Came across this today for a little inspiration…I wonder what a split screen 2D film would look like with this effect? -Waveybrain
Robert Longo, selections from Perfect Gods
- Untitled (10/15/08), 2008
- Untitled (Big Shark), 2007
- Untitled (Shark 5), 2008
- Untitled (Shark 3), 2008
Nice! Would look great in kid’s room:). Think they’d have nightmares?
- Waveybrain
Information delivery platforms have been a part of our world since the invention of the printing press. Communications platforms arrived with telephone and radio. Though radio platform really never had a true consumer-to-consumer communications play, it does have communications functionality, in…
Okay, NOW I want to go to Dubai! Beautiful vid (sounds great w/ headphones)! The guy must be married or something. -Waveybrain
“Toothlesss” and “Stitch” had a baby. -Waveybrain
Armadillo lizard.It’s a fucking dragon. I want one.
“Who Says Yes ?”-Notes from tonight’s animation panel
Tonight I went to panel discussion at our Union with development execs from Cartoon Network, The Hub, Frederator, and RGH Entertainment. They were there to discuss what criteria they evaluate when making programing development decisions. It was an interesting talk and Q&A. Below are the notes that I tapped away on my phone. They’re pretty much in chronological order. Hopefully, they are useful to you. There really weren’t any surprises, just some good insights and pointers about what to be conscious of if you want to pitch your ideas or become a content producer.
-Waveybrain
The Panel:
David Corbett (Executive Director N. America, RGH Entertainment) -theme park/brandinig/(web) content. They “Co-produce” IP and distribute through various channels depending on content viability-Basically a middle man operation with many partners and seeks to ‘exploit’ and grow value from animation content. RGH has it’s own in-house art department and marketing arm, and typically partners with larger distribution conglomerates.
Katie Krentz (CN comedy animation)-shorts program/In response to a question: she’s empowered to green light projects to a development stage w/ exec partner/Further investment in series development involves higher level execs./CN develops ‘70% of new shows’ using in-house talent.
Rick Blanco (VP CN Enterprises (consumer products)-Rick is involved in brand strategizing and consumer products. He has varied experience from being a MBA to an artist. Regarding salable product, he believes ”Content will always be king”,
Donna Ebbs (Sr. VP of programming, The Hub)-a Hasbro, Discover Kids joint venture.
Eric Homen (VP, Development, Frederator Studios/Cartoon Hangover), Currently looking for content for YouTube channel launching soon
Unanimous-Network strategy is to look at collective whole when green lighting or making acquisitions/typically, 1yr dev for a pilot and before a property is ready to be packaged for corporate presentation/
The Hub is growing (‘mid start-up phase’) & ever conscious of: programming, content, scheduling budget-ie., operations : HUB doesn’t do pilot episodes/very stripped down operation at this point. They make investments in production runs and go ‘head first’. So they’re very cautious.
Mr. Corbett stated that companies appreciate entrepreneurs who do legwork prior to pitching-like: securing partnerships, market research, providing stats, etc. Address risk: $10,000s at stake, try to demonstrate proof of concept. ”Line up your ducks”
*At which point I began to wonder why we need middle men nowadays. It seems it’s not enough to just create content, characters and environments. In a perfect world, they also would like you to be business savvy and present a business case along with your creative content. Mr. Blanco made it a point that it behooves aspiring content creators to have a business education-even a rudimentary one is better than nothing. More than once Mr. Corbett remarked that he loved to take pitches and see peoples ideas regardless. He finds it inspirational. Who wouldn’t enjoy that privilege? Don’t get me wrong, he was a nice man and being forthright. But, you gotta wonder if you’d be better off owning your own content and keeping it private and protected and finding a new means of distribution. Each panelist did however explain their virtues and why you may prefer to partner with them and possibly benefit from their experience, networks, and capital.
Understanding their audience; brand testing; brand value, audience analytics (utilizing services like FB, or Google) is very important to networks in determining whether new IP holds value for their respective company and in their efforts in understanding and defining their audiences.
Development execs are spending substantial time and resources scanning user generated content on Youtube and the like, as well as combing the more traditional festivals and conventions looking for content.
Retail Conundrum: ”Girls Isle” vs “Boys Isle” is a very big obstacle with traditional retail & consumer product. ”Spongebob” was cited as an example of a highly successful property that never really fully capitalized on it’s toy market potential. Partly, because the show doesn’t fit the tradition retail mold of Girls Isle or Boys Isle.
Some examples of “girls shows” with a cross-gender appeal: ”Buffy”, “Zena”, “Power Puff” (originally, Whoop Ass Girls), “She-Ra”, “Wonderwoman”, “Atomic Betty”, etc.
Traditional Retail Theory:
Girls = Pink/Boys= Monsters & Trucks
*Target was cited because they have started something called, ‘Innovation Station’ as a gender-neutral shelf space. And, the panelists sensed a change in The Force.
Mr. Homen’s words of wisdom regarding “The Pitch”: Every executive’s job is to say “NO”, and it’s ‘your’ job to anticipate that “No”, be prepared and counter it-like a game of Chess. Try to anticipate barriers. Be informed they all reiterated.
Mr. Blanco: ’Focus groups are BS & can be skewed ‘
Before you pitch: know your IP backwards & forwards: Own it! Don’t let them question you as a show runner (a potential creator pit-fall) because you aren’t confident or versed enough about your own creation. Be passionate, believe, do your homework. Know who you’re pitching to. For the best outcome, take your work to the most receptive company. And, be respectful. If you aren’t, you’re unlikely to be received again.
Q&A:
Q: Who’s the “decider” (when receiving a pitch)?
-Mr. Corbett: Ultimately Finance says, “yes”.
Q: What kind of content to include in a pitch?
-Ms. Krentz: Providing artwork=good. They like to see a sense of style, your color palette and artistic sensibilities, etc.
Q: Any advice about pitching hard to classify concepts?
-Ms. Ebbs: Try to classify define your IP irrespective of it’s peculiarities. It can be done & is what they expect-a longline.
Q: ’What gets you excited when taking a pitch?”
-Ms. Krentz: Is it funny? Do ‘I’ connect w/ character(s)?
-Mr. Corbett: Is the story good and passionately written?
Q: What are you looking for w/ shorts?
Frederator: A beat board/material to walk you through the cartoon episode-backstory etc. unnecessary to pitch a short.
-Ms. Krentz: Looking for funny, edgey, geared to 6-11 boys, consistent w/ studio’s tone
-Ms. Ebbs: imaginative/world viewed through a new perspective?
Nice anecdote about “paying your dues”. I can relate to many of the feelings expressed. -Waveybrain
Tonight, as I was cleaning out an old file cabinet, I came across a resume from early on in my career. As I read through my laughable list of achievements and expertly enhanced job descriptions I couldn’t help but be taken back.
Back to when I was just getting started paying my dues.
I wasn’t…
Yet another fascinating story of Apple lore. I find it kind of hilarious that Jobs said he hated “iMac” or “MiniMac” and preferred “MacMan”. I suspect he wasn’t exactly the visionary he’s portrayed as. If I did a film about him, I think I’d make it a comedy: from acid trips to his extreme behaviors and practices he managed to build an empire and become who he wanted to be. But, I don’t think he was that person all along as legend has it. -Waveybrain
Nice figure drawing reference! -Waveybrain
From: pachurz:
Some building block references my Life Drawing teacher drew up for us for our Figure Drawing class. Thought I would impart the wisdom.
Oh shiny~
MIGHTY NEED! D:
Neil Gaiman dispensing words of wisdom for the artist(s). -Waveybrain
Make good art.
(via Neil Gaiman commencement address explains the artist’s life - Boing Boing)
Here’s a good commentary about FB’s vulnerability. I agree with Patricia…People don’t go to FB to shop, they go there to share-or, play games. It’s a communication tool as she points out. They can’t bank on the ad model to grow as Google had. The absolute value of FB I think, is the fact that virtually everyone is using it and they know even better than Google what our habits and interests are. To my mind that’s actually another vulnerability: every FB user is well aware of that, and would likely decouple if or when they learned that their privacy was mishandled or exploited. On the other hand, I think FB has tremendous room to improve their user experience since it has been basically bad. So, another “value add” they could adopt is simply making the site more user friendly or customizable-putting more controls in individuals hands rather than less. They have to stop the unethical practices of pushing new policies (as default settings) that have made user privacy less secure. It’s so ironic because Zuckerberg talks about privacy being one of their cornerstones. If they turned that trend around and put the marketing power of their social network more in the hands of it’s users than relying on ad revenue which apparently isn’t panning out, I think it will do well. -Waveybrain
It was always likely that a day would come where social networks like Facebook, etc. would no longer be able to monetize easily via ad revenue.
It was likely that this would be driven by a paradigm shift in how users utilize social networks.
To date, social networks have had a fairly gracious…
DIY Designing With Pallets
dishfunctional design
via: sprk
cabbagerose:
i like the room divider…which is your favorite?
Very clever, and appealing! I might have to make a couple of these.
-Waveybrain
It was a big week for social networks.
But the term itself seems to have lost some of it’s impact. Over time we’ve come to associate social networks with Mark Zuckerberg, Aaron Sorkin and blue pixelated Fonzy thumbs.
This afternoon, at our Foo Health event in Boston, Nicholas Christakis broke me out of that metaphorical mental rut with a session on the role and impact our social networks play in our personal health, happiness and achievements.
As he spoke, and as the group of participants questioned and expanded upon his ideas, I was struck with just how fortunate I am to be a part of the social networks that have come to shape my personal and professional lives.
It’s been a long week of travel for me, thus the slow posting here. As the events of the week wash over me on this return flight, I can’t help but trace the network connections of my past to seat 8C. From my beginnings in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon to my life in the bay area. From my first job as a file clerk to the work I get to do now. At each step, the networks I navigated shaped the ideas I pursued and opportunities afforded me.
In this TED talk from 2010, Nicholas breaks down the roll of social networks we participate within and the impact they have on us. Near the end, he compares the base material of these networks to carbon. Depending on the connections made between the same carbon molecules graphite OR diamonds could emerge.
The same is true of our personal social networks. We all have the same base material, it’s how we connect that material that makes all the difference.
Great food for thought and required weekend viewing.
Very interesting talk and analytics of social networks. Though I agree with his final statements about fostering social networks because of it’s strengths and upsides, I don’t know which “strategy” makes more sense; the person more on the fringe who’s cautious and less easy to decipher or analyze, or the person who ‘weaves’ a cluster and becomes embedded in it. I think the problem with being so transparent is that it makes it too easy for those “think tanks” creating these cluster maps to study and or manipulate their data-aka, YOU. -Waveybrain
Finally, found some inspiration! I’ve been in a mental rut lately. Ron Arad seems interesting and more in line with the way I think or wish to be-living life and exploring as opposed to droning along. I actually stumbled across him because one of his students, Valentin Vodev designed a stroller very similar to the one I just proposed on Quirky (feel free to give me some love with a vote: http://www.quirky.com/ideations/221725). -Waveybrain
