One of the best independent animation blogs on the internet today is Ian Lumsden’s UK, http://www.animationblog.org/. Chock full of incredible animation and interesting observations, Ian Lumsden, who apart from facilitating this blog is not actually in the media or the animation biz.

Ian has a unique perspective on animation. Quite simply he profiles what he likes. Oblivious to the PR hype that so often surrounds a project and keeps a few chosen companies constantly in the public eye, Ian zeroes in on the way a piece makes you feel while barely mentioning the technique. I like that because that’s the way a good animation should be – thrilling you with it’s content yet so expertly made that the technique employed is almost invisible. I think life is all about the journey taken and that journey is filled with emotion not software.

I send him everything we do as much because I value his honest and constructive criticism as because I like to see LFC’s work recognized by his blog. When Ian reviews your work it’s a notice worth having. Here’s what he had to say about our first CALU spot, Journey.

“Jerry van de Beek and Betsy De Fries comprise the small but perfectly formed Little Fluffy Clouds, a California based company that from what I can make out seems to turn its adroit hand to whatever project is put its way. Take, Journey, a 30 second ad for the California University of Pennsylvania. Watch how the curved blue line moves outwards towards a rowing boat before we alight at the university campus, gradually being populated by students, the buildings and trees such warm colours, to be whisked upwards, above the entire university, a community set inside a blue sea. Pastoral and enticing, the freshness of it all makes one want to start again. A watercolour mix of 2D and 3D, using Maya and After Effects, college life as one might wish it to be. Parents would certainly. Clean living. And a very cool ad. There’s more work on their website, for some very prestigious clients, as indeed is CALU. I want to go there.”

Thanks Ian!

Really good design books are hard to come by so we at Little Fluffy Clouds are more than pleased to be featured in one – which from the galleys to date – looks to be just that. Picture Perfect: Seeing and Understanding Color and Design, by Chris Dorosz and J.R. Watson, is an upcoming design publication by Fairchild Books, a division of Conde Nast Publications.

This extensive text/workbook takes an interactive approach to the study of color and design, highlighting the elemental importance for designers to understand how color is perceived, experienced, and manipulated in order to be used effectively in their designs. A highly visual text, Picture Perfect, will explore and apply the principles of color and design and help stir the imagination of today’s art and design students.

The Friskies images from Little Fluffy Clouds were chosen for their skillful use in paring the end “client”, in this case a cat, to the advertised product. An extract from the book expands on this and speaks eloquently of the processes at work in the design:

“Picking one color to work around in a design can establish a dominant impression, reference or mood. This Friskies cat food commercial has taken the orange color of a Tabby cat as the key color and expands it into an analogous palette using yellow oranges and red oranges. More subtly, it engenders feelings of warmth and happiness as it taps into primordial instincts of the regenerative powers of the sun.”

Picture Perfect: Seeing and Understanding Color and Design, by Chris Dorosz and J.R. Watson, will be released in the fall of 2010. Order your copy now.

Reviewing Lee Lanier’s latest book, Professional Digital Compositing – Essential Tools and Techniques, Kirk Buckendorf eloquently states – and  I couldn’t have put it better myself -

“While not as glorious as 3D animation or as artsy as digital design, digital compositing is the unsung hero of multiple industries. Without it the 3D animation would never make it to the screen and beautiful artwork would never come alive.”

While not a book for the neophite – because it does contain a lot of technical material – Lanier’s book is definitely readable and extremely informative covering all aspects of the oft neglected “soldier” of animation and film production. As you thumb through it reads like an all star cast of  the best companies in our industry and the interviews, with some of the best compositors in the game, give us an on the ground view of those companies and a little taste for their working philosophy. Best of all there’s real intelligence to be had in the advice given and actual instruction as opposed to PR fluff. Each chapter has a “Tips and Tricks” section which is invaluable and the accompanying DVD allows you to drill down further and pick up even more usable info.

In an inspired flash of brilliance, Lanier posed most of the people he interviewed at their station (only a few stodgy companies submitted standard PR stills). I got a kick out of seeing everyone at their desk because you get an instant hit for the personality behind the work.

Above, seated at his desk, is Little Fluffy Clouds own Jerry van de Beek. Methinks this image speaks volumes : )

Okay, I confess, when I blog it’s usually in the service of Little Fluffy Clouds animation. We’re not as big a studio as Pixar so we have to maximize every opportunity to blow our own horn. It’s kinda like that when you’re an independent film maker or a first time author. If you’re flogging the new iPhone 35 everyone wants to print your press release verbatum but if you’re Don Gallinger and you’re only on the cusp of fame and fortune and not yet on the Oprah book club list, then you’ve got a hard row to hoe.  So, to this end every friend with a blog or horn must be enlisted towards the effort.

The Master Planets by Donald Gallinger. Here’s a brief synopsis:

In the summer of 1973, Peter Jameson, a buoyant, handsome, already-idolized rock wunderkind stands poised to take his band, The Master Planets, to the top. Then his mother, a suburban housewife with a flower shop, is found dead after murdering an elderly German man living in Ohio. Suddenly, past collides with present in a sequence of loss and betrayal that ends his dreams and forever changes his life. When everything you wanted is taken away, what is left behind?

Intrigued? Away you go then to Don’s blog to read a longer excerpt and order a real copy via Amazon at:http://www.donaldgallinger.com/

The studio’s short, TODAY, commissioned by Sundance for their Billy Collins Action Poetry series, has won a silver 2007 Creativity Award in the Consumer TV category. With more than 2700 entries from 37 countries, judges declared that:

“The winning entries stand out because of their ambition, strong communication, and excellent design.”

The 400-page Creativity Awards Annual, a veritable bible of excellent design, is published by Harper and Collins and will be available in 2008.

The Sundance Channel promotional film, commissioned in association with JWT NYC as part of their, Billy Collins Animated Poetry series, was directed by Little Fluffy Clouds creative team, Jerry van de Beek and Betsy de Fries. The film is an animated poem written by US Poet Laureate, Billy Collins, who narrates the piece.

For more info see: www.creativityawards.com

There’s no better on-line animation magazine than Frames Per Second. Edited by the inimitable, Emru Townsend, who somehow manages to produce a superb on-line zine – blog and related podcasts, hold down a heavy hitting job at Autodesk, keep a young family happy and amused and in his spare time chair the Computer Animation Festival for SIGGRAPH 2008. … Am I impressed? You bet your sweet life I am. Am I a fan? Hell, yes!

Check out the dulcet tones of Mr. Townsend and hear my partner, Jerry van de Beek and I, rattle on about animation, production and life as lived in a small indie animation studio.

It was a lot of inspirational fun being interviewed by this marvel of modern radio. I may just start podcasting myself : )

http://www.fpsmagazine.com/podcast/2007/10/podcast-016-little-fluffy-clouds.php

In this three episode Christmas campaign – a sweet comedic retelling of ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas – Hallmark Channel takes a cheeky liberty and offers Walgreens the opportunity to sponsor Santa Claus on a particularly hard Christmas Eve. As animated by Little Fluffy Clouds the affable and genial St. Nick is up to the challenge in this story told in continuing episodes. SNEEZE, sees Santa almost caught in the act of delivering the gifts and making use of the one-hour pharmacy, while, TREE, has Santa running to the store to replace broken lights, and finally in, PHOTO, Santa is snapped in the act by a little girl in PJ’s and learns to use Walgreens online digital photo service.

Little Fluffy Clouds used a combination of 2D and 3D animation using Illustrator, After Effects, Flash and Maya, along with hand drawn illustrations. Aired Dec 2006 on all Hallmark Channels.

See: www.hallmarkchannel.com