Hey everyone. Just dropping in with an update on the new Man-Bot short. So far, the storyboard is complete as well as the animatic. For those who don’t know, an animatic is basically the storyboard timed out shot-by-shot how long I want the short to last for. It basically is providing the skeleton on which the entire short will hang, and gives me a starting point when I go to into animation production.

I have his voice tracks already done and laid into the Flash file. As of right now, the new short will run about 2 minutes long and that’s without the opening titles. That’s still subject to change though as I’m not 100% sure about the timing just yet…maybe about 95% sure hah.

Believe it or not, but October 12th 2005 marked the day that our very first Shamoozal short, Candy Corns, was unleashed upon the universe. Candy Corns, while not the pride and joy of our tiny catalog of shorts, was without a doubt a milestone for us.

The fact is, Shamoozal.com went live sometime in June or July of that year. Upon typing in shamoozal.com, you would be greeted with a “Zoink Teaser” (which was later renamed Carboard Box) and not much else. The most you’d see of Grey and Jacquo was on the message board header.

Its goddamn busy day in work and I barely have time for this.
I don’t feel like doing it once I get home so while my lunch break is approaching, I decided to dedicate some time to the ol’ Nerdlog. Enjoy.

The vamps come out at night, the vamps come out at niiiiiiight.

30 Days of Night – In a small Alaskan town, the sun doesn’t show for 30 days. A group of vampires find out about this and attack all villagers they find in an orgy of bloodspill. Now the sheriff (Josh Hartnett) must do something to help the remaining survivors.

Planet Terror – the first part of the Grindhouse double feature written and directed by Robert Rodriguez. Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, and others try to fend off an outbreak turning people into zombies.

Transformers – the big budget Michael Bay directed action movie bringing Autobots and Decepticons to Earth to battle. Shia LeBouf and Megan Fox star as the kids who get caught up in the robot duel.

Clean up in traditional animation is extremely important. Bad clean up can kill great animation. I can’t help but get psyched when I see awesome clean up, and I stumbled on a blog tonight from Richard Smitheman which features a ton of amazing drawings. Mr. Smitheman has an impressive resume the bulk of which appears to be during his time at Dreamworks when they were in the hand drawn feature business.

To the layman, the term “clean up” refers to the process of going over the rough animation drawings on a new sheet of paper (or in today’s digital world, a new layer in your digital ink and paint program) with a tightly drawn line which can be as thin as seen in Richard’s Prince of Egypt drawings or as bold as those found in Dexter’s Lab. The clean up stage is important because its in this step where the volumes and shapes of a character are ironed out and solidified into a whole. Bad clean up will lead to all kinds of inconsistencies which will cause a character to appear less stable and fluid on screen. So head on over to Mr. Smitheman’s blog and check out some really nice work.

“So where’s the next short at?” one might ask. Its true. It has been some time since our last short. Life has a way of getting you sidetracked, however rest assured Phil and I have a few ideas in the works for future shorts staring Jacquo and the gang, a new “Zoinks”, and of course Man-Bot.

In fact, tonight while storyboarding the new short, I came across a few old sketches I did when I was first designing him. I thought I’d post them up here for our loyal viewers to take a peek at. I don’t want to show anything from the new Man-Bot short just yet as I feel its too early, but I think there’s some good laughs in it and I think it will be worth the wait. In the meantime, check out the sketches after the jump!

I missed the DVDs for Tuesday due to being away from a computer for most of the week so check the bottom of this update for some quick pics of the major releases. If you want more…. then go to the smorg and find the rest. They’re always posted on there.
Today though, is all about the theater releases. The big movies of October continue with 4 wide releases on our plate. Enjoy.

Marky Mark, Joaquin, Duvall, and Mendes = Quality

We Own The Night – Its 1988 New York and some new drugs are hitting the streets and clubs. Joaquin Phoenix is the owner of a nightclub that is frequented by mobsters dealing in drugs but he stays out of it. His brother, Mark Wahlberg, and father, Robert Duvall, are cops who try bringing down this ring of violence and drugs. When trouble hits the family, Phoenix must choose a side. Eva Mendes is there to hotten things up.

If you’re like me, you have probably found yourself scowling at your back door around 2 AM, realizing that it would be very easy for a zombie to gain entry to your home. Maybe you’ve already spent sleepless nights lying in bed pondering how you could close your attic door from the inside, and figured out a method to survive up there over a long period of time. If you sleep with a Katana less than 5 feet away from you at all times, then “The Zombie Survival Guide” by Max Brooks is probably the book for you.

The title pretty much sums up exactly what this book is all about. Written in an instructional guide format it provides you with everything you need to know in the event of an outbreak of the undead. Ranging from practical knowledge about Zombie physiology and proper corpse disposal methods to weapons and home fortification, this book is an absolute asset. You may be saying to yourself “But Steve, a Zombie invasion? Ludicrous!”. Well… that’s the exact kind of mentality that gets motherfuckers killed. Worse than killed actually, you will become one of them: a mindless, automation bent only on the consumption of human flesh. Me? I’m not taking any chances for the well being of my family.

A buddy of mine sent me a link to this yesterday. It was done in 2002 by Ignacio Ferraras. While I find it a bit cliched, the top notch animation and character acting in this short more than make up for it. Enjoy!

An article in “Variety” yesterday announced the teaming up of two special effects driven directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson for a (what else!) film trilogy adaption of Tintin, the venerable long-running comic book series. I guess that’s not the big news for me, but rather how they are choosing to go about doing it. I guess it’s not too surprising considering Jackson’s SFX background, but the film makers are opting to use “performance capture” which is a fancy, new fangled word for “motion capture”. Jackson says, “we’re making them look photorealistic; the fibers of their clothing, the pores of their skin and each individual hair. They look exactly like real people— but real Herge (ed:the series creator) people!”

 As with Beowulf, my question is “why???” What is the point of creating photorealistic, human characters when you can just, oh I don’t know, shoot live actors? Tintin’s cast of characters, while having human proportions, are very illustrative. I don’t know if I feel like looking at Captain Haddock’s pores. What’s the point of taking what is obviously an illustrative characiture of real life and shoe horning it into reality?