3D Animation Studio | 3D Animation Services for Broadcast and Marketing

If You Can Write, But Cannot Draw or Animate…

Mediafreaks — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:09:21 +0000

Somebody posted a question on one of my popular articles titled 8 Steps to Producing a Cartoon Series.

The question was short but simple and straight to the point.

‘Pls i need help in producing a cartoon.i can write but cant draw.how do i start?’.

I thought that it was a question whose answer should be shared, and therefore instead of answering directly on the article I thought I would make it a blog post instead.

So here it is. If you can write, but cannot draw or animate, what can you do to embark upon the path of cartoon production?

Well, believe it or not, a writer’s chances of producing a cartoon is even better than an animator’s!

Not convinced? Heard of the saying - “it’s all in the plot”?

75% of a cartoon’s success is dependent on a good concept and storyline, not how good the cast is or how good the animation is! Look at South Park! Do you call that good animation? But has the ridiculously simple flash animation stopped South Park from making families across the world roar with laughter and the producers from making obscene amounts of money? No! Yet South Park would just be a piece of crappy animation without the magic of the scripts! Incidentally, the producers are also the writers in most, if not all, of the scripts.

On the other hand, an artist is an artist is an artist. An animator is an animator is an animator. They usually just draw or animate. But please don’t get me wrong. There are some multi-talented animators and artists who can think of great concepts and ideas too. Just that the specialization is somewhat different and if you start off as a writer, you are more in tune with the top line aspects of producing a cartoon.

Now, if you are convinced you can really write, you may like to follow the steps below to embark on your journey to produce a cartoon.

1. Come up with a strong story concept and think of all the characters that would be in the story.

2. Work with an artist either through a partnership or through outsourcing to create a character bible. If you are not sure what a character bible is, you can read up about it over here.

3. Look around for an animation studio that has a history of producing their own intellectual properties (IP). There are plenty of such studios around, so all you have to do is scout around for a suitable studio that has a history of producing cartoons similar to your genre of writing.

Here, you can (a) pitch your cartoon character bible to them (b) offer to write a few sample synopsis and a sample episode for one of their ongoing cartoon series.

You would be very very very lucky if a studio options your cartoon concept and decides to produce it! It usually doesn’t happen for newbies because they don’t like to take chances with newbies, but most likely it’s because new writers just don’t have the ‘ooomph’ factor in their ideas yet.

Either way, if you are really good at your writing, it opens up the opportunity for them to consider you for a writing contract. If you fail to get an assignment, politely ask the studio for the reason. If it’s because they think you aren’t good enough, it probably means you aren’t good enough. You can go back to hone your skills some more or you can carry on trying. If more than 3 studios tell you the same thing it usually means you really aren’t good enough yet. But practice makes perfect. If you keep trying you would probably get your first assignment,

4. Once you get your first assignment, cherish it like gold! Be flexible about everything (including payment) and cherish the opportunity. Don’t do anything to destroy this silver bullet and do it like it’s your first and last chance! Nobody likes to work with people who are too straight laced and the truth is - after you carve a name for yourself in the industry - companies will scramble for your services even if you are expensive. Don’t be prima donna when you are just a newbie. In fact, my advice to you is never to be a prima donna

5. Try to be involved in as many parts of the production as possible. Ask to be involved in checking out the storyboards and offering your 2 cents on how you think the camera angles should play out. Ask to see the animatics so that you can give your opinion on the pacing and also the animation. You get the idea. Don’t ask for extra fees because most studios would rather do without your help in these areas then. But you can gently request for some credits or offering your creative input. But don’t be too pushy because studios rarely want to give producer or creative credits to a newbie, no matter how good you think you may be. The idea here is to get you as much experience as possible on other parts of the production pipeline.

6. As you get more experience working on such projects, you can begin negotiating for larger roles besides being just the writer. And the best part is, you can start pitching your ideas to TV networks and studios and you can bet some good moolah that they would want to listen to what you have to say!

Some books I recommend to the aspiring writer are:

I hope that this article has been useful and inspiring to you wannabe animation writers out there

Production Coordinator Wanted for Mediafreaks

Mediafreaks — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:19:43 +0000

We are looking for a Production Coordinator to join Mediafreaks!

The person will be the bridge between the Executive Producer, Producer and the production crew to coordinate and facilitate the smooth running of the production of our cartoon and animation projects.

A typical day of a Production Coordinator would involve :

- reading receiving the instructions laid out by the EP and Producer and executing them. Some typical tasks

- sending, receiving and compiling materials from the production crew and the top line Producers

- vocal recording for our cartoon series

- compiling and editing artwork

Here are the qualities of the person we are looking for -

- You will have to be good at multi-tasking and handling stress. It is a lot of juggling with tasks and keeping on top of things so you will need to be able to handle the stress.

- You will need to be clear headed and organized at keeping things in check. There will be many materials to keep stock of so you will need be somebody who can organize and manage an inventory.

- You will need to know Photoshop on an intermediate level as you will be expected to compile and edit images

- You will need to have editing skills on AE or Premiere as you will be expected to do some video editing

- You must have good written and spoken English. The ability to write creatively would be a great plus.

- If you can design or draw or have any other multimedia development skills that would be a plus.

Career Prospects

- Opportunity to work on international projects

- Opportunity to work on cartoon series and animated features

- Opportunity to learn about the animation business

- Opportunity to learn the secrets of media marketing

- Opportunity to move up the ladder and become the producer/executive producer of your own show in the future

Interested applicants please write in to info@media-freaks.com and type in “Production Coordinator - From Mediafreaks Blog” in the subject title. Please attach your full resume for our consideration.

Sedo Dog | Character Licensing

Mediafreaks — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 04:54:59 +0000

Kids love puppies, who doesn’t? But when Lucy has a group of them literally drop in on her from out of nowhere, her life is about to get turned upside down. These mini mutts are no ordinary dogs, they come from a parallel world called Woof World. It’s practically a doggy paradise, a place were dogs talk like you and me, and take themselves for walks, a land where fire hydrants are plentiful and bones grow on trees…and, as Lucy soon discovers, they also have super-cool powers. Join Sedo, Cosmo, Guro, Judo, Floro, Mono, Bado and Fatso on their crazy escapades as they wreck havoc on Earth!

Artwork

The characters are rendered in 3D and has a strong manga appeal infused with a Western flavour. This means that they are cute but not so cute that an older audience won’t pick it up. One of the main selling points of Sedo Dog is their ever-changing quirky and funny expressions. The fact that they are dogs (almost everybody loves dogs!) and each have a special hat that bestows them special powers also make for hot merchandising ideas.

Platform of Dissemination

Animated Series and mobile content

Brand Values

The brand values of Sedo Dog encompass cuteness, comedy and lovability.

Merchandise Target Demography: Young children to young adults
Suitable Product Lines: Plush, figurines, collectibles, stationery, clothing, apparels

For more information, please write to us at info@media-freaks.com.

Products and Services that can Benefit through Cartoon Character Licensing

Mediafreaks — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:44:31 +0000

Happy School Friends is a property under the Mediafreaks Cartoon brand available for licensing.

Many businesses are unaware of the benefits that a good character licensing partnership can bring to their businesses. They are always more concerned about the upfront licensing fees they have to pay, but many fail to recognize the profits and brand longevity a good licensing deal can bring to them. This is why some businesses have been doing licensing deals consistently year after year.

The attractiveness of cartoon characters cannot be doubted.

There are many products and services that can benefit through cartoon characters licensing. In this article I would like to discuss some examples and hopefully give entrepreneurs a spark of inspiration.

Nurseries

If you run a nursery or a childcare centre, you might want to consider licensing the rights to use an endearing cartoon character to be your brand mascot. Having an identifiable brand with a cute cartoon character for a mascot will really make kids fall in love with your establishment. And if you run your business right, you can later leverage on the brand recognition the cartoon character has created for you to develop a franchise.

Credit Cards

Corporate looking credit cards are boring. They might be suitable for corporate folks, but how about the younger population? University and even college students are finding the ability to earn decent money even before graduation these days and many of them can afford to own a credit card. At this age, it is safe to say that they would prefer a cool or ‘kewl’looking card as opposed to the corporate-looking one. The clever usage of a suitable cartoon character on a credit card can do wonders for its application rate as proven by Asian countries like Hongkong, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. The same principle can be applied too to membership cards for stores selling merchandise catering to such a demography.

Books

Whether you are writing a storybook for kids, a puzzle game book, a music training book, a book on parental guidance, or even a self-help guide for adults, consider licensing a cartoon character. Cartoon characters don’t always have to look childish or cute. They can also look quirky and different (think the Simpsons). Use the right character for the right product, and for the right demography. You can’t go wrong with that. The thing is, books that have a strong identity sell better, and what better way to do that than using a suitable character to help you establish that identity? As an author, you can look forward to establishing a book series using the character as a series mascot if you plan ahead and your first book sells well enough.

Greeting Cards

Cartoon characters work very well on products that carry a message and greeting cards is one such product. Pretty pictures of sceneries are just so passé. Since greeting cards are meant to convey a message and warm the heart, why not have a character with the right appeal and attitude do the job?

Clothing and Apparels

If you are launching a new clothing or apparels line for kids or young adults, you might want to consider using cartoon characters to improve the aesthetic quality and brand appeal of your merchandise. A suitable character with the right look for your product can really sky-rocket its sales.

Toys, Novelties and Stationery

There is an increasing number of toys, novelties and stationery designed for tweens and young adults flooding the market. Innovation and aesthetic cuteness are the key factors driving sales for these merchandise. For the cute factor, nothing beats a cartoon character.

In all the examples above I would like to stress that I support the licensing of lesser-known characters as opposed to the more famous characters.

Mediafreaks has a wide array of cartoon characters for licensing purposes.

You can visit the Mediafreaks blog to learn more about 3D animation and also receive a free report regarding 3D animation services there.

This article was written by the founding Managing Director of Mediafreaks - Aldric Chang - a creative businessman who is active in music composing and production, internet marketing, casual games production, animation production, cartoon production and character licensing. He’s intent on growing his up-and-coming 3D animation studio into a behemoth entertainment enterprise.

Character Licensing for Your Product? Forget Mickey and Bob!

Mediafreaks — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 11:32:29 +0000

Katakune is one of our cartoon characters available for licensing opportunities! Use him and his friends to boost the sales of your products and services! Contact us now for licensing inquiries!

If you manufacture toys and apparels for kids and young adults, then you may have at some point in time thought of licensing a cartoon character to use on your products. Such a licensing deal involves you licensing the rights from the owner of the cartoon character to place images of the character on your products. In return, the licensor (character owner) receives a royalty off every product you sell.

Obviously, your products will enjoy a much higher volume of sales as opposed to having no character licensing in place. People tend to buy ‘character-licensed’ products as a suitable-looking character used on the right merchandise will often boost the aesthetics of the product and drive sales. However in some cases you do have to give away an arm and a leg in order to license a character.

This topic is my area of expertise and I would like to discuss how you can make more money for yourself and avoid giving away a king’s ransom to license a character.

Do you really have to go for the famous cartoon characters?

Chances are the famous characters have licensing agents in place to negotiate the deals. They are tough business people and will be asking for something called a minimum guarantee – which is a figure derived through whatever this means you will have to cough up cold hard cash upfront without having made any sales yet! You can bet your car that folks representing a famous cartoon character like Mickey or Bob the Builder are going to ask you for a hefty MG! Just starting out, you might not want to shoulder this kind of risk. There is no guarantee that your product would sell just because it has Mickey or Bob on it.

On the other hand, owners of lesser known characters are often without agents and much more flexible in the deals. Very often, you can get away without paying a MG and negotiate a better deal as long as you are fair about it.

Don’t insist on characters that appear on TV!

There might not be a need to! All too often product manufacturers insist on licensing only characters that have a movie or cartoon series. Undoubtedly, famous characters with a movie or cartoon series have good exposure. But it is not necessarily true that this will translate to more sales as merchandise is concerned! This is all dependant on the age demography you are targeting.

If your product is for a more matured audience, then chances are they would not be as character-conscious as their younger counterparts. This demography is more concerned about the product quality, functionality and aesthetics. As long as the character looks good on the merchandise, they would usually buy it. If your product is targeted at infants and toddlers, then you have even less to worry about. People just want to buy whatever looks nice, suitable and safe for their babies. Only if your product is targeted at the demography that encompass die-hard fans of the movie or cartoon series should you consider licensing the characters of these shows.

Choose a character for its look, not its fame!

All too often I’ve seen product manufacturers license the wrong characters for their products, and this undermines the potential of the products. Don’t license a character for its fame. License a character for its look and your product will sell better simply because it looks better. Make sure it complements and boosts the aesthetics of your product before you license the character. Ask the licensor for the style guide and determine if the graphics within can be adapted for your products. Ask the licensor if they could assist in creating customized graphics based on their characters to suit your products. Very often, owners of lesser known cartoon characters would be much more willing to accommodate to your requests as they are eager to close licensing deals. There are too many licensing enquiries for Mickey and Bob for them to concede to your requests.

Where to look for these lesser-known cartoon characters?

Animation companies’ websites and forums related to computer graphics, anime or animation are often good sources to hunt for such characters. Many animation companies and enthusiasts like to design characters and put them up on the internet for business or simply for fun. Some of these characters are really well-designed and would look great on merchandise.

YouTube and similar video sharing sites are also good places to look for these cartoon characters. Sometimes animation clips on characters that have never been heard of are created and put on YouTube, and some of them have received as many as a few million views! Talk about starting off with a great exposure for your product if you license those characters!

So as you can see from the above discussion, there are significant advantages in licensing a lesser–known character as opposed to a well-known character. If you are just starting out, be prudent about how you want to spend your money. You could be spending more money on A&P to drive sales than on paying out fat MGs that guarantee nothing except a fat commission for the licensing agents. And if you are a seasoned product manufacturer, hopefully this article gives you a fresh perspective in considering the least famous characters for your products. The world is evolving, and so is the way people are corresponding to character-branded merchandise.

Mediafreaks has a wide array of cartoon characters for licensing purposes.

ou can visit the Mediafreaks blog to learn more about 3D animation and also receive a free report regarding 3D animation services there.

Mediafreaks Showreel

Mediafreaks — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 08:59:08 +0000

This showreel showcase our creative work over the past few years. They are representative of our craftsmanship and dedicated efforts to produce quality work for our clients. We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed producing the content.

http://www.media-freaks.com/showreels/3d-animation-showreel.mov

What Clients Need to Know About Animation Studios

Mediafreaks — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:02:04 +0000

I want the world in 5 days, can you give me that?

You might hate me for writing this article. I might even lose some clients. Because the very first thing I am going to tell you is that most animation companies dislike their clients.

Yup, you did not read me wrong. I said - most animation companies dislike their clients.

Before you close this window in a huff, please allow me to justify my statement. First, I need you to notice that I used the word ‘most’. I need you to hold this in your memory before you read on.

I need to be perfectly honest here. Clients can be painfully ignorant sometimes. Although they are effectively our ‘employers’, they are also the most difficult bunch to contend with. Very often animation companies get ludricous requests from clients that go in the lines of:

‘Oh, I need to do a 30 minute animation for my daughter’s wedding. It would be such a lovely present for her, don’t you think? By the way, I am thinking of Finding Nemo quality wise and my budget’s $500. That should be enough right?’

Ermmm…not quite…While we appreciate your love for your daughter, Finding Nemo cost almost 100 million dollars to produce. It was about 90 minutes in length and that means 30 minutes would cost about 66 million dollars. We are missing quite a few zeros here.

Usually at this point the animation company who receives such a request goes silent for a beat, and then animated guffaws (pun intended!) arise, followed by the tone of a disengaged phone.

Actually all of us are guilty of walking at least once into a restaurant or a store thinking of getting a bite or purchasing a pair of shoes for less than what these establishments are asking for. The only difference between these scenarios and that of querying a 3D service is that we get to see the price tags and we never have to stipulate our budgets, thus avoiding the embarrassment.

The point I am trying to make is - while clients need to be more realistic about their budgets when asking for a 3D service, animation companies also need to be more forgiving towards them as unrealistic expectations usually stem from ignorance. I insist that my company patiently explains the procedure of producing an animated clip.

Even if the client walks away in a daze and says she can never afford the service, at least another person in the world gets educated about the workings of an animation production. As the world becomes more knowledgeable in the way of animation production, I believe that ludricous requests such as the above example would become less common.

This is why I am so proud of my company. Mediafreaks’s mandate is such that we will never scoff at a client’s request and that we will always find the best solution to her needs. So for the record, Mediafreaks is not one of those animation companies who dislikes its clients. We love all our clients and we will endeavour to educate them on animation production so that they know how to set realistic budgets and goals for their animation projects.

You can visit the Mediafreaks blog to learn more about 3D animation and also receive a free report regarding 3D animation services there.

8 Reasons Why You Should Use an Animated TV Commercial

Mediafreaks — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:39:53 +0000

There is an increasing trend for businesses to gravitate towards using animation for their commercials, and for good reason too. This article discusses some of the more popular reasons why business marketers are doing that and will hopefully give you an insight.

1. ‘Live’ adverts require actors and models, and they can be hard to schedule if they are popular. This can be a problem if they fall ill, go out of the country or busy with other assignments.

2. Popular actors and models can be expensive to hire. Some of their managers may charge according to where the advert is shown, meaning an extra fee per location.

3. Using actors and models may have many red-tapes due to consideration for their image and many concepts may not be fulfillable.

4. Actors and models are susceptible to popularity upheavals. Artistes are just humans prone to scandals and scandals can easily cause a wane in their popularity.

5. Animated adverts using animated characters on the other hand do not suffer from the above issues live TV adverts face. As far as a make-belief character is concerned, its popularity can be timeless. Just look at Fido Dido!

6. With animation, the sky’s the limit! Animation can achieve the most bizarre special effects and be presented in the most abstract environments without any worry about the logistics and possibilities. You can go as far as Mars or as high as the Heavens! You can make an entire city black out or make the Sun go nova! Go wild with animation!

7. Animation can be combined with live environments or actors to create a really cool commercial. But a ‘live-shot’ commercial is just that - a plain old boring commercial! Just look at all the cool mobile hand phone ads combining special effects with live elements!

8. Contrary to popular belief, animated adverts are usually cheaper to produce than ‘live’ adverts if you deal directly with the animation house and not through a third party like an advert agency. Many times, advert agencies sub-contract the work to animation companies and utilize their concepts instead of coming up with their own, charging a fat fee for their ‘trouble’! As you can imagine, the charges of an animation company alone without the intervention of an advert agency can be much lower, and in many cases more affordable than a ‘live’ advert.

You can visit the Mediafreaks blog to learn more about 3D animation and also receive a free report regarding 3D animation services there.

http://www.media-freaks.com/animated-commercials/mov/screenplay-animated-tvc.mov

How Animation Can Help Sell Products and Services

Mediafreaks — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:00:47 +0000

In my work I have many clients ask me what 3D animation can do for them. I always tell them - loads.

3D animation is really one of the most versatile sales presentation medium available to a business and if harnessed well, can mean an increase in sales for any product and business.

Many marketing managers did not learn the power of using new media in school. The lecturers were usually more familiar with traditional marketing media like live action TV commercials and paper adverts because when they were younger, that’s all they had. But nowadays, there’s the internet as a new media. Internet marketing is a whole different knowledge all by itself and that’s not being taught in most schools. And most certainly most marketing courses do not teach how to use multimedia and animation to help sell a product or a service. So they rely on boring powerpoints and paper hand-outs. Yawn.

If animation is used effectively, it can help demonstrate a product’s or engineered system’s full potential, far beyond what a powerpoint or hand-outs can achieve. I’ve listed some of the benefits and applications below:

Benefits

- Demonstrate how your product works without having to set it up or lug it about

- Create an upmarket feel of the product or service and justify a premium price

- Make a product or service more attractive, sexier and dynamic looking, and enhance its perceived value

- Give a boring system a visual boost through exciting graphics and animation

- Dramatize boring information and data

- Make anything look cutting edge and state of the art

- Create something that can never be achieved through live shots

Applications

- Show how your product or service can be applied to a problem

- Show the internal components of a complex product

- Bring the client on a tour of a facility or property using 3D animation

- Show how a product interacts with its customers

- Show how a very complex system works through animated sequences and diagrams

- Showcase a product or facility that has not yet been built

- Show several consecutive operations of a system or assembly line

- Show various negative scenarios that can be resolved through the use of your product or service

- Zoom into a microscopic detail of a product or its component

- Show each stage of a planned development clearly

- Show how something like a medical device interacts with the human body

If you are looking for a way to enhance the presentation for your product or service, using 3D animation is the way to go. Smart companies are using it to secure major contracts in their fields, and you should too. If any of the above ideas sound exactly like what you could use, contact Mediafreaks today to use this powerful marketing tool to turbo-charge your presentations and marketing campaigns.

You can visit the Mediafreaks blog to learn more about 3D animation and also receive a free report regarding 3D animation services there.

Documentary Animation Showreel

Mediafreaks — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:35:23 +0000

Animation for documentaries is one of the more challenging fields in animation, as it involves digesting complex chunks of information and translating them to visuals that can be comprehended by laymen.

Mediafreaks provides quality animation for all sorts of documentaries. We produced the animation for several high-profiled documentaries such as the Man Made Marvels series, Mega Structures, Secrets of the Battleship Yamato, Supercells, Asian Enigma.etc. Mediafreaks is dedicated to working with documentary producers all over the world to provide them with the best animation to complement their compelling stories.

http://www.media-freaks.com/showreels/documentary-animation-showreel.mov

3D Animation Studio | 3D Animation Services for Broadcast and Marketing

If You Can Write, But Cannot Draw or Animate…

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