TED-Ed: "Historical Role Models"

Here's the fourth & latest animation I've directed for TED-Ed (voted one of Time Magazine's Top 50 Websites of 2013 & winner of three Webby Awards!).  It's all about the virtues of American historical figures.  Check it!  I'll be posting some behind-the-scenes work for it in the coming days.
I'm taking some time off from TED for the next few months to catch up on other work, but I hope to come back to TED later in the year with some fresh eyes.  They're some of the best and easiest people to work with, so hopefully it won't be too hard to stay away for so long.

I've also been working on another animated short that's gonna be big!  With explosions!  Kids like those right?  More soon...

PEMDAS: The Process, Part 2

Now that my initial brainstorming and animatic is finished, I can finally move into the heavy design stages of production.   For this short in particular, design proved somewhat challenging to me initially.  I know that there was a simplicity that I wanted to achieve but at the same time I wanted to give it my own touch.  Simple can be hard to do without looking bland.  I wanted to incorporate mathematical concepts into the background, but how should I go about doing that?  How 'round' should I make the Land of Pi?  How the hell am I going to design this dragon and get him animated on schedule?  The clock begins counting down...

Some things clicked right away: the Musketeers, the horses, the supporting characters... all transfered from brain to screen, no problem.  Their shapes were easy to communicate and didn't require as much tinkering.

The Musketeers looking mostly enthusiastic.

Early design of Digit Horse (proportions altered further in animation)

Then there was the matter of designing the Digit Dragon.  I needed to make sure that not only was the design appealing; it had to animatable within the time constraints and be able to work within a variety of scenes.

Early design of Puff the Digit Dragon

While elements of the early dragon design made it into the final, he was way too unruly of a beast to animate along with everything else in two weeks' time.  His legs weren't flexible enough to walk and frankly there were just too many numbers to tell what was going on anywhere.  I also realized that the one-tone color scheme wasn't doing me any favors, so I began work on what eventually became the final version.  With a good variety of sizes and shades of numbers coupled with more prominent eyes and an upright posture, I could already sense more personality coming out of this guy...

Close-to-final design of Puff the Digit Dragon

But where in the hell were all of these characters going to live???  I had to figure out how to make this Land of Pi round and full of numbers.  Would they be grounded in backgrounds or float about over colors and textures?  How abstract did I want to get with it?

Various stages in the Land of Pi development.

Above illustrates the progression of how I got from Point A to Point Reasonably Finished over the period of about a week.  The Land of Pi was a lot more difficult for me to conceptualize than I initially imagined, so I kept it simmering on the back-burner while I went ahead on other designs.  When I began production on this project I initially expected everything to be on lined or graph paper to give it that 'doodling in the margins' feel, but as time wore on I realized I needed something more concrete to fit the style of the rest of the design.  Then it was a matter of roundness... what is too round and what is not round enough?  I'm no Antoni Gaudi... my round houses ended up looking more like tiny Hitler faces than something that looked like actual households, so I decided to keep the "kingdom" at a distance and build any extra scenery that might be needed (i.e. The Senate).  I ended up translating the notebook paper into the color scheme and overall feel of the landscape, something I feel I could've pushed more if there were time.

The Land of Pi

Here are a few other misdirections, ghosts of version numbers' past...

The Planet of the Land of Pi -- Nixed idea for opening, complete with golden spiral for The Mathies™

Original Design for "Robot Things" -- Anyone think a pile of old Nintendo Virtual Boys makes for a good joke anymore?  ... Anyone?  Exactly.

Original Tree Design -- back when I was going to go more painterly with the backgrounds... damn you, time allotted! 

NEXT TIME on THE PROCESS, Part 3: Finishing Up, Final Thoughts.

PEMDAS: The Animatic!

Following up with my previous blahg post, here is the original storyboard animatic that I put together for TED-Ed.  Next time I'll write more on how I got from this to the final animated short!

TED-Ed: PEMDAS

I'll be posting more behind-the-scenes whatnots for this and other TED-Ed work shortly, and probably some sorta nipples for good measure.

More TED-Ed Coming Soon!

get ready for intense shape-on-shape action!

NEW TED-Ed Animation - Electoral College

I just finished up my latest project with TED-Ed about everyone's favorite least-controversial subject of The Electoral College.  It's free, buddy!

Special thanks to my lovely producer Bridgette Spalding and the handsome sound designer Eric Hoffman.

Are You Like Most People?

... find out soon!  

More TED-Ed in the Works

... this time with more topical!

*bonus

TED-Ed: The Powers of Ten

I'm a bit busy at the moment to write too much more about it at this time, but check out TED-Ed and my website for more information!  Unfortunately at the moment the great sound people over at Henry Boy went uncredited, but that should be amended shortly.

Stay tuned for more!

TED-Ed: Storyboards VS. Final Product

Here's a side-by-side of some shots from my upcoming animation for TED-Ed.  On the left is the original storyboard accompanied with their final composition.

This scene originally called for more complicated movements by the piano tuner, but in order to meet the deadline I simplified the overall animation in the final.

This character was originally supposed to be a young boy, but given what happens to him I didn't want to have to redo anything... that's why I ended up going with "non-descriptive creepy guy"

There's a lot of text animation in this piece, and I saved laying that out until I was in production mode.

This one turned out pretty similar to the boards.

This scene was modified a bit to take advantage of the screen space... keeping the magnifying glass small on screen for 15 seconds would've looked too awkward. 

I kept his teeth clenched together to save some time... the sacrifices one must make in order to beat the clock!

Coming Soon: TED-Ed

I've been busy with more fun freelance projects lately, the most recent to have wrapped is a short I directed, designed & animated for TED Talks' sister site, TED Ed.  A few months ago my friend Jeremy pointed me to this page on their site saying that I should put my name in the hat for animator nominations.  A few weeks later I was contacted about doing some work and was assigned a four minute lesson.  I was granted a lot of creative control and it was such a pleasure to have the opportunity to work on a project for TED.  Before it's official release, I'll be posting a few bits from the production like storyboards, sound work, design ideas, and other random info.  

In the meantime, here are a few screenshots of what to expect: 

Awww yeah there will be pianos!

... this is where creative control is fun to exercise.

There will also be pianos in pants.

Everyone's fourth-favorite 20th Century physicist!

TIME TO WAKE UP.

I've got an exciting new project coming up, more to follow...