Tag Archives: Adobe Flash

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Larry Latham

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Larry Latham; currently I teach Maya and Flash at Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology. It’s a two year program, with a lean toward visual communications, so though we learn both software packages, the emphasis is less on character animation and more on motion graphics. The good news is that when a student really wants to learn character animation, we have a flexible policy that allows me to vary the lessons. Plus, we’re working on getting a four-year degree program, which would allow more time to focus on the finer details.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Whew! That’s a big one. I managed a Taco Bell restaurant, inventoried nuts and bolts (one at a time, not [er box or case) for Lockheed, delivered liquor to retail stores and sold cars.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Talespin is at the top of the heap. I produced and directed 14 episodes and did post-production on about half the series. Right after that would be the two American Tale direct to video movies I produced and directed at Universal.
How did you become interested in animation?
I kind of eased into it. As a kid I loved Popeye and the old cartoons, but could never muster any interest for Continue reading
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Ashanti Miller

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Animation teacher and VFX artist

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Working in day care and retail. The job is so much easier without the parents and  customers 🙂

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?Sesame Workshop’s The New Electric Company and Mondo Media’s Piki and Poko’s Adventures in Starland. I love working directly with the writers rather than interpreting the writer’s vision through my director. The results are always peachy keen 😀

How did you become interested in animation?
Bugs Bunny. The instant I was able to draw him when I was 7 years old, I was determined Continue reading

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J.J. Sedelmaier

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What is your name and your current occupation?
J.J. Sedelmaier. This week I’m a filmmaker, graphic designer, cartoonist, author, curator. . .

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I don’t know if it’d be classified as “crazy” but in school and right out of school, I worked as a waiter/bartender/asst manager in restaurants (this best thing I could have done to prepare for running a business), and also worked as a furniture stripper/salesman.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
In terms of longer form stuff, launching Beavis and Butthead for MTV, creating the Saturday TV Funhouse/Saturday Night Live cartoons with Robert Smigel (especially The Ambiguously Gay Duo !), the co-creation with Stuart Hill of Captain Linger for Cartoon Network, doing the Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law pilot for Adult Swim, and designing the Tek Jansen character and launching the cartoon series for The Colbert Report. In terms of our short form/commercial stuff, some of the highlights have been, Continue reading

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Ivan Mendoza

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Ivan Mendoza, and I’m a Flash Illustrator & Character Designer @ Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds Group- Neopets.com
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? 
Haha! This is a really interesting question… I’ve gone through so many jobs before breaking into Animation. It stretches from a Sandwich Artist@ Subway, Telemarketer, Mailroom Attendant, Waiter, Retail Sales Supervisor@ Best Buy, and of course the craziest job I’ve ever had, a Door to Door/ Business to Business Copier Salesman.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? 
Most of the projects I’ve had the opportunity to work on I have always been proud of. Just to name a few “The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie”, “DJ & the Fro”, & “The Faeries Ruin’” Online Comic.

How did you become interested in animation?
In all honesty I was just really into drawing and putting some sort of story behind my drawings. I looked at options at what I can do with my art, I did Graffiti when I was younger (never on the walls always on paper ), then Continue reading

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Microsoft aims to actually make the “Animate Button”

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There are always companies trying to edge out the animator.  Not sure why exactly but it’s clearly something they strive for. Maybe it’s the Lamborghini’s we all drive and the overflowing money stuffed wallets we have ;living large as animators. Oh wait, that’s the CEOs of the companies not us.

From the Polar Express to Tin Tin to the ever increasing use of Mocap, studios see a brighter future free from the chains of us animators. Of course any animator will tell you Mocap only goes so far but that’s another story. Until recently traditional 2d animation has been pretty much impossible to auto complete simply because computers weren’t smart enough to predict what needs to be inbetweened. Anyone who has ever tried Flash’s Shape Tween tool has a clear idea of how well that goes. Well now Wired.com is reporting that Microsoft Research, along with the University of Hong Kong and the University of Tokyo, just unveiled a proof-of-concept technology that could bring back the charm of older, hand-drawn cartoons, with the speed and fluidity of today’s animation software.

From the site:

“Autocomplete hand-drawn animations” debuted at the Siggraph Asia conference, and it’s an interactive system that watches what the artist draws and then predicts what frame or line might come next. It can also smartly connect the dots between two different drawings, and propagate the motion that should occur between the two sketches. This works for color too: fill in the first frame with certain hues, and the system will replicate them.

You can read the entire article here.

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Chris Cookson

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What is your name and your current occupation?
I’m Chris Cookson and I am currently a freelance animator, I work in Flash mostly but sometimes I get some AfterEffects and Photoshop work.  I’ve been lucky enough where everything I’ve done before animation has been some kind of visual based work. The first job I did out of high school was making animated assets for the LED sign demo room at Trans-Lux (yes, that Trans-Lux of the 1959 Felix the Cat cartoon). It was a uniquely fun experience, they had this old LaserDisc system that would trigger all kinds of signs to light up in cue to music and audio, the audio was very much a product of the ’80s but they wanted me to modernize the visuals and make some colorful stuff for their new centerpiece display.  Apart from that, I’ve done a good amount of web design work in my formative years. One of my clients was a Cuban percussionist who was really into anime and kung-fu movies. He even offered to pay me for making his site with a samurai sword, which to 15-year-old me, was the coolest thing ever. Though, if I were to ever come home with a samurai sword, my parents would probably kill me, likely with that very same samurai sword.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
In terms of cool projects, a psychedelic TV ad for Linda McCartney’s line of frozen vegan foods has been really satisfying. What I loved was the ad had a different style than the usual aesthetic I get but had a lot of understated weirdness and quite a few distinct shots to work on. I got to meet Paul McCartney’s son-in-law and Rick Astley’s wife while on the project too which made me geek out pretty hard. A couple of months after I finished work on the spot, I started to see posts about it show up on sites like Motionographer, The Huffington Post and was linked by a lot of the sites I follow on Twitter, which made me feel real warm and fuzzy on the inside.  I’m also really proud of a lot of the smaller commercial projects I have worked on at Shoulderhill Creative. For those, it’s great to work with a couple of my classmates from art school and since it’s not a part of a giant team, I feel a lot more creative ownership over what I’m making. It’s absolutely wonderful to have a chance to work more within my own style and have more room to experiment with the colors and see what kind of little visual jokes I can put in to the advertisement.  Other projects like William Caballero’s documentary short film “How You Doin’ Boy? Voicemails from Gran’pa” were really great to be a part of. For that, he wanted me to make a squiggly text treatment based off of his grandfather’s handwriting to go up on screen in sync with actual answering machine messages left from his grandfather. Having the freedom to design the word treatment, as well as play around with text sizes was really fulfilling, the tone of some of the messages allowed me to really go crazy in some spots too, pushing the graphic element of it, trying to get it to match his grandfather’s own personal tone.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m from Stamford, CT and I’ve always wanted to either be a cartoonist or animator for pretty much my entire life. I taught myself how to use Flash when I was 12-years-old and would constantly look for an excuse to use it any chance I had, whether it be for making buttons or logos on the aforementioned web design projects I got or making short films whenever the opportunity arose. After making more and more stuff, over the years, my skills started to Continue reading