Tag Archives: Apple iPad

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Dan Shefelman

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Dan Shefelman, Cartoonist, Director, Head of Story, Writer.
What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Hanging 200 feet on the side of a building painting a trompe l’oeil mural on Park Avenue in NYC. The owner of the company was color blind but we were’nt supposed to know. So he would come to the site and tell us to add more red. We would do nothing and the next day he’d say it looked much better. The union guys on the site hated us because we were non-union. They would tip over our paint. Once I got stranded 200 feet up on the scaffold when the electrician shut off the power at quitting time. I had to swing like Spiderman on my safety line over to a fire escape and climb down. I finally quit the next day when I realized I was risking my life for “art”.
What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Teaching storyboarding at NYU. It’s so great to see new talent develop. I did a flash political web cartoon during the 2008 election on CNN.com. Wrote, designed and animated it. I love the collaboration of big productions but it’s always very satisfying to do everything on your own.  I have always been proud of working on the story team at Blue Sky on Ice Age. It was the first feature for Blue Sky and it was great to be there in the beginning as we all flailed our way to discover how to get these monsters done. I am particularly proud of the cave painting sequence I storyboarded which dealt with difficult issues of loss and forgiveness in a family movie without terrifying the kids in the audience. The big challenge was to Continue reading

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Danielle Powers

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Danielle Powers and most recently I’ve worked on a freelance project doing visual development and before that I worked at Nickelodeon as a texture artist apprentice.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Nothing too crazy. I’ve worked at Taco Bell, Albertson’s, and my college library to name a few.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
The Penguins of Madagascar was my favorite project to work on. I was on the show for nearly a year and I’m proud to say I was a part of it and I worked on it from the very beginning, before there was even an art director. I painted A LOT of textures for the character’s habitats which were used in the pilot episode and I see them show up in many current episodes and even Penguins toys at Toys R Us.

 

How did you become interested in animation?
When I was five, the Little Mermaid had just been released and I was obsessed with it. I remember bringing the video tape to kindergarten to watch in class and feeling very proud that I was the first kid to own the video. As a kid I was always drawing characters from animated movies and shows and making up my own stories and characters. In junior high I had the opportunity to Continue reading

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List of Apple Product Event Highlights

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Since so many artists use Apple hardware and software, I thought you might all like to see a list of the updates and new things Apple announced at their event yesterday. You can watch the entire thing via this link as well.

  • Apple Watch:
  • Adding Facebook Messenger.
  • iTranslate — speak into the mic and hear translations in over 90 languages.
  • Physician app AirStrip can monitor vitals.
  • New band options, two new finishes gold and rose gold.
  • Watch OS 2 comes out September 16.
  • iPad:
  • iPad Pro announced: Screen is 12.9 inches, 5.6m pixels, A9X chip, with 2x memory bandwidth, storage and graphics performance, 10-hour battery life, 8MP camera, 802.11ac with MIMO, 150Mbps LTE modem, TouchID, 6.9mm thick and 1.57 pounds.
  • Smart Keyboard connects magnetically.
  • The Apple Pencil stylus: “Highly responsive sensors built into the tip of Apple Pencil sensor pressure, tilt, and stroke.”
  • Corporate VP from MS Office, Kirk Koenigsbauer talks Microsoft Office for iPad.
  • New suite of Adobe apps.
  • Apple Pencil is $99 and Smart Keyboard is $169, all available in November.
  • New iPad mini 4 $399.
  • Apple TV:
  • New remote with glass touch surface. 10mm tall, A8 chip, Bluetooth 4.0. Built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, 3 months per charge, charges over lightning. 32GB for $149, 64GB for $199.
  • iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Showtime are searchable.
  • New cleaner looking UI with Siri integration.
  • New OS: TV OS.
  • new games and game collections for the family, using your iPhone or iPod Touch as a controller.
  • MLB app, NHL Game Center live in 2016.
  • tvOS developer beta available today, available to consumers in late October.
  • iPhone:
  • iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, Silver, gold, space grey, and new Rose Gold. 4.7-inch 6S and 5.5-inch 6S+.
  • 3rd-generation A9 chip 70% faster CPU than A8, 90% faster GPU than A8.
  • New pressure-sensitive 3D Touch.
  • New Taptic Engine
  • New Siri feature allows you to speak to your iPhone whether you’re powered on or not.
  • New 12 megapixel iSight camera. 50% more pixels and 50% more focus pixels for faster autofocus.
  • 4K video
  • 5MP FaceTime HD Camera.
  • Retina Flash, display can light up 3X brighter than usual to be a flash for the front-facing camera.
  • Live Photos: Press with 3D Touch and pictures will move.
  • iPhone 6 $199-$399, iPhone 6 Plus $299-$499 all on two-year contracts.
  • New iPhone Upgrade Program for a new iPhone every year, choose your carrier, unlocked phones, 24-month installment plan starting at $32/month.
  • preorder Saturday, Sept 12. Available September 25th.
  • iOS 9 available September 16th.
  • New iCloud storage pricing: 50GB for 99 cents a month, 200GB for $2.99/mo, 1TB for $9.99/mo.
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Apple releases the iPad Pro

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Apple releases the iPad Pro

by Mike Milo

So Apple finally did it. They released an optional pen with their new iPad Pro which is odd considering that legendary Apple CEO Steve Jobs jokingly expressed his animosity towards styluses in general. “Yuck, who needs a stylus,” he claimed. Another thing he said was “If you need a stylus you’ve already failed.”

And yet with the success of the Surface Pro line from Microsoft it would seem Apple is eating it’s words. And I think they’ve failed to tell the truth.

Dubbed the “Apple Pencil”  it’s a rechargeable stylus exclusively for the 12.9” iPad tablet. Despite the name, it remains to be seen whether this is going to be a killer device for ‘pros’ since it’s running iOS9 and not OSX which was rumored.

I can tell you that the all-white stylus felt light in the hand when I used it to scribble in Notes and draw on a picture in Apple’s native Mail app. It also felt fast, unlike some styluses that suffer from latency issues. But again, I didn’t use it for an extended period of time. As with Microsoft’s Surface Pro stylus, you can use it with certain applications, but not all applications. Other developers that will fully support the Apple Pencil are Microsoft’s Office suite, as well as a few of Adobe’s iPad-tailored apps that will be exclusively available on the iPad Pro and will ship in November.

That quote above which is from The Verge says all I need to hear: you can use it with certain applications, but not all applications, which basically makes it a very expensive hobbyist toy as  you’ll never run a serious animation or 3d program off of it which is silly considering the price.

Another thing they did wrong in my opinion is that you need to charge the pen. That’s as lame as it gets as far as I’m concerned and in many ways a deal breaker. It’s one thing if it charged inside the tablet but it doesn’t. Instead, it has an embedded Lightning connector that allows you to directly connect it to the iPad Pro and charge it which tells me you can’t keep the iPad plugged in AND charge the pen at the same time. Why? You know as well as I do that that damn thing is always gonna be dead when you pick it up to doodle on a whim. I guess it’s better than creating some stupid proprietary Apple charging connector just for the Pencil so I’ll give them that.

The iPad Pro will ship in November and starts at $799 for a 32GB device. For one with 128GB of storage, you’re looking at $1,079. It will be available in silver, gold and space grey. The Apple Pencil will cost you $99

 

 

 

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Chuck Grieb

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Chuck Grieb; currently I am a tenured Associate Professor and head of the Entertainment Art/Animation concentration at California State University, Fullerton.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
As a young college student I worked a slew of unusual and sometimes interesting jobs. One summer I spent as an Asbestos Remover. Another summer I spent working two jobs at once(75 hours a week), one as a Peer Tutor helping Learning Disabled students in a College Prep program, the other as an “Egg Cook” in a Perkins Diner. I spent a day working in a trash sorting facility and 4 weeks on an assembly line waterproofing nuts and bolts for the Navy. I also painted houses, delivered pizzas, waited tables, worked as an Assistant Theater Manager, as a Sound Mixer for live shows, photo tech, and various others.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? 
Hmmm, tough question. I am particularly proud of the work on Genie’s Great Minds, a project I worked on when I was a part of the Special Projects Department at Walt Disney TV Animation under the direction of Gary Katona. The Larry Boy show I worked on at Cornerstone Animation had a very challenging schedule, but was a very fun, if intense, work experience. My wife and I storyboarded an episode of Continue reading

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Apple iPad Pro with a stylus this Fall?

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Apple Insider is reporting that Apple may finally be unveiling an iPad with a stylus.  Apparently the device will be called the iPad Pro and is currently being beta tested as we speak. This is not the first time we’ve heard this rumor but recently Apple filed for a new patent concerning a stylus and that seems to have renewed excitement for a stylus enabled Apple device.

From the site:

AppleInsider’s own sources have indicated that the company is working on a 12.9-inch tablet, known colloquially as an “iPad Pro,” that will feature a Bluetooth-connected stylus. Separately, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities has said that Apple plans to launch the larger iPad with a simple stylus this year, while more advanced features such as 3D handwriting, are unlikely to arrive until next year at the earliest, with a new and more advanced stylus.

All that said the article goes on to say:

This week’s patent application is far from the first filing by Apple revealing the company’s behind-the-scenes interest in developing a stylus. One concept detailed by AppleInsider last year included anextendable multitouch nib with onboard light and motion sensors, while another stylus patent published earlier this year described once again how a stylus can offer more precise input than a fingertip.

You can read the entire article here.