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Happy Trails Wraps on New Cinemark Front Row Joe Short

Happy Trails Animation has completed a new theatrical policy trailer for Cinemark Theater. Featuring Cinemarks established Front Row Joe characters, the 75-second short was produced along with Smithgroup Communications. The promo was directed by Andy Collen. "Late for Showtime" will be distributed to theaters in South and Central America and the Southwestern U.S.

Happy Trails exec producer Mark Axton said, "This job was a real thrill for us because we were asked to develop the concept and write the script. It was a hoot coming up with gags that would really make this trailer an homage to early animation superstars like Chuck Jones and Tex Avery. We dont get nearly enough opportunities to make things stretch and go boing and have eyes bulging out, so this was refreshing and fun."

Collen said, "We had an opportunity to beta test Bauhaus Softwares Mirage for Mac on this project, and it turned out to be a huge help in achieving the look we wanted. We were really pushing for the old Chuck Jones classic cel style, and Mirage was the final tool in our palette to really nail that look down. Were looking forward to using Mirage even more extensively in future projects."

Art director Amy Collen said, "I wanted to make sure that these backgrounds never went out of style or got stale after repeated viewings. Because the final project is going to be screened internationally, I wanted to give the backgrounds a universal sense of place, like they could be anybodys home town."

To maintain costs, Happy Trails set up a "virtual studio" where files were shipped back and forth between established animators, inkers and painters in various states. Primary animation took place at Happy Trails' main studio, but most of the secondary animation and inking and painting were done by off-site freelancers with whom the studio had worked closely with in the past.

Axton said, "There were certainly tracking, proofing and versioning challenges with this technique, but ultimately it went smoothly and allowed us to keep our cost competitive by avoiding the trap of having staff artists sitting around waiting for their part of the process to begin."

Happy Trails Animation is an animation and visual effects production company based in Portland, Oregon. For more information, visit www.happytrailsanimation.com or call (503) 590-7377.

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Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
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