Beautiful stuff from Studio 4°C (Tekkonkinkreet, The Animatrix, etc.). This is for a new web promotional series called PES: Peace Eco Smile for Toyota Motor Corporation. It’s a romantic-comedy in animation about an alien called PES and a human named Kurumi. Do for Love, directed by Yuichiro Hayashi, has just gone online. It’s in Japanese and looks more like a trailer… but it’s delicious anime eye candy:
(via Anime News Network)
Hard times for the Scooby Doo Crew? Apparently the “Mystery Machine” is now on Craigslist! A six cylinder/3-speed 1969 A100 Dodge Van that the seller says “drives good”. Take it away for $3200… sounds to me like a steal!
(Thanks, Jeaux Janovsky)
The Ottawa International Animation Festival has opened its call for submissions for its 2012 competition. Entry forms are due May 18th. Chris Robinson released today Koji Yamamura’s (Mt. Head) poster for OIAF 12. Considering the hubbub the OIAF poster caused in 2009 this one is quite wonderful.
Today I will once again sit down with Stuart Shostack for another hard hitting, riveting interview, covering a wide range of animation subjects. Stu’s Show will be broadcast live at 7pm Eastern/4pm Pacific at StusShow.com. It’s an internet radio program and its free to listen live today. After that, you can download the show anytime for 99¢. Today, we will be discussing all the latest events in animation – past, present and future. And especially Looney Tunes, Tom & Jerry, Noveltoons, UPA on DVD. We’ll take questions via phone and email from listeners; we might also talk about Terrytoons. Join us and listen in here.
They’re out… and as Tony the Tiger would say: “They’re Grrrr-reat!”
I will go out on limb right now and declare TCM’s UPA: The Jolly Frolics Collection the DVD of the year. This thing is loaded (full disclosure: I was involved in the process). It is beautifully and cleverly packaged and contains a 16-page booklet with brief essay by UPA historian Adam Abraham, capsule biographies of key UPA personnel, a UPA chronology chart with key events and a release chart timelime, plot synopsis and more…
The three discs themselves are packed with incredible restorations of 38 UPA cartoons. These restorations are so good, they will force many to reevaluate their opinions of these films. Cartoons I’d long dismissed as inferior – The Oompahs, The Miner’s Daughter, Baby Boogie and others – are suddenly vibrant, colorful and clear; what the filmmakers intended, and a lot better than I’d thought. Compare the frame grab of from my personal bootleg video copy of The Man On The Flying Trapeze (thumbnail below left to enlarge) with the restoration (below, center) to give you a small idea of the difference. Even if you have no interest in UPA, I think you’ll come to understand their importance through this set.
Sony went to great lengths to restore the cartoons on this collection – restoring original front and end titles (like the Fox & Crow title (below) from their first theatrical, Robin Hoodlum). Alas not every title could be restored (though most are), but what is here is from the original negs – and they are a pleasure to see anew.
I’m not even mentioning the bonus materials (Concept art, model sheets, storyboards, color styling sketches, background, publicity stills, movie poster galleries – and more, including audio commentaries and a Leonard Maltin introduction). If you’ve ordered it, it’s on the way. If you haven’t – what are you waiting for?
Adam Abraham’s important new history of UPA – When Magoo Flew – has also just been published by Wesleyan University Press. I’m not going to review it right now – but I will be giving a copy or two away in a pop-quiz contest sometime on Thursday. Adam will be in L.A. a week from Friday to sign copies of the book at LACMA, at the UPA tribute I’m hosting on March 30th. (Tickets available now – hint, hint!).
Adam has just launched a companion website for his book, When Magoo Flew.com, intended to utilize the archive of material he assembled while writing the book. More material will be added soon… but bookmark his new website now!
Somebody recently posted (in four parts) the entire British Channel 4 TV program Cartoons Kick Ass. This special was taped in 2000 and as far as I know only aired once, late in the evening, and never seen beyond Great Britain. It includes interviews with John Kricfalusi, J.J. Sedelmaier, Ralph Bakshi, Mike Judge, ASIFA-SF’s Karl Cohen (author of Forbidden Animation, which I believe was the basis of the program), animation historians Bill Moritz, Paul Wells and me. It dared to include X-rated animation and other images that can offend, so assume that it is NSFW.
Part 1 is embed below. Click here to see Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
* Oriental DreamWorks, the joint venture between DreamWorks and a consortium of Chinese investors, has announced that its first feature will be released in 2016. Katzenberg is in Shanghai this week reviewing at least seven different film proposals vying to be the studio’s first feature. The studio plans to “closely link elements of Chinese history, culture and literature in its various productions.” More details in this news article.
* Craig McCracken (The Powerpuff Girls, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends) is comign back to TV with a new TV series called Wander Over Yonder for the Disney Channel. The Disney TV Animation-produced show, scheduled for the 2012-13 season, is about:
Wander is an overly-optimistic intergalactic traveler who, along with his loyal but bullish steed, Sylvia, goes from planet to planet helping people to live free and have fun, all against the evil reign of Lord Hater and his army of Watchdogs.
* Composer Alan Menken (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin) talked animation in the Wall Street Journal:
What do you think of the shift in animated film earnestness to irony?
Menken: Ironic is OK. You can have a Sebastian [the crab in The Little Mermaid], as you can have a Jiminy Cricket. They can be adult and smart. However, they can’t be culturally or morally subversive, in that Disney sensibility. Rango and things like that are edgier. In general, the animated medium lends itself to a sweetness.Do you personally connect to that?
Menken: I first appreciated that medium back in the 1980s when the AIDS crisis had hit full force and everybody–my gay collaborators and friends–was dying. I was so scared for my daughter, Anna, and the only thing that could soothe me was those Disney animated films that were coming out on VHS. It was so safe.
* How did I miss the news that Glenn Beck’s online network GBTV is currently developing an animated comedy series with Icebox. Yes, that Icebox. A lot of readers may be too young to remember Icebox.com, but they were among the more notorious animation dot-com busts in the late-1990s and a punchline for jokes about what happens when sitcom writers try to make funny cartoons.
Not too sure about the animation and story, but this guy is a helluva background stylist. Childhood Of A Circle is directed and animated by Kadavre Exquis (aka François Grumelin-Sohn) a french graphic designer and musician living in the Netherlands, whom we’ve featured here before.
Kooky fun with women and fish! Calarts undergraduate thesis film by Jovanna Tosello, possibly NSFW.
Read UPDATES at bottom of the piece.
When I speak to indie filmmakers, there’s always a lot of confusion about the potential money that can be earned by posting shorts on the Internet, especially by posting them onto YouTube. An article in last month’s Wall Street Journal shed some much needed light on the situation. The article said that those who join YouTube’s Partner Program receive between $1,500 and $4,500(US) for every million video views. The wide variance in price is attributed to the country and platform where the video is viewed.
According to YouTube, they had 30,000 partners in 2011, up from 20,000 in 2010. “Several hundred” of those partners made more than $100,000, which is an 80% increase from the “couple of hundred” partners who achieved the six-figure earnings mark in 2010. Using that data, I think it would be fair to guess that they have at least 350 people earning six-figures, or slightly over 1% of their YouTube Partners.
Using the numbers above, I decided to figure out what some of the most successful animators on YouTube are making. I’ve shared the numbers below, which are not yearly earnings, but based on the total number of views the filmmaker has received. Considering how difficult it is to make money with animated shorts, the numbers are fairly impressive, especially if viewed as a single revenue stream as part of a larger plan that includes broadcast sales to foreign TV channels, merchandising, dvd sales, digital downloads, and so forth.
It’s also impressive that many of the most successful animators on YouTube are young filmmakers whose reputations were established exclusively online. Another important point to consider is that all of these animators have dozens of films posted on their channel. There are no examples yet of people earning this kind of money from just a handful of films. Simon’s Cat has the least videos of any of the channels below, with only twenty.
Animation Filmmaker Earnings on YouTube
PES
29.3 million video views (as of Mar. 19, 2012)
Estimated total earnings based on views: $43,950 – $131,850Lev Yilmaz
36.3 million video views
Estimated total earnings based on views: $54,450 – $163,350Cyriak
66.7 million video views
Estimated total earnings based on views: $100,050 – $300,150Harry Partridge
74.4 million video views
Estimated total earnings based on views: $111,600 – $334,800Egoraptor
102.4 million video views
Estimated total earnings based on views: $153,600 – $460,800FilmCow (aka Charlie the Unicorn)
227.3 million video views
Estimated total earnings based on views: $340,950 – $1,022,850Simon’s Cat
232.3 million video views
Estimated total earnings based on views: $348,450 – $1,045,350Daneboe (aka The Annoying Orange)
628.8 million video views
Estimated total earnings based on views: $943,200 – $2,829,600
UPDATE (9:53pm ET): Since this piece was published, I’ve been in contact with Harry Partridge, one of the filmmakers whose estimated earnings were posted above. He posted a comment on Twitter that said in part, “I don’t make anywhere near half of their lowest ballpark. Crazy.” When he posted that comment on Twitter, he assumed that I was talking about yearly earnings. We cleared up that I was referring to total earnings based on the number of pageviews listed above, NOT yearly earnings.
Harry also provided some ballpark figures for what he’s made from YouTube since 2009. The numbers turned out to be slightly more than half of the lowest estimated earning, which means he has been earning a more modest $750-800 per million pageviews instead of the $1,500-$4,500 claimed in the Wall Street Journal piece. More recently, he has joined with Channelflip, which he says pays him more annually than YouTube, but which is still a relatively modest sum. However, I should point out that I have confirmed with other filmmakers that they have earned the higher figures listed in the WSJ piece so there are apparently wide gaps between what different filmmakers earn. The lack of transparency in YouTube’s payments to its partners is a great reason to be having this discussion and leveling the playing field for filmmakers who are thinking of posting their work on that platform.
UPDATE #2: Harry pointed out that though the videos were posted beginning in 2006, YouTube started paying out in 2009. I’ve updated the above to reflect that the earning period has been the last three years. He also writes, “Overall I’m not bothered by the article now it states that these are total earnings, my concerns about it arose from the fact that I thought it was yearly.”
UPDATE #3: Filmmaker Cyriak wrote a comment below in which he says that he hasn’t monetized most of his video vieww as part of YouTube’s Partner Program. He says that his most recent earnings have been in the range of $600 per million video views.
If you think Google only hires scientists, engineers and geniuses of the highest order, fear not, they also hire cartoonists. We don’t typically post job listings (maybe we should), but this one is too good to pass up. Google’s Doodle team informs us that they’re currently looking for more in-house Doodlers, particularly those with strong animation experience. The job entails working on the charming and quirky doodles that appear on Google’s front page everyday. The biggest perk, besides working at Google, is that it’s easily the most high-profile animation gig in the world, with a guaranteed audience of hundreds of millions for anything you create.
The Bay Area gig requires a BFA or 4 years of relevant experience. Here’s the link to the job listing, the requirements of which are posted below:
The area: User Experience
One of the many reasons Google consistently brings innovative, world-changing products to market is because of the collaborative work we do in Product Management. With eyes focused squarely on the future, our team works closely with creative and prolific engineers to help design and develop technologies that improve access to the world’s information. We’re responsible for guiding products throughout the execution cycle, focusing specifically on analyzing, positioning, packaging, promoting and tailoring our solutions to all the markets where Google does business.The role: Doodler
First impressions matter. Every day, hundreds of millions of online users visit the Google homepage. Yes, to search. But also, to be delighted, informed, and surprised (And maybe even to laugh a little). The Google Doodle makes this possible — it’s the change that is constant on Google.com. As a Product Graphic Designer/Illustrator, more commonly known as a “Doodler,” you have the world’s best platform to showcase your stylistic skills — as well as your sense of humor, love of all things historical and imaginative artistry. From Jules Verne to Pac-Man, you have the reins to our brand and iconic logo and can run free with your innovative ideas. Go forth and doodle!Responsibilities:
* Draw, design, and/or animate the highly visible Google homepage doodles.
* Come up with consistently excellent creative ideas within the constraints of the our logo.
* Manage complex collaborative projects from idea, to executive pitches, to final execution in a fast-paced environment.
* Design illustrations both digitally and traditionally and in a wide range of artistic styles with great attention to detail.Minimum Qualifications:
* BFA. In lieu of degree, 4 years of relevant experience.Preferred Qualifications:
* Freehand illustration skills and a wide range of artistic styles.
* Ability to translate conceptual direction into amazing works of art.
* Ability to work collaboratively and apply creative feedback in a team environment.
* Comfort with digital and traditional media.
* Knowledge of animation fundamentals.
* Online portfolio/reel.
Another beautiful hand drawn film in development in Europe, this one being directed by our friends Adrian Garcia, Alfredo Torres and Victor Maldonado at Barcelona-based Headless Productions (Nocturna), produced by Paris-based Nectarious Films. Look below to see the teaser trailer for My Family And The Wolf.
Red is a modern day silhouette film based on the classic fairy tale. Directors Jorge Jaramillo and Carlo Guillot, with musician/composer Manuel Borda, explore the drama, horror and realism of the story in a beautifully stylized way.
In a rare trifecta, animation artists ruled the top three spots at the box office this weekend. The number one spot, with an estimated $35 million, belonged to the TV adaptation of 21 Jump Street. It heralded the live-action feature directing debut of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who were the co-creators of MTV/Teletoon’s Clone High and the directors of Sony’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Second place went to Illumination Entetainment’s The Lorax which earned an estimated $22.8M in its third weekend, pushing its total to a robust $158.4M. Rounding out the top three was Andrew Stanton’s John Carter, which dropped 55% from its first weekend to an estimated $13.5M. The Disney film’s two-week total stands at $53.2M and is headed to a final domestic tally of $90-100M. More box office numbers can be found at Box Office Mojo.
Wes Ball spent two years making Ruin out of his L.A. based Oddball Animation studio. Technically, this is a sample piece for a post-apocalyptic feature the studio would like to produce, but it plays perfectly fine as a short.
(Thanks, Tim Elliot)
