"Hey. I'm Nick."
Let me tell you about Nick.
Nick is my cousin, and he’s a pretty cool guy. So cool, in fact, that I decided to make an entire feature film about him called “Nick: The Feature Film – A Day in the Life of America’s Favorite Sweetheart.”
It stars the usual FilmCow live-action crew, as well as my good friend Robert Benfer. Making this movie took quite a bit of time and effort… the filming itself took an ENTIRE DAY. Can you believe that? A whole day! There was no script, just a basic story outline. Nearly everything in the movie was improvised.
The plot of Nick: The Feature Film is this…
Robert Benfer, an eccentric independent filmmaker, runs into Nick at a bowling alley and immediately becomes deeply obsessed with him. In order to learn everything he can about his new obsession, Robert has decided to follow him around with a camera crew and fully document an average day in his life. Things seem to be going well until Nick’s “best friend” Chris shows up…
OH MAN, I WONDER WHAT HAPPENS NEXT! So, how can you see this marvelous new film? It’s available on DVD, of course! The movie is around 75 minutes long, and the DVD includes a 20 minute behind-the-scenes video, outtakes, deleted scenes, and two commentary tracks (one about the movie, and the other about the history of FilmCow’s live-action projects.)
That could be YOUR giant hand!
The cost of the DVD is $6 plus shipping. I’m using Kunaki to sell this, so basic shipping is $4.30. Which means that Nick: The Feature Film can be yours for a little over 10 bucks. Every sale helps fund future FilmCow cartoons and live-action projects, so order today! Or tomorrow. Or next week sometime.
Click here to order via Credit Card
Click here to order via PayPal
The DVD is region-free NTSC. So for non-US customers, please make sure your DVD player can play NTSC discs before ordering (the majority of them can, as can all computer or laptop DVD players as well as the Xbox 360 and PS3.) Also, a note to PayPal customers… due to weirdness in how Kunaki handles PayPal orders, you might not get a confirmation e-mail, but don’t worry, your order went through. If you’re worried about it contact me directly and I can verify your order.
I’ll be setting up a “Nick” page in the FilmCow store soon, and there’s an ad I’m making for YouTube that’ll go online at some point over the next week.
So, yeah! It’s Nick’s very first feature-length adventure! Hopefully this sells well so we can make “Nick’s Hawaiian Vacation” and “Nick Goes to Washington.”
One last thing, because I’m sure this is going to be asked: more cartoons coming soon! I am deeply sorry about the extended delay. We have a lot planned, so stay tuned!
In the meantime, why not check out… Nick: The Feature Film – A Day in the Life of America’s Favorite Sweetheart, now available on DVD!
Hello everyone! It is new cartoon time!
ZULWAY: GOD OF MERCY
YouTube – QuickTime
My apologies for the extended absence, I have been sick / busy / madly in love / traveling / learning how to make muffins. Expect regular updates soon, including detailed blog postings and behind the scenes stuff.
And lemurs.
Here is a lemur:
For anyone not aware, I have a weekly audio podcast called Chaos Pony that I host with Chris Alex (voice of Carl the llama) and Robert Benfer. Last weekend we attended the internet conference Playlist LIVE, and the most recent episode of our podcast details our experience there.
In other news, Mighty Fine is now selling Marshmallow People shirts in their FilmCow section, be sure to check them out. They have some really great designs.
Also, thanks to the writers of the CBS show “The Good Wife” for the Llamas with Hats reference in their latest episode! Awesome!
GOOD EVENING EVERYONE.
I still have some graphical tweeks to make, but the new site design is largely complete. The “blog” area now has greater prominance, and in addition to news about upcoming videos I will be posting behind-the-scenes items and basic tutorials here. Also, I’ve moved a couple posts over from the previous blog so that it doesn’t feel quite so empty at the moment.
For anyone interested, here’s a look back at past FilmCow site designs:
2003
2005
2006
2007
2008
2010
Wow! Exciting!
Anyway, I hope everyone likes the new site.
Here is an example of a specific e-mail question I get about once a day:
“hey wutup ferrts was funy how u make ur moveis rite back xthkx”
Seeing as there appears to be some sort of interest in how I actually put together my movies, I decided it might be a good idea to have a handy blog post around that I can point people to, instead of just ignoring those e-mails outright. Which is what I have been doing.
Here was my production process, from start to finish, on “Llamas with Hats.”
Step 1: Bake myself a delicious pie.
This is a very important and often overlooked step. If you aren’t a fan of pies, a galette or tart will do just fine.
Step 2: Kill some sort of leprechaun and steal his gold.
This will assist in purchasing the required software.
Step 3: Write the script.
I write my scripts using standard screenplay format, and then number each line like this:
The numbering comes into play later.
Step 4: Record dialogue.
I use a program called Amadeus Pro to record my dialogue. This is what one read-through looks like:
I use Amadeus’ noise-removal feature to get rid of any background noise, and then get to work splitting up the file into lots of little files. This is where the numbering from the script comes in. Every line is saved as its line number, like so:
There are usually many takes of every line.
Step 5: Create an audio track.
I use Final Cut Pro for this. I import all of the voice files as well as any sound effects I have recorded for the short. In this instance, the only sound effect being used is for the background ambiance, and I’m using one that I made long ago for another cartoon.
Every character gets his / her own track. This makes it easier to do lip syncing later on. I find which take of each line works best, and then place them all into my timeline:
For Llamas, I then exported this into 3 separate sound files. One with just the brown llama’s voice track enabled, one with just the gray llama’s voice track enabled, and one with everything enabled. This comes into play later.
Step 6: Character artwork.
I usually do character art before background art. The programs I use vary depending on the cartoon, but for Llamas I used Adobe Flash.
The first thing I will draw when making a character is a basic line-version using the pen tool.
Then I use the Paint Bucket tool to add color.
And then to shade I use the Pencil tool and draw “shade areas” on top of my image. This allows me to then use the paint bucket tool with a darker shade and fill in the area between the lines and my new pencil marks. The lines are deleted after this is done.
It’s important to note that everything I plan on animating is drawn as a separate layer. Eyebrows, pupils, etc.
Finally, I draw all of the mouths that I’ll need for lip syncing, and then export everything as PNG files for importing into Photoshop.
Step 7: Background artwork.
I use Photoshop for my background art. The best way I can describe my process is this: crap loads of layers.
That’s just a small sampling. There are over 50 layers in the background art for Llamas with Hats. Everything is its own layer. The door, for instance, is five layers: the door itself, the door frame, two hinges and then a layer for the small shadow it casts onto the wall.
I begin the whole process with an incredibly simple sketch of where the main objects in the room need to be. This is why I draw the character art first – because now I have the character art as a reference for how I need to design the room.
Then, using various custom brushes, I do the textures for the largest elements in the room – such as walls, floors, etc.
To cut an incredibly long story short, I draw each object individually in their own document, and then load it into this document and place it where it needs to be. This allows me to re-use certain bits of art in other backgrounds if it’s a larger project (windows, doors, etc.)
The last step is lighting – I use the pen tool and very large brushes to draw on the places I want more light, then I’ll blur that layer and set it on “Soft Light” mode, which is what I did to give the window area a little glow.
Step 8: Lip syncing.
This is where those separate audio files and mouth drawings come in. I use a program called Magpie Pro 2 for lip syncing.
This is Carl’s project file. I have imported his audio file and mouth artwork, and now I can go frame by frame and match every sound he makes to the appropriate mouth position.
Magpie then lets me export this data as a keyframe information file that I can copy / paste into Adobe After effects during animation.
Step 9: Animation
All of the artwork and the main audio file is imported into After Effects, and set up in a new document for animation. Because I exported all of the art as separate layers (eyebrows, pupils, etc), I can animate all of these layers individually in After Effects.
This is what part of Carl looks like, keyframe-wise:
Each of those gray box-dots to the right are “hold keyframes.” A hold keyframe is a keyframe that only moves on that point, and not in-between the points. I don’t use “tweening”, which means when you see something moving I’ve actually gone and moved it every frame, the computer didn’t fill in any of the movements for me.
Once all of the animation is done, I load the whole scene into a new composition to animate the “camera.” To do this, I simply enlarge / shrink and move the scene file when I want to zoom or pan the “camera.” The process is different for more complicated scenes, but for something as simple as Llamas it works very well.
I render this, and I’m done.
Well, that’s it. I am obviously leaving out a great number of details, but to include them all would take way too much time. I will however be doing more blog posts in the future discussing specific aspects of cartoon production in greater detail. I hope this has bored you all greatly.