The Podcast Episode 4: The ‘Impotents’ Webseries and Kickstarter

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Impotents

This month I chat with Jeff Cooper and Grahaeme Cowie of Smoking Doors Productions about their animated webseries Impotents and the Kickstarter campaign their currently running to get it made. Besides spilling the beans on the series itself and what we can expect, we discuss why they chose Kickstarter and how much planning and effort goes into running a campaign. If you’ve ever been curious about it, you’ll want to have a listen.

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The Podcast: Episode 3 with Helen Haswell

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In this month’s podcast, I chat with Helen Haswell. Helen is a PhD candidate at Queens University in Belfast, who’s area of research happens to be the merger of Disney and Pixar that took place back in 2006. We discuss that, and lots more in this episode. Just excuse the error in the opening; this is the third episode, not the fourth!

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The Podcast: Episode 2 With J.K. Riki

Posted on by Charles Kenny 1 Comment

After a break for the holidays, the podcast returns! This month I chat with animator J.K. Riki who also runs Animator Island.

We touch on a wide range of topics including but not limited to, why people become passionate about animation, is CGI quality an issue in features, and did the Lion King ruin 2D theatrical animation.

As ever, leave a comment below or send me an email to offer any feedback you have. Apologies for the muffled sound; Verizon DSL does not tolerate cold weather very well.

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The Podcast: Episode 1 with Rusty Gray

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After some time in development, I’m proud to announce that today marks the beginning of monthly podcasts here on the Animation Anomaly blog.

This month, my guest is accomplished world-travelling animator Rusty Gray. Currently based in Vancouver, Rusty has studied at Full Sail university and Animation Mentor. He has also launched a website of his own (RustyAnimator.com) that provides plenty of tips and advice to aspiring students and animators.

Although the focus is on education within the animation industry, we discuss a wide range of topics surrounding it from what skills degrees actually provide, to where the future of animation education lies.

Some relevant links from the discussion:

I’m a bit jittery in this first episode so feel free to provide some feedback either in the comment form below, or via email to charles [at] animationanomaly [dot] com.

The theme music is ‘Big Band Swing (Messin’)’ by Simon Wallace

[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/charleskenny/animation-anomaly-podcast-episode-1-rusty-gray[/soundcloud]

The Animation Anomaly Podcast Episode 6

Posted on by Charles Kenny 2 Comments

A wild podcast episode unexpectedly appears!

In this episode:

00:00 – CTN Expo Recap (Simpsons Music 500 Music Ville link)

05:00 – Three Shows That Changed The Way Networks Think About Viewership

08:30 – Three Interesting Documents

11:00 – Do Studio Ghibli films make Pixar look weak?

14:00 – Frozen and Feminism: Bitch Flicks post, my post

Audio file link

Animation Anomaly Podcast Episode 2

Posted on by Charles Kenny 2 Comments

Since last week’s podcast didn’t elicit any hate mail or death threats, there’s another one this week. Plenty of articles were worthy of inclusion and hopefully you find my gibbering not too ingratiating.

  • 00:00 – Why we’ll see even more Ice Age sequels [article link]
  • 06:30 – Animated films and the cult of self-esteem [article link]
  • 14:00 – How Disney clamps down on the unlicensed use of their characters on birthday cakes [article link]
  • 18:00 – Passive Female Characters and Strong Female Characters [link 1, link 2]
  • 22:00 – The A.V. Club interviews the head of Animation Domination High Definition [article link]

Please give me any feedback at all on how I did; the podcast is still a work in progress! 🙂

Audio file download

 

Animation Anomaly Podcast Episode 1

Posted on by Charles Kenny 5 Comments

Thanks to everyone who suggested that I give this podcast gig a go. Consider this episode the prototype rather than a fully-fledged episode.

Here’s a brief summary of the Animation Anomaly Podcast episode 1:

  • 00:00 – Introduction, the PTC doesn’t like FOX’s ADHD block
  • 08:30 – Viacom continues to sue YouTube. What that means for animation and residual payments.
  • 13:30 – Disney is heavily reliant on cable TV subscriber fees, but that won’t last forever. What does that mean for their animation division.
  • 17:30 – The real reason Disney bought Pixar, Lucasfilm and Marvel.
  • 24:00 – Brad Bird on changing the cinema experience.

PS. Please do leave some feedback below to let me know how I did 🙂

Audio file download

Essential Listening: The Talkin’ Toons Podcast

Posted on by Charles Kenny 1 Comment

Via: Wikipedia

Voice-acting is one of my favourite parts of the animation business. Not so much because it’s the only creative aspect of the business that I have any hope of being good at, but because it really is a talent and skill that is often under-appreciated. Thankfully Rob Paulson (pictured above, left, with Maurice LaMarche) has made a long and fine career in the profession and is putting all that he has learned to good use with his Talkin’ Toons podcast.

Some episodes are Rob simply talking about the business and any advice he has (very worthwhile if you are even thinking about entering the business), but his guest podcasts, where he invites his friends and colleagues in for a chat are where the real magic happens. Besides the many, many pearls of wisdom to be gleaned, they are a superb insight into the world of an industry that doesn’t get a lot of coverage. There’s plenty of discussions about how people got started in the industry, why they like doing it so much, and also plenty upon plenty of what goes on when things aren’t being recorded.

Notable guests thus far have included Billy West, Maurice LaMarche, Tara Strong, Grey DeLisle nd Phil LaMarr and I can safely say that at some point during each of those podcasts, I almost had tears of laughter in my eyes they were that funny.

Rob’s clearly put a lot of effort into the endeavor and I’m happy to say that it has paid off. With many more guests to come, it is safe to say that I will be tuning in regularly from now on.

What Happens When Two Irish Guys Interview John R. Dilworth?

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Magic, that’s what happens. No, seriously, the lads over at The Comic Cast recently managed to collar him the recent screening of his films at The Big Screen Project in New York and have a chat with him.

Besides hearing to the thick Irish brogues of Liam Geraghty and Craig O Connor, there are some great questions about Dilworth’s career and how he ended up in animation as well as some of his unique sense of humour. There is also some great tips for aspiring animators and some talk about Courage the Cowardly Dog.

Start your day off right! Head on over the The Comic Cast and have a listen!

 

 

Why You Should Listen to This Podcast With Voice-Actor Scott McNeil

Posted on by Charles Kenny Leave a comment

Via: Wikipedia

First of all, who is Scott McNeill? Well, if you think he looks Australian, then you are correct, he was born there, much the same as my good chum Mr. Elliot Cowan. Certain folks out there will be familiar with his work in Tranformers (as Bumblebee) whereas others may know him from the literally hundreds of anime shows that he has done over the years. I discovered him through his work as the paranoid emo alien Stork on the Nerd Corps. series, Storm Hawks.

Scott’s an incredibly talented, genuinely funny guy who is a real character in his own right. He’s a veteran of the industry and has this podcast is chock full of insightful., witty anecdotes from his time in the Vancouver scene. He also makes some excellent, decent points on the use of celebrity voice actors and he throws in a few horror stories for good measure.

The podcast contains plenty of discussion about the nature of the animation industry in Vancouver and how it differs from that of it’s California neighbour. Scott also has plenty of tales of how he managed to get his break in the industry and how he manages to keep a full schedule in an industry where unemployment lurks after every project.

It’s also great to hear from such a down-to-earth character talk candidly about life in an industry where some of the heaviest hitters rarely seem to get a similar chance for discussion.

The podcast was originally part of the A3U (Ages 3 and Up) series that has sadly vanished from the interwebs hence the lack of a link back to the source. It’s just over an hour long but I can guarantee you there is hardly a boring minute in the entire thing.

Click here to download the mp3 instead.