CONNECTING THE WORLD With the development of new products and regions, Toon Boom has made it a priority to emphasize the use of paperless pipelines and to act as a responsible corporate citizen globally.
JUNE 2007
toonboom.com
Connecting the world. With the development of new products and regions, Toon Boom has made it a priority to emphasize the use of paperless pipelines and to act as a responsible corporate citizen globally. Already an advocate of digital processes since the launch of Toon Boom Studio and Toon Boom Harmony, Toon Boom has pushed the green envelope further. Toon Boom Storyboard Pro enables users to do away with paper completely, from the early stages of pre-production up to the final render of their project. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
With its consistent outreach to emerging markets, Toon Boom has managed to foster the creation of animation studios that ultimately founded the base of a large and successful industry. A perfect example is India which is recognized today not only as a service provider and co-production partner internationally, but also as a producer of high-quality content for the domestic and foreign markets. The outstanding success of Hanuman and more recently of the four-part TV feature on Krishna, which is one of the top three shows of 2007 across all Cartoon Network channels certainly testify to that. Toon Boom wishes to duplicate this accomplishment in the Caribbean and in Africa where it is set to provide training and workshops throughout May, June and July. The team will be deployed on several assignments in Trinidad and Ghana, Kenya and South Africa. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
From left to right: Pierre Ravary, Francisco Del Cueto, Jean-Raymond Lemieux,
In May, Toon Boom was extremely proud to congratulate three employees on ten years of service. Pierre Ravary, Chief Financial Officer, Francisco Del Cueto, Chief Technology Officer and Jean-Raymond Lemieux, Director, Training and Support, were applauded for their valuable contributions to the success of the company and received a personalized trophy to commemorate this remarkable milestone.
Upcoming events Just like the summer season, the calendar of upcoming events is hot and includes MIFA, Booth 2.01, in Annecy (June 13-15), InfoComm, Booth 11001, in Anaheim (June 19-21), National Education Computing Conference in Atlanta (June 24 to 27), Animamundi in Rio de Janeiro (June 29-July 8), and SIGGRAPH, Booth 1724 in San Diego (August 7-9). MIFA 2007 will be exciting as, in addition to being an exhibitor, Toon Boom is a partner of the 11th edition of the International Project Competition, providing free storyboarding and animation workshops on the stage of the Imperial Palace exhibition area. There will also be a collaboration with Trois Fois Plus in the production of a documentary on animation production for ARTE that will be based on the creation of an animated exquisite corpse using Toon Boom Studio. See you there!
THIS ISSUE’S COVER courtesy
of Xilam
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Understanding the value of a paperless workflow As content creators constantly push the limits of their imagination, animation technology has to deliver greater flexibility and creative control while remaining transparent throughout the process. New animation styles have emerged not only to meet the market requirements for high-volume, low-cost productions, but also to create cost-effective quality programming.
TOONBOOMSTAR We introduce you to the people behind the technology and put a face to the voice you may have spoken to.
Sebastien Miglio joined Toon Boom Animation in 2006, as Product Manager in charge of the industrial product line. He is responsible for product feasibility studies, functional specification development and adoption, resource planning and monitoring, product positioning and description, document creation for sales and marketing as well as internal team training. Before joining Toon Boom, Sebastien worked as Project Manager at TVPaint Développement in his native France for eight years and at Newtek, Texas for one year. His path to Toon Boom was paved with successful European career steps as a video engineer for Auvitech, RTL9 and Sony. This extensive experience has allowed Sebastien to acquire a thorough understanding of the technical and commercial requirements for animation technology development. Sebastien decided to move to Quebec early 2006 with his family: his wife Valérie, and their three children: Marine, 12, Romain, 10, and Clément, 3. The family has rapidly integrated the Greater Montreal way of life and enjoys outdoor activities during all seasons. All of them share a passion for animation and theme parks, which guarantees great fun in the Miglio’s home!
Building on its profound understanding of animation production of all styles, Toon Boom has developed professional tools that can handle traditional, paperless and cutout animation production using one single package digitally. Toon Boom’s products can deliver from the simplest to the most detailed animation - the sky is the limit. Whether the animation technique relies on frame-by-frame, reuse-based or a combination of the two, independent animators and studios of any size can experience the difference of working paperless and appreciate the convenience of an integrated workflow. Besides, taking the digital leap has never made so much sense in this era that encourages more environmentally conscious behaviour. With the possibility of doing away with paper completely, Toon Boom’s workflow enables users to keep uniformity and consistency, facilitate effective communication between the team members, and deliver projects within budget and schedule. Choosing to work digitally from the storyboarding stage translates into significant savings in terms of scanning time and paper costs. Working within one integrated workflow enables users to go back and forth during the production process and apply modifications easily anytime, thanks to interconnected tools and features.
Let’s take a closer look at the paperless workflow: • Incorporate the script • Design the characters, props and locations using natural looking brushes • Create the storyboard • Import soundtracks with dialogues to proceed with sound breakdown and animate the mouths and expressions • Generate the animatic to validate the flow and consistency of the storyline • Draw the layout and character poses to fine tune the animation • Create colour palettes and models to speed up the ink and paint process • Import dialogue to animate using sound scrubbing and automated lip-sync detection features • Create the rough animation, the in-betweens and clean up the drawings • Ink the lines and fill all the colours on all the drawings • Proceed with compositing applying camera moves and special effects • Render to proceed with post-production
Paperless
workflow.
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Image courtesy of Jeskid Productions
CASE STUDY
Drawn by pain, driven by passion Originally from Manhattan, Jesse Cowell came to Los Angeles where he enrolled in the University of Southern California’s revered Cinema School. After earning his Master of Fine Arts degree in Cinema/Television Production, winning several cine Eagle awards as well as a student Emmy, Jesse then formed Jeskid Productions.
His first production was the highly irreverent comedy Shades of Gray, which he launched completely online in 2005. By releasing his feature to the web, Jesse not only began to build a significant fan base, but was also awarded the audience choice for Best Director's site on the web by Movies.com! Shortly thereafter Shades of Gray jumped onto the big screen as it was awarded Best Comedy Feature Film at the Microcinema Fest in Chicago. Around this time, Erica Langworthy, an online fan of Jesse’s work and graduate from the Columbus College of Art and Design in Ohio (with a BFA in Time Based Media), sent her portfolio to Jesse who really loved her anime style of drawing. The encounter of these two great creative minds could not have happened at a better time, as Jesse was immediately convinced she would be involved in his next project, Drawn by Pain. Drawn by Pain tells the story of Emily Waters, an eight-year old girl who witnessed her father’s brutality of her mother and as a result, an evergrowing rage within her manifested into the real world with vengeful anime characters. Fusing animation with live action, Emily (now a grown woman) slices an animated sword through all that stands before her as she struggles to deal with her real life, inner (and outer) demons and the person she fears the most: herself! Drawn by Pain is a 12-part series shot on the streets of New York using a state of the art high definition camera. Teaming up with cutting edge animator Erica Langworthy and blossoming actress Marissa Parness, Jesse has made a film of psychological intensity and action that unfolds one
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layer at a time for the short-form hungry web audience. With each episode averaging just ten minutes, “I think people will be pleased with where the story takes them and I really believe they are ready for something new and different” says Jesse. In what would be massive undertakings for even a large full-time team, both Jesse and Erica have day jobs which force them to spend every waking moment of their free time to bring each new episode of Drawn by Pain to life. “It isn’t work if you enjoy it” laughs Jesse who controls the casting, scripting, shooting, directing and editing aspects of the project while Erica uses Toon Boom Studio to create about two intense minutes of animation in each episode. Erica explains, “I am a huge Anime and video game fan, Jesse Cowell
Erica is definitely on the same wavelength. Her utter commitment from day one has translated into innovative design and greater intensity. “I remember Professor Ron Saks at C.C.A.D. explaining the importance of the ability to draw, and the understanding of motion and timing relying on 2D techniques. I certainly put his advice into practice in every episode that I work on. Toon Boom Studio offers great tools that support these principles: the multiple onion-skinning levels make the drawing so much easier, the short cut interface speed up the creation process, the paint tools make the total experience so efficient. I also find the ease with which you can program macros into the program to be wonderful. Speed is very important as I draw each
Image courtesy of Jeskid Productions
which inspires me greatly in the creation of my characters. Being trained as a traditional animator, it was great to go from pencil and paper to a completely paperless workflow. Jesse shoots digitally, edits the film, then exports the shots as numbered sequences in JPEG format. I then draw directly into the frames using the Wacom Cintiq pressure sensitive tablet screen and Toon Boom Studio’s intuitive interface. When a shot is done, the way Studio exports alpha channels in full resolution, but small file sizes, makes it easy for Jesse to receive the files electronically for comments and implementation. With limited time and tight deadlines, we can honestly say that combining Studio with the Cintiq saved the project. It works so quickly and efficiently.” Jesse continues, “The hardest thing was figuring out if this could work at all on a tiny budget, but thanks to affordable tools like Toon Boom Studio, new workflows, and an open form of distribution, a whole new world of professional filmmaking has opened to people with the dedication to try and make it happen. But nowadays, you can’t just make the film and wait for people to come to you. At least 40 percent of my time goes into spreading the word and increasing viewership through various channels on the web, including our site, which has near high definition streaming quality. We currently are featured in the ITUNES store as “What’s Hot”, reviewed very favorable by BRIGHTThe plan is simple. We want to work our hardest to make something people enjoy and hopefully reach millions instead of thousands. COVE, spotlighted on VEOH, and have between 10,000 to
20,000 people coming to watch each episode on YouTube, many of which go beyond the typical idea of fan. They help promote the film in chat rooms, comic conventions by handing out business cards, and even by donating to help buy the high definition camera itself! I myself walk around with my iPod trying to get people excited about working on and sharing the project. Nothing says you believe in what you are doing more than having it ready to show at all times! The plan is simple. We want to work our hardest to make something people enjoy and hopefully reach Erica Langworthy millions instead of thousands. With that kind of exposure and advertising dollar, the goal isn’t to get rich, just have more resources to make more films. Erica and I are investing so much personally to make this project happen, we have to have faith that only positive things will come out of giving everything we have to Drawn by Pain.“
and every frame differently to give that particular character the living sketch look that ties them directly into the idea of jumping straight off the little girl’s drawings. It’s a lot of work, but worth every frame if it helps the film.“ Jesse adds: “Erica is getting faster at execution. She can design her own characters and animate them in less time by maximizing and learning new Toon Boom Studio tools as we go. Nothing replaces good habits though. When faced with a new challenge like the wolf we have in Episode 5, she went and researched the anatomy and body structure of the animal for hours on end to make sure she could create a realistic animal. The end result must be believable; this is where the true art of animation comes into play.“ With all twelve episodes already shot, Jesse premiered his first episode in February 2007 and has released a new episode every three weeks (just enough time for Erica to create the animation component) since. With a bit more blood, sweat and tears, they race towards an exciting conclusion in episode 12 and whatever other projects they can sink their teeth into next. “I just hope we can give people the gift of movies I got as a child and hopefully bring them back to where I feel they should be: full of heart, risk and creativity.” says Jesse as he shuffles back to work on episode 6. Drawn by Pain can be seen at http://www.drawnbypain.com
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CASE STUDY
Enjoying creative freedom Introduced to the potential of animation as fine art at the tender age of six by Katsuhiro Otomo’s directorial masterpiece Akira, Justin “Denny” Furlong quickly became enthralled by motion picture as a science and animation as an art. Within 20 minutes of the film’s resolution, Denny’s first flipbook was complete, thus beginning an exacting path of self-discipline which continues to this day. Image courtesy of Justin “Denny” Furlong
“From an end-user perspective I find myself increasingly disappointed and bored with the status quo. I watch animated films as both a consumer and provider and I must say, I fear for the future. There is not enough heart in the work, not enough employment for the trained and not enough interest from the consumer. I see a dying trend leading to renaissance and when it comes, Toon Boom Animation will be the forerunner in production software. The Emmy stands for something, not just quality, but change, progress, and hope.” “Solo holds a special place in my heart, and an even more special one in my pocketbook,” says Denny. “Looking back, the savings I’ve experienced in the past year of using Solo have well compensated for the original cost… the price of Solo was about equal to the cost of utensils in a single year… I love traditional animation, and I will fondly remember paper, but with the quantum leaps made by Toon Boom Animation and integration with a Wacom pen tablet, paper is obsolete and erasure struggles are a thing of the past.” When questioned, Denny replied, “I employ Solo based not only on cost effectiveness, but ease of use and, most importantly, the time savings involved. When I saw the morphing demonstration video, I immediately purchased the program. When I opened it up, I was overwhelmed, I will admit. When I read the manual, I became informal tech support. Now I can start from scratch, build materials, animate, adjust lip synchronization, build special effects libraries, render, and distribute in a friendly format without leaving Solo. I can import backgrounds and place them in frame, create every facet of character animation, and complete a project without noticing the virtual environment; it’s like a different world within my home.” “What advice do I have for other animation artists? I will tell you now that I was not disappointed by my purchase. I can create my visions from start to finish without touching a physical piece of paper. I have the liberty to change my mind and improve expression as genius comes. I have the power to create worlds and manipulate them at will. Is it right for everyone, no, but if you are willing to embrace new technology, new methods, new idealism and gain from the experience, Toon Boom Solo is the only path I have found to be truly comfortable working with a computer to create art. Am I to be trusted by my word alone? No, I encourage you all to find this euphoria yourself. Download the trial, embrace new possibilities, and share the wealth of knowledge acquired by experience. If I have any advice for the next generation of creative society, defy convention and create what is truly amazing. This tool will help along your path. Embrace the future.”
With only a pen in his hand and a general knowledge of the trade, Denny developed the ability to realize his visions, first in still imagery, then in motion. With dedication his only teacher and practice his only method, Denny hopes in the coming months to open himself to freelance work, based solely upon reputation, in the Los Angeles suburb of Valencia, CA. When asked about this approach, he responded “Of the muse and the mimic, sharing equal ability, the muse shall always prevail, you see, for the power of inspiration drawn from passion outweighs the power of passion drawn from inspiration.” Denny, as an artist, holds true only to his own will. Based on the pride of the devoted idealist, his work spans all genres. “I prefer to create short films due to their power of influence without dilution. Often my creations are silent because the power of words is also that of distraction. My projects, all children, are based on life, not necessarily of the visible plane, but that of deeper understanding.” In his current project Minuit dans la Vallée de Mort he hopes to display for the world “the blind sight bestowed on honesty carried from host to host.” This short film takes place in a post apocalyptic Paris, France and is set to manifest entirely in Toon Boom Solo. With experience in both the ever popular 3D animation techniques and the time-honored traditional animation methods, Denny says “I have found my place with Toon Boom Solo.” Now focusing his talents on traditional animated storytelling, with good reason, he assures us, Denny feels “more like a friend than a customer” and compares his experiences in the past by saying “I have learned Autodesk Maya, Macromedia Flash, Adobe After Effects, and Maxon Cinema 4D… they all pale in comparison to Solo. I could not be happier with the company and their product; I have no reason to go back to any other program.”
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Based in London, UK, Matthew Ingram started out as a runner at Ridley Scott Associates in the early nineties, but soon found his hobby of drawing comics mutate into a profitable gig providing daft concept boards for advertising agencies. Fanatically devoted to his hobbies, Matthew has recently launched the world's first video-stream Music Blog at www.woebot.tv, but he has also found time to work for clients such as MTV, Channel 4, Zombie Fleasheaters, Kiss, five and the Discovery Channel. For his woebot.tv project, he wrote the script, researched the music, edited it together from samples and recorded vocals. Given that he only had limited time to realize the five minute film in his work schedule he drew up, he needed to work quickly in Toon Boom Studio to complete the drawings. “The animation couldn’t be fussy or overly involved, it just had to carry the script. Fortunately, the Toon Boom Studio workflow is incredibly streamlined, there’s no leaping between other application modules,” he explained. ___________________________________________________________________________
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Born in Sri Lanka 1967, Paul Dayan grew up in New Milford, NJ. He graduated in 1990 with a BFA in Illustration and in 1993 with a MFA in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts, NYC. Paul worked in New York, New Jersey, California, and is now living in Reno, Nevada. His roster of companies and clients he worked for include: MTV, Disney Quest - Millennium Rush, Bally Gaming, Sierra Design, Silicon Gaming, Prentice Hall, DC Comics, Lucent, Alex Toys, Pixel Light, and many others. He is independently producing a short film called Courageous Crustacean, combining Toon Boom Studio to create animated content and Flash to add interactivity. “I really like Toon Boom Studio’s tracing feature. It works great with my Wacom Cintiq when I want to skip the scanning process and draw directly in the software,” he explained. “While Flash is a great delivery tool and media player, it lacks the sophistication in tools for the animator. I use it mainly to author and bring the animated elements together, but it’s a horrible production tool and
Image courtesy of Paul Dayan
Image courtesy of Scott Soeder
Scott Soeder is a student, graphic designer and amateur animator living in Louisville, KY. He attends the University of Louisville and also works for the Delphi Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Louisville. Scott enjoys the work because he gets to be creative and the projects are varied. He may be working on a brochure, ad, website, logo, character animation, motion graphics, film edits, or a video shoot in the span of a few weeks. Scott strives to complete work of the highest quality and continues to develop his skills in many areas of art and design. He uses Toon Boom Studio exclusively for character animation. “I have been working on a project called STOMP (Student Tutorial Online Module Program) at the University of Louisville. One of the modules called for the UofL mascot, the Cardinal Bird, to interact with a live action student and environments. Toon Boom Studio was the perfect tool for this. Toon Boom Studio's ability to export a high quality Quicktime movie with alpha channels is a must. We then bring those Quicktime movies into Final Cut Studio. Toon Boom Studio and Final Cut have allowed us to take on a project that otherwise would be out of the question (and budget),” he stated.
Andrew Heaven is a 31-yearold Environmental Engineer in Australia. He is judo-obsessed (maximum efficiency, minimum effort) and has a passion for stories, animation and music. “I can’t believe that an absolute novice, with no art training, no animation training, can become an animator within four months of starting!” he confessed candidly. At the moment, he is trying to do a combination of traditional and cut-out animation. “Toon Boom Studio’s library function makes this a dream! While I grew up with Hanna Barbera cartoons, I love Family Guy, Aardman animations, South Park and the old Ren and Stimpy cartoons!” he continues. Andrew creates animation for the University Wollongong, as part of an online workbook that will be used by people to help deal with negative self-worth issues.
Image courtesy of Andrew Heaven
Image courtesy of Matthew Ingram
CONSUMER NEWS
production for animation can be frustrating. This is where Toon Boom Studio comes in. The toolset is more familiar to the animator and animation capabilities are far superior for creating animated content. This way I get the best of both worlds, with an easy to use set of animation tools, and a high quality flash movie that is film quality,” he concluded.
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Image courtesy of Xilam
INDUSTRIAL NEWS
Xilam is one of Europe’s leading animation companies, committed to creating, producing and distributing top quality content, both 2D and CGI, for TV, film and new platform formats. Established in 1999 by Marc du Pontavice, who took over the Gaumont Multimedia assets and catalogue, the award-winning company operates from an extensive studio in Paris, employing a talented team of over 150 people. The studio is currently working on the production of Go West! A New Adventure of Lucky Luke in 2D -3D, using Toon Boom Opus. Based on Morris and Goscinny comic book La caravane, this production is done in association with Dargaud Marina, Lucky Comics, France 3 Cinéma and with the participation of TPS star. Scheduled for a theatrical release in December 2007, Go West! brings to the big screen Lucky Luke, the living legend of the Wild West, and the notorious Dalton brothers. This 85-minute hilarious adventure will surely deliver great fun to the entire family. “Considering the scope of this project, we worked closely with the team at Toon Boom France and greatly appreciated their assistance in finding sub-contracting studios equipped with Opus and training our internal team and our sub-contractors to bring us all to the level required by the quality of this project. Toon Boom technical support was impeccable, “stated Patrick Malka, Chief Operating Officer at Xilam.
Buddhists while their father works in the country. At that time, the drought was so severe that people were suffering tremendously. Then, the image of His Majesty the King passes across the sky, delivering rain to all. On the birthday of his younger son, the father comes back and tells them about the gift of the royal rain. “We used Toon Boom Solo for this project as we wanted the highest quality in lines, colors and special effects, using tones and highlights to create a rich-looking animation. Solo’s advanced features enabled us to produce what we imagined for My Father's Gift. Our plan is to come up with more world-class animation projects done in Solo that will generate interest from the international animation community,“ shared Surapong Wetsuwanmanee, Studio Manager at Kanya.
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Based in Bangkok, Thailand, Kanya Animation is a company dedicated to producing animated shorts as well as distributing animation supplies for the local market. Truly committed to 2D animation, Kanya aspires to create animation as per international quality standards, especially in 2007 as Thailand’s His Majesty the King will be 80 years old. Several celebrations are underway and Kanya has created a wonderful animation for this occasion, highlighting the great messages delivered by His Majesty the King to the Thai people on love, family values, respect and lifestyle. My Father's Gift is a 5 to 10 minute animated short that tells the story of two motherless brothers who have to stay with
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Image courtesy of Kanya Animation
Images courtesy of Animation X
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The Berlin-based company Animation X, part of the X Filme family was founded in 2004. Stephan Schesch, producer and CEO is currently producing the company’s first animation feature film The Three Robbers. The 75-minute movie is based on the children’s book by Tomi Ungerer, who also lent his voice as the narrator. The theatrical release will be in Germany in October and in France in December 2007. This film is a classical 2D production. All pre- and post-production is carried out in Germany, including the production backgrounds, layouts and compositing. Toon City in the Philippines, a well-known studio in the Toon Boom community, drew the animation on paper, scanned it, coloured and x-sheeted the scenes and sent the material via FTP back to Germany’s first Toon Boom studio, AniMagix Media. The studio has long years of experience working with Animo, but chose Harmony especially for this project as their premier compositing tool, because of workflow efficiencies.
Images courtesy of Eve Productions
Eve Productions, a leading animation studio based in Madagascar, has chosen Toon Boom Harmony to train their in-house team and create its upcoming projects. Eve Productions is currently working on a 2D animation short titled Razana: Esprit d’ancêtre. Two additional productions are in development: Lemuria, quelques gouttes d’éternité, a feature length project, and Nali & Biloo, a 52 episode series targetting 2 to 6 year olds. Located in the heart of Antananarivo, the studio is fully equipped with Macintosh G5 and Wacom tablets. Combining a robust infrastructure with leading-edge animation technology, Eve Productions aims at creating a full animated short every two years, in addition to offering work-for-hire services to the global animation community. Born in Madagascar, Evelyne Monsallier, Studio manager and Director at Eve Productions, wishes to train young Madagascan talent as animators and prepare them for careers using Toon Boom Harmony. She also wants to build a sound local animation industry that would contribute to her country’s economic development. A graduate from the prestigious animation school Emile Cohl in Lyon, France, she is very familiar with Toon Boom products. “I find the interface and workflow very convenient, and most importantly, it enables me to save a lot of time,“ said Evelyne. ___________________________________________________________________________
Octagon CSI Cape Town is the production company behind South Africa’s first entirely home-grown full-length animated series, URBO: The Adventures of Pax Afrika. Octagon is making the switch to Toon Boom Harmony for their new slate of shows currently in development. Supervising producer and director Matthew Brown says, “It’s a no-brainer. Harmony blew us away like Acme rocket skates. With its unified workflow, effortless mechanics, intuitive interface and cool tools, making the switch from Flash to Harmony is one of the easiest decisions our team has ever made. “Animation director Wynand Groenewald says, “On URBO we tried to mimic the pipelines of the big studios, with segregated departments, using custom folder structures and paper-based signoff policies. The problem with using Flash to do it, is that it’s essentially a web tool and we’ve
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Images courtesy of Octagon CSI Cape Town
Operating out of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, SEK, the renowned animation studio, has adopted Toon Boom Harmony to cater its work-for-hire services to the global Toon Boom community. The studio is currently working on the 26 half-hour episode series titled Street Football for Tele Images Kids and De Mas&Partners. Founded in 1957, SEK has a staff of 1,600 artists, including 600 animators, spread over six impressive locations. With an annual capacity of 7,000 minutes, the studio offers a wide array of services ranging from modeling, to storyboarding, layout, animation, scanning, background, inking and painting, compositing and editing. SEK is well implemented in the European animation industry, considering the numerous productions the studio worked on. Examples include feature-length projects such as Corto Maltese, Bécassine, Michel Strogoff, The Legend of Titanic, Madre Theresa and Pinocchio, as well as TV series such as Billy, the Cat, Marcelino Pan y Vino, The investigations of Prudence Petitpas, Tristan and Iseult, Les Malheurs de Sophie, Gladiateurs, Sandokan, and Simba, Roi de Lion, to name a few.
INDUSTRIAL NEWS
voice of famous stand-up comedians. The original French version is almost complete and is starring the renowned comedian Gilles Latulipe. The English version will start soon with a comedian yet to be revealed! ___________________________________________________________________________
Image courtesy of Blind Ferret Entertainment
found that we’re constantly wrestling with the software on simple operations like a basic camera move or pivot points. As soon as we saw Harmony, we knew we were going to be able to step everything up. In our two weeks of training on Harmony, we’ve tripled the speed of our character animation thanks to hierarchical linking and easy animating with I.K., while Glue has made our joint problems a thing of the past. “The 50-strong team, currently the largest dedicated animation studio in Southern Africa, is committed to longterm growth. Executive producer Sean Rogers says, “As a fledgling industry, we're only starting to tap into our potential. I foresee Toon Boom being an essential part of South Africa's development in the global marketplace, especially in training up and empowering young animators.“ ___________________________________________________________________________
Based in Montreal, Canada, Oasis Animation is lead by a dynamic team combining its unique expertise with stateof-the-art digital animation tools. Oasis Animation produces high quality animation content and provides a full range of advanced digital animation services to the TV, motion picture, commercial, mobile and new media industry. With a staff of over 30, the studio is a power user of Toon Boom Harmony and has developed a great expertise with the software. Oasis Animation has produced 104 episodes of 60 seconds of a newscast titled On s’écoute parler which starred François Pérusse’ comic universe and aired on TVA Network. On s’écoute parler was produced on a daily basis: the Oasis team received the script and audio tracks at 7 pm every night and the program was aired the next day at 6:30 pm. “The production of On s’écoute parler was unique given the delays. It required a lot of creativity, spontaneity and a very efficient production workflow. Harmony turned out to be the best tool to deliver quality animation in so little time,” shared Jacques Bilodeau, Chairman of Oasis Animation. The studio is currently working on 6Teen with Elliott Animation for Fresh Animation Inc. A new exciting project targeted for TV, mobile phones and the web is also in the works. The project is called Stand-Up, and consists of a series of 210 short animated jokes of the day using the
Blind Ferret Entertainment, the Montreal-based animation studio breaking ground in the Internet marketplace, has recently adopted Toon Boom Solo as its software of choice. Developing and producing the immensely popular series for Looking For Group, Least I Could Do, Player vs Player and Ctrl+Alt+Del directly to a combined monthly audience of over 6 million unique viewers, the entire staff of Blind Ferret has been thrilled by both the work environment and productivity that Solo offers. “Moving away from Flash and towards Toon Boom Solo was the best decision we made all year in regards to quality, efficiency and cost effectiveness. We’re currently producing television grade 2D animation for the web, at a fraction of the expenditure we were outlaying this same time in 2006. With Solo and our team of talented animators, Blind Ferret can compete confidently throughout the animation industry in any medium,“ stated Ryan Sohmer, Vice President and Creative Director. In addition to online and DVD series, Blind Ferret is currently in development of several network series with broadcasters in the US, Canada and abroad.
Toon Boom Supports Action Against Hunger With the same dedication it has to deliver leading-edge technology to create animated content for children, Toon Boom decided to support Action Against Hunger. For more than 25 years, Action Against Hunger has pursued its vision of a world without hunger, saving lives of malnourished children and families while seeking long-term sustainable solutions to hunger. Action Against Hunger responds to emergencies caused by war, conflict, and natural disasters. Recent humanitarian assistance has aided the worn-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as countries affected by the South East Asian Tsunami, the earthquake in Pakistan, and devastating hurricanes in Haiti. Action Against Hunger is an international, non-governmental, non-religious, non-profit
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organization that was created in Paris in 1979. Since then, the organization has developed within the framework of an interdependent international network, with headquarters in Paris, Madrid, London and New York. The network is proud to have opened its Montreal-based Canadian headquarters in 2005, further strengthening their efforts in fighting global hunger. www.actionagainsthunger.ca
Image courtesy of École Supérieure des Beaux Arts de Montpellier
SCHOOLS ON BOARD
Founded in 1989 by Federico Vitali, the Animation cinema workshop at the École Supérieure des Beaux Arts de Montpellier has always privileged the search and use of new tools by their students to create their projects. In this school inspired by contemporary art, the curriculum favors a more custom and liberated approach depending how experimental the students’ projects are. Started on 16mm film, the workshop rapidly adopted technology, enabling its students to adapt software applications’ capabilities to what they wanted. To date, the program trains them on a wide array of techniques from the second to the fifth year. Students learn and appreciate Toon Boom Studio for its simplicity and ease of use, then go to After Effects or Photoshop. They wrap up their projects with an editing application rendering a DV or HD output. Final projects are usually distributed to artists or to conventional channels such as TV or film.
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Based in Tarzana, California, Actors for Autism is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement, education and training of children on the autistic spectrum. They believe that individuals have a right to live as integrated members of society. By providing training to these individuals, they are helping them to create a brighter future. As part of their curriculum, they offer an animation and claymation course targeted at students from 6-22 years of age as well as a vocational program for adults. This program creates a hands-on experience where students, write, produce and direct their own animated and cut-out shorts. The animation/claymation provides the students with the opportunity to develop sequences of images through storyboarding and clay characters. “We feel Toon Boom Studio will be a great addition to our lab as it is very userfriendly and will enable our students to create professional looking animations quickly,” shared Dr. Alisa Wolf, Executive Director and Founder.
learn Harmony. WWI’s Art & Technique of Animation curriculum combines the very best techniques of traditional and digital animation training in a single dynamic program and is designed to meet the quality standards of the animation industry for creativity, originality and high production values. Through classroom teaching and private mentoring sessions, experienced professionals instruct students in advanced digital environments and cinematic storytelling skills. During the course of their studies, students are able to develop a professional-calibre portfolio. ___________________________________________________________________________
Lakewood High School in Lakewood California, one of six high schools in the Long Beach Unified School District, has a student body of 4500 in grades 9-12. Courses in 2D animation and computer graphics are offered as part of the Applied Technology small learning community. Since the spring of 2002, Toon Boom Studio has served as a major component for the Computer Graphics course and has been the primary application for their new Art and Animation course that fulfills the fine arts requirement for universitybound students. “Toon Boom Studio has been the perfect tool for integrating technology, art and the principles of animation. Storyboarding, drawing, writing, graphic design, and even mathematics are woven through animation projects. Our computer graphics lab has Toon Boom Studio installed on 40 Pentium IV workstations. Toon Boom Studio projects incorporate traditional hand drawn, digital photo as well as 3D CG content,” shared Jim Vasapolli, Computer Graphics, Art and Animation instructor, Applied Technology Small Learning Community, Lakewood High School.
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The University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine Campus, in Trinidad and Tobago, has adopted Toon Boom products to build the first animation curriculum to be offered in the Caribbean region. Recognizing the opportunities the animation industry can bring to the local market, the UWI aims to prepare the next generation of creative Caribbean talent to embark on a career in animation using industry-standard technology. A Train the Trainer training program will take place in June 2007 to enable the faculty members to set up and finalize the animation curriculum, right on time for the Fall 2007 admissions. The UWI will offer certificate training courses as a build up to the Masters in Animation and provide students with in-depth and practical courses on all aspects of animation production.
Image courtesy of USC School of University of the West Indies
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in Mumbai, India, Whistling Woods International Limited (WWI), one of Asia’s largest Film, Television, Media Arts and Animation Institute, will train their students on Toon Boom Harmony and Storyboard Pro. Storyboard Pro will be introduced to students specializing in Direction, Cinematography, Editing, Business of Film & TV as well as in Art & Technique of Animation, in which they will also
Toon Boom News
JUNE 2007
11
AniMagix High quality digital production services for animated features
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CGI 2D, I&P, VFX COMPOSITING 3D
▪ “The Three Robbers” by Animation X ▪ “Dodo” by Rothkirch/Warner Bros. ▪ “Little King Macius” by Studio88/Saxonia/ Ellipseanime/Orange ▪ ”Little Polar Bear 2” by Rothkirch/Warner Bros. ▪ “Lauras Star by Rothkirch/Warner Bros. ▪ ”Globi and the stolen shadow” by Motionworks/ Fama/Impuls/Iris ▪ “A Christmas Carol” by Illuminated Films/MBP
Contact for further information: info@animagix.de AniMagix Media AG Cologne Hamburg Stuttgart
▪ ”Little Polar Bear” by Rothkirch/Warner Bros.