March 2008 Archives

Take a look at 'Waffle' the short film made by Tim ,Rosie, Craig and Mike, with just 49 hours from the spark of an idea to a cinema screening.

Amazingly all the teams finished their work and made it to the final screening in perfect time.    Most of the pieces were around 30 seconds to a minute long, quite an achievement for such a short period of time.  

















As we recounted the work of the last two days several interesting things were highlighted.   The Damned Team of Craig, Lisa and Carl were not a regular creative partnership - they had just come together for this event.   Yet Kerry and Gareth who often work together had challenged themselves by making a traditional handdrawn and digital animation rather than using the 3D style that they are accustomed to.   The Mapability team who spend their days making geological visualisations had challenged themselves to a creative story and the team comprising Tim, Rosie, Craig and Michael has spent time over the weekend teaching Michael flash animation and editing software.



We watched each of the films, 'The Damned' had created a 3D film that showed a workman banging away while his radio and latern slowly edged towards the edge of the table which each strike.   The Mapability team had a Tim Burton styled 3D animation which featured a battalion of warts that looked looked like soldiers  from the Amercian Revolution - it was a cinematic spectacle.   The 'Tim is Late' team  had a busking waffle while the Pixel Monkey's had created a wacky advertisement for monkeys.

Our panel of judges included FTI's Production Development Officer Phil Jeng Kane, 3D Aniamtor Susan Breshnian and Producer, Susie Campbell.

















The winning films was declared to be 'Waffle' by the 'Tim is late' team that comprised Michael Nicholas, Tim Merks, Rosie Lau and Craig Wilson.   They won both the judges prize and the audience vote.

The pressure must be building - Criag has begun running from one computer lab to the next, an hour go he was only walking, but now it's a definite jog.

The team at Mapability have sent us through a screen shot of their project.   The Mapability team are working from their  Subiaco Offices.

  

The teams are hard at work, with only 3 hours left to go until the deadline.   At 7pm we will be screening thr four animations to a panel of three judges.   One of the judges Susan Breshnian dropped in to see how the teams were going this afternoon.

Lisa Evans in 'The Damned' team says she's feeling quite confident that they'll make the deadline, but Tim Merks from the 'Tim is Late' team said he'd know in a few more hours.

Animator Vincent Karsten has also dropped by to see the work in progress.

 

We haven't done a TV highlights post for a few weeks, mainly because we've just been really really busy.

So he we go, what's on TV in the week ahead, that may be of interest to aspiring filmmakers and analyists of the television industry.   This week sees official ratings return after a two week Easter break, you'll notice that a few shows have been moved about in the schedule, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronciles is suffering the fate of all Sci-Fi on Nine as it is pushed back later into the night, Seven's HD only show 'The Night Cap' has gone all together, and NINE's 'The Today Show' takes another lunge at Seven's rival 'Sunrise' by starting from 5:30 - way before Sunrise in both a competitive and a literal sense.

SUNDAY

Gladiators
6:30PM    SEVEN   Game Show
Will the revised and updated version of early 90's show 'Gladiators' be a success or a failure?

East of Everything
8:30PM   ABC      Drama Series
When his mother dies, Art is drawn reluctantly back to the town of Broken Bay and the lives and loves of the people he left behind.   Stars Tom Long and Richard Roxborugh.

Rove
9:00PM    TEN      Variety
Rove MacManus returns for 2008, livening up the Sunday night viewing choices.   Can he keep it fresh for another year, will that mamoth cast from 2007 all be back?   Is really interviewing Jodie Foster in the studio or is going to be a prerecoded video hook-up?

MONDAY

The Power of Ten
7:30PM     NINE      Game Show
A new game show hosted by Steve Jacobs.  

Sea Patrol
8:30PM    NINE       Drama
Sea Patrol returns for Season Two, they have a bigger boat and tighter scripts, and Alan Dale joins the cast.  

Enough Rope
9:35Pm    ABC         Interview Show
Andrew Denton returns for 2008 and begins with an indepth chat with troubled football star Wayne Carey.

TUESDAY

Ladette to Lady
9:30pm    NINE         Reality Series
This show takes a bunch of drunken, swearing commoners and aims to transform them into stylish polite ladies in a reality version of Pygmalion.   The reality interesting character though are the ladies at the upper class finish school.   It's trashy TV but it's good.    Tune in earlier to catch the premiere of 'Moment of Truth' an show where people are strapped to a lie detector and an episode of the swearing Chef Gordon Ramsey - this all pretty trashy TV but an example of great themed programming on NINE's part.

WEDNESDAY

Iconclasts
9:30PM   SBS         Interview Series
Writer and Academy Award-winning producer Brian Grazer engages Viacom Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Sumner M. Redstone in a lively discussion about the evolving media marketplace. 

FRIDAY

Doctor Who
9:30PM   ABC2      Sci Fi Drama
UK writer Robert Shearman was in Perth just last week talking about his experiences in working in TV, catch his Hugo Award nominated contribution to the revived 'Doctor Who', this episode is called 'Dalek'.

SATURDAY

The Well
8:30PM   ABC2      Feature Film
In her feature film directorial debut, Samantha Lang offers a subtle and moving psychological portrait of a female friendship and the effects of an unexpected tragedy upon it.

The 'Tim is late team' have posted some of their work to date, here's a first look at their singing waffle project.   The team's pulled three words out of a hat on Friday night that formed the basis of their project, they have to incorporate 'waffle, 'band' and 'aim' into their work.

We're into the home stretch of WAM BAM, just a few hours left to go.   'The Damned' team are first to get to work this morning, Lisa has succeeded in keepiong the pants on her 3D character, Craig has completed the soundscape and they are progressing quickly in putting it all together.

Our good friend Sebastian Mayer, who is back in homeland of Germany, has sent everyone a message overnight wishing us well in our endevours and advising us not to drink to much instant coffee.

  

One of these people has trouble keeping their pants on....

Tarky, Demelza, Kira and Alfie dropped in to see how the animation competition was progressing and created some pretty amazing figurines out of plastacine while they were around.   I love that picture of Alfie looking at the toy figure, looks like he's lost in deep conversation.

As the hours drag on, the questions starts to be asked, "We we finish on time?", as we past the half way point teams began to reaccess their ambitions.   

Lisa Evans in 'The Damned' Team provided a great moment of comic releif as her 3D character had continual problems keeping his pants on.  

The Mapability team are wokring out of their Subiaco offices, but we checked in on them  and heard that they too were falling a little behind schedule, which was great relief to hear for the other competitiors.

The 'Tim is Late' team are working hard on their animation about a busking waffle.   Tim, Mike, Craig and Roseline are working in flash and have produced some amazing work in the last few hours.

WAM BAM is a 49 hour long competition where teams compete to make a short animation.   The event was created by WAnimate the WA Animation Industry Association and is supported by the Film and Television Institute and Screenwest.

 

The Pixel Monkey team has spent some time in the sound booth recording sound for their project.   Gareth Lockett displayed an previously undiscovered talent as a sound artist.

The WAM BAM 49 hour animation competition commenced last night.   The idea behind this is simple, 4 teams of animators have from friday night until Sunday night to make a short animation.  

We began the evening with a brain hurting discussion about the end of daylight saving, which is scheduled to occur during the competition, did it give us an hour less of time or an hour extra.   Eventually we worked out that it was in the animators favour, they got an hour extra.

The session began with each team choosing three words out of a hat, when creating their animation the teams will have to use the three words are their creative starting point.   The first team is the Pixel Monkey's comprising Gareth Lockett and Kerry Jean Watson from Raging Pixel, their three words are 'bun', 'gem' and 'wacky'.   The second team is from local animation company Mapability who pulled the words 'bum', 'battle' and 'wart'.   Third is line was the team named 'Tim is Late' who scored the words 'band', 'aim' and 'waffle'.   The final team named 'The Damned' will be working with the words 'barricade', 'album' and 'water'.

The teams began brainstorming ideas and concepts immediately.   There was manic scribbling and drawing, storyboards and character designs began to appear within a few hours.

The animators will be working in the Animation Centre between 9am and 10pm on Saturday and during the day on Sunday, if your in Fremantle drop in and visit us.

The Easter break to many is a chance to get away from the city for a long weekend, but for Perth's Sci Fi and Fan community it's time for the annual SWANCON convention.   This year the convention was notching up it's 33rd annual get together, which in itself is quite an achievement.   Entering a fan convention can be an intimidating experience.   It's a world of long running traidtions, jokes and protocols.  

Throughout the weekend several people mentioned that fandom often gets a bad rap, people often just see a fan conventions as a bunch of people dressing up as different characters from their favorite TV shows.   It's true, one my return from SWANCON the most common question people asked me was 'Were their people dressed as Star Trek?'   ...and there was, but just one, clearly Star Trek's popularity is in a bit of a lull.

There were many interesting things going on at this event, some I totally engaged with and others left me scratching my head in wonder.   Personally I have to admit the dressing up leaves me scratching my head and confused.   One half of me is amazed at the creativity and the ingenuity.   Then the other side of my brain kicks in and questions why the highlight of someone's social life might be the time they spend dressed as a rabbit.   Then my flicks back again and I think about how great it must be to retain the 'let's dress up' skill that most of us lose automatically at our 8th or 9th birthday.

So SWANCON is not about a bunch of people dressing up, it's just a tiny bit of the experience.   I posted these pictures from the Masquerade Ball about a week ago.   The three statues, from the 'Blink' episode of Season 3 of Doctor Who were truly scary and Danger Mouse was a sight for sore eyes, the Dalek was menacing and Strawbeey Shortcake was sweet.   there was a brilliant Goblin King and Sarah from 'Labrinyth', they even had a killer dance routine.   but now we've all spent some time looking at the costumes, it's time to move on from that and look at some of the other parts of fandom.

Once you get over the people dressing up, SWANCON had so many things going on, academic presentations, panel discussions, games, socialising, auctions, arts shows, photographic displays and debates.    After this post I promise not to talk about the dressing up anymore.      
 

Last year I posted on my personal blog about an innovative method that Diet Coke used to gain my attention for their new short film festival.   Working at FTI we get sent hundreds of emails about various film competitions that are on around the world, some we highlight here inb the blogs, but most we barely have time to read - there are literally hundreds.

The Diet Coke Film Competition stood out though, they sent a very shiny silver package, inside was a thumb drive that had all the promotional materials for the film, a link banner for websites,  the entry forms,  posters that could be printed - and on top of that a free branded thumb drive.

Lately I've seen a few other promotional ideas that have stuck out from the crowd.  



















Firstly the launch of Luxe Bar's new outdoor club space Bamboo.   This invite came as an old vinyl record, and yes - it plays some pretty funky tunes.    Not only diud this stick out in my mail box, it got people talking, who else got one?   What was the music like, was the music the same on all the invites?   People were talking about Bamboo way before it opened.  
Secondly, a new tiny cafe in Fremantle has an interesting little flyer that highlights the cafe's biggest attribute, it's really tiny.   You can cut out the pieces and make your own little coffee shop.

This is one very clever advertisement, it's so simple  but is so engaging.

My current five favourite blogs are as follows;

TV Tonight
David Knox was formerly at Screen Industry subscription site, Screenhub.   This new blog has the latest news, inside word, breaking news and observation on the local television industry.   From the latest ratings, to critque of network programming and audience spoilers - it's a very juicy collection of information.

The Lamp Water Cooler
From the New Media section of the Australian Film Television and Radio School, this blog site covers a wide range of topics from the insightful to the just plain fun. 

Wishful Thinking
I've only recently added this to my reading list.   Mark McGuiness is a UK based expert in coaching for creative people, his posts on both creative process and business coaching are very insightful.

Idents TV
John Beohm has an interest in a very niche area, he's interested in TV idents, those little station ID's that brand a network.   An indepth look at titles, logo's and promotion.   He collects samples from all over the world.   There is some amazing stuff in here and it's interesting how different networks in different countries tackle similar challenges so differently.    My favorite thing he's recently posted was the adds from Channel 4 in the UK that encourage people to take up digital TV, they used 80's icon Max Hedroom - (now in an old people's home) - to get the message across.

Tama Leaver
UWA's Dr Tama Leaver always finds the coolest stuff online, with a healthy interest in censorship, Web 2.0, Digital Culture, Education and  Battlestar Gallatica, there is always an item of interest.




 

At FTI we have begun using some podcasts to compliment our face to face teaching.   Here's a interesting piece about some of the ways that educators can use podcasting.

One of the first things you think about, is will recording a Lecture stop students attending?   Most people would answer yes, recent research however shows that there is almost no effect on attendance following the introduction of podcasting services.

'Cloverfield' has been a film that polarises people's opinions, some of us love it, others were not so anamoured.  

Earlier this week I had no car for a few days, which is frustrating, but on the bright side I got to catch up on lots of podcasts during my long comute.

One podcast I listed to was writer Drew Goddard talking about his career, working his way up from being a writer's assistant to working on shows like 'Alias' and 'Lost'.    His first feature is 'Cloverfield' and listening about the writing process of this film was very intriguing.   The Creative Screenwriting podcasts are really great, if you have even the slightest interest in writing for the screen you will find some valuable information within them.

Another interesting 'Cloverfield' related item is the web site of Visual Effects Company Double Negative who have some behind the scenes footage that shows what went into making this ambitious film.



    

Earlier this week in our Diploma of Animation program we beggan talking about pitching and it's importance in the screen industry.    Whether your trying to sell your idea or just selling yourself in order to get a job, the ability to pitch and communicate effectively is essential.

Over the next few weeks the students in this program are going to begin to practice pitching different ideas and concepts.    Animators tend to be fairly introverted, so pitching is not a skill that comes easily.

If you'd like a quick recap of the class from the other day, here is an audio reminder of some of the main points.   This recording was originally made for the Video Production class - the concepts however are identical.




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If your not studying in the Animation program at FTI, your more than welcome to listen as well.   Feel free to add any comments below.

This week at FTI a new class of students began their training in animation.   The Diploma of Animation is one of our most intensive training programs and runs over a 28 week period.   

This afternoon we spent some time exploring the different places that animated content can be found in the modern production landscape.   While most people thinks of cartoons when they think of animation, the reality is that there are lots of other area that animation expands into.

Visual Effects, Simulators, Legal Animation, Animation for Mining and the Resources sector, Architectural Visualisation, Medical Animation,  Mobile Phone Content,  Advertising,  Corporate Films, Educational Films.

We took at look at some examples from different areas and then continued the afternoon by researching deeper into each area.    This page has the links to what we found, and we'll continue to build upon it as the course continues.