toon boom summer 2011

toonboom.comSummer 2011

2 Toon Boom News SUMMER 2011

Toon Boom Corporate Headquarters+1 514 278 8666 5530 St. Patrick, Suite 2210montréal (Québec) H4e 1A8 Canada

toonboom.com

This issue’s cover courtesy of CarpeDiem Film & TV

Printed in Canada

Toon Boom has always had the pleasure and privilege of celebrating great accomplishments with its customers and partners. On March 24, 2011, Toon Boom jointly hosted a Canadian Animation Night in Singapore, along with the Canadian High Commission and the Institute of Technical Education. Held in Singapore’s luxurious ITE MacPherson Campus Auditorium, the event was a huge success and brought together 400 guests for an enjoyable evening of networking and watching Canadian Animation Classics. Toon Boom would like to take this opportunity to send a heartfelt thank-you to its partners and friends who showed their utmost professionalism and commitment to the anima-tion industry.

On April 14, 2011, Toon Boom invited partners, customers and friends to an Open House Cocktail in its new premises here in Montreal. A great number of guests arrived, happy to share the moment, mingle, and relax to the Brazilian rhythms of Paulo Ramos, while enjoying an entertaining evening of fine cater-ing and good wine. It was wonderful to have the chance to spend an excellent time with all our guests and to show our appreciation for their long-standing support.

Toon Boom takes great pride in meeting customers and building relationships, its calendar of upcoming events will certainly deliver on that front, with; New Media Conference (NMC) in Madison, WI, USA (June 15-18); International Soci-ety for Technology in Education (ISTE), Booth 1403 (Smart Technologies) in Philadelphia, PA, USA (June 26-29); 2011 IB Conference of the Americas in San Antonio, TX, USA (July 21-24); and SIGGRAPH, Booth 148 in Vancouver, Canada (August 9-11). Make it a point to come along and drop by our booth!

Celebrating with Partners and Friends

3Toon Boom News SUMMER 2011

AWArDS ArOuND THe COrNerToon Boom is in the running for several prestigious

awards in the Quebec, Canadian and US arenas. As a finalist for the OCTAS 2011 in the Commercial Success category, Toon Boom is grateful to the Quebec IT Action Network for this acknowledgement and is anxious to find out if it will be a winner on May 28. The OCTAS competition is a unique opportunity to pay tribute to Quebec’s excellence in the field of information technology.

At the Canadian level, Toon Boom is the proud winner of the HSBC International Business of the Year Award, in the Small and Medium Enterprise category. Celebrating the best of Canadian companies conducting business abroad, the awards were developed by HSBC Bank Canada, in part-nership with Business without Borders, to recognize Cana-dian firms that have made a real difference in taking their products and services to the world. This accomplishment is a remarkable testament of Toon Boom’s true and ongoing dedication to its global clientele.

At the US level, Flip Boom Classic and Flip Boom All-Star have been named finalists in the 2011 AEP Awards, the highest standard for quality, professional educational resources and excellence in education marketing. The Asso-ciation of Educational Publishers’ annual awards program and its seal of excellence are widely recognized by educa-tors, administrators, and parents as a mark of outstanding educational value.

Flip Boom Classic and Flip Boom All-Star are finalists in the Distinguished Achievement Awards for Curricu-lum in the Arts category, designed for K-5 and grades 6-8 respectively. Distinguished Achievement Award winners will be announced at the AEP Awards Banquet & Gala, on June 8 in Washington, DC. In addition, Flip Boom Classic Art Curriculum was selected for consideration for the Innova-tion Award, a new award for products that solved an educa-tion problem in a ground-breaking manner -- The judges felt Toon Boom’s entry truly exemplified the creativity and inven-tiveness of the educational publishing industry.

CONGrATuLATIONSOn March 30, 2011, a ceremony for the winners of Dison’s

First Paperless Animation Contest was successfully held at Dison Animation Technology in Beijing, PRC. Undertaken by Dison Animation Forum under the theme of “Your Anima-tion, Our Dreams”, the contest received dozens of entries over a six month period. As the main sponsor of the contest, Toon Boom is pleased to congratulate the winners of the four prizes. The First Prize was presented to Wenchao Dai, for the entry Journey; the Second Prize was presented to Qian Chen, for Windfall, and to Feng Li, for One; the Third

Prize was presented to Qiong Wang, for Revenge, and to Xingchen Wang, for The Magic Door, and to Yi Zhang, for Hot Pepper Sauce, and also to Chen Hao, for Jiong Ke Xia. These animations can be viewed in the Toon Boom Show-case under the Schools and Students category. Congratula-tions to all!

Guests attending the ceremony included; Dison Anima-tion Technology Chairman, Li Zhongpiu, Toon Boom’ s Chief Operating Officer, Steven Chu, Dison Animation Forum’s Webmaster, Xiao Yang and esteemed members of the jury. Also in attendance were media outlets that cooperate with Dison, including China Animation Network, Sohu Video, Man Yu, the China Cartoon Network, and CGW.

For over twenty years, Dison has focused on the anima-tion industry with their singular corporate dream: to provide

a platform to help animators realize their creative aspirations in today’s information age. Vision, technology and creativity come together in the wonder of animation.

As the supplier of Toon Boom products in China, Dison offers a complete range of animation techniques and solu-tions. 1989 marked the beginning of Chinese importation of 3D animation technology. Gradually, Dison itself emerged as a major developer of animation technology in China. Dison’s Golden Bridge division established the first domestic, paper-less animation production line and throughout this era has remained firmly in the forefront of the industry. Toon Boom is grateful of this long-standing partnership with Dison and looks forward to many more years of collaboration!

In January 2011, Toon Boom and the Leading English Educa-tion and Resource Network (LEARN) in Quebec, Canada, launched a contest targeted to grades 3, 4, 5 or 6 students throughout Quebec’s English school boards. Being in Quebec and during winter, the team picked the Winter Wonderland theme to inspire students to participate. Even though this was the first initiative of the kind to engage young talents in a contest, both Toon Boom and LEARN were overwhelmed by the positive response and the number of entries submit-ted. Congratulations to all participants and to the winners, Vladimir, a Grade 3 student at the Mackay Centre; Roman, a Grade 4 student at the Mackay Centre; and Lucas, a Grade 6 student at the Grosse Ile school. Their animations can be viewed online at contests.toonboom.com


Technology news

Draw the Line with HarmonyAs announced in the Spring 2011 issue of the Toon Boom News, a new version of Harmony is in the works. This major release is a leap forward in animation creation and further pushes the creative envelope. “Studios and animators will be very impressed, especially the Flash studios who will see in this latest version, an oppor-tunity to jump the fence and join the Toon Boom commu-nity,” said Joan Vogelesang, President and Chief Executive Officer of Toon Boom Anima-tion. Discover what Harmony has in-store for you:

Draw the Line Between Flash and a True Animation PipelineBuilding upon its solid foun-dation in traditional anima-tion, Harmony skyrockets your animation styles to untapped creative realms, offering mind-blowing digital capabilities to creators. The ability to share assets, colour palettes, and to perform rendering through Harmony’s networked pipeline evens out the workflow and helps groups to work together, whether they are individuals sitting side-by-side or studios working together across the world. By adopting Harmony, studios join a vibrant commu-nity in which Toon Boom acts as the glue to connect and facilitate introductions.

Draw the Line Between the Past and NowHarmony delivers capabili-ties that simply did not exist before. Starting with True Pencil, the ability to draw with pencil lines supporting textures, then on to Deform, the ability to deform images and drawings over a period of time using advanced bone and curve deformers, Effects Inside, the ability to access built-in particle effects and dozens of other effects, and finally, 2D-3D Integration, the ability to import and modify 3D assets within Harmony as well as transform elements on all 3 axes. As the main anima-tion production backbone, Harmony offers full artistic freedom with ease of use and total control.

Draw the Bottom LineHarmony has become an industry standard technol-ogy not only through our technological innovation, but also our dedication to the success of our clients. By devoting time and energy to training, consulting services, and support, we can aid the artist as well as the studio to become more efficient, and help to launch you on a growth path. Harmony’s pipeline environment can be scaled to reflect your needs and production volume. In addition, Toon Boom offers flexible options to make Harmony available to studios of any size; you can choose to lease, to work on a per-project basis, or to purchase outright.

NeW STOrybOArD PrO VerSION AVAILAbLe

Toon Boom Storyboard Pro 2 has a new Service Pack available, which delivers loads of software improvements, including the ability to:

• Export one movie clip per scene.• Select camera frames in the camera view to move, scale, or

copy one frame’s position to another.• Copy and paste camera keyframes from selected panels.• Enable snapping to automatically snap between panels and

at the start and end of sounds.• Flip with no artwork selected to flip a layer from the centre of

the camera frame.• Draw straight lines in 15 degree increments with the brush

tool by using the [Shift]+[Alt] keyboard shortcut.• Drag lock to move selections in a straight line by holding

down [Shift] when moving.• Optimize projects that have been drawn using texture

brushes.

To access this latest version, you can download it from your Toon Boom online account if your license is registered or contact your Toon Boom representative.

Seeing is believing. To book a demo, please contact [email protected]

NETWORK ANIMATION SOLUTION

NETWORk ANIMATION SOLuTION


Long Distance StoryboardingLast month I worked on a slasher live-action film called You’re Next. every other time I’ve board-ed a feature film, I’ve been on location with the director, but not this time.

The production was based in missouri and didn’t have the budget to fly me out and put me up. I needed to work long-distance with the director Adam Wingard and DP Andrew Palermo. The problem was time. We had a large list of scenes to be boarded and very little time.

To save time, I didn’t want to rough out the boards on my own and then email them to production for notes and then make changes. I knew I could get more done if I could work real-time with production.

I called production each day using Skype. I set it up so I could share my computer screen with them. As I sketched out my thumbnails digitally in Storyboard Pro, they could see my work real-time and make comments. It was just like sitting in the production office.

At times, the director would sketch out on idea for me. rather than take the time to scan and send it, he would hold it up to the Skype camera and I would take a snapshot of it.

because of the speed of Storyboard Pro, I was also able to provide animatics as I worked. As we would work through the shots of a sequence, I would hit play and they could see the timing play out.

Palermo says, “Adam and I both really changed our opinions about the importance of storyboarding during our work with Mark. I was impressed with the fluidity of the process: while working on the rough sketches over Skype if the lens length, angle or placement of an actor felt a bit off, mark was able to instantly make adjustments.”

The result of using Storyboard Pro was that in just 4 days, I boarded and edited animatics for 7 sequences. There is no way I could have done this much work on paper or with any other software.

Mark Simon is President at Animatics & Storyboards, Inc www.Storyboards-East.com

INDuSTry TIPby mark Simon

mark Simon working half a continent away from the You’re Next production using Skype, his laptop, 12” Cintiq and

Storyboard Pro.

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.

Have you ever called the Toon Boom head office? If so, chances are you spoke with Jennifer Haddad, Toon boom’s multitasking receptionist. Jenn joined the Toon boom family in 2007, shortly after graduating from Concordia university with a bachelor of Arts in Applied Human Sciences. She takes care of shipping, press kit preparation, in-house printing of marketing material and distribution of the Toon boom News, as well as answering our busy phone lines. As if her days were not full enough, she recently took on additional responsibilities with our Human resources Department, taking care of internal communications and joining the social committee. To even out her days, Jenn has nurtured a strong interest in New Age activities. As well as being a certified Hypnothera-pist, she is also a reiki practitioner (a Japanese technique for stress reduction and healing through touch). Jenn successfully uses reiki to treat both people and animals. Her life-balance is maintained through yoga and she will soon begin training as a yoga instructor. Having an holistic life-style has endowed her with a wonderful personality, a strong sense of commitment and boundless energy.

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Created in 2004, CarpeDiem is a media entertain-ment company which primarily focuses on the family market. The skills and depth of experience of its founders, Marie-Claude Beauchamp, Paul Risacher and Normand Thauvette, allows CarpeDiem to go from live action productions to 2D / 3D / stereoscopic animation to productions blending live action and CGI for all formats: feature films, television series, mobisodes or web games.

Each My Life Me 11-minute, two-act story focuses on a central issue relevant to teen life - stories from real life, pumped up for the genre. Whether testing the boundaries of friendship or finding balance between social and school

Pure Manga-driven fast-paced series, My Life Me is the first Canadian animated programming of its kind. Produced by CarpeDiem and ODMedia in Toon Boom Harmony, this 11-minute 52-episode series is hitting the mark with its audience of 8 to 12 year olds. Currently on air at Teletoon, France Television, Canal J, Disney Asia and kIkA (Germany), it was also sold to TV3 Cata-luña, TV SDN Malaysia, Educational Broadcasting korea, Norway Broadcasting Corporation, Canal+ Poland and Dreamia Portugal. International sales are handled by Classic Media. Considering the quality of this production, success is the name of the game for CarpeDiem.

Case study: Carpediem

CarpeDiem Goes manga with Harmony

Clockwise, starting from the top: Normand Thauvette, marie-Claude beauchamp and Paul risacher

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life, the issues facing the My Life Me kids are real. The

comedy comes from the complex, realistic characters interacting in familiar adolescent situations. The Manga elements and shifting points of view blow the kids responses, and the comedy, out of propor-tion.

For this production, the team brought together top-notch professionals in their respective fields: JC Little, Director-co-creator; Marie-Claude Beau-champ, Producer; Olivier Dumont, Producer (OD Media); Paul Risacher, Producer; Normand Thauvette, Produc-er; François Vachon, Studio Manager; Nicolas Blard, Co-Director; and Damien Tromel, Creative Producer (OD Media). Rising manga

star Svetlana Chmakova created all the char-

acters, drawing directly into

Harmony using a Cintiq. With production spanning

over 18 months and following a paperless workflow, My Life Me is a full cut-out animation production which combines 3D backgrounds with 2D assets. All character design, prop design, backgrounds, effects and Manga visuals were designed at CarpeDi-em. Backgrounds were created in Maya, then toonshaded, rendered and imported into Harmo-ny, creating an impressive and unique look through-out the scenes. Manga visuals included several types of lightening, tears, heart shapes, all with a specific meaning. All assets were centralized within the Harmo-ny library for storing and future reuse. “My Life Me brings the Manga printed style into animation so our goal was to be true to the genre and incor-


porate the same look and feel. We built an extensive selec-tion of Manga visuals and transitions that were put to great use in each episode,” explains François Vachon.

All storyboards were done using Storyboard Pro. Therefore, the team was able to import the Storyboard Pro files into Harmony to recover the file structure, the camera move information and the timing as well as use the animatic as a reference to create the animation. The animation production was done 50% at Toutenkartoon in Montreal and 50% at Caribara in Angoulême. Due to the Manga style done using cut-out animation techniques, each scene included a large number of layers. “Harmony was totally suited to handle it. On average, there were 1, 2 or 3 characters per shot and one background. Each char-acter could include up to 50 layers while background could include up to 10 layers. There were also several animated effects that had up to 10 layers as well. For larger shots, for example when a scene combined two panels to facilitate the transitions, the number of layers could surpass 1000,” continues François Vachon.

All the compositing was done in Harmony as well. “We pushed the envelope to the fullest with Harmony,” states Marie-Claude Beauchamp. This step was quite demand-ing because the animation was built pose to pose, with many effects and moving panels. “There were a lot of tran-sitions and manipulations to convey the Manga look and feel,” adds François Vachon.

The series is extremely well received by its targeted audience which testifies to My Life Me’s great quality in terms of content and visual representation.

Next was the animated preschool series, Silly Bitty Bunny, for which CarpeDiem storyboarded 63 out of the 78 episodes, using Storyboard Pro and Intuos tablets. “We had a team of six boarders working on this project, of which a few used the traditional paper-based methods to create the storyboards. They adapted very quickly to Story-board Pro, making the learning curve a non-issue altogether. With Storyboard Pro, the turnaround was much faster and the reuse and shar-ing process was quite convenient,” explains François Vachon.

CarpeDiem is in active devel-opment on a number of animated projects including the book-based tween series The JJ’s. It is certain that the experienced gained with My Life Me will be put to use in the future.

Look out for CarpeDiem, their dedi-cated and creative team deserves your attention, they could be your future partner of choice on a co-produc-tion project. CarpeDiem, not just a great motto for your everyday life, a chance to seize your opportunity to create quality programming.•

Case study: Carpediem (Continued)

AVAILABLE IN THE APP STORE

Case study: RadiCal sheep pRoduCtions

Toon Boom News SUMMER 201110

As President, John Leitch manages the business of radical Sheep and oversees corporate growth. He acts as executive Producer for Stella and Sam and also over-sees the management and sales of radical’s properties, both domestic and foreign. Additional key members of the Stella and Sam team include michelle melanson, Supervising Producer; Jain Dickson, Producer; raymond Jafelice, Supervising Director; as well as bob Ardiel, Story editor.

The Stella and Sam book series offers a colorful and textured look and feel that gives characters a heart-warm-ing and soft touch. Wanting to preserve Gay’s unique style, radical Sheep needed to team up with an anima-tion studio that would deliver the quality they required at the right cost. This is how Mercury Filmworks, one of Canada’s premier studios, was chosen for their animation

production services. “I had worked with the great team at mercury in the past and trusted they would bring this much beloved property to life for us”, explains michelle melanson.

“Knowing the quality that comes from using Toon Boom Harmony, it was important to find a studio that had many talented artists who knew how to push the limits and get the most from the software. And for us mercury was that studio,” continues michelle.

Once on board, mercury Filmworks assigned their most seasoned team members to take care of the proj-ect, namely Dave merritt, Director; bryan Popowich, Vice-President, Production and Liane Savoie and megan Ferguson, Animation Supervisors.

Produced entirely using Toon boom Harmony, Stella and Sam’s first season is comprised of 26 x 11 minute

When Only the best is Good enough!With over 300 episodes of award-winning television and successful licensing programs, Toronto-based Radical Sheep Productions has grown to be one of the most highly acclaimed children’s content producers in North America. The creation of enduring characters and stories lies at the heart of Radical’s achievements. Currently, the team is work-ing away at the second season of the preschool series Stella and Sam and they are enjoying the success of the first season, which airs on Disney Junior Canada. Based on Marie-Louise Gay’s best-selling book series Stella and Sam, Stella and Sam is the first foray into animation for Radical Sheep. One of the company’s other major achievements is The Big Comfy Couch, a Gemini-award winning series for preschoolers, which airs on Treehouse in Canada and PBS in the uS and around the world. Among its credits, Radical Sheep has also executive produced four seasons of the hilarious and quirky adult comedy series Puppets Who Kill.

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episodes that are already airing on Disney Junior Canada while the second season is now in production on another 26 episodes.

before the animation process begins, the radical Sheep team supervises the script writing, runs the voice records, and produces the nat pauses in Toronto. As the records and nat pauses are completed, they are then sent to the mercury team in Ottawa.

Throughout the process there is a constant commu-nication between radical Sheep and the mercury team. At each stage approvals are done by radical Sheep while mercury completes the revisions.

While the storyboard is done by a freelance story-board artist contracted by radical Sheep, the entire animation production process is carried out at mercury, including:

• Episodic Design • Storyboard Supervision and Leica• Episodic Color • Location Layout • Background Color • Key Artwork and 2D Setup • Animation of Each Episode • FX Animation • Compositing of Each Episode• Retakes and Locking of Final Picture

Finally, post-production begins in Toronto and is supervised by radical Sheep.

All team members have clear roles in order to ensure a smooth process throughout the entire production:

Radical Sheep Team:John LeitchManages business affairs and oversees all creativeMichelle MelansonLiaises with broadcast executives and creator, oversees budgets, schedules, and all creativeJain DicksonLiaises with Mercury team and the director, oversees day to day operations of the production Ray JafeliceOversees creative elements of the productionBob ArdielManages writers, story edits and writes scripts

Mercury Filmworks Team:Dave MerrittOversees all aspects of the animation production process, including design, backgrounds, colour, and animationBryan PopowichManages the whole team and production at Mercury, liases with the Radical Sheep teamLiane Savoie & Megan FergusonOversees the animation team and ensures that the anima-tion is delivered at the highest standard and is on time

Bryan Popowich comments: “With Harmony, we have furthered our level of efficiency within our pipeline and simultaneously, increased our standards of producing quality animation.”

radical Sheep Productions is a production company focused on creating quality content for children and youth. John Leitch and michelle melanson, the VP of Development and Production, are actively developing, pitching and exploring co-production partners, espe-cially in the genre of animation. based on their success-ful track record, radical Sheep will surely deliver more wonder and magic to the young viewers for many years to come. •

From left to right: Heather Wilson, John Leitch, Amigo, Jain Dickson, michelle melanson.

Toon Boom News SUMMER 2011 11


Illusion Studios is one of the leading entertainment companies in the country that focus on the creation, development, production and distribution of pre-school, tween, and teen-targeted content for films, television, theatre and digital formats. To remain competitive, devel-op local talent and become a leading player in Argentina, the studio went through a complete transformation from being a pencil-based producer into a paperless Toon Boom digital studio. Since 2006, Illusion has been build-ing partnerships and co-productions with major compa-nies leading the global industry such as Canada’s Cookie Jar Entertainment.

In 2007 the Exxel Group, a Buenos Aires based private equity fund, became 80% owner of Illusion Studios which allowed expansion from one-feature per year to three plus multi-platform production content. Currently, the studio produces 200 hours for television; over 1,000 minutes of animation and high-quality FX and CGI content. Recent Illusion Studios’ original animated productions include Boogie, Valentina and Gaturro. The team is presently working on Top Cat & Eva de la Argentina for release in theatres in September 2011.

Illusion Studios, Cookie Jar and Optix worked together in the production of the animated version of The Doodle-

Case study: IllusIon studIos

Illusion Studios rocks with Harmony

Argentina is not only the land of tango, it has also become an animation hot-spot in South America. Creativity and low-costs are its main assets, making it a strong player in the region’s animation industry. Argentina is slowly but surely carving its place in the global animation arena thanks to the excellence of animation studios such as Illusion Studios.

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bops, a popular Canadian live-action television show for children. The Doodlebops’ characters Deedee, Rooney and Moe are members of a musical band who in the Doodlebops Rockin’ Road Show, invite kids to join them on their adventures filled with music, dancing, humour and fun sketches that teach social lessons. The Doodlebops Rockin’ Road Show currently airs on CBS in the United States and Kids CBC in Canada.

The production team in Argentina in charge of animat-ing the famous Doodlebops trio includes Romina Crespo-lini, Producer; Laura Rodriguez, Producer; Marcelo Del Castillo, Director; Ricardo Nuñez, Technical Supervisor; and Mariano Skiumerini, Coordinator. They are part of the management and artistic staff that have over 15 years of experience in the creation, development, production and marketing of young-audience content.


Case study: IllusIon studIos (ContInued)


Powered by Toon Boom Harmony using cut-out anima-tion technique, The Doodlebops Rockin’ Road Show is available as a 26 episode x 22 minutes or 52 episode x 11 minutes series. In all, the series has approximately 150 different characters.

One of the Illusion Studios producers, Laura Rodriguez explains the production workflow applied to this project: “The approved animatics in QuickTime format were sent to Argentina from Canada, along with the key reference back-grounds and the character design. Our team prepared the characters for cut-out and rigging as well as created the appropriated background for each episode so the scenes could be uploaded in Toon Boom Harmony. These steps had to be followed one by one in preparation for the anima-tion process.”

The animation crew was divided into smaller teams organized by episode. Every team consisted of five people which rotated by episode. Instead of having one coordina-tor for each team, they obtained better results by having the following set-up for the entire crew: one coordinator, one director, one technical supervisor and four people fully dedicated to do effects. In total, the animation crew consist-ed of 30 animators, 4 retake animators, 3 riggers, 6 back-ground animators, 4 FX animators and 5 layout animators.

The geographical and language barriers did not deter Illusion Studios from constantly communicating with their Canadian counterparts. Laura Rodriguez comments: “We had weekly conference calls with Cookie Jar and Mercury to discuss the status of the project and coordinate the work-load.”

Each take or scene was entered into Harmony, by first splitting the animatics file, then organizing the scenes according to the nomenclature animators used as a refer-ence. While this process was taking place, the team also prepared the rigging of the characters to be stored in the library. Then, those working in the layout placed the charac-ters in the takes already done and resized them accordingly. “The backgrounds and the props were done in Illustrator and smoothly imported into Harmony so they could be used by the layout team,” adds Laura Rodriguez.

When it was time for the animators to do their magic, all the elements, meaning approved layout, characters, backgrounds and props, were in place and easily accessible thanks to the Harmony library. “To speed up the process and obtain better results a render farm was rendering while the animators were doing their work,” specifies Laura Rodri-guez.

What could we expect from Illusion Studios in the imme-diate future? The studio’s Commercial Director, Gastón Cami, mentioned that Illusion is working very hard on impor-tant projects being developed for Disney in Latin America, and co-productions with Nickelodeon and Televisa. There’s not doubt that it takes two to tango, Illusion Studios’ talent and creativity continue rising high with the help of Toon Boom state-of-the-art technology. •


The team at The Mill in London, uK, was obviously delight-ed when mCbD and Independent asked them to take a trip down memory lane and help bring the much loved Tetley Tea Folk back to life. The Tetley Tea Folk have been the iconic public face of Tetley since 1973 and showed them all what was truly great about the perfect british cuppa! And like making the perfect cup of tea, they had everything they needed to create the perfect brew - a great idea from the creative minds of richard Stoney and Dave Hobbs at mCbD to bring the Tetley Folk back to life with a mixture of live action and animation, followed by the direction of Tom Tagholm at Independent with just the right amounts of humour and nostalgia. “Our artists turned to richard Olive, the original artist and animator from the 1980’s on the campaign, as nobody knows the Tetley Folk better than him. On the shoot, Tom wanted to know what the re-animated Tetley Folk would do in this new situation to really get closer and stay true to the characters” shares mill Producer Tracey Khan. back at The mill robert Grang-er, Neville Thomason and emily Greeley worked with Toon boom Harmony and have this to say on their experience working on the Tetley come back: “Harmony makes it easier to translate traditional cell animation in to the digi-tal world. It completely lends itself to fitting in to any workflow from Flame through to Nuke.” Emily explains: “Harmony has such a wide range of tools, which adapt and are completely intuitive in terms of process and workflow. From scaling to any resolution without using any quality, to colour, texture, shading and shadows through to clean up, it also speeds up the entire process.” The team thinks the new spot has all the right ingredients to bring the tiny Tetley Folk out of retirement!

Deerspace.com is a family-friendly social networking site for people who are passionate about outdoor sports, nature, & the heritage of hunting. In 2010, the company launched the S.A.F.e. Hunting Program for children, featuring Hunter ed & buddy buck. The activity books were such a hit that in 2011 they made the decision to launch a series of animated television PSA’s (public service announcements) featuring the characters. “We contacted several studios about managing the animation process, but we quickly discovered that the associated costs weren’t compatible with our project budget, so we decided to take a risk on Toon boom Animate, and attempt to animate the

PSA’s in-house,” explains John Jackson, Founder at Deer-space.com. “While our in-house production team is highly skilled, they had very little to no formal experience with animation, so we were concerned about how long it might take to complete the project. However, we were very pleasantly surprised by how quickly our team picked up on the software, and within just a few short days, our first 30-second PSA was completed,” he concludes. They have now created several more PSA’s, and they begin airing nationally in the uS soon. Check out their youTube channel at www.youtube.com/HunteredAdventures

DreamSky Animation is a studio devoted to produc-ing computer animated feature films and TV series with memorable characters and heartwarming stories. based in Guadalajara, mexico, and expanding to California in 2011, DreamSky Animation is one of the pioneers in the anima-tion industry in Mexico. Recently, it has become the first animation studio to produce an official computer-generat-ed film and TV series designed to promote The Pan Ameri-can Games, one of the most important sporting events in the Americas, with 42 participating countries. Titled Escuadron 2011 (Squad 2011), this 10 x 22 minute TV series is the first animated series of its type, as each episode relates directly to a real multi-sport event. The team is also working on a 90-minute feature film project titled Revenge of the Automatons to hit the big screen in the Fall of 2011. “We chose Toon boom Harmony because it’s array of tools speeds up the animation process allow-ing us to create quality products within a short-term. It lets animators concentrate in giving life to characters and environments,” shares mario Alberto Ochoa, Production manager at DreamSky Animation.

ANIMATION STUDIOS

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Founded in 1977 by enrique uviedo, Motion Pictures, S.A. is a producer and distributor based in barcelona. In 1980, the company started distributing all types of genres and formats specializing in TV and direct to video. The company currently has one of the biggest catalogues among the independent distributors in Spain that include a large variety and more than 3000 half-hours of anima-tion. Since 1996, the company has concentrated its efforts on the TV animation field, producing and co-producing internationally a large number of series that have been sold around the world. recently, the company has focused on CGI production in HD quality and Toon boom Story-board Pro has been essential for the last three projects: Van Dogh (104 x 4’), Mice Builders (104 x 4’, produced for baby TV) and Glumpers (104 x 2’ co-produced with Tele-visió de Catalunya - www.glumpers.com), according to the Director and Head of Production of the series, Pere Clos. “Storyboard Pro has been put to the test in Glumpers. being a slapstik comedy without dialogue, it required a very precise adjustment in the animatic and the represen-tation of all key poses in the storyboard, to provide anima-tors with a comprehensive animation guide. For a Director, the ability to directly control the timing in the animatics is a luxury as well as an activity that would be impossible to

do without the software, due to obvious time limitations. In our upcoming series, Pumpkin reports, we will use it again without hesitation for the production of storyboards and animatics.”

Brain Freeze Entertainment is a design and animation studio offering a full spectrum of services in animation, story-boarding, project development script and content creation for TV, advertising, film, DVD, books, web and corporate, app design, character design, modeling, programming and marketing.

brain Freeze entertainment has utilized Animate Pro a great deal for animation production. “In the past, we used tools that were designed for web content creation for producing our cut-out animation. Animate Pro is the first product that we found that is designed for production purposes and that difference dramatically improved our results,” states brain Freeze Founder, Tod Carter.

A great example was on a recent project Goosed-Up Rhymes, an interactive storybook reader app produced for the iPad and other IOS devices. brain Freeze needed to create almost 15 minutes of unique character animation for this proj-ect. The content required a combination of cut-out styles and paperless animation while also allowing for the organization of the content and file sharing of assets.

“The interface and workflow allows us to efficiently produce a large amount of animation in a small time frame. but the best part is that there is total creative freedom. A great exam-ple is the power and flexibility of the “animation pegs” used to place transforms on art elements. In other programs you would need to do complex nesting that requires the user to “drill” up and down through the nesting. The peg system not only streamlines that process but increases flexibility by allow-ing the user to allocate those peg attributes to other pieces of art or effects.“

brain Freeze also uses Storyboard Pro in their production pipeline to create and organize production storyboards for feature and television projects. Once again the studio leans on the power and versatility Toon boom provides by allow-ing the artist more power and control which all translates to increased efficiency in the pipeline. “In the past working on 2 or 3 panel production boards was a nightmare when it came to doing revisions. every board artist will love the ability to insert panels into shots and reorder or renumber the entire project with ease. Having the ability to quickly draw directly in Story-board Pro is a great way to handle the boarding but we also like being able to import art from third party software or scans if that’s how the artist feels comfortable working. The point is that no matter how you like to work the system can integrate with your needs.“

brainfreezeent.com

© 2011 The Christian broadcasting Network. All rights reserved. used under authorization.

BRAIN FREEzE RHYMES WITH ANIMATE PRO

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Todd Heard started his career as a print designer, but was soon introduced to multi-media and web design. He fell in love with the combination of illustration, animation and interactivity. It was a natural fit for him. Todd has been designing interactive sites and activi-ties ever since. He loved cartoons when he was a kid and still does today, “...only now I know how to make them”. using Toon boom Animate, Todd created the Wet Trek animation for one of his clients. “I like the clean vector artwork I get from Animate by using the intersecting brush strokes. I also like having the ability to swap artwork on an articulated character, something you can’t do in Flash,” explains Todd. “The auto lip-sync feature is awesome and a real time-saver. It took what could have been the most time-consuming task and made it the easiest job to do. Plus, having all the artwork vectorized makes re-using assets across anima-tions or scenes easy. The Wet Trek animation I did is going to be the first in a series. So the time I save in future productions can be used to refine and improve the quality of the animations,” he concludes.

After completing a three-year Degree at the Australian Academy of Design and finishing in 2009, Eliza Gard-ner followed her passion and pursued Animation at the Victorian College of the Arts in melbourne, Australia. The one-year Graduate Diploma gave her the oppor-

tunity to learn the basics and create two films: Contro and Squash. She started out on her own, freelancing under the business name of White Panther and soon Borgartoons. “My first 2 short films bring laughs to a wide audience all over the world. People enjoy my work and that means everything to me,” shares eliza. Choos-ing Toon boom Animate Pro as her main animation tool, she has this to say about her learning curve: “I read the user guide and with that by my side, I taught myself the program in a full day. Easy!” She then explains: “I produce much more work in a shorter amount of time working with Animate Pro. Due to the fact that once my puppets are templates, they are there to animate. Also the ability to morph drawings helps.”

Founded by Richard kelly, WebToons (webtoons.com) are a marketing tool that can help build a brand and explain what companies do. And because they’re fun, they’re more likely to be shared on Facebook and youTube. They engage customers and keep them on the company’s site, which not only delivers the message, but can increase ad revenue. richard uses Toon boom Animate Pro to create animated marketing videos for the web. “I can now economically produce frame-by-frame drawings, rather than “tweened” movements, which allows for “squash and stretch” character effects, and complex 3-D rotations,” explains richard. “Drawing and tracing in Animate Pro saves all the time of scanning paper or importing Illustrator files. Also, the sophisticated character rigs save a huge amount of time as compared to Flash, and allows for much easier editing. Finally, the workflow is faster, so I can focus more on creativity than process. And the camera view allows me to create work I couldn’t do at all with Flash,” he concludes.

Freelancers

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All work and no play? “Stop Flashing around”

toonboom.com/pro

After graduating from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon, keith Carter started paint-ing and designing T-Shirts. Keith has worked for various companies that produce T-Shirts and created a number of designs that have been seen on TV Shows such as

Lost, The Big Bang Theory, and It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. “I purchased Toon boom Animate to help me create interesting animations, after becoming frus-trated with the limitations of Adobe Flash,” states Keith. His animation style is quite unique: “So far I have been focusing on creating animations that are moving still-images. That is to say, I create a number of planes with different illustrated elements and create camera moves to send the viewer into that world, but the images them-selves don’t have any fully-animated features. I like to think of it as a kind of three-dimensional painting,” he explains. “Once I learned the basic features and func-tionality of the program, I was able to create longer and more complex animations in a relatively short period of time. The work was of a higher quality and I was able to create a style that wouldn’t have been possible other-wise,” concludes Keith.

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SCHOOLS ON BOARD

The Department of Art at California State universi-ty Long Beach (CSULB) has a rich history, being the first NASAD accredited public university Department of Art in California and the first in California to offer the MFA degree. They are one of the largest and most comprehen-sive art programs in the United States, public or private, comprised of forty-five full-time faculty and approximately sixty part-time faculty serving more than two thousand majors in eleven Art programs. As part of the Illustration and Animation program, animation students at CSULB are taught principles of animation using traditional hand-drawn methods and computer software specific to the field. Distinguished professional regularly augment the faculty with workshops and presentations. The major philosophical hallmark of this department has always been their faculty’s unshakable commitment to teaching both theory and skills, a belief that the two are an inseparable pair. Students are challenged to hone their hand skills and minds equally. Several initiatives undertaken by Aubry Mintz, Associate Professor of Art Illustration/Animation are a great testament to that.

Commissioned by the director of CSULB Housing and Residential Life to write, produce, direct and animate, Aubry gathered a full animation crew to deliver the first two episodes of Sloppy Joe, a series of 30-second

animated shorts exploring the consequences of irrespon-sible drinking (www.slopjoe.com). The team used Toon Boom Animate as their main tool to create the frame-by-frame animation traditionally. As the goal was to reach an audience of the twenty-something years old, Aubry recommended using a serious but comical treatment to be effective. This production project enabled students to get real life experience working with industry professionals. “I hired layout artist Jim Schlenker (Curious George), anima-tor Soyeon Kim (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), award winning graphic designer Andrew Byrom, and as art director, CSULB Illustration Program Head and storyboard artist Robin Richesson. The episodes are on continual rotation on campus Beach TV and I was invited to pres-ent the shorts to VP Doug Robinson’s AOD (Alcohol and Other Drugs) committee and the Athletic department for the incoming freshman,” explains Aubry.

It was important for Aubry to find a way to have these shorts viewed by a wider audience, as the message is an important one. He also took this mission on personally as he lost a young cousin to an alcohol and speed related accident. “I am very proud to say that the word is now going national. In April 2010 I was interviewed by CNN local television program regarding the shorts and the effectiveness of communicating issues through animation.

GIVING STUDENTS A TASTE OF THE PRODUCTION WORLD

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The interviews were played on local cable and the Inter-net. Then Canadian charity group “Smart Risk” (http://www.smartrisk.ca) came on board and we were offered the ultimate reward to spread the word. MuchMusic Cana-da agreed to play Sloppy Joe on rotation as part of their 2011 programming directed towards university students. The topic of responsible drinking is a large part of the Canadian broadcasting mandate and the combination of humour, animation and serious nature of the subject was a good fit for the stations,” he concludes.

Another initiative worth mentioning is the 24-hour contest organized every year, which prepares students for extreme conditions that might be found at times in the animation studios. This popular event not only attracts animation students, but also illustration, fine arts, film and electronic arts, and even computer science students look-ing to be a part of a team challenge. Participants compete in teams of 5 and complete a 30 second commercial in a 24-hour period, an outstanding achievement for first-time

filmmakers. The jury panel includes industry profession-als from Disney, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Warner Bros and Dream-Works so that the students receive feedback that is current to industry practices. “I will continue to run this contest as an annual event as I find its popularity is also aiding with recruitment and retention within the art department and illustration/animation program” states Aubry. He is also planning to expand the 24 hour contest and invites teams from other schools to participate. Student teams or educators can contact him at amintz@csulb for more information.

With such an holistic approach between theory and practice, students get a comprehensive train-ing that fits the market needs. Thanks to his own experience in the professional world, Aubry brings hands-on knowledge into the classroom and certain-ly prepares his students for an exciting career in animation. •

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The Centre for Fine Art, Animation & Design (CFAD) was established in 1994. From San Francisco to New york, internationally acclaimed artist Nanda Soobben has applied his expertise and practical knowledge to the development of The Centre for Fine Art, Animation & Design in Durban. Over the past sixteen years CFAD has been developed into a modern thriving art school where through a system of mentor-ship students can transform their creativity into marketable skills. The three-year diploma incorporates animation and TV commercial production. It is the only graphic design diploma that has an integrated approach giving graduates flexibil-ity to work in a variety of areas within the design industry. Within its curriculum, CFAD uses computers as a high tech tool to produce creative results. Students begin with basic drawing and painting, design and advertising techniques and then move to more complex projects, all the way through learning and using Toon boom technology to support their projects. Senior students also produce a 30 second televi-sion commercial and a full advertising campaign that requires the production of logo design, brochures, billboards and 3D packaging. The academic program of the three-year Diploma in multimedia is designed to holistically equip students with the knowledge and skills to enter any profession within the animation, advertising or media industry. Since 2008, CFAD has been offering an integrated Toon boom pipeline in its course structure from Toon boom Studio to Animate Pro and Storyboard Pro, making it the only institution in the Kwazulu Natal Province to do so. As part of the third year academic program final year students are required to acquire work experience at relevant places of employment. The success in the internship program is seen in the fact that CFAD has a 98% placement rate in the industry.

Having being declared an Institute of excellence CFAD has recently received a grant from the mAPPP SeTA, which will be used to finance the first ever, Animation Studio in Durban. “This will be used to establish an animation produc-tion studio to train animators, storyboard artists, editors,

voice-over artists and the like in the art of producing commer-cial animation, animation for cell phone downloads and for games as well as animated series and long-form animation,” explains Krish moodley. “Our vision is that the studio will be a commercial unit that will dramatically enhance the train-ing and skills of animators, which fits perfectly with CFAD’s goal to establish Durban as the animation hub of the country. being selected as an Institute of excellence and receiving this grant is a significant achievement as it will allow CFAD to not only train the next generation of animators but also provide them real employment and career opportunities.”

A project currently being animated is a story by Gcina mhlophe, one of South Africa’s all time favorite storytellers, called An African Mother Christmas. An animation called A Positive Child, which deals with issues on the increase of growth on the aids pandemic in Africa and a short anima-tion created by Dr. Nanda Soobben that will be turned into a game. All these projects will benefit from the Toon Boom Harmony integrated pipeline which will give the Animation Studio an extra edge when competing on the local and inter-national markets.

CFAD now looks to hosting the inaugural Animation expo Durban. It is vital that CFAD hosts the Animation expo Durban as this will be used as a stepping stone toward stim-ulating the animation industry in South Africa as well as to promote quality training and production in animation. Span-ning a total of 4 days, the Animation expo Durban will be the first of its kind, taking place over several venues. The Anima-tion expo Durban will include live demonstrations, network receptions, workshops, panel discussions, business sympo-siums, recruiting and professional exhibitions, master classes and an end of expo gala dinner. Toon boom Animation, with its consistent effort to motivate the local industry, will inevita-bly play a role in this great initiative while closely working with CFAD, as it has done so for many years.

For information on the Animation expo you can visit www.animationexpo.co.za •

CREATING A NEW ANIMATION HUB IN SOUTH AFRICA

SCHOOLS ON BOARD

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Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s School of InfoComm Tech-nology is a premier Academic School for training IT and interactive digital media professionals. Its broad-based, technology-focused programmes train students to analyse systems problems and formulate innovative solutions. Students enjoy the flexibility of specialising in niche areas of IT, interactive digi-tal media or business management. Graduates have made their mark in the industry or achieved success as technopreneurs with their own IT ventures. The school offers diploma courses in Information Technol-ogy, Financial Informatics, multimedia & Animation and Animation & 3D Arts. Close collaborations with industry leaders enhance the learning experience at the School by exposing students to real-world situ-ations through projects, internships, study trips and immersions. Students in the new Diploma in Anima-tion & 3D Arts course are among the first students in Asia to work with Toon boom Harmony. Students use Harmony to integrate all the steps in animation production from conceptualization and design to compositing and rendering. With Harmony, students can work simultaneously on the same scene and access shared media resources for their project. The DOT®, which is essentially a multimedia & Anima-tion Centre, is equipped with facilities for 3D model-ing and animation, audio/video post-production, 2D animation production, video production and motion capture. A new paperless digital animation produc-tion hub is currently being built to facilitate studio-based learning and master classes by top Hollywood animators.

Located in Auckland, New Zealand, Freelance Anima-tion offers diplomas in 2D and 3D animation, such as Diploma in Applied Animation (DAA) and Diploma in Digital media (Dmm). This school excels in anima-tion training, with an emphasis on true character animation. regardless of medium, students create works that not only move – but tell stories, exist in worlds, carry histories, inspire, influence audiences and entertain. by studying a comprehensive curricu-lum, students learn in depth the foundations of the most important animation principles; weight, timing, balance, flow and drag, anticipation, exaggera-tion, expressions, fundamental drawing and human anatomy knowledge. These help lay a solid founda-tion to produce realistic characters and performance that invokes empathy in the viewer. The Diploma assignments and assessments have been created to best simulate a real studio environment, challeng-ing students in various disciplines which they would face day to day as a professional animator including time management, pre production, animation, post production, voice acting, animation theory, direct-ing and editing. “Toon boom Animate Pro has been

a featured software at Freelance for several years now and is primarily used for ink & paint due to its speed in this area on one end, and for compositing due to its powerful engine on the other. Students learn the basics in 1st and 2nd years but also get the chance to experiment with effects like ‘morphing’ and other animation features,” explains Senior Head Tutor Leanne Choi at Freelance. “With Toon boom’s help, students produce a very professional result which holds up on the big screen adding that final polish required. Toon boom’s software is made for animators; familiar features like X-Sheets and fields are so animation related that students feel at home” concludes Leanne.

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“The latest Harmony solution is a leap forward to create animation of the highest quality efficiently. As a studio and a producer, I would not be comfortable doing something this big using Flash. We feel safer with everything related to Harmony’s back-ups and centralized library.” André Koogan breitman, executive Producer, 2DLab

“At the start of each production, we design a new rigging system to complement the particular style and required features for that show. Harmony gives us the freedom to not be locked into one particular way of working.” David Hecker, Asset manager, Clockwork Zoo

The answer is Harmony.• Cost-effective integrated solution• Ideal for traditional, cut-out and tradigital

projects of any size• Fast ramp-up thanks to turnkey services• Optimized production with server-based

infrastructure• Easy asset sharing with centralized

database

toonboom.com/harmony

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