toon boom news spring 2008

toonboom.comSPRING 2008

The animation community platform

2 Toon Boom News SPRING 2008

Toon Boom is widening its horizons! A suite of fun, easy-to-use applications will provide a creative expe-rience to children and animation enthusiasts. This expansion into the consumer market testifies to Toon Boom’s commitment to move forward and be associated with anything and everything related to animation. Flip Boom, Toon Boom’s first animation software for kids, has just been granted a 2008 Parents’ Choice Gold Award. This accomplishment certainly bodes well for this product and the others that will deliver a lot of fun to their users of all ages.

Toon Boom Corporate Headquarters+001 514 278 8666 7 Laurier Avenue East Montreal (Quebec) Canada H2T 1E4

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This issue’s cover courtesy of Big Bad Boo Studios

Printed in Canada

On the professional side, the Toon Boom team keeps the momentum high by visiting customers in Latin Ameri-ca, the Middle East, Asia, North America and Europe. Watch out for the Caribbean region as it is getting ready to become the next animation destination catering to production studios in the Americas and Europe. In 2008, both the University of Trinidad and Tobago and the University of the West Indies will implement animation programs that will train students in all the techniques and tools of the trade. In addition to that, Full Circle has offi-cially opened its doors, pioneering the animation wave in the Caribbean region. The Animae Caribe Festival slat-ed for September 2008 will surely attract the key players and other influential members of the industry and media and set up the region as a potential production partner.The team also attended Design Indaba 2008 in Cape Town

to announce its involve-ment in the Making the Difference Through Design project, directed by Woolworths South Africa. This will help to maximize Toon Boom’s exposure in design related industries, such as design and art education institu-tions, advertising, graphic design studios, and web design-ers. An emphasis on youth is a major focus, too. As a result, the South African Broadcasting Corporation is considering implementing Flip Boom in all primary schools in the country to develop creativity at a young age. ____________________________________________________________________________________

Maintaining a strong presence in the field, Toon Boom’s calendar for spring 2008 includes Carrefour de l’animation in Paris (March 14-16), FRAMES in Mumbai (March 25-27), MIPTV, Booth C1.05, in Cannes (April 7-11), National Asso-ciation of Broadcasters, Booth SL2008, in Las Vegas (April 14-17), eLearning Africa in Accra (May 28-30). In addition to leading the Canadian Trade Mission to India as the Trade Mission Champion, Joan Vogelesang was a guest speaker at FRAMES on the New Age Technology and Emerging Produc-tion Pipelines in Animation and Doing Business with Canada panels. Joan is also part of the eLeaning Africa programme and will present how to build the next animation wave in Africa using practical training. As of mid-April, a seven-week training tour will take place in India, with a Digital Pro Kick Start Course going to Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Kolkatta and Bangalore. We certainly hope to see you there!

Powered by Animation

Ministry representatives with Camille Selvon-Abrahams and Joan Vogelesang of Toon Boom

3Toon Boom News SPRING 2008

SP O NSO R SHIP

Team Canada ChecklistSome may think the off-season is all about relaxing and taking some time off. But for Toon Boom sponsored beach volleyballer, Mark Heese, the off-season is anything but relaxing. It is spent training the many areas that need to be covered off before entering the Olympic season! In fact, the off-season is when most of the progress occurs, be it on the sand or off. On the sand, Heese and his partner Ahren Cadieux have never worked harder. Whether it’s the volley-ball workouts, where their coach John May helps them to refine and improve their game skills and strategies, or in the fitness workouts where they have personal trainers pushing them to their limits, they have never been in better shape. It’s good timing too, with their first tournament of the year set to begin in early May!

But the off-season training doesn’t stop there. Beach Volleyball is not just a sport where the athletes have to be in top physical shape, their minds must be prepared to deal with the pressures of competing at the very highest level as well. So, mental training has become an important part of how these athletes get ready for the Olympics. Both Heese and Cadieux participate in daily mental training programs where they hone their attitudes and approach to training and competition. They regularly discuss these mental stra-tegies with their coach and each other, strengthening the team and their ability to work in unison. Biweekly meet-ings are also scheduled with their mental training coach, Dr. J.P. Pawliw-Fry, a well-known motivator and life coach, to go over the many dynamics that arise between partners striving for the same goal. With physical and mental fitness checked-off the team’s list, that leaves all the miscellaneous tasks, such as nutrition (proper diets, recovery food, hydra-tion, etc.), body maintenance (injury prevention, therapy, flexibility, etc.), and team administration (such as sponsors/media, scheduling, travel arrangements, etc.). So as you can see, the off-season is a lot busier than you would expect. But the guys seem to take it in their stride and have put in all the necessary work, and checked everything off their off-sea-son checklist. Mark looks forward to another great season and appreciates Toon Boom’s support as he strives for his fourth Olympic Games! Read about Mark and Toon Boom on

Mark’s blog page: http://www.heese-cadieux.com/Blog

TOON BOOM STARThis section is dedicated to Toon Boom employees. In each issue, we will introduce you to the people behind the tech-nology and put a face to the voice you may have spoken to.

Pete Cawthorne was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. A true Scot, Pete has strong roots and ties to his home-land, but he is seeking Canadian citizenship. He started his professional life as a medical photographer gaining qualifications in Applied Scientific Photography and later in Medical, Scientific and Technical Photography. He held various professional photographic positions in the UK, including Senior Medical and Scientific Photographer at the Institute of Neurological Sciences in Glasgow. After arriving in Canada in 1986, he obtained a qualification in Technical Writing from Concordia University in 1993 and started on a career path which was to eventually lead him to Toon Boom. In 2000, Pete joined Toon Boom as a technical writer and enjoyed working with the team for the next two years before entering the freelance techni-cal writing market. Then, to his delight, Pete was offered and accepted the position of Documentation Manager at Toon Boom in 2005. He is responsible for coordinating the production and delivery of product documentation in a timely manner. Pete has two sons Graham and Alastair. He is married to Pamela, a teacher and writer/editor (she edits this newsletter – ed.) with whom he enjoys travel, photo-graphy, friends, film and a lively debate over a pint of beer.


CONSUMER NEWS

Gina Allnatt is a 26-year-old recent graduate in Anima-tion at the North Wales School of Art and Design and has just moved to London to pursue a career as an animator. Gina was taught how to use Toon Boom Studio at university and encountered Toon Boom Story-board Pro at the 2007 Annecy Animation Festival, where she attended Toon Boom’s free workshops. As part of her student project, she decided to animate a clip from the BBC radio comedy Old Harry’s Game. After getting writer and actor Andy Hamilton’s approval, she started working on it. First, she listened to the soundtrack and designed the char-acters. Once they were solid in her mind, she started story-boarding and working out the timing. “I drew each board directly into Toon Boom Storyboard Pro using a Wacom tablet. I enjoy playing back animatics in real time, the fact that it’s so easy to draw directly into it, exporting PDFs for print out, the ease of use, and the ability to pan within an animatic,” commented Gina.____________________________________________________________________________________

Kshiraj Telang went to New Delhi after high-er secondary school-ing and started as a professional anima-tor by learning the art of animation and Toon Boom Studio on his own. The major-ity of his animations are seen by a web audience. At pres-ent, animated viral

marketing is a hot selling scenario in India, which results in most of the animations being shown on the web. “But my deliverables have also tasted the platforms of educa-tional CD ROM games, LCD showcase at public places, fi lm festivals entries and Television,” stated Kshiraj. “Toon Boom Studio is no doubt the best choice for a traditional animator searching for a friendly environment on digital platform. I have seen classical animators’ jaws drop during their initial days when I made them aware about Toon Boom Studio’s capabilities. The intelligent allocation of all shortcuts to left hand makes your right hand so liberal at graphic tablet that your productivity gets accelerated beyond imagination,” he continued.

Educated in Sweden and Denmark in fi ne arts and journal-ism, Adam Marko-Nord has directed spots for IBM, Nokia. He also designed and directed the MTV Channel look for all the Nordic countries between 2005 and 2007. Most recently, Adam designed and directed a three-minute spot for Master-card through Grey London, via Stink Digital who represent him in the UK. “It was a demanding production since we only had about a month for the entire project, including story-boarding, design, animation and sound. So it was pretty tight, but fun since I could have a lot of creative freedom. I chose to go with Toon Boom Studio since I wanted a 2D look and knew that I could get it together in such a short time,” explained Adam. Toon Boom Studio allows him to put a hand-made, personal touch to every frame and the originality of his works testifi es to that.

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Based in Envigado, Colombia, Edwing Solórzano Parejais a dedicated professional and true animator. He founded ANIMATEAM in 1998 to fully dedicate his time and talent to the creation of animation for the educational sector, using his extensive experience to develop content adapted for the Latin market. “What previously took us two months with four animators, a scan technician, a colourist, and an editing tech-nician, now takes us only one month with the participation of two graphic artists for the complete process, all using Toon Boom Studio,” enthusiastically shared Edwing. Edwing and his team totally invested themselves in an educational busi-ness project called La Autopista de la Energía (The Energy Freeway) where they gave life, using Toon Boom Studio 3.5, to the institutional characters of the ISA Company (Intercon-exión Eléctrica S.A). “During the production, we upgraded to Toon Boom Studio 4 to take advantage of the new func-tionalities. The change was transparent. We almost didn’t

feel the change of versions and we com pleted the proj-ect very nicely. We liked the software even more, because generally, the leap to another version slows down a produc-tion, which was not the case here,” he concluded.

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6 Toon Boom News APRIL 2008

IP4U Animation was recently added under the IP4U umbrella. IP4U was founded in 2004, and creates, publishes, produces, adapts and distributes audiovisual, digital and interactive content for games, interactive TV, DVD and mobile phones among others. The studio opened in December 2007 in the heart of Lille, France, 45 minutes from Paris and 30 minutes from Brussels. IP4U Animation has built a team of 37 people all working in their brand new facility and dedicated to their multiple property development. The studio is fully equipped with Storyboard Pro and Harmony and the team has already been trained by Toon Boom and Rhinocéros Formation to ensure all members get up to speed with the technol-ogy. IP4U Animation is currently working on three series as a service provider or executive producer. The produc-tion of a fi rst series is scheduled for the spring 2008 and will showcase Lulu La Peste in the Mistigri Islands. Targeting a young audience of four to six year-olds, this series will include 26 thirteen-minute episodes in cut-out animation style.___________________________________________________________________________________

Glaz Entretenimento used Toon Boom Storyboard Pro in the pre-production stage of the Brazilian animation feature Minhocas (“Earthworms”), for storyboard and animatic editing. After drawing on paper and digitizing the drawings in HD, they imported them in Storyboard Pro, as individual projects for each of the 70 sequences available. Then, based on the imported script, in each sequence, the team organized the drawings in scenes, several caption fi elds were created and fi lled with script information such as dialogues, actions and sound effects as well as with production information such as kind of puppet or set, grips, camera and cuts. The timing of each panel was adjusted and simple camera and objects motion were added. Two storyboards were exported; one with only script information and the other complete, to be used as a shooting-board. A QuickTime containing each sequence was sent to editing and was used to perform fi nal adjustments. Minhocas is a stop-motion fi lm produced by Glaz Entertainment and Anima King (Brazil) along with Wizz Films (Canada). The story is about Junior, a 12-year old earthworm, who lives an

adventure outside his home. The diffi culties he faces on his travels change his life forever, making him discover that respect and courage are traits that are admirable and important.___________________________________________________________________________________

It was only natural that Bill Melendez Productions, the industry standard for excellence and the chosen produc-tion company for the beloved Peanuts characters, should choose Toon Boom software. “It was a perfect fi t for our commercials and titles,” states Warren Taylor, Line Producer. “Our clients require high quality, fl exibility and a quick turnaround and Digital Pro and Storyboard provide us with that.” Their many clients, including MetLife, Knott’s Berry Farm, Macy’s and ABC, appreci-ate the quality of their animation produced by Digital Pro. With the ever changing needs of their clients, they really appreciated the ease with which they could move into HD using Digital Pro or quickly produce animation for the web. Directors Bill Melendez and Larry Leichliter love that they can see the work in progress so quickly and effectively without losing any quality of the animation. Production Manager, Carole Barnes, and Scene Planner, Cindy Goode, use it exclusively for all aspects of produc-tion, from storyboarding and models all the way through fi nal compositing. “The Toon Boom products and the excellent technical support have helped to keep our work fl ow cost effective and a key component to our success,“ shared Cindy Goode.

INDUSTRIAL NEWS

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From word to image, from Final Draft to Storyboard Pro In our visual media world, scripts and storyboards are often the foundation of your project. Using computers and digital tools it is possible to avoid the use of paper. However, to avoid wasting time converting or modifying fi les, it is crucial to ensure compatibility between applications.

The latest release of Toon Boom Storyboard Pro provides a greater level of integration into the pre-production pipeline. By supporting the use of Final Draft XML format you can seamlessly trans-fer your script directly into your storyboarding software. You can generate your XML fi les with the Final Draft Tagger application, this acts as an interface to breakdown and add extra elements and categories to an existing script. You can then create a new storyboard project from your script and customize the breakdown rules using the script’s elements tag. Each element can trigger pre-defi ned actions, i.e. generate a scene or a panel and which is automatically placed into any caption fi eld location you choose. Storyboard Pro already provides easy script integration and splitting within the software. And now, with the native support of the Final Draft script, you can save even more time and enhance your paperless pre-production experience.

Enrique Navarrete, who gained 25 years of experience working for major studios on such blockbusters as Prince of Egypt, Shrek 2, Madagascar and Antz, found-ed Los Hijos de Su Madre (LHSM) in Mexico. This digital animation studio currently offers 2D and 3D animation as well as motion graphics, post production and visual effects. The studio can be involved in the development of the whole production process, start-ing with the original concept all the way to the post production, including character design, visual develop-

ment, storyboarding, background painting, 2D and 3D animation, inbetweening, ink and paint and rendering. LHSM has recently adopted Storyboard Pro and Digital Pro in their production pipeline to work on pilots for TV series and feature fi lms (original content and service work). A few experienced animators at LHSM followed advanced Toon Boom training in Mexico and Montreal and are in the midst of becoming Toon Boom Certi-fi ed Professionals. “With our background and experi-ence, we certainly appreciate the advantages of using specialized tools to help us increase our productivity without limiting our creativity; we’re happy to have Toon Boom as part of those tools,” shared Enrique. Motivated by the increased demand for skilled anima-tors, Enrique recently created a school called Anima-turas and will incorporate the Toon Boom professional suite for digital storyboarding and 2D animation certi-fi ed programs. For the fi rst term in 2008, Enrique was thrilled there were more than 260 applicants for 25 seats at his school!


CASE STUDY

Big Green Rabbit seeks to conquer the problem of child-hood obesity by promoting healthy diets and inviting tele-vision viewers, Internet users and live event participants to engage in a variety of physical activities designed to burn an additional 50 - 100 kcal every day. This is consistent with calculations that state that increases in daily energy expenditure and reductions in energy intake (averaging 110 to 165 kcal/day) can prevent excess weight gain in preschool and early elementary school-aged children.1

Big Green Rabbit explores the adventures of a seven year-old girl named Isabelle and her best friend, Charlie, a 7’ tall big, green rabbit.

Big Green Rabbit was created by Shane DeRolf, a children’s author and former president of Random House Entertainment. Shane serves as the Executive Producer and Head Writer for the series, which is being developed for public television by Big Green Company in Boulder, Colorado. The creative team consists of Musical Director, Mark Oblinger, who leads the song-writing machine that includes David Williams, one of the most prolifi c song-writers on the planet. Bernard Derriman is their Anima-tion Director. “An absolute genius, but you probably know that already,” commented Shane. Their Supervising Producer and Co-Director is John W. Burshtan, who is “so brilliant, it’s scary.” The team shoots the live-action in HD at Comcast Media Center outside Denver.

Green Anaconda, their latest music video, is their most addictive children’s video yet. It was also the hardest song for Bernard and Shane to think through from a story perspective. But it paid off: “Almost every day, two and

three year-olds in toy and grocery stores throughout Colo-rado can be overheard walking the aisles and singing. ”I wanna condo. I wanna condo.” When pressed further, we’ve learned they are actually trying to sing...”Green Anaconda. Green Anaconda.” Honest. A true story,” shared Shane. Green Anaconda and all the other Big Green Rabbit songs and episodes will be airing fi ve times a week at 8:00 AM for one week a month during BIG GREEN WEEK on Rocky Mountain PBS through August while they ramp up produc-tion at the rate of two new shows per month. As a series, Big Green Rabbit will be shown daily on Rocky Mountain PBS in September 2008.

“We’re producing two half-hours per month, 50% of which is animation, 50% live-action. All of our animation is created in Toon Boom Digital Pro. Over the next two years, we plan on producing 50 half-hours. And yes, we have no lives,” continued Shane with a smile on his face.

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Leaping Forward with Toon Boom Professional SuiteBig Green Rabbit is a children’s multimedia lifestyle brand dedicated to reducing childhood obesity and connecting children and nature. It applies sophisticated social marketing methodologies with academic and medical research in a unique, entertaining collection of television specials, books, music, DVDs and live events incorporating move-ment, nutrition and creative play. As a brand, Big Green Rabbit provides parents and caregivers with a holistic model designed to improve diet, encourage exercise and increase children’s connection to nature. But most impor-tantly, Big Green Rabbit is just plain fun!

“Chromaconcerto has triggered huge interest from the music community. We are discussing the idea of making animated shorts as well as musical works from two or three composers available on the net for people to create their own musical experience.”

”Bernard Derriman explained they have a small crew of ex-Disney animators and directors working on this project based in Sydney, Australia. “I am directing, which involves the character designs and storyboarding which are created using Storyboard Pro. Then we have three animators and one compositor/editor. We are able to produce one minute a week with this crew, so a song like Green Anaconda we’d have completed in a fortnight.”

”Digital Pro has been a revelation with the process from Storyboard to Digital Pro, which has been seamless. As far as Storyboard Pro is concerned, I truly enjoy all the current drawing tools, and in particular the delay feature with the brush tool, a suggestion of mine in the early devel-opment. I fi nd it a less intrusive way for the programme to

optimize the line – a problem that drove me to distraction in Flash. The integration with Digital Pro has been wonder-ful, especially working with a crew, where I can send them a board with all my notes attached with each scene, includ-ing camera moves, it’s everything they need.”

”In Digital Pro, all the tools on offer in compositing gives the animation a very slick and professional look –

and allows us to achieve that look without having to resort to other post production software like After Effects.”

”Coming from Flash, possibly the greatest improve-ment I’ve noticed using Digital Pro is the camera feature. To be able to move the camera through elements, pans, but even if you decide you want to move in a little tighter on a shot it is sensational – something that would have been a nightmare in Flash.”

”And the use of pegs is brilliant. Symbols in Flash become too integrated with the animation – if you start manipulating symbols in animation, and decide some-where down the line you don’t like what you’ve done – you are kind of screwed, there’s no easy way to go back. But in Digital Pro, it’s simply a matter of deleting the peg

and starting again.””I used to use Flash, but grew tired of

its limitations and lack of support. I came across Toon Boom at Annecy and really liked what I saw. I made the transition very quickly – once you get your head around the fundamentals of Toon Boom like Symbols versus Elements etc., – I was as quick animating in Toon Boom Digital Pro as I was in Flash within a fortnight,” openly commented Bernard.

Thanks to the fantastic combination of great talents and leading-edge technol-ogy, the project is running smoothly and effi ciently. The studio is also maximizing the advantages of being part of the Toon Boom community, fi nding potential part-ners in other parts of the world and giving

the digital animation studio a whole new meaning. Big Green Rabbit is now in great shape to leap higher and higher in the sky and even touch the stars!

1 Wang, Y. C., Gortmaker, S. L., Sobol, A. M., & Kuntz, K. M. (2006). Esti-

mating the Energy Gap Among US Children: A Counterfactual Approach.

Published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, 118(6): 1721-1733.

From left to right: Mark Oblinger, Shane DeRolf, David Williams

“I used to use Flash, but grew tired of its limitations and lack of support. Once you get your head around the fundamentals of Toon Boom like Symbols versus Elements, I made the transition very quickly.”



What began as a groundbreaking Internet studio and print comic publishing house, is now expanding into various television and fi lm projects that appeal to specif-ic groups while still entertaining the masses. To fully appreciate the unique path Blind Ferret has followed, let’s introduce the team fi rst and then backtrack.

The team leading Blind Ferret looks like a match made in heaven. Randy Waxman, President, brings his business background to the table and takes care of the day-to-day operations and contract negotiations. Ryan Sohmer, Creative Director, is in charge of all creative and production aspects. Ryan’s energy level is so high natu-rally that you would think the heavily caffeinated Red Bull drink he is hooked on would actually slow him down. Not exactly! Working closely with Ryan is Lar deSouza, Lead Artist and creative partner on Least I Could Do and Looking for Group.

As Ryan Sohmer candidly states, “We started back-wards.” His story proves that with creative genius and sharp business sense, this studio can inspire all inde-pendent artists out there. Ryan used to write articles for Canadian and American newspapers and felt his talents could take him to new places. In 2002, Ryan created his fi rst online property Least I Could Do with

the help of an artist. “The fi rst year was tough, I had to adapt my writing,” said Ryan. The site gradually grew from 5,000 to 15,000 visitors a day and was slowly but surely building a large community. After two-and-a-half years, Ryan and Randy partnered to create Blind Ferret Entertainment. “We used the Internet as a medium to broadcast our content. It’s great to have no interfer-ence between us and our audience,” continued Ryan. The most surprising detail is that Ryan knew noth-ing about animation at the time. Their fi rst animated project titled Ctrl+Alt+Del consisted of 12 six-minute episodes netcast on a monthly basis. Ryan explained that they hired an American company to do the anima-tion for this fi rst project. It was a great success fi nan-cially, but from a creative point of view, Ryan admits the quality was not there. Their business model was working great, as they were selling online subscriptions as well as DVDs. Following that fi rst experience, they decided to bring the animation production in-house, starting with small projects, to regain contract over quality. As they completed their next project, titled Player vs Player, Ryan felt they needed to rely on tools other than Flash if they wanted to continue to improve their quality.

Blind Ferret Entertainment, a Montreal-based revolutionary 2D animation studio, was founded in 2004 by writ-er/director Ryan Sohmer and partner Randy Waxman. By offering broadcast quality production at a fraction of the cost, they have helped countless companies in their productions, as well as creating their very own.

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From the Web to the Big Screen with Digital Pro


This is how Ryan discovered Toon Boom. Ryan remem-bers the training he took alongside fi ve animators and how they discovered the capabilities of Toon Boom’s true animation tools. “It was an eye-opening experience. We were amazed by the multi-plane camera features and how easy it was to make changes anytime during a project,” Ryan confi ded. As they were completing the fi rst episode of Player vs Player project, they started using Toon Boom Solo and were able to start create longer episodes in a shorter time frame. In Novem-ber 2007, Blind Ferret announced a second season of Ctrl+Alt+Del.

Another project worth mentioning is Looking for Group. Started just a year ago, this online property attracts 1.5 to 2 million unique visitors on a monthly basis, delivering over 30 million pageviews each month-ly. Looking For Group is a fantasy sci-fi videogame-based story which has created a substantial fan base in such a short time. The team at Blind Ferret was originally contacted to do a weekly comic based on a multi-play-er video game. However, what they developed was so good that they expanded on the project internally and

“Digital Pro gives our animators and directors full fl exibility over the projects. Flash provided us with so many diffi culties that we had to compromise on quality.”


the property took off almost immediately. They now have a full line of merchandise with comic books, fi gurines and shirts. Viewing the comics and animations online is free, which is mostly offset by advertising revenue. Last year, they created a three and half minute teaser titled Slaughter the World which garnered a standing ovation at ComicCon 2007. Since launching in July 2007, the teaser has also been viewed more than 3 million times on the Internet, which again has proved to be an excellent selling tool for Blind Ferret. These milestones enabled the team to secure a fi nancing partner for the Looking for Group feature fi lm which is slated to start production in August-September 2008.

On one hand, the team is working on the Least I Could Do property, developing new webisodes for the website that receives over 15 million views each month. Planning to launch a new webisode every two weeks, Blind Ferret is creating fi ve episodes ahead of time to launch the series in April 2008. On the other, they are

also working on This is War, a musical parody that will be part of the Looking for Group feature fi lm. The team had only fi ve months to complete This is War and it is scheduled to debut at ComiCon 2008.

This is War is obviously set in a war zone, between gnomes and trolls, catapults and hundreds of soldiers. The storyboards are now completed and the fi nal song recording was done in Los Angeles. All the lyrics were

written by Ryan and the music was composed in a Los Angeles sound studio. Once the storyboards were approved, they were scanned into Storyboard Pro to set the key poses, timing and camera moves. “I really enjoy the fact we can export to Digital Pro fi le format and see all the assets set up and ready to go. In the past, our process was defi nitely not as smooth! We can also export a QuickTime movie to keep the animatic in tact,” explained Ryan.

“Our animation team currently counts 8 to 9 people, all dedicated to paperless frame-by-frame animation. Nancy, our lead animator, prepared all the roughs during the fi rst couple of weeks, to see how it would lay out and get everything in place. I am a true believer that all assets need to be done prior to starting the animation. These assets include all backgrounds, props, second-ary characters and model sheets. Once completed, the team started animating in the third week of March.” Once all the roughs and keys are done, the process

moves over to cleaning, colouring and then shadows effects are applied. Our team understands quality and time to market. They are not paid by the frame and are full-time employees, getting all the benefi ts our studio can provide. Randy and I felt that this was critical to keeping the quality level high.”

“Our animators all use Wacom Intuos tablets through-out the animation process. This, along with the fact that

“It was an eye-opening experience. We were amazed by the multi-plane camera features and how easy it was to make changes anytime during a project.”

CASE STUDY (CONTINUED)

The team leading Blind Ferret looks like a match made in heaven. From left to right: Lar deSouza, Lead Artist, Ryan Sohmer, Creative Director, Randy Waxman, President.

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all projects are split into individual shots, allows us to improve the process and flow of information. On each project, our animators are expected to have 2 different jobs: Rough and Clean; Clean and Colour; or Colour and Shadows. It’s really important to know at least two skills, so an animator can help out at different tasks throughout the project. Generally, two animators will work on all the roughs, in order to ensure a consistency through the production. We currently use an in-house system for back-up and file sharing, providing our entire team with a unique ability to access and share data. We’ll need to implement Harmony once we get the film project going and have more people involved in the production. Another feature worth mentioning in Digital Pro is the Palette Management capabilities, which makes it quite easy to make changes and fine tune the final animation.“

“Digital Pro gives our animators and directors full flexibility over the projects. Flash provided us with so many difficulties that we had to compromise on quality. Another fantastic feature is related to camera moves. If you want to change the angle, just move the peg! Afterwards, we can simply apply effects and shadows. We then render the animation in Quick-Time for the web and large events like ComicCon,” explained Ryan.

Looking for Group, the feature film, will be 75 to 80 minutes long, targeted to a direct-to-video release as well as a limited theatrical release. All the animation will be done in-house and Blind Ferret will be looking to gather a team of 30 animators to carry out the proj-ect. In addition to This is War, the feature will include

six other musical numbers, all parodies of Disney films, offering great fun with a small dose of violence. As if they did not have enough to deliver, Blind Ferret is also contracting service work from various prestigious customers, such as Just For Laughs. They recently animated the Just For Laughs mascot, Victor, for use on their website and select DVD releases.

The studio’s unusual name testifi es to the uniqueness of their creativity and to the fantastic drive the team has for developing animation that will blow you away!


Aly Jetha and Shabnam Rezaei started Big Bad Boo Studios in January 2008. Both are Producers and Co-Creators of Mixed Nutz, as well as Partners of Big Bad Boo Studios in New York and Vancouver. They have attracted a talented group of animation veterans and Emmy award winners such as Alfred Gimeno, Randy Rogel, Glen Kennedy and Joe Banaszkiewicz. Their directors are Dustin Ellis and Alfred Gimeno in Burbank. They are supported by Nicolas Actis and Nick Duenez. Glen Kennedy is their animation director and he runs the Vancouver studio with Art Director Mathieu Causse. Out of Burbank, Randy Rogel writes a lot of their songs. Their core animation team in Vancouver consists of 20 very talented Toon Boom artists who were clas-sically trained at the best schools but also have a deep knowledge of the system. Joe Banaszkiewicz, Senior Storyboard Artist, is a veteran of the anima-tion industry, having more than 18 years of experi-ence ranging from design to storyboarding.

Going multiplatform in HarmonyBig Bad Boo Studios is one of the top Toon Boom animation studios in Canada, offering premium animation that is high quality, cost-effective and delivered on time. Their core animation team is in Vancouver, giving them access to Canadian tax credits. This and the benefi ts of digital animation enable them to compete with the Asian markets. In addition, they offer a closer location to clients which naturally brings them closer to their projects creatively. Being in the same time zone as their clients in Los Angeles is an added bonus. Their New York and Burbank offi ces serve as business development and pre-production facilities, respectively. Their clients and prospects have a big presence in both cities and they like to have people close to them for better communication and effective delivery.

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CASE STUDY


“Aly and I started Norooz Production with Dustin Ellis and Mastaneh Moghadam with the mission of teach-ing kids culture through entertainment. In the last two years, we raised enough money to develop 13 episodes of Mixed Nutz with a multiplatform strategy in mind.“

“We really pride ourselves on our quality and quick turn around times. We have the top talent in the anima-tion industry working on our show. Glen Kennedy runs the animation group in Vancouver and has more than 20 years of animation experience. He trained under Bill Hanna of Hanna-Barbera and has worked on some of the favourite shows of all times, such as He-Man, The Smurfs, The Jetsons, Disney’s Aladdin, and PBS’s Zula Patrol.“

“It was important to me and Aly that our operation be as effi cient as possible. That is why we chose Toon Boom as the way to create a smooth workfl ow between our three offi ces. Every individual on our team is also capable of doing many different things. So for example, an anima-tor will design props or backgrounds and vice versa. By being fl exible we adapt quickly to the changing needs of the market,” shared Shabnam Rezaei.

The team is currently working on the Mixed Nutzshow, a 22-minute sit-com style 2D show destined for mainstream television around the world. With Mixed Nutz, they will be also offering webisodes, short inter-stitials, an activity filled website and other hooks to

bring the audience in. The style of the show is very simple, comparable to Peanuts. Mixed Nutz is about a group of kids and their day-to-day struggles at Terra Firma school. The neighbourhood where the kids are growing up consists of monotone row houses which look the same from the outside. However the inside of the homes feature unique décor. The main characters are Babak, a self-conscious kid who is struggling with his identity; Jae, a natural-born leader who has lots of gadgets and tries very hard to please his father; Damaris, a quiet bookworm who lost her mother at a young age; Adele, an environment lover who can fix anything with her chewing gum; Sousanne, Babak’s confident and bossy cousin and Sanjay, a self-depre-cating romantic who just came over from Mumbai. Real children provide the voices and that gives an innocent tone to the show. The universal themes of friendship, jealousy, responsibility and reaching for your dreams are all explored in a funny and fresh way.

Another 2D show that they have in development is called Gone Bananas! The series consists of three-minute shorts about three monkeys who get them-selves into all kinds of trouble with absolutely no dialogue. The work is done in Toon Boom Harmony.

“We will typically start our day by brainstorming the episode idea between Aly, me, Dustin, Alfred and

From left to right: Alfred Gimeno, Aly Jetha, Dustin Ellis, Glen Kennedy, Shabnam Rezaei, Randy Rogel and Mat Causse

”Harmony has brought all of our top management team closer to the production, which everyone appreciates. That is a priceless advantage.”


Glen. Then we get a group of writers to write the show and when the script is ready, we record the voices in Los Angeles. We typically hand out 11 minutes of each show to two storyboard artists. The board artists can be located in Burbank or Vancouver and they are given the option of working on paper or directly into Story-board Pro. Most of our older artists prefer paper and we just scan the sheet into Storyboard Pro but we are experimenting more and more with direct drawings on our Wacom Cintiq stations. We also import the script and recorded dialogue into the program and then we are able to create the animatic. While the boards are taking shape, we simultaneously get started on model builds, layouts, prop designs and character designs. Most of this work is done in Vancouver directly in Harmony. We are currently delivering about 6 minutes of the show per week. Our post-production is currently split between Burbank and Vancouver.”

“We are at the beginning stages of using Storyboard Pro. We have been able to scan boards in and experi-ment with scripts and dialogue being brought in. We are also looking to deliver our animatics directly out from Storyboard Pro. What is great is the level of fl exibility

CASE STUDY (CONTINUED)

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we have. I can give my artists the option of drawing on paper, the traditional way, or doing the work digitally. Some artists work faster on the Cintiq and prefer to draw the roughs right in and then go in and clean up the work. I am really excited to get all of our board artists thinking in this way because it will save time without jeopardizing the quality. We have already seen tremendous effi ciency by doing the animatic in this way. We used to outsource that bit and we have saved time and money using the software. Approvals are also running much smoother since everything is online and shared between our team members in the three cities.”

“We use Harmony for the entire animation process. We build the models directly into the system. We knew we wanted to go digital because of the multiplatform distribution strategy that we are looking to offer to our fans. We did a lot of research on software and potential partners who could do the work for us. Flash seemed to be the only other option and since the software is not made for animation, it did not give us the envi-ronment or tools that we needed. The look of flash is also very flat, as if there are cardboard models moving across the screen. We were all keen on the tradition-

al look and that can be achieved with Harmony. The system also gave us the ability to move our production from overseas to a local office in Vancouver, which has done wonders for reducing our timelines and giving us more creative freedom. As a creator of the show, I am delighted to be able to walk up to the animator who did a scene and ask him to change the expression of a character on the fly. That would have taken two weeks in another environment and we would have had to pay a price for it. The message also gets lost in transla-tion and the end result is a compromise. Harmony has brought all of our top management team closer to the production, which everyone appreciates. That is a priceless advantage,” concluded Shabnam.

As markets evolve and people change their view-ing habits, Shabnam and Aly feel it is important for content producers to stay adaptable. At Big Bad Boo, they certainly have the team in place to offer services for not only high quality animation that is on time and on budget in a convenient location, but also for a stra-tegic solution to providing a multiplatform strategy. Check out this very talented group as you might want them involved in your next project!

”We have already seen tremendous effi ciency by doing the animatic in this way. We used to outsource that bit and we have saved time and money using the software. Approvals are also running much smoother since everything is online and shared between our team members in the three cities.”


SCHOOLS ON BOARD

The New Brunswick Community College (NBCC) offers close to 100 programs which are developed, reviewed and enhanced through the work of four schools: the School of Business, the School of Applied Arts and Information Technology, the School of Health and Human Services and the School of Technology and Trades. They offer services from seven locations, including campuses like Miramichi. Approximately 2,000 students attend the NBCC Miramichi Campus each year, including over 600 students who are enrolled full-time in their regular programs. The Animation and Graphics program is designed to prepare gradu-ates for challenging careers in all aspects of anima-tion and its applications. Their qualified instructors bring their experience from renowned studios, such as Disney and Nelvana, to a dynamic classroom setting. In their industry-acclaimed program, students devel-op strong technical and creative skills. The simulated studio environment aids students in understanding the professional standards they can expect to find in the animation industry. The campus has adopted Toon Boom Storyboard Pro in the Story Reel class. “Students were able to learn very quickly in about two three hour classes, Storyboard Pro is a really easy tool to use and gets animatics done quickly, efficiently and professionally,” shared Tara Audibert, Applied Arts Instructor at NBCC.____________________________________________________________________________________

As an international and multi-cultural program, the John C. Hench Division of Animation & Digital Arts of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California has adopted Storyboard Pro and Digital Pro in their classroom. “As a class, we were a bit slow in learning the tools in Digital Pro, but the end result was quite exciting. I am always interested in digital tools that allow for individuality and expressive freedom and Digital Pro gave their projects a profes-sional yet unique look. I hope to eventually acquire tablets for everyone in the classroom so we can take advantage of the Digital Pro’s paperless technologies. Although only half of my students used Storyboard Pro, the result was impressive. For those who did, their timing issues seemed to work themselves out more easily than for those who used other software. I plan to integrate workshops into future semesters so more students will use it,” said Trixy Sweetvittles, Instructor of Cinema Practice.

Based in Oklahoma, Jenks Freshman Academy start-ed using Toon Boom Studio in 2007. Sara Blankley, a teacher at JFA sent such great feedback that we decided to publish it as is: “We are a pilot program to bring the concept of animation to our students as an elective. Toon Boom Studio has been an inter-esting learning experience for me. I started work-ing with it for the first time this summer and found it relatively easy to learn. Both my students and I are learning it exponentially. What we have learned

is that the software is easy to master. It is easy for high school students to comprehend and yet it has so many capabilities. We are also using Audacity to record sounds and then soundsnap.com has many sound clips that we insert into our animation. We have done it originally as a semester long course, but next year we plan on teaching it in a year long format. There just isn’t enough time for the students to apply what they have learned in only a semester long course. I would like to see the program grow and I feel the students are gaining a lot of experience through required documentation that is necessary to support their projects. They are also learning about time constraints, deadlines, planning, and organiza-tion. They enjoy teaching the other students about what they have learned and therefore take on the role of teaching one another. The learning environ-ment is wonderful. What they are learning can be applied to other disciplines. They are having a great time while doing it! Thank you Toon Boom for making my job so enjoyable.” ____________________________________________________________________________________

The National Electronic Media Institute of South Africa (NEMISA) came into being as an institution of education and learning, specializing in teaching the production and technical skills applicable to the TV, radio and broadcasting industries. Formed as part of a government initiative in 1998, its fundamental purpose was to train previously disadvantaged indi-


viduals, particularly women, and equip them with the skills necessary to play significant roles in the broadcasting environment. NEMISA operates from a modern office and studio complex centrally situated in Parktown, Johannesburg. Gavin Winer, Lecturer, Digital Animation, has recently been trained in Digi-tal Pro and will integrate it in the second year class-room, once the students have acquired the necessary traditional skills in the first year. NEMISA has adapt-ed its curriculum based on the renowned Algonquin College of Media and Design (Canada) curriculum. “The students are extremely excited to get started. Using their knowledge of traditional animation, now they can do it all digitally,” shared Gavin.____________________________________________________________________________________

Based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Image Campus and Hook Up Animation have launched a profes-sional animation course that trains professionals in all production stages. Under the supervision of Hook Up Animation and given at Image Campus’ facili-ties, a renowned training centre in digital arts, this new course is one of a kind in Latin America. As their objective is to train professionals in all techniques and tools required in animation production, Hook Up Animation and Image Campus have partnered to develop a three-year program that meets internation-al standards. The courses cover drawing, traditional and digital animation, character design, backgrounds, scripting, art direction, animation history and acting among others. Their lab is also equipped with Toon Boom Studio and Digital Pro to introduce students to the tools of the trade and prepare them for the market place.


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