Inside Looks
Germans in the Woods concept art
Before storyboarding, designing, and animating “Germans in the Woods”, it was especially important to do historical research and concept art to figure out how we would depict the Battle of the Bulge. With the TV premiere of “Germans” tonight, we thought we would post some of that concept art here.
Tune in to PBS tonight for [...]
Danny and Annie background art
Jim Smith (Ren and Stimpy, Ripping Friends) and Bill Wray (Ren and Stimpy, The Mighty B!), have been working with us on our StoryCorps animation. They are both incredibly talented and have helped us take these stories to a whole other level with the background art. Jim handled layout on “Danny and Annie” (watch it [...]
Visiting Annie Perasa
Next Tuesday, our animation for StoryCorps will begin airing on the PBS documentary program POV (check your local listings). The first episode follows the amazing love story of Danny and Annie Perasa, from their very first date to the last week of Danny’s life. Over our next few posts, we’ll give a behind-the-scenes look at [...]
The story behind “Q&A”
Animation and cartoons are commonly associated with fantasy, but one of the great things about working with StoryCorps has been the opportunity to work with real people and real stories. A whole other fascinating story exists outside of the cartoon— the story of the subjects’ lives themselves. Sarah Littman, the mother featured in “Q&A”, has [...]
Relationships and story guide character design
Character design can be a real challenge at times, but it’s also really exciting when you can see the personalities developing in front of you.
I find that we get our best results when the designs reference a specific story point, or a particular relationship dynamic between characters. It forces you to make the designs [...]
Color!
We’re working on color and background design for our latest project. Our goal is to suggest a lot with only a little.
The stage will consist of abstract backgrounds that have a feeling of depth and light like the one above, and others that incorporate elements that are more specific to a particular environment.
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Planning Animation at 6 fps
I’ve experimented with a lot of different frame rates over the years, but my favorite has become 6 fps. It allows me to focus more on the design of each drawing, the acting of the sequence, and proper balance with the audio. The key to making it work is planning the timing and spacing of [...]
Hollering, Shouting, Quiet, Talking, Buzzzzzz!
This is the main character from the work-in-progress we showed in our last post. As you can see, he’s quite an expressive guy. Our new short film follows him as he delivers a monologue about machines causing a decline of communication between people. Watch here for more details as things develop!
