leonardo

Leonardo DVD Now Available at ACW Store!

2010-12-08T22:44:00.000-08:00

The Leonardo DVD - LEONARDO: The Complete Codex is here!

Unlike other DVD's The Complete Codex is virtually a little animation course of it's own. The DVD contains a lot of goodies to instruct and inspire you to go out and make your own short and give you a little insight into Leonardo da VInci.

Leonardo: the complete codex

4 commentaries to listen to with 4 versions of the short; providing an insight into the development and final version of 'Leonardo'
Extensive art galleries illustrating the evolution of the character of Leonardo and the look of the film
Deleted scenes
Promotional materials
Leonardo's Workshop; a look at the Leonardo da Vinci's inventions used in the film.
Also a Flipbook, your own notebook and a pencil
Environmentally friendly packaging, printed with non-toxic dyes.

GO TO STORE!!

But First! Next week Leonardo shows at Savannah

2010-10-30T15:08:00.000-07:00

'Leonardo' is showing at the Savannah Film Festival

Sunday Oct 31 2:30pm
and again (and I will be in attendance) Thurs. Nov. 4th 9:30 am

come check it out if you can.
info

Leonardo at CTN-X 2010 this year!

2010-10-30T15:02:00.000-07:00

Hey all I will be giving a talk about making the short film after hours at CTN-X 2010 in November. What I learned making it, basically cribbing, expanding, upon my blog posts. I will also have a table and yes I will be selling the DVD Leonardo: the complete codex exclusively at CTN-X.

Here is the info on the talk here and the expo itself

Hope to see you there!

Leonardo DVD on the way!

2010-09-08T16:11:00.000-07:00

First Views of packaging of Leonardo: the complete codex DVD

DVD coming soon!!

Leonardo showing tonight in Seattle in front of Ready, Set, Bag!

2010-08-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

Starting today and through next week Leonardo shows in front of Ready, Set, Bag! the documentary Craig Foster and I animated a short segment called "How to be a Good Bagger" for. If you live up in Seattle check out the two films at the Central Cinema - you won't be disappointed.

Article on the showing
Central Cinema

2 Golden Gate Awards for Leonardo!

2010-05-06T12:03:00.000-07:00

Leo took home the award for Best Film for Children and Families as well as 2nd place in Bay Area Short Film yesterday at the 53 San Francisco International Film Festival Golden Gate Awards. The first time a film has walked away with an award from two categories! Thanks to all who have supported and contributed to the old fellow!

LEONARDO online until April 26th!

2010-04-12T22:04:00.000-07:00

Watch and VOTE Leonardo

Fans of Leo! Just in time for Leonardo da Vinci's birthday and Da Vinci Day! For a limited time you can see and VOTE for Leonardo, yes the entire short, online at Indieflix as part of the Palm Beach Film Festival. By far, not the best way to see it but if you let it load all the way and turn up the sound it should play pretty well. And be sure to VOTE for the old man and leave a review on the site. Pass it on! Hurry voting closes April 26th

Watch and VOTE Leonardo

Thoughts after making a film #2: Credits - check the spelling!

2010-04-05T22:59:00.000-07:00

The main thing I want to say about credits is that you should check, double check, quintuple check, check, check, check the spelling of your credits. This may seem a no brainer but as you are reaching the finish line, with a million tiny little and not so tiny little fires to put out, credits are, often times, the last thing the filmmaker is thinking about but they are as important as anything else in the film. I say this because they are a sign of respect for those who worked on the film and this could be the only payment your crew is getting. A credit and the experience, which may be significant to them. Most importantly, make sure you ask each individual on your crew how they want their name to appear. Some people like to be formal about this although you may know them as Squiggy or Little Jim or even Bob they may surprise you and want to use their given name of Robert J. Periwinkle IV or something. Now, if you did the proper legal thing and had your crew sign work for hire waivers when they started, because, unitl you do anyone who works for you owns their work. You should have them put down the credit they would like on the form. Then when you are putting the credit list together double check with them the spelling and the way they want their name.

The other thing to check is the spelling of the department names. Believe me this will save you much, much money and head ache. I am perhaps the worst speller in the world. Actually, the second worst. Leo's Art Director, Craig Foster, is the worst. So we were doomed. If Adobe would only put a spell check in Photoshop I might have saved something like 500 dollars and a lot of frustration. You see, when we went to film and sent all the film resoultion tiff files up to the lab, Alpha Cine in Seattle, they noticed the credit headers Sculptor and a couple of others were spelled wrong. This was my fault totally. I had concentrated so much on the peoples' names I didn't think of the headers. No one had noticed up until this point, even though the film had shown publicly several times before this. Shows you how much people read the credits. So now, just when I thought we were done, I was faced with a decision. Fix them or do nothing. To fix them, I would need to re-output the credits (after fixing the spelling of course) which was not an easy thing to do given Craig's schedule, color correction and the fact that I was traveling with my family when all this went down. I would also have to buy another hard drive to send these enormous files to the lab. A couple of hundred bucks plus fedex. The other option - to do nothing. Well, no one had noticed to that point, Leonardo da Vinci himself was a bad speller, and maybe it would be part of the charm of the piece. Of course none of these arguments holds any water, just the ramblings of a lunatic wanting to finish his film. So fix the credits we did. An expensive and embarrasing mistake that I pass on to you to learn from and avoid.

FREE ground shipping at the Leostore!

2010-04-05T22:11:00.000-07:00

Great chance to save money when buying Leonardo swag. Coffee cups,
T-shirts, 2010 calendars (last chance), tote bag, baby clothes. -
With FREE GROUND SHIPPING!
Hurry! Use: GROUNDSHIP15

by Thursday April 8, 2010 at 11:59pm PT

Go to the Leonardo store!!

Sale at Zazzle ends Monday

2010-02-25T10:58:00.000-08:00

If you've been interested in some Leonardo stuff - t-shirts, mugs - Zazzle is having a sale until monday. Click here to go to Store

Leonardo showing tonight in Jacksonville, FL.

2010-02-24T15:46:00.000-08:00

As part of a sneak peak of the upcoming Citrus Cel 2010 Film Festival - April 9th to 11th - Leonardo is playing with an Oscar nominated shorts program in Jacksonville, FL. For show time and more info click here

Dates for Leonardo at da Vinci Film Fest.

2010-02-15T19:56:00.000-08:00

The dates and times are now posted. The old man shows three times!

Leonardo showing at the da Vinci Film Festival in March

2010-02-08T09:52:00.000-08:00

I think there would have been great disappointment if the old man couldn't show here at the da Vinci Film Festival. Haven't gotten the word yet what days and times but will let you know. I am hoping to go.

btw you can follow Leonardo now on twitter at ~ leoanimation
also Aerial Contrivance Workshop at ~ the_contrivance

Thoughts after making a film #1: Will it ever end?

2010-02-07T10:23:00.000-08:00

The final end run of making a movie is probably the hardest part of making a film. It seems that if anything can go wrong it will. Maybe it's because you now have a more concrete goal you are heading toward. Things that you could of leisurely fixed before you now have no time for.

About this time last year I thought I would be done with Leonardo. The big plan was to finish the film to send to Annecy. That was my goal and where I hoped Leonardo would premiere. So first Craig Foster and I pushed to assemble the film for a test screening at 2009 BAICFF in January, in which it played great. Then we had a few more weeks to finish it up to meet the Annecy deadline. It turns out with festivals that your film doesn't have to be completely finished to be sent for consideration at a film festival. Which was a good thing because my estimate turned out to be totally off. Well, first of all Craig had his own work to do and was squeezing this in much like I had done for 10 years. The other thing was we were still playing a bit with the final look. We both underestimated the complexity of putting together all these elements. Not to mention sound! Dave Slusser after 10 years of patently waiting for me to be ready for him to start his sound design work could now start. Dave did a rough pass for our BAICFF goal but then needed much more time to do all the sound design for the final version. He too was fitting this in when he could. We made the Annecy deadline with a "Work in Progress" version of the film. Wether this hurt Leo's chances of being accepted I will never know. In the end, the big goal I had to premiere at Annecy did not materialize but Annecy's rejection was also a blessing. The only other festival I applied to at that time was Newport R.I. this was because the previous year I had shown Your Friend the Rat there and knew the head of the children's programing Andrea Van Beuren. Andrea had just happened to call me looking to see if Pixar had any films, I told her I could connect her to the right people but if she was interested I had my own short. So Leonardo would premiere at a smallish film festival in the North East. Not the big splash I was hoping for at the most prestigious animation festival, but little did I know what was going to come out of Newport. But that is a later story. Now, Craig, David and Jennifer Chang (handling the final backgrounds) and myself had until May to finish the film and we used up all that time. I don't know how we would of finished it if we didn't have those extra months. My advice would be to budget in at least twice as much time as you think you will need to finish your film. Don't under estimate the amount of work that goes into polishing up, little tiny fixes, sound design, final editing, mistakes, not wanting to finish, and final output will take.

Leonardo to play in front of Secret of Kells at SBIFF

2010-02-06T02:00:00.000-08:00

Leonardo will screen in front of the Academy Award Nominated Secret of Kells Saturday 10:15 Am at the Metro as well as Sunday time TBA at the 25th Santa Barbara Film Festival. We thank Candace and the festival staff as well as Tomm Moore for making this awesome combination a reality.

Leonardo showing at the 25th Santa Barbara Film Festival

2010-02-04T18:06:00.000-08:00

Leonardo shows 10 pm Friday 2/5 and 10:15 pm Monday 2/8 at the Metro 4
buy thickets here:http://sbiff.org/main/

Leonardo showing at BAICFF again JAN23 and 24

2010-01-11T22:18:00.000-08:00

Once again Leonardo will be shown at the Bay Area International Children's Film Festival, this time finished. Last year Leonardo got a very warm welcome from a packed theater on the old Alameda Navel Airbase. Once again the old man will play along with my new short done through Aerial Contrivance and Super Machine Studios called Revisiting Apollo #1: Apollo 15.

Being one of the founders of the festival and kind of the scout looking for films I can tell you we have some amazing films to show. Some new some old. Which is the way we like to structure the festival. It is not about what is the hip current film to see in the festivals but about films that expand a child's interest and understanding of cultures, the arts, the world. Some highlights are Philip Hunt's Lost and Found. The Man Who Planted Trees. The Danish Poet. New Boy. Monk and the Fish. Mutt. And some charming, smart children's programing from Aardman - Shaun the Sheep and the as yet to be seen in the US Timmy Time. Also animation from the amazingly inventive Misseri Studios in Florence Italy. They actually animate with water folks.

In addition to the films the festival is offering an awesome opportunity for kids to animate with clay. We are offering an animation workshop taught by Valerie LePointe and Matt Luhn of Pixar. In which kids get to animate with an actual professional clay puppet made by Valerie's sister, a Gumby modeler and get to keep their character. I am telling you if you have kids 7 and up and you live in the Bay Area don't miss this workshop.

the festival is January 23rd and 24th. More info and tickets at BAICFF.com

Thoughts after making a film

2010-01-11T21:46:00.000-08:00

So, I have been thinking of the past year, and man what a year it has been. I have met so many interesting, wonderful filmmakers and artists. Been to several cities I didn't expect to go to and had some experiences I never thought finishing a film would lead to. Much like the conclusion of 'Leonardo' (if you've seen the film you know what I mean) you never know how one thing will lead to another. Over the next couple of days I plan to post some thoughts and lessons I learned from finishing my film. A sort of coda to last years posts about making Leonardo. These posts will be more about the immediate after shock. The busy never ending PR of filmmaking. The boring, none creative, necessary, in the end rewarding stuff, of getting your film out there where it can do some good, growing into adulthood, leaving the nest. I don't really think there are ten in this list, maybe half that, but let's see.

flying over the alps on my way to I Castelli Animati film festival in Genzano near Rome, Italy

Leonardo Model Sheet Calendar on sale NOW!

2009-12-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

Just in time for the new year! A calendar of the animation model sheets used in making the short. All drawn by myself in preparation to launching production. Designed to communicate Leonardo's design and movement to the animators they are an insight into the process of making an animated film. These have never before been published.

buy your calendar and other Leo stuff at Leonardo's Swag Store

HAPPY HOLIDAYS !
- JIM

walking buoys

2009-12-08T22:56:00.000-08:00

spelling was never my metier

Leonardo to screen theatrically with Ready, Set, Bag!

2009-10-30T12:09:00.000-07:00

Starting next week for an initial Bay Area run Leonardo will be screening in front of the great feel good documentary Ready, Set, Bag! (formally Paper or Plastic?) . See the trailer here!

You'll also see Aerial Contrivance's little animation short How to be a Good Bagger with in the film.

Screening Info below:

Join us for the theatrical tour kick off of Ready, Set, Bag!
in the SF Bay Area next week:

Tues. Nov. 3rd at 7pm - Rialto Cinemas Elmwood (Berkeley)

Wed. Nov. 4th at 7pm - Rialto Cinemas Elmwood (Berkeley)

Thur. Nov. 5th at 7pm - Rialto Cinemas Cerrito (El Cerrito)

Thurs. Nov. 19th at 7pm - Roxie Theater (San Francisco)

As part of our release here in the Bay Area and across the
country, we are partnering with the local food banks to raise
awareness, food, and money for them in this much needed time.

You'll get $1 off the ticket purchase for bringing in 2 or more
cans and 50 cents off popcorn. This discount is sponsored by
The Mechanics Bank and the Theaters and for each ticket
purchased, the Mechanics Bank is also giving $1 to the food bank.

Your purchase will make a difference!

Q&A after the film with the directors and special guests from the film.

We are also thrilled to announce that we will be showing oscar
nominated Jim Capobianco's new beautiful short film, 'Leonardo',
before our film. 'Leonardo' is doing the festival circuit and
recently played at Telluride. You can view a trailer and find
out more about the short at http://www.aerialcontrivanceworkshop.com/

Please forward the information and invite your friends, families and
coworkers to join you at the screenings.

Thank you and hope to see you there.

Justine

Keep an eye out for this very awesome package coming to a theater near you.

Leonardo showing today at Imagine Science Film Festival

2009-10-18T08:22:00.000-07:00

Leonardo plays today in the New York City region at NY Hall of Science as part of the Imagine Science Film Festival

MAP

Leonardo to screen for Oscar qualification

2009-09-16T12:46:00.000-07:00

'Leonardo' is screening for Oscar qualification this weekend at the Sunset 5 in Los Angles.

Show times are 11:45AM and 12:25PM on the 18th, 19th and 20th.

This is a rare chance to see the film outside a film festival. It is on 35mm with a lovely dolby 5.1 mix. The old fellow is playing with two other qualifying shorts 'Birthday Gift' (animated) and 'After Tomorrow' (Live Action). I don't know what those films are about or anything about them.

Hope you can make it. I am going to be there for the Sunday shows.

Leonardo at Telluride!

2009-09-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

Sorry this post took awhile to put up. The Telluride Film Festival doesn't let the filmmakers announce that their films are screening until they release the schedule which is the first day of the festival! Any way Leo played at beautiful Telluride over labor day weekend three times and to a very receptive crowd. The festival is a truly unique experience all about the love of movies and not so much the business or the glitz. I am very grateful for the opportunity.

some pics:

the projection booth of the outside theater at Telluride

Leonardo showed at the Chuck Jones cinema. Again another honor. (photo by james cunningham, my roommate at the fest. and director of 'Poppy' another short playing at the festival.)

Interview with YFtR animator Bob Scott about his comic strip ~

2009-08-24T23:17:00.001-07:00

at the Libro di Bottega the Aerial Contrivance blog

Paper or Plastic and "How to Be a Good Bagger" in LA

2009-08-05T16:53:00.000-07:00

Another chance to see the awesome feel good documentary - Paper or Plastic . My compatriot Craig Foster and I did a little animation on is playing down LA this saturday. It is a wonderful documentary about the grocery bagging competition held every year in Las Vegas. We did about a 3 min segment called "How to be a Good Bagger" . Check it out if you have a time on Saturday.

site and trailer

Info about the screening -
This Saturday, Paper or Plastic? on the big screen at the historic
Egyptian Theater at the Feel Good Film Festival.

Saturday, August 8th at 1pm
Egyptian Theater
6712 Hollywood Blvd.

Advance ticket purchases are available at:
Brown Paper Tickets

And if you have not done so already,
join the Facebook fan page for updates about screenings
and soon to be added additional clips

Leo showing in Rhode Island again!

2009-07-23T23:38:00.000-07:00

Leo is going to screen at the Rhode Island International FIlm Festival on Friday Aug.7th at 10 am for more info and to buy tickets you can go here:http://riff.bside.com/2009/films/leonardo_riff2009

Be sure to vote for Leo to win best short film. RIIFF is an oscar qualifying festival and it will save me the time having to screen the film in Los Angeles to qualify.

Announcing the Aerial Contrivance Workshop website

2009-06-22T13:07:00.000-07:00

If you have seen the Leonardo trailer or the short you would have seen this logo. This is my extra-curricular identity. Now there is a website aerialcontrivanceworkshop.com. Here you will find information on other projects, a link to the zazzle shop, free stuff, a blog called the Libro de Botttega. The blog will eventually be a dialogue of sorts about animation film making, art, music and history. Eventually I will fold the Leonardo blog, which will purely become only about Leonardo, into the Libro de Bottega but I'll let you know when that happens. I hope to grow the website into something but for now it is a shingle over the door. Let me know what you think and sign up for the newsletter to stay in the know.

Leo Posters! and Next Up: Palm Springs Short Fest

2009-06-17T16:20:00.000-07:00

Leonardo One Sheet art by Valentin Fischer

These posters were done for me by a great, young German illustrator Valentin Fischer. Check out his blog to see some other cool work. I especially love the Polish film poster looking one at the top! And the bottom one says it all.

ALSO! LEO getting a tan in PALM SPRINGS!

Leonardo is playing as part of the Palm Springs International Short FIlm Festival. You can see the old man next Wednesday the 24th at 7pm as part of the Art Attack! program. Purchase tickets HERE!

Bay Area International Children's Film Festival

2009-06-16T11:28:00.001-07:00

Once again we are getting the Bay Area International Children's Film Festival up and running. we are currently looking for submissions. there is no fee we are just looking for films - animated and live action - that are awesome and appropriate for children 4 and up.

Bay Area International Children's Film Festival Home

Shared via AddThis

Leonardo Shows at Newport

2009-06-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

All week I have been showing Leonardo to school kids at the Newport Film Festival! At least 700 probably more saw the film during the week and the reaction has been overwhelming. Sunday the film showed to the public amongst some really excellent shorts for 6 yrs and up. Zoologic by fellow calartian Nicole Mitchell, Seven Days a Weekby They Might be Giants were a couple of the others. The Newport Film Festival staff and volunteers were awesome. Mike at the Jane Pickens theater made sure Leo sounded good and Leo looked great up on the big screen. I met great people and had a lot of fun. If your a filmmaker or love films you should defiantly check out the NIFF festival next year!

Leonardo Trailer

2009-06-03T10:57:00.000-07:00

Leonardo Trailer from jim Capobianco on Vimeo.

Leonardo final color correction

2009-05-31T16:44:00.001-07:00

final color correction

on may 22nd 2009, color master David Lortsher and I wrestled gamma output problems and unruly tiff sequences into a final color correction and Leonardo is now finished. Thank You all for your support and good will.

Leonardo at Newport

2009-05-31T13:49:00.000-07:00

Leonardo is showing one week from today at the Newport Rhode Island Film Festival in the Shorts for Children 6 and Over program. 10:30 am at the lovely Jane Pickens Theater. I'll be there showing off the dear ole' fella in all his glory. Try to check back i, I am going to attempt to keep this blog updated as Leo gets out there in the world.

I'll post the other festivals Leonardo is screening in so far in the next few days.

Let's Do Nothing!

2009-05-11T10:50:00.000-07:00

My good pal and animation legend, Tony Fucile has a new children's book and it goes on sale tomorrow! Run..er..click...don't walk to Amazon or where ever books are sold to buy Let's Do Nothing!

He even created a trailer. So awesome!

tony on applying animation to making the book -

"Making this book was kind of like animating, but without
the in-betweens. In an animation shot, we call it the “storytelling
pose”— the single visual idea that must be conveyed to the audience,
to connect them with what you’re trying to communicate. When you
animate, you usually begin with that dominant pose or poses in mind.
Let’s Do Nothing! is really a series of key animation storytelling poses.
It scratches that animator itch in me that I’m afraid will never go away."

More of this interview and other stuff here at Candlewick Press

congratulations Tony!

Da Vinci Day!

2009-04-15T16:31:00.000-07:00

the man

my silly version of the old guy

I got a comment today on an old post for leonardo's b-day calling today DaVinci Day! I am all for it. It came from tina at petermanseye travel blog I am ready to pickup the torch. Perhaps every April 15th instead of bemoaning taxes we celebrate that curious spark in all of us. Go out and investigate something you have always wondered about. Look underneath a rock. Climb on top of a table to get a new perspective on your room. Draw. Write all day with your opposite hand. Write backwards. I don't know shake it up a bit.

happy 557th Leonardo! and happy Da Vinci day everyone!

Ouch..so true

2009-03-17T15:34:00.001-07:00

Check this out Notes on a Frog

Denis McGrath wrote this brilliant send up of what we deal with all the time with executives. It hit me in the gut for a moment to believe One Froggy Evening wouldn't exist if it were made today. Thankfully Chuck and the gang figured away around the executives at Warners and for the most part from what I've read and gathered from interviews the executives didn't care what the Warner directors did as long as it was 6 minutes and on budget. That's the way to do it.

and the Oscar goes to...

2009-02-22T16:41:00.000-08:00

the van gogh bird from Wall-E end credits. Art by John Lee, Animated by Kristophe Vergne, character paint Willy Hwang © disney/pixar

I second this notion of a Best Achievement in Film Title Design becoming a category at the Oscars. It seems like every other film lately has an interesting title sequence or end credit sequence. In an Op-ed today in the New York Times, Emily Oberman and Bonnie Siegler, co-founders of the design firm Number 17 not only propose this new category but also nominate the Wall-E end credits for just such an honor.

check out the article here; Credit Where Credits Are Due

also a nice write up here at The Pixar Blog

The preview screening at BAICFF

2009-02-01T13:33:00.000-08:00

a young fan, Katie Kavanaugh the founder of Screen 360 and Jim Capobianco at the BAICFF

Well old Leo got through his first public unveiling last week. With flying colors lets say. The film screened with a rough sound pass, missing animation, see through characters and unfinished color but the audience did not seem to care. Little Leo filled the Auctions By the Bay theater, about 400 seats, and probably half were children. Good laughs, rapt attention and overall generous good will. I even had some great, difficult questions from the kids, "How do you get the drawings onto the screen?" "How do you make the drawings move?" If any one has suggestions on how to tell a 4 year old how to animate in about a minute send them my way. I want to thank my little crew for getting the film to this stage. I also want to thank my fellow organizers of the festival, the Renaissance School and Screen 360. Next the submission to Annecy!

more to come..

ONCE AGAIN See Leo this weekend in SF Bay Area

2009-01-23T10:53:00.000-08:00

BUY TICKETS HERE
Still time to buy tickets online to see a rough cut preview of Leonardo screening tomorrow at 1 PM at the Bay Area International Children's FIlm Festival (BAICFF) in Alameda, CA. Complete with unfinished sound, color all over the place, a few broken bits here and there and all the dirty laundry that is a work in progress. But it is way way further along then any of you saw at the 2D Animation Expo Jerry and Amid put together a few years back. There will also be a Q and A after.

Also Screening, and believe me your not going to want to miss this is -

Andy Jimenez's Live action film debut - 'Calendar Confloption'

Andy will also be there giving a Q and A and showing a making of Calendar Conflop.

You also can see some great shorts from other Pixar artists as well as other films from around the world.

It's one price - 10 bucks - and you can watch films all day. How cool is that!

BUY TICKETS HERE

see you there!

scan no more

2009-01-20T18:41:00.000-08:00

drawing 302 from sc. 12.01 the last scene to be scanned in.

today at 12:50 am the last complete scene from Leonardo was done being scanned into the computer. this was all scanned in by hand folks. one drawing at a time....

10 things I've learned in making a short film: # 10

2009-01-13T23:47:00.000-08:00

close to finish frame from "Leonardo" color isn't correct yet blah blah blah

10) Perfection doesn't exist
Get it out of your head that your film has to be perfect. No matter what you do it won't be. So stop stopping yourself from continuing because it isn't perfect or that you don't have the perfect idea. There is no such thing. When you really look at great animated stuff most of it is very crude and flawed in some way. Charlie Brown's Christmas, the Looney Tunes shorts, the Grinch, the great Rankin and Bass stuff, (can you tell Christmas just passed) all have imperfections and they all stay the test of time. The thing that they have is that they are authentic. The good stuff comes from the right place and people took a chance. Film is a communal art, a dialogue, and it needs an audience to be completed. People often hide behind the perfection excuse because they are afraid of what others are going to think. Who cares. Look if you are making a short and actually finishing it, you are doing something not many people do. So you can think to yourself (or say to them) "Well what the hell have you've done. " It is a scary thing to be creative, to put your thoughts out there, your talent judged. But to be honest it isn't your problem what people think, it's theirs. Of course you want people to like your stuff and if no one likes it then you might want to investigate why. But do it in another film. This is the beauty of thinking long term, many films. Play. Make mistakes. Learn.

Well good luck, have fun!

I leave you with this quote I got while writing these posts. It is from another Jim: ( I didn't get it from this Jim but someone forwarded to me )

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from - it’s where you take them to.

—Jim Jarmusch

10 things I've learned in making a short film: # 9

2009-01-12T15:32:00.000-08:00

9) Keep it Simple
If I had to do it all over again I probably wouldn't make a fully animated, hand drawn, 8 minute short. A nice 4 minute short done in a designy limited style feels good to me right now. I never expected it would take me 10 years to make the film. This isn't to say that in the end I regret doing it. It is good to be naive. I read once that when you make a film make it as if you are 16. You don't know any better and you have all the energy of a 16 year old. But wisdom is important too and in that 10 year time I could have made more films if I set out with a simpler form of animation. I could have told more stories and made more mistakes. So, especially to those in school and to those perpetual learners out there don't bite off too much. In other words a doable idea. Try to come up with an idea that fits into your lifestyle with very minimal impact. Not the next Toy Story or Lawrence of Arabia. Citizen Kane or Princess Mononoke. The idea is to make many films, learn from them, and hopefully not just one film. So you don't have to put everything into this one masterpiece.

tomorrow:

10) Perfection doesn't exist

That's another thing, get it out of your head that your film has to be perfect.

10 things I've learned in making a short film: # 8

2009-01-09T10:56:00.000-08:00

8) Economical Thinking

You want to get your short done. So you need to look at your talents, ability to attract other help, finances, time, lifestyle, work habits seriously. Then plan your film to take those factors into account. Of course you want to stretch yourself and others creatively but you also want to be realistic so as to finish the film. Even though Leonardo is 8 minutes and fully animated there are things I did in Leo to be economical. There is no dialogue. So, no need to record voice actors and all that entails and no need to animate lip sync. The backgrounds are kept to a minimum. There is no clean up animation, the animation is left in a rough tie-down fashion that better relates to da Vinci's sketchbooks. Some animation is very rough. This may not work for you, the subject matter dictated this for me. All my planning was done in the story reel which changed very little when animated. Because of these things I actually haven't had to pay for much to make the film and I have been able to get it done largely on my own.

Monday:

9) Keep it Simple

If I had to do it all over again I probably wouldn't make a fully animated, hand drawn, 8 minute short.

10 things I've learned in making a short film: # 7

2009-01-08T08:24:00.000-08:00

7) Utilize what you have

This can also be termed "Use what you know." Supposedly if a shark stops swimming/moving it dies. That's what you need to do keep moving, don't die. Basically if you need to make a film then get out there and make a film and don't let anything get in your way. If you don't know how to animate then shoot a live action short. If you don't have a pencil test system don't let that stop you. For two years I scanned drawings in and timed them in Adobe Premiere (which took forever ) until I found a pencil test I could afford. Today you can animate right into your computer with toon boom and tv paint. If you can't afford those, animate with clay or cut outs or found objects with istop motion it is super cheap. There are ways, be creative. You'll find as you make your thing other opportunities will pop up. Also start from what you know. I knew about 2-D hand drawn animation, I wasn't about to tackle a computer animated animation project to tell my story or even flash animation. I would have to take some time to learn those things. ( If thats the ubergoal of your film to learn a new program or way of animation then that is what you do.) My ubergoal was to see if I could make a film on my own. So 2D and storyboarding is what I knew. I actually only knew I could storyboard so I could start there but the key is I was willing to learn and do the other stuff as needed. Nothing was going to stop me and nothing should stop you. Nothing stopped da Vinci.

tomorrow:

8) Economical Thinking

This should be part of your planning.

Sneak Peek of Leonardo at BAICFF

2009-01-07T11:57:00.000-08:00

If you happen to be in the Bay Area on Jan 24th you are in luck. Come see a very near complete "Leonardo" at the Bay Area International Children's Film Festival. Also screening are two of Tim Hittle's films, "Potato Hunter" and the rarely seen Academy Award nominated "Can Head", some other great cartoons from fellow Pixarians and something you won't want to miss - The debut of Andy Jimenez's (One Man Band, academy award nominee) first Live-Action short film.

Bring the Kids and spend the day watching films!

BAICFF - A Play Date for Your Imagination

10 things I've learned in making a short film: # 6

2009-01-07T11:46:00.000-08:00

6) It has to be a hobby you love

Here we come back to the Why Goal? It has taken me 10 + years to make Leonardo. During that time people have asked me if I am tired of it or impressed that I have stuck it out. I tell them, "Some people love to go fishing, I work on my short." It's not the best analogy perhaps since unlike fishing or another hobby there is an ending, at least for the one short. But the point is like a hobby you enjoy the doing of it and not necessarily the end result. Enjoy the process. This isn't to say there aren't frustrations, your line gets tangled, the fish gets away, but on the whole it is a very interesting, challenging, pleasurable thing to do. If this is not the case for you and you would rather spend your vacation, well...fishing, instead of working on a chunk of animation then perhaps making an animated short film isn't for you. Also, if you are more concerned with getting it done and winning the oscar or something then chances are you won't finish it or it will turn out crap. Because it can be a long, tough, lonely slog and I believe you really have to enjoy participating and watching the evolution and maturing of the project. Roll with the failures, thank them for teaching you something and pick yourself up and go again. It has to end though because that too is part of the process of filmmaking. So you also have to cut bait ( i really didn't intend to keep the fishing analogy going this long but roll with it) and move on to a new pond.

These last few lessons are tricks really. When I was growing up my family prided itself with procrastination, "Why do something today if you can put it off to tomorrow" was a familiar familial phrase. So I had to find ways to fake myself out to alter my habits. Now, I can't see living any other way.

tomorrow:

7) Utilize what you have

This can also be termed "Use what you know."

10 things I've learned in making a short film: # 5

2009-01-06T08:30:00.001-08:00

5) Chunks of Time

Now, if I had settled on finishing the film by spending just five minutes everyday on it, I would still be making it 100 years from now. Five minutes is a means to an end, and more psychological then completely practical. Enter the Chunks of Time method. For a few years on Christmas vacation or if I could take a week off or have a long weekend I would set a mini goal (goals again) of "I will complete x by the time I go back to work." This deadline of utilizing a gift of free time became a huge motivator. I looked at it like a challenge. "Can you accomplish that one big thing in 7 days? Watch me!" The important thing here is to pick one thing and focus! Once you finish that one thing, if you still have time, focus on the next thing or enjoy your vacation, you earned it. Singular focus is extremely important so as not to get overwhelmed and to be much more efficient. You'll find stopping and starting ( as invariably will happen if you are making your film on the side) not very efficient. Since you have to factor in time to go back and remember where you left off. By focusing on one task to its completion you'll find you are getting your project done before you even knew it.

tomorrow:

6) It has to be a hobby you love

Here we come back to the Why Goal?

10 things I've learned in making a short film: # 4

2009-01-05T14:23:00.001-08:00

4) 5 minutes a day

I hit upon this idea when I was really down about getting the film done. I don't know, around year five. It occurred to me, and brightened my spirits, that no matter what I do, as long as it is about the film, I am working on the film and getting it that much closer to being done. So I called it 5 minutes a day and I decided I would devote at least 5 minutes everyday to the film. For even if I got one drawing done it was one less drawing I had to do. Even if I ended up throwing that drawing out at some point, for some reason, I would've had to make that drawing anyway to get to the right one. So I began to look at whatever I could accomplish as a teeny tiny victory. I no longer beat myself up over what I couldn't accomplish and instead was satisfied, content, in what I could accomplish.

The other thing about time is you begin to realize how much of it we waste. So the other thing to do is to use every bit of it that you can toward achieving your goal. So if you are waiting in line somewhere think about that scene that is giving you a problem. Put the music or dialogue you are using for the film on a CD and play it in the car, on your ipod. It may inspire some ideas. During lunch at work, jot down some notes, do some sketches, design a character, thumbnail out some animation, do the bills so you'll have time to animate later. You can find the time if you just start looking for it.

tomorrow:

5) Chunks of Time

Now, if I had settled on finishing the film by spending just five minutes everyday on it, I would still be making it 100 years from now.

10 things I've learned in making a short film: # 3

2009-01-03T07:32:00.000-08:00

3) Goals Goals Goals.

Leo off and running with the goal to fly

Without deadlines you will make the film forever. First you should have an overriding goal. an ubergoal, the emotional goal. It should answer the question "Why am I doing this?"

Secondly a completion goal, "In five years I will have the film done to show at Annecy!" Truthfully working on the side, after hours this will double or triple. If this were the Apollo Moon Goal it would be "By the end of this decade we will put a man on the moon and bring him home again." So what date, event, arbitrary or not are you shooting for? Write it down. The first step to achieving any goal is to write it down.

Now you need to breakdown the completion goal into the major events. For the moon mission this would be; learn how to send men to the moon, Gemini program, build the LEM, etc. For animation it could be learn to animate but assuming you know that it would be make a storyreel by a certain date, design characters, begin animation, etc.

This is all still pretty overwhelming so each of the major events, ie Gemini or storyreel, are broken down into very doable little goals leading you to " little victories." During Gemini they had a checklist of things to do to prepare the astronauts and NASA to know they could get to the moon and back. Spacewalk - check. Rendevous and dock with another capsule - Check. Test out the Luner Module (LEM) - Check. By doing this your little victories will build your confidence and momentum not to mention keeping you fired up to get through the long lonley slog of making the thing.

tomorrow:

4) 5 minutes a day
I hit upon this idea when I was really down about getting the film done.

10 things I've learned in making a short film: # 2

2009-01-02T09:56:00.000-08:00

2) Have a plan

Part of the color script. The images were taken from the storyboards.

I can't stress this enough. You have to have a plan for your film. A blueprint. It seems kind of ridiculous to me to think people wouldn't but they don't. Sometimes they think they do and then it goes out the window when the first difficulty or new idea comes along. Plan the project from preliminary drawings to storyboarding to storyreel. Have your camera moves, staging, acting as thought out as possible before you begin animation. It will save you so much time, money and headache down the line. It provides you with a piece of film to show potential help and even investors. You should even use it to solicit feed back. This is very important and you shouldn't be afraid at this stage to get some critique. Show people who you respect their opinion and even show some strangers. Show your mom but she doesn't count. Be careful though, too much input can take the wind out of your sails. If someone doesn't like something always ask them for a reason. You want constructive criticism. Don't get upset, just take it in. Let the notes percolate for a few days, don't react instantly negatively or positively. Things you initially didn't agree with you might like after a few days stewing on them and ideas you initially loved you'll find don't work. Remember, you are the filmmaker. Take strength in that you have the final say. I showed the short to a couple of the big shot directors at work. They had a few notes ( they can't help themselves) but their ideas were just different. You have to watch out for the make it an elephant not a pachyderm suggestions. They didn't make the short better and I was struck by an empowering feeling: where normally I would have to execute their note this was my film and I did not have to. It was my choice.

The Leo maquette, sculpted by Jerome Ranft. The wings fabricated by Ron Smith. These were given to the animators to help with turning the character.

After planning in terms of the storyreel (blueprint) then plan the rest of the film. Organize it like a real production. It actually is and think of it in that way. I made model packets for the animators, reference reels and exposer sheets. I even made maquettes for them. The film was broken up into 60 scenes (shots) and those were grouped into 13 sequences based on location and story point. Each scene was made into a packet with exposer sheet, character layout drawings, a rough BG (if there was one). I calculated how much animation paper we would need and bought it all at once ( I am on the last box now). Files on the computer are organized by sequence and scenes. There are a lot of little things and organization and planning are paramount to keeping your sanity, saving money and actually getting the thing done.

Tomorrow:

3) Goals Goals Goals.
Without deadlines you will make the film forever.

10 things I've learned in making a short film

2009-01-01T12:29:00.000-08:00

It being New Years and all I thought I would throw in with my own top ten list of sorts. It isn't really a top ten but sort of ten suggestions, thoughts or learned things from making an animated independent short. So over the next week and a half I'll dispense with this wisdom for whatever it's worth. Maybe it will help you in your own endeavors. Perhaps, some of you have New Year Resolutioned to make that film finally. Well, I hope this helps.

Starting with - in no order of importance:

1) Those helping you need to get something out of it too.
Perhaps one of the most important lessons I have learned working on Leonardo and working with people in general is that everyone needs to get something from the collaboration. This took me some time to figure out. A friend warned me when I started that no one will deliver if you don't pay them. I thought "Oh no, they will love the project. They will want to do it and besides they're my friends." Well he was right to an extent. What I learned is - You, as the main creator, get the film and all the good ( and the bad ) that comes with that, the artists working for you, if they are going to deliver, need something too. This is often thought of in the form of money but truthfully even when people are paid the really good work comes when they are stretching an old muscle, trying something new and/or being challenged. I see this at work all the time and it was true on Your Friend the Rat. It could be getting a chance to do something they normally wouldn't. Generally it is really hard to get people to work for nothing, on their off hours without some benefit to them. For example my first editor, Chris Vallance, was an editorial assistant he needed something to learn to cut with so I told him I had this short I was storyboarding if he wanted to he could help me make the reel. Chris did and I have him to thank for getting this whole thing rolling and he got experience, something strong for his reel and an eternally grateful friend. So find someone who isn't doing the thing they want to do ( like your not, that maybe why your making your short) and give them a chance to do it.

A side note: It is important to realize no one will care as much for the film as you will. Many people have passed through the corridors of Leo, some have helped and some haven't no matter what good intentions they had. This is to be expected and there is no ill will, you just move on. But you have to be prepared to fill in where others have dropped out or have an alternative plan. For example: I found it hard to get some animators to make multiple changes to their scenes. So I found I would just go in and fix the scenes. I would tell the animator I was doing it of course. They never seemed to mind.

tomorrow:

2) A plan - a storyreel, animatic, lica reel whatever
I can't stress this enough. You have to have a plan for your film. A blueprint.

12.18.8

2008-12-18T13:45:00.000-08:00

i am scanning scanning scanning. just scanned this one in I liked it.

latest with the old man - adolescence

2008-12-06T13:04:00.000-08:00

monk scene IP, a problem compositing the shot. it will get there really it will

the light is appearing at the end of the tunnel. there is no doubt the film will be done this coming year. more then likely with in the first two months. the film is currently in it's pupa or adolescent stage and looking pretty awkward and it's hard not to doubt yourself but i've seen so many films go through this broken, parts strewn on the floor, frankenstinian growth period that i am sure we'll have something appealing in the end. opening up sound files and data from nearly 10 years ago we are finding some surprises in quality not to mention there is a scene done in the last epoch that has gone missing. needless to say late nights, coffee and fretful sleep are the norm now. in other words filmmaking.

2009 Leonardo Calendars

2008-12-03T13:27:00.000-08:00

In honor of the completion of Leonardo in 2009, two calendars! One of animation images from the short and the other of photos showing off the sculpt used as a reference for animation. Hurry! They will only be available for a limited time.

buy unique gifts at Zazzle

the credits

2008-11-26T21:12:00.001-08:00

this painting by van gogh was the inspiration for the last image with eve and wall-e looking at the tree. we knew we wanted to end the cards here. only make it a little greener.

So with the release of the Wall-E DVD this past week I thought I'd say a few things about making the credits. After finishing Your Friend the Rat, Andrew asked me if I wouldn't mind taking on the credits for his film. A great honor for me since Andrew hired me at pixar in '97 and we've had a good time working together since. The idea for the credits, to follow the re-evolution of humanity told through the history of art, was devised by one of our story artists, Kevin O'Brien. I was given the task along with fellow YFtR alums Alex Woo and Scott Morse to figure out how to get all of art history, tell the story of the recolonization of the earth and respect the names of the people who worked on the film all in 2 minutes (+5 for the crawl). The one issue we kept finding was after you knew the humans were going to survive the credits kind of lost steam. So we decided to leave it at survival. They are running around now, they are human proportions again and animals are back. Circling back to the boot seemed like a no brainer.

The credits were exicuted by a pretty small staff. I believe all together including production support we were 12 people. Mostly done in After Effects, by Chris O'Dowd and Alex Woo with a smatering of hand animation by Alex, Bob Scott and Kristophe Vergne. Most of the team had worked on YFtR. John Lee who handled painting all the painterly cards - Turner, Surat, van Gogh blew my mind when he actually pulled off the looks, then Willy Hwang our expert cell painter from YFtR, hand painted the bird (animated by Kristophe Vergne) to match, I knew we had something pretty cool. The 8 bit idea came from Alex and Scott and Scott designed all the characters. It was animted in After Effects by Catherine Kelly. All the text is by Pixar's resident text mavine Susan Bradley. The whole team did a great job and it turned out to be a really fun experience as well as a neat little short in it's own right. Oh and I got to meet Peter Gabriel.

11.25.8

2008-11-25T10:57:00.001-08:00

10.22.8

2008-10-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

10.20.8

2008-10-20T20:31:00.000-07:00

10.16.8

2008-10-16T22:46:00.000-07:00

10.14.8

2008-10-14T11:58:00.001-07:00

10.12.8

2008-10-12T13:13:00.001-07:00

Leo plays the lyre he made for Ludovico the Moor

10.11.8

2008-10-11T08:50:00.001-07:00

Paper or Plastic screenings

2008-10-10T09:46:00.000-07:00

Paper or Plastic is showing at the at the Austin and Heartland Film Festivals starting next week.

Austin Film Festival

Sunday, October 19th at 12:15pm at the Alamo Drafthouse

Thursday, October 23rd at 9pm at Bob Bullock Spirit Theater

Heartland Film Festival – Indianapolis

Saturday, Oct. 18th at 4:30pm and 9:30pm at AMC Castleton Square

Sunday, Oct. 19th at 6:45pm at AMC Greenwood Park

Tuesday, Oct. 21st at 7pm at AMC Greenwood Park

Wed., Oct. 22nd at 1:30pm at UA Circle Centre

Thurs. Oct. 23rd at 8:45pm at UA Circle Centre

also check out PoP's blog!

10.10.8

2008-10-10T09:38:00.001-07:00

10.9.8

2008-10-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

da Vinci exhibit at the Tech

2008-09-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

Get yourself to San Jose and The Tech Museum and check out this awesome exhibit created buy my good friends from the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza in Florence Italy. The models of Leonardo's machines are gorgeous and the media and visuals are overwhelmingly informative. This is the most comprehensive exhibit of Leonardo's work as a scientist and engineer ever in the United Sates. It is only around for four months and it is something that shouldn't be missed. If that weren't enough, there are even two paintings done by Leonardo's students from the Uffizi to see.
go check it out you won't be disappointed!

Oh, and if you find yourself in Florence you have to go to the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza. Located right next to the Uffizi and right on the Arno. It is a great little museum that is like an attic of beautiful scientific instruments. It celebrates the art that is science and engineering and is fantastic. You can even see Galileo's finger!

World Premiere of "Paper or Plastic?" in LA

2008-06-11T06:14:00.000-07:00

Bagger and old lady from "How to be a Good Bagger" produced by flying machine for "Paper or Plastic?" © 2008

Craig Foster and I ceated a short animated segment on a new documentary film called, "Paper or Plastic?", that will be premiering at the 2008 Los Angeles Film Festival on Friday, June 20th at 7:30pm. It is a very good film, with great characters and a fun story. Plus a little silly animation called "How to be a Good Bagger".

Title card from "How to be a Good Bagger" produced by flying machine for "Paper or Plastic?" © 2008

From the directors of the doc:

About excelling in life at whatever you do, "Paper or Plastic?" is
a character-driven documentary feature that follows eight
contestants and their dedicated supporters from around the U.S.
as they get ready for the National Grocery Bagging competition in
Las Vegas. Speed, accuracy and heart will determine who is best
qualified to ask you, "Paper or plastic?"

Check out the trailer here on youtube

Go to the LA Film Festival's web site to get tickets
Friday, June 20th 7:30pm - World Premiere
Sunday, June 22nd 1:30pm
Wednesday, June 25th 4:00pm

Me Pongo las Pilas - "I put on my batteries"

2008-05-22T21:24:00.000-07:00

reach for your freedom

you are great. believe it.

I just did these couple of t-shirt designs for a friend Claudia Madina's website, Me Pongo las Pilas. The literal translation of which is "I put on my batteries" The site is only in spanish because it is an educational and community site for people in the latin american community. Her goal is to help people better themselves, get career and life advice and support. She says the idea of the site is "I get smart, I move on with my life". She also tells me that it is going to be huge! And I believe her, she is just too positive not to believe. Check it out!

Your Friend the Rat in Newport RI

2008-05-22T21:06:00.000-07:00

The little film that could is playing at the Newport International Film Festival on June 7th. I will also give a talk about making it and working at Pixar. So, if you happen to live in the area or want to make the trek come by, I'll give it my best to make it worth the price of admission. I'm not so sure about making it worth the price of gas, that is asking a lot. You can buy tickets here!

Tune in to Toon In!

2008-05-21T16:24:00.000-07:00

Tee Bosustow (son of UPA founder Steve Bosustow ) has started a website Toon in Animation. in which you can listen to podcasts of animation people, past and present talk about our favorite subject. He even got me to blabber on about story and YFTR. He's still working out the bugs but it is a very informative and cool site. Tee is also trying to put together a UPA documentary about his dad and the studio he created.

friends of leo

2008-05-02T21:10:00.000-07:00

okay, i am not much of a blogger. if you still come here you know that to be true. the fact that you just read this is good because that means you came back and are a true friend of leo. and because you came back and read this you know you are a true friend of leo. so with that established let's move on and discuss where this odd old fellow is. well as i have said, many times, he is close to being done but not done. to that end, of getting to the end, i have taken a few months off from the pix. the summer in fact. in addition, three of my very talented co-workers have graciously and selflessly, offered to lend a hand - the awesome robert kondo to handle art direction.

the artistically subtle jennifer chang to finish out the backgrounds.

Both Robert and Jennifer are members of the the early bird painters as well as established artists and designers at Pixar.

and then there is the truly talented pain in my derriere-e-air, craig foster who will pull it all together and then some.

craig is a mild mannered designer and After Effects Artist by day and a political vampire by night. check out his site and build your own protest poster.

check out all their sites and come back soon for some updates on "Leonardo" as well as news about
YFTR and other stuff.

leo at pixar story auction

2008-04-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

leo brought in a few bucks for us pixar story artists.

here are the pieces sold at the show:

and some other none leo pieces that sold as well

bad day

oh well

over hill

rain date

for more info on the auction and to see his awesome pieces check out ronnie del carmen's blog

Your Friend the Rat brings home an Annie!

2008-02-10T20:52:00.000-08:00

What a great honor it is to win this beautiful award from ASIFA. I can't tell you what this means to me. The short is such a love letter to animation that I am so proud it was recognized by the animation community. I speak for the entire YFtR crew when I say.."Thank You". Oh, and Happy Year of The RAT!

Alex Mandel (yftr's composer) and I at UCLA Royce Hall

YFtR to screen in Bologna Italy

2008-01-03T19:23:00.000-08:00

Your Friend the Rat is screening as part of the Future Film Festival in beautiful, sunny Bologna, Italy. This is on Saturday January the 19th at 7 PM. After the screening, I am giving a, hopefully coherent, talk about the making of the short and take questions. So if you find yourself in Bologna come by and say "hey". Also, being shown is Gary Rydstrom's "Lifted" on Thursday the 18th with a talk by Mark Holmes Lifted's production designer.

jim

Your Friend the Rat little golden book

2007-12-26T22:24:00.001-08:00

this is better, and who's that fellow poking over the top?

we were asked during production of Your Friend the Rat to create a little golden book. of course we were overjoyed to do this, joining the ranks of such cool books. the deadline was impossible but luckily the art for the film lent itself to an excellent golden book and we were able to pull it off. So, it is kind of an "art of " book. There are a few facts that didn't make it into the short and two awesome things about the book are - at the back we put some of the music and lyrics to " plan b " the song in the short and in the front we credited all the artists who touched the art work in the book which is not usually the case it seems. if you're looking for an extra post holiday gift or whatever check it out.

lyrics to plan "b": the mars song

2007-11-27T20:55:00.000-08:00

written by james g. dashe and jim capobianco

We'll follow you to Mars
Or wherever you people go...

We rats are right there down below.

We’ve travelled near and far,
With swamis, geisha, thugs and czars
In planes and boats and submarines,
We’ve sailed from Liverpool to Queens.
We’re even in Qatar, or wherever you people go...
We all adore François Truffaut.

Abandon musophobia
And embrace a new utopia:

Butterflies and puppy dogs
Summer evenings, crispy frogs

Imagine if you will a world
Where women, rats
And men and children
Live in peace and harmony,
We’re even holding hands.

We’re dancing through the streets
And singing cabaret songs, ooh la la la
Join with us we’ll make a Human/ratty wonderland.

We’ll help you tie your shoes
When you don’t feel like bending over
And perhaps you’ll take that trap
From out behind the pantry door

We’ll say “Bonjour” and “How’s the family”
When we pass each other on the street
And just like that we won’t be strangers anymore.

So here we go to Mars
With our stories intertwined
And although once you tried to kill us
Now we know that you won’t mind

We’ll journey through the stars
And whatever else may be...

We all hate that lousy flea...
That lousy flea...

music and song in Your Friend the Rat

2007-11-23T20:20:00.000-08:00

The score for Your Friend the Rat was written and preformed by Alex Mandel. Although we did record about seven cues with a real orchestra, Alex did all the rest at his home after hours from his day job at Pixar managing artists like me. You can download some of the cues from his blog. Check out "Why Rats are Cool" with false start and all, I just love it. The music was written as we developed the story reel. I wanted to have original music early on, as opposed to temporary music from other films, so we could animate more closely to it and use it to enhance the sound effects like the old Warner Looney Tunes. Alex did a fantastic job. I would recommend just listening to the short sometime. There is a lot of humor and fun to the music alone. Alex always impressed me with his ideas and his flexibility with my nutty ideas. It was great fun working together.

Alex and one of the cows at Skywalker Ranch. I just love this photo, who knew George had cows.

That's more like it. Alex at the scoreing session.

Jennifer Hammond, Michael Giacchino, myself, Alex Mandel on the Skywalker recording stage. Man was that place beautiful.

song writer james dashe and krissy cababa, who also worked on the film. krissy was probably more instrumental in moving the film through the machine then any of us. we'd still be making the film if it weren't for krissy

plan "b"; the mars song. was written by mr. james g. dashe and the lyrics are by james and myself. james also works at pixar as a mac admin. but unbeknownst to most, well not any more, he is a brilliant pianist and composer. when i first set out with the idea i thought this is educational I have to put a song in here like school house rock. i truthfully never thought it would survive and told james as much when we started, but we both thought, whatever, lets just have fun and do it. neither of us had written a song before and i had no idea if Pete (the voice of emile) or Patton (the voice of remy) could sing. i felt that as long as they could carry a tune then we would be okay. the rattier the better. two brothers just singing away. if it didn't work out i would come up with something else but it did and everyone especially patton and pete gave it their all. i hope they will speak to me again someday. the great Michael Giacchino and his arranger Jennifer Hammond came in toward the end to give the song a final polish and we recorded at Skywalker with an orchestra. i am still pinching myself that i got to do this.

Here I am pinching myself.

rata-two-dee

2007-11-13T22:48:00.001-08:00

YFTR production photos

2007-11-06T09:11:00.000-08:00

With "Your Friend the Rat" out on DVD today I thought I'd post some photos from the making of it.

The rata-two-dee animation corral. Teddy Newton, is at the light table. Located in story alley on the second floor of Pixar, you would walk by the corral and hear that aweome sound of pencils sharping and paper flipping. photo by michael johnson

Ahh paper, Teddy Newton flipping a shot from the end credits. Teddy led the end credits for the feature and then joined the short crew to handle character design and animation layout. I kept telling teddy to design the characters flatter and he told me he had never been given that direction before, to be more designy. photo by michael johnson

Scott Morse painting up a color key for one of the song shots. Scott, along with Nate and Teddy, was the third member of our art triumvirate. He handled backgrounds and helped Nate out with the color keys for the shots. He and Nate decided early on to paint the backgrounds with real media when ever possible. This gave the short a grounded feeling. Scott even used a pancake in one shot. See if you can find it in the short. photo by jim capobianco

Nate Wragg "cleaning up" the animation for the chalkboard shot. This shot was animated on paper by Sarah Mercy. Then we proected it onto a chalkboard, again to give the film a real textured feel. It took a day to do and I am so happy we did this. It came out beautiful and on blu-ray you can really see the dust. photo by jim capobianco

Myself and YFTR production designer Nate Wragg. This film is as much Nate's as it is mine. He really got to shine. When I first met Nate, about a year before this photo was taken, he was an intern working in the hallway. He didn't even have a cubicle to work in. We got to that scary place where we were finishing each others thoughts. The best thing about making the film was making it with Nate and everybody else. photo by krissy cababa

more photos to come...

Your Friend the Rat

2007-10-24T20:12:00.000-07:00

production art by nate wragg (property of disney/pixar)

I always thought "Leonardo" would be my first short. But Pixar and Brad Bird gave me a great opportunity and allowed me to realize a screwy little film idea I had while heading up story on Ratatouille. On November 6th the Ratatouille DVD comes out and you guys out there (if there is anyone still checking this blog) will get to see what has distracted me from Leo for the last year. All those posts in which I said work was keeping me busy well it was because of "Your Friend the Rat" Pixar's first 2-D short! It was a blast to make and I had the privilege to lead a great team who made the film a little gem of animation. I hope you all enjoy it. If you want to see some images from the short check out animated-news and cartoon brew I'll post some photos and stuff soon.

When The Dialogue Ends, The Character Keeps Talking.

2007-07-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

Adam Burke, friend of Leo and a Pixar spline doctor, posted this little animation advice on the spline doctor site. Check it out. http://splinedoctors.blogspot.com/2007/06/when-dialogue-ends-character-keeps.html

Leo - UPDATE

2007-04-07T15:53:00.000-07:00

animation set up with rough layout

Here is where that old fellow is now. I have been very busy at Pixar on an upcoming project that has consumed a lot of my time. But even with the demands of the day job I have been trying to get Leo to the finish line. Animation is done - done. Meaning all the scenes have been animated although some are missing inbetweens, some need to be tied down. I have reassembled the film putting all the animated scenes into the reel taking out all the storyboards. This has given me a good sense of how everything is playing and what is left to do. The next step has been to take a sequence of about 10 shots (about 30 seconds of the film) and take them to completion to work out the final look for the film. To this end I have been scanning all the drawings into my computer. Then using real media and photoshop we have been experimenting to find the final look. This is being led by Robert Kondo, a truly gifted young artist, who's work you will see in Pixar's next film Ratatouille http://www.pixar.com/theater/trailers/rat/index.html. Robert has taken on the Production Design of Leonardo. I'll post some images soon when we get something we like. Our hope is that we have that sequence done by mid June. Once all that is figured out we'll apply what we've learned to all the other sequences, inbetweening and cleaning up as we go. Then it will be done. One driving idea I have always had for the film is that the viewer is aware they are watching drawings move. So to that end we are keeping a lot of the rough animation as is, even leaving on the charts and numbers. These are the animators notes, their doodles. Evoking the sense you are watching a notebook move. It should be very cool.

Runners High on DVD and Paper or Plastic

2007-04-07T15:11:00.000-07:00

My good friends at Jacob Productions are now selling their great documentary RUNNERS HIGH on DVD. Check out the trailer.
This is a true independent production, self distribution and all. The film continues to play around the country and may show up at a marathon near you. Check it out if you get the chance or just buy it. Get your copy now! http://www.runnershighfilm.com

Also check out their next film PAPER or PLASTIC, http://www.paperorplasticmovie.com about the National Bagging competition held every year in Las Vegas. Justine and Alex just completed principle photography and we are currently in story meetings. There is a fair chance you may see a little animation in this one, done by Flying Machine. Look for it in 2008.

storyboarding: initial thoughts

2006-12-09T14:09:00.000-08:00

"Leonardo" went through about three different periods of boarding. The first, dipicted here, consisted of thumbnailing out my first ideas. Just getting something down and out of my head. I did this in my notebook, editing with post-it notes. They are quite a jumble. Looking at them years later even I had trouble figuring out what the hell I meant with all those arrows.

Shown here is an idea for opening the short.
Leo rides his bicycle to a birdseller - Releases a bird the birdseller is trying to sell him, much to the sellers surprise - After paying for the bird Leo chases after it to study it. Enjoy.

doing

2006-11-28T22:07:00.000-08:00

looks concept using a story sketch and original da vinci art

Doing is all that matters. When it comes to making films, following your muse, whatever that thing is you dream up. It is the action of setting out and step by step reaching small goals until you've arrived at that place you never thought you'ld be. It is not about waiting for someone to give you permission or have it handed to you. Those people just want to say "no". It's there job to say "no". Fuck'em! Go out there and do it your way. Anyway you can. This is your life. You only get one. And you have every right to give to the world something wonderful.

i'm not dead, yet. i feel happy!

2006-08-22T22:51:00.000-07:00

thank you to those who keep coming back only to see the same posts. leaving saying, "man, isn't this guy ever going to put something up again." well, like i said in the first post i am trying to get the film done so posts may be few and far. but even though some progress has been made on the short, work work has gotten crazy busy. i've even had to take it home with me. which is family time and leo time. work had to go into the leo time slot and the leo time had to go into the blog and everything else slot, which is a very narrow slot - remember 5 minutes a day, more like 1 minute. but now work is 1/2 crazy and i don't need to take anything home currently. so i will be getting leo done and i will try to post more when i can.

test of possible final look of film. line drawing scanned into photoshop on tea stained paper.

This is just the end of the beginning

2006-05-18T22:57:00.000-07:00

Study of a Virgin and Child with the Infant St. John, and of Heads in Profile and other Figures (detail),c. 1478-1480; Windsor Castle, Royal Library (RL 12276r). © 2005, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Now with rough animation done you may ask - What is next?. Well plenty. I am currently sussing out each scene to see what they need. Some need inbetweens, some need fixes, some are very rough drawings and need to be, what is termed in the (drawn) animation biz - tied down, not necessarily cleaned up. I want to leave the rougher line on these drawings to evoke a sense of da Vinci's sketches and frankly to call attention to the audience that they are watching drawings move. Drawings out of the hand of the artist with all the imperfections and instinct there in. When you think about drawn animation, I mean really think about it, that a film is made up of 1000's of individual sequential drawings, each of which is insignificant on it's own, practically meaningless, but as a whole invoke sorrow and laughter, fear and happiness, thoughtfulness and joy. Man, that is amazing to me.

A drawing from scene 1/2 by Tim Allen. Yes it is just one drawing. But it is rough and I love it. This scene as you can see in the numbers at top is huuuge and Tim did a great job.

a quote to live by

2006-05-01T19:58:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of response to the 5 minutes a day post. It seems to be inspiring artists out there to do their thing and if making this little film can inspire others then that is all the jet fuel I need. Here is something that has kept me going - I have this quote magnetized on my filing cabinet.

"What's to come is first a matter of what one does today, here on this spot. All those footsteps will add up." - Walter Kirn

I don't know if Mr. Kirn is quoting someone else but it doesn't really matter. I think about this quote every so often. It is related to that old chestnut - Every journey starts with the first step - but I like the beginning of this one - "...what one does today, here on this spot...". It reminds me that I have the power over my actions. Positive or negative it is my choice. That life is built up of a series of reactions to foreseen and unforeseen moments and events. Perhaps, maybe, it would be better to avoid the regrettable choice and make a difference instead.

a little evidence

2006-04-26T20:23:00.000-07:00

Two images to say hey animation is done.

Here we have a dry erase chart of the film. The film is broken up into 13 sequences and each of those is broken down into scenes. The longest sequence being number 9, dubbed "the fall", has 17 scenes. There are 72 scenes total. The one green scene is a shot of rain, that isn't done but it doesn't involve any acting so it will be done in the next phase.

Right there you are looking at the short film "Leonardo". It is snuggly tucked inside an old Disney Animation scene stacker I purchased when, with much foresight, the mouse got rid of all their traditional animation furniture. You can see the largest scene at the very top, on top of the stacker, because it won't fit in it.

RUNNERS HIGH

2006-04-25T00:21:00.000-07:00

A truely inspiring and wonderful documentary is screening at the San Francisco Film Festival the next couple of weeks called Runners High. It was made by a couple of friends of mine, Justine Jacob and Alex da Silva, about the very noble program Students Run Oakland. I had a very (i mean very) minor roll in helping them shape the story. It was made for little money and it really shows what a couple of people with an idea and the will and hard work can accomplish. Not to mention the subject matter being also about what you can accomplish if you put your mind to it. The film is also going to show at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto and will be getting into more festivals in the future and hopefully find distribution soon.

to learn more about the film here is the website

http://www.runnershighfilm.com

SAN FRANCISCO SCREENING TIMES:
Monday, April 24 • 7pm AMC Kabuki
Thursday, April 27 • 10am AMC Kabuki
Saturday, April 29 • 3:30pm AMC Kabuki
Tuesday, May 2 • 8:30pm El Rio

HOTDOCS SCREENING TIMES: ( Toronto )
Sunday, April 30 • 2pm Innis Town Hall
Sunday, May 7 • 3:30pm John Spotton Theater

Leonardo's Birthday

2006-04-15T22:27:00.000-07:00

Today is da Vinci's 554th birthday and the short "Leonardo" has officially completed rough animation. Good ole' Herriman came in with scene 5/3 - the last one. I have to pinch myself that this day has finally arrived. The film isn't done but it has just passed THE biggest hurdle and now everything has just got a whole lot easier.

Some images from the last scene. Leo is fighting the wind, while he floats on the Arno River. Water effects haven't been done yet and the coloring is from the down shooter.

Making a short -part 3- exploration

2006-03-24T18:39:00.000-08:00

Studies for a Virgin and Child and Machines (detail), c.1478-1480 pen and ink over metelpoint on a reddish prepared surface; London,British Museum

a wonderful scribbly Leonardo

I want to talk more about research or as I like to call it exploration (at least since I started writing this post). Research sounds so dry and academic, boring really. Exploration sounds like you are expecting great discoveries and are willing to embark on the unknown. It's exciting. Research (Exploration) is often over looked and very often given short shrift. Everyone is always trying to get on with it. They want to start animation or writing the script or filming. Exploration encompasses more then just research as well. In Sandy Mackendrick's class notes (found in the book On Film-making) He mentions four steps in A Technique for Having Ideas that together are a good start to "Exploration."

They are:
1. Collecting Data
2. Organizing the Data
3. Incubating the Material
4. Preserving the Spark

Not to get into too much detail here (since I again recommend that you buy the book if you are interested in film) but 1) Collecting Data is research, acquiring as much information around your subject that you can. Most importantly keeping an open mind to the material. 2) Organizing the Data is making sense of the material and assimilating it, being more critical and analyzing the material. These first two steps are equivalent to life experience. So that someone can tell a story about something they've never experienced first hand: Leonardo trying to fly, for example. 3) Incubating, is sleeping on it. Putting the previous two steps aside to let your sub-conscience work on it. If you are too impatient to come up with an idea you usually won't find it, the great white void. 4) Preserving the spark, this comes from practice, but is the ability to take the above involuntary ignition of the idea and apply effort and discipline to establish a level of productivity to bring your work to life. Sandy warns of two mistakes that are made here. They are, impatience - "the proficient hack seizes too soon on an idea that expertly renders immature and superficial ideas" and inexperience - "the inspired amateur has a brilliant concept that dies through incompetence of expression".

Once I had the idea of animating Leonardo da Vinci I began to read everything I could about him and instead of being intimidated by the great artist I began to see the artist I see in myself and so many of my peers. He kept a sketchbook. He would struggle over his drawings trying to get that right pose. He procrastinated. He worked on things to pay the rent. He had many interests and sometimes had trouble focusing on one thing. He wrote backwards with his left hand...well maybe he was a little different. He was eccentric in his time. Today I think he would be an animator or at least would have dabbled in it. It was through exploration that I discovered a richer foundation for my idea or rather my vague notion of Leonardo with a flying contraption. Exploration gave me ideas for a story line and business to play and a character. Not that I put in everything I read about da Vinci. I kind of just absorbed it and the knowledge just crept in there. I Organized the Data by distilling down the reading into drawings, a lot of drawings. I needed to not only figure out the story to tell but how Leo would look. What his world would look like? What other characters would play a role? Michelangelo perhaps (they were rivals)? How would Leo move? How many ways can he hit the ground? Again, not everything would make it and nothing is ever precious. I just allow myself to have fun and enjoy the journey. I leave you one more warning from the old man -

"When that energy runs low, there is the danger of technique taking over and the creator settling for the easier cliche in order to avoid the difficulties a work of true originality entails."

Early exploration - a few of the ideas from these pages made it into the film and a few didn't.

Leo runs on water - 33 feet to go

2006-03-19T21:21:00.000-08:00

The race is on toward the April 15th deadline. Herriman comes through with 10 more feet. Here are some poses from scene 5/1 in which Leo runs on water with his water bouys. The parchment look is from the camera lighting. None of the water effects are done yet.

Making a short -part 2- The idea

2006-03-10T23:50:00.000-08:00

First of all, I just want to thank everyone for the great comments. They are very kind and encouraging, just the fuel you need to keep at this thing. Heard from a bunch of old friends, "Hi back, everyone is doing great."

this is an early concept I had in '96 using a totally different character.

Okay, let's talk about ideas. Where do you get them? What do you do with them? An idea for a short should be just that an idea for a short. I mean you are not going to make War and Peace in a short. Though that could be funny to boil it down to 3 to 6 minutes. Chuck and the boys squeezed the 100 hour Ring Cycle into 6 minutes. But I guess that's my point, they knew they had 6 minutes. They started from what they knew. You see staring onto the blank white paper and trying to think about an idea is madness. It's a void of infinite possibilities. You need limitations. Orson Welles said, "The enemy of art is the absence of limitations." Now making an animated film in your spare time provides you with a great limitation. Time. So don't make a film, that's 6 (or 8) minutes long in full animation, unless you want to spend a decade making it. Just a word of experience. I wouldn't do it again. You want to take a hard look at how much time you can realistically spend on your unknown film. Then think of how you can make it - hand drawn, stop motion, cut-out, computer and your ability to do it. Then forget all that and think about what you really love, what you would like to see in a film. You have to pull the idea out of something you love to think about, makes you laugh, really gets your brain a firing because you are going to spend a lot of time on your own doing this thing. This idea, of Leonardo, came about because I have always loved the idea of somebody putting on a pair of homemade wings and trying to fly. It is idiotic but full of perseverance. It makes me laugh. I mean look at this guy-

At first I tried to develop the idea with a character I had from another idea (see top) but it was too open ended. This led to Leonardo da Vinci (as thinking about flying with a pair of homemade wings will). This gave me a character, setting, etc. I knew it would be an extra pain to record and animate dialogue so I'll just put it to music. The music dictated length. Then I began to draw in this large sketch book. I would draw anything I could think of about da Vinci and then I began devouring books. Research is everything in generating and then formulating ideas into something truthful and concrete. We at Pixar do it extensively and it shows in the films. The idea then started telling me what it wanted to be.

this is, I think, the first doodles I did with the idea using Leonardo. Totally unreadable but I never thought I'd put them out here for the world to see.

5 minutes a day

2006-03-06T23:05:00.001-08:00

How do you find the time? Well I don't really find time or make time. I wish I could then I would have more then 24 hours and 7 days each week. What I do is use the time I have as wisely as I can. One of the biggest hurdles in making your own film on the side is to work a full day, spend quality time with the family, deal with the usual living stuff (ie. food shopping, eating said food, bill paying, unforeseen calamities) and still be able to make your film. Suddenly watching Lost and Desperate Housewives is not so interesting. Here's the thing I realized, that what ever you can do on your project each day is valuable. May it be five minutes or five hours. 5 drawings or 5 feet of film. You are 5 minutes, 5 drawings closer to your goal. The important thing is that you do it. Even if you have to eventually throw out those drawings, you had to do them to get to the next five. So quit whining that you don't have the time because you do. By the way one show I can't give up is the Daily Show, which was a nice 30 minute break before diving into the work. Then they had to go and add the Colbert Report! Oh, the world and time are against you, fight back with those five minutes.

The carpenter and the architect

2006-02-26T21:40:00.001-08:00

This is related to the previous post about why do it. A question I've been asked is, "If you work at such a great place like Pixar, why would you want to make a short on your own. Aren't you creative there?" The best answer to this question I found long after I was asked the question. I found it in a book of interviews with the director John Sayles. Sayles writes and directs very independent films as well as script docs for Hollywood movies, the money from which helps fund his films. John Sayles says in a few interviews that when he works for other people fixing their screenplays or as a gun for hire, it's like working as a carpenter. But when he is writing and directing his own stuff he's the architect. He likes doing both. I like that. Sometimes you build the house, don't have to worry about anything but doing a good job putting it together and then leave at the end of the day. Other times you want to design that house, try new things, carry all the responsibility and see your dream become a reality.

Making a short after hours - part 1 - The Why?

2006-02-16T21:58:00.000-08:00

I will endeavor to pass on some knowledge I have acquired in making a short after work.

Before we get to how let's first start with The Why?

You have to ask yourself, at this time in your life "WHY, do you want to make a film?" Especially since you are going to spend many a leisure hour working on this thing. I know this more now then when I started but you really have to love the process of doing it. You have to concentrate on the smaller goals not the end result, especially something external such as awards, money, a job, fame, that stuff doesn't matter. There are too many a long lonely frustrating hour ahead of you and if you don't enjoy them you will stop. Your big goal should be personal. For me the why with "Leonardo" is that I wanted to find out if I could actually do it. I wanted to find out, could I make a film in my own voice, could I finish it. The jury still isn't in yet on that. I knew Pixar wouldn't just hand me a film to make so I thought why don't I just make one. Other reasons ( you can have more then one, probably better that you do) I frankly missed hand drawn animation and wanted to tell a story in that medium and I wanted to put my creativity where my mouth is. You see, I would complain about other peoples' films. How they screwed them up and how I would make them better. Without having made my own it really is just a lot of hot air. It's really something different when you have to put yourself out there. To say to the world these are my ideas, my way of communicating them, my filmmaking and open yourself up to that criticism that it is so easy to dish out. That for me has been - The Why?

43 feet and counting

2006-02-16T21:56:00.000-08:00

on track for April 15th.

76 feet to go

2005-12-22T23:32:00.000-08:00

like i said these post will be few and far. a shout out to mr. brian larsen for finishing scene 8/4 (above) and herriman for knocking out the monster 24ft12fr scene - 13/1 (below).
we round out the year with 76 feet left. come hell or high water animation will wrap by april 15th 20 aught 6, da vinci's 554th birthday, if not before.

thanks to everyone for their encourgment and support this year. next year - look for animation to finish, color tests and art direction to really take off, and the leonardo web site to be up at www.flying-machine.com. Oh, and i will try to post more info on the blog o' tron 3000.

here's looking toward new horizons. Happy New Year.