reflection on 2011

As I sit here reflecting back over the past year waiting for twenty twelve to arrive I realise 2011 has been a good year. I didn’t achieve everything I wanted to but honestly, do we ever?

This year I released my Sample Radio Sketches, attended the London Comedy Writer’s Festival, completed the scripts for Tessa & Adam, made more industry contacts, pitched projects, enjoyed hanging out with the ScriptTrank, Script Chat and British Web Series crew and spent way too much time on Twitter.

My two big achievements this year have been seeing New Eden come along leaps and bounds and moving more into social media engagement work as part of my day job at Tempero.

New Eden has been the number one topic I’ve blogged about this year and with good reason. We’re yet to officially release footage but I have to tell you it’s looking great. Freek’s illustration and animation skills has been in high demand this past year but he was still able to carve out time to work on the New Eden pilot. We’re currently finishing up the animation and starting work on the music and sound design. We aim to have the pilot completed early in the new year.

The New Eden web series scripts are completed and I’m currently adapting them into a half hour animated TV comedy pilot script as well. We’re working with some talented creative and business people and have a plan to pitch New Eden as either a web or TV project in 2012, depending on who we’re talking to. So expect even more New Eden blog posts in 2012.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working in social media engagement at Tempero. Tempero has been a great company to work for and a great bunch of people to work with. Engagement is now another tool I can add to my  writing/producing toolbox and what I’ve learnt this past year has helped inform my social media/marketing plans for my current projects.

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In 2011 I said I wanted to “write, network, produce and seal a deal”. I can happily check off the first three and feel like I’m well on the way to reaching the last. Despite what I said earlier, I do believe that we can get what we want out of life. It just takes persistence and patience, well for me at least.

On my laptop I have three little mantras that help keep me going. The first and the last are my own little notes to myself. The second came from a newspaper interview with someone, I forget who now but that’s not important, and it always struck a cord with me.

So, with this in mind my goals for 2012 is to stay the course and spend more time enjoying the work ahead.

new eden – promotional images

As promised, illustrator/animator Freek has whipped up some new promotional images for our animated sci-fi web comedy New Eden, which I can now share with you all right here.

Designed to compliment the New Eden pitch material, these images will go a long way to help sell the sizzle as they say. For an update of where the project is at, check out my last post here.

We're not in Kansas anymore ...

Hamilton: Murray!

ARRRGH!

Ivana: No I know! I know I do not like you!

What the ... ?!

Keith: Ye 'ave a true warrior in ye!

Murray: Ivana! NOOOOO!

I told you he was talented right? Well in additional to pumping out these great illustrations Freek has also recently had some of his commercial work featured in the Dutch design magazine Publish.

If you’re interested in finding out more details about Freek and his work then please visit his website at FreekvanHaagen.nl.

To find out more information about New Eden you can read the short synopsis here and also follow the project on Facebook and Twitter.

quick tessa & adam / new eden update

I know it’s been a long time between drinks here at drettworlb so I thought it was time for an update.

I’ve been busy since my last post in July. The scripts for all ten episodes of Tessa & Adam are now completed and I’m currently working on the script for the eighth double-episode finale for New Eden.

Freek and I have been doing more work on the New Eden pilot and it’s coming together nicely. It’s taking a while due to the fact that we both have other work and contracts to complete but we’re very happy with the progress thus far. Freek is working up some more promotional images for New Eden that I can’t wait to share with you guys.

On the producing side of things, I’ve got some interesting leads on financing for both series. Now it’s just a matter of seeing how things play out. It’s too early to talk about and nothing is definite but watch this space.

In terms of distribution for Tessa & Adam and New Eden, I’ve being researching successful original web series and have drawn on my growing skills in social media to put together a solid distribution and marketing plan for both projects.

If you’re interested in the whole web series/original digital content/youtube space then you need to be reading NewTeeVee, TubeFilter and Reel SEO. Also follow NewEdenseries, which is littered with tweets and links from all three and many other sources.

And finally check out the YouTube Creator Playbook, a free resource breaking down the best practices in production, distribution, marketing and community building learnt for successful YouTube creators.

That’s it for now. Thanks for checking in and feel free to say G’day if you see me mucking about on Twitter.

interview with new eden animator – part two: animation process

Here is Part Two of the interview with New Eden’s character designer/lead animator Freek Van Haagen. Be sure to check out the clip at the end. Enjoy!

What tools are you using to animate New Eden?

Adobe Illustrator for the drawings. Adobe After Effects for the animation. Photoshop for the backgrounds. And finally Adobe Premiere for editing.

What style and restrictions have influenced the look of New Eden?

I kinda shift style every now and then. But I like the strong shapes in the characters. It is a bit American maybe.

New Eden Character Line Up

It sounds weird but it should not be perfect animation. Simply because it’s a series that’s limited by budget and therefore can’t take forever to make. The animation should bring across the joke/story. That’s it. If I can get away with no animation, why not? So basically it’s efficiency. Try and do every shot as efficient as possible. Without falling into the pitfall of rushing over everything.

What was your process for designing the New Eden character?

I just scribble. And often end up with a different figure along the way. It’s a trick I learned.

New Eden Character Sketches

New Eden Creature Sketches

If you really try and get what you have in your head you can loose some spontaneity. You have some idea of course but you shouldn’t be blind to ‘lucky mistakes’.

How do you then convert these character designs into figure that could be animated?

That took a bit of figuring out. Since we use a kind of puppeteer animation technique there are some design elements that go out the door but you have to do that in order to animate. It was just checking what you can do without and still have some sort of design to the characters.

Break down the basic steps of animating a shot of New Eden?

Listen to the voice track about 10 times. Until you pretty much have it in your head. Then act like a fool in front of the mirror saying that line. And watch yourself say it.

Shot Sketch

See how your body moves and what faces you pull. Check out where the actor has put the accents in the dialogue and try to emphasize that with your body gestures.

Murray Face Sketches

After the sketch I draw the character in Adobe Illustrator with everything that needs to move in a separate layer and try to figure out where the pivot points are for each limb.

Breakdown of Character Assets

I have a rough idea of what I want to achieve in animation so I draw different hand gestures that I can use. We can’t animate the fingers bit by bit because that would really take too long. So in the animation style we choose to shift the hand in the middle of a movement. That way you don’t really notice the hard switch.

Breakdown of Character Assets

Then it’s time to import it into After Effects and set up the skeleton using Duik tools.

Character Set-Up in After Effects

This means that I have foot controllers and hand controllers. I only have to move those controllers and the whole arm or leg will move. Which saves time.

After Effects Arm Controller

I usually separate the head in a separate file so I can concentrate on the facial features alone. After that it’s just fiddling until you get it right.

After Effects Face Animation

From there I cut down the movement to the basic positions. “Keys” as they call them in the industry. This means basically that you try and capture the whole performance in two or three body positions/holds that bring across that line of dialogue.

After Effects Animation Keys

You set that up in the character and time it to the dialogue. Then it’s tweaking until the character becomes alive and seems to be saying the line all by themself. I usually start with the lip sync. But sometimes it’s easier to start with the body to see where the accents are put best.

What’s your usually time frame to complete a shot?

Phew … don’t know. A shot can take two to three hours maybe. For animation alone.

Thank you for your time Freek. It’s great to get inside the process and hear how it is being brought to life.  Where can people find you online?

www.freekvanhaagen.nl

As promised, here is a sneak peek of a short piece of character animation from the New Eden pilot.

The backgrounds and audio are still being worked on and it’s yet to be edited for timing but this is a good example of the quality of animation that Freek and our second animator Adam are pumping out.

Check out Part One to read about Freek’s animation background and his career aspirations.

interview with new eden animator – part one: background

Freek Van Haagen is the character designer and lead animator on our animated sci-fi web comedy pilot, New Eden. As I’ve mentioned again and again on my blog, working with Freek has been great and so I wanted to share with you all some more details about the man himself and his working method via a two-part interview.

Part One outlines Freek’s animation background and his career aspirations. Part Two breaks down his animation process for New Eden and ends with a short clip of raw animation footage from the pilot episode. Enjoy!

Where do you live?

Netherlands.

Where does most of your work come from?

Most of my work comes from the Netherlands. After that Belguim. Sometimes I get something out of Germany or Switerland but that doesn’t happen too often. My aim is to get more work from the english speaking world as well – America, Australia and England.

How did you get into illustrating and animation?

As a kid I loved all the Disney movies and one day my dad explained to me how animation worked. He drew a ball on a couple of pages and flipped them, creating the illusion that the ball was bouncing. Then I got the idea and knew that all those Disney films were thousands of drawings, shown really fast.

Of course that’s a lot of work and I had to become a good draftsman first, before I could animate but I knew it then. Animation has something magical about itself.

How long have you been working professionally as an illustrator/animator?

Making money in animation isn’t that simple here in Holland so I worked in the advertising industry working my way up from designer to art direction. After 6 years I started out as a freelance illustrator and have been doing that for the last 7 years. The last 3 years I’ve taking on animation jobs as well.

What is your preferred style of animation to work in?

Not really a specific style. I like change and variation. I love figuring stuff out to see if I can get it to work.

What do you think it takes to be a good character animator?

Persistence. Basically it all comes down to a simple fact – it’s work! And a lot of it. There are a few tricks and cheats. But if you really want to become good at it, you just have to put in the hours. Talent will get you far, but motivation will get you further.

What are your all time favourite animated films/television shows?

• Dragonball Z – because I have bad taste.
• Lion King – best Disney flick I think. Great story, great everything.
• Akira – best manga film. Level of animation is still not surpassed I think today.
• Thundercats – because I am a child.
• Wall-e -  best Pixar flick. 45 minutes of non speech animation and you can’t take you eyes of the screen.

There is probably more but I don’t want to tire you.

What’s the best piece of advice you have been given regarding working as an animator?

Don’t cheat at the ending. Don’t wrap it up too quick. Meaning when you’re almost done, you kinda rush it towards the end. Which can destroy everything you did before.

What resource would you recommend to emerging animators?

Richard Williams’ Animators Survival Kit.

What new piece of technology are you itching to get your hands on?

The new Zelda for the Wii U

What are you hoping to get out of working on New Eden?

Instant access to Hollywood babes and a life of spending enormous amounts of money on stuff I don’t need. But seriously … just the money would be okay as well.

What do you hope to achieve in the next five years of your career?

My ultimate dream is to direct a feature animation.

Where can people find you online?

www.freekvanhaagen.nl

Check out Part Two where Freek breaks down the animation process and we give you a sneak peek at some footage!

new eden – meet the crew

It’s getting close to all systems go on the animation side of things for the New Eden pilot. Our sound engineer/designer and I have edited together a master dialogue track. The animators love it and are preparing the characters and backgrounds. Meanwhile our composer is busy putting the polish on the opening title theme music.

Despite the team being split between Netherlands, London and Australia production has flowed smoothly so far thanks to Skype, Dropbox and good old fashion email, all of which have been our primary tools for managing communication, workflow and file sharing.

So who are these wonderful people beavering away on New Eden I hear you ask?

Let me introduce you …

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Freek Van Haagen

Character Designer/Lead Animator

I first met Freek after he replied to my very first animator job posting for New Eden. Freek was by no means the only person that applied but he was most certainly the best. He was drawn to the project because I had a track record as well as a solid script and concept in place. What I liked about Freek besides his obvious talents was that he asked questions and saw it as an opportunity rather than just another job. Throughout the process Freek has developed into a equal collaborator and as I’ve said before I now can’t imagine doing New Eden without him.

Early Character Sketches

Developed Character Line Up

Final Character Line Up

As a treat, here is Freek flexing his dramatic muscles on his short film Broken, which has already racked up over 60k+ views on Vimeo and earned him plenty of well-deserved praise.

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Adam Davis

Animator

Adam is a new addition to the team. After getting the character designs and storyboards in place Freek thought it was the right time to bring another animator on board. Adam impressed both Freek and myself not just with his character animation skills but also his talent with colour and design, so it didn’t take us long to snap him up.

Deep Relaxation

He’s got great confidence in his work and in the way he presents himself, which speaks volumes as to how far he’ll go. Since graduating from the University of West of England, Bristol Adam has been collaborating with a collective of other graduates on each other’s projects under the banner Rainbow Club Productions.

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Billy Pleasant

Sound Engineer/Designer

I first worked with Billy on my sample radio sketches so it was a natural fit for us to work together again on New Eden. What I like about Billy is his unwavering passion and optimism for everything he works on and the fact that he’s not afraid to try anything.

the end is nigh 

house cat 

Lately Billy has been busier than I’ve ever seen him. If he’s not in the field working as a sound recordist, he’s manning a mixing desk at various venues around town or slogging away in his studio doing sound design on a range of factual and narrative projects.

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Yuri Worontschak

Composer

I feel very lucky to have Yuri helping out on New Eden. As a composer he’s worked on what seems like almost every Australian comedy programme since Australia’s heady sketch comedy days of The Comedy Company and Fast Forward. When it comes to comedy and music, Yuri knows his stuff.

He’s no slouch when it comes to other genres as well.

I previously worked with Yuri on three series of Shaun Micallef’s NEWStopia, which culminated in the wonderfully absurd Inspector Herring: The Movie. What makes Yuri stand out for me is that he’s quick, intuitive and always a joy to work with.

Yuri’s credits speak for themselves but I’d like to share with you one of his favourite projects that always puts a smile on my face, Dirk Breaka.

Yuri did all the music and sound design and worked alongside animator Suren Perera and the talented Shaun Micallef, who did all the voices.

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Keep an eye out on Twitter and Facebook for more New Eden updates.

new eden – meet the cast

Big day last Friday. We recorded the dialogue tracks for the trailer and episode one of the sci-fi animated web comedy New Eden.

Our recording set up was a little unusual as far as animation goes. Usually animation voice records are done one actor at a time with each actor recording a range of options for each line. For New Eden I decided early on that we needed to have all the actors together if we wanted to capture the comedy of the piece and the odd-couple relationship between Murray and Hamilton at the heart of it. So to accommodate this, my sound engineer Billy can up with the great plan to set up dividers that allowed the actors to still see and interact with each other while at the same time minimising the bleed of their voices into each others’ microphones.

Recording this way meant that I had to get four actors, Billy and myself into a facility that not only could fit us all and be willing to work with our tight budget. Billy ended up scoring us a four-hour recording slot at Keir Vine’s studio in Dalston but May turned out to be a stupidly busy time for us all. Some days trying to schedule the record felt like herding cats but as I’ve learnt at every stage of this process, the wait was worth it.

After the record I was pretty certain that we had got everything but later I couldn’t help but worry that I might have missed something or failed to be clear in my direction somehow. Listening back to the material though I discovered that my fears were unfounded. The actors had nailed it. Sparking off each other and delivering some fantastic improv bits, they really brought the characters to life and proved that tackling the record this way was all worth it.

So without further ado let me introduce the cast …

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Playing former shift supervisor and the pedantic pessimistic Brit Hamilton is Jonathan Rhodes. Some of you might recognise him as a regular on M.I. High as Chief Agent Stark. Most recently he starred in and co-produced a great short film called Big Society. Jonathan has a great voice and great timing and I’ve had the pleasure of working with him several times at my writers group ScriptTank and also on my radio sketch samples.

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Playing the sarcastic but easy going former ships pilot Murray is Kevin Shen. Sharing the same Chinese American heritage as his character, Kevin is always busy working in London or abroad on more shoots than I can keep track of. I was convinced Kevin was right for the role when during his audition he delivered one simple line that not only captured the character but also managed to surprise me.

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Playing mad Scotsman and former ships engineer Keith is Scott Christie. London based and heralding from the rolling hills up north, Scott can be often found treading the boards in numerous London productions and most recently received critical acclaim for his performance in the season of Short & Sweet at the Union Theatre. Also a ScriptTank actor, Scott is nothing like his gregariously volatile counterpart but perfectly captures Keith’s sense of mad danger.

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And finally playing the Ukrainian loner and black marketeer Ivana is Jo Bowis. Actor, singer, blogger and accordion player; Jo is an all round entertainer always busy with her cabaret theatre troupe Tiny Wallop or cycling around London from one gig to the next. Like Jonathan, Jo helped out with my radio sketch samples and has a great talent for bringing different characters to life. She also does a mean Aussie accent.

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Since the record I’ve been busy listening back to the takes and working with our sound engineer/designer Billy to piece together master tracks for our animators Freek and Adam to start working with.

Reflecting back on the process, when we get the chance to record more episodes there are definitely some things I will be doing differently:

Cans Cans Cans. Instead of hiding in the control room I was on the floor coaching the actors but didn’t have headphones on the entire time. The difference between hearing something live or through cans can be slight but it can make all the difference when you’re trying hear if an actor is hitting a certain tone or phrase just right.

Freek on the floor. Because of the logistic of our lead animator Freek being in the Netherlands and the record happening in London it was always decided that I would direct the dialogue record. If I had to do it again I would definitely have Freek there by my side or in the booth to co-direct. We have developed a great working relationship and I can’t imagine doing this project without him.

Rehearsals. Because of scheduling issues I decided not to do a rehearsal. Instead we recorded the rehearsal takes in the studio as I helped the actors find their characters, tweak dialogue and get the overall flow of the scripts. In future I’ll definitely be fighting for a read-through in a far less pressured environment where we can discuss the scripts and characters and ease into it all a bit more gently.

Next post: new eden – meet the crew.

Til then be sure to follow New Eden on Twitter and Facebook.

what is your evil plan?

As many of you know, this year I’m on a mission to stop waiting for permission, play to my strength and get things done. As part of this I wanted to share with you what helped inspire this decision, it’s a little book called Ignore Everybody by Hugh Macleod:

A self-described ex-advertising hack, Macleod reinvented his career over the course of ten years by carving out a niche market for himself drawing and selling cartoons drawn on the back of business cards.  As he explains in his book this took a lot of hard work, trusting his gut and ignoring everybody:

The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you. When I first started with the cartoon-on-back-of-bizcard format, people thought I was nuts. Why wasn’t I trying to do something more easy for markets to digest i.e. cutey-pie greeting cards or whatever?

Ignore Everybody – Hugh Macleod

His book offers up 37 tips that includes such musings as “The idea doesn’t have to be big, it just has to be yours”, “Keep your day job”,  “Selling out is harder than it looks” and “The best way to get approval is not to need it.”

I don’t know about you but all this really struck a core with me. So you can imagine how happy I was when for my birthday the girl got me Macleod’s follow up book Evil Plans:

Everybody needs an EVIL PLAN. Everybody needs that crazy, out-there idea that allows them to ACTUALLY start doing something they love, doing something that matters. Everybody needs an EVIL PLAN that gets them the hell out of the Rat Race, away from lousy bosses, away from boring, dead-end jobs that they hate. Life is short.

Evil Plans – Hugh Macleod

For me Evil Plans couldn’t have come at a better time. Macleod’s inspirational words, practical advice and fierce independence has been instrumental in helping me to stay the course on my projects. If you’re looking to do the same then I recommend you give Macleod’s books a try. I’ve got my evil plan, what’s yours?

back from the comedy fest

I’m back from the London Comedy Writers Festival with a head full of knowledge, pockets full of business cards and a smile on my face.

For me the festival was all about connecting with other writers and thanks to its friendly open atmosphere it was easy as. It was also helped by one of the most useful name tags/lanyards that I’ve seen at any festival thus far that made it easy to identify who you were talking to without looking like you were squinting at their middle shirt button or worse.

Griff Rhys Jones’ keynote speech delivered in spades with wry and inspiring tales of his time in the comedy biz and the other speakers that I saw were all engaging and generous with their time. The only criticism I would have is that sometimes the session moderators didn’t stick a hundred percent to brief and let sessions drift into cozy fire side chats, which while entertaining weren’t what I was expecting.

I have to say though, the festival organisers did their best to cram as much information, value and networking into the two day event. I’m incredibly happy that I went and felt like I made the most of the experience and I would happily recommend the festival to anyone thinking of going next year.

off to London Comedy Writers Festival

I’ll be at the off to the London Comedy Writers Festival this weekend, if you’re popping along feel free to say hello.

And seeing as you’re here you may as well:

• read about my current web comedy projects
• listen to my radio sketches
• watch my award-winning short film Domestic
• read about my background in tv production

Cheers and see you at the Festival.