Once Upon A Time In HD News

In light of all this happy camera news, with Sony soon to be releasing a prosumer HD video camcorder, and in light of some of the questions I have received lately, I thought it necessary to write down a few thought.

If you don't already own it, you need to go and get Once Upon A
Time In Mexico on DVD right now. I don't care if you like the movie. I don't care if you think it is the worst movie ever made. If you fancy yourself an indie content creator or moviemaker, you need to get this DVD for the extra features alone, and yes it is worth the price just for those.

You could read this whole blog, and many others like it, and it will never explain the gist, the power, the idea behind what we do, or want to do, than the interviews and "making of" documentaries on that disc. You will see his setup and see how the technology truly gives him power to make what he wants to make his way and not their way. When he explains how digital technology allows him to score his own movie, even though he is not at all a musician, a light will hit you!

Those of us who really desire to make our own content, and have been wanting to for years but were frustrated by the costs which kept it as nothing but a distant dream, we owe a dept to people like Rodriguez and Lucas.

Speaking of Lucas, there's something I have been wanting to say about him for a long time. Now I will admit, I was not too happy with the recent Star Wars movies, but when I see articles like this one, talking about saving Lucas from himself, I get frustrated because, in the end, it's a load of codswallop!

Guess who wrote that article? Well, I don't have to check, but I can guess it's a guy my age! (meaning old enough to be big fans of the original Star Wars trilogy)Well, guess what? We had our Star Wars films. He's not making them for us anymore. Why? Because people in their thirties and forties are not the ones spending hundred of millions of dollars at the box office. KIDS ARE!

Now people can say what they want about, "Well, that doesn't mean it has to have a bad story.", but I say bad for who? Do you know how many people I know personally who tell me their kids won't even watch the original Star Wars films?! They think they're boring! Different generations like different art, different music, different media. Why are we complaining about a franchise that has toy and cereal tie-ins? It's not made for us.

My point is that Lucas is making his movies for kids today. Kids today are loving his stuff and he is going to make a billion dollars doing it. Now we can hate it all we want while he laughs all the way to the bank.

In the end, he is an indie who is making what he wants to make, the way he wants to make it, his audience (the people he made it for not the ones who wish he made it for them) love it, and he is very successful at it.

I salute him.

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ALL TOGETHER NOW!

Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah... Oh.. the point is:

Sony Europe has announced in a press release that they will be displaying a high definition HDV prosumer concept camcorder at the CeBiT technology show in Hanover Germany. Although very few details are available on the new camcorder, pictures of the product provided by Sony do show that it has 3 CCDs. The announcement of a 3 CCD consumer / prosumer HD under $5,000 camcorder is major news for the industry.

From CamcorderInfo.com

Do you know what this means?! Well, for one thing, it means I am glad didn't get the JVC. More importantly, it means that competition begins, prices will drop, and soon this technology will make the potential for the highest quality movie-making ours for the taking!

Nothing is final, but it will at least do 1080I and may do 720x24P if there is enough end user interest. I see a new era ahead.

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I've written a new schedule. I have placed it on the wall. Why? Because I have come to realize I have just too much going on right now. Partially because of taking on too much, but also because the rather large gig I did two months, or so, ago, pushed everything back a way.

Time management is extremely important for the indie. I, personally, like to have two projects going at once, because I simply can't so the same thing hour after hour and day after day. If one project is totally different from the other, like manga and anime, or live action and anime, all the better.

Two projects, however, is enough! From this point, I will not take on any new projects until all projects I am currently working on are done, and I have rested for a while. How likely is that?

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Someone told me about this quite some time ago, but just got around to it now. I updated my various pages so that under the World of Hartz book image, it says "now available", with a link to Amazon, rather than "coming soon."

More updates to come.

UNIQUENESS

What does uniqueness actually mean? Does it mean trying something totally different? Going for a completely new look or style. If so, just for the sake of doing it? What does it mean to stand out in a world so oversaturated with "more of the same"?

Uniqueness doesn't have to be going totally out there visually. It can be. But it can also be stories that haven't been done before, characters that haven't been seen a million times. Satoshi Kon placed a middle aged homeless man as the main character in his last film. He didn't do out there line styles like Animatrix or jump between drawing techniques like FLCL. Yet his film is one of the most unique I have seen.

Kakurenbo looks to be very unique too. So what must the indie do to stand out?

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KAKURENBO

There is a term in the Japanese language which is said "mendoukusai". Those who know what it means or decide to look it up will know how I feel about trying to read through the Japanese web page I am about to talk about here.

The project is KAKURENBO, which appears to be an indie project done in full 3D CG animation with cel shading. Using a 2D style, a small number of people were able to create this visually stunning piece. It appears to be coming out this year and will be 25 minutes in length. I LOVE the Japanese market. Only there can you do such a thing!

25 minutes is the length of the typical OVA in the Japanese market these days. What's great about this is that it's unique! Not only that, this is one case where I might say they got it right. So far full 3D CG animation in place of cel has just not impressed me. This one looks like it might do the trick. My mind moves to comments made by Satoshi Kon on the Tokyo Godfathers DVD about how so much anime is cute women and robots. It makes me think of the value of uniqueness these days.

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Time In Mind

Today I surprisingly got up at a decent hour, around 7:00 AM and worked! Most of the day was spent on a side gig that I'll be doing over the next month or so, but as the hours wound into the evening, I got a chance to get into some mind animation on one of my future projects.

As I wrote yesterday, even if just a little bit a day, it counts. Getting back into the swing of things and seeing results can make a huge difference.

I didn't get a chance to draw any manga images, but maybe next time. As I continue to solidify this new schedule, and actually start cranking out new stuff, who knows what may come out here!

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TIME

It's been two months now since I have created these new updated models for my characters. Even though I have, since that time, done a number of little things, worked on a few side gigs, and even did a stint of VFX work on a major picture, I haven't really done much with these new characters.

World of Hartz is out on shelves and I am itching to draw again. Two things are biting at my heels now, telling me I have to start creating. The key to being prolific is having a good schedule. During Chaos, my schedule never changed. (well, except that one day when I bought my Playstation 2, but other than that...)

Having a solid schedule meant getting a little bit done every day, even if only an hour worth of work. Getting a little bit done meant seeing results. Seeing that first scene of just the titles going across the HDTV I had at the time, imagining the music in my head made such a difference to push me to keep going. It's time to get that kind of experience back again. The key to getting that back, is mind animation!

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MAIL ISSUES

Yesterday I attempted to load a very large AVI onto my site for someone else. It was, in fact, so large that it exceeded my disc quota on my server. When the send failed, I thought the file was deleted, but I was wrong. It was still there.

As a result, I could not receive any new mail because the server was full. The messages weren't stored for later, they were simply bounced. Even those sent using the contact form.

If you have sent me anything in the last 24 to 36 hours, I would recommend sending it again.

Thanks,

AWARD

Kevin Bair of the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office has informed me that episode one of the Criminal Justice Commission video series, which features Justice 4 All has won two Videographer Awards of Excellence in an International Awards Competition For:
Directors, Editors, Producers, Shooters, Talent, Writers and all other Production Professionals.

One of the categories in which it won was in "use of animation". This is an important point to note, because previous to this, the cost of animation would have prohibited a video series like this from employing it to any good use. Today, because the technology is here and animation, CGI and low cost visual FX can exist in productions of any level, the playing field of production has finally been leveled!

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RESTRUCTURE

According to Q, it would seem that Google has bought out Blogger. They seemed to have totally restructured the interface for how I post to this blog. Some things about the new system I like. Others I don't.

I am also doing a bit of restructuring myself. As I mentioned in a previous post, after working in production recently, I decided to reorganize my hard drives and maintain project data in a more efficient manner. That is what I am doing right now. Thanks to an external USB/Firewire case I bought about two months ago, the day I first interviewed for that gig actually, I have a 120GB drive previously from my old, dead "Beast" system, which I can use to offload a lot of non pertinent data.

In the past, I always tried to keep the OS on a drive separate from production content. Because of the way this system came, I also ended up keeping video separate from the production content. Basically I had a video drive. It wasn't long before this drive was full of QuickTime trailers, downloaded anime, mp3 files and other non related material. Now I seek to have all project data in one place. This way, under a particular project heading, for example "Chaos", you would find all of the Lightwave 3D content of that show, the Mirage projects and then the final video files or frames that go to the NLE. Everything will now be in one place.

My old Lightwave content drive will now hold the trailers and other cool things from the net, DVD authoring projects, all of my reference images, program installs, manga stuff and anything that can't be classified.

Once this restructuring is done, things will really kick into high gear on production around here!

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TWO GREAT PRODUCTS!

Two great products hit store shelves today and I suggest everyone run out and pick them up! :)

I actually have a real copy of my first manga, World of Hartz, in my hand! After such a long and arduous process, it is quite gratifying. I have to say a lot was learned throughout the process and it will be great to see where things go from here.

As for the other product, I actually didn't get a chance to even take a look at it. Hopefully tomorrow or later this week. I have heard great things about it though. Even though it lists for $14.98 or so, Best Buy has it for $9.99. The same price as my book! What better way to spend $20.00?!

Seeing products actually come out can be a great reward for a lot of hard work, especially when motivation is down. I can say that results bring motivation back up very quickly. This is why it is best to have a production pipeline that brings results quickly. If I thought I had to sit through four months of modeling before I ever got to see anything, that would be the end of any project I made. I don't work like that.

Expect results on my current projects to start showing up here very soon!

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SLUMP

I hate to say it, but I am in a bit of slump. The good news, however, is that World of Hartz will be officially on store shelves tomorrow! I hope everyone will go and pick one up!

As for my lack of updates,interestingly someone sent me an email not too long ago asking about how to stay motivated. They key is to be truly excited about your project or it won't last. I am excited about my projects, I think I just needed a bit of an actual break.

Of course, I am never doing absolutely nothing. A good bit of planning and polishing on the projects has taken place, and I am working on a freelance gig too. Still, its about time to get back into the swing of things don't you think?

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RECENT ANIMATION NEWS

There's been a lot of interesting news in the animation world. The question is, is it good or bad? As I am sure many of you already know, UMVD (which I understand to be Universal Music Group) is releasing, this year, two animated prequels to major motion pictures coming out this summer. One of them is the above pictured Van Helsing: The London Assignment. The other is The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury, done by Peter Chung of Aeon Flux fame.

Fueled by the popularity of The Animatrix, this seems to be the latest bandwagon that the studios are jumping on. This could very well be a good thing in the end, though. While its not bringing any animation jobs to the U.S., it may further the medium as a serious form of artistic expression for a new generation of viewers, ending the stigma placed against animation currently. Unfortunately, there's a whole direct-to-video animation market striving to kill that possibility.

According to Animation Magazine:

One of the best-selling toy lines in the world is now one of the top animated home video franchises ever and Lions Gate Home Entertainment will distribute the latest title under its Family Home Entertainment (FHE) division.

That title is none other than Barbie. Yet there is another hot on her heels:

While the hugely successful Bratz line of fashion dolls is nipping at Barbie?s heels on toy shelves, it will soon be challenging the blonde one in the animated direct-to-video feature market as well. MGA Ent. has launched MGA Ent. Films, a new division dedicated to the development of home video and television series based on Bratz...

Need I say more? This reminds me of the days when He-Man and Transformers, thirty minute commericals to sell toys, were popular on TV when I was a kid. Are things really moving forward? He-Man and Transformers are on TV again after all.

So is all this good or bad? While there is something to be said that the DVD market is big enough to support major titles being released exclusively on that home medium, how much of it is possible because the titles are backed by big franchises? I mean, the Van Helsing and Riddick videos are only 30 minutes in length and sell for $12 to $15. Would this be possible without the major motion picture and Xbox games? Would this be possible without the feature film stars voicing their characters? Would this be possible without the interviews with the film stars, the trailers and other tie ins to the franchise? Are these videos really just advertisements?

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