From now I’m going to post news related to our customers and animation which are less related to our core business. Futile ? funny ? … well you get it, more Friday !

So Let’s start with this collector’s edition of Playboy mag’ which feature Marge for the Simpsons’s 20th birthday ! As you can see Homer is always present in the pictures thru the donuts (what a symbol !), Duff’s can in champaign glass, … Some might say that for her age, Marge is well shaped, but I’m sure that Playboy’s artists did some Photoshop here and here

Everyone at Toon Boom is proud of the Simpson’s success and hope we will continue to help them being animated for another 20 years (and more!)

Sébastien M.

ps : for those who are Simpsoneek, you can order this collector’s edition here !

Walt Disney’s incredible marketing machine is in action for the release to theater of Princess and the Frog. George ‘El Guapo’ Roush from latinoreview.com had a chance during his trip to Disney in LA to interview John Musker and Ron Clements. Directors shared some insight regarding the making of Princess and the Frog and the amazing usage they did of the latest release of the Toon Boom Harmony solution.

Here is a sample from Musker:

“…they scanned the pencil drawings of the characters but all the shadows, all the rain, all the water ripples were done on Sintick’s in this Harmony system and that was actually a timesaver and a very interactive thing that they could use that really helped the FX. The FX look really rich on this film and I think it was partly because they were able to use this really new technology. I think that Ed Catmull was pushing for doing as much as we could on a system like that.”

Here is the full interview.

Sébastien M.

ps : Note that the interviewer was not too familiar with the Whack’em Sintick tablets. (To be read as Wacom Cintiq…)

Veteran animation executives Scott Greenberg, Joel Kuwahara and Mark McJimsey have struck out on their own to form the new production company Bento Box Entertainment.

The company’s founders bring years of animation experience to the company. Greenberg is former president and COO of Film Roman, Kuwahara is a veteran producer on The Simpsons and McJimsey was a longtime producer on the now-concluded series King of the Hill.

Bento Box’s first project is to produce the upcoming animated series Neighbors from Hell for Twentieth Century Fox TV and DreamWorks Animation. The series is set to premier on cable output TBS in the summer of 2010. Neighbors from Hell is produced completly paperless using the Toon Boom Harmony solution for design, animation and compositing connected to Toon Boom Storyboard Pro for pre-production.

The company, based in Burbank, plans to develop and produce both live-action and animated TV series and films, as well as do work in interactive media.

“Our expertise in animation, visual effects and the digital landscape make us both a uniquely qualified colleague for our studio partners and a logical incubator for original concepts and properties that have multi-platform potential,” says McJimsey. “The animation world in particular has enormous timeline pressure and quality control standards that only a handful of production entities can meet. Our ability to surpass those standards has distinguished our past work and we’re excited to utilize that experience to reach an even wider audience with Bento Box Entertainment.

Sébastien M.

Source : Bento Box PR

It’s been already 10 years since the release of Iron Giant in theater (well a little bit more since it was released August 6th 1999 but I’m always late…). I was leaving in Los Angeles by that time (and attending Siggraph…) and I still remember how impress I was when I saw the movie in theater. What a great movie by a great director (Brad Bird, who directed later on The Incredibles and Ratatouille).

Some might say that there is no relationship between Iron Giant and Toon Boom ? Well Iron Giant was one of the latest feature done on Animo, which is now part of Toon Boom. I’ve heard that ASIFA Hollywood is doing a special event, and it has been already sold out only 24 hours after the announcement!

Hope we’re going to get a BluRay version one of these days, come on Warner it’s his birthday!

Sébastien M.

Brazilian studio Mixer and Canada’s Cite-Amerique’s new co-production, Doggy Day School, was made possible by Toon Boom Animation’s digital pipeline tools. The companies used the Storyboard Pro and Harmony animation solution to create 26 11-minute episodes of the series.

Work on the series is divided between the two studios, with Cite-Amerique doing art direction and character design, while Mixer does the rest of production.

“We were looking for a technology that allows us to reach a high quality level and the Toon Boom pipeline really impressed us with its agility and fluidity,” said Tiago Mello, Mixer’s executive director of infant-juvenile content.

Doggy Day School is set to premiere on Nickelodeon on Oct. 12, and will start airing in 2010 on TV Cultura (Public Broadcasting) in Brazil.

Sébastien M.

Source : Toon Boom Press Release

Adam Phillips stike again with a new animated short (the 6th promotional cartoon) for the Dungeons & Dragons: 4th Edition. He used Storyboard Pro and Animate Pro from what he said on his post on betterflashanimation.com he had a lot of fun with it ! A few weeks ago, a timelapse screen capture was posted on YouTube (see below) showing some of the background colouring work on this short, so in the finished piece below, you can see how it all came together. Enjoy!

And a WIP recording :

Sébastien M.

Source : betterflashanimation.com

Road Kill Super Star is a collective of young and creative (and deadly funny) filmmakers here in Montreal, taking Quebec Independent Film market by the balls ! (this is their own description, no slap please…). RKSS masters today’s media, home made blood cooking and animation for a mature audiance. Here is a short done using Toon Boom Animate Pro (in traditional) that you can watch on their Vimeo’s channel.

Sébastien M.

ps: having a high sense of honesty and truthfulness, I must add that Anouk, technical writer and graphic designer here at Toon Boom is a RKSS’s activist, and in consequence responsible of the above video…

I loveeeee hearing this… its so good to see man of reason overthere after the terrible comments from former Disney CEO Michael Eisner telling the world 2D is dead and 3D is the future…

Speaking at Disney’s D23 fan expo in Anaheim, Lasseter gave fans a peek at the upcoming hand-drawn film The Princess and the Frog done using Toon Boom Harmony and a new Winnie the Pooh feature due out in 2011, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He said that studios had made a mistake in focusing solely on CG animation.

“I never quite understood why the studios thought people wouldn’t want to watch it,” Lasseter said, according to a Reuters report. “What audiences didn’t want was bad movies.”

please say it again John…

Sébastien M.

source : Animation Magazine

One last post before the week end ! I found this animated music video clip today on Vimeo done by Toon53 in South Africa for the band The Cavalier. The clip was done using Toon Boom Digital Pro (which as been replaced since last April by Animate Pro). In the first 3 weeks of play the video has gone from 7th place on MK’s top 10 charts to 3rd! So it looks like people are loving this video…

Sébastien M.

ps: Sorry, but I have to do my ‘never happy french guy’ and I must add that I still prefer the music video “Paranoid Android” done for Radio Head’s Ok Computer album using Toon Boom Opus… Voila, I say it and feel much better

Our spanish friends from BKN let us know that they have 2 projects in their production pipelines done full tradigital using the Toon Boom Harmony Solution.

Joshua Blake – 40 x 30 min

This is a BKN – Huminah Huminah Animation Canada Coproduction to be released in 2011. Joshua Blake is an action-hero kind of guy who’s fighting against cyber terrorist. The show takes multiple path from THE BOURNE TRILOGY, to JAMES BOND and last year’s technological blockbuster: EAGLE EYE. The action is fast, the villains larger than life – and Blake’s solutions are always smart and incredible.

Zorro Generation Z – 26 x 30 min

Diego de la Vega is a modern day, young man entering his first year at University. Diego is a descendant of Zorro’s past who has reason to once again pick up the mantle when the city of his birth grows increasingly corrupt.

Sébastien M.