The New Masthead

For post #501, it's time to switch it up.

Friends of FLiP know that every few years, I like to change the logo.  It keeps it fresh for me. and hopefully for you readers as well.  

FLiP started out as an e-zine website - do they even use the term e-zine anymore?  Monthly, I would post four new pages, plus a cover page.  As I explained in the first issue in May of 2007,  "Each letter in the word "FLIP" corresponds to a differently themed web page.  The F page has articles on animation specifically.  The L page has creative writing by animation professionals.  The I page has non-animation art done by animation professionals.  The P page focuses on animation people and their extracurricular interests."  For the index page I animated four characters (one with an extra head) singing the FLIP theme song - yes, a theme song.  It was sung by my kids, my wife Donna, and me.

I really enjoyed doing the FLiP e-zine as both a writing exercise and means of meeting new artists and hearing their stories.   Three years on,  it became a chore instead of creative outlet, so I stopped.

In 2010,  I was vacationing in London and met friend and colleague Alex Williams for dinner.   Alex proposed that we team up to restart FLiP as a blog. On Jan 9, 2012, we relaunched FLiP in this format.   Between the two of us, we were able to post fairly regularly for years.  Then my wife passed, Alex became a father, and the blog sat moribund for a long while. Despite the dearth of new posts, there have been a slow, steady stream of readers - over a million so far - from all over the globe.  Not bad for a little hobby. 

The COVID lockdown and other current events have brought me back to FLiP, hence the new look. 

I went back to the original logo for inspiration, with drawn characters.  And the flying pig is back!
Viva la hunched and goofy!

-Steve

Alex Williams, the Strip King!

 Last month, FLiP's very own Alex Williams won The Cartoon Art Trust Award for Strip Cartooning for his "Queen's Counsel", which has run in The Times of London for the past 25 years. This is a huge honor, the comics equivalent of a BAFTA Award.  Alex is typically modest about it,  saying, "Actually I felt a bit unworthy about the whole thing."

Balderdash!

The World's First Online MA in Animation

I teach animation at a university in the UK, and my superiors are forever nagging me about the need to get an MA in my subject area. Trouble is, I need something I can do online, so I don't have to give up my day job.  But try looking around for something suitable, and there isn't anything out there. Which got me thinking - why not create one? Why not create the world's first MA in animation, completely online?  And, best of all, we could use the content from my online school - Animation Apprentice - and make it a course that would actually teach students how to animate. Properly.

Merry Christmas from the REAL Tiny Tim

Spot the Difference

Way back in 1971 my Dad's animation studio at no. 13 Soho Square in London took on their biggest project yet - a TV adaptation of Charles Dickens'  A Christmas Carol. The twenty-two minute TV special was produced by Chuck Jones and many scenes were animated by Ken Harris, one of Chuck's star animators from Road Runner days. Other animators included Grim Natwick and Emery Hawkins.

Flipping The Classroom

Alex Williams

Alex Williams' presentation at the Society of Animation Studies lasted only five minutes but had more content than many I heard that ran four times as long. Alex recommends 'flipping' the classroom by assigning lecture videos as homework (as he does with Animation Apprecntice, his online course) and concentrating on work in progress during studio sessions. "The beauty of an online lecture is that if you don't get it the first time, you watch it again and again". Of course...some students don't watch the videos. These are the same students who 'glance' at reading assignments in the textbooks (translation: they stared at the cover for a few seconds but didn't open the book.) And they are the same students who won't do well in class and who won't get great grades. Ultimately, you can't make people learn...they have to want to do it. But it does make sense to maximize studio time and minimize lecture time, since we are working in visual media. Alex can 'pitch' really well, too.

---Nancy

Free live webinar at Escape Studios on March 26

I'll be doing a live animation webinar courtesy of London's Escape Studios on Wednesday 26 March at 6pm. We'll be tackling the animation of multi-legged creatures, and I'll be demonstrating a technique that allows you to animate apparently complex creatures in a simple way, creating sophisticated animation in a clean and efficient workflow. It's only an hour long, it'll be fun - and it's completely free!

Support Fellow Artists - Give their Work as Gifts

It's that time again, when media whips people into a shopping frenzy, then sits back and laughs as gift buying turns into a bloodsport.  Ha ha, suckers!  Once again, FLIP offers our readers a creative alternative.  Over the course of the past year, there have been many artists featured whose work is available for sale.  We present those items here for your convenient shopping.

Support animation artists, and get something unique for your loved ones!

First up, Richard Williams' classic book The Animator's Survival Kit is now available for the iPad.  FLIP wrote about it back in February.  Get yours here!

Alex Marks 20 years of Queen's Counsel with a New Book

FLIP's own Alex Williams has reached a milestone.  His comic strip Queen's Counsel started its run in The Times of London twenty years ago today.  After much arm-twisting, the other half of FLIP consented to an interview on the subject.

FLIP: You have been doing Queen's Counsel for 20 years. Does this milestone make you feel old? Proud? Tired?

Alex: All of the above. But, mainly, astonished. Whenever I open the paper I can't quite believe the cartoon strip is still there. I don’t even have a contract with the newspaper – but it’s been my longest job ever, by far. So, better add gratitude to that list.

It's Official - Art Story is the First Animated Feature Film to be Funded at Kickstarter....

Art Story, the independent animated film directed by Aaron Blaise and Produced by Chuck Williams. is officially the first animated feature film to be funded at Kickstarter.

Chuck and Aaron have raised $365,000, enough to start work on their film - a hugely impressive start. Their goal was $350,000 and they have comfortably exceeeded that sum.

Animation Apprentice, One Year Later

FLIP interviews FLIP again!  This time it's Alex's turn to talk.  His on-line animation school Animation Apprentice is completing its fist year, and Alex agreed to be put on the FLIP hot seat for this interview....

FLIP: Why does the universe need your on-line animation school when there are others to choose from?
Alex: It is true that schools like Animation Mentor do a great job, and get excellent results. But I wanted to create something that was a lot cheaper and would also help students get great results much faster. The course at Animation apprentice is only 30 weeks, and costs £3,000 ($4,500). Not everyone wants to spend $18,000 and commit to 18 months of study. 

The main reason for setting up my school was that I’ve been teaching animation in various ways and at various schools since 1996 and, after fifteen years, I felt like I had finally figured out how to do it right. The course was pretty much formed in my head – it just needed some time spent on actually making it. So I spent six months on my own, thinking, recording videos, preparing exercises - and I built the online course.

The course is delivered with pre-recorded videos, which makes it much more efficient than classroom teaching. Those efficiencies are savings I can pass on to students. But the best part of the course is the video feedback. I don’t give general comments – “do this, do that, why don’t you try this”. Instead, I open up the student’s shot and fix it in real time, recording the screen so that the student can play back the video and watch the fixes. It’s like taking your car to a mechanic and having them repair it, while at the same time recording a video showing you how to fix it yourself next time.

Farewell Lady Thatcher

People in England of my generation call themselves "Thatcher's children". Whether you are left or right politically, her influence was undeniable as she re-shaped the dialogue of both politics and economics in Britain.

She was mercilessly satirised by cartoonists, especially by the TV series Spitting Image that seemed made especially for her and her confrontational style of politics.

Who Needs a Website Anyway?

My re-re-re-designed website

Fifteen years ago in Los Angeles I met a guy who had his own website. "How pretentious" I thought. "Who the hell needs one of those?" Well, duh. Obviously, I could not have been more wrong. Nowadays everyone needs a website. At least, everyone who is a freelancer.

My Night at the Opera - a Very Animated Ballet

The Royal Opera House. Photo: Peter Suranyi

On Friday night I went to see Alice in Wonderland at the Royal Opera House in London. I haven't been to the ROH since I left England for Los Angeles in 1996 - and goodness me how it has changed.

Animation History QUIZ!

Call yourself an animator? Think you know the history of animation? Sharpen your pencil, get yourself a piece of paper, and test your knowledge with our brand-new exclusive-to-FLIP animation history quiz! The story begins 18,000 years BC....

Rhythm & Hues Wins a BAFTA, gets an Oscar nom - and Goes Bust

It seems that Rhythm and Hues is going under. The pioneering VFX studio, responsible for some of the most ground-breaking visual effects work ever done, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It hardly seems credible that the studio that did such extraordinary work on Life of Pi (you can see FLIP's review of the movie here), has gone bust, even as they collect a sack full of awards, and their Oscar nomination looms.

The End of the Animation Lab

Jerusalem - not an obvious place to make an animated film

The Animation Lab, the animation studio founded in Jerusalem back in the early 2000's, has finally closed its doors. After almost a decade trying to put together an animated film, they have, apparently, given up.

BAFTAs Tonight - But Who is Voting?

  

Tonight is the BAFTA awards, the biggest movie night of the year here in the UK, though elsewhere probably just a foretaste of the bigger, glitzier and more star-studded Academy Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles. 

The Annie Awards and the Secret of Chuck Jones' Success

The Annies - the Animation Oscars

Last Saturday night, February 2nd 2013, was animation's big night - the Annie Awards, held this year at the UCLA Royce Hall in Los Angeles. They are the Animation Oscars, held once a year to celebrate excellence in animated film-making.

The Dealers - or how I got a cartoon strip into a celebrity gossip magazine

For a brief while in the 1990s I had a cartoon strip running in The Tatler, a society gossip magazine which wasn't so much full of pictures of celebrities as Sloane Rangers. So many in fact, that the joke was that the magazine was largely read by the people photographed inside its pages.

Independent Producer Nathan Erasmus explains how to get your project off the ground

Gravy Media, founded by Nathan Erasmus

Nathan Erasmus is a writer, animation producer and the founder of Gravy Media, an independent animation production facility. FLIP asked him to talk about the tricky business of getting new independent animated projects off the ground.