a sustainable income ....
you have to kind of adopt a Bohemian Lifestyle and be
nomadic to seek work....however .... it is amazing how
many worldwide still have a desire or dream to do some
Stop Motion and when done well, the public will
still enjoy it."Studio Suits" should
take note of this and perhaps try not to shove "only
CGI" down the audiences throat by saturation .... you
know they will get jaded & bored if it's
just meaningless "eye-candy". Be original
& different and give the public
some variety!
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12.26.03
* A TV commercial just now being
shown in the USA using Stop Motion for Nike Shoes,
The Minotaur of Altanta. Very enjoyable to look at
and certainly a break from the ubiquitous CGI.
It was done by Screen Novelties, better known for completing Ray
Harryhausen's, Tortise and the Hare (50 years
later!) It is great that the work was
done by a small studio that really cares about Stop
Motion and seems commited to it! I wonder though .... Nike
now owns the new Vinton
Studios and are
they still doing Stop Motion in-house or maybe they are
not? How come Vinton Studios did not do the commercial?
Also, with Tim Burton's, The
Corpse Bride, it seems that Vinton is not doing
the actual hands-on animation production but serving more
as one of the executive producers? Let us hope that
Vinton Studios will still pursue Stop Motion at their
Portland, Oregon location and does not abandon it. I am
here to ask the hard questions that no one asks. It is a
dirty job but someone has to do it! 
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12.25.03
* From a local paper in Monterery,
California, USA, where he lived, Academy
Award winner, Wah Ming Chang died Monday, Dec 22. He was 86.
Obviously, much of the public will not know of him. He
was a very talented and dedicated artist &
craftsperson in the pioneering days of animation and
special effects. Webster Colcord, a local Bay Area resident animator/artist,
this past year was in contact with Wah. If all you
newbies that don't know much about the earlier period of
special effects you can read a little bit about Wah, here
SMA Board
* Flip
Books ..... aahhhh yes..... many of us may have
dabbled in that. As a kid I did some of it on the corners
of boring school text books. Compared to all the gadgetry
techy toys today, the old forms of entertainment seems
more fun and more stimulating or engaging for the
mind and hands-on real tactile skills ....
instead of kids (or even adults!) just sitting on their butts
in front of computer monitor. There is even the high-tech
way to do flip-books in computer and can get complex in
making more sophisticated or fancy-shamcy slick flipbooks
into an online business ..... but I yearn for the good
ol' manual way ofjust actually drawing simple images on
real paper/cards. Flip books can be done anywhere,
anytime .... just pencil & paper materials! A small
sampling here ... 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8
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12.23.03
* I remember before the gaming
industry was flooded like it is today with
digital-pixelated hyper-steroid-unreality, there were
some alternative methods of creating video games using
the Stop Motion Animation technique. Anyone remember The
Neverhood 1 - 2 - 3 ? Also here in the San
Francisco Bay Area, Danger Productions 1 - 2, a small studio that employed many Stop Mo
animators (now most doing CGI), did some video games with
puppet animation called Clay Fighter . Incidentally, one of the
studio's partner, David Bleiman is one
of the producers on Corpse Bride. Even I
was involved with it ..... Primal Rage 2 (sequel) Admittedly, this was just
a microscopic use of Stop Motion in video gaming and it might look old now but Primal Rage
was a big hit. IMO, the old standard Stop motion
production methods cannot be applied to the current
gaming style & look..... just too costly, I think. If
using Stop Mo for video games a different production
approach & style has to be used. Believe it or not,
in the year 2003 there was a video game that used Stop
Motion called The Dark Eye. Very stylized
Euro-Trnka-like and obviously not meant to
compete with the current testotorene laden games for the
pimpled face crowds. The review was in '03 it appears
this video game made around 1995? I don't understand the
disparity of dates.
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12.15.03
* Hot off the Press :
MONSTER ROAD, the documentary about Bruce
Bickford, is going to premiere at the
Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, in January '04.
For more information, go to Bright Eye Pictures .... they also have some photos to look at.
Not confirmed yet, but there might be a screening this
Spring, in San Francisco. We will keep you posted.
* Alliance Atlantis Cutting
Production Jobs In Canada .....they are a production company
overseeing many projects and one of them was a Stop
Motion TV Series called Henry's World. They began this project early in
'03. It looks like it may be no more. Another very well
known studio in Canada, CuppaCoffee, actually did the first few seasons of
Henry's World before Alliance Atlantis took over. Maybe it
takes a special kind of commitment by a studio to devote
to the specialty of Stop Motion and Cuppa Coffee seems to
have a knack for it! I just received this
information from one of my sources: "The studio has hit a
home-run according to Disney, with
Jo Jo's Circus breaking all records with
pre-schoolers. This is PlayHouse
Disney's number one show and it is Stop-Motion.
Cuppa Coffee is rolling straight into Season Two
of the show. It is also halfway through a show for AMC/Blueprint
called The Wrong Coast, a celebrity spoof show a la
"Entertainment Tonight". Pre-production has
started on A Very Barry Christmas
rumored to air on NBC - Christmas 2004. Directed
by Aussie legend, Andrew Horne (Leunig) In
development, are two more Stop-Motion series,
AND, more than just rumor, Cuppa Coffee studio head, Adam
Shaheen is putting together a deal for a Feature
Film. Stop Motion is clearly alive and well in
Canada. They also have two other series about to hit
production, but this is believed to be 2D traditional
animation"
LIO Comment .... Cuppa Coffee seems to be smoking
hot now and starting to kick some Stop
Motion Ass! Perhaps Cuppa Coffee studio bosses
sees a "niche" here and realizes that the
public might be Cgi'd to death
or just maybe getting jaded with digital-pixel
world domination!
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12.11.03
* For beginners
interested in Stop Motion it can be confusing
trying to choose what you need just to do simple test
animations or for just practicing. The most common way
now for do-it-yourself stop motion, is, using a computer,
animation capture software and some kind of camera
(webcam, camcorder, or digital still cam). I am
not an expert in animation software but I
attempted awhile ago to do my own explanation &
cursory review of stop motion capture programs. Even what I wrote may be
confusing to neophytes. Well, I will now try the KISS
principle (Keep It Simple Stupid). Here is what I think
is the most easiet & user friendly animation
software/system for beginners Xipster Instant Animator. At a convention, I met the
creators of this software and they gave an energetic
brief talk and demonstration. It has one of the most user
friendly interfaces .... the program is designed so you
only need to shoot twelve frames for one second of
animation (instead of 24 or 30 frames per second). This
is called "shooting on two's" and that's how I
learned .... you can work fast and learn the
general animation principles more quickly. The
program allows you to flip back & forth one
frame and compare it to the live image for checking the
movements. Xipster has a very good &
detailed online help & documentation. It primarily works with
USB connected Webcams (about 320 x 240 image
size) so one does not need a video capture card.
It's PC & Mac compatible. Not
only will Instant Animator help you
learn animation but you can also add sounds & titles
within the software and complete a very quick animation
short story. The instant feedback is most important to
help encourage beginners. If you are parent or teacher,
what a fantastic tool to get kids started in animation
.... it is even good for beginning Old Kids! As
I stated, IMO, I think Instant Animator,
is one of the better introductory animation software
programs .... it is not only for Stop Motion but other
animation methods .... pixelation, cutout, and drawn 2d.
If you have any questions before you buy, you can phone
or email them. So .... check-out the entire Xipster website. I think their site is well
designed with lots of energy & enthusiasm and very
simply explains Instant Animator so the general public
can understand it. Now....please do not ask if it is
free. Let's not be cheap here. People designed this
software and it is a useful product that you will
get value from. So cough up the dollars .....
It's only $54.95. They have a Lite Trial Xipster for you to test. What you
are paying for is the simplicity & very
user-friendly interface. You can get other
programs maybe for about the same with more complex
features but they are not perhaps as user friendly. When
you feel confident with animation you can then graduate
and attempt more advanced animation or use other
animation programs.
____________________
12.04.03
* Attention Stop Motionists!
This just posted on SMA message board. To me, this seems
like a unique concept called The 10 Second Club. A monthly character animation competition.
All styles .... right now it looks like mostly CGI. The
look does not have to be polished so you don't have to be
a pro to enter. I think if more Stop Motion people enter
this, we can blow the socks off Cgi.
Good practice for you ....just make up a quick scene and
animate to dialogue/sound effects and shoot against black
background. You have to read their rules and I am not
sure how you post movie on their site so you need to know
something about that. You can get more info here 10SecondClub Forum
* Finally
we got some information about a live action movie that is
being directed by Wes Anderson and starring the
comic-actor Bill Murray. It will have some Stop Motion
underwater creatures and these effects will be directed
by Henry Selick The Life Aquatic
* Regarding
the currently released movie ELF, I ask
again, Why are there NO photos available of the
Stop Mo puppet characters? Why all the secrecy? Someone
sent me this behind the scenes info about the Stop Motion
animators who worked on it: ** Apparently Teresa Drilling
(who worked on the Vinton "Claymation
Christmas" and "Meet the Raisins"
specials, as well as "Chicken Run") animated
all of the shots of a snowman character (Leon the
Snowman, voiced by musician Leon Redbone),
attempting to paralell Sam the Snowman from
"Rudolph," complete with jerky movements. Musa
Brooker (whose work I'm unfamiliar with, but a
Google search reveals that Brooker worked on
"Celebrity Deathmatch") is listed as working on
"various arctic critters, including a puffin, a
polar bear, Narwhal whale, and some mischievous little
trolls that are animated more in the Harryhausen
style." Kent Burton (who you
probably worked with on "Nightmare Before
Christmas" and/or Gumby) animated framing scenes of
a storybook opening and closing (ala so many Disney
films), apparently more than 2,000 frames were required.
Sadly, the only photos accompanying the article in this
magazine are of Will Ferrell. None of the actual puppet
characters, which is disappointing. As you said, not sure
why these images aren't being made available. Still, hope
this might prove interesting to yourself and the site's
readers**
* Saturday,
December 6 on the ABC Family Channel....
Rankin Bass Stop Motion Marathon
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12.01.03
* Oh hell, it's
December already and now the media hype and
bombardment on our senses to get all of us stressed
out about the Holidays. You
noticed that it gets crazier out there in the streets?
More traffic and people just more frantic and like obedient
Automatons, immersing themselves in all this
madness of the season which does not
make it, a supposedly peaceful time. I could rant
on but I will let others do it. Here are some
sample links 1 - 2 - 3 You see, it's not just me, but much
of the public Do Not enjoy this yearly ritual and
most just "go along" with a fake smile and get
high blood pressure, migraines, depressed, etc.
* Do I
hear $100. , $150., $250., $375. or more?! Come on ....
what will you give me for this piece of Stop
Motion history? What am I jabbering about? Jim
Danforth animator, auteur, eclectic artist, matte
painter, and the list goes on. Well .... on
Ebay, he is offering an original crab puppet from When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth The movie is slow
but Jim's work Ruled the Special
Effects Biz at the time, and he should have received an Oscar. For me, the giant crab
sequences have got to be one of the most
realistic (in a surreal way) special effects and
state-of-the-art for that time. Just beautifully designed
& superbely executed, done the good old fashioned
way, before the studios became pixel-digital addicted. Stop Mo Crab Puppet Peter Jackson .... here's
something for your collection!
* Sometimes
I have previously mentioned the New World CGI
Order ....well .... a big story here Roy Disney Quits (Roy is Walt Disney's nephew)
It seems now, that Michael Eisner will
be Supreme Godfather of the Disney Empire. How
is this related to Stop Motion? Well,
like I have said before in my comments, Stop
Motion is accustomed to getting screwed by mainstream biz,
but now, 2D traditional animators are getting a
big time screw job as it seems, the Disney
Powers-that-be, want to completely erase Disney's
roots and dump 2D animation down the toilet.
Even though the recently released Disney 2D feature, Brother
Bear is doing good at the box office,
the Mouse-A-Nators are halting in-progress 2D features.
There is a bad climate in the air ..... Digital
Pixel Homogenization ..... where nothing
is real 
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