Normally these would be posted on a Thursday, but flexibility is a skill all bloggers must have.
1. Be A Vegetarian (tip o’ the hat to Broadsheet.ie)
2. Plymptoons Holiday Video
3. D on ice – A sardonic look at what Walt would think if he came back to life today. (Cheers, Cartoon Brew)
http://vimeo.com/33123151
A Triple Helping of Videos Read More »
Word came through the other day that FOX, after what surely must have been a long discussion (/sarcasm), had decided to swing the axe on Jonah Hill’s much vaunted animated show, Gregory Allen.
So this poses an interesting question, and it’s one that will surely have a different answer than if it had been asked the last time we had this kind of situation on FOX:
What does it even mean to “cancel” a TV show any more?
Seriously! So you “cancel” it from being broadcast on TV. Well, as my fiance would say, woop-di-freakin-do! TV (and I’m talking about traditional, OTA, satellite and cable scheduled programming here) is rapidly becoming a smaller and smaller part of the entertainment landscape anyway, why does it even matter?
FOX already hosts its shows in a couple of places online and its fair to say that a sizeable portion of their audience is watching them there rather than “tuning in” during the week.
With that in mind, would it not make more sense to simply release the episodes online instead? Just because you “cancel” the show, does that automatically preclude that you have to suddenly archive the remaining episodes never to be seen again?
No, of course not!
Why not instead just say that Allen Gregory has moved to being exclusively online? My train of thought is that at some point we’ll see a deeper connection between TV and the web. YouTube is currently pioneering the way with original series (shout out to the YouTube Next Lab) whose quality is rapidly approaching that of traditional TV and it’s only a matter of time before we see audience shifts to them. My point? If a show begins life online and become popular, it could easily be “transferred” to TV with a scheduled timeslot while remaining online, thereby capturing both audiences.
Shows could also go the other way. Say they start out on TV but don’t really find their audience, then they could move to the online world and carry on as before.
We’ve seen some rudimentary moves in this regard with the likes of Sit Down, Shut Up. Which, after getting canned, eventually returned as FOX burned off the episodes in the middle of the night. However, they also went up on Hulu, where it was possible for fans (such as myself) to finally see them. And apparently they’re now on Comedy Central (somewhere) too!
Just imagine what kind of online numbers they could have gotten if they had put them online straight away!
Animation is slightly trickier than live-action as they shows pretty much have to be produced before the season begins. That means that it really doesn’t make any sense to “cancel” an animated show and then pretend it doesn’t exist.
To be cliched and quote Bob Dylan: the times, they are a changin’.
Why “Cancelling” A Show Is So Outdated In This Day and Age Read More »
It’s that time of year again, when everyone hauls out their “best of” lists that are always subjective and no-one ever really agrees on anyway. Well, being the objective, engineering type, I’ve decided instead to use Amazon.com’s sales as a guide to how animated films have fared this year.
To clarify, this list is just DVD sales and is sorted after doing a search for “animation” in the Movies & TV department and is also for films that are dated as being released in 2011, hence there are some films that while released theatrically in 2010, did not come out on DVD until 2011.
So without further adieu, here’s the top 10 animated films of 2011 according to Amazon.com (backwards of course):
10. LEGO: The Adventures of Clutch Powers
7. Megamind (single disc edition)
6. Rango
4. Tangled
3. Rio
2. The Smurfs
And number 1, which you could probably have guessed anyway is…
Cars 2! (which must be selling like hotcakes; $19.73 for a single disc, yikes!)
The Top 10 Animated Movies on DVD of 2011 Read More »
As spotted on Irish state broadcaster, RTE’s weekly news quiz today:
Sometimes the Mainstream Media Pays Attention to The Animation World Read More »
Yes, DreamWorks really is pushing the envelope, the release envelope that is. Here’s what I read this morning over on the Animation Guild Blog that really made me take a minute just to think about it (emphasis mine):
There is a squadron of other features are lined up on the tarmac, but I won’t bother rattling them off, since you can see most of them listed here. (It dawns on me that by 2014, DWA will have thirty animated movies out in the wider world. By contrast, Disney’s fifty-first feature — after 73 years, came out last Spring.)
You could easily argue that DreamWorks isn’t as diversified as Disney, nor has it ever put out even close to the same volume of shorts. However, the fact remains that as far as animated features go, DreamWorks is certainly cranking them out.
Now you can read this any number of ways you like. Be it that the fact that Disney is diversified means they do not need to rely on aniamted films to bring home the bacon, that things were different back in the old days or even that Disney has such a strong brand that they can afford to coast on films for years after release in contrast to DW which must continue the releases to bring in the dough.
I tend to believe that DW does need to continually release films, hence it’s faster production rate. However, the time will come when DreamWorks will have earned a legacy that is strong enough for it to slow down a bit. That day is still a bit far away, but it is drawing ever closer.
DreamWorks Really Is Pushing The Envelope Read More »
Yes, this is an ad for above all things, tea. Some beautiful animation even if the message is a bit confusing until the very end.
Twinings Brews Up A Storm Read More »
Via: The Rauch Bros. Tumblelog
Fred Seibert has opined that more animators should be using Tumblr as a platform for their art. I do not disagree with this statement. In fact, I agree, the Tumblr platform has a lot of features to offer and has proven itself to be a great tool to build a community around your work in addition to discovering new stuff.
However, Fred’s post misses the mark when it comes to its reasoning.
Yes, Tumblr is a social platform, but so is any blog (so long as certain features are engaged). Fred points out the Adventure Time tumblelog as an example, stating that:
Very few of the posts get fewer than hundreds of notes (you can see the number at the bottom of each post.) Regular readers will recall that very, very, very few of our posts got even one comment on our old blogs.
This is true, except that comments and “notes” are mutually exclusive. One is a tool to provide feedback or opinion on a post, the other is simply a statistic on how people have responded to it (either likes or reblogs).
Comments are a truer measure of social interaction in that they indicate that people have thoughts or feelings on the post, not merely that they liked it or were suitably enthralled enough to post it on their tumblelog too.
This is not to diss the notes system. Indeed, you can implement Disqus commenting in Tumblr, just as Frederator have done, if you so desire and get the benefit of both worlds. I just don’t see the point in proclaiming the benefit of one over the other.
What Fred is right about is the ease at which Tumblr allows you to share content. One or two clicks and you’re done. Compare that to even twitter, where you often have to click, login, edit the tweet and click again to post. That can get tiresome, especially if you like to post multiple times a day.
A post Mark Coatney proves to be the inspiration for Fred’s post, and although it also focuses on numbers, it lists three things that are essential to building a community on Tumblr:
- Be Engaging: Have interesting things to say, and don’t talk simply about yourself. Respond to other Tumblr users, ask questions, etc. Remember that Tumblr is a visual medium (more than half of the 25 million things posted on Tumblr each day are pictures), so look for compelling images to tell your story whenever possible.
- Be Social: Tumblr is above all a social sharing platform. Use this space to show off your best stuff, encourage others to share it with their followers, reblog posts from other Tumblrs that you think your followers will enjoy.
- Be Yourself: No publication has to fundamentally change who they are to connect with people on Tumblr. The audience responds most to a personal, peer-to-peer connection with you; embrace that.
These are all great points, except that that they are applicable to any platform, not exclusively to Tumblr. This very blog is an example, I engage with commentators, I’m socially active through Twitter, Tumblr and Google+ and I am myself, right down to popping in a ‘u’ in places American’s find weird.
What Fred should have focused on was what he mentions in the very first paragraph:
Some young artists are using it [tumblr], but for some reason a ton of animation blogs are on Blogger, some on WordPress.
Yes, they are using Blogger and WordPress, and I dare say that the biggest mistake they make is not in choosing these platforms, but by neglecting to maintain them! I can easily say that of the 300+ artist blogs in my reader, well under 10% are updated on a regular basis. In fact, I recently went through and deleted any blog that hadn’t been updated in over a year. The numbers were depressing to say the least.
These animation bloggers can’t blame the platform for their failure, they can only blame themselves.
Instead of asking “Why aren’t more animators aren’t using Tumblr?” we should be asking “Why aren’t more animators taking blogging more seriously?”
“Why don’t more animators use tumblr?” Is The Wrong Question to Ask Read More »
As The Hollywood Reporter mentioned last week, the Disney Studios is following hot on the heels of the interactive unit in partnering with YouTube to deliver content. Not original content mind you, but content nonetheless.
So the question is, why “rent” films via streaming? That makes little sense. Just let me buy the thing. It’s essentially the same cost to the studio either way, right? I mean I have to download a copy of the film regardless, and the bandwidth has to be paid either way, so why not just let me store it and re-watch it again and again?
Heck, why would I pay to watch it just once when I can hit up the bittorrents and download it for free and without restriction? What’s the difference then? If you’re charging a minimal amount to “rent” it, the marginal difference between making me pay for it and giving it away for free is minimized. The result is that, I, as a consumer, am likely to pick the method that delivers the best value; i.e. downloading the version that I can watch again and again.
I’m decidedly curious to see how this turns out. The last time major studios attempted a streaming “rental” business model, they charged people $30 a movie, and the whole thing fell flat on its face.
Does it Really Make Sense to Rent Animated Content Via YouTube? Read More »
Yesterday, I finally got around to installing an emulator on my PC that allows me to play all the old classic Sega Mega Drive (or Genesis, for those in the States) games.
Anyway, here’s a list of the animated appearance of Sonic the Hedgehog:
1. Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
2. Sonic the Hedgehog (a.k.a. the SatAM series)
The Four Animated Appearances of Sonic the Hedgehog Read More »
A while back, I talked about the idea of the Re-Write (RW) Culture that’s discussed by Lawrence Lessig in his book, Remix. RW culture when it relates to animation is, for all intent and purposes, going to cover pretty much anything made by fans,
One of the most common things that fans like to make is fan fiction, where they take the characters and create new stories and tales for them. In some instances, like the ones we’re about to discuss, they go even further, and extrapolate them beyond where and when the show took place.
Via: Drunk Duck
The first is this, which sadly, remains in a state of limbo at the moment but is nonetheless a great example of a fan taking a show and creating something quite new. This is about the only thing I can post on it as its, uh, a bit mature for what I feel comfortable posting here (I mean, I get enough Google referrals from weirdos already).
Battery Powered is a well made comic that really plays on the idea that the PPG grew up at some point and basically entered adolescence and never really grew out of it. It takes the characters in a whole different direction from what we’re used to seeing.
Via: Grim Tales
The second example we’ll look at is Grim Tales. A similar concept to Battery Powered but in a very different vein. It’s a much more serious attempt to look at how characters would develop long after the time when a show is set.
It’s not a bad example, in fact, its one of the better ones out there. However, it does follow a lot of fan-fiction lines in that it takes the characters and augments them into situations that would probably not have happened in the universe of the show. A prime example of this the central tennant of the comic: Gim and Mandy get married and have kids.
Grim Tales is quite a long comic so fair play to the writers/artists who’ve kept it going this far.
Both comics are just a small sampling of what fans are capable of creating on their own free time that benefit the show in the long run by keeping it alive.
Two Animation-Related Examples of RW Culture Read More »
It’s Black Friday here in the US. Here’s an explanation for everyone else.
Via: Shoeboxblog
No Post Today Either Read More »
