MondoMedia
Dick Figures – Traffic Jams
Mondo Mini Shows, also known as Mondo Media is an American company that produces animation targeted at teens and young adults. Mondo Mini Shows are distributed as an ad-supported, virtual animation channel via the Internet, podcasts and mobile. Dick Figures was created by Ed Skudder, who wrote, directed and voiced the episode along with Zack Keller.
I came across MondoMedia (Dick Figures) through a friend via Facebook; they had posted a link of an episode. Dick Figures are small episodes on YouTube about Red and Blue who are friends; with the additional stop motion added to the episodes i.e. raccoon – which is a gag in most of the episodes. In the episode that I thought could give me some ideas for my FMP is ‘Traffic Jams’; the characters' Red slowly drives Blue insane in the fast lane to nowhere, until a zippy and unexpected twist a giant turtle rampages through the freeway.
Mondo Mini Shows are as they say on one of their links http://www.mondominishows.com/ “short, funny, free .... And loaded with unnecessary violence and racial insensitivity, misguided politics and screwed up values.” Comedy values such as these are obviously aimed at teenagers and above because of the humor. Dick Figures’ episodes are internet based means it’s not in full completion for views to the likes of Family guy that is TV based. But through the use of the internet and partnership they receive over 30 million views “With over 30 million show views per month across all platforms, Mondo Media is the 5th most-viewed YouTube branded channel partner and the number 1 most downloaded video podcast on iTunes. Mondo Media has pulled over 500 million show views since launch with its flagship property, "Happy Tree Friends", boasts 900,000+ online members, global TV distribution in over 30 markets and has sold over 1 million DVDs worldwide to-date. Mondo Media's branded distribution partners include YouTube, Hulu, MySpace, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Bablegum, iTunes, iPhone and Joost.”
Dick Figures are simple drawings used along with basic background, but they are different from the usual. This episode has given me small ideas on what to do; I like the Traffic Jam episode because of the way they have used a turtle to make a joke out of it being a dragon; also use the reputation of the turtle for being slow so Red and Blue have a chance to 'slay' the turtle like you would with a dragon. I haven’t got a fully layed out idea yet but I want make an animation with simple line drawings and add humor about silly things like a turtle being a dragon.
Minilogue/ hitchhikers choice - short version
This is a four minute animation that I found on YouTube when I was trying to find examples of a drawn animation. February 6th, 2007 by ljudbilden & piloten
“I made this stop motion video for minilogue this summer, this is the short version”. I’m not sure what the story is behind the work because I couldn’t find a reason to the animation on their website and on YouTube; but with most animations it was just for fun I guess. There are many other animations on the website similar to this one. http://ljudbilden.com/wordpress/
The animation was achieved by using a whiteboard, drawing the cartoon and then modifying each image after the picture has been taken. These animations are aimed at anyone especially people/ companies that like stop motion and want to use them in certain areas of work i.e. the Cravendale milk adverts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssACddCJlAA
There is over 10,394 comments on YouTube for this video, most of them saying that is the best animation they’ve seen, few asking how the artist made the video and what did they used to draw the pictures on. "That's totally amazing! I think it's one of the best, most creative "hand made" animation with much love for detail I've ever seen! I could watch it for hours... "
This animation has given me a lot of ideas on what to make and how to do it; before when I was researching I couldn’t find many things that could inspire me to draw anything for my FMP. My idea is similar to the hitchhiker’s choice. I’m going to be using a whiteboard to draw each image and modify as I go along.
TREATMENT
BEEN THERE, DONE THAT ... GOT THE T-SHIRT
SYNOPSIS:
My animation is small a square, that makes mores squares turning into a maze like shape; which takes about 10 seconds to finally take form. It releases a ball for a piranha to jump up and catch; after it returns to its original form which is a square. the music is Daft Punk's Derezzed for a trance like state for the boxes to form. A mimic of most shape animations like the nobody beats the drum animation, except mine is in a 2D form.
THEORY INFORMING PRACTICE:
Words: MULTI IS THE SINGLE I couldn’t think of anything to do, or make so I typed into YouTube 'animations' and it came up with a load of results but I chose the fourth one down in the list which was the 'Minilogue/ hitchhikers choice - short version'. Watching it gave me a quite a few ideas for an animation i.e. I can draw cartoons and turn them into a differernt creature etc.
Diary for FMP
Wednesday 19th January:
I went into the library to find a book, I couldn't find anything that I thought I could make an animation out of. In the end I found an illusion book. I have no idea what I can make out of it!
Friday 21st January:
I took a personal day yesterday to concentrate and try to figure out what I can make for my FMP but I still couldn't think of anything, until this morning on the bus where I basically decided on the 40 ride to come up with an idea an stick with it; at the time I was listening to Daft Punk's Derezzed. Which fitted really well with what I was imagining; multiply squares.
I basically thought of the video 'Nobody Beats the Drum' which in a way inspired me to make something similar but very short, simplistic and drawn but with a mixture of cartoons.
First Things First, Let's Storyboard...
On the first day of the project our first part of work was to go to the library and find a book at random. The book I chose was 'Illusion' by Fil Hunter & Paul Fuqua. I looked around on the shelves for a while and couldn't find anything that I thought would be random enough for me, but after I picked up the illusion book, I found some cool sentences. The lines I chose were 'Multi is the single' and ' Switch a twist'. The specific image that I chose from the book was a hammer that had been photographed many times so you can the each image of its movement. The word I found in the book which I didn't know at the time was photomechanical. Photomechanical effect is the change in the shape of a material when it is exposed to light.
I used the phrase multi is the single because I think its a good word example of an animation meaning a drawn animation has multiply of the same image. Which is why I'm going to make small squares that multiply.
I'm going to start
off with a square
and work into
multiples by
adding one square
at a time, then
reversing it one by one and repeat.
After adding all the squares so they form a grid like maze, I'm going to make a dot drop and hit each side as it falls and lands into the mouth of a Piranha.
MULTI IS THE SINGLE
Finished with the square...
To the right is my finished FMP video. The music is Daft Punk - Derezzed. I like my video, but because I don't like to leave video projects to the last minute, I wanted to make it sooner rather than later. With the extra week that was given I could have added more to the video and definitely would have had more time to plan.
To make this animation I used a whiteboard, markers, lighting, a Panasonic 3cc, fire wire and MonkeyJam; in MonkeyJam I was taking 2 pictures at a time. I really enjoyed the editing part of making the animation, it took me a while to figure out how to reverse the squares; each image was a double, so before one square turned into a double square I swapped the images around so they would go in reverse i.e. two squares to one.
I didn't really need to make many adjustments when I put the music in because it fell into place, except for the end of my animation. I had to cut off 4 seconds of the end of the music and cut out the middle part of the song and add the end piece to where I cut the middle off for it to sound right.
