Monday Medicine

Been feeling a little run down.

Maybe I should've done this.

Designed by Phil Marden and animated by Tissa David around 2002 or so.

Pillows, Movies, Books

Received an email the other day from our pal Phil Marden about his newest creative out: illustrated pillows.  http://www.pilloporto.com/

If you want your child to grow up with great taste, if you want your pet to behave like a pet -you can do no better than these.

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This Tuesday, April 5, at 7:00 PM, The Korean Cultural Society presents What is not Romance? at the Tribeca Cinema on Canal Street.

This was a feature film produced by students of the Korean Film Academy.

Admission is free.

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I wasn't too surprised to see there was a Focal Press book dedicated to Rotoscoping.  I was surprised to find it was actually pretty interesting and informative -though that may say more about me than the book.

Benjamin Bratt's Rotoscoping: Techniques and tools for the Aspiring Artist is pretty much a theory book on cutting out live action images from motion pictures.  There's a little history, very little on software platforms and a lot on how to approach rotoscoping.

It's a process which most artists in animation will have to broach at some point in their career, maybe for a paycheck, maybe to execute an idea of your own.

It may not be worth the price tag for the many tips you won't believe you didn't think of yourself, but it's definitely worth flipping through at the library.  And if you're thinking of a career in effects it's likely a volume for the bookshelf.

Foxy Drawings

First in line is storyboard designed and drawn by Phil Marden. We were exploring big concepts with the client and worked a few designs which all follow.

Around 1998 or so we got a call at The Ink Tank from producer Sonia Rosario who was working to WGBH to develop a literacy show with some of the creative forces behind Sesame Street.

The show, "Between the Lions", was being created by a new company, Sirius Thinking.  The principals behind the show were Christopher Cerf, Sesame Street's great post-Joe Raposo composer, Michael Frith, coming from the Creative Director position at Henson where he created "Fraggle Rock", and Norman Stiles, head writer of Sesame Street for many seasons.

They were producing two episodes as pilots.

We were asked to create all the animation for these two shows and well as three live action segments.

We budgeted the work load of the series based on the promise of producing all the show's animation.

When the series went into full production, various studios were contracted at the rates we labored to figure for the pilots.  It took Brian and I about two solid weeks to figure out such a complex budget.

I admit, that bothered me at the time.  The world keeps spinning and we've gone on to do good work for the show as well as other projects with the WGBH, Sirius Thinking and other folks involved in the show.

That's the problem with "caring" about the work.  You can also be let down.

I don't even remember creating the above board.   I don't recognize the illustration either.

Since the show was in the development phase, we worked with the client to explore different ways of telling the story and teaching the words.

The series has a dual pedagogy.  The overall "theme" story uses the "whole language" technique.  It's sort of like immersion.  Words are introduced in context and highlighted.

These are boards for the "whole story".

Ron Barrett did this version.

A variation on his highlighting technique made into some segments in the broadcast series.

Ultimately, Between the Lions chose my favorite designs.  In a rare move they picked the least "cartoony".

Michael Frith suggested something in the style of Walter Crane.

Ron Barrett, not content to just be good, showed off his quiet brilliance with these illustrations.

These are screen grabs from the "textless" version of the film.  The funny framing is to make space for copy.

One guess who animated it.  A quick glance at the crows on top or the fox on left should be plenty of material.