Oct
29
2007
Cayford Swings By Apollo’s Pad
Bradley Cayford is amongst a small group of Flash artists who are elevating the Paperless 2D playing field. Adobe’s Flash software has been labeled by many as a toy, or a degenerative force in animation, and folks like Cayford, who works out of Copernicus Studios, just keep cranking out beautiful work and ignoring the peanut gallery.
Cayford’s latest project is a combined effort with Sony BMG and Galleon Holdings. It’s called Apollo’s Pad, a series of shorts that aim to revitalize music labels’ back catalogs. Apollo’s Pad features 2-minute comedy bits followed by classic songs re-recorded by contemporary artists. Here’s The Monkees’ chart-topping song I’m a Believer.
Thanks to Murray Bain for the tip.
October 29th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Hmm…character design brings up memories of Clive Smith era Nelvana, no? The issue I believe most animators have with flash is the automatic intrusion of amateurs, talented or otherwise, into a domain that up until Flash’s release, was the sphere of the skilled artist. Flash is an animation tool readily available and approachable by anyone, which means anyone can and will use it. Live-action filmmakers went through the same crisis when cheap camcorders made the scene.
My opinion? Let it be a free-for-all. The cream will rise, courtesy of blogs such as this.
October 29th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Gorgeous, gorgeous work!
October 29th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Thanks Aaron for the positive post. In some manner I agree that there are programs that do make it more accessable for people to animate and there are paths that some choose to walk down that are easy. Getting something on TV is not difficult especially if one chooses to do it cheap. However, I never approach anything thinking money first by any means and I know that this video and all that I have been blessed to work on have come from the classical standpoint. Every bit of storyboarding and design comes from my creative mind and the creative minds that I work with and nothing is done to a formula or expressed in a way that I feel is not fitting for the organic feel that classical gives you. It’s a fact that I am not the top of the chart when it comes to filmmaking and animation. That being said, I do enjoy animation thoroughly and I hope that it comes through in videos such as this one. There is more to animation than just a simple program or a finished product. I love working with the people I work with and I love to draw and express my art whichever way I choose. Animation is not just animation. For animation to be considered an art it must have many mediums and must have many influences as well. Sure anyone can pick up flash and “animate” in flash, but I don’t see it as a pox on the industry by any means. Not all animation was good before Flash…there were so many shows when I was a kid that weren’t animated so great. That’s just production. You could make the same argument for 3D as well. Point is in all of this…I just want to do art…it’s open to the critics…I’m certainly not bound by Flash as my only medium of expressing art and I think people should look past the surface of animation at it’s most technical standpoint and realize that there are artists making creative decisions behind it all. I’m happy with how this video turned out and thanks to Galleon and Sony for giving us this project. It was a blast.
October 29th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Great animation…I was thoroughly engaged!
October 30th, 2007 at 3:30 am
I was really disappointed not to here the original version of that song or at least not disco fart. The animation is pretty fluid and fun to watch.
October 30th, 2007 at 5:21 am
totally sweet!!!
October 30th, 2007 at 5:26 am
sorey it wasernt waht yuo wantid to here anonmis.I lick origanl music too. lookit! I smart anonermus too, I make smert communts on animashun blog.
October 30th, 2007 at 7:14 am
wow – this is really great looking.
October 30th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Wow. That was fun and fluid.
I’d love to see a larger non-blurry version.
October 30th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
your “flash” cream is rising………..and spilling over…
October 31st, 2007 at 12:08 am
tres wonderful
-mg