REWRITE…

Yes. Rewrite.

If you have ever seen The Pixar Story there is a part in there where John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Joe Ranft, and Andrew Stanton are headed up to Disney Studios to pitch their very first animated feature Toy Story. Long story short they pitch the movie, Jeffery (Make It Edgy) Katzenberg says why is this so bad, Tom Schumacher tells him, “Because it’s not the movie John set out to make”. The characters didn’t work it was to long and kaboom. What I love about the guys at Pixar is they will work over a story, write, rewrite and through refining make a great movie. I am in no way saying we are Pixar or that I am a John Lasseter (we did both work at Disney as young guys however), not publicly anyway, yet. I am however inspired by these guys and others like Don Hahn who have been generous with their insights through documentaries, books and other outlets. Which leads me to Treasure Hunt (now a working title only).

After starting the project, working through story boards, starting final artwork, we had to shelve the project for a while. Why? Paying clients, who we love. They come first. This was a huge blessing because we were struggling a bit with the flow and structure and didn’t totally realize it. While the characters had defined personalities the story wasn’t really showing that off and why you would love these guys and how they work together. Something was missing. We had the first act, introducing the characters and their world. We had a so so second act, developing the plot and revealing motives and relationships. However we certainly were lacking the third act, down with the bad guys up with the good guys and an ending that was a solid wrap. Reading “The Alchemy of Animation” by Don Hahn was a great eye opener because it laid things out fairly simply. A birds eye view if you will of our problem.

So with that, this week we start the rewrite. Developing a better story line and hopefully having a something that’s entertaining and has a good flow. We are starting with the trailer, an animated short of sorts of about 15 to 30 seconds that shows off the characters, who they are, and why they are that way.

If you have been following us we appreciate you indulging us on our little journey and we are excited about what’s ahead. Here is to new path…

Big congrats to my mentor at Brainfreeze Ent.!

While this is a blog about our development process, I think it is important to highlight what others are doing in this new and emerging field.

I want to give a big congratulations to Tod Carter at Brainfreeze Entertainment. There app Goosed Up Rhymes has just launched and it is brilliant. Great writing, great art and animation, and great interactivity.

I have had the distinct pleasure of seeing their app being developed over the course of many many months and after going through what we are going through have a deep appreciation for what they have created. Even though the big studios are putting out good stuff Brainfreeze just set a new benchmark. This is a must buy!!!!

Here is a screen shot of the main page. Congratulations Tod!

 

Introducing Feltman, the new 3MA studio mascot

Yes ladies and gentlemen 3MA Studios has a new studio mascot. Feltman the Pacman Frog. “But wait” you ask. “Are you changing to 3 Monkeys and a Frog, or 2 Monkeys a Frog and an Aardvark?” Rest assured we are not. It turns out the care taking, legal docs and permits needed to actually have monkeys and or an Aardvark is just a tad more than we can afford. Hence the formidable force of a frog that will grow wider than longer, by about 5 inches. Feltman is named after a good friend of the studio Jim Feltman, who will not grow wider than taller, unless he keeps eating those Hostess cupcakes.

How does this relate to our production blog? We have decided since Feltman is so cool we should have him popping up in “random” places. Hidden Feltmans if you will. We are currently finding ways to incorporate little hidden interactive Feltmans into the current app Treasure Hunt.

The picture is a little blurry because we shot it ourselves this morning. We just couldn’t wait till we book Curtis Newborn, photographer elite, to do a whole glamour shoot yet.

Welcome to the studio Feltman!

The new 3MA Studios studio mascot

The new studio mascot

Voice overs and sound effects

We have final edits in for the story we have begun to record a trial version of the narration and character voices. YES, FINALLY THE VOICE OVERS! The exciting part about this is to hear the words come to life. What we can’t wait for is to get into the recording studio over at Directions AV and start on the actual tracks. 32 pages and 4 animated short shorts of content. To top it off our sound effects library has some of the greatest animated effects ever from the one and only Warner Brothers Looney Tunes catalog. Tubblin Down, Agasp, Speed or a sling shot

We are going to be filming during the recording session and posting here for ultra exclusive sneak peek. I know your sitting on pins and needles at this point.

Finally for this post our inspiration these past few weeks came from three directions. A fantastic documentary “Waking Sleeping Beauty” by Don Hahn. You have to see this! It gives you a look at the Disney Studios from about 1984-1994 and is fascinating and inspiring to the creative mind.

Pearls of wisdom from an event and long conversation with the way way cool John Rowe, master artsist and Disney fine artist. One of the most interesting guys I have ever met. Many things stuck with me from our conversation, especially these:1. The faster the deadline the slower you need to work. (What! That’s crazy…no, it’s not, it’s brilliant) 2. No amount of work will make up for a idea that wasn’t completely thought out ahead of time. (But if I just keep going maybe it will work…no, it won’t) 3. Believe that you can do it. (This one seems like a given but it helps to hear it again.)

Lastly but certainly not least from the man himself, John Lasseter and his response to a question from an animation student. This little gem on animation, film making and the basics, which applies especially as we create this interactive children’s  story with of course animation.

Artists at work

Zach and the bean stalk/wacom tablet

Peeking over the shoulder of our new intern Zach, we find him illustrating a lamp shade on the left hand side for page 5. This scene is only partially finished as you can see by the lack of eyes on the one and lack of ears on the other monkey. But Zach is plugging away and just look at him go with that Wacom tablet. It’s fabulous. It’s almost like he was born with it, literally born with it.

We are building all our backgrounds in photoshop and then importing them into Toonboom Animate Pro. Quite possibly and most definitely the best 2d animation software out there. The production goal for completed backgrounds is late December and while that seems like a long way out these past couple of months have flown by.

Title Page for Treasure Hunt

This has been something rolling around now since we first started the story development back in January of this year. We knew basically what the title was going to be but not what the final feel of the story was or if we were even going to stick with that title. 9 months later here we have it. The logo/title page for our first iPad, iPhone app, Treasure Hunt. As with most things there might be a last minute tweak

What you see at the bottom is the new 3 Monkeys & Aardvark Studios logo which is about to be unveiled in the next couple of weeks. You are some of the first to see the new identity.

Title Page/Logo for Treasure Hunt

Concept sketching

The 3MA library has quite a few “Art of’s” books and what is cool about them is looking at all the concepts. To see how these great artists and visionaries work out character design, set design, different environment clutter, and all kinds of inner workings of the visual production is truely inspiring. So on that note, given this is our outlet for documenting our process, here are some concept sketches.

A rough sketch of the hut to get an idea of where action is taking place

There is nothing quite like a Moleskine sketch book. Here are some little props and environment ideas for the soon to be named hut the monkeys live in.

Items we are sketching out for the "decoration"

Creative inspiration

As 3MA is entering week 3 of production, inspiration is key to creating. This last weekend I met an incredibly talented artist Tim Rogerson. He is a Disney Fine Artist and bursting with talent. Literally just bursting with it. I saw his sketch book, bursting! The subject of The Pixar Story came up and it was then that I realized that I am not the only one who watches this movie ALL THE TIME. It’s inspiring! If you haven’t seen it, you should. You can find The Pixar Story on the 2 and 3 disc sets of Wall-E.

Leslie Iwerks who hails from the legend Ub Iwerks does a fantastic job in this documentary. Between that movie and The Art of (insert animated film here) books, there is enough to light the creative engines.

This week we are diving into more of the wish list for launch, illustrating more of the beginning of the book and unleashing creative programming. Now where is the coffee?

It needs a decorator

Piggy backing off our last post we thought it might be nice to see the in progress, well, progress a little further. While we are illustrating characters and decorating the inside of the hut here is a finished preview. The hut, a little bare.

This needs an interior designer

A quick preview at page 2

As we get into the bulk of the illustration, I could not be more appreciative of my Wacom tablet and Photoshop. However, after using this program since ’95, it took me way to long to figure out that your can rotate your artboard in photoshop. Here is a preview of page 2. This is a partial finish to the wall and blue line sketch of  two characters but will give you an idea of the style we are creating. The left side of the door frame is the finished look. We have a wider canvas as movement and panning is going to be part of the interaction. Kind of like the Toy Story apps.

Work in Progress

Story boards and production art

We have begun production! We used Toon Boom Story Board Pro to board out the book. 32 pages of interactive read a long fun woven in with some animated clips. Yesterday also began the production art for page 1. Using photoshop and the good ole Wacom tablet the first page will consist of about 5 layers.

What is kind of exciting about all of this is we don’t know what we don’t know. Therefore it’s dream big and figure it out along the way.

With such a new medium to play with it reminds me of a quote from the great John Lasseter, “Art challanges technology and technology inspires the art.” A quote taken from Leslie Iwerks documentary “The Pixar Story”. If you’re a fan of animation this is a must see!

The beginning of the first 3MA iOS app

We are putting our monkeys and aardvark to work in a new interactive children’s read-a-long book for the iPad and iPhone. The story is wrapping and production begins this week! We are going to use Bahnahnahs, which is the amount of money we are using to produce this, to document this little journey.

Hello world!