I’m now well and truly stuck into the pop video now – it’s a low budget job which means I really need to get a lot of animation done in a short time – and I seem to be succeeding. The cartoony style looks good so far and I think the story is going to make sense. The only worry now is whether the project can be given the kind of stylistic look I’m after. I’ve gone for a mix of art deco and modern imagery and I’m hoping it will fit together… I’m also doing a few over-ambitious things (like cloth simulation and a bit of 3d lipsyncing – both of which are things you’d mostly try to avoid in a quick-turnaround cartoon style project).

The animation will be done (it’s rendering over the weekend), so what I’m worrying about (I always have to have something to worry about) is that indefinable uniqueness that you need to give a music promo its style. You can’t just do a cartoon or just do a video shoot or just do a dance routine – it has to have an unusual quirk – a Look that’s unmistakable and unique. And that’s the thing that’s most difficult to get on a low budget production because you’re so pushed for time you end up putting most of your effort into just getting the thing done.

What you really need is time to experiment and play around with the imagery to get something you’ve never seen before, and that’s what you don’t have a lot of the time.

In this case, the individual style is going to come from overlays and transitions I create in After Effects as well as colour correction… I’ve tried a few ideas, but I don’t think I’ve quite got there yet.


I’ve managed to get another 8 minutes of the documentary cleaned up – so I’m now about half way through the polishing stage before I send it to the client. After I get his response to it, I’m sure I’ll have to go back and re-cut to some extent – then there’s sound and colour correction to do – so it’s not finished.

Google adwords
I’ve also found a bit of time to mess about with my google ad-words adverts – and I’ve more or less doubled my click through rate (the number of people who click on my ad having seen it) from 1% to 2% just by re-wording the ad.

The trouble is, more clicks don’t necessarily mean anything except my advertising budget gets used up faster

Straight back into work after our holiday last week. I’ve got one confirmed new job – an animated music video which I’m already stuck well into, and it seems to be going well. I’m aiming for a kind of art deco/cartoony look which is going to be fun.

I’ve also been contacted by someone who asked me to do an intro sequence last year, but it never happened. It seems he’s now got a budget and is ready to go – so that’s another short job to add to the list.

I’ve started up the google advertising again (but not nearly at the level of the beginning of the year) and it seems to be paying off, so it’s possible the downturn I found earlier in the year might be coming to an end… though I’ve no idea why.

I’ve fine-tuned the advertising a bit, so it’s more targeted at people who are actually looking for animators rather than people who are looking to watch animations – although it’s quite difficult to separate the two groups by thinking of the keywords they might search for. I’ve also limited the ads to just the UK and Ireland. Not something I wanted to do because it really doesn’t matter whether I work for people in the US or Australia…. However, I seem to be getting more contacts from UK people, so it makes sense if my advertising budget is small to concentrate there.

This week I got back the 3d model I sent to shapeways. Shapeways is a company that will take your 3d virtual objects and turn them into real solid objects using a process involving powdered plastic and laser beams.

I got them to reproduce one of my trilobite models as a full scale plastic creature – and it’s amazing to see your 3d visions bought to life. There are a few restrictions on the process (like you can’t have walls thinner than 2mm) and the finished objects have a rough, almost contoured look about them with tiny (less than .0.1mm) ridges, but I can’t help feeling this kind of bespoke manufacturing is going to be huge.

If only I could think of the killer app….


Anyway. renewing my advertising on Google is paying off by the looks of it - it looks like I’ve got a pop video to animate which should be fun.

I’ve also removed the email form from the front page of http://www.anachronistic.co.uk/ – it’s been nothing but trouble with lots and lots of emails coming from it, but no actual leads to speak of.

I’m still getting more graduates wanting to work in animation than I am animation jobs, but that’s a sign of the times, I suppose.


Next week I’m on holiday….