The Animation Options Blog

Think China is content to be regarded as the place you go for cheap animation outsourcing? Think again.

See our article at Omeon.com…

Are your production “wheels” balanced?

Download and print the balance booklet PDF from the Animation Options resources page, and take a moment to rate your production environment according to the categories provided. Connect your rankings with a continuous line, and take a look. Do you see a nice, big healthy round shape… or a lopsided little chunk?

Now have members of your team do the same, and cross-reference the results. Are there any surprises or discrepancies?

See anything you’d care to discuss with Animation Options?

I remember some pretty hard-core winters growing up as a boy in Cleveland, Ohio: the kind where giant snow drifts sealed our doors shut and torpedo-sized icicles hung ominously from the gutters overhead. Our heating bills were enough to make a grown man cry, and my father came close on more than one occasion. But he had resigned himself to the “reality” of our situation: we had taken reasonable steps to weatherproof the house, winters were a bear, heat was expensive, and that was that. Still, the Blizzard of 1977 was like nothing we had ever seen.

One morning as we were shoveling out, our next-door neighbor mentioned an assessment he had from a home energy consultant. My father was skeptical to say the least. “Last thing I need is some yahoo stopping by to tell me that Cleveland is cold in the winter, and then charging me for it!” he grumbled while chipping away at the icy sidewalk. Our neighbor laughed, and explained that the consultant not only conducted a thorough evaluation, but also had devised a practical energy saving plan that was custom-tailored to his home. And when he mentioned that his heating bills had been reduced by a third as a result, my dad’s financial interest was sufficiently piqued to schedule a consultation for our own home.

The result, in our case, was even more dramatic than our neighbor’s. The consultant arrived and asked a number of questions - not directly related to “energy” as one might assume, but instead to our daily use of the home. He then went through our house methodically from top to bottom, before sitting down with my dad to provide his assessment. “Mr. Geiger”, he said, “the aggregate energy leakage of your home from various sources is comparable to leaving the front door wide open all day and night.” My father’s mouth hung open. “The good news”, the consultant continued, “is that this situation can be remedied through a plan of simple steps that I have outlined for you, and may be addressed on your own within a couple of days.”

The home energy consultant reviewed the list of steps with my dad, and we spent the following weekend addressing the items one by one (you can imagine my joy): adding more insulation to the attic, replacing eroded weather-stripping, hanging a door to enclose the foyer, fixing a broken chimney vent, re-glazing a cracked basement window, making minor adjustments to our thermostat, and talking to my brothers about closing the door while they changed their boots.

The frigid weather continued, and a few weeks later our new heating bill arrived. My dad yelped, and we all ran for cover. But it was good news: our monthly charges had been reduced by half! The savings continued throughout the winter: paying for the consultant and the improvements, and from then on “insulating” my dad’s pocket. A fixed investment had produced significant, ongoing returns.

Our family “reward” – the ill-fated camping trip spent playing Monopoly in a rain-soaked trailer the following spring – is another story.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t gather your people and ask them to provide wood, prepare tools and assign tasks. Call them together and raise in their minds the longing for the endless sea.” - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

• What portion of your day is spent addressing the vision of your company? What portion is consumed with mundane business? What portion is spent “putting out fires”?
• Are your “brain surgeons digging trenches” (are your valuable artists wasting their time, your schedule and your money with low-level technical tasks)?
• Does your team approach their work like a film, or like a “science project”?
• Does your workflow “work” and “flow”?
• Is your pipeline robust, flexible, efficient and transparent?
• Do you regard pipeline problems as “normal” and/or “unavoidable”?
• Is your creative talent able to make informed decisions about work in rough form?
• How often are assets and shots sent back from one department to another for revision?
• How often do your artists find themselves on “treasure hunts” (searching for files, trying to determine the correct version)?
• How often are assets created without being deployed?
• Are there contingencies in place at every phase of your production pipeline?
• Does your pipeline efficiently accommodate “re-do” and “same-as” shots?
• Do you have a working strategy for asset re-use?
• What economies of scale are implemented in your pipeline?
• Does everyone in the production chain understand how the same decision can become more expensive at different stages of the process?
• Can your production pipeline economically accommodate last-minute story changes?
• Are you satisfied with your production environment in terms of relationships, communication, adaptation and high-quality delivery?

150-inch plasma screen unveiled by Panasonic at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show. What more is there to say?

Only this: be sure to mount a plastic owl on top to keep birds from flying into it!

Liti Holographics has a remarkable “New Generation Hologram” process capable of creating full-color, high-resolution 3D prints that have a 120-degree viewing zone and can display up to five seconds of animation. Imagine vibrant, dimensional posters that appear to come to life as you walk by!

Unlike lenticular images, which have fairly shallow 3D depth and jerky motion, New Generation Holograms are fully 3D and appear to “project” from the image. Using a combination of pulsed lasers and full-color continuous wave lasers, Liti Holographics is able to produce holographic stereograms that allow artists and designers to incorporate a variety of special effects, including full animation.

Look for animated characters and dunking basketball players on posters at multiplexes and sporting goods stores near you.

Life brings neither problems nor challenges… only opportunities.
Best wishes for a creative and productive 2008 from Animation Options!