Happy New 2023!

 Animatededucated surpassed the 1,000 subscribers, but still needs to obtain 1500 or more Watch Hours in order for YouTube to start monetizing to pay a fee for my content. Not sure when that might be, but so far we are up to 1039 subscribers and people seem to be enjoying what I am posting.

Here's a short for the New Year if you like playing the guitar...

Here is an episode about Ray Patin, a Disney animator who went on to have his own animation studio and created many animated commercials back in the early 60s. You can see a pencil test from a Donald Duck cartoon called Sea Scouts as well as some rare home movies he shot during his days at the Disney studio during Snow White. He also shot some footage during the Disney Strike from 1941. 

I have several interviews which are in the works, the next one you will meet 2d Animation artist Tina Nawrocki. 

Tina brought her 1930's rubber hose character style to the Cuphead videogame and loves animating on paper! She will tell you all about her Archery on Horseback riding and how she made the switch to animation.

I also will be talking to Tony White about his new Animation book for students.

Lots of new things in the New Year and if you liked what you see, please subscribe to the Animateducated YouTube channel to show your support!

Happy New 2023 to you!

Hasani Walker: Stop Motion Artist

 Here is an interview with Hasani Walker, a very talented artist, designer, stop motion artist who's work can be seen in the upcoming Guillermo Del Toro's "Pinocchio" on Netflix. 

Orginally from Phoenix, Arizona, Hasani moved to Portland to work at Liaka on "Missing Link" where he made contacts and was eventually hired onto "Pinocchio". 

Please enjoy his Animateducated interview below and subscribe if you like what you see.

Thanks for watching!!!

Halloween 2022 episode

"Dark Fantasy" was a radio suspense show which premiered this episode on Friday the 13th as their 13th episode called "W is for Werewolf". 

The story follows Jim who visits his old friend Bill to discover there some odd things happening on Bill's island home. I won't spoil the story, but you will need to take a drink everytime you hear "Jim" or see the name.

I am currently working on a rough animatic of this radio show, which I will be included in this year's Halloween episode. I have edited down the 24 minute to a shorter version of 15 minutes. Here the final rough animatic of "W is for Werewolf"!

If you have any requests, please let me know in the comments below or go to the Community section on the Animateducated YouTube channel.

A very hot week

You know it must be bad when I start posting weather conditions. Usually, the last bit of August and the beginning bits of September decide to end Summer as hot as possible. So here is Burbank, we are hit with a heat wave of about a week of 100,103 and even 107 degrees of heat.

The Animateducated YouTube channel is slowly chugging closer and closer to 1,000 subscribers and half way to the 4000 watch hours required to get annoying, but paying ads to the channel. Really not sure what to expect when we get there, but I do need to post some more videos.

Working on some ideas where I would document making a short animation which I posted here. I have a sound recording outtake from an episode of "Thundercats" which I have always wanted to add animation to. So here I am introducing you to my plans below.

I have discovered that I am currently teaching 8 animation classes this semester and so far, I'm keeping everything juggling along. I only have one in person on campus class teaching animation principles and the rest are all online. Its a full schedule for sure, but I have managed to have Saturday and Sundays, so I can't complain. 

This summer, we planted tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, corn and luffa. We discovered a few surprises like a large bush of cherry tomatoes seen above looking quite confused and angry. We also got several vines of butternut squash and one cantaloupe.

The tunnel of corn...

Here's my Scare Crow...

Have been enjoying the corn, cucumbers and tomatoes, but curious about those hanging Luffa plants. Once they grow larger and dry out, you can peel off the dry skins to reveal Loofah bath sponges! 

And you thought they only grew in the ocean...

Animateducated channel gaining!

The Animateducated YouTube channel is actually getting some viewers and audience participation! It actually looks like it might even obtain more than 1000 subscribers before 2022 ends. Here are a few things I have been posting lately that you may have missed...

An animation student of mine at CSUF recently completed her student film and we talked about the process.

You can see "Fester" by clicking this link...

That is one of the benefits of teaching, to see a student's work when it first started, how it evolves and is finally finished. Not every student can get to the completion stage, because its a lot of work and commitment.

Here are a collection of Animation Production projects where students had to come up with in my Animation Pre-Production class. Each student came up with an idea for a short animated film with a story, character(s), storyboard and animatic. The next semester, they had 16 weeks to make their animatic into a finished film.

16 weeks to make a 1 or 2 minute animated film can be done, but only if you have a figured out a solid work schedule and enough time to do it. Many students have take a lot more studio classes with other class projects which take more time and energy to do.

During Covid, students were under stress even more with the new way of life or stay at home, avoiding social situations and then having to use their own equipment to make their film. Most could not return to Campus, away from the Wacom Cintiqs and other software.

After taking the Animation Production class, sometimes that rough animatic turns into a colorful animatic instead of a completed film. I have been trying to figure out a solution to avoid this situation. I think if the student can manage to get the beginning or perhaps some sequence of their film into a final state of production, it would show an audience what the final product will look like when it is completed. Having this final production is a rough film, might even help the student continue to finish what they started after the class is over.

The worse case is when I see a student who has really great idea, but only wants to do enough work to get an "A". 

Grades are only a temporary carrot dangling for a limited time in front of a near sighted horse. 

Making a film is not about getting a good grade! Its about coming up with something you want to see, work on  and learn from the experience. And when its done, people can see it and appreciate. Enter it into film festivals, on YouTube, put it on your website. People who see it might hire you or introduce you to others and hopefully you will continue the process. It might take years, but you made something that nobody else did, something you cared about to create. And when you hear an audience reacting to your film or if someone has seen your work, that's very satisfying.  

Disney Multiplane Camera

Disney's Multiplane camera was invented by UB Iwerks, the same man responsible for design and animating the first Mickey Mouse cartoons. Here is a copy of the actual patent approved April 23, 1940.

The Multiplane camera was first used on Snow White and a short called "The Old Mill". It was used to bring depth to various scenes to get dimension to the animation and required several camera operators to shoot the complex scene.

There were only 3 multiplane cameras invented and used by the Disney studios. Here is a video with Walt Disney explaining the process and several clips of various animation scenes filmed with the Multiplane camera.

If you enjoyed this video, please visit Animateducated on YouTube to leave a comment or subscribe to the channel. 

Vlasic Pickle commercials

You've might have heard that women have odd cravings during their pregnancy? I've heard someone wanting pickles and ice cream, but again I believe it was a very clever advertising campaign by some company that either sold pickles, ice cream or both.

Here are a few commercials selling Vlasic pickles and that idea. These were animated in very limited animation style, before Vlasic created their Stork character who sounded a lot like Groucho Marx.

Well there you have it... How to sell more Pickles. 

IT's SUMMER!

Summer is here! I am still teaching animation online several times a week, but only in 1 hour segments. I always try to do all the things I haven't managed to do during the Fall and Spring  semesters during the Summer and currently making a list of possibilities.

The Animateducated YouTube channel is going pretty good with 827 subscribers at last count and only 173 subscribers to go until we reach 1,000 subscribers. I'm working on more interviews and trying out live streaming event where I will demo something I have learned which animation viewers might be interested in.

Recently, I have been watching the Prehistoric Planet with David Attenborough and amazed how good the CG dinosaurs are blended into the live action backgrounds. It really feeling like you are watching a natural documentary with real dinosaurs as the characters. If you haven't seen it yet, here's a preview from Apple TV.

I recently discovered that someone filed a complaint on two of my videos posted on Animateducated. YouTube removed both videos and gave me my first copyright strike where I had to attend copyright school before I could open my channel to see what to do next.

I contacted the person who filed the complaint and informed them since the video was not flagged 2 months ago, I thought everything was a ok. I did a re-editing for my interview with Lee Crowe, taking out the 10 second copyrighted animation clip and reposting the video back to my channel.

Students need to make sure they understand what copyright is and how not to break the copyright laws. 

An Animation Hour

You are invited to an Animation Hour (or less) with me(Jim) in a Zoom meeting situation to try out this new live streaming Animateducated event. I would like to show some animation, talk about animation or possibly animate something! 

Mike Jittlov as the "Wizard"

Not sure what to expect really, but if you would like to attend its happening this;

 This Friday, May 20th @ 7pm PST

Click here to register for free, no hidden costs or fees, just stop by and say hello...

https://form.jotform.com/211646955818164

I will send everyone who registers a Zoom invite to join the 1 hour or less Animateducated event.

Hope to see you there!

Thanks,

Jim

Flip books by Flipboku

Every kid who is now an adult, either still interested in animation or are a working professionally started off by making a flip book one time or another. You may have been the bored kid in math class who would scribbled drawings in the corner of the thick math book. Or you might have made some animated epic using a small note pad of paper or index cards clipped together. Either way, you remember the fun in making your drawings move around by simply flipping through the pages rapidly to see the drawings suddenly come to life.

Meet Raul Garcia, as a young boy going up in Spain, Raul did all of the above and recently created a very unique 6 in one animated flip book made by Flipboku. Please enjoy the interview below and share it with your flip book friends.

Hope you enjoyed this interview, and you did, kindly leave a comment below!

Happy Birthday Eadweard!

Being dead and 192nd years old doesn't keep this departed soul down. Please enjoy this amazing Birthday interview with Eadweard Muybridge...

So this should be enough for anyone to show their support for this blog. 

Watch This Wednesday!

 Every Wednesday I will post something on Animateducated in the hopes to finally surpass 1000 subscribers. Please join me and share this with a friend or two or 300.

Disney Family Album

Spring has sprung or its just around the corner and I have several DVD collections that Bill Matthews gave to me before he passed away. There are a lot of animated classics and shorts which I am starting to post on my YouTube channel, Animateducated.

Among these are "The Disney Family album" hosted by Buddy Epson, with several episodes about the Disney animators, known as "The 9 Old Men" nicknamed by Walt Disney when they were all very young men.

I will post the episodes here as I process them, here are two about Eric Larson and Marc Davis. Enjoy!

Bill Matthews Animation Educator

I first met Bill Matthews when he gave a tour of the Disney Studios to a group of student filmmakers involved in the Student Film Awards. Many years later, I got to know and work with him at Woodbury University where he was teaching an intro to animation class.

Before he passed away at the beginning of 2022 at the age of 94, he gave me a box full of DVDs which he had used as part of his lecture series for new talent at Disney. I have found a way transfer the videos to my Animateducated YouTube channel to help share his collection to other interesteand helped educate a lot of students interested in learning animation.

I will be posting them there, but for now here are a few clips of Bill's work at NASA's JPL in Pasadena, several animated cameos in various Disney films and an educational film from JPL which Bill created the animated segments.

Here's one of those animation shorts that Bill collected from a short film by Prudential Insurance called "The Lion and the Mouse." 

Well now that you know more about Life Insurance, why not show your appreciation and support this blog.

Thank You.

Animation Assistant, Lucie Julliat

At a young age, Lucie Julliat enjoyed drawing and playing percussion. She attended Emile Cohl School in Lyon, France where she made an animated film called "Percussions" about a Chef who wants to dance, but is stuck working in the kitchen.

Her big break came when she was hired as an assistant animator on "Klaus" and she has been working ever since. I sat down with Lucie to find out what an Assistant Animator does and how 2D animation production is being done now.

The Animator still creates the Key Poses and makes timing charts which the Assistant Animator or Inbetweener will complete, however on some productions, the Animation Assistant could do the in-between drawings as well as the final clean up drawings and on other productions each task would be done by more than one person.

Learn more in this interview below...

Here are some recent samples of Lucie's work including Space Jam: A New Legacy...

SJ2_LucieJulliat-AssistantAnimatorReel.mp4 from Lucie Julliat on Vimeo.

From Klaus...

Klaus-CleanUpReel-LJulliat from Lucie Julliat on Vimeo.

Its nice to know that 2D animation is still being done. 

Thanks for Watching!

First interview of 2022

Happy New 2022 and to start the new year off right, here is a brand new interview with UK Stand Up comedian, Alasdair Beckett-King who is also into animation and visual effects. Enjoy!

I contacted Alasdair after discovering his YouTube channel and he was kind enough to talk about his short films and set me straight on who or what is Mr. Blobby.

Check out more of ABK's work on his YouTube channel... click image to learn more.

And so, You could go and Subscribe to the Animateducated channel, which would be even better.

Happy New Year Everybody!

Jim

The Tiger Rising

Our story begins in March 2020, at the very beginning of the Covid pandemic, when people started wearing face masks and hoarding mass quantities of toilet paper. I was working as a part-time driving instructor at my local AAA when I received an email asking if I would be available to do some freelance 2D animation work.

Fred Raimondi, the project's visual effects supervisor, described that he needed a scene involving a live action boy drawing a tiger on a piece of paper. Fred wanted the tiger to then come to life and interact with the boy's pencil like a playful kitten. He also described another scene he needed in which the boy is holding the tiger drawing and it comes to life again.

The story, "The Tiger Rising," is by Kate DiCamillo who wrote "Because of Winn Dixie" in 2005 and "The Tale of Despereaux" in 2008. 

I worked out a budget and figured out how I would be able to do this job and still teach animation and keep my AAA job. Then things kind of worked out when AAA closed down the driving school for a few months due to Covid and I had extra time to work on animating the tiger.

It was only later, after I finished the animation, that I found out it was for a feature film starring Queen Latifah and Dennis Quaid. I also wondered if this film would ever be shown in theaters.  

So I'm very happy to report that "The Tiger Rising" will be released on January 21, 2022. I have also received a title credit as the entire "Animation Department" on IMDB which I am quite happy with as well.

Here are the two scenes that should be somewhere in the feature film...

Please let me know what you think of the film. 

Happy New Year!