It was fun to do, but these things always take longer than you expect, even amateur stuff like this.  Vampires and zombies are very popular now with the “Twilight” craze and “True Blood”. Hell, even “Underworld” has had two sequels. Now ABC is getting into the act with “The Gates”.  The thing that I don’t like about the new vampire thing is that they’re basically romances. I like the old monsters where they weren’t falling in love all the time. I’m also not feeling those werewolves from “Twilight” and “The Gates”. Werewolves are suppose to have some kind of human features to them. I guess this started with “American Werewolf in London”. That movie still holds up after all these years, but I think it was the first werewolf movie where the person changing into a werewolf ends up looking like a giant mean dog. The Twilight werewolves look fluffy and pretty and nice. Haven’t seen the “Wolfman” with Benicio, but I hear they missed the boat on it. At least they tried to do the old school werewolf, but maybe that’s why it failed. Whatever.

When it comes to Beatles and zombies this clever trailer for “A Hard Days Night of the Living Dead” is an entertaining piece.

A group called the Zombeatles have been getting mad hits on YouTube with their Zombie Beatles tribute band.

Not everybody is down with Aniboom and its animation contests. I remember when Aniboom announces its FOX holiday contest. Amid from Cartoon Brew summed up what a lot of seasoned vets felt about Aniboom. Why should professional animators basically use their talent for limited return on their efforts? Sounds right. But what about us amateurs who barely know what we’re doing? According to Amid —

(gullible, young and stupid artists who don’t know any better enter these contests by the legions inspired by years of conditioning from reality TV competitions that promise fame and fortune with minimal effort.)

Pretty straight shooting. We’re suppose to work for it, not try to break into the industry by winning some contest sponsored by corporate goons that want to feed off talented animators for free. And those of us who aren’t so talented, we shouldn’t cheapen the art form by submitting lame ass work, we should study the art and get some training and experience, then we can contribute to the animation community in a dignified way. I was feeling that.  BUT — When Aniboom announced “The People Speak” contest, I was intrigued, especially with some of the speeches chosen and some the actors that read the speeches, people like Morgan Freeman, David Strathairn and Marisa Tomei.

Here’s the Wild Card winner.

David Chen, a young animator from Canada was the grand prize winner. Deservedly so.

This final version is a little more polished than the original submission, but has the same charm and sense of humor.

I ain’t gonna lie. I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to animation. But I’m fascinated with it and energized and inspired by it. If I keep working it can only get better. In the mean time, I say when it comes to these contest, don’t take them too seriously. If I were an experienced pro, I don’t think I would bother. But for those of us who are just putting our toes in the water, I don’t think it can hurt, as long as we understand that winning a contest like Animboom doesn’t justify a career in animation, only hard work will do that.

Not sure why I decided to spend the time doing this satire on a stupid subject that has already grown tired, but I felt compelled for some reason. What bugs me about Woods is the mega corporate kingdom that surrounds him. Dave Zirin from “Edge of Sports” sums it up for me in this article.

• In 2008, Chevron entered a five-year relationship with Tiger Woods’ foundation under the guise of philanthropy. But if Woods had a shred of social conscience, this partnership would never have existed. Lawsuits have been issued against Chevron for dumping toxic waste all over the planet. Alaska, Canada, Brazil, Angola and California have all accused Chevron of dumping. Even worse, Chevron has a partnership with Burma’s ruling military junta on the country’s Yadana gas pipeline project, the single greatest source of revenue for the military, estimated at nearly $5 billion since the year 2000.
• Then there is Dubai, the site of the first Tiger Woods-designed golf course. Located at the southern coast of the Persian Gulf, Dubai has been a symbol of both economic excess, and most recently, economic collapse. It has been called an “adult Disneyland”–complete with indoor ski resorts and unspeakable human rights violations. As Johann Hari wrote in The Independent, it is a city that has been built over the last thirty years by slave labor. Paid foreign laborers work in more than 100-degree heat for less than three dollars a day. Dubai also has a reputation as ground zero of the global sex trade. The Tiger Woods Golf Course cost $100 million and Woods said nary a word about his benefactor’s business practices. This is business as usual for Tiger who would sooner swallow a five-iron than take anything resembling a political stand.

It’s weird. Tiger, as a man of color, has probably done a lot for race relations in America by simply playing golf. I understand there are some private clubs that are still “White’s Only”. (how they manage that I’m not sure) but I’ve never gotten the impression that breaking through racial barriers was high on Tiger Woods’ list. Unlike Jackie Robinson and Ali, Tiger has had the privilege of not having to fight that fight. And so he can just play golf… and build 100 million dollar golf resorts in Dubia where he doesn’t have to pay any taxes.

About a year ago I recorded the voice work for my animated short “Whatever Happened to Robin the Boy Wonder?”. It’s a seven minute piece done in ToonBoom 4.5 . It’s taken a year to get this far because of time, not effort. When I’ve had the time, I’ve put the work in. But man, you can work on an animated project for several hours, and only get the basics of some action down or maybe some movement or the blocking of a scene. Then when you play it back you discover it needs more work, or the timing is off, or there are some blemishes that need to be cleaned up. The closer I get to finishing this thing, the farther away it gets from me.

When I watch the cut I realize how much more performance I have to put into the characters to give them more life, including tighter lip syncing, body gestures, eye blinks, head gestures,  and perhaps some more drawings that have to be done, and more rigging so I can get the performance that i want. The next thing I notice is timing. There are scenes that drag and awkward shots and cuts that need to be corrected. Then there’s the sound. Once I get the voices in, there’s the special FX and then music. The GF works at a professional recording studio and some of her co-workers have said they would help out. I might just take them up on it when it comes to the background effects and music. A great soundtrack would lift the value of the short way, way up.I also have to have the actors record a few more sounds for the characters. Things like screaming. Anyway, first things first. Work on the performances. Lip syncing. Expression. Gestures. Timing. All in all, I’m pretty happy with it. I’ve learned an incredible amount. But what trips me out is how much more I have to learn about the process. But that’s the adventure. That’s the fun part. Right?

And then there’s “Be Your Own Boss”. They’ve barely been up a year and they receive as many hits if not more than some of the more “prominent” Internet cartoon networks. The piece below generated over 300, 000 hits in one month. Except for Jib Jab, I don’t see any of the top players getting those kind of hits on YouTube. But these kids are!

BYOB have two things going for them. One: they’re funny. A little Rob Smigel, a little South Park, and some Boondocks thrown in. Two: they target a specific audience. It made me think of BadAzz MoFo’s recent article on black comic book heroes. For some reason, industry execs don’t feel they can make money off heroes of color or garner any interest. Now I’m thinking that animation insiders and execs feel the same about cartoons. Well, maybe that’s because they’re not thinking of the right audience to target. The artists at BYOB have proven there’s a huge audience for what they’re doing. These kids are writing what they know, and sharing it with peers who are interested in what they’re interested in, Hip Hop.

The name of they’re studio says it all. Be Your Own Boss.

Damn straight.