Looking Ahead

Concept art from the next Rauch Brothers film

Every morning I wake up around 11 am on a futon that nearly fills up my tiny bedroom and roll over toward the curtain to see what kind of a day it is outside.  Life becomes quite mushy when you work only part time because there's very little in the way of a daily schedule.  Somehow, the world keeps on turning.

Mike and I are continuing to hear from festivals:  Germans in the Woods, our collaboration with StoryCorps, will be playing a few good ones in July and August.  First, we will be a part of Rooftop Film Festival's big event July 4th. The night will feature "Food, drinks, live music, fireworks and film...using artfully-told personal stories and carefully-crafted craziness to address the breadth of the American experience."  The party will be on the pier at Solar One, right down by the East River where I'm sure the view of the fireworks will be spectacular.

Then, in August, we will be playing two great festivals: Rhode Island International Film Festival (Aug 5-10) and Palm Springs International Shortfest (Aug 21-27).  Looking forward to both!

Still, the event I am looking forward to the most is this coming Monday when Mike and I will have a chance to meet the mother and son who are the subject of our next film.  We were never able to meet Joseph Robertson, the soldier who shared his memory from the Battle of the Bulge for Germans in the Woods.  Hopefully, meeting the subjects this time will add to our ability to tell their story.  The image at the top of this post is a design for the boy.  Despite how glum this image may look, it promises to be a very funny and lighthearted piece that I can't wait to animate.

10 Characteristics of Creatives

From my brother, Mike:

I'm currently re-reading Ellen Shapiro's "Graphic Designer's Guide to Clients: How to Make Clients Happy and Do Great Work" . Although she speaks specifically to designers, I've found that a good many of her ideas would apply to just about anyone working in a creative field. Read below where she notes Ed Gold's "10 common characteristics of great designers":

THE TOP TWO
1. talent (their work flat-out looks good)
2. advocacy or sales ability

AND
3. curiosity
4. dissatisfaction
4. perfectionism
5. energy
6. confidence

A BALANCE OF...
7. idealism
8. realism
9. wit

AND
10. they just love their work

"A designer who can't sell an idea is probably not going to be very successful," [Gold] says, adding, "I'll go a step further. A designer who can't sell an idea will never be a great designer."

There Are No Strings On Me

For the past six months I've been working only part time as a swim instructor to allow more time for my films.  The paycheck I receive twice a month usually has about 15 hours a week on it and does not cover my monthly living expenses.  At this point, I'm slipping into debt.  Why put myself into what looks like a constant downward spiral of financial woe rather than get out there to find more substantial work?

When I had a job working on a TV show, I was miserable.  The task I was asked to do did not appeal to me: I was working every day on three characters who all had very similar body mechanics, the style of animation had limited capacity for emotional range, and by the time the shot landed in my lap most of the challenging creative decisions had been made further up the pipeline by the writer, director or storyboard artists.  I frequently found myself literally falling asleep as I poked and prodded the characters into place.  Eventually, my lack of curiosity about the job brought things to a head and I found myself back in the line of work I'd first taken up as a high school sophomore: encouraging toddlers to blow bubbles and put their faces in the water.

Perhaps ironically, I was more challenged, rewarded and excited to go to work as a swim instructor than I had ever been in my one year of "animation industry" experience.  I was ecstatic to be free of the animation factory that had been my first and only nine to five.  There was twice as much time to dedicate to Germans in the Woods, which had been in limbo somewhere between a sloppy storyboard and something that vaguely resembled animation.  The project was finally becoming a cohesive film whose direction I could control.

The finished film has really changed how I think about my place in the "world of animation".  I feel like someone who has found his corner of the sandbox instead of an outsider looking in.  At this point, I am curious about finding more substantial work but as long as I can at least keep my finances on life support while continuing to work on my own films I have no great desire to get back into a regular nine to five.  I'm young, I'm healthy, I'm just getting started, why not take a few risks?  I'm willing to bet the rewards over the long run will make all these peanut butter and jelly dinners worthwhile.

Nine Dangers of Story

From my brother, Mike:

While teaching English as a Foreign Language in Istanbul, I came across a wonderful book titled The Art of the Story-Teller by Marie L. Shedlock. Although she discusses telling stories to children in classrooms, many of her ideas are relevant to story-telling for any audience in any fashion. I thought I would share one part of the book where she lays out nine dangers of story. I think of this list often when editing interviews in my work at StoryCorps. For full explanations of each item, you can visit Penn's digital library where the book is available in its entirety. Lots of great stuff to dig into, especially for those of you involved in developing animation and other media for children.

1. Danger of side issues.
2. Altering the story to suit special occasions.
3. Danger of introducing unfamiliar words.
4. Danger of claiming cooperation of audience by means of questions.
5. The difficulty of gauging the effect of a story on its audience.
6. Danger of over-illustration.
7. The danger of obscuring the point of the story with too many details.
8. The danger of over-explanation.
9. The danger of lowering the standard of the story in order to appeal to undeveloped tastes.

- Mike

One Big Happy Blogosphere

The Lonely Artist pre-blog-discovery

When I got back into animation two years ago, after 4 years as an "Artist" (ugh), I quickly discovered the world of animation blogs.  There are all kinds of blogs: production blogs, blogs focused on fan-boy ranting, I-just-made-a-drawing-and-here-it-is blogs, analysis and criticism blogs, and blogs for sharing cartoon-miscellany.  Anyone with a computer and internet access can create a blog or post comments, which has created an incredible flood of content (not all of it worth your time).  Thankfully, this also means there is a lot of quality information and commentary out there to read and a thriving community that makes the physical isolation of being an independent animator less palpable.

The blogs I follow might be described this way: my friends' blogs (it's good to know what they're up to), blogs that provide valuable information and insight (Animondays), blogs that have a strong critical viewpoint I appreciate (The Splog), and blogs that expose me to things I would otherwise miss (CartoonBrew).

My biggest reservation about blogging is the inevitable nasty side of many posts and comments.  The blogosphere is like a large, crowded room and when someone in that room provides rude "criticism" things can get awkward fast.  Where exactly is the line between rude and reasonable criticism?

One of the most important functions of this "crowded room" is to provide support to the little guys: the students, the frustrated artists, the independents.  While it's reasonable to make thoughtful criticisms of a studio product, at what point is an artist's ego fragile enough that we should avoid going out of our way to provide negative feedback?  You wouldn't walk up to a three year old working with crayons on his kitchen table and poo-poo his choice of color.  I believe the same kind of "protective zone" should be extended to non-professionals or professionals doing personal projects: respect their desire to create and provide negative criticism only when it is asked for and can be constructively received.  Leave the wrestling-match of serious criticism to work that has entered the wider world in a more public way; but please keep in mind that individual artists have been involved and resist the urge to slam, insult or generally denigrate their contributions.  If someone's heart was in it (and even schlock can be made with dedication) tearing them down does no good.  Why not congratulate their effort, make your point, and encourage them to improve?  I'm looking forward to the "future of animation", and it won't come from base negativity.

Here's to a supportive, positive, and, yes, sometimes critical blogosphere: may it make us all better artists and, more importantly, happier people.  Keep your elbows sharp and your skin thick but don't forget to smile and say hello.

Onward!

concept still from The Park Bench

I've just finished my first film (ever) and received a stronger response from it than I might have originally expected.  Now what?

I'm beginning to discover the frightening gap that comes between the completion of films.  Mike and I began "Germans in the Woods" almost a year ago (June '07) and its first public screening came less than two weeks ago.  While there are more "documentary" shorts in the works here at Rauch Brothers, I would like to use the time I have right now to put a four-year project to bed: The Park Bench (see these posts: 1, 2).  Five of the final six minutes have been animated to pencil test and are ready to be inked, painted and composited.  This will be three or four times the effort required to complete "Germans", but at least there seems to be an end in sight.

This project began when a professor told me to take a nap one exhausted morning: "What are you gonna come up with in an hour, anyways?"  Well, I rather stupidly got myself into a big mess in that one hour.  The little story I sketched out was of a man waiting on a bench while bizarre dramas unfold around him.  This thing has been through several evolutionary stages.  In fact, there is an earlier version which was nearly completed... until I realized it was utterly boring to watch.  The whole thing took place over 6 minutes with up to six characters on the screen at a time and the camera NEVER MOVED.  I guess this was some kind of clever, art school challenge I made for myself.  It fit right in with another film I did at the time where a man makes a phone call (no discernible dialogue can be heard, only vague phrases like "Pretty good... you?") and the camera never moves for the whole three minutes.  What's clever about that?  The way he scratches himself?  The way he looks into his empty water glass at the end of the film?  Yuck.  Funny thing about clever personal challenges is they may not interest anyone other than you.

With that in mind, The Park Bench has been redesigned with a constantly twisting, turning, zooming and cutting camera.  The colors are bright and the backgrounds are full of repetition.  The image at the top of the post and those below should give you some idea of what the final look will be.

Our First Award

Dave Levy looks on as Mike and I accept

(photo courtesy of Michael Sporn)

Mike and I were honored to receive an award at the premiere of our very first film. Many thanks to ASIFA-East for awarding "Germans in the Woods" 2nd place in Independent Animation!  Mike and I had a blast watching our film with a theater-full of people, especially our friends who seemed to come from all over to support us tonight.  As always, Linda Beck, Jen Oxley, Dave Levy and the rest of the ASIFA board put on a great event.  Special thanks also to Candy Kugel, who does a great deal for the festival itself as well as giving ASIFA-East a home at her studio for our monthly meetings (I'm a member, of course).  Cartoon Network and Michael Grover sponsored the wonderful after-party. 

The festival is voted on by the entire ASIFA-East membership and to be put second only to Bill Plympton in our category was an honor Mike and I would not have imagined a year ago.  The big winner of the night was Arthur Metcalf's "Fantasie in Bubble Wrap", which seems to be a huge favorite wherever it goes.  The audience laughed from one joke to the next with barely a breath in between.  Besides being brilliantly funny, Arthur's a friendly, enthusiastic guy and to see him take the top prize was fantastic.

One point of criticism for the festival: I was a bit disappointed a few of the films awarded in the Student category weren't included in the screening.  Would have been nice to see what these filmmakers had done to receive their honors...  Still, a great event, and we were happy to be a part of it.

A big thank you is due to StoryCorps, our partners on the film.  Mike Garofalo did a superb job editing the audio for the film: there is really no slack in the sound and it's an incredibly riveting two minutes.  The theater was so absolutely silent while it played that we could hear the occasional faint gasps coming from around the room. A big thanks to Mike G, Dave Isay, Kathrina Proscia, Sarah Kramer and Lisa Janicki for their faith and support. My brother and I are honored to have had the chance to help share Joseph Robertson's story.

As Mike and I have been promising, our next film will make you laugh.  It's about the relationship between a mother and her son... more on that later.

concept art from the next Rauch Brothers film

For more about the 39th Annual ASIFA-East Animation Festival, see the following blogs:

The Splog

Animondays

Cartoonbrew

Complete list of winners