Have your world and chars got enough about them to generate 52 episodes for a first season?
YOU MUST LOVE YOUR CHARACTERS -if you don't love them why should anybody else. Make them flawed! World - family home, other worlds, specific towns, char specific locations. The weirder the world the straighter the storytelling. Universally recognised stuff. 3 act structured character driven.
- coherent with the rules of the world
- don't blindly pursue the gag - follow character and story.
Quick pace. dialogue performs char, story + comedy functions at the same time. Pace eats up a lot of story. Smash cuts techniques (family guy)
- no guns, knives, punching in face, no adult cynicysm.
- make sure style doesn't impose itself too much on character and story - squash + stretch etc used w/o distracting for Simpsons.
Dif culture = dif regulations.
Writer conference springboard (paragraph), outline/premise - 2/3 page. Scene by scene - 2/3 length of script - limited dialogue jut to flesh out the scene, see if it works again. Drafts of script - up to 6 but varies. Others add jokes or changed etc - person to polish it is chosen depending on what the script needs. Script editor - manage relationships. Conduit of notes, rewrites, generate ideas, connect w/rest of production team afterwards. Notes from everyone.
Who's story? What do they want? Wat obstacles can we put in their way? What do they learn? Audience? You will FEEL it if it isn't working right. Don't be too precious! Don't worry about baring yourself. Board driven - great for visual jokes etc. BBC tend not to, weed v- talented writer and boarder. You can fix design later but if the foundation is wrong it can never be right.
During a recessions people don't take risks. Courage - weirder shows - nothing to prove, no comparison.
Friday 20 March 2015
CBBC Talk Notes Part 1
Talk from BBC Producer Sarah Muller and writer Andrew Burrell.
Popular things with children right now - Minecraft, Lego, Angry Birds. Youtube is where their audience is going. British productions getting more money. not sure how long Broadcasts wll last - Netflix, Youtube, etc). Lack of space for adult animation. "All homegrown content is shit" - direct quote from C and places that don't want adult animation. Moved from London to Salford. 34 TV channels dedicated to kids in the UK. 196.4 million iplayer requests for CBBC programs over the last 12 months.
For 6 - 12 y/o - CBBC is number one in the UK. Easier to sell preschool things because toys. Devices for watching stuff going up - tablets, phones, PCs etc. Got stuff from abroad for a while because cheaper. All becoming about brands. Strange Hill High - Simpsons etc - showrunner + comedy writer, not kids writer. Hand picked British Writers. "Proper comedy comes from proper performance" - not just 'voice over artists'. Pushed the design every time, even if happy with it. In the next year more British being funded w/tax over last 2 years. Taking things people love and making it for an audience who don't care often - spend a long time figuring out what it is that stands the test of time. ALL ABOUT CHARS + RELATIONSHIPS. Spongebob v popular b/c character driven comedy.
CBBC less animated than other kids' channels. Not a lot of opportunity to get new content involved. STAND OUT. They get a lot of paranormal stuff, they don't need any more. 'Random garbage' inspired by Adventure Time. Don't get things like Family Guy so much. 'Family group comedy drama'. Not strange or photo-realistic. Almost impossible to get more adult aimed. Stand out but fit in w/existing shows.
Most popular BBC stuff - Shaun the Sheep, Postman Pat, Sooty + Sweep, the Magic Roundabout. Boys tend to be into animation for longer. The kids are your boss. Make aims relevant to their experience. Never talk down to kids, they are v sharp. Cynicism is an adult issue - love your chars. Tips for writers, rules are to be broken.
Popular things with children right now - Minecraft, Lego, Angry Birds. Youtube is where their audience is going. British productions getting more money. not sure how long Broadcasts wll last - Netflix, Youtube, etc). Lack of space for adult animation. "All homegrown content is shit" - direct quote from C and places that don't want adult animation. Moved from London to Salford. 34 TV channels dedicated to kids in the UK. 196.4 million iplayer requests for CBBC programs over the last 12 months.
For 6 - 12 y/o - CBBC is number one in the UK. Easier to sell preschool things because toys. Devices for watching stuff going up - tablets, phones, PCs etc. Got stuff from abroad for a while because cheaper. All becoming about brands. Strange Hill High - Simpsons etc - showrunner + comedy writer, not kids writer. Hand picked British Writers. "Proper comedy comes from proper performance" - not just 'voice over artists'. Pushed the design every time, even if happy with it. In the next year more British being funded w/tax over last 2 years. Taking things people love and making it for an audience who don't care often - spend a long time figuring out what it is that stands the test of time. ALL ABOUT CHARS + RELATIONSHIPS. Spongebob v popular b/c character driven comedy.
CBBC less animated than other kids' channels. Not a lot of opportunity to get new content involved. STAND OUT. They get a lot of paranormal stuff, they don't need any more. 'Random garbage' inspired by Adventure Time. Don't get things like Family Guy so much. 'Family group comedy drama'. Not strange or photo-realistic. Almost impossible to get more adult aimed. Stand out but fit in w/existing shows.
Most popular BBC stuff - Shaun the Sheep, Postman Pat, Sooty + Sweep, the Magic Roundabout. Boys tend to be into animation for longer. The kids are your boss. Make aims relevant to their experience. Never talk down to kids, they are v sharp. Cynicism is an adult issue - love your chars. Tips for writers, rules are to be broken.
Wednesday 11 March 2015
Behance
Behance is a portfolio hosting website that has such a great range of search tools, allowing you to search by creative field, locations, finished projects or WIPs including options to view the most liked or viewed ones.
This is something I haven't seen done so well on other portfolio sites, making it a great place for people to find and comment on your art. There is no limit to how many images you can have on a project either, although 10 - 15 is common for full projects, with room for text (although most projects I have seen usually just let the work speak for itself). You can follow people like other social networking sites, and you have a dashboard showing now projects, works in progress and likes for people that you follow.
This is something I haven't seen done so well on other portfolio sites, making it a great place for people to find and comment on your art. There is no limit to how many images you can have on a project either, although 10 - 15 is common for full projects, with room for text (although most projects I have seen usually just let the work speak for itself). You can follow people like other social networking sites, and you have a dashboard showing now projects, works in progress and likes for people that you follow.
I have found way more work than expected through Behance, and the fact that I can even search the category 'character design' is great; I can actually find specific things instead of just scrolling through thousands of things with a similar subject matter. This means that people can also find my art when specifically looking for similar fields, which could be beneficial when looking for possible collaborative partners or for hiring people etc.
From Behance, I'm going to collect some examples of portfolios that I find really interesting, and see how I could make my own portfolio interesting.
Sunday 8 March 2015
Lee Hardcastle Talk
Never got uni projects done so just experimented. GI Joe + webcam, well received. On dole for a year - continued with projects - making music videos for his band. Reached out to production houses; runner for Scramble, tried a few different things. There for 3 years learning vfx on the side. Never gave up wanting to create own projects etc. GI Joe corps was seen by a GI Joes festival in America, was asked to make more for it. Got free GI Joe to do it with. Worked with someone he met in London working on sound. Always made stuff in his own time.
Empie Magazine's competition - 'competitions are amazing' - taking briefs and understand what these guys are going or. Winning/achieving makes a huge difference. Evil dead competition video went viral. Decided how to brand himself (gave him a direction) - 'new and fresh'. Then quit his job to work in a cafe in the South of France - work 'freaking me out'. Wrote a feature length film. Realised the idea was ridiculous. More competitions. Google asked about monetising his evil dead animation. 1K views = £1ish, knew he needed to keep consistent and his branding. Made a series of that comp - 60 seconds etc. Length of video + interest for how long is a youtube thing. Get suggested less by Youtube. Sold belongings and moved back in with parents for a while. Slowly getting more cash per day. On the side, being approached by people to make things for them. Music video - first payment from claymation. Made in someone elses' basement in Paris. Viral after viral. Contest for a feature length move - 26 parts - comp for 26th person. 170 entries. Put more effort into this. Avoiding Youtube for the moment - not doing anything for him. Parodies are good for views - grey area though; IP permission is dubious. Pingu video did great but got taken down. Did a knock off cat version instead - made a series - was asked to do a clay remake of their film "all about branding yourself" sell yourself short too many times, you becom nothing. Done stuff now for adult swim.
Comps through Twitter abd nags. 3 - 5 weeks for a 2 min vid. Still sees himself as a film maker rather than animator.
Empie Magazine's competition - 'competitions are amazing' - taking briefs and understand what these guys are going or. Winning/achieving makes a huge difference. Evil dead competition video went viral. Decided how to brand himself (gave him a direction) - 'new and fresh'. Then quit his job to work in a cafe in the South of France - work 'freaking me out'. Wrote a feature length film. Realised the idea was ridiculous. More competitions. Google asked about monetising his evil dead animation. 1K views = £1ish, knew he needed to keep consistent and his branding. Made a series of that comp - 60 seconds etc. Length of video + interest for how long is a youtube thing. Get suggested less by Youtube. Sold belongings and moved back in with parents for a while. Slowly getting more cash per day. On the side, being approached by people to make things for them. Music video - first payment from claymation. Made in someone elses' basement in Paris. Viral after viral. Contest for a feature length move - 26 parts - comp for 26th person. 170 entries. Put more effort into this. Avoiding Youtube for the moment - not doing anything for him. Parodies are good for views - grey area though; IP permission is dubious. Pingu video did great but got taken down. Did a knock off cat version instead - made a series - was asked to do a clay remake of their film "all about branding yourself" sell yourself short too many times, you becom nothing. Done stuff now for adult swim.
Comps through Twitter abd nags. 3 - 5 weeks for a 2 min vid. Still sees himself as a film maker rather than animator.
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