eBook Update

I have spent the last week or so updating my ebook, Animation on a ShoeString TM. This is my 8th Edition. I started it back in 2000 as a response to all the questions I received from students and beginning animators. It is a combination of how to, do it yourself, tutorials and buyer`s guide.

Each year I try an add new stuff to the book. It is now clocking in at 273 pages. This year I added a section on stop motion support beam construction and an overview of CGI Effects animation techniques.

Copyright Rip Off Festivals & Contests

One of my former students who is currently doing an internship at Blue Sky writes with a question about festivals and contests.

Larry

I had some questions about film festivals/contests because I've never submitted anything and I'm baffled as to what's the norm. Vancouver Opera is having an animation contest to support their new season. Pick one of the four operas they're doing (Norma, Nixon in China, The Marraige of Figaro, or Madama Butterfly), do an animation on it in under four minutes, and post it to YouTube. I'm probably going to do something set to the "Humming Chorus" of Madama Butterfly with animation done in Photoshop and After Effects. Here's what I'm wondering:

1) What goes into licensing music? If I acquire the sheet music and have someone else play it, what goes into a fee for that? It looks like a lot of this is covered by PRS for Music, who's asking for £200 for something, I'm not sure what. This is the same company that's demanded some UK citizens to get a public performance license to play the radio. (I'm not kidding. I fear if I put one toe out of line, they'd send me to a PMITA prison.)

2) On that note, do you have any knowledge of freeplaymusic.com? It looks like I pay a one time fee of $125 for one song they own under four minutes and for one film (and they have it, thank God). Of course, I'll e-mail them to see what their stance is, but are these sites legit or will I be looking at PMITA prison?

3) Is there a legal difference between a festival and a contest? Vancouver is calling this a contest, but most of the legal jargon I've seen on the ASCAP sites regard festivals.

4) If I submit this film, the ToS says it becomes their property. Can I still put this on a reel, submit it to other contests, or is it theirs, body and soul and I can never touch it again? (And are all animation festivals
like this? Should I run screaming?)

5) Does international copyright need to get involved even though the contest is open to U.S citizens too?

ToS are hyah:
http://vancouveropera.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=244&Itemid=15

If they say they own everything, they own everything and you should run screaming. This is a sucker trap and they end up with the copyright on everybody`s work not just the winners. Far too many contests are like this. Most festivals know that they can`t get away with it.

You could still put it on your demo reel and maybe show it but they would own the work for the next 35 years if you remember to revoke the transfer of copyright 25 to 33 years after that transfer or forever if you don`t remember to revoke transfer. (that is U.S. law and you would have to check on Canadian Copyright law)

If the music is out of copyright, say the Magic Flute, then you can use it without problems but you can not use versions of it that are in performance copyright. Your idea about having someone perform the music is a good one but only if the core copyright is Public Domain.

A festival has a public performance and a contest does not. In most cases the laws are about the same.

The copyright law of the country where the contest/festival takes place is the law under which you have to operate. Most countries have more creator friendly copyright laws than we do. Too many big donors to public politicians have a vested interest is ripping off artists in our country.

If their country has signed international copyright agreements with your country (Canada has) you have the same rights as the citizens of that country in theory. (The English courts judged that the Crown was at fault in blocking Frank Zappa from performing but that it was not dignified to ask the Crown to pay for their mistake to a foreign commoner)

Don`t know about freeplaymusic.com but it may be a music buy out site with higher prices than musicbakery.com.

Do your animation for someone else and shame on Vancouver Opera for being a big rip off.

Larry

Weekend Update:

The Metal Casting Critique was last Thursday. Today I installed my Gargoyle on the side of the house over my bedroom window so I can watch him spitting water when it rains. My son and I re-tarred all the seams in the tarpaper of the roof while we had the tar and ladder out.





Speaking of ladders or Ladd at least, I got an email from Belgium from an editor looking for a contact for Fred Ladd (ladder / Ladd I know it is a reach).



He sent along an image of a Belgium Chocolate Bar with a Pinocchio in Outer Space tie in from back in 1966 (release date of that animation). I saw it with Fred a few years back. The title is not the greatest by the film is a first rate piece of animated storytelling.



Amazon has it for : $9.97 if you want to check it out.

Learning Animation Buy The Books

Here is a question from the email bag that is a joy to answer. Someone wanting to learn how to animation without a giant school program and lots of student loans. Love it. This is the way animation started. Nobody knew how because it had never been done before.

Hi Larry,

I saw your website and wanted to know if I wanted to take up animation as a hobby, where would I be able learn the know how.

Thank You
Jun Hwang

Jun,

The best way to learn how to animate is to animate. Jump in and start making animations. The first ones may well suck and the movement will be crude. But they will get better. That is how the founding fathers of animation created our art form. Here are some books that will give you a working understanding of the process. Then it is up to you and your camera to make it real.



THE HUMAN FIGURE IN MOTION by Eadweard Muybridge: the images are 120 years old but the knowledge is timeless. This is a book that every animator who deals with characters in motion simply has to have.



CARTOON ANIMATION by Preston Blair ISBN 1-56010-084-2: for 40 years this was the only book we could get to learn animation. There are some serious flaws due to a rushed last minute recreation of almost all of the example drawings due to a law suit but still an okay book.



RICHARD WILLIAMS’ THE ANIMATOR’S SURVIVAL KIT ISBN 0-571-20228-4: This is the new must have book for anyone learning animation. If there is a choice between this book and Blair, go with this book.



TIMING FOR ANIMATION by Harold Whitaker ISBN 024051310X: This is not a beginner`s book. The beginner will be at a complete loss when attacking this text. You have to more than know the basics before you can even understand what they are talking about. But once you reach a certain level this book opens the doorway into a bigger world and the mastery beyond.



HOW TO WRITE FOR ANIMATION by Jeffrey Scott: Some people say that Scott is a bit of a hack TV animation writer, (which breaks down to the fact that he has worked out a system to work quickly) writing to formula. Maybe so but this book lays out the formula for creating a story and is therefore something a beginner storyteller really, really needs. You have to know the formula before you can go beyond the formula. I love this book for teaching beginning storytelling.



FILM DIRECTING SHOT BY SHOT by Steven D. Katz ISBN 0-941188-10-8: Animation is filmmaking and this is one of the best books on the filmmaking process ever. Got to have this one.



SETTING UP YOUR SHOTS by Jeremy Vineyard ISBN 0-941188-73-6: Another must have book on filmmaking. This book shows every possible camera angle in storyboard form and gives a breakdown of what it is used for. It also gives examples of movies where it is used. I refer to this book all the time when I am setting up scenes.



ANIMATION ON A SHOESTRING, BUILDING A LOW COST ANIMATION STUDIO WITH YOUR HOME COMPUTER (version 7) by Larry Loc: Far be it from me not to plug my own product when I get the chance.

You need to animate to learn how to animate. The question then becomes how to get started. My ebook goes into how to set up your studio so that you can start learning. Lots of sources and tricks for setting up an animation studio in the cheapest, quickest ways so you get up and running. It has interactive links to products and hardware, plans on building animation camera stands and animation wheels, a big stop motion section, a section on copyright law for creators and a whole lot of other stuff like tips and tricks.

EXAMPLE: The best way to understand movement is to look at it a different way. In fact, upside down. We look at people moving all the time but we never really see because it is so common place. That makes it hard to study the mechanics of movement. With a video camera held upside down film people in action. Go to a softball game or a park. On play back the upside down image will let you really see the workings of gravity in a way that you never would have. Because you are not use to seeing people jump off the ceiling you will be able to study the movement. With the upside down image you will see the push off in a run cycle and the arc as gravity pulls the runner back to earth.

The order page for my ebook is here: http://www.agni-animation.com/shoestring.html and an interactive sample of the book is here http://www.agni-animation.com/blog/shoestringsample7.pdf.

Catch Up: End of Semester

Here we are at the end of the semester. I just turned in my grades at LCAD (Laguna College of Art & design). 15 As, 7 Bs, 2 Fs and an Incomplete. You might ask yourself where are the Cs and Ds? Is this an easy class like basket weaving or shop? Not really When I teach this class at Cal State Fullerton there is a more even spread. But then the students coming into the class are a more even range of students.

The LCAD are students mostly in their Junior and Senior years and the slackers just don’t last to the end years at Laguna. It is a joy to be able to turn in these kind of grades knowing that the students have earned them.

Speaking of motivated students. Aubriana Zurilgen is one of the students who earned an A in my history class. She also did lots of cool work on her monster costume. (I have mentioned her project before in these pages. I am kind of mentoring her and working on the bones to articulate her costume`s tail). Here are some images.




















































Now that I have talked about the high in is students it is time to look at the lower levels. I have had my share of dead end students back in the days when I was teaching animation in a state funded vocational program. Up until last week my all time winner was a high school girl with a very bad case of PLG syndrome (Pretty Little Girl). She had spent the semester talking with her friends and half ass fooling around with the animation camera. Her grade came in as a 58 which is an “F” but out of the goodness of my and despite the PLG I bumped her grade up to a D-.

Mr. Loc, you gave me a D. I gave her grade, like it had nothing to do with her screwing around all semester. It is my bad. I was at fault. So I explained to her that in fact I had given you that grade, that she had not earned even a D, and I would be perfectly happy to put in a grade change for the F that she deserved.

I have been taking this metal casting class at the community college. Next week is our last week with a critique the week following. I listened in horror as a female student came up to the instructor and explained in no uncertain terms that she had to have a B in his class and that he had to get her to that grade in the final week. She basically shifted all responsibility for her grade to her instructor in the last week of class. He was responsible for giving her a good grade and she let him know that he better do his job.

As a teacher, it always amazes me at the gall of some students. I blame it on the parents. They must raise their children with an inflated sense of entitlement, that they are the center of the universe and no one else is importance. In females it is doubly tragic because a large portion of the population will treat them that way when they are young and cutie and sexy. Oh the rude awakening when the female who has been getting by on her looks hit 45 and no one will put up with her PLG games anymore.

The tragedy for our country and our world is that lots of times no one tells some little monster boys or girls that they aren`t god`s gift and they end up running everything. We have all worked for that person and we have sure had them as our president too.

Segue into my metal class. I just wanted to cast some bronze this semester. The only reason I was at Saddleback Community College it that they have a killer metal casting class. Here is my work.

The Studio that Time Forgot

CLICK image for video

UPA is one of the most influential animation studios ever, second only to Disney in its importance. Saturday morning cartoons owe a great debt to the designers and animators in this little studio.

Tee Bosustow, son of UPA studio head Stephen Bosustow, talks about how he got interested in the history of his father`s studio and the irony in the fact that almost no one remembers where their influences are coming from.

This video clip is from an interview held at Laguna College of Art & design on 4/22/09.

Tale of a Tail, Bronze Casting & UPA

Tale of a Tail:
Ok, this is a subject that can get me in a lot of trouble if I don`t word this post just right. I am currently working on the tail construction for my student`s lizard custom. Here is the attachment cast of her backside with the tail attachment bracket laid over it. The beginnings of the tail assembly is below.

There is a spring at the base of the spine for a weight bounce of the tail with vertebra bars for cable attachments to make the tail swing for counterbalance (Right leg forward tail to the left and so on). I think I got through that one without getting in trouble. The trick is to make something that moves naturally and does not look machined. More on this later.

Gargoyle Stuck in the Mold:


Gargoyle in wax


With eyes and nose masked before sandblasting




First layer of Patina

I was a bit pissed that it took so long to get this piece cast. I had the investment done and then it set for 2 weeks because of one screw up or another which throw me way off because I needed the bronze from the gating before I can invest my next piece. (We turn in the cleaned up gating and that cuts down on the cost of the bronze for our next cast).

UPA:



My friend Tee Bosustow was in to talk to my students this last Wednesday about his father`s studio, his UPA documentary project and his new Internet based film festival. Cool projects all. I taped our talk and will be editing it later, I will put up some of the stuff at a later date. We covered a lot of interesting stuff relating to UPA, one of the most important animation studios ever, a studio that is still influencing design and animation today. Even thou most of the people don`t know where the influence is coming from.