Friday, January 15, 2010

CHIPMUNK VS WARRIOR ANIMATION












FINALLY was able to successfully upload an animattion project I did a few years ago for an INDY Film maker, Tyler Cartner, whose film mocumentary, "Comedy on Comedy" featured a short, animated "commercial" of a Chipmunk vs. a Greek warrior who tries to take his nut.

Never try to take a Chipmunk's NUT!! LOL!

Tyler suggested we have the chipmunk jump on the warriors family jewels, but I thought it would be more hilarious to have him take the whole eye out, since the "Grapping the jewels" gag has been done so many times. In putting together the "showdown" sequences when they're both "facing off" I thought about that great scene in Clint Eastwoods' "The Good The Bad and The Ugly" which had this great buildup focusing on facial expression, body language and weapons before the attack finally comes. I communicated this to the director and WIN, the After Effects, Flash Animator, pulled it off beautifully. I was so pleased.

I was responsible for the character design, the backgrounds, the layouts and keyframes that I did in Monkeyjam, a pencil test program, prior to giving everything to WIN so he could work his magic in Flash and After Effects. What made things even more phenominal about this project that we all met ONCE in Tylers studio to collaborate on our individual parts and everything else was done by email. Did I mention that WIN spoke NO ENGLISH?? In the meeting I would draw something, have him approve it, draw something else, and so on. We both used a lot of made up sign language for that first and only meeting!! LOL

Tylers film was actually VERY GOOD, even without this cartoon addition, but I was glad Tyler included me on this. I give Tyler a lot of credit for using me on this project as he was initially just looking for a FLASH ANIMATOR who could do it all. I suggested to him to take a chance and use me for the character designs, backgrounds, storyboards and key frames, and then he could use a flash guy to put everything together. It worked like a charm and few directors would have been open to the idea. Thankfully he was.

Heres a collections of drawings and stuff that I did for the project.