The Wrong Rock

by Michael Cawood December 6, 2019 in 1) Direction, 5) Animation, animated, animated film, animated filmmaker, animated short, animatic, animation studio, animator, Artist, award, behind the scenes, cartoon, character, character design, Cinematic, collab, collaboration, collabs, coop studio, crowd funding, cute, design, editing, festival, Film, filmmaking, Finish your Film, grant, HEROmation, How to cheat in Maya, indiegogo, Los Angeles, michael cawood, movie, Movies, premiere, Previs, Previsualisation, producer, production, remote, remote collaboration, short film, story, storyboard, storyboard artist, storyboarding, supervisor, VFX, visual effects, YouTube0 comments
It’s been a three year journey, but The Wrong Rock is finally online for the world to see. For me it was year full time, a year part time and a year on the festival circuit. Along the way we won Best Animated Short at the Burbank film Festival and Best Short Animation at the Davis Film Festival.

Siggraph 2017 Panel – Online Studios

by Michael Cawood June 14, 2017 in 1) Direction, animated, animated film, animated filmmaker, animated short, animation studio, behind the scenes, coop studio, Film, filmmaking, HEROmation, Los Angeles, producer, production, short film, short film animation, work from home0 commentstags: Artella, Online Studio, Siggraph, The Wrong Rock
I’ll be speaking on a panel at Siggraph to showcase our work on The Wrong Rock and talk about working in an online studio environment. http://s2016.siggraph.org/birds-feather Remote Studio Productions: Online Collaboration Tuesday, 1 August, 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm, Los Angeles Convention Center A discussion of issues related to online collaboration in production.

The Wrong Rock – New Short Film

by Michael Cawood December 31, 2016 in 1) Direction, 5) Animation, animated film, animated filmmaker, animated short, devils angels and dating, michael cawood, short film0 comments
2017 approaches and I’m back at it, making another short film. After Devils I was adamant I’d not be taking on such a huge (unpaid) pet project again for another decade. Well, life evolved in ways I couldn’t have predicted and I ended up helping out on two other short films for friends, both of which worked out great (The OceanMaker and Napoleon). I also had a lot of wonderful adventures in my professional working life. But once again I find myself with that craving to make something outside of work, and there’s only so many small projects you can do before the big ones come calling. There’s another project I actually could have started that’s been in development for some time but it needs more time to be the best version of itself. In the mean time ‘The Wrong Rock‘ came to me in a moment of soul searching where I brushed aside everything I’d learned about building IP and focused on the issues I felt the most connected to. Then I worked out how could I explore those issues and send a strong message out into the world worthy of the time it takes to make one of […]

Tips for Making Films with a Remote Team

by Michael Cawood July 21, 2015 in 1) Direction, 5) Animation, animated, animated film, animated filmmaker, animated short, animation studio, animator, collab, collabs, coop studio, devils, devils angels and dating, Film, Finish your Film, How to cheat in Maya, michael cawood, ocean maker, off-site, on-site, online, production, remote, remote collaboration, short film, short film animation, story, supervisor, the ocean maker, the oceanmaker, theory animation, YouTube0 comments
I contributed some tips to the Artella Blog. Advanced Tips Recruiting – Depending on your own strongest skills it might not be worth recruiting for some skill sets. Recruitment is a commitment in itself and it can be very time consuming reaching out, filtering, vetting and introducing new team members. That might be time better spent working on the project yourself. While some areas are easy to recruit for and benefit the project greatly. Choose wisely. Communication – This is key to every team member, especially when you’re operating a remote project. If a team member lacks the language skills, can’t write responses or even read your notes…. it’s going to be a struggle. Partnership – Find out what your team members want to get out of their involvement in the project, then make sure they are getting it. If people realize they aren’t getting what they want and they’re paid they won’t last long. But if they realize they’re not getting what they want and they’re volunteers, they’ll drop the project so fast, you often won’t even hear about it until you’ve wasted a lot of time chasing them. So make sure both sides are meeting their goals, or […]

The OceanMaker Insider Part 5 – Pixar

by Michael Cawood April 21, 2015 in 5) Animation, animated, animated film, animated filmmaker, animated short, caribbean, Film, filmmaking, HEROmation, Lucas Martell, martell animation, michael cawood, ocean maker, Proof, short film, short film animation, the ocean maker, the oceanmaker2 commentstags: OceanMaker, Pixar
Continued from Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. It’s the Summer of 2014… a Friday and I was working on the Fox lot in Los Angeles for Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb when I got a call from my friend, Lucas Martell. We were invited to screen The OceanMaker at Pixar, and while we’re at it could we do a Q&A for them too. Pop! …. that was my brain exploding. Oh, and can we do it on Monday? Argh! So after begging my supervisor, Eric, for a day off, I drove up to San Francisco on Sunday and stayed with some friends ready for Monday morning (thank you Paul and Maria… big hug). I was lucky I was close enough to drive. Not all of the team could make it. Luckily Lucas and Christina Martell were in the area at the time. However Henning Koczy, had to go above and beyond to get there from New York. But there we were at Pixar, with thanks to Colin for setting it all up and giving us the tour (on his day off, I might add. How much does he love that place?). The OceanMaker crew arrives at […]

Devils Angels & Dating: Storyboards

by Michael Cawood November 6, 2014 in animated film, animated filmmaker, animated short, behind the scenes, devils, devils angels and dating, HEROmation, michael cawood, story, storyboard, storyboard artist, storyboarding0 comments
Here are the storyboard panels for Devils, Angels & Dating. In the heat of production there was never the time to prepare them for presentation and I didn’t have access to the right tools to do it. Since the animatic was always the most up to date version of the film and it communicated what we needed I didn’t worry too much about a storyboard presentation like this. But I did want to do one, so it’s been on my to-do list for sometime. Although the majority of the storyboard panels were drawn by me, I have to give credit to Natalie Massone who lent a hand for a little while. You’ll notice the style change fairly easily. My work tends to have the blue rough lines, and I also did the thumbnail versions. Her panels were an older character design style and a much rougher, darker pencil style.

Finish your Film

by Michael Cawood June 29, 2014 in 5) Animation, animated film, animated filmmaker, animated short, animator, behind the scenes, book, devils, devils angels and dating, filmmaking, Finish your Film, Kenny Roy, maya, michael cawood, short film, short film animation0 commentstags: Book, Finish your Film, Kenny Roy
Kenny Roy’s book ‘Finish Your Film! Tips and Tricks for Making an Animated Short in Maya‘ features ‘Devils Angels & Dating‘ several times. It discusses the making of an animated short film. It’s available at all the usual book retailers.

DSM Mobile App: Storyboard

by Michael Cawood June 27, 2014 in 1) Direction, 5) Animation, advert, animated, animated short, animatic, app, behind the scenes, Camera, character, character design, cintiq, commercial, design, green team energy services, iphone, michael cawood, motion graphics, Previs, Previsualisation, rebate, Staging, storyboard, storyboard artist, storyboarding, work flow0 comments
Alongside the art direction for this product demo commercial, I was working on the storyboards. This turned out to be the fun part. I recently bought myself a secondhand Wacom Cintiq. It’s been on my wishlist for a decade, but they’ve been prohibitively expensive until recently. It’s also hard to justify a purchase of a grand or more for something you’re not sure you’ll use regularly. I’d walk up to them every time I saw one in person and doodle to see how good they’d gotten. Usually I was disappointed with the disconnect between the tip of the pen and the actual line being drawn.. i.e. the space between the surface and the screen, and the lag in the responsiveness. That hasn’t been entirely solved but it has gotten better as computers get faster and the screens get better. Recently tablets have become popular (finally!), and Wacom has made a stand alone tablet with their pen technology in it. This is essentially the device I’ve been dreaming of for my entire career (seriously? it took that long?), but still…. it’s too expensive. It has, however, had the effect of driving more second-hand units out on to the market. So for […]

DSM Mobile App: Commercial

by Michael Cawood June 26, 2014 in 1) Direction, 5) Animation, advert, animated, animated short, animatic, app, behind the scenes, Camera, character, character design, cintiq, commercial, design, green team energy services, iphone, michael cawood, motion graphics, Previs, Previsualisation, rebate, Staging, storyboard, storyboard artist, storyboarding, work flow0 comments
I spent a few weeks working on this interesting project. On paper it could have been a potentially dry product demo/commercial, but actually the script had a little spark to it and the client had an interest in keeping things engaging. So with the same spirit I took to creating the visuals. It was supposed to be two minutes or less. But when I got the script at two and a half pages long, I had to challenge the length and see if we could trim it. But ultimately this was about conveying specific information, rather than abiding by any fixed time slot. So the video ended up being 25% longer than it was originally planned for. Take note… one page of script is roughly one page of screen time. Of course it can vary wildly depending on how it’s written and what the content is. But if you start there you’ve got a good guide. I’ve been on other projects where the producers didn’t know this and it’s come back to bite them in the butt later when, for a fixed bid, they’ve found themselves producing a lot more screen time than they anticipated… for free. So be careful […]

Annie Awards 2014

by Michael Cawood March 20, 2014 in 5) Animation, animated film, animated filmmaker, animated short, animator, annie awards, Artist, award, Los Angeles, short film0 comments
I went along to the Annie Awards with Julie and my buddy Dan. It’s the biggest awards ceremony for the animation industry. Still very US-centric but there is some international representation there. It’s still quite an under-appreciated event. Just as glitzy as many other awards ceremonies but you can still buy reasonably priced tickets to get in and watch from the balcony. We met quite a few interesting people in the party afterwards.

Love in the Time of Advertising

by Michael Cawood January 28, 2014 in 5) Animation, animated, animated film, animated filmmaker, animated musical, animated short, animator, cartoon, dating, david bokser, Film, filmmaking, love in the time of advertising, short film0 comments
Love in the Time of Advertising is online. The fascinating thing is how many people I have come across over the years that had a hand in making this film. It’s been a long time coming, and I was lucky enough to see several early versions. But even then it was really strong… and really knew what it was. It just had to go through production. I guess the earliest versions I saw were in the last few years of production, but I’d have loved to have seen some of the versions way back when it was still in story development. That would have been fascinating, as it’s such a wild idea and getting the tone, the world and the rules of the world working would have been quite challenging. Anyway, it’s well worth checking out. An inspiration to short filmmakers.

The Ocean Maker – The Insider Story – Part 1

by Michael Cawood April 15, 2013 in 5) Animation, animated, animated short, Lucas Martell, Pigeon Impossible, short film, the oceanmaker1 comments
The Ocean Maker started it’s IndieGoGo crowd-funding campaign and the Director, Lucas Martell, has been posting videos, news, interviews and much more related to the project giving everyone a sneak peak at the film and the unique production that created it. I thought I’d chip in and tell a little of my story surrounding the film. Way back in 2008, I first contacted Lucas when I was researching my move to Austin, Texas. He was not far from completing his short film Pigeon Impossible while I was simultaneously getting up to speed developing Devils, Angels and Dating. We got to know each other over the years and became firm friends.Jump to 2012 and Lucas was working in the same studio as me in New York. He told me he wanted to have a chat about an independent project and we met to discuss this outlandish concept of forming a team to make a short film in a remote location. He does a great introduction to the concept in his video for the crowd-funding campaign so I won’t go into too many details. Suffice to say, it wasn’t an easy sell initially and there were plenty of problems to anticipate. But he was pretty passionate about the […]

The Ocean Maker – Short Film

by Michael Cawood February 5, 2013 in animated short, Cloud Catchers, devils angels and dating, Lucas Martell, martell animation, ocean maker, Pigeon Impossible, short film animation, the ocean maker0 comments
As many of you know Lucas Martell started a new short film and I got reluctantly roped into it [rolls eyes]… just kidding, it’s been pretty awesome working with one of my very best friends. He just posted his new website and along with it some images and video (included in his reel). I’ve been a bit busy lately getting setup in LA, but hopefully I’ll find some time to get back to helping out on this thing. This is Lucas’s baby but really want to follow through on it and make it the best it can be. We’ve put a lot of time into it already… well I say that but actually I’ve only worked a couple of months on it solidly… it’s just that this things has come together so quickly that a couple of months is a big slice of the overall production schedule. This is a far cry from our previous films, Pigeon Impossible and Devils, Angels and Dating, both eating up over five years of our lives.