Where is Olifant?

it's been a while

2012-01-12T19:53:00.000-08:00

i've been meaning to update this blog for months but with life, work, teaching 2 classes at nyu and more life just got in the way of me getting back here. that's not to say i haven't been busy.

so please bear with me as i ramble on a bit...

i was in a bit of a rut with the site and decided to go and see a coach, jim arnoff, to help me work out some problems. the great thing about talking to jim was that i was able to flesh out some problem areas, like olifant's origin, which will soon be up on the site, strengthening the character design and, wait for it...wait for it....deciding to create an animation.

i think the problem with the site is that it just doesn't offer the amount of content that kids need to come back. my own kids go to miniclip a lot and that's because it has a ton of games to keep them constantly stimulated. lots of people put their own games on for free and i just can't compete with that. and, really, at it's core i made whereisolifant.com as a showcase for the property so someone would buy the it and make it into a tv show.

well now the design is much better and the backstory is solid. i've written a script and created a storyboard. it takes place in the fall so a few months ago when the leaves where in full color i got my camera and took many, many gigs of background movies. now i have to put together the animatic and then start animating.

it's exciting because i haven't made my own animation since "in transit" over ten years ago. and for all the great animation that i've seen in that decade (remember i've had 2 kids since then so i've seen a tonnnnnnnnnnnnnn of animation) the piece that really spoke to me was the the end credits to ratatouille. i can't begin to say how much i love it's simplicity, textures and movement. just fantastic. someone should make an animated feature in that style.

so i'm off and running. i've got a lot to do because i would like to finish by the end of the year but i have a really good foundation so hopefully things will progress well on consistently.

i'll be updated more often as things happen.

Oiaf

2011-09-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

well i went to this year's ottawa international animation festival. originally i was just going to go to the festival to see some films and have a few beers with some animator buddies. but i helped out ace & son with the festival's signal film and i got to go to the television animation conference too!

so i had to hustle to create a brief with new illustrations by dan madia after i redesigned the dinosaurs, email all the delegates who were looking to buy preschool and send them a one sheet and set up meetings, change my flight to an earlier time to be there in time to meet all the people that were interested and then crash hard because i was sick with a head cold this whole time.

in the end the conference was great. had some meetings which might lead somewhere and saw some good films. met lots of old friends and made some new ones. it was, like canada itself, nice.

winner!

2011-09-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

congratulations to john c. of new jersey. he found rogero hopping in the site and is now the winner of an olifant tshirt.

maybe this saturday it will be you!

version 2

2011-08-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

finally! after months of chipping away at it bobby and i have finally finished version 2. some minor improvements have been to the layout and some wording. i've added some fantastic new activities and there's a weekly contest.

so check it out, have some fun and maybe you'll win a tshirt!

it's been a while

2011-07-19T08:25:00.000-07:00

well i have been working, just not updating my blog. reading my last blog post i was trying to get something finished but life/kids/school/work/swimming got in the way.

i've been working on a slight redesign to make the site more coherent, added a contest page and removed the facebook page.

i've also added some new activities, finger puppets, and will be adding 2 new stories. and then it will be back to getting the word out.

so stayed tuned for contests, stories, personal appearances and more.

doing everything at once

2011-03-07T10:20:00.000-08:00

tweaks to the site design. a new story to create. trying to get publicity.

i'm a bit all over the place right now and need to focus before i start to screw things up. i'm going to finish the next story because i really want to have it out the first day of spring and suspend the publicity. then suspend the new stories and maybe just do new games or activities, since they take a lot less time, for a month and continue the publicity. then back to the stories.

sounds like a plan. i hope i stick to it.

snow and lingonberries

2011-02-23T06:29:00.000-08:00

finally finished!
now i have to spend a week doing nothing but backups, new software install (cs5!), coming up with a new story and publicize, get the word out and plug before i have to start the new story.

first interview/article!

2011-02-12T11:22:00.001-08:00

from my hometown newspaper, the cheshire herald

so far behind

2011-01-29T07:53:00.000-08:00

i got nothing done last week. have a tuesday deadline. we'll see....

goals for this week

2011-01-17T05:10:00.000-08:00

time to get back to work.
this week i have to finish art work for a new story (svenita is visiting) and begin to compile a massive email list.
also i've downloaded a trial version of sketchbook pro to test and see if it will be quicker then drawing, scanning and cleaning up.

my studio

2011-01-03T10:06:00.000-08:00

i always love to see what other artists are working on.
i always love to hear what other artists are talking about.
i always love to see other artists workspaces.

well you know what i've been working on.
you might have figured out my thoughts on this blog so....

here's my studio, also know as the corner of our third bedroom.

some interesting facts:
my animation collection is 3 rows deep and contains vhs, dvd and 16mm formats
i have a picture of me and jules engel on the wall
i found my chair on 18th st. and 6th ave and sat on it in the subway on the ride home
i'll probably get rid of my bolex (green case) and homemade animation stand in 2012
the painting is by murray guzik and one day i hope to be as good as him
i love my view

this is why i never label my files "final"

2010-12-20T07:16:00.000-08:00

i've worked on an incredible amount of animation jobs in the past 15 years and usually there is a hard and fast deadline. so when you deliver your files on a wednesday night at 2am and the job is due thursday at 10:30 am it's usually a good bet that they are the last ones you'll be creating for this particular job and that by calling them "final" there won't be an issue. but so many times i would be reworking them on until friday and using names like "final_v3bLightPassSpec".

when i went live with olifant i thought there would be some finessing, whether is was a spelling error (completely unforgivable) or some layout issue (there are still some unresolved issues that i have to deal with) but there are always the ones that are completely unknown.

the one that really bugged me after a couple of days was getting people to come back to the site. i have a 2 year plan for the site that includes a new story every month or so. and while i tell everyone i meet my plan if you just go to the site you would never know that there was more to come. so my solution was to put a "coming on this date" image on my stories page. now you'll know that the next story will be up on feb. 2, groundhog's day.

a reason to come back!

so while i've made a lot of adjustments to the site and am very happy with it there isn't one thing that's named "final" in the hundreds of files i've created for this site. because it will never be final.

tangled

2010-12-20T07:06:00.001-08:00

i saw tangled with my 6 year old over the weekend and now i can't wait to see it with my 10 year old. what a fun movie.
and from an animator's point of view i could see glen keane's fingerprints on it. whether it was the design or animation it just looked like his work flawlessly created in 3d. some flaws were the chameleon and the songs. they adding nothing and were a bit distracting
from a father's point of view when my son had to cover his eyes whenever the old woman was onscreen. i think that was a good thing.

can't wait to see it again to see how it holds up.

live!

2010-12-09T19:11:00.000-08:00

where is olifant is up! i'm very exciting and also a bit nervous.

the reason i started this blog was to document the progress of the creation and now that's it's up i'd like to jot down some thoughts on the production while it's fresh in my mind before i move into the next phase(s) of this project.

i'm always working on a personal project. between grad and undergrad i did a lot of abstract figurative paintings. after grad it was an abstract film. after that it was another film based on the tarentella. then a children's book. then a tv series. olifant represents the longest amount of time i've ever put into one project. i've learned that i have a tendency to stretch myself too thin and when i decided to create this site i said to myself that i wouldn't do anything else.

when i started in the middle of 2009 i had already created and designed the characters, come up with hundreds of stories and went to 2 conferences where i failed to sell it. but i didn't want it to die and one night i went to a panel discussion at nyu of web entrepreneurs and lightning hit. the owner of the site rocketboom kept his site going with sponsorship and that seemed the perfect fit for me. that's how i would make this work, by getting some company/ies to sponsor me.

but first i had to have something to sell. one thing i learned from trying to sell at the conferences is that an idea and a couple of sketches won't do it if you don't have a proven track record, which i don't. i think i have a pretty good rep as a 3d maya generalist in nyc but none in the tv series field. so i looked at a lot of kids sites and figured that the minimum i would need to launch would be 3 stories, games and activities. a store to sell books and tshirts was also easy and cheap to do in this age of the internet.

so i began. i have a friend who has his own 3d company and he had just redone his site. it was great and i hired the guy who did it to make mine. he would do all the programming and i would create all the content. we met in the summer of '09 and i figured that since i already had a lot of art created that it wouldn't take too long and we could finish by xmas, maybe february at the latest.

ha! there was sooo much to do. a few years back i directed an interactive dvd for scholastic which required a ridiculous amount of files to be created. but i had a team of people working for me and it was done in a few months. creating this site was a similar experience but i have a full time job as an animator for nbc, a part time teaching gig at nyu/tisch and a family that require my time. so at best i was able to put in 3 solid production hours a day. many days went by when nothing was done.

but i kept chipping away. first 'about' section helped to solidify the story. the mazes where based on stories i had made up. the borders, which has turned into a defining theme both intellectually and design wise, came when i wanted the site to look more organic. and slowly everything fell into place with a defined structure,color chart and look. the photo backgrounds of central park came about from my lack of painting chops. the very sketchy lines and the flat, hard edge colors of the characters are an amalgamation of my love for rough thumbnails and prepro art created by disney artists over the clean lines of the finished cells and bold colors of many of today's commercial graphics. if i had the talent of jeff smith maybe things would look different. but i couldn't be happier with the way things turned out.

and i'm a very diy sort of guy. i love to do it all. it's one of the reasons i love making commercials as opposed to working on feature films: because you get to do more. my grandmother once told me that she was a jack of all trades, master of none so maybe it runs in the family. but her cooking was the best i've ever had, and i've eaten in some pretty good restaurants, so if my work can even begin to compare with hers then i'll consider myself a success.

i'm also pretty tenacious and single minded when i want to be and the combination of the three, mixed with a flexible deadline and a web programmer who was also doing this part time, really worked out.

now for the first time i have no content to create for now. for the rest of the year it's getting the word out and setting up mailing lists. i'll begin to add new stories and games and such after the holidays (i'm still making up new stories. i average about 1 every 2 weeks).

in a future post i'll discuss how i'm going to get the word out about olifant.

learning flash

2010-11-14T18:20:00.001-08:00

not happy

rainy day swing

2010-11-07T17:50:00.000-08:00

is, now, for sale!

huckleberries and honey

2010-11-06T17:39:00.000-07:00

done! and for sale!

the first book is finished!

2010-11-05T08:32:00.000-07:00

foxfire lantern is for sale! h&h and rds soon to follow.

new animation software

2010-10-05T07:06:00.001-07:00

i have to learn flash.
i'm not happy.

chestnuts, pokeweed and wild asparagus berries

2010-09-28T07:54:00.000-07:00

things are moving along and now that fall is here and all sorts of great things are growing and falling and changing colors and i have a few story ideas i'm looking forward to developing.

getting there

2010-09-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

the finish line is in sight!

it's been a while

2010-08-20T07:44:00.000-07:00

wow...over 2 months since my last post.
i've had my share of mishaps. i had to get a new/used computer because my old one started to get a little screwy. i should have brought it to the geek squad but i decided to throw some business to a local fix it place. never again. those guys are idiots and really useless and messed up my machine even more. luckily i have a colleague that was selling a boxx for cheap!

but that doesn't mean i haven't been working. my flash artist, tom eaton, has been converting my animations to a web friendly size, bobby has been making progress and, i believe, is now waiting for something to do. and i've been plugging along with this and that. i've decided to use lulu to create and sell the books because of the easy to make isbn number and there link to amazon. i would rather use blurb but i believe that the amazon connection will prove easier for most people.

i'll finish the 3rd story this weekend and then a few tweaks here or there and it's time to start getting it out there!

and i just have to say that italy and martha's vineyard were fantastic!

vacation

2010-06-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

i'm taking the italians to italy! we're going to the amalfi coast for 12 (hopefully) beautiful days. this of course means that i'll miss some time creating artwork for the site. as if teaching at nyu twice a week and my job weren't getting the in way already.

but "rainy day swing" is almost done and when i come back i'll have no distractions during the week so i have to make a lot of progress in july to make my self imposed september deadline.

time off

2010-05-25T20:45:00.000-07:00

bobby is off for another week and my work on rainy day swing is done so i'm taking some time to redo my bedroom.

another little roadblock is i need to do the story animation in flash. my after effects .swf files are too big so i'm trying to have a friend convert rainy day swing. but i think i'm going to install it flash and learn it. i've been fighting it for years but i can't afford to have someone else do it.

diy baby. diy.

redesign half way through?

2010-05-06T08:58:00.000-07:00

as the site is coming together it's looking as i designed but not as elegant. so i did some research and found some sites that i liked and talked to bobby about maybe changing a few things. major things. luckily he talked me off the ledge and suggested some simple fixes that made the site a lot more elegant without any redesign.

it's a natural problem in the creative process and i'm glad to have stayed true to my original design. i'm also glad to have someone i trust to tell me that i was straying too far and that making major changes half way through is never a good idea. for good or bad it's what i came up with and that's what i'm doing. i just hope it's for the good.

ok...maybe i can get something accomplished today. i made a new rain cycle this week (because i lost the original in the stupid moment of the year fiasco of a few months ago) and would love to finish "rainy day swing" soon.

starting on the stories

2010-04-21T07:34:00.000-07:00

well i'm gathering and organizing some corrupted files so i can start the heart and soul of this whole project, the stories.

just to document some old mistakes when i originally began this site i was going to present the stories in book form, see the horrible picture to the right. after lots of thinking and planning and mistakes i think i came up with something good.

we'll see soon.

i'm a bad blogger

2010-04-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

with work, teaching and family i just don't get around to updating this blog all that much. i'm also a bad facebook friend. hopefully i'm not a bad person.

that stated the site is making some great progress and is really coming together. bobby is doing a wonderful job. the games are done. activities are almost done and i'm beginning to work on the stories. i think i have a really nice design for layout so i'm happy about that.

saw a couple of animated movies over the past few weeks. "how to train your dragon" was a fun ride. it kept me entertained but i couldn't get over how great the leather looked and equally stupid the father's beard moved. i guess that's the problem with being a cg artist it that the details sometimes distract from the story. "the secret of kells" was all great detail and not a lot of story, and that worked in it's favor. a beautiful film and i can't wait to buy the dvd so i can watch it over and over.

animation i've seen recently

2010-03-11T20:27:00.000-08:00

i've seen a lot of animation in nyc lately.

at the moma it was tim burton and william kentridge. at the ziegfeld it was alice in wonderland by tim burton. the secret of kells is playing this week, hopefully i'll get to see that. the princess and the frog 3 weeks ago.

all good stuff. it's exciting.

games done!

2010-03-04T11:22:00.001-08:00

finally.

now onto activities.

progress

2010-03-01T10:46:00.000-08:00

3 mazes done! 1 more to do then it's onto activities!
i love progress.

but it shouldn't be seen that i got all this work done in 1 day. everyday, or almost everyday, i work a little bit. while the end product is proof of progress the little things that are done each day are the steps that lead to the final. like the marathons i've run, the last step is it but the months of training are the reason you get there. mike tyson once had a similar quote about knocking someone out in the first round. when he was asked about how it feels to get the job done so quickly he remarked that he had been training for months.

same thing with me today. although my knockout punch will be when the site goes live it's days like today when i can see the end.

games, 2

2010-02-28T20:20:00.000-08:00

almost done with all the illustrations. definitely by the end of the week. then onto the stories. there just aren't enough hours in the day.

games

2010-02-18T06:41:00.000-08:00

i really, really wanted a flash game for the site but it will cost a lot more then i have to spend. maybe i will be able to find a student or someone in another country who can do it for what i want but for now it's off the table.

working on cleaning up the mazes and games to get to bobby so i can move onto the stories.

behind for a couple a reasons

2010-02-01T10:24:00.001-08:00

a busy weekend for one. deleting all my files is the other.

so i recommend "recover files" by UndeleteUnerase. it retrieved all my files for a mere $29. thank god, 'cause i was about to have a heart attack.

anyway the first version of the games are done. time to finesse.

drudge work

2010-01-27T07:21:00.001-08:00

today is scanning and cleaning up day.
and so is tomorrow.
and the next day too.
hopefully i'll be done by then. probably not.

day something

2010-01-23T12:52:00.000-08:00

well i haven't kept my promise at all.

the holidays screwed me up and while i kept working i didn't update the blog.

so...
"about" is done. i had some help from david donihue, an old friend from the greenhouse nursery school who helped me shape it.

4 mazes are done. the "what is different" is almost done.

so i'm making progress.

day 20

2009-12-14T06:43:00.001-08:00

because of a field trip to see the nutcracker with bas and a meeting with my accountant, meaning 2 days to get my taxes together and another for the actual meeting, that i lost all of last week. and with the holidays coming up i don't see myself making up the time. so hopefully i'll focus some and get "about" finished. it's coming together, still, but it's just not done yet.

day 15

2009-12-01T09:37:00.001-08:00

scanning the "About" images. then clean them up. composition work starts tomorrow.

day 14

2009-11-30T08:48:00.000-08:00

well i've missed a few days because of thanksgiving but i've been tweaking the "about" copy and finishing up the thumbnails. i'll be scanning and cleaning up this week to give to bobby asap.

day 13

2009-11-25T07:21:00.000-08:00

still working on the about page. the copy is done and the thumbnails.
today is lots of tracing and scanning.

another thing to mention is the hook. i've written about this before in an article for asifa east and it's very important when explaining your work to strangers.

New York City's biggest secret is hiding in Central Park.

not bad.

i struggled with it being site specific but when i wrote that down it just made sense and everyone i asked liked it a lot too. very much like the revelation when i needed to buy a url. olifant.com was taken, some german bank or something like that, so i came up with whereisolifant which also helped to define the project in whole. i love it when things come together. it's always nice when your first instinct is correct. but it's a great feeling when you have to really work and challenge yourself to change something because of circumstance and in the end you have made something even better.

day 12

2009-11-24T07:22:00.000-08:00

well the first page is up! looks fantastic and i'm very excited. but there is so much work to be done.

yesterday i struggled with the problem of how to put the words and the pictures together for the stories. it is a very important design and i want to use the power of the web to make it exciting. but it still has to be easily readable. not sure where to go yet.

but i had a breakthrough with the about page. originally is was simply a text description of olifant and his world but not even dr. suess can make that exciting by itself. so i came up with a quicky way to add some illustrations and make it look the the intro to a tv show where it quickly sums up the characters and the premise.

so i'm onto that today...hopefully i'll get far.

day 10

2009-11-20T09:43:00.000-08:00

well day 9 was a bust because i chaperoned bas and his class on a field trip to wave hill. well, at least i got some inspiration from it.

today i'm have to separate the blueberries and send the files off to bobby so he can begin his magic.

day 8

2009-11-18T07:04:00.000-08:00

well yesterday i finished the upsized border and bg image!
now onto putting together all the elements to give to bobby so he can start to build the site.

day 6

2009-11-16T07:04:00.001-08:00

will finish the border and the background image.

day 5

2009-11-13T09:47:00.000-08:00

well i've almost finished the border. web programmer bobby roe suggested making the site as big as possible so i'm resizing it to 2k x 3k. when that is done then i have to redo the background image. that should take some time.

i've been reading miyasaki's book and he has some great character development short essays so i'm going to write a few of those this week end to help explain who, what, why and where. well maybe not where since olifant lives in central park.

day 4

2009-11-12T09:41:00.000-08:00

yesterday i finished the "how to draw Olifant" page.

today i'm working on the borders, making them bigger so they fit any monitor.

i've also picked out 2 fonts, tahoma for everything and pag ministero for "olifant".

the border should take a few days.

day 2

2009-11-10T07:19:00.001-08:00

don't have a lot of time today so i'm beginning work on how to draw olifant.

i'm also going to look at fonts but maybe at work tonight.

version 2 is on it's way

2009-11-09T09:31:00.000-08:00

i've decided to create a production diary/blog about the making of Olifant. i hope to update 5 days a week and that will spur me on to work everyday.

today i've replaced the whole site with an "under construction" image and a link to this site.

so go to www.whereisolifant.com and see...well, nothing for a while but a lot in a couple of months.