#and props to the production team and animators and designers

[demifiendrsa]

Kimi ni Todoke: From Me to You Season 3 | Official Trailer #1

Series Highlights

Season 3 of From Me to You: Kimi ni Todoke will stream on Netflix worldwide in August 2024

Key visuals

Cast

Sawako Kuronuma as Mamiko Noto

Shōta Kazehaya as Daisuke Namikawa

Miyuki Sawashiro as Ayane Yano

Yūko Sanpei as Chizuru Yoshida

Yūichi Nakamura as Ryū Sanada

Mamoru Miyano as Kento Miura

Yūki Ono as Kazuichi Arai (Pin)

Aya Hirano as Ume Kurumizawa

Staff

Original Creator: Karuho Shiina

Director: Kenichi Matsuzawa

Series Composition: Tomoko Konparu

Script: Michiko Yokote, Tomoko Konparu

Music: S.E.N.S.

Character Design: Keiko Ōta, Yuka Shibata

Art Director: Yūsuke Takeda (Bamboo)

Chief Animation Director: Miho Daidōji, Yuriko Nagaya

Sound Director: Tomoaki Yamada

Cgi Director: Hitomi Sumino

Director of Photography: Hiroshi Tanaka

Art Setting: Kazushige Kanehira

Color design: Emiko Ueno

Editing: Daisuke Imai

Main Animator: Kenji Irie

Prop Setting: Hana Okutani, Natsumi Yamato, Yui Kazuyama

Animation Production: Production I.G

Background Art: Bamboo

Sound Production: Sound Team Don Juan

[someone-save-vlad-king]

Common Sense Kings Headcanons

(Angst-free only.)

As a Whole:

"Common Sense" is a lie. They share one braincell and Kan keeps it in the confiscated phones drawer. (He hasn't trusted them since the Incident. No, I will not elaborate.)

They're all great swimmers, except Tsuburaba. The kanji in Awase's name all relate to water — bubbles, rapids, ocean, and snow; Kaibara is definitely the type to use his Quirk as a boost (and it just seems helpful in general); and for Rin, Chinese dragons are associated with water, unlike Western ones. Tsuburaba, meanwhile, is mostly associated with air.

Video game nights usually end in disaster. That's why they mostly play Mario Kart, the least rage-inducing game ever.

Awase:

Sometimes, he Welds together little mixed media sculptures. Metal bits, googly eyes, Rin's scales, that sort of thing. He isn't very good at it, but then, he doesn't have to be. It sparks joy.

Also decent with mechanics. He, Yaoyorozu, and Hatsume would make a great team.

Has a lot of scars from all the dumb shit he's done over the years — and he's proud of every single one of them. Even the dumbest ones. It inadvertently helps some of his friends feel better about their own.

Cheats at origami.

Kaibara:

Loves green tea. This is based on two puns: Sencha (煎茶), the most popular green tea in Japan, and chasen (茶筅), the bamboo whisk used to make matcha. (There are so many puns you can make on the name Sen, it's great.)

The best dancer of the four — or, the only good dancer. The other three suck.

A contortionist in every way except professionally, with no qualms about showing it off. He's got the most fucked-up joints you've ever seen. He can even turn his head around like an owl. Fear him. (Seriously, look up contortionists, they're awesome.)

Tsuburaba:

Has the spice tolerance of a wet chicken nugget. You could kill him with a singular Dorito. The other three refuse to let him live this down.

Obsessed with practical effects in movies and plays. Props, clever set design, you name it. He's even experimented with using his Solid Air for something similar, though he hasn't done it in a while. In a movie production AU, he'd definitely be in charge of that.

When Kan doesn't have it, Tsuburaba holds the braincell. He's objectively a terrible choice, yes, but process of elimination rules. And yes, this is because of the Incident.

Rin:

Many thoughts, head still empty for some reason.

His favorite animal is the koi fish.

Almost won the class representative election purely by promising to teach the class Mandarin swear words. Kan was not happy.

Can and will make up a bullshit idiom. What are you gonna do about it? Fact-check him? Take your phone out and Google it? In front of the teacher?

[bobokitty]

Just saw your latest post about how much you really like to talk about animation pipelines, I also noticed you said pipelines, with an s. Could you elaborate on that, is there multiple?

Also also could you talk about animation pipelines look like? I’m sure you wouldn’t be able to capture the entirety and it’s nuances/complexities in just a singular post (would absolutely love to see you do that tho) but like also just really interested to see what that’s like and if people outside of the pipeline usually have any misconceptions about it

(Hope that made sense 😭 activated me like a sleeper agent when I saw that post because I’m super interested in hearing this stuff LOL)

OH HO HO!!!!! PIPELINES, YES, WITH A S!!

I did a talk last month about that that was supposedly recorded, but I absolutely hate hearing the sound of my voice ahaha. So! Every studio has a different pipeline variation, and within those studios, the shows and projects have their own variations. I'm still kind of new in the industry. October will be my third anniversary. However, I love finding out how things work (I used to work in tech before making a whole career/life switcheroo)~

Here's a pipeline that I made with my personal experience on a show:

And here is one based off the book, Producing Animation:

Each of these boxes requires a team of people, size of course depending on project scale and budget. As part of the production admin (production assistant tho in name only ahahaha I am again someone who sticks their nose into things and work directly with leads and directors), you have to be those lines connecting all the boxes and make sure everyone gets what they need. In the one I made, you'll notice how there is a loop happening in various parts. Pre-pro (pre production) is what gets done before animation. Script, storyboard, character/prop design, and backgrounds. (Interestingly enough, this is not the same for every production! Boutique deals with a lot of short term projects, like ads, music videos, pitch work. Various studios make their bread and butter this way. It's short term work and sometimes you get clients who will pay a lot for like some weird passion project. Think like, The Line, or what Cartoon Saloon does between movies. Anywho! Sometimes things like backgrounds won't get done until it's time for animation!) Anywho! In pre pro, character designs are influencing storyboards which are then influencing design and what sheets need to be made and backgrounds are being made which then set what the board artists can work in but then board artists want to change location angles and suddenly next thing you know, Producers have nuked an entire sequence and all of that work is cut ahaha. You even have editors going in and adding their own touch to the boards, adding in audio recordings and temp sound effects and music to try and get the feel, etc.

Oh god this is a lot of text on my phone and I haven't even scratched the surface LOL!! Point is, there is a lot of back and forth happening. Animation on a larger scale IS a group project. Miss on that production staff glue and oh boy. You will get....something in the end, but it will not be....... I've seen some disasters ahahaha. You got what you got and things could have been avoided. (And sometimes a team can be the best team and then you got these producers who have no idea how animation works but alas they are footing the bill and what can you do????)

...I 100% cannot capture this in a single post lol! I can barely cover it in an hour lecture. We haven't even mentioned spreadsheets and other programs (I have yet to try ftrack or shotgrid but I would love to get my hands on them and see how they work in a production; they also include file management which right now I do manually). Ehehehehe it's fun~~ Every day is something new~ Oh man I want to see what it's like with live action as well! It has to be a completely different beast!!! One day~~

[0-hunting-grounds-0]

Hey everyone! This is our first post featuring our lovely crew members!!

For today’s post, meet Niles ( @niles-mcdonald )!

🦌

🦌

I have been the Production Manager Assistant for this film. I’m also your tumblr account admin! I helped out with props, layouts, and animation as well.

Working along this team was absolutely fantastic and honestly ruined my expectations on how a team should interact (in a very good way). This crew has some of the most talented character designers, storyboard artists, and animators that I have had the pleasure with working with. If I have the opportunity to work with them in the future, I would do so in a heart beat.

I am very excited to see where everyone goes after this, and I wish them all the best in life! 🧡

🦌

[worldbuildguild]

Syllabus: Line Mileage

(source)

If you google Line Mileage you'll see relatively few search results. Why this term has come to be so obscure to the public is everybody's guess. Regardless; it is an incredibly important concept for artists working with visual storytelling to understand, as it informs them of how labour-intensive a design or composition can be.

"Line Mileage is a term that means how much line you have to draw. if you were to take a traditional drawing and stretch out the lines end to end, you would see what your Line Mileage is. Every millimeter more of pencil or digital line takes more time to draw. Intricate character designs may look good as still images, but the reality of animating such a character is time consuming. A long, curly headed character wearing a wrinkly overcoat, multiple ammo straps over his shoulders, and a striped shirt has extra Line Mileage. It is difficult to keep so many lines moving well without them seeming to crawl, pop or distract from the animation"

Tina O'Hailey: Hybrid Animation: integrating 2D and 3D assets

As O'Hailey mentions in her book: Hybrid Animation: Integrating 2D and 3D assets, Line Mileage is the total amount of time it takes for an artist to draw a character (and by that extension prop, background, etc). Animators have used this term to deduce whether or not a design is adequately balanced in its amount of details in terms of artists being able to reach their deadline by drawing it the amount of times necessary.

Line Mileage is most commonly used in the world of 2D animation. The use of the term has fallen somewhat out of favour now that the entertainment industry has skewed heavier towards 3D animation, but it's still a concept well worth grasping if you work in 2D, particularly in disciplines such as comics, animation or serial illustration where the volume of drawings you need to produce exceeds more than just a handful of images. It sounds simple enough to consider whether or not your character design is too complex to draw multiple times. But you will find, especially if you're just getting started, that your stamina drawing your character will drastically dwindle once you've been through with it a few times. If you've committed to a comic project, the first 3-4-5 times of drawing your character might be perfectly easy and motivating in enough of itself. But when you get to frame 10, 20, 40 - your design will most likely have lost a good bit of its excitement to you. Now you're in for the long haul of gruelling work, and if you have not made the design suitable for that kind of long-term labour, it is going to be absolute hell to pull through. Moreover your lack of motivation will surely come to show in the final product.

There's not one 'correct' amount of detail or Line Mileage for anyone or anything. But is understood that the average artist can undertake a certain amount of Line Mileage without overworking themselves or even worse, causing themselves long-term injuries. Yours will never be like anyone elses, so never rely on what other artists might be able to manage, you'll end up hurting yourself (I've been there and that injury still sometimes keeps me from working for days on end).

How to account for good Mileage

Milt's rough animation drawings from Thumper's famous scene: "If you can't say something nice..."

Check your medium Accounting for your Line Mileage in a sustainable way comes down to researching and making conscious decisions about the complexity of your design. This decision should be made based on your own speed rather than anyone else's, as you will be the one drawing your character again and again. So forget what industry professionals or other hobbyists can do. You're the illustrator/animator/storyteller, you make the decision (unless you're working as lead of a team; naturally you'd want to get a feel for your teams capacity first before making any decisions in that case). Your design's complexity should also be based on how many times you're supposed to draw the character. It's logical to assume that a character that you're supposed to draw once or a handful of times can be a lot more complex than a character that needs drawing dozens or hundreds of times.

Be honest with yourself when making a decision on how high your Line Mileage should be. Always give yourself a little less work ( in this context: a little less detail) than you think you can manage.

Trust me; you will thank yourself later! The following examples are based on my capacity as an artist and is not indicative of yours or any other industry professionals. Pay attention to the difference in detailing between them and notice how their complexity lessen significantly the more frequency the character is supposed to be drawn.

Illustrations Drawings: 1-5

When it comes to designs that I'm not supposed to draw a million times over ( say, a random character or creature that will pop up in the occassional leisure piece ) I don't hold that much back on the detailing for the sake of Line Mileage. Though, compared to other artists, I'm still somewhat conservative to details. Though this has all to do with my own personal stylistic preferences rather than Mileage.

In this design, meant only to be drawn very occassionally; The ribcage takes up a majority of the total Mileage. Drawing exposed bone structures is incredibly time-consuming, as it does not only take time to apply lineart to, but the construction of it and the sketch phases take a long time too, as every rib has to be lined up properly as to not break with perspective. I personally try to include as little structure that would require a lot of respective, when it comes to designs that are supposed to have low Mileage. Perhaps also a by-product of my less than stellar grip on perspective. I would recommend it for anyone who's not 100% comfortable with drawing perspective too. It's just really time-consuming from the onset. You'll also notice that every single leaf in the mane of the creature has been drawn in pretty meticulously. I would never do this for a design that would only need drawing occasionally. You can definitely simplify the likes of the mane down to a more uniform green mass though to lower your Mileage.

Storybook Drawings: 5-12

When we get into storybook (and later comic book and animation) territory, I will personally start scaling back on details majorly. Instead, I'll focus heavily on incorporating large, dominant, and interesting shapes into the design. Seen here with the tall, lanky anatomy, the big trench coat and the furry collar. The bag was added to pad out the silhouette and give a secondary shape as well. This bag and the gasmask are the only elements that require somewhat thorough construction in the sketch phases. The machinegun is drawn using a hybrid method of 3D and 2D assets, more on that in a later essay) Therefore, the majority of the design can be freehanded pretty easily with little need for reference.

Comic Drawings: 15+

Now we're getting to the more scarce designs in terms of detail. Once we reach comic level, I personally like to scale back the designs almost to the bone. Keeping only the most major shapes intact and generally simplifying the design down to its core ideas. In this particular example, that meant scaling the details down to a simple robe and overcoat/vest, along with a relatively simplified version of a sword. The character has a few details in the form of facial stubble and two scars, but aside from that, he is pretty simple when compared to the designs above. Just like the gun from above, the sword is worked into the illustrations by applying 3D and 2D assets in order to expedite the process. Therefore it isn't considered an integral part of the design itself from a Line Mileage standpoint.

Animation Frames-

2D animation is among the most laborious disciplines of 2D visuals and storytelling that you can do. This makes it incredibly expensive to produce as well. Many newer shows tackle this incredible amount of labour by simplifying their designs ( see Steven Universe, Adventure time, etc ). If you're a single artist working on something, I highly recommend you think about the economy of your details through a very conservative lens. At least if you want to animate long-form sequences. Disney and Dreamworks had success in animating relatively complex 2D characters back in the 2000s by organising in teams of up to 30 working on characters alone (in the case of The Little Mermaid) working full time to produce over one million drawings before release. If you're not Disney, you don't have 29 other people with you and enough money to pay yourself full-time along with your other animators, then you need to think very critically about how you spend your time. Granted, you can absolutely go as detailed as you want as long as you plan your animations legnth and your time-frame for making it accordingly. Anyway: Above is a very basic idea of what a design for an animation could look like. Many indie-artists currently lean towards these highly simplified by effective designs. though, we are seeing a resurgence of semi-realism in adult cartooning ( See Netflix' Castlevania. The Boondocks, The Legend of Voc Machina. Technology is allowing artist to draw more complex designs more efficiently ). You'll see that many of the structural details of the character's anatomy ( facial features, toes, etc) has been removed completely or simplified down to very minor shapes and volumes. The majority of the character is covered in one shape (the cape) and the texturing on the leaves and flowers is random splatters of a brush. This design is almost as simple as it gets, but still clearly conveys a few ideas. I'm by no means saying that you have to go this scarce with your detailing for animation, I would personally maybe shoot a little above it as well if i was to make an animated project, but from a pure Mileage point of view, this design would be very optimized for animation.

Take breaks: even with good Mileage No matter how low your Line Mileage is, taking care of yourself should be at the forefront of your mind when drawing characters multiple times. Drawing takes a huge toll on your hands, your elbows, your posture and your overall health. I'm not going to preach too much in this particular post (though expect it in a future essay) But being conscious of your Line Mileage is not only going to save you time, but spare your body from excessive repetitive work, which can cause RSI's (Repititive Strain Injury). These can completely mess with your scheduling and in worst case scenario become chronic. So don't even try it. I can personally attest that giving your projects a little more runtime is going to suck a lot less than being unable to draw for long periods of time. Certainly suck less than dealing with chronic pain and deformities because of being too ambitious with your Line Mileage.

Mod Wackart ( ko-fi ) Follow my work!

[abhinavuhblog]

Digital Media : Sources & Significance

Critical Analysis

H.. Desamsetti & K. Lal(2019) , “Being a Realistic Master: Creating Props & Environments Design for AAA Games”, Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 6 No.2 

Introduction  

The data I've chosen to analyze is an article on Being a Realistic Master: Creating Props & Environments Design for AAA Games, which is written by Harshith Desamsetti & Karu Lal from Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics (volume 6, No 2). H. Desamsetti is the Senior Software Engineer at Charter Communications in USA and K. Lal is the Integration Engineer at Ohio National Services in USA. Both authors have unique perspectives about this topic and have solid authorities in their fields. 

The overall article talks about the process of creation and realistic environments for AAA video focusing on the techniques, limits and strategies involved in creating visually stunning and authentic environments. The authors states that “the games come to life because of a well-designed environment, which provides additional layers of depth, context and emotional effect to the narrative. And here, I’ve chosen pages 195-196. In these pages the authors have been discussed as two main topics, ‘Role of An Environment Artist’ & ‘Environment Design from Scratch’. 

Role of  An Environment Artist 

The duties and responsibilities of an environment artist can be discussed as two, ‘making the world & Teamwork’.  

In the creation of game world the main duty of an environment artist is to create a realistic world which includes a variety of tasks such as designing the layout, creation of layout elements and props, and handling overall elegance. The size of the project (small independent game or AAA development) has a big impact on the artist’s performance. In small-scale manufacturing, the environmental designer may own a large portion of the pipeline, handling various activities from dressing & these impacts in scale effect. In the independent game development design to final product. AAA games can have a focus on specific elements like set decorating , the artist can be involved in the process of designing, blocking and creating the last form of props and structural parts. The process can vary greatly in AAA productions, with concept art providing the settings and level artists handling the blocking. Decorating the set, the addition of various elements to the environment for the quality of being real is the key point in both cases. 

Working as an environmental artist play an important role in collaborations with other departments which includes working with level designers, art directors, concept artists, prop artists and animation directors to turn blackout designs into suitable form of levels, it is the result of Teamwork. These highlight’s the varied and dynamic roles of environmental designers, emphasizing flexibility depending on the scope of the project. Designer responsibilities range from world building to highly collaborative teams, reflecting their role on tangible aspects of the video game environment. 

There are some departments that environmental designers often collaborate with to create a cohesive and immersive gaming experience. 

Level Design: Responsible for playing the initial block at game level. Blockout collaborates with environmental designers to transform a beautiful and playful environment. 

Prop Art: Creates props and additional content, including textures. He coordinates the export of props, which contribute to the overall aesthetic and functionality of the theater. 

Animation: They keeps the spirit or order in the environment alive. The animation seamlessly integrates with the game world and collaborates with environmental designers. 

Game Design: They focus on the overall design of the game. He works with environmental artists to showcase game elements such as weapon availability, player abilities, and other interactive elements. 

Concept Art: Through conceptual art, he generates ideas and plans for the environment. Concept designers provide visual feedback and inspiration in the development of game worlds. 

Art Guidelines: Collaborates closely with concept designers and other department members to ensure visual cohesion throughout the game. Art directors play an important role in shaping the overall artistic vision. 

Technical Art: It ensures that the game works properly on different hardware platforms. Creates tools and products for environmental designers and other departments to increase operational efficiency and solve technical challenges. 

Marketing: The one who is responsible for promoting the game. Although not directly involved in the making of sporting assets, the marketing department plays an important role in exposing the work of environmental designers to a wider audience. 

Environmental Design from Scratch 

The process of designing environment begins with brainstorming. ‘Google’ and ‘Pinterest’ can be used to collect a variety of visual references. That might be photographs, film, and conceptual art of people and ideas. The artist intentionally looks only for references that may be loosely related to the main concept. This’ll helps in creating unique and innovative ideas by drawing inspiration from a wide range of sources. A selection of screenshots and references have been compiled into a mood board. It acts as a visual collage encapsulating the aesthetic, style and desired perspective of the project. Artists then proceed to rapidly create images based on the collected references. These diagrams are a preliminary analysis of ideas and help visualize the overall layout. Depending on the needs of a project, artists can create a set of drawings or detailed utility drawings. This phase involves refining the baseline image to produce a more realistic representation of the suspected objects.  

Artists use sketching as a problem-solving tool if there are already elements in the layer that need to be fixed due to artistic connection or technical limitations. These images were created with the specific purpose of finding answers to design challenges. The methodology described goes beyond the traditional steps of brainstorming, gathering reference data, gathering reference data, and creating a sensitivity score. Instead, the team immediately starts simulating the environment in the game engine. The team may work with little or no feedback, or they may only work in group sections selected by art direction. This simplified process shows a spontaneous and immediate way of translating concepts into the game environment. Sketching is sometimes used as a tool to find solutions for existing features in a layer. This includes addressing artistic confidence in a particular game universe, such as “for the sake of honor” or overcoming technical limitations imposed by level design. After creating a design on the engine, the team seeks approval, obtains it and proceeds to remove the asset. This includes ensuring appropriate calculations and making enough adjustments based on feedback from the art director. The modeling is then outlined, and high-quality renderings of the elements are created using tools such as ‘ZBrush or 3ds Max’. Then Unwrapping (UV mapping) occurs during or after the modeling process. The group continues to go first with materials, textures and lighting.  

The team’s responsibility at Ubisoft focuses on modeling and level art. The team works independently across projects, and the workflow is more organic. Once the team is satisfied with the results, they move on to polishing the lighting, followed by polishing materials and designs to achieve the desired effect. 

Conclusion 

In overall, the authors discuss about the artist’s duties range from world creation to extensive collaboration across departments, demonstrating the significant roles they play in shaping the visual aspects of video game environments. While the environment artists work collaborates with several elements, such as level designing, animations and the overall artistic direction in the process of game creation. A graphic approach to problem solving and integrating different roles within the team implies a dynamic and iterative process in environment design. 

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS is such a confounding movie.

I recently watched a batch of deleted scenes, of which I wasn't aware of until rather recently. I had once listened to its director, Seth Kearsley, talk about the picture on a podcast as well. Fascinating stuff all around about its production, and all the ins and outs, how they went about their decision-making, etc. Seemed like it was a fun movie for many of its crew to work on, and they seemed to be treated well too. RARE for an animated movie of this caliber, it seems.

It has gone down, almost notoriously, as being considered one of the "worst" animated movies ever...

Weirdly, when I was 11 years old, I was lowkey OBSESSED with this movie. I didn't even know it existed until it was out on DVD, and when I watched the whole thing through, I was hooked for some reason. Maybe it was because it was, at the time, a good-sized 2D animated feature that wasn't set in the past, a fantasy world, a sci-fi setting, or anything like that. EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS wasn't IRON GIANT nor EL DORADO nor SPIRIT nor TITAN A.E. nor TREASURE PLANET... It wasn't like LILO & STITCH from the same year either, which is also a contemporary story, but that has aliens in it! And was family-friendly. This was set in the present, it was more for adults, it was just people being people with *some* cartoony elements (such as cute anthropomorphic deer and some of the exaggerated, if not demeaning character designs), it was even really semi-realistically gross in some parts (and not in the sort of, say, exaggerated REN & STIMPY way), it could've easily been a live-action Happy Madison production. But it wasn't. Many of the movie's detractors feel it should've just been done in live-action.

The movie is inspired by the Whitey character from one of Adam Sandler's comedy albums, and sometimes I feel the movie could've worked better with him as the main character and Davey a complex deuteragonist. Going through the deleted scenes, you could tell the crew went through a few ideas of just how far they wanted to push the exaggerated, cartoony stuff. What kind of jokes they thought could work or that they could get away with, etc. Certainly a cartoonish decapitation of a kid, and a monkey that explodes into a gory mess would've easily landed this thing an R rating, but they weren't going for that ultimately. You have this weird mix of a very dark and often mean movie, but it's also PG-13 and it doesn't go too far so it's more accessible to kids and still fits the bill of being a "warm holiday special" kind of movie. I do gotta give props to the filmmakers for wanting to make a big, mainstream Hanukkah movie in a sea of gazillions of Christmas movies, no matter the end result.

And yet... It worked on this fellow when they were 11 years old, so Sandler, Kearsley and his crew must've done something right! I can quote most of this, that's how obsessed I was with this movie circa December 2003-January 2004. With holiday money or something, I literally bought the VHS of it. We had it on DVD as well, but I bought a VHS for myself because back then, I did not have a DVD player in my room... So, a tape it was. It came with the live-action short A DAY WITH THE MEATBALL, starring Adam Sandler's bulldog at the time, much like the DVD.

So yeah, I find it a fascinating movie to this day, not because of its battlefield of tones (life itself is tonally uneven, too) or some of its truly strange sequences such as the one where the product placement all comes to life in the mall, but because of its history and also... The visuals are quite nice. IRON GIANT animation team involved (the boy Benjamin kinda reminded me of Hogarth anyways, of course I made the connection at a young age), and even the songs I find amusing. They got Alison Krauss to sing on at least one of them, so that's a plus. Some of the eleventh hour rushed stuff, such as the declining animation quality on the townspeople during the Bum Biddy bit, is fun to spot too. And I do overall like the premise of this movie; a relentlessly kind man who is overlooked by his community Odd Couple-ing with a total asshole who had a tragic childhood, in a sort of blah and miserable blue-collar town setting, some heavy stuff that this movie that - with more tact and less poopy jokes - could've really handled well.

I hate the term "guilty pleasure", but this could possibly be that for me. That's what I like about "bad" animated movies of the '90s and early '00s, there's usually something very interesting going on in it, whether it's through the seemingly-confused storytelling or the idiosyncratic choices in the visuals. I think with a slew of cheap live-action movies, those are indeed efforts at the end of the day, but with an animated movie... There's a lot more to it, and that it's a miracle one of these things even gets finished, let alone released. In live-action, it's just they shot a bit and did some post... With an animated film like this, a lot happens along the way, no matter the end product. It's easy to say "it's all negated by the script", but I think it's more complex than that... And that's part of what I find appealing about EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS to this day.

[winxwiki]

Translation of Silvano Mezzatesta's interview, animator at Rainbow (and many others)

Original video by 151g, transcription of the important Rainbow bits by Iku aka @ourflagmeanslight

Silvano Mezzatesta is an animator who has worked on such titles as Lupo Albert, Cocco Bill, Monster Allergy, La freccia azzurra, Lucky and Zorba (La gabbianella e il gatto), Aida of the Trees, Opopomoz, and even a few things at Rainbow.

"…the origin of the Winx is a clerical one…. […] the character designer was so convinced of the validity of his designs that they annoyed the entire Marche region and found, thanks in part to Iginio Straffi, the support of the curia, obtained funding, and made the characters expendable in merchandising. The Winx are what they are because of the Loreto curia, although they eventually disassociated themselves because of the clothing. The Winx were to be exploited to do sunday school catechism and things like that."

(translator's note: this catholic spiel may be about Lamberto Pigini, the character designer may be either Simone Borselli or Cristiana Magrini or someone else entirely)

"Straffi's wife is the real boss of Rainbow, if she quits Straffi will go out of business."

(translator's note: this is about Joanne Lee, producer at Rainbow)

"…they (animators) were so fed up with working on Winx making a terrible 3D that they thought of proposing to Straffi funding for an idea of their own, an in-house product, Gladiators of Rome (whose protagonist was to be an anti-hero). Straffi accepted but turned it into a school, wanted to include things like a pink bunny (which would relate back to Winx), cinepanettone jokes (translator's note: cinepanettoni are terrible christmas comedy movies in Italy aimed at boomers)"

-apparently the prop and environment studies for that film were very serious and professional, the animation team was not experienced so Mezzatesta and his team jumped through hoops to make the storyboards as complete as possible to make things easy for the animators-

"…in the end Straffi put his own spin on it, inserting things like Timo's horse farting, and the U.S. network that had financed the project demanded that specific elements be added for their market, like these three brats inserted as comic relief characters. (translator's note: Gladiators of Rome flopped even in Italy)"

[magicalhideoutengineer]

In Fantastic Beasts, Newt’s animal antics see him called before MACUSA, the Magical Congress of the United States of America and American equivalent of Britain’s Ministry of Magic. Concealed by enchantments inside New York’s Woolworth Building, it was MinaLima’s job to give the organisation a logo and suitably magical identity. On film, that branding is visible across leaflets, maps and other pieces of official magical documentation. ‘We asked ourselves, “how visually does America show itself in an organisation?”,’ recalls Mira. ‘We looked at lots of government and ministry seals, even the seal of the country is very traditional — and kind of boring actually.’

Like many of their magical motifs, the duo riffed on a parallel Muggle concept and twisted and skewed the design for added Wizarding flavour. Miraphora took the iconic American flag (‘making sure it had the forty-eight stars correct for the period’) and then ‘exploded’ the stars. Says Mira, ‘that’s kind of a nice motif anyway in the Wizarding World … we start with that reality and then transpose that into our world.’ The American Ministry represents itself with the mythical Phoenix, and the team incorporated a flaming songbird into the organisation’s logo. Explains Mira, ‘American [logos] usually have an animal of some description … it’s got some authority.’

In Crimes of Grindelwald our heroes find themselves exploring the charming cobblestone streets of Paris. As the plot unfolds, Rowling’s story sees Newt and co. visit the Ministry of Magic’s French counterpart, Le Ministère Des Affaires Magiques De La France. For reference, MinaLima looked at ‘state kind of representations in marks, in logos’ alongside illustrations of Marianne, the powerful French revolutionary figure. Production designer Stuart Craig had incorporated statues in the French ministry set, and MinaLima played on that motif in the organisation’s logo. Recounts Mira: ‘the revolution figure is very symbolic for the French people … we looked at the statues in the actual Ministry [and] referenced that in the logo.’

Much like the Harry Potter films, Miraphora and Eduardo have the exciting opportunity to contribute significant graphic design to grandiose set pieces. In Crimes of Grindelwald, a Wizarding ‘freak show’ arrives in Paris. The team designed a wealth of incredibly imaginative promotional paraphernalia for the Circus Arcanus sequence. In a relatively short (but complex) scene, MinaLima’s graphics serve as more than just visual decoration. Collectively, they help establish tone (‘it still needed to be glitzy and kind of enchanting, but it had a dark side’), provide additional context and exposition, and help progress the plot in a way that dialogue alone can not.

For an assignment like the Circus Arcanus sequence the team tried to embody the design ethos of someone who might be promoting a real-world circus. ‘Much of our work in posters is about selling something … [as] if you were employed to be a graphic designer to sell a circus.’ When choosing a colour palette and a typographic style the team thought about the ways in which visual cues might inform the audience’s perception. ‘We knew from the beginning that it wasn’t going to be a typical circus that’s uplifting and shiny and showy … it had a dark side to it,’ explains Mira. ‘You make decisions about colours and mood and typography — whether it was soft and playful or had a bit of an edge to it. All those things feed into your decision as a designer.’

Another unique element of MinaLima’s Fantastic Beasts graphic design thus far has been the chance to revisit graphical props from the Harry Potter films. Although it’s been over a decade since much of that work occurred, these new pieces exist years before their ‘Potter’ counterparts in Rowling chronology. The team had the chance to reimagine the Daily Prophet newspapers (alongside an American equivalent in the wonderfully punned New York Ghost), this time with a suitably turn-of-the-century flavoured masthead. The duo’s Ministry of Magic branding also feels period appropriate; it’s softer with delicate ornate embellishments. Says Mira, ‘it’s about trying to identify the flavour and the personality [of the time].’

‘Sometimes the script might give us a few stage directions but we need to have more information about backstory,’ explains Mira. In places where design might stretch beyond existing Rowling canon (and fabricated names and illustrations won’t cut it), the author was able to expand her universe with exciting new pieces of ‘Potter’ lore. In Fantastic Beasts we learn briefly about Massachusetts’ Ilvermorny Castle, Hogwarts’ North American cousin. Recalls Mira, ‘I was designing the school logo. We didn’t have any information about Ilvermorny and I was kind of making up different animals for different houses.’ Fortuitously, Rowling was visiting the film set that day and unveiled a wealth of new detail. ‘She was like, “oh no no no no” and described them all … I was writing furiously with my pencil!’

[lukecoalman]

Mary and Flo on the go Boards

Back in 2020 I directed on Mary and Flo On the Go. A sorta strange spin off of the CBC show Frankie Drake Mysteries. Where two of the characters star in a kids cartoon. Overall though it was a fun show to work on. I worked with a great team, in the heart of the pandemic. I've posted the animation crew credits below.

Production Manager SARA LINARES ARBELÁEZ

Character Designer MIKE DEAS

Props Designer APARAJITA RAVICHANDRAN

Backgrounds Designer ALEX HAWLEY

Storyboard Artists JESSA LEE REMPEL WADE TURNER

Builds

JOEL CHAHAL PETER GAJEWICZ CHERRY LAU AJA LOMOVIC LEA MacDONALD KATHERINE MASON DAVID SCHUT

Background Painter

UNA DI GALLO PAUL HAMMOND ARAMIKA KLIAVIN

Animators

THOMAS TWOLAN MATTHEW BURROWS MELISSA GABRIC JACOB JACKSON WILLIAM MARTIN SEAN McDOWELL JOSH PINKER ANNA SOU ALEXANDER SUN DANI WOODS ANNIE ZENG

[thevalleyisjolly]

I tend to be extremely picky and judgmental about depictions of Elrond in Tolkien adaptations, in no small part because he’s my favourite character and I am, if nothing else, an Opinionated™ person.  But, because he is my favourite, I feel like it’s only fair to the spirit of the character to try to be a little less judgmental and a lot more gracious.  Therefore, here are things I like about the different Elronds of screen!

The Hobbit, 1977 (Rankin/Bass)

Absolutely iconic character design.  I laughed my head off when I first watched this as a child, but looking back on it now, I kind of like it!  Definitely not remotely anywhere near his canonical appearance, but I love the interpretation of a crown of stars, A+++ (even if it gives the impression that he’s suffering from a permanent concussion), and kudos to them for giving Elrond a beard!  I am a big proponent of Elrond choosing to grow a beard, it’s one of my favourite headcanons.  Hush Tolkien, he’s Peredhel, he can grow a beard if he wants to.  I don’t remember anything about how his actual character was adapted because I was about 8 the one and only time I watched this film, but I gotta hand it to them, the character design is very creative and I do have a soft spot for 2D animation.

The Lord of the Rings, 1978 (Bakshi)

Alright, so he has a relatively small role and the character design definitely isn’t much to sneeze at, but damn, that voice!  Like a warm knife through butter, but also something that makes you really get what a Voice of Power might sound like.  “I will not touch it!”  Props to André Morell, he really Went Off on the handful of lines he got.

The Lord of the Rings, 2001-2003 (Jackson)

Cards on the table, while these movies are my absolute favourite movies of all time, I’ve never liked what they did with Elrond’s character in relation to the Aragorn and Arwen storyline.  However, I do get why they did it, and in the context of the story they’re telling, it works.  He fills a specific role for the type of character journey that this film’s Aragorn is on, and if you judge that storyline on its own, independent of source material, it works for what it is - a reluctant hero who needs a strict mentor/parent figure to challenge him to really think about who he is, who he wants to be, and what he really wants.  It’s not a creative decision that I personally would have made if I were on the production team, I’m not a fan at all of the decision to pursue this particular type of storyline, but spilled milk and all that.

Apart from the character’s changed role in the story, Hugo Weaving does a great job of portraying Elrond as someone’s who’s lived a long life, that famous “in his face was written the memory of many things both glad and sorrowful” descriptor.  There’s a reason why “I was there, Gandalf.  I was there 3000 years ago” has lasting power as a meme - his delivery of that line resonates with this weight and you just can’t forget it.  Also, his face in ROTK during the coronation after he tells Arwen to go to Aragorn is heartbreaking and so good. 

The Hobbit, 2012-2014 (Jackson)

This is my favourite on-screen Elrond thus far, so this will be more like a small essay. I say this wholeheartedly, Elrond in The Hobbit trilogy is the closest any screen adaptation has come thus far to capturing his character from the books.  You got the “kind as summer” in his interactions and burgeoning friendship with Bilbo, you feel that warmth and the fondness in his interactions with Gandalf, the big hug of greeting and the gentle teasing and even how they can disagree with each other on pretty major issues but still walk side by side as friends. 

You got the “wise as a wizard...venerable as a king of dwarves,” most evident in the plot scenes where he’s reading secret maps and participating in important councils, but also just in the way he moves around Rivendell with that measured self-assurance.  Sure, his guests might be starting food fights, breaking furniture, or arguing with White Wizards about the necessity of investigating necromantic activity, but surprise Morgul blades aside, he never really loses his composure beyond a *deep sigh* or a mildly judgmental look of ‘Really?’  He’s not bothered by people showing him a lack of respect, and he’ll extend them hospitality all the same.  Wise and venerable indeed.

They even got his flaws, and I’m pretty happy with the way they adapted that one line from the book, “he did not altogether approve of dwarves and their love of gold.”  Not a great line, of course, and people are probably right in saying that Tolkien had not fully developed his idea of the character yet so it should be taken with a grain of salt, but I like that they kept him having reservations about the Quest, and translated it into something a little less racist (although the casual ableism still isn’t great) by making his disapproval more akin to “the eyes of the great are elsewhere” and so he fails to consider the personal significance of the Quest to the Company.

Because he’s heard of the history that Thorin’s family has with gold sickness, he’s concerned about messing with sleeping dragons, he’s suspicious of Gandalf’s motives for encouraging the quest because he views it as a level of geopolitical interference that none of them have a right to, and all these big overarching factors means he does not consider what the Quest means to the Dwarves, what Erebor means as a homeland forcibly snatched away in fire and blood.  It’s a great way to have an organic character flaw, taking what are usually a person’s positive traits (wisdom and caution) and showing how they too can inform flawed decisions or perspectives under the right circumstances.

Also, possibly my favourite underrated element, but I love how much they incorporated “strong as a warrior." From that first entrance, riding back into Rivendell in full armour after destroying an Orc hunting pack, to the Battle of Dol Goldur, holy shit I could talk about that for ages.  The sheer confidence of “You should have stayed dead,” the excellent battle choreography.  He just impaled a Ringwraith through the spine, from behind!  Watch closely, his fights never last more than two or three blows - he goes straight for what would be killing/KO blows on living creatures.  He’s not here to duel or show off fancy sword skills, he’s here to eliminate the threat as quickly and efficiently as possible.  And then of course, there’s that fantastic line, “Sauron must be hunted down and destroyed, once and for all.” 

Love that for him, honestly, it’s what he deserves.  Beyond the circles of the world, Lúthien is eating popcorn and cheering.

Rings of Power, 2022 (that one company, you know the one)

This is the only thing on the list that I haven’t watched at all so bear in mind that everything I’ve heard is secondhand, but I do have to say that I really like how they’re showing Elrond being good friends with Durin and the other Dwarves.  He absolutely would! (that one line in The Hobbit aside)  I’m still not planning on ever watching the show, but credit where credit is due, it’s very sweet to see them get along so warmly and enthusiastically in the gifsets.

[drawnaghht]

hmmm i wanna talk about the work that went into the environment and character design but I feel like first it would be cool to collect links or like a directory of the art by the crew posted online... there is so much genuine passion and appreciation that has gone into this cartoon, I am surprised more people don't talk about the production art

I wont be reposting any of the arts directly (that is generally considered rude and can result in the artists removing their works) but I implore you, fan of the series or the character Yuichi, to look up more through even google image search. lots of interesting stuff going on there! Listening/reading interviews also gives an insight to how this show was made and concepted.

Art direction was by Khang Le, who you might recognize from sever credits, such as Mao Mao, Big Hero 6: the series, Legend of Voc Machina, Motorcity, and others. He even did visdev on Promare in 2017! There's also other familiar names under the visdev team, like Tom Perkins, who many might recognize as the guy behind many monster designs in various action cartoons (Men in Black animated, Ben 10, Godzilla series, this guy is pretty much anywhere where there a big monster or alien designs needed); Simon Baek (Turning Red, also Mao Mao and Vox Machina); Ed Li (the 2017 Mickey Mouse shorts series, Princess and the Frog); Howard Chen (The Ghost and Molly McGee, also Motorcity) and more (those are just the names I myself recognized

Also, check out just the credits for the pre-production team at Gaumont for example:

that's so many artists and animators! The team at Gaumont was also responsible for the 2D and painted sequences everyone likes + character design, background design and lighting, texturing, prop design, VFX and matte painting. Lots of cool work to pay attention to.

and there's more under the animation and 88 pictures credits following this one. so maybe I will make a longer post with all these credits later on. It's cool to see how proud everyone is of their work on Samurai Rabbit and also to see that work posted on their portfolios or instagram for example. All-around inspiring for me at least :D

[chifle-art]

ITS HERE!! 

Very recently I've been working with an amazing team to create Phantom Hallows Eve! A cozy video game for the 2022 Cozy Autumn Game Jam!

Cleo's got a new job at Phantom Hallows' Eve, the number-one destination for seasonal spooks and delights. The thought of working Halloween retail has her feeling pretty unenthusiastic, but perhaps there's more to this store than meets the eye...

If you wanna play it, check it out here!

Credits on the bit below!

Conall Barrett

Narrative and System Designer, Production Assistant

Victor Zhou

Gameplay Programmer, Systems and Level Designer

Kalpercio

Gameplay Programmer

SupriseOrb

Producer, Programmer

Hung Bui

(Website)

2D Artist (VFX, Particles, Animation, Character, Technical)

Paula Guerrero

(Twitter) 2D Artist (Concept, Animation, Character)

BreakerHale

2D Artist (Concept, Environment & Props, UI Assistant)

Kristen Campbell

Sound Designer, Audio Engineer, Playtester

Collin Anderson

(Instagram)

Music Composer / Audio Engineer

Diane Sparks

Writer

[livvyofthelake]

rewatched mirror mirror. as was voted the other day. here are my thoughts. i told you you're not allowed to be mad at me when i get mean, you all voted for this. i told you i was going to be mean, don't you dare get mad at me for being mean about the movie i consistently bring up in a negative light that you voted for me to watch again!! anyway.

perhaps this movie's most egrigious sin was making me fall in love with it at 11 years old. i can't in good conscious say that it's really "bad", this was THE movie for me when i was 11. i'm literally always calling this "my movie from when i was 11" this movie is as much a part of me as my genetically bad knees. however. i fucking hate my knees. worst part of my body fr. just like this movie is the worst defining movie i've ever had, all things considered.

its not necessarily truly a Bad Movie. it’s just that the only things that are truly good about it are a) the aesthetics. everyone on every visual design team was slaying on this movie, the costuming the production design the hair department the prop team the vfx artists the fucking genius that designed the dvd to look like an apple with a bite taken out of it.... just wall to wall GORGEOUS aesthetics oh my god. and b) julia roberts is here

other than that it's lackluster to just nothing. where to even start. the misogyiny? no let's circle back to that. let's start with the underutilization of my bff robert emms. also known as pythagoras bbc atlantis. hi bestie <3 i wish you got to be in this movie more. ok next thing. it's gonna be another complaint about an actor. yeah that one. no it's not just because i'm mad at him for last weeks sleep movie debacle. although i am still mad about that, that has nothing to do with the fact that he is a mediocre to quite poor actor, and he brings such a bad vibe to this character i am literally suppossed to be charmed by. even at 11 i had a sense of bad vibes. i could tell there was something unchic afoot etc. i was always so mad when snow white would fall in love with him every time i watched the movie but i knew it was suppossed to happen that way so i didn't really mind. but i hated it, i hated him. he's not a good person, and he's not that charming, and he's played by a man who seems to think he's in a combination knockoff shonda rhimes drama and a strange fantasy animated sitcom in 2005. can't explain that stuff just vibe or don't. he thinks he could do bbc merlin. he couldn't. not with 100% of his effort. conversely, bradley james could do this movie with three days notice and no script, and that's really saying something because he's like only the fourth or fifth most talented actor in that show's main cast. anyway why didn't they cast someone lily collins actually had good chemistry with. am i being crazy rn because i think he's got bad vibes or do you guys notice that they don't have good chemistry too? it's not bad per se. it could be better tho.

and where to begin on the weird. kink stuff. jesus christ. are we not suppossed to talk about that stuff? did you guys not notice that stuff? are you ignoring it because of the cool costumes? i don't even want to talk about it really i just think it's weird that no one ever wants to bring that up.

anyway i guess that brings us back to the misogyny. nobody likes it when i say stuff like this and i know nobody likes it but i'm gonna keep doing it beause i am so fucking sick of this patriarchy shit and how it invades literally every aspect of life on this earth and i am constantly intimately aware of all of it all the time and it makes me so angry just to like. exist in the world with all of this rage and knowledge and no power to truly change anything outside my own small life and circle and community. and like to have to log on to the chronically online assholes talking about media analysis website and still no one wants to talk about the fucking. misogyny that bleeds through every movie. is ridiculous. this movie wants to pretend that it's a girl power story just because they gave snow white a sword. it's very 2012. except that other media was doing the exacxt concept of "badass snow white" in 2011. 2007. 2005. like, i was there, i know everything there is to know about it, unfortunately. she's not a badass just because she can hold a sword she's a badass because she hates taxes. and she was useless with that sword anyway so what was the point of giving it to her, just so you could say you gave snow white a sword? just so you could get a little training montage? and then we ignore that half the dudes in this montage are routinely demeaning and objectifying her because she's a woman. ok work. feminism! and her love interest hates women and literally consistently devalues her capability and does not ever learn anything the whole time? and they're in true love? and then they get married after he has undergone zero character development and presumably still views her as inferior because of her gender and now he's going to become the king of HER kingdom and rule HER people? yeah that's the future gloria steinem envisioned.

i don't mean to say she's not a strong character, because she is, i wouldn't have latched onto this movie so strongly with my grubby little 11 year old hands if she hadn't been. but it's just so disheartening that a huge piece of this movie and this whole story in general is the love between her and the prince, and then this movie did so well making her a well rounded character who consistently defied expectations of the role she was meant to play as a woman in her society, and then she married a man that looked down on her and her values and her femininity, and HE gets to become the king of HER kingdom someday. i think he should kill himself. i hope she kills him after a year of marriage. i hope no one mourns him.

and really the whole "edgy(ish) modern fairy tale adaptation" thing is rarely done well, in a way that both honors it's source material and the traditions and conventions they came from, and creates something new. this movie was on a great track, it really does do quite well in this regard i won't pretend otherwise. i always gripe about how true love's kiss is represented in modern media, and this movie is not an exception to that (the POINT of it in fairy tales is not that the characters knew a kiss of love would save their beloved, the point is that they DON'T know that true love's kiss will save them. the kiss happens because it is a final gesture of love to a doomed lover. the point is that true love's kiss brings the lover back because the one that kissed them loved them so much even when all hope was lost. whatever it doesn't matter that much) anyway. the only thing really is that it suffers from Made By A Man Disease. not to be confused with the mere fact of being made by a man. it's different. and the men that did this one have some serious issues they need to unpack with a therapist and maybe also their mothers. it's just like. you'll never be the american broadcasting company's once upon a time (2011-2018) created by edward kitsis and adam horowitz. you'll never be her.

AND ANOTHER THING. i know am literally always saying that movies should end with musical numbers a la ella enchanted (you just can't go wrong when you follow your heart and end with a song fr) however. the ending musical number in this movie feels. slightly off. i like that it's very bollywood-esque, that definitely helps it stand out at least. it's not that it doesn't work, because it kind of does. or it works just enough. i think the thing i dislike about it is that they didn't commit hard enough, it plays on half the screen while credits go on the other half, it's like it's a little add on to the end and not the actual ending, lame! also the lyrics are very tonally off with the rest of the movie tbh. "i belive in love"? yeah girl, we know, the whole movie is about how you saved yourself and all the people you cared about from an opressive ruler becasue you loved them and wanted life to be better for these people you loved. you didn't like. learn to believe in love as this song might suggest... idk. it's not really about the lyrics it's more the uncommitted thing. also. the bollywood inspo would have been less tonally inconsistent if there were evan a hint of that in any of the other music in here. unfortunately. so it doesn't gel well and i kinda hate it for those reasons.

anyway hi clary i just saw you on friday <3 hi pythagoras i just saw you on wednesday <3 hi julia roberts, you've been on my tv a few times lately too <3 and hi to no one else in here that i may have seen recently.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

I was tagged by @onmywaytonarnia so here's some stuff about me

Nickname: Florida Man or just Florida (god help me, I hate it down here...)

Sign: PEDESTRIAN X-ING, REST AREA - 3 MILES, or perhaps SPEEDING FINES DOUBLED WHEN WORKERS PRESENT (I do not believe in astrology)

Height: 6'1" or 6'2"

Last thing I googled: Perseverance rover

Song stuck in my head: for some reason I have a mashup of Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls and Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson stuck in my head. I don't know if I actually heard a mashup somewhere, or if they were both part of that 4-chords song by Axis of Awesome, but I can't stop thinking of the two choruses layered on top of each other (🎶and I don't want the world to see me cause I don't think that they'd understand/🎶I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly🎶)

Follower count: officially 3222, but I noticed when I was just starting out that tumblr inflated the actual count by like 20, 30, 40%. When it said I had 100 followers, I counted, and I actually had 85. When it said I had 1000, I only had like 700. I stopped counting after that, so I have no clue how many I actually have right now. Probably more than 1000, but probably not more than 2000. I have maybe 100 followers who regularly interact with my stuff, about 30 of whom are mutuals (maybe 10 or 15 close friends).

Amount of aleep: AHAHAHAHAHAHA (5, maybe 6 hours on a good night? Sometimes none, just endless tossing and turning because my brain won't shut off)

Lucky number: 13, and I'm not being ironic about that. I'm serious. 13 is my favorite number of a variety if personal reasons

Dream job: I want to be part of a creative team, I want to work with a bunch of people to make something for people to see! I want to make art, and I want to collaborate so I'm not alone. Writing scripts or making props or dressing sets, some manner of production design. I want to craft!

Wearing: Goodfellow t-shirt and cargo shorts

Movie/book that summarizes me: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir feels like it was written for me personally. That is how my thought process works, that is how I deal with problems, that is who I want to be. I have a higher than average understanding of math and science but I always try to explain it in as simple terms as possible for people who find it all too daunting. This is the kind of book I want to write, sci-fi that explains the sci.

Favorite songs: Ramblin Man, the Gambler, Country Roads, the Devil Went Down to Georgia (I'm noticing a country pattern...), anything by Weird Al Yankovic (Hardware Store and Albuquerque are probably my top 2 of his),the Little Shop of Horrors movie soundtrack, White Squall and Northwest Passage by Stan Rogers (I went through a sea shanty phase when Wellerman was big), anything by Jonathan Coulton (Skullcrusher Mountain, Code Monkey, Blue Sunny Day, Big Wide World One, Shop Vac, Mandelbrot Set, to name a few), Climb Out Your Window, Addicted, and Here We Go by Walk off the Earth, and the Celtic Woman cover of Danny Boy (this is my go-to cry song; if I need a nice long cry, I put this on and it all comes flowing out of me)

Favorite instrument: I love brass, trumpet specifically, I could listen to Louis Armstrong all day

Aesthetic: analog technology, typewriters, instant photography, clockwork watches without quartz, sacrificing convenience for the sake of privacy, nostalgia for the early 2000s (but through the eyes of a child, so no George W. Bullshit)

Favorite author: per capita, Andy Weir. He's only written 3 books, but I love them all and want to emulate him. Max Brooks for World War Z. Cormac McCarthy for The Road (very depressing, but hopeful near the end; one of the only books to really tug at my heartstrings). John Steinbeck for Of Mice and Men (another heartstring tugger). Audrey Niffenegger for The Time Traveler's Wife.

Currently reading: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Favorite colors: cyan, lime green, heliotrope purple

Favorite animal sounds: the scuttling of crabs on pavement, the sneef-snorfing of a curious dog, the bleat of a baby goat, the EHHH of a baby sloth, the MEHH of a baby deer, the chirping of bats, ethereal whale songs

Last song: either I'm Going to go Back There Someday from the Muppet Movie, or Hey I Don't Work Here by Tom Cardy

Last Series: Owl House (Lulu + Hootcifer 4ever!!! Oh yeah and lumity's pretty good too I guess)

Random: I once learned all the lyrics to Bobby Darin's Mack the Knife without ever actually listening to the lyrics of Mack the Knife. Like, I listened to the song all the time, but I never paid attention to what was being said. It was just gibberish to me, but I learned the gibberish, and I sang along to it in the car one day and my mom asked why I was so enthusiastic about murder. Turns out Mack the Knife is about an old londontown ripper named Macheath. Still a banger though.

@goldenmoldies @olivia-online @nsomniacsdream @schifty-al @richardjager @n-brio @orange-birdie

[honey-topaz]

So. Modern AU time, I might as well explain it

The studio isn't an animation studio, it's a media production company. As in movies and shows, either live-action or animated. The main thing produced is movies though, and there have been three movies produced. Two for two novels and one for the batim game itself. The novels are Dreams Come to Life and The Lost Ones, they're both prequels to the batim movie. And it all begins in 2036. (I might end up creating a timeline for this as well)

The employees mainly have the same roles, but some have modern alternatives.

Joey - Owner of the studio as well as actor, he played Ink Bendy in the batim movie

Norman - Lead movie director (usually the one who directs the movies that have been produced), actor

David - Animator/artist, helped develop CGI used for Beast Bendy, cameraman

Henry - Main protagonist, lead/head artist

Sammy - Music Director, actor, and well-known musician (kinda a rockstar?)

Johnny - Organist

Susie - Actress, both regular and voice

Jack - Lyricist, actor

Allison - Actress, both regular and voice (like Susie)

Grant - Financial advisor

Shawn - Set and prop builder, part of engineering team

Lacie - Set builder, part of engineering team

Bertrum - Set builder, co-leader of engineering team, actor

Wally - Janitor

Tom - Set and prop builder, leader/head of engineering team, actor (both Boris and himself), representative/manager of Gent

The actors have their own dressing rooms that are completely furnished, such as cardboard cutouts of their favorite character of the franchise/who they play as, plushies, a vanity set with a mirror, a couch, figurines, and (in Susie and Allison's case), a neon sign of the character they voice act as. Like their own rooms to make them comfortable while at the studio or on set.

No stunt doubles either, the actors did it all themselves. Norman made them take fighting classes to help prepare them for intense or fight scenes, so they could both prepare and strengthen themselves.

Some fun facts:

• Henry has a scar on his cheek from the Brute Boris battle.

• CGI technology was used to animate and create Searchers, Lost Ones, and Beast Bendy.

• A well furnished and well built apartment complex was built by the studio, meant for roommates, and employees who either needed or wanted to live there were free to do so.

• Sammy composed and played the songs on the radios that were placed randomly in the batim movie.

• The actors were allowed to design their own costumes, but makeup artists were still required. Tailors too, in order to fix the costumes up and fit them to the proper person so there would be no complications or issues.

• Allison's sword is made out of metal and paint.

• The Gent pipes often used in the batim movie were authentic Gent pipes that Tom had (reluctantly) allowed to be used for production.

• Black slime was used as "ink" in the Dreams Come to Life scene where the pipe exploded in Sammy's sheet music closet, coating him and his documents in slime.

• Relating to the one above, Sammy's pure reaction to the slime being dumped on him without warning and on camera was so spot on and perfect for his character that they left it in and didn't attempt to reshoot it.