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.

Hollywood Reporter on The Mummy Previs

by Michael Cawood June 14, 2017 in behind the scenes, Camera, Film, filmmaking, Layout, Layout Artist, Los Angeles, michael cawood, movie, Movies, Previs, Previsualisation, production, Proof, shot creator0 commentstags: Film, Previs, Proof, The Mummy
The Hollywood Reporter spoke to Ron Frankel and I about the work Proof did on The Mummy for the Zero-G sequence. Of course there was even more impressive work we did than just this sequence. I’d like to add that although the LA office kicked off the project, this was largely done by the talented Proof crew in the UK. This was an exciting project to be a part of. I saw the film in IMAX 3D and it’s a lot of fun! Read the full article here: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/mummy-behind-scenes-zero-g-stunt-1011921

Kameo: Making Of

by Michael Cawood March 28, 2016 in animated, animated filmmaker, behind the scenes, filmmaking, Game, games animation, maya, michael cawood, microsoft, rare0 commentstags: kameo, microsoft, rare
I worked on this game for three years over a decade ago. Now there’s a ‘making of’ video doing the rounds. It is a good game… it’s fascinating to see how well it holds up, and how in other areas it’s dated. About half the footage they used here was from my pre-rendered cut scenes. Some good, much of it looking a bit shaky now…. largely I’d put that down to not having the budget and the team size you’d expect on a project like this today (it was also my first time doing pre-rendered HD 3D as well). But I learned a lot from this and there were many, many improvements over what I’d been able to do in the real-time cut-scenes I did for Starfox Adventures (which was somewhat limited by starting out as a cartridge game on the N64). Anyway if anyone is wondering what the fuss is about go get the Rare Replay collection, Kameo is one of the best reasons to get it.

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.

IK vs FK

by Michael Cawood September 17, 2014 in 5) Animation, animator, behind the scenes, character, match, michael cawood, work flow0 commentstags: fk, ik
Most debates (or arguments) inside an animation studio have a correct (or at least) best case solution and eventually end. But there’s one type of debate that never ends, and it continues to come up project after project. Essentially, every time a different combination of people starts working together the battle between FK and IK will rear it’s ugly head… every time. It doesn’t usually start out as an IK vs FK debate, but once you’ve peeled away the layers that are concealing it… and it continues to keep going, it becomes obvious that’s what you’re talking about. Every time it happens it makes me smile. Because once you realize that’s what you’re talking about, you won’t be able to end the argument by selling the virtues of your preferred method. You realize you’re all wasting time repeating the same argument and you have to change tactics to find a way to end it. This is where I tend to lean on my experience, and reach back into my archive of projects to highlight the pros and cons and their end result on the final product. Only then do people realize they’re in a holding pattern and there’s not much […]

Interviewing the Devils Team

by Michael Cawood September 16, 2014 in 1) Direction, 5) Animation, 7) Demoreels, Andrea Perry, animated filmmaker, behind the scenes, collaboration, filmmaking, YouTube0 comments
It’s been a little over two and a half years since ‘Devils Angels and Dating’ was released on YouTube. It’s recently enjoyed a spike in popularity and passed two million views. To thank the team I wanted to touch base with them, give them a chance to showcase their work and let us know where they’ve been with their careers since then. Many have gone onto do great things and built up quite strong credits. That’s probably more an indication of their tenacity and talent than the success of our film, but it’s still very encouraging. In particular it says good things about collaborating on other short film projects in the future. If nothing else I’m grateful for getting to know these talented people, because without the film I wouldn’t have known. Read the interviews here: http://devilsangelsanddating.ning.com/profiles/blog/list See the film here:

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 […]

2 Years Online – The Stats for ‘Devils Angels and Dating’

by Michael Cawood January 10, 2014 in 5) Animation, behind the scenes, devils angels and dating, million, sneak peak, statistics, views, YouTube0 comments
It’s been just over two years since Devils Angels and Dating premiered online on YouTube. In the full spirit of disclosure, that we’ve run this project, I wanted to share the statistics behind the people viewing it. As you can see we’ve passed 1.4 million views, most of which came in the first summer. You can learn much more about the making of the film at the development site, http://devilsangelsanddating.ning.com/