PENCIL LINES

WALKING IN CIRCLES!

tonymaticus — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 19:16:11 GMT

Part of my current DigiPen lecture series involves showing an assignment I once set my earlier BFA students. They were tried and tested in standard walk techniques but I wanted to really challenge their knowledge with a particularly demanding assignment. I therefore gave them a layout like this and asked them to create a character executing a 360-degree 2D walk around it!

This was clearly a huge challenge for any young, newbie student but it was one that I was at least prepared to do with them myself… i.e. to share their pain! So, for 3 x 5 hour class sessions I worked on an 'eccentric' walk, with a simple character, that could be seen to travel eccentrically around the 360-degree track. Although this final result is not at all polished (and I would most definitely want to choose to modify and change a number of things about it if I were doing it professionally) this is the final pencil test of my efforts…

http://blog.animaticus.com/2008/06/13/walking-in-circles.aspx

Note: The nature of this blog video playback makes it appear choppier for some reason!

It might be of interested for students to know how I blocked-out the sequence and built it up to the final piece. Below is a movie sequence of the 7 stages I took to get to the final pencil test, which included a little skip at the end to enable me to link the end with the beginning to create a continuous loop action. These 7 stages were…

1) Blocked-out key stride positions.

2) Blocked-out key and passing positions.

3) Rough lower body animation on two’s.

4) More polished lower body animation on one’s.

5) Blocked-in torso positions with lower body animation.

6) First-pass arm actions with full body action.

7) Final head action with everything else.

Remember the most effective process for creating really challenging animation is to start simply, then build… and test, test, test all the way till you get what you want! Also, note the 'body lean' into the center of the circular path that compensates for the velocity of the character's walk on a circular path… very much like the way a motorcyclist has to lean inward when negotiating a corner turn.

In truth, the above movie clip depicts 7 stages of development but in essence I actually took around 12 stages to get it where it ended-up. Some were just working and re-working a couple of strides and therefore not an entire rotation of the path. However, I didn’t include those in this edit as they were not as informative as what I finally chose to show.

Personal critique? I would say that the action needs more rotation between the upper and lower torso action, more variation in the character's movements around the circle and more fluid action on the head. However, as there was limited time for the assignment to be completed, I can excuse myself for these kinds of deficiency.

Grade? I would give myself a "B+".for this assignment, were a student in one of my advanced classes.

Anyway, I hope this helps you think of ways of approaching your own animation challenges using a sequence of process that is constructive and informative?

Tony. :^{)}=-

UNBELIEVABLE!

tonymaticus — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:43:23 GMT

By the way, if anyone is any doubt as to who is the ultimate 'maestro' of animation technique and teaching... check this out!

http://www.theanimatorssurvivalkit.com/index.html

Its time to start saving up the pennies!

Tony. :^{)}=-

THE 'PENCILS TO PIXELS' LECTURE SERIES:

tonymaticus — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:12:17 GMT

Introducing the class to my papers on 'generic walks'.

I recently started what is to be my "Pencils to Pixels Lecture Series" at the DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, WA. This is a 'continuing education' series of lectures devised for professional animators, currently working in the industry, who want to take their animation to the next level. Essentially reviewing techniques indicated in my own books but also covering in greater detail the material presented in Richard Williams' "The Animator's Survival Kit", this course is a unique yet valuable series I believe. As I was a young and green animator at the Richard Williams Studio in London during the 1970's... when the incredible Art Babbitt (late Disney master animator) and Ken Harris (late Warner Brothers master animator) lectures shaped the destiny of our lives in London at the time and subsequently provided the core foundation material for our books... it seemed a wonderful privilege for me to share with the young professional animators of today the deeper insights that these wonderful and unique experiences provided me.

Discussing the differences between walks and runs.

I consider "The Animator's Survival Kit" to be THE 'BIBLE' for all advanced animators who want to acquire a maximum mastery of their profession. Whereas I have always considered the material in my own books the perfect primer for young, ambitious 'degree-level' students of animation, I believe the Richard Williams' book to be the ultimate 'MA-level' course that can transform a solid professional animator into a master character animator! I therefore wanted to share a little of this outstanding mastery with the animators in the Redmond area who sought to unravel the mysteries it all contains. DigiPen were generous enough to sponsor the series as part of their 'Advanced Certificate' program they are offering outside of their amazing BFA program in Animation Production. For the record, I am currently preparing for 'class 04' of this 10-part series... and am enjoying it enormously!

Discussing movement on arcs.

The exciting thing for me however is the fact that the entire series is being filmed as it unfolds and will ultimately be released on DVD in my new book, "How To Be An Animator ~ and make Animated Films". This will be my third (and yes, my last!) 'instructional' book on animation... effectively providing a complete degree-level course on animation in a book, initially teaching readers to be competent animators and then instructing them how to become animated filmmakers too. The first part of the book will be structured as an assignment-by-assignment series of BA-style lecture papers that are devised to take students to a professional-level degree of competence with their animation. The second part will teach on a stage-by-stage, MA-style basis the process of making professional-looking films from skills learned earlier. Textbooks for the course-in-a-book will include my "The Animator's Workbook" and "Animation from Pencils to Pixels ~ Classical Techniques for Digital Animators" publicatons... with more than a little encouragement for students to dive into "The Animator's Survival Kit" too! The DVD will cover all the material presented in the "Pencils to Pixels Lecture Series"... and more!

The book and accompanying DVD will be on sale in early 2009.

Tony. :^{)}=-

RICHARD WILLIAMS STRIKES AGAIN!

tonymaticus — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:27:28 GMT

I just found some very incredible new animation recently created by Richard Williams and posted on You Tube. It seems he is about to launch his new 'Masterclass' series and has animated the figures from the cover of his 'The Animator's Survival Kit' to promote it. Be amazed at...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeJiteHiNKk

It seems that he will possibly launch the tour at this year's Annecy festival, and so we wait with baited breath to hear what he has to say. This marks a major departure from his exile from the industry for many years and so it will be interesting to see what all that pent-up frustration and suppressed talent will amount to. I had heard that he was working secretly on a film with a number of friends in Wales, also that he was bringing out an animated version of the 'Survival Kit'. Whatever it is, its certainly going to turn heads after all this time!

Be prepared to admire what traditional animation can still do! Bravo!!!

Tony. :^{)}=-

GOOD TIMES!

tonymaticus — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:39:02 GMT

Bob... painter, background artist and teller of amazing tales!

This weekend I met up with a dear friend… Bob Abrams. Bob was a respected background artist at Disney and Warner Brothers in the ‘good old days’. He worked on “Cinderella” and tells tales of 'Termite Terrace' as well as of the movie stars that filmed within a stone's throw of it. We first met when we both taught at the now defunct Henry Cogswell College in Everett, WA. Bob had covered 'Animation', 'Storyboarding', 'History of Animation' and 'Life Drawing' in his time there. He was especially fabulous when teaching the history of animation, as he was pretty much there when all the great stuff was done... at least when the great stuff in Hollywood was done!

I keep meaning to film Bob telling me his first-hand stories from the 'golden era'… especially the one where he (as a novice at Disney) bumped into Walt Disney and knocked him over in the hallway! Bob says that Walt was extremely charming about it all and insisted that Bob shouldn't feel bad about it. I guess he must have left a good impression on Walt at the time (in more senses of the word than one!) as Bob did manage to keep his job for some time to come after that!

Anyway, these days Bob is retired and living the life of a serious painter up in the La Connor region of Washington State. He is an accomplished artist of note actually and I am currently in the process of buying a second large painting from him… depicting spiraling seagulls over a raging sea. Perhaps it represents his feelings when knocking Walt over on that unfortunate day? Who knows. All I do know is that it is an excellent painting and I really wanted to buy it when I first saw it!

If you want another glimpse of Bob, check-out the photos on pages 99 thru 102 in the 'Filmmaking' section of my "Animation from Pencils to Pixels" book!

YOU-TUBING!

tonymaticus — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:08:01 GMT

With so many students and colleagues, near and far, asking me how they can view some of my earlier work, I've just launched three sites on 'You Tube'. ‘TonyWhiteArchive’ shows 12 of my most favorite TV commercials, many of which are award-winners. ‘TonyWhiteFilms’ presents all my short animated films… from the British Academy Award-winning film, “Hokusai ~ An Animated Sketchbook”, through to the not-for-profit short on the history of glass and glass-making that was created for the ‘Museum of Glass’ in Tacoma, WA. Completed in 2007 after a two-year production period, “Fire Gods” was the first ever film made by the non-profit ‘Animaticus Foundation’, providing a rare opportunity for student graduates to gain professional experience by working on a ‘real’ animated project. The third and final site is TonyWhiteAnimation, which is an ever-changing collection of things from the past, present and future that don't quite fit into the first two sites. Needless to say, this will be continually updated as new and old material becomes available.

Tony. :^{)}=-

AN INCREDIBLE PILGRIMAGE!

tonymaticus — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:13:20 GMT

Worshipping on my knees at the shrine of 'Pixar"!

Wow! I’ve just got back from one of the most amazing road trips I could have ever imagined. A wonderful show in San Francisco, a scary Goth-lined film festival in Hollywood, a meltingly-hot book signing in Burbank, a moving memorial at the Disney Barn in Los Angeles, and then the ‘piece de resistance’… a personal tour of the mighty “Pixar” studio in Emeryville! Could life get any better?

But first things first...

In the beginning...

The incredible adventure started Tuesday last (May 11^th, 2008) when we… my partner Saille and I… departed from close to the Seattle region of Washington state to head south. We started in high spirits. Before the journey even began I heard that our plans to take this November’s “2D OR NOT 2D Animation Festival” to Seattle were confirmed… it is going to be in the fabulous “Imax Theater” in the Pacific Science Center, within the shadow of the world famous Seattle “Space Needle” on November 14th/15th 2008. Amazing!

(But more of all that in a later blog!)

We nearly didn't start at all! The week before we left my car was broken-into and the GPS stolen. I can actually live without the gadgetry but it was heck of a rush to get the car repaired and ready to drive in time! Thankfully VW pulled off a miracle for us and we made it away just fine!

1st stop… Corvallis, Oregon:

Our first stop on our magical mystery tour down the West Coast of the USA found us staying in Corvallis, Oregon for the first night. Saille keeps lizards and through a wonderful forum she is part of, she discovered that another ‘Blue Tongue Skink’ fan had a female who needed a male for breeding. Saille has a male skink called "Chuff-Chuff", so it was agreed that by perhaps bringing them together for the duration of our trip, we might eventually end-up with some baby skinks running around our respective homes. Consequently, we met and stayed with Rene and her husband Martin for the night, so we could introduce the Herpetological (lizardy) lovers to each other in a friendly and supportive atmosphere. We resolved that we would leave them together for the duration of our trip and pick Chuff-Chuff up on the way back.

Our infamous and unquestionably intellectual lizard (or is he just a big Harry Potter fan?)... "Chuff-Chuff".

The initial meeting of our lizard pair was not an auspicious one. When they saw each other they wriggled and shimmied and attempted to escape in opposite directions! But they calmed down in time and so we all went to bed that night, hoping for more productive relationships between the couple while we were on the road over the next six days. If nothing else, we all had our fingers firmly crossed!

2nd stop… Napa Valley.

An introduction to the beautiful Napa valley.

As night fell on our eternally long drive from Corvallis to the next objective on our trip, San Francisco, time, exhaustion and aching ‘gluteus maximus’ muscles caused us to fall short of our original plan. We chose the famous wine center of Napa, California as our place of rest. As with every other location on our trip, we had no prior reservations for accommodation, so we just had to drive around the town to find somewhere convenient to rest our aching bones. Our first attempt at finding a place was no good… no vacancies and extremely expensive (for us) anyway. Therefore we continued to patrol the streets of Napa to find another possibility. Yet there seemed nothing, anywhere. Effectively giving up, we resolved to drive back to the nearby freeway and try one of the convenient motels that we had seen an hour or two before. Clearly the ambiance they offer would hardly be the same as any in the quaint and attractive Napa but at least they would offer a clean bed and a safe place to rest our weary souls. Then, desperately seeking an exit sign from Napa to the freeway, we quite accidentally stumbled on the oasis we were looking for… the ‘Travel Lodge’ on 3^rd Street! We’d actually been past it before but in the twilight of the evening had not noticed its modest exterior the first time. Yet sure enough there it was. It looked clean and welcoming… and the place had clean and affordable vacancies too. Woo-hoo!

Pretty clear to see in the daylight but in the twilight hour the Travel Lodge in Napa is much harder to recongnize!

What I should mention now is the exceptionally unseasonable, burning-hot weather we experienced from this moment on during the trip! We had left a wet, rainy and mid-50 degree Washington state and were not really aware until we opened the door of our (luckily air-conditioned) car that the temperatures in the area was something like the mid 90’s, plus extreme humidity! Needless to say, even late into the evening in Napa, was an ordeal. This was further exacerbated by the fact that I had mainly brought Washington-wise clothes for the trip… i.e. long-sleeve shirts, long pants, a couple of dark and thick T-shirts, etc.! Consequently, after a (thankfully) good night’s sleep in a cool and well air-conditioned motel room, the first thing I had to do the next morning was hit the stores before our short drive into San Francisco.

Downtown Napa... sizzling in the heat!

On the surface it sounded a simple plan. We had scouted the town the night before and I had seen some attractive, if not a little outlandish, short-sleeve shirts and light shorts that would fit the bill. The shirts were in the window of the popular downtown store, McCaulou’s, so all we had to do was walk a couple of blocks over from our motel, buy the clothes and be off. We set out in high spirits before the day had heated-up too much, entered the store and located the required clothes in my size. However, just as we were about to pay for them, there was a huge electric flash in the back of the store… which effectively shut-down the entire power supplies in downtown Napa, leaving everywhere without lights and without electricity! Of course this not only completely disabled all the air-conditioning units in area too, but also the electric-powered cash till we were about to use. It additionally meant that the local fire department was insistent that the entire store be evacuated as a precautionary measure until the fault could be safely fixed!

The temperature outside was by now up in the 90’s and it was as humid as hell. I wondered if we should just drive on to San Francisco, but eventually reasoned that I would probably not find the equivalent clothes, or price, in that city. So we resolved to sit it out for a while and wait for things to get back to normal in Napa. Luckily, one insightful smoothie bar in town was resourceful to have its own independent power generator. So while the rest of the town was powerless and sweltering, we enjoyed the one place around that was cool and offering cold drinks that would soothe our savaged brows! It was finally around 12:15 pm when we were at last able to return into McCaulou’s and buy the chosen clothes. Very soon afterwards, and now cooling down in the efficient air-conditioning of our sturdy little car, we were at last speeding-off to San Francisco, newly-purchased clothes as part of our traveling entourage.

On the road in sizzling California... with apologies to all the bugs that sadly hit our windshield!

3^rd stop… San Francisco.

Crossing the Bay Bridge... at last!

“Teatro ZinZanni” was a show we had recently seen in Seattle for the very first time. It was an amazing mix of chaos, fine food and unique entertainment. The best way to describe it is as a cross between “Cirque de Soleil”, “The Muppets” and “Moulin Rouge” (as Saille so accurately put it). The best way to describe our experience of it was… ‘fabulous’! I had heard that there was a Teatro ZinZanni in San Francisco but it had never featured in our travel plans… that is, until recent events before our departure. FYI, I am currently developing a new animated film project and had written the first-draft script for this some time ago. I was very pleased with my script but wanted to take it to the next level and make it as an imaginative and as ‘cutting-edge magical’ a story experience as possible. I had experienced a similar kind of feeling when attending the Teatro ZinZanni event and wondered if the person who had written that might be able to contribute to my project. I discovered that it was a man called Michael Davis and so I did a little contact research and emailed him about my project. He replied and that he was intrigued by what I was doing and although he has never worked in anything film-related before, he would be keen to meet with me and discuss it. He then said that he was working as one of the performers in the San Francisco ‘Teatro ZinZanni’ show till it ended on May 18^th… and ‘would I like to see the show and meet afterwards?’ I couldn’t believe how synchronicitous the whole thing was and immediately agreed. It was therefore arranged before we left that Saille and I would travel to San Francisco during our road trip, meet with Michael before and after the show and then have a fabulous time in watching the performance inbetween.

Teatro ZinZanni... a 'must see' in either Seattle of San Francisco!

Approaching San Francisco with barely two hours to spare before finding accommodation, meeting with Michael, seeing the show and surviving a temperature somewhere near the low 90’s in the city, the situation was not initially conducive to a calm and casual approach. However, we somehow navigated the insane San Francisco traffic and found ourselves outside the Teatro ZinZanni tent in the Pier 23 district in good time. I called Michael to see if he could advise us on accommodation site nearby. He suggested a ‘Travel Lodge’ he knew of and so we duly headed off to it. Our previous experience of the Travel Lodge in Napa had been excellent and so this seemed a perfect suggestion. It was! The only surprise to us was the fact that the cost of a room in the San Francesco motel was almost double the amount we’d paid in Napa… and there was even an additional surcharge to park our car in the motel parking lot! But that said, it was a good (and welcome) suggestion and I never for once regretted it.

Twice our saviour!

Safely registered in our motel room, we reasoned that the safest way to get back to the theater was to take a taxi cab. Thankfully, unlike all the cabs I’ve experienced in places like New York City during my many travels, the cab we got in San Francisco had a wonderfully efficient air-conditioning system. We got there pretty quickly too and found Michael Davis already waiting for us. We shared an enjoyable snack and iced drink together in a local restaurant and spoke of the project… details of which I will share with you all on a later date when it is more fully developed. Suffice it to say, Michael was great and the meeting set us up well for the show to come. At one point my cell phone rang and although it proved pretty insistent that I answered it, I preferred not to interrupt the fun meeting we were having with Michael at the time. However, after the get-together… when Michael left to prepare for the show and we wandered aimlessly around in the heat trying to kill time before it began… I phoned the unrecognized number back. Saille had intuitively said that it was probably an animation colleague I knew from Pixar who was trying to hook up with us. It turns out that she was right! He’d called to say ‘hi’… and ‘did we want to meet him at Pixar in Emeryville on Monday for a personal tour of the studio?”!!! I jumped at the chance. For us this was like some long dreamed of pilgrimage to a sacred shrine of greatness and so we just couldn’t miss this opportunity of a lifetime. It was therefore so easy to say ‘yes please’!

Inside the Teatro ZinZanni show/restaurant tent in San Francisco.

The San Francisco show of Teatro ZinZanni was very different from the one in Seattle. It had entirely different characters and relied much more on rib-tickling humor. Comparing them therefore is just like comparing apples to oranges. The bottom line is that it was hilarious and yet another of those unforgettable life experiences. Michael Davis was hillarious as "Tad Overdone' the ZinZanni chef. We learned later that many people come back and see the show again and again. (The record number of visits for one person is 200 apparently!) The program is changed every few months to keep it fresh. Indeed, in the audience of the performance we went to were the artists who are in the next show… “Hail Caesar”… which is probably running already as I write.

Writer and performer Michael Davis as "Tad Overdone" in the Teatro ZinZanni show.

Perhaps the most amazing thing throughout the whole evening however was actually nothing to do with the performance or the food. (Which was really delicious incidentally!) We found ourselves seated as close to the performing area as possible. (There is no stage by the way. Most of the action takes place ‘in the round’ so to speak, in the center of the theatre tent.) Our table was set for four and the couple already there when we were shown to it seemed extremely pleasant and very easy to talk to. With initial pleasantries aside, we ventured to ask what they did for a living. The wife Kit (who was treating her husband Andy to the evening out for his birthday, which was actually on that day by the way) was a midwife. Andy’s answer on the other hand blew me away… he is a layout artist at “Pixar”! My jaw dropped. What are the odds of that happening anywhere… quite apart from it happening at Teatro ZinZanni on that night at that time of the year on our now Pixar-bound road trip, in San Francisco? Turns out we had a huge amount of things in common to talk about and we duly ended the evening by promising to meet again when we visited the studio the following Monday.

4^th Stop… Hollywood!

Driving from northern California to southern California is no picnic, especially with temperatures of over 108 degrees! I thank the heavens that my car has efficient air-conditioning but even so, we were still hot and sweaty by the time we finally unpacked at the “Motel 6” we managed to find for ourselves when we arrived. The big challenge for this part of the trip was to get from San Francisco to Hollywood in time for the 7:00 pm "Mockfest" directors’ meet ‘n greet that same evening. We actually did it with a little time to spare but I’m sure the pressure of having to do so added to our sweaty, tattered arrival. That said, we were soon showered and changed and ready to attack the legendary LA freeway labyrinth. I’ve driven in LA several times before and each time the traffic seems to get more and more intense and chaotic. This time was no different!

We actually found where we needed to be quite easily, thanks in no small measure to the ‘Google map’ we’d printed out at home before our departure. Finding parking was much more difficult when we got to the theatre of course. So with the temperatures in the high 90’s we were relieved when we eventually discovered a lot just two or three blocks from the Pine Theatre, where we needed to be. The walk from the parking lot to the festival event seemed just as bizarre as the Teatro ZinZanni experience the night before. However, aside from the usual strange expressions of humanity we found ourselves walking through while making our way up Hollywood Blvd, an endless line of predominantly black-robed, Goth-style youngsters lined the street to one side of us. They were waiting to see the latest Japanese goth band sensation which was performing there that night. I’m afraid I can’t tell you what the band was called as there were scant posters outside the theater they were performing in and I’m not up on these things. Suffice it to say though, the chattering, predominantly Valley-girl teenagers clearly had strong emotions for what must have been a famous performing sensation!

"Mockfest"... a unique festival for 'mockumentary' films!

The Mockfest festival… the 2^nd annual festival of ‘mockumentary’ films to be held in Hollywood… had a sense of the same outlandish and almost rebellious Goth spirit about it too. The Vine theatre is a small cinema on Hollywood Blvd that has clearly seen better days. However, it was still nevertheless charming and reminded me a lot of the Everett Historic Theatre when our last two “2D OR NOT 2D Animation Festival” had been staged. This festival started out on a strong note with a powerful rock band, “The Shock” taking the stage, bringing a considerable amount of unique energy to the event. My film, “Endangered Species”, was to open the festival during a collection of four short films. I do believe this film was actually the only animated film in the entire event… something I was congratulated on beforehand, as a result of the huge amount of work I had put into it. Sadly the showing was very disappointing.

"Endangered Species"... my homage to the classical moments in animation's history.

Somehow the digital transfer of the projected version they showed… or else the intense illumination the projector they were using generated… effectively burned-out all the neutral and mid-spectrum color tones of my film. Consequently, much of the work that took 4 years to create was not even visible on the screen! It was somehow bleached-out, leaving nothing but brilliant whiteness in its wake. This was particularly damaging over the end title sequence, where I had used as a backdrop of subtle gray and ghostly images of drawings from the animation… shot in reverse to their order of appearance in the film. This was meant to sensitively accompany the credits of all those who had helped me complete the film, showing a nostalgic reverse of the featured history of animation portrayed in the body of the storyline. The absence of these images must have been particularly taxing on the audience, who had to sit through endless title cards, black on white and with no hint of movement. We left later that evening, somewhat deflated, and hoping that this would not be an ill omen for the rest of the events we were to experience over this melting weekend in Los Angeles.

Things didn’t pick up much when after leaving the cinema we walked along Hollywood Blvd. We passed the Kodak Theatre where I believe some of the televised Academy Awards have been held and read the names of the numerous celebrities who have had a ‘golden star’ dedicated to them on the sidewalk… some famous, some not so famous in this day and age. But what was particularly appalling was the dark and dubious people (and places) that shared that once hallowed Hollywood turf. Assorted pimps, hookers, dealers, drunks and druggies mixed shoulder to shoulder with tourists and innocent families who came just to see that magical place they knew as the ‘City of Angels’. How the ‘good’ and the ‘great’ must be turning in their graves as they see what has happened to the place of magic and wide-eyed imagination that Hollywood once was. I was told later that this actually is a ‘much more cleaned-up place’ than it used to be. The mind boggles of what it may have once been!

5^th stop… the Book Look event.

The exterior of the Book Look tent in the cool calm before the crowds arrived!

The next day brought light where there had been darkness the night before. The Creative Talent Network, in association with the Van Eaton (animation art) Gallery, had arranged a wonderful event where 'animation authors', 'animators' and 'animation fans' might meet and talk over a sharing of signed books. The event was wonderful. The weather was not! Temperatures of over 100 degrees inside the marquee that was erected for the purpose meant that everyone and everything had to move in slow motion. Enthusiasm, talent and inspiration was evident in huge amounts but the heat and the humidity took the edge off activities… or perhaps that was just the way it seemed to me, who never could handle such things, as I mentioned earlier.

Looking cool and relaxed at the event... but it was far from that in reality, with temperatures at over 100 degrees. The colorful electric fan helped though!

I met good new friends that day. The public seemed not so much interested in learning of the ‘process’ of animation, which is what my books were all about. They seemed much more fascinated by books containing concept artwork, or biographical books, or those based entirely on films or TV programs that they knew well. That wasn’t to say that I didn’t sign any books. It was just that more earnest discussion was in greater evidence over my table than confirmed book sales.

Explaining the principles of movement with some Japanese students.

And the new friends?

It was a joy to meet with folks who, like me, are devoted to animation and consequently build their entire lives and work around it. Remarkable individuals such as Stephen Worth (Archive Director of ASIFA Hollywood) and Jerry Beck (animation historian and producer from Animation Brew) were there. I found some interesting books that the authors signed for me too. There was the fine art of David Colman in his book, “The Art of Animal Character Design”. Delightful animation veteran Martha Sigall was sharing her experiences in the golden years of the industry through “Living Life inside the Lines”. Don Peri’s fascinating interviews with some Disney legends about the great man himself was gifted to us through “Working with Walt”. Finally the pricey (and yet priceless) record of animation created by the rebellious anti-Disney studio animators, “Inside UPA”, was signed and presented by Tee Bosustow.

Two of the signed books I brought back with me from the Book Look event.

All that said though, the most revered book I came back with was “The Disney Villain” by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas… and actually signed by the maestros themselves! Saille first saw it in the Van Eaton gallery and we both agreed that we just could not leave without it, being that Frank and Ollie were THE great legends of the previous era.

The prized signed edition we came back with... and I hear its a great book too!

The biggest surprise of the day came when I found myself looking at a smiling face looking back at me across my signing table later in the afternoon. He smiled. I said ‘hi’. He continued to smile as if he knew me. I wasn’t sure I knew him. He then took pity on me and said “Paul Shardlow’. I was suddenly transported back to a London of over twenty years hence, when Paul and I last worked on a production together. How the gray hair covers the years inbetween… for both of us! Paul and I first met when we both background artists at the legendary “Halas & Batchelor” studio in London in the mid to late 1970’s. However, years later, when I had established my own studio, ‘Animus Productions’ (my first having spent the seven preceding years at the Richard Williams Studio) Paul and I worked together again when I hired him to produce backgrounds on one of the TV Specials the studio produced. He is now a top artist for “Sony” in Los Angeles. He explained that he is now using the latest state-of-the-art technology to create concept art for studio’s various productions. I had to reflect on that fact that we had both come a long, long way from our early ‘cell animation’ days in the industry, where the only cutting-edge technology we had was ‘pencils’, ‘paper’, ‘brushes’ and ‘Gouache watercolor’ paints! It was great to see Paul again after all these years and am delighted to hear that he is doing so well. Maybe we can work together sometime again in the future… I never will give up the pencils or paper though!

6^th stop… Chewing the fat at “Bob's Big Boy Restaurant” and the Ollie Johnston dedication.

It was getting cooler. The hideous warm spell in the upper 90’s was now down by at least a whole 2 degrees! What joy!

Even the 'Bob's Big Boy Restaurant' statue looks as if he's sweating!

Breakfast with friends was the order of the day. Vicki and Matt from the emergent PlexiPixel animation studio in Seattle were in town too that weekend. Indeed, we had all conferred about our schedules before leaving and knew that our paths would cross more than once during the LA part of the trip. Vicki is a fine producer and so naturally she immaculately created our itinerary and meet-up point maps via Google, so that meeting would be that much easier. "Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant" was her suggestion for breakfast and it was a really good one. Situated on W. Riverside Drive, just along from the Disney ‘Hat Building' it proved a noisy but entirely necessary preparation for the more sedate and reflective Ollie Johnston dedication on "Walt's Barn" that was soon to come afterwards.

The famous Disney 'Hat Building'... the place that promised so much but delivers so little these days!

Vicki and Matt had actually visited us at the 'Book Look' event the day before and, like us, were eagerly anticipating the Ollie memorial too. We’d also shared a sushi meal with them and Don Peri the night before, so we were quite used to seeing their cheery, smiling faces by now. Although I didn’t know of it myself, Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant was quite famous and with the food that was served up that morning I can quite understand why. High spot of the meal was when Vicki saw the fresh strawberry pie and cream she had ordered. Her face lit-up brighter than the Hollywood Blvd skyline at nightfall!

Bob's famous eating place in LA!

The Ollie Johnston dedication was held in the sweltering open air of Griffin Park but fortunately was entirely tolerable, due to the lush trees that shaded the burning sun above the entire event. 'Hurrah' for Walt's Barn and Griffin Park!

The official entry pass for Walt's Barn.

It is a part of Griffin Park that contains a scaled-down steam train track, complete with stations and crossings and the kind of sounds that only came from this earlier (and much more palatable) mode of passenger travel. The barn itself harks back to the times Walt Disney spent in his family barn in Marceline, Missouri. The barn has been subsequently rebuilt and now contains much of the railway memorabilia that dates back to those days when Walt, Ollie and animation legend Ward Kimball shared a love for scale model trains and track layouts.

Ollie in earlier times, driving his train with author Don Peri as passenger.

This particular Sunday marked the day when one of Ollie’s prized artifacts, the prized railway station he once used on his home-based track layout, would be opened and dedicated to his memory within the Walt’s Barn layout. The day was well attended by about 100 visitors, including several Disney artists and imagineers. The event, hosted by the Carolwood Pacific Historical Society, was both poignant and moving. It was hard not to be touched by the tributes paid to Ollie, his grown-up railway ‘toys’ and the fabulous body of work he left to the world. I saw it not the end of one solitary man but the end of an entire era that will never quite be witnessed in the same way again.

Part of the large crowd that gathered for Ollie's dedication.

7^th stop… Worshipping at the shrine of “Pixar”.

Words cannot express the gratitude I feel for the great achievements of Pixar and its inspiration, John Lasseter. It was a time when animation was in sharp decline, where the Disney studio (a once great and unconquerable force under Walt) was a pale shadow of itself during the mercenary Eisner era. Then there emerged a unique young animation studio called Pixar that held firmly to the beliefs of storytelling magic and artistic excellence that Walt held so dear and they triumphed. Let us be clear about it, without Pixar there would be no industry… at least, not an industry worth talking about. Pixar proved that the Walt philosophy will always work… that if you tell great stories and push the creative limits you will always find your audience and it will remain faithful for generations to come. The emergence of Pixar actually marked an apparent end of the 2D animation era in the minds of many people… didn’t Michael Eisner say ‘2D animation is dead’ when he closed down the traditional animation studio in 2002? (Although I don’t for one minute believe this myself and will spent the entirety of my life disproving his words!) However, it did clearly herald the arrival of a magical new era in the animated artform… where the excellence of the quality of this new era would be marked by the evolving genius of that studio called Pixar.

Saille and I... and 'Luxo Jr." of course!

Imagine therefore the feelings I held when entering the gates of that now mighty animation ‘Mecca’. It marked the end of a kind of pilgrimage for me, where I had retraced the steps along the old path where some fine giants had trod before and now I was following a new path where a new kind of giant was walking! As I have intimated earlier, my introduction to Pixar came through animator Don Crum, who had animated on “The Incredibles”, “Ratatouille” and now ‘Wall-e”. I had been introduced to Don through an ex-Disney faculty colleague, Geraldine Kovats, who worked with him at Disney, in Florida before that studio had been so ignobly closed. “Dean” had asked Don on my behalf to present his work and give a couple of masterclass lectures to our senior students at DigiPen in Redmond, and he had generously obliged… twice! Don is a really interesting speaker and was inspirational to the students at the time. (He was inspirational to me too, if the truth were told!) He said over one of the dinners we shared together at the time that if I was ever in the Bay area I should look him up and he would give me the Pixar tour. This was therefore that invitation fulfilling itself.

I was delighted to find that Don Crum's office at Pixar included a 2D animation lightbox!

I can see the young and the uninitiated (in animation terms at least) walking the Pixar tour and being transported to the world of Woody, Buzz, Nemo, Sulley and soon Wall-E. There are pictures and life-sized models of all the most popular Pixar characters littered about the place. In the courtyard outside the main entrance there is even a huge white sculpture of Luxo Jr. (which started it all when all is said and done… as Mickey had at the Disney studio!). This had apparently been donated to Pixar by an Australian outdoors sculpture company and it had only been installed barely a month previous to our visit. However, as interesting as it all was, none of this was the main attraction for Saille or I.

That said... we certainly couldn't ignore part the the classical Pixar legacy. (Pity I couldn't have been as well color co-ordinated as Saille though!)

Where my wonder lay was in the artwork on the walls of the halls and lobbies of the tour. The same was true for Saille too... she also being a traditional 2D animator at heart! Truly fine art… both 'digitally advanced' and 'marker-pen traditional'… underpins for me the core secret of Pixar animation. Pixar is a place that is filled with great individual artists! True, the magnificent work that the studio produces is entirely dependent on cutting-edge technology. But the main impetus on the genius of Pixar is that it is packed to the gills with fabulous artists who have simply learned what buttons to push to get the work done… and thus will it ever be as long as it remains vital and cutting-edge! I had been particularly impressed with the artwork of Dan Holland, which graces the walls of the tour in a number of places. His work appears more than once and the art he produces is fabulous (although ALL the work at Pixar is fabulous to be honest!). It was therefore a extra special thrill, while we were later eating a delicious lunch in the Pixar cafeteria, when Don strode over to a stranger he saw there and led him over to us. It was Dan Holland! Needless to say, it was an honor to meet him. Dan was not the only wonderful person we met that day. We briefly chatted with animator Kureha Yokoo (who had presented her work for us at last year’s “2D OR NOT 2D Animation Festival”) and layout artist Andy Cadelago (who we had met in Teatro ZinZanni just a few days previous!) Perhaps the biggest surprise in all this was the fact that Dan Holland knew one of my ex-students from Washington State, Digger Jensen, and one who was actually in Saille’s class at the time! You know, I am constantly reminded that this world is indeed a very small place!

The Pixar lobby restaurant... exceptional food and more than a little hint of what's to come filmicly through the "Wall-E" posters that are suspended above!

Final stop… lizard pick-up and home!

We were eagerly anticipating our return visit to Rene and Martin in Corvallis. Would we be the proud parents of young Blue Tongued Skink babies in the month to come? Apparently not! It seems that although our lizards showed a great deal of respect and affection towards each other, they didn’t actually consummate their hastily arranged marriage! We suspect that it is too late in the mating season for this to be a reality right now, so the new plan is make a second attempt at it in March next year, when the mating frenzy should be at its peak. Still, it was a nice idea… although it is clearly and idea what’s time has not yet come!

And so ended a whirlwind, fascinating, breath-taking, sweltering, unbelievable week of a road trip! In all we must have covered over 3.000 miles, or more! I cannot even begin to express here all of the revelations and the aspirations we shared on that amazing journey. Time (and this blog) will reveal more eventually I am sure. Suffice it to say however we are both totally exhausted… as well as being totally inspired by what has transpired. I dare not believe that there will be such a week like this again. Yet experience has shown me that animation is an unexpected and unpredictable world and although I have spend the majority of my time fixed to an animation lightbox, endeavoring to make things move in ways they never have before, that lonely and sedentary place has actually taken me halfway around the world and to places I could barely dream of before the whole crazy thing began. I hope I can share more of my future adventures with you as time goes by and they are revealed to me. Let us hope so at least.

My magic pass into Pixar... I hope it won't be the last time I use one!

Phew!!! Now I’d better get back to the real world for a while!

Tony. :^{)}=-

‘END~SPEC’ ON DVD AT LAST… BUT IN A LIMITED KIND OF WAY!

tonymaticus — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:07:17 GMT

Those of you who have been asking if my film “Endangered Species” is out on DVD yet might be interested to know that a limited edition of it is going to be available at the “Animation Book Look” event this Saturday, May 17^th 2008. Unfortunately, this availability is only limited to 25 signed copies for now… but at least it’s a start!

The 'EndSpec' limited-edition DVD cover.

As indicated earlier, the second “Animation Book Look” event is being presented by ‘The Creative Talent Network’ and the ‘Van Eaton Galleries’ this coming weekend and will feature a number of us writer/animators, all signing their books for whoever wants to buy them. My featured book will be "Animation from Pencils to Pixels ~ Classical Techniques for Digital Animators".

The book in question!

Additionally, visiting authors will have a selection of their own creative works sold through the gallery, so I am taking a number of signed prints from “Animation from Pencils to Pixels”/”Endangered Species”, as well as the limited-edition DVD.

One of my featured prints... "The Apprentice".

This special limited-edition DVD will not only have a full version of “Endangered Species” on it, but it also has a brief interview with me to introduce it and a surprise bonus archive collection of some of my work, taken from almost 30 years in the animation industry! This limited edition will not be offered again in this particular format, although another DVD edition of "Endangered Species" will eventually become available.

Another of my prints... "Outsourcing".

The location of Saturday’s unique event is VAN EATON GALLERIES, 13613 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, CA. Tel: 818-788-2357. Further details can be found at… http://www.animationbooklook.com/index.html. The event is being sponsored by “Animation Magazine” and “MyToons”.

One more print... "The Old Days".

Hopefully I’ll see you all there if you're passing by!

Yet another... "Animation Research".

Tony :^{)}=-

A STRANGE WEEKEND!

tonymaticus — Wed, 07 May 2008 06:41:58 GMT

Life is strange sometimes. Over five years ago I began to make my film "Endangered Species" for the book I was planning to write, "Animation from Pencils to Pixels". In all it took me four years to complete both of them and the results are now out there for everyone to see. The book is selling very well (thank you all who have bought it) but the film kind of sank from site after the first round of festival entries. However, I wasn't too perturbed about this as it was never meant for mainstream screening... it was entirely made to illustrate my book.

That said, I now find myself traveling to Los Angeles because of both the book and the film... two separate events on the same weekend. The book has resulted in my being invited to the Galleries "Book Look" event... essentially a get-together of animation book writers and filmmakers, where they can meet and greet and sign their books. (Info: http://www.animationbooklook.com) I saw reports of the same event last year and thought it would be fun to do, so I agreed to do it.

Quite coincidentally, the film is being shown the evening before at the Pine Street Theater, "Mockfest" event. (Info: http://www.mockfilmfest.com) The festival is dedicated to 'mockumentary' filmmakers. "Endangered Species" is an animated mockumentary film with a serious message... i.e. the demise of the 2D animation industry, or not! Anyway, I saw the Mockfest event advertised and thought it would be fun to enter. I never dreamed that my film would be accepted. It even had a bumpy ride in being so. I had entered it online and needed to send the hard-copy disk to the organizers... which I did. However, somewhere on route it disappeared into a postal black hole and so I had to rush an emergency overnight print to the organizers once I knew they had not received the first one. Anyway, all's well that ends well in the end. The film was accepted and is part of the launch night show. I don't know if it will feature in the awards but, hey, I was very excited (and bemused) that it and the book were featuring in LA on the same weekend, but for entirely different reasons.

I think there is something in the air because on the Sunday of that weekend there is a tribute event to Disney legend, Ollie Johnson. (Info: http://www.carolwood.org/Calendar) I have every intention of being there for that one too if I can. Living in the Seattle region, I am rarely down in the LA neck of the woods... so this is a perfect opportunity to kill three birds with one stone! I'm also meeting a writer on the way up to the weekend events in San Francisco on the Thursday night, so yet again there is a strange synchronicity in the air right now.

You know, sometimes the gods really do move in exceedingly mysterious ways!

Tony. :^{)}=-

JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE!

tonymaticus — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:06:16 GMT

Hi again.

I admit that things have been very quiet on this blog front of late. That was principally because I was out of commission for three weeks with a nasty viral respiratory tract infection. Then hardly recovered, I hit the ground running with ‘Finals’ week where I teach… the DigiPen Institute of Technology (http://www.digipen.edu). On top of that we just had our ‘All-school Projects Show’, our ‘Graduation Gala’ event, followed by the first ever ‘Commencement Ceremony’ for our BFA (in ‘Production Animation’) senior students! Phew, hardly a time to breath… and its all only just beginning!

I do confess to being a ‘workaholic’ but this has to be the most exhausting, time-sapping, hand-shaking period in my life yet. Not that I’m complaining mind you… but hey, my feet have hardly touched the ground in recent weeks and I’m still catching my breath! Not much time to write blogs, as you can imagine.

"Spirit Moves Through All Things" ~ A DigiPen senior project, 2008.

I have to say I am very proud of our first year of graduating senior students. As juniors, DigiPen students are required to produce their own 30-second short film, created by themselves entirely… from initial idea to full final render. The purpose of this is not so much to produce a ‘great’ film, but more to give every single student a realistic experience of every stage of the production process. That way they will be better prepared for when they eventually enter the professional world and are asked to step into a particular role. It also prepares them for the greater challenges of the final senior team project. But more about that in a minute.

"Peak" ~ A DigiPen senior project, 2008.

I would imagine that 30-seconds does not sound very long to most people and that’s understandable when the work looks so smooth and well polished on the screen. But this is far from the actual truth. As any professional computer animator will tell you (even the very best of Pixar animators!) only having 2 x 15 week terms to ‘conceive’, ‘write’, ‘design’, ‘develop’, ‘model’, ‘rig’, ‘texture’, ‘animate’, ‘light’ and finally ‘render’ a film... with a ‘main character’, an ‘environment’, a minimum of one ‘prop’ and a story with a ‘beginning, middle and end’... is not a great deal of time. This is especially so with the high demands we place on the student’s animation quality too. It consequently proves a huge challenge, especially to the first-time student applying all these skills collectively for the first time. Sometimes it is very much touch-and-go whether they make it or not. But I am delighted to tell you that this year’s amazing students did make it, and produced some truly fabulous films in the process! I’ll hopefully share some of these with you here as the week’s go by.

"R_Den_C" ~ A DigiPen senior project, 2008.

When the juniors reach their senior year they are required to work together in teams to produce a more ambitious project. The core approach of the DigiPen BFA program is … ‘skilled in all trades, master of one’. This means that over the four (or sometimes 5) years of their time at the school they learn (intensively) all the necessary components of contemporary animation and its production. Initially this has been all 'film' based but with DigiPen’s great, award-winning tradition for game programming and design, 'games' has become an option for the animation students too.

"I.D.A." ~ A DigiPen senior project, 2008.

Although we live in a very digital world today, and although the school’s name includes ‘Institute of Technology’ in its title, a DigiPen student actually isn’t even allowed to touch a computer for the first year or so! (Except for logging-in to check on their grades and send emails of course.) The fundamental foundation work is all in the classical, traditional art field. Students learn to 'draw', and 'draw' and 'draw even more' especially. They are also intensively coached in the fine art skills or ‘anatomy’, ‘perspective’, tone color and composition’, ‘painting’ (digital and traditional), ‘design’ and of course 'traditional 2D animation'. When they have finally learned all the classical art and animation skills they are then allowed onto the digital applications that form the modern world of the professional 3D animator. It is clearly not an easy program to enter, or survive in! Many students do not even make it over the four year period. However those that do, effectively come out with a ‘Harvard and Yale’ level of education in the modern digital animation arena... many of which have skillsets even more advanced than professionals already working in the industry!

"Crunch" ~ A DigiPen senior project, 2008.

Clearly the program is a new one. This year’s graduates were the first ever. Yet we are mightily proud of the program and of our students’. They did themselves, and the school, proud in 2008. This first ever cohort of students have had to be a kind of ‘guinea-pig class’ in many ways. They are the ones at the sharp end, with no peers to guide them or precedence before them, that had to turn the theory of a program into practice. The road has been a bumpy on occasions… for us, the faculty, too! But we and they got there, and got there well! This year’s graduates have set an incredibly high bar for the students who follow and we are so amazed at what they have been able to demonstrate. Their amazing work certainly demonstrates the effectiveness of the 'classical art training before computers' approach, where we first make the artist and then give them a computer to work with. I guess it is hard to quantify this but I genuinely believe that the BFA program we offer at DigiPen… with its fabulous fulltime faculty (many of which are award-winners in their own right, or long-term ex-Disney employers with a passion for art and animation) is second to none… anywhere in the world.

"Harvest" ~ A DigiPen senior project, 2008.

A mighty claim I admit. But to support my view I thought I’d give you just a brief 'taster' of the final senior projects from this year’s graduates. This mute film compilation is just a glimpse of the amazing films that were produced. Sadly, until these films emerge at various film festivals around the world, I guess this is all you can have for now. After this compilation you can view another clip from a senior project of a more experimental nature... “Spirit Moves Through All Things”. This has been an attempt by passionate DigiPen students to create pure digital ‘art’… effectively an animated expressionist-style painting that uses nothing but particles to tell the silent story of a tree experiencing the four seasons at each time of day and night. But first, the five other film clips that make up the work of this year’s senior graduates at DigiPen…

http://blog.animaticus.com/2008/05/02/just-another-day-at-the-office.aspx

"Senior Project Compilation Movie" ~ A DigiPen production, 2008.

“Spirit Moves Through All Things” is an experimental piece in digital animation that is more designed to appear on the wall of an office, or an art gallery of the future, than in a conventional cinema or on a standard TV screen. It is essentially a looped, 2-minute digital work of art that will run infinitely when screened properly. For me it is a true ‘breakthrough piece’… something (to my knowledge) that has never been attempted before and therefore is something the students creating it (Mike Smith, Codie Flynn and Arthur Beausoleil) can be justly proud. Here's a tantalizing glimpse of what they produced...

"Excerpt of Spirit Moves Through All Things" ~ A DigiPen production, 2008.

Now the term is over and we are entering the summer months it might be supposed that I can at last take a much-needed rest. Far from it! Over the months ahead, until the Fall term starts at the beginning of September, I as head of the department have to do a great deal of re-evaluing and evolving of the current program, prepare my coming classes for the Fall (I supervise both the junior and senior project… this year it was between 30 to 40 films in all!)... establish new administrative structure for the evolving program and, of course, pursue my own artistic ‘professional development’. If I’m lucky, this will include completing my new book on animation "How To Be An Animator ~ And Make Animated Films" (due to be delivered in August), preparing for our next “2D OR NOT 2D Animation Festival” (in Seattle in November) and develop the new film project that my Animaticus Foundation is planning to produce (hopefully evolving the art of traditional 2D animation to new levels of expression)! But more of all these things later.

I think I need to lie down and rest now!

Tony. :^{)}=-

AN EVENING WITH SOME LOCAL FLASHERS!

tonymaticus — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 09:38:25 GMT

I was actually much happier at the event than I look here!

I recently spent a very enjoyable evening presenting my work to the vibrant Seattle Flash Users Group at the downtown Adobe Theatre. The event, organized by group manager Keith Johnson was well attended… which is always a relief!

I was especially overjoyed as my daughter, Sarah, was visiting Seattle on an unexpected surprise visit from the UK… which made me all the more proud to present my work in front of her. I was mindful of course that much of this work was created in the UK when I lived there while Sarah was growing up! She told me afterwards that she didn’t know I had done so much and that she hadn’t seen most of the animation I had shown. I guess we take for granted that the work we do is seen by all those close to us in our live but it really is not so true I now realize. (Personal note: Share everything you do with those close to you… time passes quickly and it may one day be too late!)

Apparently this was the first time the group had invited a ‘traditional’ 2D animator to present their work to them. As a result I attempted to show them animation that had the least similarity to Flash-style animation… principally my more ‘illustrative’ and/or ‘painterly’ styles. I couldn’t avoid showing Flash-generated work in my “Fire Gods” student film production of course but beyond that all was very much created in the classical, traditional style… whether that was ultimately 'cell' or 'digitally' finished at the time.

My showreel Menu.

I have created many cartoon-style commercials of course… pretty much all the standard cereal spot characters that appear on American TV and a number of other things, including the titles for the “Pink Panther Strikes Again” movie. But it is in my more ‘artistic’ work that I gain my greatest satisfaction… especially films like the British Academy Award-winning short, “Hokusai – An Animated Sketchbook”. (Although I did admit to the group that ‘Hokusai’ could actually be fully created and animated in Flash… indeed, I’ve even thought of doing it as a Web-based production from time to time!)

Hokusai's style lends itself to a Flash approach!

Overall I think the evening went really well. Afterwards there was much appreciation expressed for my advertising work, where such a diverse range of styles and approaches is most evident. It is always my believe that whereas the ‘cartoon’ style of animation is now a well-trodden path… possibly a too well-trodden path… traditional 2D animation has barely scratched the surface of its potential in reality. There are many new frontiers to explore and encounter yet, even in the ‘entertainment’ film genre. Hopefully I will be able to demonstrate this much more before I eventually depart to that ‘great lightbox in the sky’!