Author Archives: Mike

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Way More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Animaniacs

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Mental Floss has an excellent article up about the development of Animaniacs after talking with Tom Ruegger, the shows executive producer and creator.

I was fortunate enough to work for Tom on Tiny Toons, Tazmania, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain as well as Histeria, first as a character layout artist and then as a director, and I still count them as some of my very best years in the industry.

We interviewed Tom Ruegger years ago and you can read that interview here.

From the site:

One idea Spielberg suggested was to make the popular Tiny Toons character Plucky Duck the star of the new show. Meanwhile, Ruegger had been developing characters based on the personalities of his three young sons. These two concepts were combined to create three brother ducks. However, the team soon realized that, between Disney’s Donald Duck, DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, and Warner Bros.’ own Daffy Duck, there were already plenty of animated waterfowl on the market. Spielberg agreed, but said they needed to come up with “a big marquee name” to help sell the show.

Ruegger was inspired by the large “WB” logo on the water tower at the Warner Bros. studio. He proposed a group of siblings drawn in an animation style reminiscent of anthropomorphized animal characters from the 1930s, and called them the Warner Brothers. Although they have dog-like characteristics, the exact type of animal the Warners are meant to be is unknown. According to the show bible – a book filled with background information for the creative team on a TV show – their species is labeled as “Cartoonus Characterus.”

For a brief period, there were four Warner siblings—Yakky, Smakky, Wakky, and little sister, Dot. As the studio artists honed the designs, Yakky became Yakko, and Smakky and Wakky were melded into Wakko. After getting clearance from the Warner estate to use the family name, the show was off and running.

You can read the whole article on Mental Floss!

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We also interviewed the multi-talented Bob Doucette who did all those cool posters above (and in the article). Bob was my producer on Histeria while I was directing on it. Bob was one of our very first interviews on Animation Insider, and you can read his interview here!

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Hotel Transylvania 2 teaser trailer!

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LOVED the first one! This sequence was boarded by my buddy Keith Baxter who we interviewed back in 2011

Keith was coincidentally my very first boss in L.A. on a production called Tazmania where he taught me so many things about drawing that I’ll never be able to repay him.

You can read Keith’s interview here!

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Viewster Launches Largest Online Animation Festival

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VOFF5 launches with fully-curated animation edition and a new jury made up of leading industry talent

Zurich – March 12, 2015 – Viewster (http://www.viewster.com/), the only online video service with its own global film festival, is launching the latest edition of the Viewster Online Film Fest #VOFF5: Animated Worlds (12 – 26 March), with films that bring to life some of the finest animated worlds – from far-off galaxies to worlds within our heads (the trailer can be viewed here). The festival has been fully curated and has a new jury of leading industry talent, who have been recognised by the likes of BAFTA and the Emmys.

#VOFF5 is the world’s largest online showcase of animation content, with the hand-picked festival selection covering the best global talent, from students to award-winners. There are over 140 short films from 37 countries, all of which have been selected on the merits of production quality and for their imaginative scope. The films comprise of various animation methods across 2D, 3D, CGI, Stop-Motion and Cel Animation. Each film in #VOFF5: Animated Worlds is listed in the festival catalogue, available to view online http://festival.viewster.com.

The festival winners will get a share of the $50,000 USD prize fund, making #VOFF5 the biggest prize fund in the world to reward purely animation talent. The final films will be chosen by the jury from the shortlist, following the public voting period when fans will watch, discuss, share and vote for their favourite entries.
voff5

The new jury for #VOFF5 consists of:

  • Prolific voice-actor Yuri Lowenthal (Sasuke Uchiha in Naruto and Ben Tennyson in Ben 10, numerous video game credits such as The Prince from The Prince of Persia series)
  • Athena Yvette Portillo (Lucas Film producer of Star Wars Rebels and line producer on Clone Wars)
  • Samantha Youssef (Toronto International Film Festival award-winner for La Fuga Grande and character animator and director, with credits for Disney, Ubisoft and Filmax International)
  • Two-time Emmy winning animator Christophe Vacher (credits include work on Transformers: Prime,Despicable Me, 9, Enchanted, Fantasia / 2000, Hercules and Beauty and the Beast)
  • BAFTA-nominated animator Michael Schlingmann (credits include work on Corpse Bride,Paranorman, Alice in Wonderland)

Kai Henniges, CEO, Viewster, said: “#VOFF5 cements our festival’s position as a global fandom destination, where fanboys and fangirls can connect with each other and interact with the filmmakers around the content. The films in this edition of the festival are truly impressive and are a testament to the amazing talent out there, and the imaginative variety of styles and subjects in animation. Viewster is a global first-stop for fresh Anime content, and our catalogue has a wealth of complementary content across sci-fi and fantasy, so #VOFF5: Animated Worlds will play directly into our audience’s tastes.”

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The fifth edition of #VOFF hosts a number of award-winning creations and talent, including:

  • Posthuman (USA) – Screamfest ‘Best Animated Short’-winner starring the voice of Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica)
  • The Silence Beneath the Bark (France) – Oscar nominated short which was also nominated for the Annecy Cristal and won the best animated short at the Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival
  • ARK (Poland) – SIGGRAPH ‘Best of Show’-winner which was also accepted into official selection at Cannes, from director Grzegorz Jokajtys (animation/digital arts credits include Star Trek, Iron Man 2,Captain America: Winter Soldier, Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth)
  • Golem (Germany) – Won Rising Star Award at the Canada International Film Festival and Audience Award at the Creative Arts Film Festival, and is from director Tobias Wiesner (animation/digital arts credits include Game of Thrones, The Hobbit trilogy, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Hugo). The soundtrack is from renowned film composer Cliff Martinez (Drive, Solaris, Only God Forgives, Spring Breakers)
  • Way Home (South Korea) – directed by Oscar-nominated Erik Oh (Brave, Monsters University and the upcoming Pixar films Inside Out and Finding Dory, Oscar-nominated for his latest film The Dam Keeper)
  • The Gift (Chile) – crowd-funded film screened at over 90 festivals and has received numerous animation awards

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About Viewster

Viewster (www.viewster.com) is a worldwide online video service connecting passionate audiences. We are the first stop destination for anime lovers, featuring an ever-growing line up of the latest shows directly from Japan. Our wider catalogue brings the best of specialist shows and movies, with more than ten thousand titles across anime, thriller, sci-fi, and fantasy. Viewster is free, supported by advertising and available to stream on desktop, mobile and smart TV apps.

The Viewster Online Film Fest brings millions of visitors together with the creators. Each festival we feature the best up and coming filmmakers and invite our online community to help select the finalists. But we don’t stop there. We believe so much in fan culture, that we have created a global platform for fans to interact with each other, and we invite anime enthusiasts to join our translation community to create subtitles on a professional level. Meet with us – both online and at international conventions throughout the year.

Viewster, and its network of partner sites, serves an 18-24 year old audience of more than 20 million unique users per month across the U.S., U.K., Germany and Australia alone – the ideal advertising platform for all brands looking to bring cool stuff to awesome people.

All entries and voting: http://www.viewster.com
Official Trailer: https://vimeo.com/121808400

For more information, please visit: http://corp.viewster.com.
Find Viewster on www.viewster.com, in iTunes or Google Play

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Jobs: LA Sr Character Animator

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zoic logo

Zoic Studios is an Award winning VFX company made up of accomplished artists and producers who understand story, process and relationships. Partnership, integrity and enthusiasm are our key founding principles. Some of our recent credits include, Gangster Squad, Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, Once Upon a Time, Fringe and Falling Skies.

“Visual Evolution” is our mission. We invest in constantly improving our technological and studio processes so that our artists can focus on being creative even in the lightning fast paced world of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Episodic Television. We apply these principles to our work on some of the most VFX intensive film and television projects out there. We like a challenge. Do you?

Our LA office is currently interested in Sr Character Animators with immediate availability for our commercial department

Summary of Position
Works under the CG Supervisor to create realistic creature and character animation for commercial productions. Animators at Zoic may be asked to animate anything from an alien slug to a 6 legged chimera so strong visual understanding of anatomy and physics is a must.

Responsibilities:

  • Realistic creature and character animation
  • Ensuring animation meets production deadlines
  • Ensuring animation meets quality standards
  • Knowing and following all pipeline and studio policies and procedures

Qualifications

  • Experience working as a 3D animator within television or commercials, a must.
  • Proficiency animating in Maya from reference, with the ability to take animation to final.
  • Ability to work within a fast-paced team environment.
  • Positive attitude, hard worker, flexible schedule.
  • Strong attention to detail and follow through.

You can apply for the job on their website.

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FIRST SECOND BUYS TWO GRAPHIC NOVELS SET IN THE WORLD OF THE OSCAR-NOMINATED ANIMATED SHORT THE DAM KEEPER

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TheDamKeeper_ExclusiveBookAnnouncementArt
FIRST SECOND BUYS TWO GRAPHIC NOVELS SET IN THE WORLD
OF THE OSCAR®-NOMINATED ANIMATED SHORT THE DAM KEEPER
New York, NY (March 11, 2015) – First Second, an imprint of Macmillan, has preemptively
acquired world rights to two graphic novels based on the Oscar®-nominated short, The Dam
Keeper from Tonko House founders Robert Kondo and Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi, as well as a
third graphic novel to be announced. The first will be on sale in 2016. This is the first book deal
to be announced under Kondo and Tsutsumi’s Tonko House banner, which is simultaneously
developing a feature film based on The Dam Keeper.
Robert Kondo and Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi, the founders of Tonko House, wrote and directed
the critically acclaimed animated short film The Dam Keeper, which to date has played in over
75 film festivals around the world, won 25 awards, and was nominated for a 2015 Academy
Award® for Best Animated Short. The Dam Keeper books will pick up some years after the
close of the short and will address two questions audiences were left wondering about following
the short film: What happened to Pig’s parents? How and why did this world come to be at the
mercy of this dark cloud?
Mark Siegel, Editorial Director of First Second Books, says, “There are many virtuoso artists in
animation today, and Kondo and Tsutsumi shine high among them. But they are also ultimately
storytellers, with inner wellsprings spilling over with worlds and characters and visions and tales
that need to be told. Their love and respect for books as well as animation is a delight to me, and
it’s a great honor for First Second to join forces with Tonko House and these superb talents.”
The book deal was negotiated by Siegel and, on behalf of Tonko House, by Kane Lee.
“It’s a dream come true to have the opportunity to create a cinematic experience in the form of
illustrated novels, with the pacing and richness we have learned with film. Through these books,
we are challenging ourselves to take our concept art and storytelling to the next level,” said
Robert Kondo.
“The reason to continue telling stories in the universe of The Dam Keeper is a deeply personal
story close to our hearts. We wanted to find a partner we could trust to adopt and protect our
characters and worlds, a team willing to take that journey with us to make our tales the greatest
they can be—and First Second were the people we fell in love with and hope to grow together
with. We are beyond excited, and slightly intimidated, to join their award-winning family of
innovative books and authors,” said Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi.

Robert Kondo lends his unique design sensibilities and passion for storytelling to The Dam
Keeper. Originally from Southern California, Robert attended the Art Center College of Design
Illustration program in Pasadena and joined Pixar upon graduation. Robert was an art director for
Ratatouille, Toy Story 3, and, most recently, Monsters University. In July 2014, Robert left Pixar
to start a new animation studio, Tonko House, with Dice Tsutsumi.
Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi, originally from Japan, is a celebrated illustrator, painter and
philanthropist. Dice’s paintings have been exhibited around the world, and in 2009, his first
childrens book, I Can Hear, was published in Japan. A graduate from the School of Visual Arts
in New York, Dice has worked in visual development at Blue Sky Studios on Ice Age, Robots,
and Horton Hears a Who! His credits at Pixar Animation as an art director include Toy Story 3
and Monsters University. Dice is passionate about charity work and spearheaded both the Totoro
Forest Project and Sketchtravel. In July 2014, Dice left Pixar to start a new animation studio,
Tonko House, with Robert Kondo.
Macmillan Publishers is a global trade book publishing company with prominent imprints
around the world. Macmillan publishes a broad range of award-winning books for children and
adults in all categories and formats. U.S. publishers include Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Flatiron
Books, Henry Holt & Company, Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group,
Picador, St. Martin’s Press, and Tor Books. In the UK, Australia, India, and South Africa,
Macmillan publishes under the Pan Macmillan name. The German company, Holtzbrinck
Deutsche Buchverlage, includes among its imprints S. Fischer, Kiepenheuer and Witsch,
Rowohlt, and Droemer Knaur. Macmillan Publishers is a division of the Holtzbrinck Publishing
Group, a large, family-owned media company headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany.
CONTACT:
Gina Gagliano
First Second Books
646-307-5388
gina.gagliano@firstsecondbooks.com

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VIBER AND TALENTHOUSE LAUNCH ‘STICKY FINGERS’, A CREATIVE PLATFORM TO FIND AND SUPPORT NEW TALENT

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 Viber

VIBER AND TALENTHOUSE LAUNCH ‘STICKY FINGERS’,
A CREATIVE PLATFORM TO FIND AND SUPPORT NEW TALENT

The Search is On For a Talented Artist to Create Viber’s Next Big Sticker Character

LONDON, UK – Viber, the leading OTT mobile communications platform, offering free messaging, HD-quality phone and video calls, has partnered with Talenthouse, the ‘world’s creative department’ which provides life changing opportunities for creators to collaborate with brands and icons, to launch ‘Sticky Fingers’ a worldwide talent search to find the next great sticker artist. Viber and Talenthouse are inviting animators, visual artists, illustrators and designers around the world to design a new ‘Sticky Fingers’ character and see their creation made into a Viber sticker.

Stickers are a core part of Viber’s personality and millions of people worldwide use them in conversations every day to express an emotion, a reaction, a statement or simply to share good vibes with their friends and families. The search for the ‘Sticky Fingers’ mascot is the first in a series of creative briefs inviting talented artists to see their designs come to life in collaboration with the Viber Design Studio.

One Selected Artist, as judged by a Viber panel which includes Erez Shocher, Viber’s Creative Director, and Mark Hardy, Viber’s Chief Marketing Officer, will work with and be mentored by Viber Design Studio to turn their ‘Sticky Fingers’ character into a fully developed commercial Sticker Pack. These will be sold on Viber’s Sticker Market and the Selected Artist will receive a share of revenue every time their Sticker Pack is bought. Their work will also be showcased around the world as it will be shared via Viber and Talenthouse’s social media channels. 10 finalists will receive a financial grant to support their creative journeys.

Visual artists, illustrators and designers are invited to submit an original piece of work and have until Wednesday, 15 April at 6pm GMT to upload their artwork here: www.viber.com/StickyFingers/info

Viber Stickers facts:

  • 516 million people use Viber globally
  • 500 million sticker packs were downloaded last year from Viber’s Sticker Market
  • More than 22 billion stickers were sent worldwide last year on Viber

“The Viber community love using stickers and we’re always looking for talented artists to collaborate with,” said Mark Hardy, Viber’s CMO. “The idea behind ‘Sticky Fingers’ is to surface and support the best new talent from across the world by offering them the chance to turn their amazing designs into a commercial production through Viber. Our partnership with Talenthouse will facilitate this by opening doors to the world’s creative communities.”

Maya Bogle, Co-founder of Talenthouse said: “Talenthouse is building a home for creatives around the world to collaborate with brands and icons.  Our opportunity with Viber provides creators with a direct route to have their work marketed and sold world-wide.”

#ViberStickyFingers

ENDS

Media enquiries

Harry Cymbler

Hot Cherry

harry@hotcherry.co.uk

+44 20 7607 2413

+44 7801 289 996

About Viber:

Viber is a pioneering mobile messaging, voice and video service. Viber lets everyone in the world connect. Freely. Users can send free text messages, fun stickers, photos, videos and doodles, share locations anywhere in the world, make free HD-quality calls and communicate with Push-To-Talk. With Viber Out, users can make low-cost calls to any phone number around the world. Viber is available for iPhone®, Android™ phones and tablets, Windows Phone, BlackBerry®, Blackberry® 10, Windows®, Windows 8®, Mac, Linux and Symbian devices over 3G/4G or WiFi connections. With over 516 million unique users in 193 countries, Viber is constantly innovating by introducing new platforms and adding fun new features. Viber is a Rakuten Group company.

See more at:

https://www.facebook.com/viber

https://twitter.com/viber

About Talenthouse www.talenthouse.com

Talenthouse is the world’s creative department – a global community of artists, designers, filmmakers, photographers, musicians and fashion designers – and is dedicated to providing creators across the world with opportunities to creatively collaborate with major brands, receive financial compensation and exposure of their work to large audiences. Leading brands and celebrities working with Talenthouse include Spotify, Universal Pictures, adidas, Marriott, Microsoft, Sigur Ros, Avicii, ​Deadmau5, Rankin, Stevie Nicks and Jessie J. Talenthouse’s board of investors and advisors include Google co-founder Eric Schmidt, MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe, actor Gerard Butler and musician Dave Stewart.

#talenthouse

#artworks
@talenthouse
www.facebook.com/talenthousefans