SUMMER 2008
toonboom.com
Reaching out with animation. With the launch of Flip Boom and Animation-ish, Toon Boom is fully dedicated to developing and marketing easy to use and fun animation software that will inspire and stimulate young creative minds. Developed in partnership with FableVision, Animation-ish features Peter H. Reynolds, the “creativity advocate”, who shares inspirational tips and a library of whimsical drawings as creative support. The Animation-ish Classroom edition includes teacher developed cross-curricular activities, ranging from Language Arts, to Music, Mathematics, Social Studies, Technology, Science and Health. Students will certainly enjoy such an animated approach in the classroom!
Always appreciative of Stan Lee’s strong support, Joan Vogelesang was pleased to personally give him a copy of Storyboard Pro to entice him to sketch his famous characters using this award-winning application. It was also a great opportunity for Stan to give her a signed copy of his latest best-selling humor book for Election 2008 titled Election Daze. Stan is putting the super in Super Tuesday, as in super-hilarious! Election Daze combines Stan Lee’s wild and zany dialogue with the award-winning photography of Lauren Victoria Burke, to create the definitive humor book of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election year. Check it out at filsingerpublishing.com! ___________________________________________________________________________________
The Toon Boom team is set to go to Africa and the Middle East where they will visit Ghana, Egypt and Jordan. With a speaking opportunity and a demonstration session part of the eLearning Africa’s official programme, the team will have a great opportunity to demonstrate how the tools of the trade can serve as a stepping stone to create a local animation industry. In Egypt and Jordan, the team will meet with the key players in Cairo, Giza and Amman. ___________________________________________________________________________________
Joan Vogelesang of Toon Boom with Stan Lee
Upcoming events include MIFA, Booth 2.001, in Annecy (June 11-13), National Education Computing Conference, Booths 7198 (Academic Superstore) and 8230 (Journey Ed) in San Antonio (June 29 to July 2), and SIGGRAPH, Booth 1005 in Los Angeles (August 12-14). Make sure to drop by our booth!
This issue’s cover courtesy of IP4U
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Toon Boom News
summer 2008
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Beijing awaits The 2008 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour has arrived! After a long off-season of training and preparing, Toon Boom’s Mark Heese and his beach partner, Ahren Cadieux, are finally ready to tackle the most important season of their partnership... the 2008 Olympics. As Beijing quickly approaches, Mark and Ahren find themselves in a race for those elusive Olympic berths. If Canada were guaranteed a spot in Beijing, then there would be no question about who would be the representatives. As the 2007 National Champions and the top-ranked Canadian team in the World Ranking, they have established themselves as the number one Canadian tandem. However, to qualify for Beijing, the team must compete on the FIVB World Tour, racking up Olympic qualifying points - enough to be ranked in the top 24 teams in the world at the Olympic deadline, July 20, 2008. There are 12 Olympic qualifying events between now and then, including stops in China and across Europe. Unfortunately, the FIVB event that takes place in Montreal, Canada, just blocks away from the Toon Boom offices, has been cancelled for the 2008 season, leaving Heese/ Cadieux the daunting task of qualifying on foreign soil (or sand!). But the goal is certainly achievable in the opinion of tour veteran Mark Heese, “Ahren and I have prepared well, and have a solid team of supporters, including Toon Boom, therefore our chances to be in Beijing are strong.”The team took another step toward solidifying their spot by opening the season in Shanghai, China with a 9th place. Top-ten results are exactly what they need to improve their current Olympic ranking of 20. Good luck, Mark and Ahren! Know that Toon Boom supports your efforts and are cheering you on from this side of the globe!
TOON BOOM STAR This section is dedicated to Toon Boom employees. In each issue, we will introduce you to the people behind the technology and put a face to the voice you may have spoken to.
Matthieu Sarazin is the Director of Sales at the Toon Boom France office in Paris. After studying computer graphic sciences at University Paris XI, Matthieu spent two years in Montréal at the National Film Board to learn the tricks of the trade. In 1991, he joined Pixibox where he was involved in the development of the first PEGS version. In 1995 and 1996, he discovered the California way of life as the technical director of Pixibox Animation studio in Los Angeles. In 1997, he went back to Paris and worked as the PEGS product manager at Mediapegs. Matthieu travelled extensively visiting animation studios from the Americas to Asia. Then in 2004, after the end of Mediapegs, he created his own company Pegs’n Co where he continued to promote PEGS. In 2006, Toon Boom acquired Pegs’n Co and Matthieu joined the Toon Boom team. With this strategic market consolidation and with his extensive experience, Matthieu has been involved in the successful business development and implementation of Toon Boom’s software products and services throughout Southern Europe. This great new adventure with Toon Boom gives him the opportunity to come back to Quebec and catch up with his old friends. On a personal front, his life changed in 2001 with the arrival of twins, Leo and Gaspard. During his vacation time, you can find Matthieu camping or rock climbing in the mountain with his kids. His hobbies also include going to art museums and rock concerts with his wife, Sabrina. Toon Boom News
Summer 2008
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Image courtesy of Mundo Luz Producciones
CONSUMER NEWS
Gorgui is the first 100% Guatemalan DVD production for children, created in 2D animation using Toon Boom Studio. This project was produced by Mundo Luz Producciones, S.A. which aims at producing and marketing film and television programmes for adult and children entertainment. The production of this DVD project took one year and eight months, gathering a team of local talents to deliver it on time. In April 2008, the production was dubbed into English to hit the English-speaking market as early as May. Gorgui was originally presented in the city of Guatemala back in November 2007 to the media, the production team, and friends as well as to schools, colleges, churches and the national television. The reception from the thousands of kids who watched it was overwhelming. One of the objectives is now to produce a 20 episode series based on the Gorgui story, which will also be distributed within the national and international markets.
world of her own. Her quirky characters narrate through these mediums personal experiences, dreams and ideas. Wendy exhibits in Houston, TX at New Gallery/Thom Andriola as well as nationally. The piece she exhibited at DiverseWorks is a short story about a “dreaded blank moment”.”I have my characters from my artwork as the leads. It is a nice combination of my wacky ideas and artistic vision. Accompanying the animation, I constructed two big stuffed flying snouts so that the viewers could relax on and watch the animation!” explained Wendy. Also, she has been filming shorts of her dogs, importing the stills and drawing on top of them to create an animation. She plans to do a series of these to be a visual diary of endearing moments with her pets. Finally, Wendy is working on Qwerkys.com. She used Toon Boom Studio to animate and design her website. “We are launching printed items such as T shirts, thus making my artwork more accessible. I also plan to use Toon Boom Studio to create some screen savers with the Qwerkys as downloads. Toon Boom Studio has been inspirational for me in creating these new avenues for my artwork,” she added.
Image courtesy of Baird Hoffmire and Tom Wrenn
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Image courtesy of Wendy Wagner
Wendy Wagner is an artist who works in painting, ceramics and animation. Her work encompasses humor, depth and whimsy. She has a degree in Visual Communications and has studied art her entire life. Using everything from her computer graphics knowledge to painting skills, she has created a
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Baird Hoffmire has been working for August House as an illustrator/animator for five years and Tom Wrenn began about three years ago. They use Toon Boom Studio to create 4-to-7 minute animations for their website www.StoryCove. com. These animations are based on folktales from around the world and serve as educational tools as well. Each animation has a companion book, activities, downloads and lesson plans that teachers like to use in a classroom setting. “Lip syncing alone saved us huge amounts of time. It turned hours worth of work plotting mouth positions into a few minutes of work,” stated Tom. Baird and Tom find Toon Boom Studio to be a great value package for their needs. “We produce books and animations for 8-12 stories in twelve months. Toon Boom Studio has many powerful features that aren’t available in other software. The workspace features provide ease in animating and managing assets that can’t be equaled,” concluded Tom.
INDUSTRIAL NEWS
Image courtesy of Jungle Pictures
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Founded in 2001, 9 Story Entertainment is an awardwinning animation, production and distribution company dedicated to delivering the most beloved and enduring characters for families and young audiences internationally. Producers of such popular shows as Peep and the Big Wide World and Skyland, 9 Story has delivered over 100 half hours of animated television content. Led by executive producers Vince Commisso and Steven Jarosz, who have more than 25 years of combined specialized industry experience and leadership, 9 Story is a leader in the amazing and magical world of youth entertainment. Using Digital Pro on the My Friend Rabbit project, the team enjoys the template library as it saves them time by using previous cycles, blinks, colours, lip sync, etc.; the 6
Toon Boom News
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colour palette swapping that can be done at the click of a button; the anchoring ability; the morphing feature; as well as the smooth camera moves. “The reuse aspect is a great time-saver. Toon Boom is great when you are building for a long running production schedule or multiple seasons of a series,” stated Tia Menich. ___________________________________________________________________________________
Image courtesy of Animanostra
Dennis Tupicoff and Fiona Cochrane formed Jungle Pictures in 2001 to produce films that excite them: fact or fiction, animation or live-action. Based in Melbourne, Australia, their productions have been screened widely at festivals and on television, and have won many awards. Now comes the animated Chainsaw: a story about bulls and birds, glamour and machismo, sex and death. The film features several famous figures from real life, including the legendary Australian rodeo bull Chainsaw. But Chainsaw’s stars are Frank and Ava Gardner: two ordinary people who pay a price for their romantic dreams. Chainsaw’s world premiere was at the Stuttgart International Animation Festival on May 2. As well as its screening in the Short Film Competition in Annecy, Chainsaw is in Official Competition at Oberhausen, Melbourne, Athens/Ohio, and Nashville. “In its narrative and style, Chainsaw is an ambitious and innovative animated film. Technically, its main requirement was an efficient and flexible rotoscope system, with a gentle learning curve for professional animators. But with its easy integration of all types of image formats, superb conversion of hand drawn images into vector graphics, and seamless integration of both scanned-in drawings and CGI, Toon Boom Solo soon became the production’s major software tool” shared Dennis. Jungle Pictures has cross-graded to Digital Pro and looks forward to using its advanced features in their next animation project.
Founded in 1991 and based in Lisbon, Animanostra, if not the longest established cartoon production company, is certainly the most prolific having produced more hours of cartoon animation than any other company in Portugal to date. With several international co-productions to its credit, Animanostra has specialised over the last few years in producing short films and series, both for adults and children. Working in collaboration with some of Portugal’s most prestigious writers and directors, Animanostra currently has six shorts and two mini series for children in production. A couple of years ago, the company invested in Toon Boom Opus software for its cartoon animation work, namely Ginjas (26 x 2’) by Zepe, Um degrau pode ser o mundo (11’) by Daniel Lima, Algo Importante (7’) by João Fazenda and João Paulo Coltrim and Pássaros (7’) by Filipe Abranches. ___________________________________________________________________________________
The face of television and moviemaking is changing at an ever increasing pace and Salvatore Cavalieri, President and CEO of Cilantro Animation Studios is one of the pioneers leading the industry’s rapid evolution, particularly in the area of 3D Animation. By fusing his passions, he has been able to create a new and innovative way to reach the hearts of Latinos across the United States through animation. Cilantro has chosen to use Storyboard Pro to pitch concepts and develop storyboards fro TV series. Their favorite features include the ability to create camera moves, work with storyboard panels, generate an animatic in real-time, draw with the brush tool and a graphic tablet and pen as well as work with multiple layers. “Storyboard Pro’s feature set enables us allow us to be flexible, nimble and fast to meet our customers’ demand. Specifically,
TECHNOLOGY NEWS
Go back to basics Toon Boom has always been committed to animators, developing leading-edge technology to support their creative process. As a testament to that, Toon Boom Pencil Check Pro is the most flexible line testing software available in the industry. Developed for the most prestigious and demanding studios, Pencil Check Pro provides an extensive feature set designed around a user-friendly interface. Pencil Check Pro is the classic animators’ best friend, sitting next to the animation table for fast and accurate line tests. Pencil Check Pro is also an easy to use must-have tool for students learning animation principles. Plug and Capture Perform all capture operations from a unique and common interface, with real-time preview for devices equipped with live video stream. Before capturing, select the type of artwork required for optimal vectorization results from a list of presets. With Pencil Check Pro you can automatically capture drawn lines and ignore the paper image.
An extensive Pencil Check Pro Curriculum is also available to facilitate teachers’ class preparation and lesson material development. Attractive academic pricing is offered to students, faculty members and schools. Visit www.toonboom.com/products/pencilcheckpro/ for more information.
Easily learn animation principles Learning and practising animation fundamentals using Pencil Check Pro is easy. Sketch key poses directly within the software with instant playback preview and audio track capability while filling the exposure sheet. Draw the in-betweens, clean the animation and prepare your work for inking and painting. Pencil Check Pro comes with paint tools, including colour palettes and provides import of reference colour models. Finally, you can add camera motion to deliver a finished animation. Beyond line testing With the unique features of Pencil Check Pro, you can easily control the colouring and opacity of each of the columns for accurate preview. Enjoy the digital exposure sheet and use its annotation columns to add comments and sketches directly in the Xsheet. Reference exported line test movies with time code and text overlay. Maximize a highly integrated pipeline with Storyboard Pro, Digital Pro and Harmony. 8
Toon Boom News
summer 2008
Toon Boom Pencil Check Pro supports the largest variety of devices from scanners to DV / HDV cameras, webcams and digital cameras.
Faster and cleaner with Storyboard Pro Mark Simon has worked on literally thousands of productions and in the blink of an eye he has started offering faster storyboards and animatics to his clients. “Actually it’s more like the blink of a computer LED. I recently used Toon Boom’s Storyboard Pro to storyboard a live-action feature and I was amazed how quickly I was able to board the movie. Plus, I was producing animatics with my boards at the same time!” “The director, Sohrab Mirmontazeri, and I had worked together before when I boarded his last feature using Adobe Photoshop. He flew to my studio in Orlando recently to board The Day The Music Died, a feature about the life of the Big Bopper, the 1950’s pop singer who died in the plane crash with Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens.” “In just one week of working with Storyboard Pro, I boarded and produced animatics for over 4 minutes of the movie. These were not just pan and scan animatics, these had a lot of character motion, full dialogue, music and sound effects. I was moving the elements in the boards as I worked. A number of the scenes were music videos, so we timed the boards to the music as we worked.”
“As we worked, I would export MOV files of the animatics which Sohrab would upload to YouTube for the producer to approve. These animatics were then used to help raise final funding for the feature. The producer held a party for possible financiers and everyone was shown the animatics so they could understand the movie.” “I could not have completed this much work so quickly without Storyboard Pro. Next month my entire crew will be using this software on my next animated feature. We’ll be drawing and pitching our boards digitally. Digital storyboarding has finally arrived.” Mark Simon, owner of Animatics & Storyboards, Inc., is the author of Storyboards: Motion In Art, Facial Expressions, and Your Resume Sucks! His newest book, Facial Expressions: Babies to Teens, is now available on Amazon. You may find him online at www.ExpressionsBooks.com and www.Storyboards-East.com.
Storyboard panel by Mark Simon from The Day The Music Died. Copyright 2008 Johnette Duff and Jay P. Richardson
“I could not have completed this much work so quickly without Storyboard Pro. Next month my entire crew will be using this software on my next animated feature.“
Toon Boom News
Summer 2008
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Images courtesy of IP4U
Case study
Animating their heart out in Harmony IP4U is a one-of-a-kind studio specializing in the creation, development and distribution of audiovisual, digital and interactive contents. Located in Northern France, IP4U presents the warmth, ambitions and dynamism typically found in regions that wish to promote and employ their great local talents. Led by Lahcen Bahij, a passionate and dedicated entrepreneur, the studio has implemented the tools and brought together the team to create quality animation, from character design, to compositing and editing. IP4U is fully equipped with Storyboard Pro and Harmony, to take full advantage of the centralized database and set an efficient animation pipeline. In collaboration with the regional committee and local schools, IP4U has trained 40 graphic designers on Harmony and introduced them to animation production. The training covered the entire pipeline enabling the team to easily adapt depending on the animation style of the projects. To date, the studio has a capacity of 180 seconds/ day in traditional animation. “When you add the 30% savings in offshore management costs and the ability to produce faster, you realize that you become quite competitive when you bid on projects. Our goal is to be 40% below the budget, thanks to our productivity and our ability to deliver on time and within budget,” shared Lahcen. “Having a complete studio under one roof is a win-win situation. The director appreciates the immediate access to
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the team, the producer has a better control on costs and productivity and the investors fully maximize tax credits and bonuses offered by the Centre National de la Cinématographie,” he continued. In addition to that, if the studio handles a higher volume of projects, they can easily connect with other facilities offering a Harmony pipeline to make full use of the compatible network. IP4U’s team relies on three main pillars that make it robust and solid. The first one is the aformentioned Lahcen Bahij, studio manager and producer. Lahcen speaks passionately about his ongoing projects and understands how much of a demanding art animation is. “To make sure the studio could rely on the most appropriate technology, we carefully checked every solution available in the market. We came to the conclusion that Harmony is to animation production what a saber is to Samurai’s martial art,” wisely commented
Lahcen. The second one is Jérôme Bétrancourt, the production director. Jérôme is a graduate of Faculté de Valenciennes in audiovisual techniques. Thanks to his extensive experience in audiovisual production, Jérôme fully understands the technical and artistic needs the team has and implements the right tools for the artists. The third one is Nicolas Haye, the studio head. A graduate from ESAAT de Roubaix in animation, Nicolas is an animation guru and a born artist. Coming from a pure traditional animation background, Nicolas resembles a Shogun who practices his art to reach perfection. IP4U has several projects in development. The first is titled Catman. Targeting 18 to 35 year-olds, this series is meant to air after 11 pm. It tells the story of a solitary cat that fights the mafia. As the mafia wants to use all public places for cheese distribution, Catman will fight back, gradually uncovering the strings of the organization and ultimately revealing the Godfather’s identity. This project is truly international as the idea was born in Canada, and 21 episodes have already aired in Japan. Now in its next evolution phase, Catman has a foothold in France. IP4U is looking for additional producers to carry out the project. As this property can easily be adapted for crossplatform media, there is great potential in multi-player games, mobile content, TV and internet. Building upon a global community, the goal would be to also produce a feature film. Wanting to remain true to the original Ryosuke Aioke concept, the IP4U team created a one-minute teaser in one week only, “Chromaconcerto right on time for hasMIPTV triggered 2008.huge Mixing interest 2D, 3D and from the music community. are discussing the idea photo compositing, the teaser’s We production gathered a team of making animated shorts as well as musical works of 20 passionate animators who brought the Catman look and two or level threethanks composers available the net techfor feelfrom to the next to Harmony. Theon animation people to create their own musical experience.” nique also combines frame-by-frame animation with cut-out style, all done paperless using Wacom tablets. Storyboards were done using Storyboard Pro: “I found it very simple to use. For people used to working digitally and the ones not as computer savvy, adopting it was a breeze. Quite complete, Storyboard Pro enabled us to easily edit our story and export the animatic in several formats, including the Toon Boom Harmony file format,” shared Nicolas. As the deadline was extremely tight, the teaser was divided into scenes among the animators while some of them were creating the backgrounds in Photoshop. Another project of
Jérôme Bétrancourt, Lahcen Bahij and Nicolas Haye
note is Faites vos jeux, which is a 50 x thirty second series of fun gags related to the Olympics. Lagardère distributes this project for the mobile phones. There are also discussions to air the series on TV. “Harmony enables us to work quickly. We come up with a gag in the morning and deliver it at the end of the day,” stated Lahcen. Each animator is responsible for one 30-second episode from animation creation to scene planning. Compositing is performed by another team. Offering its services to other producers, IP4U is also working on Les Mistigris, co produced by TF1, and on behalf of Patoon-Animation. “When I saw a demo of Harmony, this solution appeared to be the most appropriate for the type of projects we do. In one of them, it is all cut-out with a lot of textures. Harmony can deliver the requested look and feel of the series. In addition to that, the ability to work paperless within one single application that includes compositing totally convinced us it was the right solution for us,” commented Nicolas. Lahcen Bahij is a true believer in vector based and multi platform animation. “I appreciate Harmony’s flexible pipeline as well as the fact you can connect with other Harmony studios to share some of the work load. For me, it is a smart business decision just because it is network based,” shared Lahcen. IP4U has big dreams, but knows it needs to make small steps to build a solid foundation in the industry and establish a good name. Proud of its solid skill set and passion for the art, they welcome all producers to come and visit them. It is guaranteed that only good can come out from meeting such a dynamic, talented and efficient team!
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Images courtesy of Kiwi Animation
Case study
The Star System Takes a Punch in Harmony Knowing Quebec has a long tradition of humour, it is no surprise to find a Montreal animation studio using the Toon Boom pipeline to produce satirical and comic animation. Kiwi Animation, leaders in parody and satire, just launched Punch!, the edgy series totally animated by Toon Boom products.
Led by Yves St-Gelais, a seasoned producer and director passionate about animation, Kiwi Animation prides itself on its one-of-a-kind humorous concepts it brings to the small screen, targeting adults and families during prime time. When dealing with humour, satire and parody, Yves is a firm believer in keeping the entire production under one roof to ensure the spirit and essence of the jokes remain true to the original ideas. The studio autonomy is critical in keeping the gags as edgy as possible. In that context, Yves’s approach is to bring the best directors, writers, actors and comics together with experienced animators to deliver engaging drama and hilarious comedy. His impressive track record speaks for itself and testifies to his know-how when it comes to managing animation productions on tight deadlines. Worth mentioning is the fact that Yves provided the animation for “Le JourNul” (Production Zero), the only show to be animated and aired in the same day – a feat which earned him a “Guinness World Record” as the fastest producer of animation. Yves is also the Executive Producer of Et Dieu créa Laflaque, a highly popular satirical show broadcast on Radio Canada. The show regularly pulls in a 25% market share in primetime. Now in its fourth season, it has garnered several awards, such as: “Best Comedy”, at the Banff Television Festival, and a “Prix Gémeaux” for Best Writing in the Humor, Variety and Talk Show category. Kiwi Animation has embarked on another audacious project titled Punch!. In this new comedy series 12 Toon Boom News
summer 2008
for Teletoon’s Detour block, the action revolves around the backroom antics of the journalists of Punch, a celebrity magazine. Zany humour abounds in the journalists’ everyday lives as they cover outlandish reports and feature stories that parody popular brands and celebri-
The team used Storyboard Pro to maximize its animatic capabilities to the fullest. To build the SB panels, they used a combination of paperless drawings using tablets, a library of pre-drawn characters, and photo images to build the visual story.
ties the likes of: Celine Dion, Pamela Anderson, William Shatner, the President, the Prime Minister, even the Queen! The show takes a crack at everyone and everything in short reports ideal for multiplatform viewing, namely television and internet. In addition to Yves, the key production team includes: Roxanne Boutet, producer, Erick Roy, production manager, Jesse Giroux, technical coordinator, Jean-Martin Casséus, assistant art direction, Antoine Tavaglione, animation director, Émilie Gervais, editor, and Alain Michaud, system administrator. In total, Punch! kept a crew of 60 people busy in the production, with 12 people dedicated to scripting, 30 to storyboarding and design, 16 to animation and 2 to editing. Punch! is a series of 20 twenty-two minute episodes. In each episode, there are eight celebrity reports that parody stars, brands, rockers, royalty and billionaires. The sketch structure enables flexibility when short reports may be interchanged to adapt to various international markets. Relying on cut-out animation techniques transposed in an all-digital pipeline, Punch! draws its visuals from a database of 47,000 pictures of over 500 celebrities. “When you create parody, you are allowed to make fun of public figures, whether they are politicians or movie stars. As long as we don’t focus on one celebrity in particular, we are fine. So, rest assured, our radar is screening the star system diligently and finds plenty
Erick Roy, Jesse Giroux and Antoine Tavaglione
the jokes, our workflow had to be flexible enough to allow non-linear adjustments. Our jokes are inspired by current events, so it was strategic to retain this versatility during the production process. This is why we chose Toon Boom Harmony. Harmony enabled us to keep the entire production in Montreal from start to finish, all under one roof. In addition to that, our timeframe was very tight and we had to deliver 20 minutes of animation per week. The chosen technology had to support the speed of delivery and artistic concept we need for this project,” continued Yves. To add to the project’s incredible technical challenges, Punch! was produced in high definition, generat-
Alain Michaud, Jean-Martin Casséus, Yves St-Gelais and Roxanne Boutet
of candidates to feed into our jokes,” commented Yves. Each character image is cut into pieces, and then customized and rebuilt. Some characters can have more than a dozen mouth shapes, eye brows and eye elements to convey different expressions. The hands library has an average of 50 images, each used in various contexts. Each set of these elements is sometimes reproduced and altered to fit into as many as eight different axes, allowing characters to be animated in different angles. In some cases, we can swap heads on a body, in order to adapt the character as required. “As we continuously work with multiple elements simultaneously and pull in new and better images from the library to spice up
ing files of 800 megs to one gig for certain characters. Per episode, the team needs to store 800 gigs of final elements, including storyboards, animation, designs and post-production files. The entire season requires 16 terabytes of storage capacity. “We had to be even more audacious than the series to come up with the right setup in this project. Considering the heavy requirements the series requires, we implemented a robust and reliable network that caters to all production teams in a seamless manner, using fibre optic,” commented Alain Michaud. Once the scripts were approved, actors recorded the voices in a Montreal sound studio. The series was scripted, recorded and edited in French. The English version was Toon Boom News
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Images courtesy of Kiwi Animation
Case study (CONTINUED)
dubbed from the French master. Special care was given to preserve the humour and edge in both language versions. In some sketches, the production team had to swap the characters’ heads to adapt the content for different markets. The script writers were experienced in humour and entertainment and knew how to use animation to express ideas. “The animatic was critical in this process, and helped really nail and refine the pace and timing of the jokes,” explained Yves. They did all the required adjustments at the animatic stage before moving on to the next department.
Time-saving workflow Harmony’s cut-out capabilities were fully put to use. As the animators recovered the file structure and timing from Storyboard Pro, it saved them a lot of time, allowing them to start animating sooner and faster. 14 Toon Boom News
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The team used Toon Boom Storyboard Pro to maximize its animatic capabilities to the fullest. To build the SB panels, they used a combination of paperless drawings using tablets, a library of pre-drawn characters, and photo images to build the visual story. Some of these elements were coloured. It was important to keep all the elements in the right proportions to preserve the scene perspectives, and size relations. Further down the road, the production team relied on these SB animatics for design, layout, posing, animation and even edit. “We exported our digital storyboards in four different formats. The first is in PDF to have a final hard copy and digital reference. The second is in QuickTime for the entire team to access and use for timing and other purposes. The third is in Harmony file format to recover the scene structure and timing for Layout and Animation purposes. The Scene Prep team imported the characters, backgrounds and props into each scene, and organized these elements in their proper position to facilitate start of animation. The fourth is in AAF format for the editing team to import into their FINAL CUT system and recover essential information to start working efficiently,” stated Erick Roy. The visual research team worked at full steam to find the proper references and images, in the right angles and the right quality and resolution. They had to calibrate them to keep consistency between each individual character’s poses as well as between all the characters. “It is critical to recognize the celebrity at first glance, so the design group worked very hard to adapt and fix images in Photoshop. We also took pictures of 50 extras and built 125 bodies to use as templates. The facial pictures had to represent a wide array of expressions that would be needed at one point during the production,” explained Yves.
Using Wacom Intuos tablets, the design team had to demonstrate creativity and stamina to come up with the right visuals. As every character and prop had to be rigged, they were dealing with a mind boggling number of parts. For example, Jordan, one of the main characters, has 1128 individual pieces and this number continues to grow as the team is completing the last episodes of the series. “We had to be disciplined in our file-naming structure to be able to easily navigate and find what the team was looking for in the Library. Each axis, character type, character number, element number are coded following a set pattern for more efficiency. Some backgrounds were created in a 3D application (3DMax) and then cut into pieces as well. As we are working in high resolution, we had to keep a consistent aspect ratio and resolution for each character. With continuous element-swapping in each episode, we could not derogate from this rule. On average, a character image is 1500 x 1000 pixels ; main characters are 2500 x 4500 pixels while celebrities are 2500 x 3000 pixels. We sometimes had to perform a 1000% zoom or camera moves, so the resolution was critical!” explained Jean-Martin Casséus.Once the design was completed, the next team could start rigging all the elements, building the scenes, and animating all the characters and mouths in sync with the sound. At this level too, Harmony’s cut-out capabilities were fully put to use. As the animators recovered the file structure and timing from Storyboard Pro, it saved them a lot of time, allowing them to start animating sooner and faster. The scenes were then rendered, and brought into the editing room. Some scenes were sweetened or dressed up in compositing/FX software (AFX) before proceeding to the final editing. “It was very useful to have the animatic
exported from Storyboard Pro in AAF format as it provided me with the durations and cuts that highly facilitated my editing work,” commented Emilie Gervais. Kiwi Animation has now wrapped up the production of Punch! and Yves is already developing new animated projects that certainly put a sparkle in his eyes. Social issues offer a wealth of great ideas to Yves and his team who will be sure to add their satirical twist, all for a good laugh!
A big network for a big project ”Considering the heavy requirements the series requires, we implemented a robust and reliable network that caters to all production teams in a seamless manner, using fibre optic,” commented Alain Michaud. Toon Boom News
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Case study
Giving the power of animation Creative Partnerships is the Government flagship creative learning programme, designed to develop the skills of young people across England, raising their aspirations and equipping them for their futures. Creative Partnerships is managed by Arts Council England and funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Children, Schools and Families. They now operate in 36 areas in England and are working intensively with over 2,400 schools across the country. At Creative Partnerships, they believe that working with creative professionals from many different art forms and disciplines helps develop creative thinking and wider abilities in young people. One of the art forms they tried is animation, via the Animated Learners programme.
Images courtesy of Creative Partnerships
about animation is how expressive a medium it is for capturing your imagination. You can make a flipbook with nothing more than a pad of paper, a pencil and a spark of imagination!” “In Animated Learners, I was searching for simple and affordable animation tools that all teachers, irrespective of their artistic or technical capabilities, could use in a classroom environment. We also had the added challenge of having to engage a full class or 30 or more children. I had tried education animation software in the past, but found it too often a poor cousin compared to traditional techniques such as cut outs and the humble flipbook. Flip Boom provided an incredibly accessible solution to that challenge. Using graphics tablets was an absolute prerequisite for me. I would never dream of drawing with a computer mouse and expecting children to draw with one for the sake of computer literacy was The Animated Learners programme was developed in response to a very successful and enjoyable residency animator David Bunting took with Stepney Primary School last year through Creative Partnerships Hull, where he explored creative solutions to teaching and learning across the curriculum. “Creative Partnerships offered me the chance to go back to Stepney and explore practical techniques for staff and pupils to create animation in a classroom environment, in the hope of leaving a legacy in which teachers feel confident to use animation as a teaching aid,” explained David During the first project, David worked in classes on various animated films including highly successful productions on themes including William Wilberforce. The brilliance of the work attracted regional media in terms of BBC TV Look North, ITV Calendar News and Viking FM radio station as well as featuring in the work of the Wilberforce House Museum in Hull. It was clear that they had found a gold mine, both in terms of David Bunting himself and the nature of this medium in terms of learning and teaching within the primary school setting. “Creative Partnerships Hull has been working with up to 30 partner schools in the Hull area between 2002 and the present day. Stepney Primary School has been a key partner school over this period. We have been so excited to see the amazing learning developments unfold over the course of the Animated Learners programme. We are very proud to have had a role in shaping and supporting what has been a highly impactful project that has opened up the power of animation to all,” shared Tess Parker, Acting Creative Director, Hull. David Bunting continues, “One of the most exciting things 16 Toon Boom News
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the first thing to overcome. Together, Creative Partnerships and Stepney School invested in 15 Flip Boom licenses and 11 Wacom Bamboo tablets. The first challenge for me was to see how children could adjust to drawing with tablets. So the very first thing we did in each lesson was to open Microsoft Paint and doodle; drawing circles, lines and writing our names. Within ten minutes, the level of drawing children as young as 7 demonstrated on the computer went through the ceiling.” “In year 5, we gave each child the challenge to design their own cartoon car to perform in a kind of “Wacky Races” competition. We spent half a day producing designs with pencil, paper and colour markers and storyboarding comic ideas about how their cars would perform on a race track. Each child then drew their car using the drawing and painting tools in Flip Boom. We then looked at some of the animation features, and brought their cars to life. I always use flipbooks as an aid to introduce animation to children, flipping back and forth, slow and fast. Swapping flipbooks with your mates allows you to very quickly discover some of the secrets of animation in your hand. A couple of hours in, children were able to apply concepts of animation with Flip Boom and unleash their cartoon creativity. Through the week, they also
engaged in creative writing, creating scripts for their film and recorded a soundtrack with sound effects and dialogue with their teacher.” “What I love about Flip Boom is how incredibly fun and enjoyable it is to use. It is a very skilful combination of powerful features, set up in an inviting working space a child can easily use. In my experience, educational animation software has the tendency to limit what you can do creatively. Not so with Flip Boom. It is the closest piece of software I’ve come across that replicates the ease of creating a flipbook with a pad of paper on the computer. Plus you have the flexibility to copy and paste drawn elements from one frame to another or drawn freehand, one frame at a time. Professional animation tools, such onion-skinning dramatically increased the quality of animation capable of being achieved and children have no problem in utilising them.” “Flip Boom can be used to explore numeracy and literacy games, turn caterpillars into butterflies, illustrate the water cycle - to the most ambitious of group films. Teachers don’t need to worry about setting up a camera to capture animation. Flip Boom provides a simple all in one solution that is very practical in the classroom. And the great thing is that Stepney School now has a ready to use animation system in
Bringing animation to Stepney School has transformed the curriculum and pupils creativity. Children enjoyed learning through animation so much, they even asked if they could work through lunchtimes! Deborah shared further thought on the great impact animation had in her classroom: “For me, animation fits in well with schools like ours, who are forward thinking and innovative. We have recently changed our curriculum to a thematic skills based creative curriculum and are
David Bunting: One of the most exciting things about animation is how expressive a medium it is for capturing your imagination.
their ICT suite that can be accessed at the touch of a button and readily utilised to bring animation into classes.” Deborah Johnson, a teacher at Stepney School, worked closely with David and shared the following: “It’s important that the children have immediacy from any work they do. Flip Boom allows the children to immediately see the effort they have put in. This is highly motivating for them to continue. Similarly Flip Boom makes it easy for children to keep all of their work together, it organises it for them, instead of them having to keep lots of pieces of paper everywhere. The children we are teaching now are forward thinking and respond well to anything with a screen attached to it! Flip Boom is one way of providing them with lifelong learning skills, that hopefully they will continue to build on throughout the rest of their school career and into adulthood.” Animation is one of the first cultural experiences children have, and applied it in the classroom has the power to make learning fun and memorable. Animation stretches the imagination and fosters a capacity to playfully explore the world using the creative arts, across the whole Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic spectrum. Cutting across all curriculum subjects, its potential for teaching, learning and kindling a life-long love of the arts is vast.
constantly looking for news and exciting ways of capturing the children’s attention and developing their skills. Animation is truly cross-curricular and the links between subjects are genuine and not contrived in the least. Learning through animation makes sense for the children. The project my year five class was involved in included some science in a reallife context, as well as the benefits of the Literacy and I.C.T. objectives being covered. The opportunity for the children to collaborate together on projects is also invaluable in developing their personal and social skills. In line with the ‘Every Child Matters’ agenda, we can really say, with animation that we are preparing our children for the twenty first century, the technological age that they are going to be adults in. In my view the children in my class could have been in the workplace solving problems, discussing possibilities, agreeing on ways forward, working as a team, coming up with solutions, planning, etc. “ Pupils with English as a second language were able to shine creatively using the international language of animation. One 7 year old girl from Estonia enthusiastically drew 101 beautiful animated drawings of fireworks, using Flip Boom, in the space of an hour! The demand was so great, they had to set up a cartoon club. “On my final day, I asked all school children how many were going to keep on animating after I left. Every hand leapt up in the air!” concluded David. Creative Partnerships has certainly accomplished its mission at Stepney School and David has greatly contributed to make their pupils and teachers happier, more focused and more driven! Congratulations! Toon Boom News
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Whistling Woods International is a unique educational institution, offering unparalleled infrastructure, cutting edge technology and state-of-the-art equipment. Located in the heart of Film City, Mumbai, India, Whistling Woods International gives students the benefits of an extended campus and an invaluable interface with the entertainment industry. The faculty of Whistling Woods International forms a body of academics, top working industry professionals, instructors from renowned Indian and foreign film schools and the finest guest lecturers, in the following areas: Acting, Art and Technique of Animation, Business of Film and Television, Cinematography, Direction, Editing, Screenwriting, Sound Recording, as well as Design and Music Production. The Art and Technique of Animation specialisation is a demanding programme designed to meet the high standards of today’s animation industry in areas of creativity, originality and production values. Among other subjects, the curriculum includes training of the latest techniques of traditional and digital animation in a single dynamic programme sequenced in a focused, interdisciplinary manner. “Toon Boom Harmony has helped us achieve paperless animation and faster results. We have an entire term training the students in Harmony on how to deliver a concept as final output within deadlines and without compromising on creativity. Toon Boom Storyboard Pro helps animation students to storyboard even live action projects. Majority of Short film preproduction process is happening in Storyboard Pro helping them to achieve their creative goals,” shared Gokul. K, Head of Department, Animation. 18 Toon Boom News
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Image courtesy of Whistling Woods International
Image courtesy of Whistling Woods International
SCHOOLS ON BOARD
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Griffith is an innovative university committed to multidisciplinary teaching and research, and the creation and communication of knowledge. It has five campuses across the Brisbane-Gold Coast corridor in Australia. With more than 37,000 students and 3500 staff, it is one of Queensland’s largest universities. As part of its Visual and creative arts programme, Griffith offers a three-year Bachelor of Animation which gives students a thorough grounding in film animation covering animation skills, production techniques and studio hardware. The program includes advanced study of the structure of film elements, script construction, graphic processes and communication, editing and sound production, while emphasizing the refinement of imagination, wit and ingenuity. It develops skills that will enable students to produce original animation films, from script to screen. Griffith is using
Image courtesy of Griffith University
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Based in Toronto, Canada, Max the Mutt Animation School provides an environment in which students are encouraged to work hard to achieve their full potential. Max the Mutt Animation School guarantees small class size with serious individual instruction by highly qualified instructors who are working professionals in their fields. Max the Mutt Animation School believes in giving their students a solid, wellrounded education, and the encouragement to help them develop as artists. At the same time, they expect students to conduct themselves in a professional manner, which includes the ability to take direction, meet deadlines, work with each other, and fulfill responsibilities. The development of good work habits is important in preparing for a successful career in animation, concept design, advertising, graphic design, art direction, comic books and graphic novels. At Max The Mutt Animation School 3rd Year students take a
series of courses related to their final film projects, which are done in Toon Boom Digital Pro. Their story ideas have been developed in a second year storytelling course. Their characters have been designed in a first semester character design course. They have had courses that have given them the skills to design props and backgrounds, and they have had two background painting courses. They learn to use Toon Boom Storyboard Pro, and in a 12 week advanced storyboard course each student executes the storyboards and an animatic for his/her film. In another 12 week course, students learn Digital Pro and then execute character and prop breakdown, and library organization. Then each student starts the scene setups and animation in Toon Boom Digital Pro. There is a lot of pre-production in this process but the payoff is that the animation and final film production can be completed in a four week intensive course that takes place at the end of second semester. “The software is great, it’s easy to use, the workspace you can set up the way you like it gives you endless possibilities and artists are free to create whatever they want. When you work in Digital Pro you’re limited only by your imagination” shared Beverly Maguire, Lecturer Digital Pro and Storyboard Pro.
Image courtesy of Max the Mutt Animation School
Digital Pro to adapt from analogue to digital (i.e. scanning drawing sequences) through to high-end compositing, camera moves and effects. “We like the idea that it’s almost a combo of Flash and After Effects, dealing with both vector and bitmap effectively. (..) We seem to be doing a lot of ‘hybrid’ productions now – everybody seems to be using multiple techniques – and there’s also plenty of live action, and this is great because Digital Pro can handle all that. Largely we encourage creativity in the course, combining a number of techniques, styles, genres, but also encourage creating seamless professional quality finish. I strongly believe that the idea and concept are what make a distinguishing factor, not the technology – however, playing around with an application allows you to discover things so hopefully once we get further into using Digital Pro, we’ll likely discover a distinguishing style!” commented Andi Spark, Associate Professor, Head of Animation.
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Image courtesy of Cilantro Animation Studios
been working for four years on Toon Boom solutions for the compositing of its series, and lately on Street Football II for Teleimages Kids, Dragon Hunters for Futurikon, and Famous 5 for Marathon Medias. Recently, they have also worked with ETS and RAMSES2, on the production of a pilot for Storimages. This new studio provides a full line of animation services in Harmony. The Toonalliance has therefore expanded its line of services by offering its customers this geographically strategic location and relying on its field proven track record. ___________________________________________________________________________________
Image courtesy of Rusty Mills
the work with panels is what makes us save a lot of time due to the ease of editing the panels after each review, moving them, taking them out, merge them and setting the camera moves. We love Storyboard Pro because it makes our life and work simpler, it is like a partner in our studio” shared Salvatore. ___________________________________________________________________________________
Image courtesy of Caribara
As a Toonalliance member, Caribara is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its Parisian studio and expanding with a new facility in Annecy. As of May 2008, the new studio opened its doors in Haute Savoie capital to work on the Futurikon Willa’s Wild Life series. The studio is using Harmony to deliver the animation and compositing of the French-made episodes. This series is coproduced by Nelvana, Futurikon, TF1 and Teletoon. Caribara has
Rusty Mills has worked in the animation industry for over 22 years producing, directing, storyboarding, animating and timing. After attending CalArts he trained with Eric Larson (one of the famed nine old men) at Disney. This led to animating on projects such as An American Tail and Sport Goofy: Soccermania. He spent several years animating at Filmation Studios before landing at Warner Bros. He’s best known for his Directing and Producing at Warner Bros. on Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain for which he won five Emmy’s and a Peabody. Besides painting, Rusty is also working on a personal short animated film and also teaches animation classes at Studio Arts in Glendale. “I have been familiar with Toon Boom products back to Studio version 1.0. In the last 6 months, I made the move up to Digital Pro and Storyboard Pro,” shared Rusty. As a proponent of the classic hand-drawn style, Rusty appreciates that Digital Pro enable his work to look like traditional animation and not specifically digital, creating background paintings and importing those into the application. “Also turning down the smoothness of the line keeps my lines the way I draw them which feels more like traditional hand-drawn animation. I was more efficient during the animation thanks to the digital exposure sheet which made a big difference in time. Also the camera moves were imported from Storyboard Pro and helped move the process along,” he added. Toon Boom News
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Infinite possibilities.
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Animating the world.