Ron Doucet recently pointed me to a new PBS series, Artopia, a mixed-media television show for kids about the world of art. It was produced for Thirteen.org & Decode Entertainment by Steve DeNure, Beth Stevenson, Jill Peters, Sandra Sheppard, and Kim Hyde. Direction was handled by Murray Bain, art direction by Marek Colek and animation direction by Andrew Holland. Below is the first episode, animated in Flash by the gang at Copernicus Studios Inc, with some Photoshop, After Effects and 3D thrown in to complete the final look.

In this full episode below, you can see they’ve animated the series with lively characters, lush backgrounds and a great sense of timing throughout.

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by Bradley Cayford

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AN INTERVIEW WITH BRADLEY CAYFORD

Turnaround, the music video Bradley Cayford directed for The Jimmy Swift Band, is the story of a battle between the organic and technology. In the video, the country-dwelling band members eventually topple the mechanized execubots, but during the production, the team found a way for technology to work in harmony with their organic process. Alongside his team at Copernicus Studios, Cayford was careful to maintain a place for paper and pencil in the production effort. “If you can’t do it on paper, it’s not likely that you’ll be able to do a better job on the computer,” said Cayford. “Doing things on paper first brings out the most organic idea right from the beginning.”

With funding help from VideoFACT, the production hurtled toward production. The team relied on software, not to boost their artistic skills, but to enable them “to be efficient,” added Cayford. “But the second that it starts reducing our quality and jeopardizing the artwork we put it back to the paper, we’ll move on.”

Bradley joined us for an interview below, but for an in-depth exploration of the Turnaround production, check out the Bradley’s interview posted here back in 2006.

AARON SIMPSON: Looking back, what was the experience like, working on Turnaround?

BRADLEY CAYFORD: The Turnaround video was an incredible experience, to say the least, as it always is working with other amazing artists in the world. There are plenty of incredible videos out there and I’m happy to have created something with others that enjoyed the process and the outcome in the end.

AARON: What type of impact do you feel when your work is recognized like this?

BRADLEY: When I went to Annecy to help Copernicus showcase some work and scout for talent, a few artists whose work I really respect had some kind words to say that no money or job could ever cast a shadow over. It just felt nice to know that someone else had seen the video and furthermore had something positive to say about how it effected them, and not necessarily about the technical aspects with regards to creating the video.

AARON: Has the video led to new opportunities?

BRADLEY: The video has led to some opportunities and has more so opened my eyes to the greater importance of doing this type of art. I became more in tune with the world around me after we finished this video. It opened my eyes to new experiences within art, thusly the world has opened its eyes to me. There have been small projects that have come and gone, but the best opportunities to emerge are the confidence in my own work to push it even further. For instance, in creating artwork for my daughter and family as well as exploring my boundaries in all aspects of art and animation. I can’t wait to see what happens in the future as surely it will be a topsy-turvy story by the end of it.

Also, the band was recognized after putting so much work into creating some incredible music over the years. The video gave them some assistance in their goals and that is the true purpose of the video in the first place.

AARON: You said in our initial Turnaround interview that you still weren’t sold on the digital drawing tablets yet. Are you still a pencil and paper guy, or have you started to experiment with the Cintiq monitors?

BRADLEY: I suppose those comments on Wacoms and Cintiqs were a little premature, but I still don’t really use them as much as many others do. Artists can create life out of anything and whatever anyone chooses to make is up to them. As for me, I just use whatever I have to make my art, my art. I have a Wacom tablet which I use from time-to-time in production with Photoshop to paint my backgrounds for shows. Then sometimes I use it for show pitches and of course if I want to draw a quick rough on the fly it’s much more efficient to use the Wacom. But I still use the mouse quite a bit for those quick turnarounds.

However, all of my concept design is done on pencil and paper along with a lot of posing as well. It’s not to say that it can’t be done with the computer, as many other artists will argue, it’s just how I practiced and it’s the way my brain operates. When it comes to art, the palette or medium doesn’t make the art, it’s the passion and artist behind it. The medium, canvas and palette are there to help you attain your goal in the end. So however anyone chooses to do it, then that’s their choice. I admire anyone that has the gump to do what they feel is right before doing what they feel they are being pushed to do.

AARON: What have you been working on since the 2006 interview?

BRADLEY: There have been a few things here and there that we’ve worked on since the 2006 interview. I had the fortunate opportunity to work with Andy Suriano on a short film called Dodger Dare which was really fun to work on…

BRADLEY: We’ve also worked with John K on a few other projects and I also worked on a pitch for a show called Apollo’s Pad which I ended up doing a music video for as well. Those were all fun projects and I’m hoping that there will be more in the near future. There are also, of course, some projects that I can’t discuss yet, but I’ve been doing concept work that has allowed me to visit some inner city schools and do some real research.

I haven’t had a lot of time to work on more music videos so much as I’d like to, but we’ll see. Going to Annecy was a great experience as I finally got to witness what it’s truly like to be in the world of animators. Going to Sheridan was great because I was surrounded by talented artists, much like my situation at Copernicus Studios, but you could truly feel your place being surrounded by that kind of crop of talent and beauty. It’s led me to start working on my own films a little bit more so hopefully sometime I’ll be able to show you what can truly come out of my head at some point.

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.

Disney’s Shorty McShorts’ Shorts keeps on blast out new projects, and I can hardly keep up. So here’s several, starting with The Imperfect Duplicates of Dodger Dare, the creation of my friend Andy Suriano, a fellow Michigander. The voice of Beauty is performed by Lisa Loeb, and Andy, who boasts plenty of improv experience, played several roles as well.

The animation was produced by Copernicus Studios in Canada. These guys are real pioneers in the animation world, and are producing perhaps the best Flash work on the planet right now. If you squint your eyes you can see the pencil crayon strokes they uses for the character outlines - a painstaking approach that delivers a cartoon look not often found in Flash productions. You can tell that Murray Bain, the art director at Copernicus, and his co-workers have really benefited from their collaborations with John K. They work pose-to-pose throughout Dodger Dare, which gives their work a more traditionally animated feel.You can also download that for your iPod.Next up is Mascot Prep, the creation of Chip Wass, who also created the designs for Shorty McShort Short himself. Boulder Media in Ireland produced the Flash animation.
And lastly is Flip Flopped, a show I believe was produced in Flash (help, anyone?). What I do know is that the voice of the Dad was played by Jeff Garlin, one of my favorite actors, and the co-star of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

This year John Kricfalusi returned to a genre he essentially created - online, direct-sponsor cartoons. It began in 1997 with George Liquor furiously urging us to buy albums at Tower Records, and today we can watch his new online shorts for Raketu, the VOIP provider.

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But we’ll get to all of that later on. First, let’s see how this TV animation visionary ended up as a Flash animation pioneer.The contributions John Kricfalusi, or John K as he’s come to be known, has given the world of animation are numerous - The Ren and Stimpy Show, his work on the revival series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, the Bjork music video, and his 2-episode revival of the Yogi Bear universe. But when future generations reflect on Kricfalusi’s career, his impact on the world of online entertainment and his recent educational blog-spewing will stack up there with his mightiest of achievements.

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Perhaps too bold and stubborn to last long in the corporate world of TV animation, Kricfalusi found himself breaking ground in online entertainment. He was tinkering with the internet in the early 90s, long before most people knew what ‘www’ stood for. Kricfalusi was spending his down-time surfing through Usenet discussion boards, and if you’re resourceful you can even find some of his postings dating back to 1995, the year Netscape announced the IPO heard ’round the world. To put this into an animation perspective, Nickelodeon didn’t even have a website until 1997. So with the October 15th, 1997 launch of The Goddamn George Liquor Program, Kricfalusi had begun the first cartoon series produced specifically for the Internet. In the discussion board alt.animation.spumco Stephen Worth, the Spümcø-vet who acted as webmaster, typed this brash message announcing the episode titled Babysitting the Idiot.

Spümcø has just made history by introducing the first animated series created exclusively for the World Wide Web. These are also the only cartoons being produced today that are 100% TAMPER-FREE… No network execs or censors looking over the creator’s shoulder.

Watch Episode 1 of the Goddamn George Liquor Program - Babysitting the Idiot

That creator’s shoulder also ended up the cover of several magazines that month, including Wired, and the website welcomed 150,000 visitors in the first week alone. He and a handful of TV-vets set out to shock the system, and they did just that. Dancing feces, interactive interstitials and raw, uncut hilarity was available to anyone with a 28.8 modem at spumco.com. Between 1996 and 2002, some exceptional work was created - the 1999 Weekend Pussy Hunt series on Icebox.com, 2 revival episodes of the Yogi Bear series in 1999 (not to be confused with Wildbrain’s Yogi episode), a 2001 music video for Tenacious D, a 2001 commercial for Quisp, and a 2002 series of 3 Jetsons cartoons - all of which were animated and broadcast in Flash.

Watch episode 1 of Weekend Pussy Hunt - originally broadcast at icebox.com

Beyond making cartoons, Kricfalusi is also simply a fan. He prefers animation legends like Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, and his absolute favorite, Bob Clampett.

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And, lucky for us, he doesn’t keep his appreciation to himself. Kricfalusi has consistently and tirelessly imparted his thoughts and animation wisdom to future generations of animators. As early as 1998, John was posting articles on the Spümcø website, detailing his theories for animation fans and students alike. Flash forward to February of 2006 when Kricfalusi started posting to his blog, and right from the beginning he shared his process, his theories and his art. A little over a year later, he has posted hundreds of priceless, dense diatribes. Some detail TV network missteps while others are laser-sharp breakdowns of the best cartoons ever made. Many of these posts should be (and probably are) required reading for any animation student looking to build a strong career foundation. It’s bound to become a proud and lasting legacy of his career - one that will surely be formalized into chapter form someday down the road.But John K’s Flash animation legacy is already being carried on at studios around North America. He trained artists like Eric Pringle, Gabe Swarr, Tony Mora, Matt Danner, Jerry DeJesus, Jessica Borutski, Nick Cross and dozens more. None are household names (yet), but they’re now the Flash animation backbones at studios like Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Copernicus - shops that have embraced the Flash animation revolution. These artists also benefit from a studio system that now embraces creator-driven shows, a concept that had all but disappeared in the 80s.

With The Ren and Stimpy Show, John K had top billing, and now we have Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends and El Tigre, fronted by strong creators.So that brings us to today. John continues to pursue partnerships with major brands, develop original shorts and demand that animators everywhere study the past, and make trend-breaking cartoons. He shared these views and many more with Cold Hard Flash this month in a lengthy interview below.

AARON SIMPSON: You’ve been an accurate prognosticator of the digital animation age - the emergence of Flash animation and sponsor-integration into online shorts - what can we expect to see in 5 years?

JOHN KRICFALUSI: Well some of the things I predicted were supposed to happen 5 years ago and some are still slow in coming - like the directly-sponsored shows online. No sponsor has done that right yet. I have lots more predictions, but I think I wanna take advantage of some myself this time instead of giving the ideas away for free!

AARON: When you first started tinkering with Flash - did you immediately see the potential?

JOHN: Even before Flash. As soon as I discovered the web in the early 90s, I waited for something like Flash to come along.I worked with Macromedia for a while and they added a lot of my suggestions to the program. Sadly, it hasn’t really progressed in the last 5 years.It still has a lot of bugs and isn’t animator friendly. I wish I could develop a simple and sensible animation program that does everything real professionals would like, but leaves out all the cheesy stuff and uses a real ex sheet.

AARON: You’ve called yourself “a trouble-maker” before. Do you think this still holds true?

JOHN: I guess anyone who upsets the status-quo is a trouble maker, and I’m never satisfied with formula, so yes I guess so.

AARON: Looking back on The Goddamn George Liquor Program shorts you created for the internet - do you have any critiques of your own work?

JOHN: Oh yeah - big time. When I started the cartoons, it was an experiment just to see whether Flash was even capable of doing cartoon animation at all. At the time, people were just using it for animated lettering in banner ads and some simple games. I looked at it and thought, “Hmm, I’ll bet we could make animation with this.” We had a Flash expert who was working at Microsoft who would tell us what Flash couldn’t do. Lip sync for example. He told us, as did the Macromedia tech support people, that we shouldn’t even bother trying to have the characters talk. So we made them talk.

The first thing we were concerned with was how technically to make Flash make cartoons. We didn’t know where it would take us yet.

I also needed a story, so I took one we wrote for our line of Dark Horse comics called Babysitting the Idiot.

It’s about George’s nephews Slab ‘N’ Ernie babysitting Jimmy the Retarded Boy for an afternoon and corrupting him by teaching him to smoke while playing “strip club” around George’s hidden stash of nudist colony magazines. The story would take about 15 or 20 minutes to tell in a full cartoon, but we just started making it anyway. We found out that Flash could only hold about 2 or 3 minutes of material in a file, so we broke up the story into short bits. Then, on top of that, we could only afford to produce a cartoon every couple months, so it was hard to build an audience.

If I were to do it again, I would just make stand-alone 3-minute cartoons with no continued stories so the audience would be satisfied at the end of each cartoon. I have one called What Pee Boners Are For that floors the audience whenever we show it in theatres at retrospectives.

Babysitting the Idiot took 8 short cartoons just to do the story setup - it hasn’t even started the plot yet! It’s a really funny story, but where we left off we had just barely gotten into it.

We also had to have long title sequences in 1997 because the text would eat up time while the pictures downloaded. I imagine some of the potential audience couldn’t stand the wait for the cartoon.

AARON: Your recent collaboration with Raketu created quite the buzz on the internet. Have you heard from the company on how the campaign is working?

JOHN: Well, they told me that since the launch they had multiplied their downloads by a huge percentage, so I figure that’s a good sign. I hope to do more cartoons with them. They are a good group. Oliver McIntyre, the marketing director was all over the concept and really wanted to define Raketu as a unique brand. Oliver and I met along with the owner of Raketu, Greg Parker, in New York to go over all the concepts and I kind of wrote them on the spot as they showed me what Raketu was all about.

This is how I would love to work with sponsors. Show me the product, tell me what the selling points are and then let me come up with an entertaining way to pitch it so that the audience actually wants to watch the commercial. That was the concept behind my fake commercials in Ren and Stimpy. Log, Powdered Toast, etc. - I wanted to show that you could make commercials that people would love as much as the show itself.

AARON: Are there any corporate mascots you would enjoy bringing to life in animated commercials or sponsored shorts?

JOHN: Well I’d be happy doing any of them, but I wish sponsors would go back to old style ads, where you could understand what the commercial was about and you liked the characters instead of bombarding you with pink and purple multimedia montages. The old characters had personalities and little stories too, and that seems to have been largely abandoned. I think mascots should be made to be liked, not just be graphic icons.

I used to really like the 50s Tony the Tiger, the original Trix Rabbit, Sonny from Cocoa Puffs, Matty Mattel and Linus The Lionhearted.

Of course I would love to create new mascots too like I did for Old Navy (AS - which won an Annie Award for Best Commercial in 1999).

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AARON: Some companies don’t have mascots or icons you could breathe life into. Are there any that come to mind that you would like to team up with?JOHN:

• Labatt 50
• Ultimate Fighting
• Any cereal company
• Toy companies
• Dreamworks could use something to breathe life into it

Watch the animated Quisp cereal commercial by Spümcø

AARON: For the Raketu spots, you used a method in which some forms had outlines, while others didn’t. Is this a new method? And what are you trying to achieve with it?

JOHN: I was just trying to play with the style. I’d like to make cartoons that look like Golden Books some day and that was an experiment in that direction. A fast experiment! I had to turn out 4 cartoons in a month!

AARON: While drawing layouts for the Raketu spots, you experimented drawing the various mouth positions with a Cintiq monitor. Do you see yourself eventually going entirely paperless?

JOHN: Theoretically, I like the idea; it seems like it would be practical, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon. The software that’s designed for drawing and animating is so clunky and complicated and anti-artist that it really makes it hard for organic style artists to warm up to drawing directly on the computer.

I’ve pestered software companies for at least 10 years to let me design an all-purpose cartoon and animation program that is artist/animator friendly, but can’t seem to get anyone to do it.

As it is, you have to use a bunch of different programs to make a cartoon, and you still have to use paper if you want the drawings to flow and look natural.

AARON: Are there any improvements you’d like to see in drawing tablets?

JOHN: Maybe the combination of the tablet, the pen and the program. It needs to have a more pliable touch and more natural ability to go with the pressure and angle of your pen.

You can’t beat paper and pencils for that - or paint brushes and paint.

AARON: The relative simplicity of Flash has welcomed a vast, new generation into the animation industry. How will this new wave of animators change the animation landscape?

JOHN: Well right now, it’s made it easier for non-skilled artists to break into the business.

So TV cartoons have become cheaper and more amateurish as a result.

I think Flash is a temporary fix. It was a good thing for the internet because it allowed you to make animation with small file sizes, but it also makes “tweens” which really makes animation look cheesy. Too many people rely on it to make things mathematically smooth, which to me looks very fake and cold.

It ought to be easy to make a program just for animators and build in classic principles, real brush and paint tools to make it easier for us to learn the things that the animators of the 30s took a decade to learn.

AARON: You once mentioned that your “breakfast diet was planned by Bugs Bunny, Yogi Bear and Rocky Squirrel.” Recent studies have revealed that “less than 2% of television commercials are for foods that promote a balanced diet.” With the spiraling obesity and childhood diabetes epidemics in America, do you think that children’s advertisers should be regulated?

JOHN: No. But companies that make healthier products should jump on the bandwagon and get me to create mascots for them and cartoons that entertain kids and sell the healthy foods. Lots of healthy food actually tastes good and most fast foods taste like crap.

When I was a kid I ate whatever cereal had the best cartoon character on the box and had the best prize. Most cereal doesn’t taste very good anyway. We just ate it so we could get the next box and prize.

I’m amazed at how amateurish the graphics are now even on the big name cereals. They don’t even look fun anymore. I could cure that so easily. Hell, kids wanted to buy Log just because of the commercial! I’m obsessed with packaging and would love to find sponsors that see that making their products seem fun will sell a lot more products.

Watch the Tony Mora Pizza commercial by Spümcø

Watch the Ultimate Fighting commercial featuring George Liquor by Spümcø

Watch the Rice Patooties commercial featuring Wally Whimsy by Spümcø

AARON: Shows like South Park and Family Guy broadcast material today that probably wouldn’t have snuck through 10 years ago. How do you account for that?

JOHN: Well it started with Bakshi’s Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures and Pee Wee Herman. Those were kid shows, but with layers of perversion in them. Then The Simpsons came along and did edgy material in prime time cartoons.

Ren and Stimpy was known initially for its “edgy” and gross humor, but much of what we did then seems pretty soft compared to Beavis and Butthead, South Park, Family Guy and others that followed.

Sometimes now when I do stuff that’s “edgy,” it’s not really edgy at all by today’s standards but further than the original Ren and Stimpy. If I went as far as South Park or Tenacious D (whose live-action videos are hilarious but filthy), my fans would murder me. I sort of created a monster that I can’t completely benefit from myself. Some people today complain that I go farther than the original show, not remembering how relatively shocking the first season of Ren and Stimpy was. Now, no one would think twice about a fart or booger joke - let alone a gay joke! Even live action does this stuff now. I don’t ever purposely try to be “edgy” or even controversial, I just do what my friends and I think is funny.

But I’m gonna cut back on some edginess now so people can pay attention to more lasting qualities - like acting, funny visual humor, pure cartoon stuff and rich characters. The one potentially “edgy” thing I want to keep doing though is sexy girl stuff. No one else seems to do much of that in cartoons and I can’t figure out why. Violence seems to be just fine in today’s culture but some folks freak out at good, old, all-American lust. What is so damned horrible about well formed perky titties? Mike Fontanelli’s theory is that every movie should have a couple good, naked girl scenes. Then if you hate the story or it has bad acting, at least you can say “well I gotta a couple good titties for my 10 bucks.” Not that I plan to make bad stories just so I can have titties, but I don’t plan on skimping on cheesecake.

I’m also planning on doing some kid shows that are “safe” for your kids to watch. I love kid stuff. I collect old kid shows, cartoons and toys and I would like to see every generation of kids have some pure cartoon humor and funny characters. It’s funny how taboos change over generations. Old cartoons that were fine for kids for 50 years are now deemed too edgy. Every kid who sees Popeye loves him, but you can’t get it on TV. When they’re rarely shown Looney Tunes are cut to Hell. Crazy times! Poor kids today.

I’m also making toys in the old style - kind of a satire of old toys. Off-model and the wrong colors on purpose. Like these.

AARON: Your recent music video for Tenacious D was a big hit on the internet, and you’d collaborated with Jack and Kyle prior that on Fuck Her Gently. Do you have any future plans to work with Tenacious D?

JOHN: My plan is to do anything that Jack and Kyle want me to do. I am making toys for them now.

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

AARON: Are there any other current bands that you’d like to animate a music video for?

JOHN: The ones that have the most money to spend. That would probably be the bands and “artists” I hate the most. The ones that talk their songs instead of sing them.Creatively, I’d like to animate videos for Burl Ives, Elvis, Count Basie and lots of old time music. I wish there was a market for it. I’m going to try to create one.

AARON: How did you wind up teaming with Copernicus Studios?

JOHN: Jess Borutski, a wonderful animator in Ottawa, hooked me up with them. I’ve had trouble with some service studios before. Many of them throw out the work you send them and redo it in the local style. The animators at Copernicus were fans and wanted to learn how I make my stuff look and move the way it does. They are dedicated to plussing the style rather than watering it down. They are great to work with.I also mandated that they do their best to not use Flash tricks and to try to make it look as organic as possible, not all “tweeny.” It’s impossible to completely hide the fact that it’s Flash, but they do as good a job as is possible.

AARON: Robert Crumb claims that when he was a child he was sexually aroused by Bugs Bunny. What artists do you think have made the sexiest animated characters?

JOHN: Ha ha. There aren’t too many sexy girls in animation for some unfortunate reason, but Rod Scribner’s Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs is great. I love Owen Fitzgerald’s pretty girl comics. I like Harry Lucey – his Betty and Veronica comics of the 50s and 60s.

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AARON: Over the years, many have claimed that Coal Black has racist undertones. Do you agree?

JOHN: No, not in the least.It glorifies black jazz music. Clampett was a big fan of popular music and frequented the black clubs.

AARON: Imagine that you were creating the curriculum for an animation college. What course titles would you start with (like: Pencils Gone Wild - Jim Tyer’s Crazy Drawings)?

JOHN: I’m actually going to do a blog post breaking down my ultimate cartoon school course, year by year.I sure wouldn’t start with Jim Tyer or “crazy” stuff! I would teach power skills and would have the students learn principles in the same order that the original classic animators did.1ST YEAR

• Rubber hose animation
• Walks, runs, basic movement
• Basic lip synch
• Figure 8 motions
• Animating to beats
• ¾ walks with animating backgrounds
• How to read and write ex sheets
• Animating the impossible - using the medium to do what only animation can do
• History of cartoons, comics and animation from around 1920 till about 1965 - this would be every year and each year I would have the students study aspects of classic cartoons that relate to their exercises
• Life Drawing with an emphasis on slow careful drawings, structure, perspective and proportions
• Caricature
• Observation over style: Learning to use your eyes and senses to analyze, rather than copying trendy styles
• Music, Dance (every year)

2ND YEAR

• 40s principles of animation
• Using simple organic characters made of pears and spheres
• Basic acting, staging, timing
• Observation and application
• More Life Drawing
• Applying concepts from Life Drawing to your animation
• Caricature of bodies as well as heads

3RD YEAR

• Character animation
• Animating different types of designs
• Solving design/animation problems - animating cartoon designs from media other than animation-comic strips, magazine cartoons, etc.
• Advanced acting and dialogue animation - timing and pacing
• Animating caricatures
• Animating specific gestures and expressions that your fellow students make

4TH YEAR

• I’ll have to think about this one… maybe make a film.

If there was a school like this, the graduates of the first 4 years of the program would revolutionize the medium and no one else could compete with them.

AARON: Many of today’s aspiring animators are using Flash for what is commonly called ‘limited-animation.’ What could these artists learn from studying Ed Benedict?
JOHN: Make your characters characters and not mere designs. They need to learn from the same principles that Ed learned from. I wish young artists would be less concerned about “design” and be more concerned with important stuff, like good drawing and entertainment.

I love Ed, but I can see how his designs work because I know the principles behind them.

You can’t start by being a designer. You need to do things with solid principles for years, and even then, only a very few artists really have design talent to begin with.

The general public doesn’t care about design in the abstract; they want entertainment. If Ed’s characters didn’t seem like real characters, it wouldn’t impress any normal person.

Today people rely on flat “design” because it doesn’t involve any learning curve or skills.

I would like to go back to designing for character, rather than designing flat because it’s easy and supposedly cool.

AARON: Do see any value in returning to TV or feature film in the future?

JOHN: Not unless the whole system changes to favor creator-driven cartoons again.

All the networks have their own in-house studios now. They are basically closed monopolies. They are not interested in having independent studios compete with them. Even if they did buy a show, I would have to give up the rights to it. On top of that, every time I do a new TV series I have to train a whole new staff to do it and networks don’t include training costs in their budgets so I end up spending my own salary and profits to train people. Then when the show is over, the networks snap up my trained crew that they didn’t have to pay for and make them work at a tenth of their ability.

There isn’t a whole lot of incentive to make shows for networks anymore - unless I do what the old TV studios do and pocket half the budget and ship to the cheapest countries. I can’t seem to bring myself to do that. And the networks would then look at the shoddy product and say, “Well, I guess John isn’t creative anymore.” That happened on Ripping Friends, only I still spent my own money on training.

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

I personally think TV is going to die anyway. I don’t see how it can sustain itself. Each network continues to grow in size and management staff, while the ratings go down. That can’t go on forever. I’m still betting on the web to change everything and give creativity and sincere entertainers a chance to thrive again.

AARON: Name 5 young artists who you admire.

JOHN: If I only name 5, another 20 will be offended!
But Katie Rice is a genius, I think. I’m in awe of her ideas and constant invention.Eric Bauza, Fred Osmond, Nick Cross, Kali Fontecchio, Kristy Gordon, Lorelay Bove, Helder Mendonca, Jess Borutski, Marlo Meekins, Brianne Drouhard…There are many more!

AARON: If an aspiring animator could rent only 5 animation DVDs - which would you recommend?

JOHN: Betty Boop (the black and whites)

The Fleischer Popeyes (releases July 31st, 2007)

Looney Tunes

Tex Avery’s MGM cartoons

50s animated commercials

AARON: What current animated series do you regularly watch?

JOHN: Every couple weeks or so I tune in to the Fox sitcoms to see if I can find anything interesting. King Of The Hill has some funny stuff.

AARON: For an aspiring animator just starting out – do you have any words of advice?

JOHN: Well I would say, the more time you spend honing real drawing skills and fundamentals, the more tools you will have to create something out of. If you just copy trendy styles, you will be severely handicapped in what you can create. Each modern style has built in limitations. The better you can draw, the more you can learn and observe and interpret, the more of a creative powerhouse you will be.Go back and learn the history of not only animated cartoons, but comics and all kinds of cartoons and illustration. Draw from a wide variety of inspiration, not just Pixar films, Spumco or Cartoon Network. Go to the ASIFA Archive, be amazed at the potential of cartooning and be inspired.Observe the world around you and find ways to draw it based on your observations, rather than filtering it through an existing style.If this next generation of kids would abandon trend-thinking and went back to basics, they could make the best cartoons ever!

Habbo Hotel, the immensely popular virtual community created by the Sulake Corporation in 2000, has released their slate of animated shorts. Sulake, along with Lionsgate, pulled together 10 animation studios from around the world and challenged them to write a short story taking place in the Habbo world. The 10 resulting shorts were produced in Flash, traditional and 3D animation.

Funbag Animation, Bardel Entertainment, World Leaders Entertainment and Copernicus Studios all took part, and you can view their work at the Habbo site now.

If you go through the voting process, you’ll see that Habbo and Lionsgate are aiming for something much bigger than 10 shorts. It appears as if they’re going to be offering a pay-per-view or subscription model to view shorts, or even long-form entertainment. Shorts I buy - but longer than 5 minutes? Unless you’re talking Harry Potter episodes, I’m not sure if we’re there yet.

Copernicus Studios in Halifax, Nova Scotia has been rapidly emerging as the hot Canadian animation studio. Working with John K on a music video never hurts your profile, and their new music video for The Jimmy Swift Band (MySpace) song Turnaround (off their new album Weight of the World) is due to get them even more notoriety.

Bradley Cayford directed this Flash-animated video alongside the Copernicus team, and it holds water against any of the great music videos produced in recent memory.

Cold Hard Flash recently traded emails with Bradley and below is the elaborate result.

AARON SIMPSON: How did the concept for the video come about?

BRADLEY CAYFORD: To be honest with you, I just listened to the song and it really spoke to me. The original idea was more about The Great Depression and I had been watching documentaries at the time regarding that time period. The lyrics in the song and the vibe was mostly about a period in one’s life where there is a need to fight back, so I immediately thought of that time period. As time passed, new ideas came into play and it became more of a movement and a battle between the organic and technology in a sense. There were thoughts of putting in a lot of heida artwork as well and really making it a spiritual journey, but I felt that detracted from the story. Maybe if it was a 10 minute video then I could have really taken off with some of those ideas, but I think that I had to really condense everything just to make it more readable. It’s really difficult when you have a billion ideas of how you want to tell the story but you only have a few minutes to do so. I suppose that every time I erased some of the ideas, I had to stand back and reassess what the story supposed to be about in it’s most pure and simple form. Once I got that ball rolling, the creative fuels started to burn and it just took off.

AARON: Where did you draw your inspiration from?

BRADLEY: It may appear that Pinocchio was the main source of inspiration, but that didn’t really happen until the later stages of the concept. I drew more inspiration from one of my favourite artists, Norman Rockwell. The way that he paints has such character to it and in the early stages of concept, I tried my best to capture something similar by presenting the band as hobos of the early 30’s. After that, my focus began to shift and I started to remember trips I took with my parents when I was a child and there were plenty of craft stores with sad clowns marionettes. I basically put the two together and out came the idea of marionettes.

There’s always that period of time where you question your own ideas trying to make sense of them, but every time that particular thought came about, I just thought about texture, the colour and the odour of wood and I really wanted to bring that to life. I found this to be a solid foundation for the video but it was missing the sense of need. Who built this city in which the marionettes would go homeless in the first place? Then I had a dream that there were these really box-like robots with ties painted onto them. I like retro designs and it seemed really funny to me that there were these gigantic, obsolete robots patrolling the city. It’s like looking at old computers and how slow and big they are. The same idea applies to these robots. They’re not very smart (they have a lightbulb for a brain) but seem to enjoy their business attire. However, if you were to nudge them at any point, they’d surely fall down and wouldn’t be able to get up.

At first, I wanted the robots to look more like 20’s and 30’s automobiles, but I ended up settling down with the idea that they’d look better if they’re simple. I don’t know how many artists have done artwork like this, and it’s hard for me to point out one specific source as to where I drew my inspiration, but I think a large portion of it comes from naturally observing a lot of artwork and day-to-day things. Norman Rockwell is probably my most influential artist though, but it goes without saying that I always run my ideas by and get a lot of brand new ideas from everyone here at Copernicus Studios. One of the biggest sources of inspiration is my good friend, Murray Bain. He always shares his thoughts on these ideas and the history book in his head often brings forth the small things that best illustrate the time period.

AARON: What was the band’s reaction to the concept?

BRADLEY: They liked the idea from day one. However, the idea changed multiple times throughout the production and I didn’t necessarily give all the details until I was sure about every step. Typically, when I put a pitch package or proposal together, I know that the story is going to develop slowly and that it will be primarily driven by the artwork. I spend more time sketching my ideas rather than just simply writing them because I feel that colours and composition bring forth so much more emotion than words. From the very first sketch, I decided what colours I wanted to use and it really brought out the passion that I feel in their music. My drawings may not be that great and the ideas may be unfinished so there’s a lot of room for polish, but if you can capture the proper mood just through use of colour and tie that to the song, then I’m already walking down the right path… I think.

One of the first things the band said to me after seeing my initial drawings (and one of the last things that they said to me) was how much they enjoyed the colours of the video. When I listened to the song, those colours that you see in the video are the colours that I thought of the first time I listened to it. I think things like that are so important as a base because it’s the first thing you’ll notice on the screen. Colours have such a large effect on our emotions and I’m glad that they were happy with that. Some original ideas came from others - like having the band walking down the street singing the song and then whenever they say, “I think it’s time we turn around” then they turn around and notice all the people following them. It’s not a bad idea, but if I know that something is that obvious and has been done so many times, then it just makes me want to really search deep in my brain and in my dreams for some really wild idea that fits even more accurately and emotionally than that.

I’m a big fan of The Jimmy Swift Band. They put a lot of creative thought into their music and I think that if there is going to be a visual attached to their music it should at least come close to equalling their creativity. They liked the concept, start to finish, and supported it heavily as I support the music they play. It’s definitely great to work close with people who share that same drive.

AARON: Do you have any personal experience with marionettes?

BRADLEY: I suppose that I don’t really have any personal experience in that manner, but I experimented with stop motion when I was younger. My sister had a lot of dolls around and a dollhouse so for school projects sometimes I’d try to animate them. Marionettes always interested me, primarily from all the craft stores that my parents used to take me to. I was surrounded with an incredible variety of artwork and have seen shows with a wide variety of marionettes on stage. When I was younger, my family used to bring me to see things like Cirque Du Soleil, and, in my opinion, watching those entertainers is a lot like watching a very skilled puppet master with his marionettes. There is definitely something about the theatre that catches my eye.

AARON: How long did the whole production take?

BRADLEY: Well, I spent most of the production working on the concept and storyboards. I wanted to make sure that everything was as clear as possible at every stage so that once we got to animation and post there would be no questions asked and nothing would have to be recalled. I’m a very ambitious person and sometimes it gets the best of me. Having four main characters, the puppet master, the skydivers, background characters, execubots, execumilitary and execublimps is quite a large character design workload for a three-minute film. I really didn’t want to hold back though and we put forth a lot of effort into making sure that each one of those characters was handled very delicately.

Murray Bain worked primarily on the Execubots, building them in After Effects, and you can see how much fun he had with them. The backgrounds were painted and I find that they turned out incredibly well. There were some very talented people gracing this video with their gifted hands. Justin Niewland, Ian Westoby, David Sourwine, Faith Hicks and I all had our hands on those backgrounds and Juan Cruz Baldassarre (CEO of Copernicus Studios) along with Murray Bain (Partner and Director of Copernicus Studios) added some love to those shots with their keen eyes and really enhanced the colours and depth of each of those shots. There was so much care at every level of this production. Videofact (Canadian funding company for musicians and music videos) and The Jimmy Swift Band were very kind to us and understood the type of product we were producing, so they were very patient with us from the beginning. I’m glad that I had everyone’s support on this and even though it took a few months, it was well worth it.

AARON: How big was the team?

BRADLEY: The talented team that I work with here at Copernicus has learned to do the best that they possibly can do with whatever you ask of them. By the end, there were roughly twelve or thirteen people working on the video. It really started out as with me doing character designs, storyboards, concept art as well as research work. My close friend Bianca Siercke started to help me out with cleaning up character designs and of course adding in her own flavour. She is incredibly gifted and I couldn’t imagine a better scenario than working with someone as talented as she is. She later moved onto doing special effects and did some incredibly romatic and theatrical scenes in the video that will stand out in my head forever.

Here at Copernicus we really push the idea of animating classically. I’m still not sold on animating with a Wacom. It has it’s limits on the feeling that you get when you do a drawing. There is nothing like the grain on the paper. Considering this film is completely about that organic feel, I felt it best to key everything on paper. I then scanned everything and cleaned each pose out in Flash and handed some scenes out to others. I was then able to get some other friends here to showcase their skills. Joe Achorn, Mike Fiander, Dharmali Patel, Andrew Holland, Wes Bryant and Bianca Siercke took charge in that department. They produced some incredible inbetweening. Add in the incredible work of Ian Westoby, Justin Niewland, Murray Bain, Faith Hicks and David Sourwine on backgrounds with Murray doubling up on post production along side Juan Cruz Baldassarre and the art team who emerged as a dream team. President Paul Rigg handled key elements of the contract and was in tight contact with Videofact to make the process run all that much smoother. All-in-all, I’d say there was about twelve to thirteen people or so, but truly there are far more people that I went to as close friends for some support along the way.

AARON: What was the process like?

BRADLEY: I once worked with a man named, Aubry Mintz. He’s a fantastic teacher and taught me a lot about art in general in the little time that I worked with him a few years ago. I was also lucky enough to work with Jeff Denovan as well at Big House animation along with Vasilios Papaganis and Sam Chow. I bring these people up because they encouraged me to feel emotionally attached to what I draw. When telling a story, I think that sketching your ideas down or painting them naturally is always the best option because it’s easier to read into the character that way. How hard you press down on the paper or how delicate your touch is can convey certain emotions in the viewer or at least help in that way. I drew everything first before bringing it into flash - even to the point of keying everything with paper. For some reason - and this likely differs from artist to artist - I can really feel the character out better if I sketch him singing or acting on paper rather than creating the character in Flash.

I honestly don’t believe that one should do all the stages in a program. If you can’t do it on paper, it’s not likely that you’ll be able to do a better job on the computer. Doing things on paper first brings out the most organic idea right from the beginning. I find that a lot of people believe that the Wacom gives them a better line, but for those that don’t sketch on a regular basis, the Wacom is not going to save your skills. I’ve seen some great animation out of a lot of people that use Wacoms, but they all use it like it’s a pencil, not like a magic wand - and that’s why their animation looks good. The software is just your canvas, but your hands and ideas are what makes it work, not the computer or what is programmed into it. We try to use Flash for what it is and where we see it can be used to our advantage, but we are all classically trained here and I don’t really foresee that changing any time in the near future. Flash has enabled us to be efficient, but the second that it starts reducing our quality and jeopardizing the artwork we put it back to the paper, we’ll move on. Skill with your mind can never be taken away, so we never train one to think that they need the program to function, for they can function just fine without it. That being said, I do enjoy using Flash, but it usually isn’t until the final stages of production that we do.

AARON: Did you composite any 3D elements into the video?

BRADLEY: There was no real 3D in the video. Most elements were designed very flat to begin with and brought into After Effects where we assembled a 3D space with cameras and wonderful lighting. All the backgrounds were painted and all the characters were flat with proper layering to give the effect of 3D space. I suppose that the closest thing to 3D were the Execubots. Murray Bain built them in After Effects using some textures that he made up in Photoshop.

The special effects were a mix of After Effects, Flash and classical animation such as grass, bushes, leaves, explosions and whatnot. All of the camera moves were done in After Effects with characters carefully staged to give the perception of depth. I studied a lot of old photographs where the focus is so incredibly deep. Most photographs gave the illusion that background elements were a lot further back than they actually were and to me it suggested that there was such a vast area of space and it made the characters appear even smaller. I tried to suggest that as well in this video so that it would make the marionettes seem even more vulnerable to their surroundings.

AARON: Was there a shot that proved most difficult?

BRADLEY: The smokestack sequence was one I imagined would have been difficult, but it ended up being a lot easier, animation-wise. The post production of that beginning of that scene was a little more difficult - where there’s the pullout from the crowd leading into the propaganda type of visual. Speaking for the post production crew, the crowd scene was likely the most difficult of all. Most of the scenes with the Execubots were very difficult as well like making them all fall to the ground or having them drive around a little bit, but I think you can tell that Murray Bain had a lot of fun amidst all the stress working on those scenes and I think they really stand out.

Strictly from an animation standpoint, I’d have to say that the most difficult scenes that I worked on were any of the four character scenes where the band is just jamming. It was very difficult to really capture their character but also try and make them fit into the time period and scenes appropriately. I like the scene where they all drop from the sky. I think I can speak for everyone in saying that we’re all proud of it and no matter how difficult it was, the reward is right in front of our faces.

AARON: How did you do the golden silhouette transitions?

BRADLEY: You know, that was one of the first scenes I worked on without really knowing what the result would be. Originally, I had planned that sequence to be more green and rusty colours to match some of the propaganda research I had done. I neglected that scene for quite some time and found that it stood out and didn’t flow with the rest of the video, so I revised it and put in some things that I had animated for fun for the band. I think it turned out to be a cool sequence with some nice flatness to it.

One thing that I noticed in propaganda art is that it’s generally graphically flat. I really love artwork that’s simple like that. Even in Norman Rockwell art there are these incredibly detailed characters but then just a circle in the background or something like that. Negative space and simple shapes are amazing sometimes. I decided to make it look as simple as possible with hints of texture so you can see them really clashing against eatchother. The idea of the smokestacks came from a piece of Russian constructivism that was also used as a Futurama poster. I found it pretty interesting and I wanted to do my take on it, but I worked my way off the idea as an inspiration, rather than using it as a parody or completely suggestive as to the original meaning of that artwork. It really didn’t look anything like the that Russian constructivism painting, but rather had it’s own look which I prefer. Most of that scene was animated quickly in Flash with some added painted textures. Then we added some flare to it with a touch of lighting and a glow in After Effects. It was carefully thought out though long before I started animating anything else, but in a very experimental way. I just went with the flow of the music and one-timed it, essentially.

AARON: What was the band’s reaction when they saw the finished piece?

BRADLEY: The band really liked the video. They support our work as we support theirs. I met their keyboard artist, Aaron Collier, a few years ago on our way to the East Coast Music Awards. I believe that The Jimmy Swift Band had a bunch of shows over the weekend and I was heading down there because my first music video, “Universal Soul’s - Way Back In The Day” (a solo project that I did out of the corner of my bedroom) was nominated for a few video awards. Aaron brought up the idea that we do some work together. A few years passed and we finally came up with the notion to do a music video together. You’d figure that we would’ve thought of that back then, but for some reason it slipped our minds and we were talking more about doing film scores. I’m a big fan of theirs so I signed onto this idea immediately.

Universal Soul - Way Back In The Day

We both worked really hard on our respective parts of the video and when it came out I think both the band and I breathed a collective sigh of relief - and then we raised our tequila shots to the sky and drank one in celebration. We’re all happy with the outcome of the video and I think they plan to use it on their upcoming tour to help advertise. They already have a big following and I think they know it’s just about to get that much bigger now. I wanted to do some artwork that could potentially help them and now knowing that they’re happy with it makes it all the worthwhile to me.

AARON: When did you first pick up Flash?

BRADLEY: I fist picked up Flash back in 2001. I was working for a small company out here in Halifax for about a year. We were mostly doing web films and I was lucky enough to get some good ol’ fashioned on-the-job-training in Flash. Well, it was more like being thrown to the dogs. It’s a good thing that Flash is really easy to pick up and I always knew that if I applied my classical abilities to it that the sky was the limit.

When the company shut down and we were without paycheques, our severance became our work computers. Without food or rent, I still had a Pentium 2 to live off of. I took it back home to my parents place in Pickering, Ontario, made a few calls and got myself a music video. It was the very first time that I worked independently on something and it was also my first music video. Most of the work was done classically and honestly, I felt much more comfortable doing things that way. The music video went to Muchmusic and was widely accepted. I couldn’t believe that it was nominated for a few awards later that year and most people didn’t believe that it was animated using Flash. Talk about making the best out of a bad situation!

As it turns out, I still use Flash quite a bit, but I treat it with respect and use it for where I feel it can help. I look back at the video and realize that the animation isn’t that great, but I still love the ideas that were expressed, both in the song and also in the visuals. The name of the group is Universal Soul and the song is called, “Way Back In The Day” and I truly have to thank those guys for getting me started. One of my Flash mentors is my good friend, Murray Bain. He has taught me a lot about how to use the program to it’s fullest along with helping me experiment with what we can do in After Effects and beyond. Whenever I had a question regarding Flash, he answered it all and I’m very grateful for that.

AARON: How much re-use is in this piece?

BRADLEY: There was a fair amount of reuse and I think that it was used wisely. When doing music videos, I believe repetition is important so the viewer can be reminded about certain aspects of the video and identify with them. I wanted some of the characters to have similar actions throughout so that they remain looking like puppets throughout and this would be the characterization of a puppet in my mind. They do pretty much the same thing show-to-show in puppetland so why not make this video look like it’s actually a show to the viewer as well? In many ways I find it comical how each of those characters are portrayed. They all seem to be very fun and I just kept on wanting to show that throughout. When it came to the backgrounds, we reused bits and pieces here and there which is very common in animation. It’s there to identify where the characters are coming from and where they are staged.

I also wanted to show what they represent as well. Execubots and city on the left, shanty town and marionettes on the right. Pieces got reused here and there because it keeps it very simple and I found it a very efficient way to work. I think there are just hints of reuse in this piece and where it was necessary we went all-out with some acting and strong posing when we could really explore that deeply.

AARON: What’s the secret to creating an award-winning music video?

BRADLEY: Honestly, I don’t know that there are any secrets that I hold. I’ve been very fortunate to be able to do these music videos and extra fortunate that people look at them and like them enough to nominate them for awards. That being said, I’ve never done any of these music videos so that they will win any awards. It’s more about just listening to the music, giving it some visuals that I see when I listen to the song and making sure it’s in the best interest of everyone involved. I really want both the band and Copernicus Studios to push forward and if I can help both of them, then that’s my main goal.

I think that as long as people are honest with what they put on the screen then you can easily make a good video. I’m tired of just seeing girls and cars and money on the screen because these videos last about 5 minutes in my head, then I forget about them. I think it stands out in my head more if someone gives some meaning to it emotionally. It’s the same with movies. Action flicks have a short life, but when you sit there and watch films that you can feel involved in, it has a much deeper and longer lasting impact on the audience.

Everyone has cool dreams and everyone has cool ideas, and it’s just a matter of sitting down, thinking it though and just feeling it out from every angle. Think it through and sketch it out without any fear. Truly, is anyone going to stop you? The only person that stops anyone is themselves, and I’m not about to let that happen to myself. I know I’m not the best, nor do I care if anyone sees me as the best or worst or anything. I think that the one thing that keeps me going is simply that I just really badly want to keep trying to tell stories and work with great people along the way. It’s helped me carve a new path from day to day and there are truly no regrets. I suggest to everyone that they just put forth their best ideas and there’s always gold at the end of that path.

AARON: Do you play any musical instruments?

BRADLEY: I couldn’t imagine what my life would’ve been like if I didn’t play musical instruments. I enjoy music way too much nowadays to let that kind of thing escape me. Of course I’m terrible at most instruments, but I love to fiddle around every now and then with the piano and djembe. I took piano, like many kids, for many years when I was young. Once I got into high school, I played tenor saxophone in the band for a year as well. From that point on I flipped over to fine arts and just had music surrounding me on the side, but never directly in my hands anymore. I guess there was the odd harmonica lying around and now my djembe, but I relied more on the music artists that I grew up with that were very good friends of mine. My friend, Jasper, is a world class DJ who is like a brother to me so I was completely surrounded with great music at all time. At work I often listen to all genres of music and so it sort of takes the place of playing instruments in some manner because I can still extract the essential pieces of it. I feel like I really understand the meaning to music which is very essential as a director to creating films.

AARON: What project is up next?

BRADLEY: I’m working on a few projects at the moment. In the future, I’d love to keep on doing music videos and also working with good friends and good people. Just want to add to the family. I’d love to create some feature films that have a lot of meaning too and I’m trying to give myself some proper training to do those things by creating these music videos.

AARON: What’s on your holiday gift list?

BRADLEY: I never really ask for anything this time of year. Socks and underwear are the standard. To be honest, I just want things to keep moving. I hope that everyone stays safe and everyone clos