2013

French Animation on Fire But The Devil is in The Details

1 Comment / Business Models /

An article by Elsa Keslassy over at Variety delves into the growing relationship between the major US animation producers and various French producers and studios. It’s one that’s been growing for a while; pushed along by Illumination Entertainment and their two Despicable Me-shaped smash hits. It all sounds good, but as ever, there are a few caveats to the good news.

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French Animation on Fire But The Devil is in The DetailsRead More »

French Animation on Fire But The Devil is in The Details Read More »

Should Filmmakers Take Vimeo’s $10,000 Offer?

Business Models /

Video hosting service Vimeo is tempting filmmakers fresh from success at this years Toronto International Film Festival with a lucrative-sounding offer. In exchange for $10,000, Vimeo is granted exclusive internet rights to films for 30 days (or until the $10K is paid back, whichever comes first.) It sounds like a great deal, but is it really? And if so, which side is making out?

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Should Filmmakers Take Vimeo’s $10,000 Offer?Read More »

Should Filmmakers Take Vimeo’s $10,000 Offer? Read More »

Copyright is Killing Comedy!

Animation, Cinema /

Copyright plays a large role in legacy entertainment business models and animation is no exception. Thanks to the existence of the Mickey Mouse Copyright Act, very little American animation has made it into the public domain, and with recent rumblings about yet another extension, we’re unlikely to see any new ones entering for the foreseeable future. So we know it’s killing the completed package, but how is it killing the actual animation itself? For that we turn to a joke that was nixed for copyright reasons alone.

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Copyright is Killing Comedy!Read More »

Copyright is Killing Comedy! Read More »

Not One, But Two Open Source Animation Kickstarter’s Launched

8 Comments / Business Models /

A while back, independent animator and open culture advocate Nina Paley pined for an open source, 2-D vector animation program. Now her prayers have been answered; sort of. Tupi is a Kickstarter project whose goal is to create a fully functioning 2-D animation program that is also open source. But that’s not all, there’s also another Kickstarter project that aims to upend the ubiquituous animation GIF.

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Not One, But Two Open Source Animation Kickstarter’s LaunchedRead More »

Not One, But Two Open Source Animation Kickstarter’s Launched Read More »

The Animation Anomaly Podcast Episode 3

2 Comments / Podcast /

The third Animation Anomaly podcast episode. Post-website crash, post-MBA and only on the third attempt! I swear I’m slowly getting the hang of things.

Audio file download

The Animation Anomaly Podcast Episode 3 Read More »

Week Links 32-2013

2 Comments / Week Links /

What a hectic, hectic, terrible week. If it wasn’t the start of studying for this PE exam in October, it was the blog here getting hit by a mysterious bug. Of course it had to happen on the day I was without internet and hence couldn’t properly resolve it. By the looks of things, it was an issue with the previous theme; now completely removed. Thus the hunt begins for a new one, probably to come on Monday. Anyway, here’s some week links for you all.

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Week Links 32-2013Read More »

Week Links 32-2013 Read More »

The Significance of ‘The University of DIC’

4 Comments / Business Models /

Over at Animation Magazine, Michael Mallory has a rather informative post about what he refers to as the ‘University of DIC’. As you should be aware of, DIC was an animation studio responsible for such shows as Inspector Gadget, the various Sonic the Hedgehog series’ and a whole host of other, primarily low budget animated shows. Despite being bought up a few years ago, the company’s influence continues to live on.

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The Significance of ‘The University of DIC’ Read More »

Three Simple Rules For Creating A Popular Animated Show

Opinion /

There’s a ton of blogs and guides out there to creating the perfect animated series. However, most of them focus on the actual animation itself; they neglect all the periphery stuff that is also needed to make a series work. If you’d like to read something professional, I highly recommend any of David B. Levy’s books as a great starting point to what the industry is like from an animator’s perspective. I, of course, am not an animator, so will instead offer the alternative viewpoint.

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Three Simple Rules For Creating A Popular Animated Show Read More »

Comparing Eastern and Western Animation: Cost Versus Variety

9 Comments / Analysis /

When it comes to producing animation for television, there are two differing approaches that are used. Go really cheap and make a lot of shows, or make one really good show with lots of actual animation. Neither approach is better than the other in the grand scheme of things. However, it’s hard not to notice that Japan produces a far greater variety of animation than the US, despite being a far smaller market.

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Comparing Eastern and Western Animation: Cost Versus Variety Read More »

Is YouTube Starting to Suck

4 Comments / Business Models /

The very question is, in and of itself, potentially inflammatory in this day and age. YouTube is, after all, the all-but-crowned successor to the television. On the flip side, it is the bane of every network and movie studio out there; lashing out much the same as old Hollywood did when the television itself came along. Here’s the question though: is YouTube starting to suck? And when I say ‘starting to’ I mean in the slowest, most unnoticeable form imaginable, and when I say suck, I don’t mean viewers, I mean become bad. Let’s take a look.

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Is YouTube Starting to SuckRead More »

Is YouTube Starting to Suck Read More »