What could Toi want that embarrasses Slara so? You won't get to know that until Toi actually earns her reward. Some observant people might realize what sort of person Toi is and guess what it is she wants, but I'll leave that to your imaginations for now.
Feel free to e-mail me at dungeonwarden
I had an interesting weekend. Friday was better then Saturday, since many people left early and some events had to be canceled. The Festival wasn't as big this year due to funding cuts and other organizational problems but Friday's events made it worth going.
The day started with a panel discussion about the current animation industry. Like many other art forms (music and movies in particular), the animation industry is run by people who don't know anything about the industry. The people with money fund the latest thing without regard for why it's popular in the first place. Many producers think the only people who watch cartoons are young children and adults with the minds of children. It is really hard to put any intellectual content in animated shows and the few good shows that do get put on air don't last long because there aren't funny enough. It's hard to get that mix of smart humor that plays to adults and children, and it doesn't help that most writers know nothing about the animation field. The most successful ones are comedians since they can at least tell a joke even though they don't seem to understand the animation is a visual medium. Many writers write things that are very hard to animate without any though to how to portray it visually. Some things are not explained in visual terms at all, leaving animators scratching their hears and wondering what the writer was thinking.
The animation industry is now in a boom period which is great if you're new to the industry. Money comes and goes quickly so you need to make money while you can. You never know when the bottom will fall out again.
In the afternoon session, three industry heads (two from Collideascope and one from Fat Kat) showed us some tricks of the trade. This included how to do good puppet style animation, how to do classical animation with Flash 8 (or as I like to call it Flassical), and how to properly design sets and props for your animation. I like the idea of really thinking about what you're drawing. Don't just draw a tree. Think about that the tree looks like, how the bark feels, how the branches grow and twist, how the leaves form clusters and shapes. A good artist can draw a tree with a few quick shapes that looks better then what a bad artist can draw after hours of careful reproduction. It's not about making the tree look real, it's about making the tree feel real. I was very impressed by the skill of the Collideascope artist. His quick examples were very well designed. He has a very good eye for detail, although he admitted he is too detail orientated. The head animators are allowed to remove 10% of the detail from any of his designs without needing any permission.
In the evening, we had a stop-motion expert show us some of his techniques. He even had a few puppets on display we could play with. It was very interesting to see the history of the industry and some of the shows he had personally worked on. Some of the tricks to make objects seem to float in the air was well worth the presentation on it's own.
On Saturday we looked at the Unreal engine for computer gaming and talked a little about the game industry. Animation is a big part of gaming and is also a bigger industry that TV or Movie animation. There is money to be made for those willing to look for it.
We had a pizza lunch and watched some student animation. You can see some of the animation at the Applied Arts Student demo showcase. There is some well made and funny animation here. Also check out Knights Out, the animated short that I helped create along with several of my class mates.
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