In 2006, Mike White and Ron Doucet, who both work at Collideascope Digital Productions in Halifax, found themselves with a small window between projects and an opportunity to create an animated music video for the Toronto-based band MSTRKRFT. The resulting video for the 2006 track Work on You has since been viewed several hundred thousand times on YouTube. As part of the Aniboom/Radiohead Music Video Interview Series, Ron Doucet answered a few questions about the production.

AARON SIMPSON: How did you guys end up partnering with MSTRKRFT on the Work on You music video?

RON DOUCET: Mike and I were between projects, working in the same studio. The timing was perfect, since an upcoming series wasn’t starting up for a couple months, so as one project fizzled out, another ramped up. Beyond that, we had access to our best designers and animators to do this quick gig. Mike hadn’t directed before, so he asked me to come on board to assist him in planning, setting up and eventually adding some FX animation.

AARON: Let’s watch the results of this “quick gig”:

AARON: What was your process for dreaming up the video? Read the rest of this entry »

The Canadian indie rock group who call themselves the Meligrove Band have called upon the services of animator Mike White for their latest music video. The track is titled Our Love Will Make the World Go Round, and White designed, animated and composited the entire space-themed video over the last six months. He would chip away at the project about an hour a day, between sleeping and his day job at Collideascope Digital Productions.

You may have seen another music video that White produced for MSTRKRFT (along with Ron Doucet), which also features an homage to Transformers.

Comic-lovers should keep their eyes peeled for White’s upcoming strip Pigtails and Potbellies.

Ron Doucet and the Collideascope Animation team have provided us with a pair of excellent animation FX tutorials on the studio blog.

First is a step-by-step walk-through on how to build an “energy field cycle.” Not sure what that means? Here’s what it looks like in action (animation by Jake Macher):

More recently, Doucet posted an elaborate smoke tutorial, which covers a variety of different variations.[link]

Fans of the groundbreaking 1982 Disney film Tron will get a kick out of this. Ron Doucet at Collideascope dug up some clips from their 2002 work on Teletoon’s series Ollie’s Under the Bed Adventures (now Olliver’s Adventures), and is using the material in his Flash animation class to teach special effects. The episode he chose from the series sees Olliver get sucked into his PC, where he’s dumped into the Tron universe. Here’s a few clips (no audio):

Head over to Ron’s original post to see heaps of model sheets, more effects clips, and if you watch closely you’ll also see a reference to the video game classic Q*Bert.[link]

Jake Macher, a CHF community member and member of the Collideascope team, is hard at work on a short called Platypus and Beaver. He’s been posting his progress on a blog; first an animatic, then a walk cycle and now rough animation, which is below.

Thanks to Ron Doucet for the story tip.

Scott MacDonald, a model designer at Collideascope Digital, recently released a 1-minute short titled Turkey Legs. He snagged a piece of audio from Fitz Ambrose, a DJ/music producer buddy, and then built this short around it. Enjoy the version below, or head over to floobynooby.com for a clean 7mb Quicktime version.

In an email exchange, Scott explained that “the only thing that wasn’t done in Flash was the main background, which i did in Painter to give it an authentic hand drawn/painted look like 50’s animation. The Cartoon Modern book and blog have been a huge inspiration to me over the last year or so.”

Originally spotted on Ron Doucet’s site.

Jake Macher, one of the talented animators behind the MSTRKRFT music video featured here in July of 2006, is quite the FX whiz. He’s been creating glass-shatters, explosions and lens flares for Collideascope Animation for years now - all in Flash. According to Ron Doucet, an animation director at Collideascope, Macher’s FX sequences often involve over a hundred layers.