The blog of a person....yeah that sounds good.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

these outlanders will be unbelievers and profaners of the holy.

Not long ago there was an announcement that Warner Brothers was moving ahead with the Hong Kong Phooey movie. For those who dont remember, Hong Kong Phooey was an old hanna-barbera cartoon about a man who was turned into a slick karate-chopping ninja dog who worked at an office building. Much like Inch-Eye Private Eye and Punkin' Puss and MushMouse its one of the many odd short-lived hanna-barbera cartoons that time has very slowly forgotten.

Of course being forgotten is exactly what Hollywood needs it to be. That way they can bring it back into the public eye in a spectacle that attributes its best to become the Beethoven dog movie of the not-so-new millennium except with a large amount of dazzling special effects, farts, celebrity voices, and of course no connection to the original property except of course for their names and copyrights.

Fun Fact: the awful underdog movie, which is guilty of all the sins I listed above, was originally going to be the Hong Kong Phooey movie, but for some reason they decided to molest an entirely different forgotten franchise. Not entirely sure why.
Maybe because Underdog had more dog characters in it which meant more cgi + more celebrity voice overs + more lazy parents dragging their kids to see it.

EITHER WAY, the Hong Kong Phooey movie is definitely coming, and while I dont consider myself to be a mindreader or soothsayer but anyone who's had to sit through Underdog/Garfield/Alvin&TheChipmunks/InspectorGadget/G-Force/Scooby-Doo knows what to expect when it comes to the hollywood treatment of films about animals.
Also its being produced by the guy who ruined X-Men.

So I decided to get a leg up and produce a trailer for this oscar winner before initial shooting of the movie even begins.

It took me a whole day to make it but I think its sure to be a box office smash.

The Trailer for Hong Kong Phooey which is so totally legit and not just me being an asshole and dicking around in flash.
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Speaking of cartoons I've made, I finished a rather large and important scene in Polypeptide last night. This film is eeking closer and closer to completion and I really honestly could not be happier with the result. However its becoming imperative to find a good way to distribute this thing.
Originally the plan was to place it on Newgrounds, because one of the admins wanted to sponsor it apparently. But I've been ostracized from that trench of abuse so a new way of distributing it needs to be found.

Currently my thought process is divided between a few options.


The first is that I distribute it all over the internet for free as I usually do, but attempt to get a MochiAd attached to it. Problem there being is that MochiAds are primarily for games. I've only ever seen I think 2 cartoons ever that were allowed to have a Mochiad on them. However the plus is that it means I can distribute the film freely about the internet onto other sites like albinoblacksheep, aniboom, atomfilms, and other such places. Meaning people can still watch the film for free, but I'd also make a tiny amount of chump change off of it. But chances are this option wont happen.

The other option is something my friend F00d known in a few internet circles as Daniel Weisman suggested, was to distribute it using WithoutABox. WithoutABox is a service who distribute films to various film festivals efficiently and easily. Apparently all the professors at his animation college used it, and from looking around it appears alot of professional animators use it as well. I doubt Poly will be good enough to be at a film festival, but I should try. I've worked far too hard on it. A film festival run would be good. Industry exposure. However I've never actively tried to send anything to a film festival, and I get the distinct feeling I'm going to look like an idiot.

The third, and most time-consuming, costly, and most likely wont happen option, would be to set up a website specifically for the film. Sort of like how Le Building is set up. Showing concept art, how I put the film together, etc etc. The pros here is that, hey I finally have a website up that I can link people to, the downside is that the film doesn't get distributed very much, especially since I'm sure most film festivals dont want a 10-minute animated short people can see for free on the internet anyway.



I'm sure there's a good way to get this film out there. I'm in no rush to show it to a bunch of people. I dont NEED a sponsor or even money at all right now. But obviously I dont want a film of this size and quality (lololol) to be some private little thing I only show to a handful of people over AOL instant messenger (still better than shitty msn) but at the same time, I'd like to make at least SOME money off the internet using this thing. Its my friggin opus. But I cant do this thing where I submit my films to sites who make tons of money off it, and then treat me like I'm some sort of party clown there to be obedient and entertain them all day.
It's a horrible way to get stuff done.


So I just need to wrack my brains and look around. See what's going on. See how others are doing it these days.

Chances are, I'll probably spring for the Withoutabox idea. I cant really see a drawback to that one. Other than having to pay an "entry fee" a couple of times. Maybe it could help me drum up more work like this(which is apparently on tv in australia now :D) and this.

SEGWAY INTO ANOTHER SUBJECT

Speaking of work, I think the time may be approaching to quit my video store job. The shifts are getting longer, the need for constant perfection and cleanliness in a new much less efficient system is wearing me and everyone else at the store down. Its bad enough the district decided to fire the manager we all really liked, but its worse that they've replaced him with a new robotic system that means we dont get to go home until 1am to 2am every day thanks to an overload of work which wont be ending anytime soon.
Of course this would all be bearable if we were paid a decent wage, but its been YEARS now and employees who've worked there even longer than I have are still, STILL making minimum wage. And the other employees are dropping like flies and quitting all over the place due to the situation. Which means me and the few workers who are left will be forced to maintain the entire upkeep of the place while the new robots find new underlings to train.


I think the time has come to start looking for local art or studio work again. And to stop working in places that are not in my field and also dont pay me worth crap. Last time I did that was during the extremely depressing late 07 early 08 time before I got hired by weebl.

The time has come I think to start rooting around for florida studios and such again. I didnt have much luck before, with Project Firefly (made of ex-disney folk) being the only real studio still around in this state. But that was quite a while ago.
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As I mentioned in the last post, I found a bunch of old art from the 90's as I was searching through dusty old bins, since I'm moving soon.

I came across a NEW treasure today. And unlike old art, this new treasure made me sing and dance and squirt horses from my nose.
I found a few of my favorite PC games that me and my brother loved to play back in the 90's. The early early 90's.

The first was Zootopia. A game that has GOOD HOUSEKEEPING's logo in the top right hand corner. Developed by 2 companies. The first is KIDSOFT who stopped existing after 1996. What happened to the developers? Noone knows. Not even the internet. Believe me I HAVE LOOKED. And looked hard. Its like these people never existed. The second developer was the company Maxis who now do work on the SIMS games.

Apparently me and my brother were the only people who ever played this game. There is nothing for it on the internet. No history about Kidsoft, noone distributing it for free, noone owning the copyrights on it, noone taking credit for all the hilarious animation that was within the game, noone taking credit for all the short films in the game, NOTHING.

It is seriously as if this game never existed. There arent even youtube videos of people talking about with rose-tinted nostalgia goggles. I mean hell, theres even youtube footage of TOY STORY racing on the game boy color. (the graphics are very impressive for 8bit.) A game that almost noone played. But none for zootopia.

There are even skits with LIVE PEOPLE AND ACTORS in zootopia. This game had musical numbers, puppets, stop motion, the works.

But its like it never existed. I almost want to try to rip the contents out of the CD and stick them up somewhere so others can enjoy them. Watching a raven with a puppet of edgar allen poe rap the Raven poem? Classic. And noone but me and my brother have seen it apparently.

And that makes me a sad panda :C

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The OTHER game I found today was MOTO RACER. Moto Racer, for those not in the know, is a long running series of motorcycle games that pretty much defined how a motorcycle game should play back in the 90's. They made a bunch of them too, with the last one being on the game boy advanced. Me and my brother had one of the PC versions.

Fun as hell. And you could (sorta) make your own tracks and cover them in lumps so it was a nonstop ramp-air level.

The game also came with garage punktastic intro video which makes me want to mosh right onto the floor while thrashing my head around wildly. God I love it.

This game was made by Electronic Arts back when they were a tiny company who spent most of their time making good games and not buying small studios and ruining their much-anticipated titles. coughsporecough.
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And the final game I found, which is a game I KNOW a few people online played was SODA OFFROAD RACING. hell yes. look at that grass. it dont get no greener, dawg.

This game was the ultimate griefing racing game. You could build tracks that not only broke the laws of physics, but caused cars to launch themselves mile and miles into the air at like 200 miles per hour, with their parts and pieces bouncing around the arena destroying everything.

Such a glitchy game, but so fun. And the tracks were REALLY customizable. You could do ALOT. Even now, its alot more robust than most "make ur own hurp dee durp" build modes in modern games.

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but thats enough chit-chat.
here's a screen from polypeptide. enjoy.

This is the 39th screenshot I've uploaded of this film, good god.
BEHOLD, EXPOSITION

5 comments:

stanleygoober said...

"make ur own hurp dee durp" build models, lol

Anonymous said...

Wow, I used to play MotoRacer all the time!! I liked how each level was visually distinct, they didn't just use the same desert or city tileset for every track like a lot of other racing games do. I remember Speed Bay, the track where you could do a wheelie the whole time. I remember the desert level where you could sometimes catch a glimpse of a UFO. There was the Great Wall of China level, and the Golden Gate Bridge level. Man, that game was great.

MotoRacer 2 wasn't so great, the track maker that came with it was neat but it wasn't as smooth or responsive as the original.

Anthony said...

How long is Polypeptide ?

Pinao said...

I loved Hong Kong Phooey. Especially the movie's website URL. :P

Also, I'm loving the Polypeptide stuff. You have been providing me with desktops for quite some time!

pauljs75 said...

Dude, your animation stuff seems like genius. Ok, it is genius. (The better ones are comparable to John K's stuff being mixed with Genndy T's stuff, I shit you not. Been hooked since Prelude to Joy III. And yes, the proof is in the pudding.) Yet you seem to be in a rut like myself, working crap jobs and having to live with the 'rents. Seems a damn shame. You should be making some real money with your art!

Anyhow, if only somebody out there could get your animation on TV... Stateside... I think your style would be a hit if it could end up on AdultSwim or some similar venue. Unfortunately they'd rather show live action bullshit in their lineup that's worse than the fare seen on community access cable rather than have more variety in animation. (I have trouble believing the budget is that tight at CN. I suppose it's like a lot of places these days, skill or quality of work is less important than who you know.)

My 2¢ on getting your short out there? If you can afford it, do the film circuit thing one year. Then go viral on YouTube the next. I'm sure people can be patient enough. I think the way the Pigeon-Impossible guy seems to be doing it is alright.

And speaking of farting CGI crap, if you knew of some funny 3-view character drawings - I may know somebody *cough* who could model from them. No guarantees about animation though since my- um- his rigging skills suck.