The reason I use Excel to develop story structure is based on a writing principle I discovered years ago.  I call it getting a God’s-Eye View of the story.

I realized that by writing my outline beats in a normal word processing program it took screen after screen to go through my scenes.  So while I was looking at one portion of my story, the rest of the story was out of sight.  And as they say, “Out of sight, out of mind”.

But when I write I want all of my story in mind.  And here’s how I do it...

How do you take a film that is not working, and rebuild it in record time, creating in the process a modern day classic? It’s simple! Hire super directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, and let them work their magic! 

 

 

Animatorit is a new animation blog, focusing mainly on Israeli animation but also on international animated shorts. For an appetizer, Animatorit brings you the latest info on the new project by Ari Folman - director of the Oscar nominated "Waltz with Bashir". Who is Ari Folman? What was his first animated project? Who was cast in his new film? And why will half of it be live action and the other half animated?

Many great adventures start with a journey of some sort. Not much happens when one stays in his rutted path and hopes the phone to ring. The visual effects business has been quiet for me these past two years and frankly I must consider that after thirty-two years in the saddle this horse is no longer prepared to carry me. This is something that many are currently facing worldwide. I’m not alone in this nor are you. One must also consider if the battle to remain within is ultimately worth the struggle required as wages spiral downward and competition becomes more extreme in its willingness to make any sacrifice to compete.

 

 

 

 

Everybody knows that Moe Howard, as well as his fellow Stooges, were creative geniuses. But not so many know that Moe’s son-in-law, Norman Maurer, was a genius in his own right.

Special Guests:  Sean Kenin & The Smurfs

 

Welcome to the most current content-ed and contented episode of the FFAF oeuvre.  Alan and Joel sit down with the very Sean Kenin, voice-actor to the stars, to discuss his unique and defining role in the hit smash cinema-kapow, The Smurfs.  Sean Kenin - made of pure magic.

 

PLUS, stick around for a very special bonus montage audio fantasy spectacle at the end of the end of the end music.

Let’s talk about acting!  Animators do not perceive or apply acting theory the same way that stage actors do.  The primary variable is that stage actors work “in the present moment”, and animators work with an illusion of a present moment – 24 frames make a second. Animators need to know the connections between thinking, emotion and physical action; they need to understand theatrical structure, the way that performance relates to story and how both relate to the audience.

My least favorite thing to do is lecture.  I much prefer to discuss acting theory with you.  Ask me questions.  Challenge me.

The canceled Comedy Central series’ feature length finale is a low-budget direct-to-video effort designed to provide its fans with, as the cliché goes, “closure” and to say farewell once and for all to its cast of animated archetypes… maybe. “Buying the DVD is a vote for the show” returning, its producers say. “Besides, there’s a part of the movie you can’t download that will change your life.”

 

Special Guests:    

Alex Butera & Lindsay Small and 

Baman Piderman 

 

 

On this decisode of the Frenzer Foreman Animation Forum, Alan and Joel lament over the mysterious disappearance and unplanned obsolescence of The FFAF Computer, while entertaining a career in side-show freakery. Then Baman Piderman's own power-couple, shoe-illustrator Lindsay Small and shoe-phobic Alex Butera, discuss dinner, dating, working in cartoons, cartoon networking, avant-god animation assignments, and how perfectly complimentary skill sets boost both animation production and home economy.  FFAF then gets a personal invite to their wedding where Joel and Alan will release doves through inventive voice-acting calisthenics.

UPDATED

The book publishing industry, like the newspaper biz, is on a glide path to oblivion.  It's just too easy and cheap to download a book to your computer, iPad or Kindle.

And that was last year!

Now it takes less time to publish your own book than it does to write a query letter to publishers, let alone send it out and wait for the rejection letters.

Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing is so easy it's frightening (to the publishing industry). How easy?