Seward Street

Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown!

Wow! Can't believe I found this on the Internet. Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown, by Jim Reardon (who later went on to direct a lot of great Simpsons episodes), was one of the funniest, most inspirational student films I ever watched when I was going to CalArts. Back in the day (before blogs and bittorrents), I remember checking out student films from the mid-80s on VHS and watching them on the little listening centers in the CalArts library.
I have one tape with all of Rich Moore, Jim Reardon, Pete Docter, and Andrew Stanton's student films on it, but for some reason, I never put this one on it.

This is Golden Age of CalArts stuff - enjoy!

****EDIT**** Sorry, had to take the file down, bandwidth was reached for this month and other article. It will be back up May 1. 

These are the positive effects of social media

In the media, there is a tremendous amount of attention to the consequences of social media use at the moment. Particularly the negative effects. Topics such as addiction regularly pass the review. It lets you almost forget the positive aspects of social media.

Rajesh G

A lot of negative aspects are banned from social media(twitter, facebook, instagram. etc), which is indisputable, especially many young people seem to lose themselves in it. Let us not forget, however, that social media also has a positive influence. The youth and Media office investigated and set out some points. Because are there even positive sides to children who are always on the tablet, phone or behind their laptop?

First, there are some different notions, things that are easier to learn through social media.

-language skills, literacy, and digit knowledge – such as vocabulary, story structure, practice with letters and numbers, Getalbegrip.

-Concepts and contradictions – such as great-small, more-less.

-Knowledge of the world – especially in stories, but also in movies in which things are explained, how things work (think of everything they can learn themselves by watching YouTube videos), dealing with the news.

-Dealing with emotions, empathy (you can live in someone else).

-Remote communication (with all limitations if you don't see each other) and solve the problems that occur

-Dexterity (with your fingers), speed and hand-eye coordination.

-Selecting important information, analyzing situations.

-Solve problems and how you can collaborate with others (in games for example), with patience and perseverance.

-Coping with adversity: (via social media but also in games, children are dealing with nasty experiences and nasty comments – learning to put things into perspective)

-Creativity: Think of all the ways they use to express themselves, from beautiful photos to Insta to own YouTube channel or blog.

Influence of parents

Also, the youth and Media Office also makes a distinction between different age groups. As a parent, for example, depending on your child's age, you can do different things to emphasize the positive influence of social media. To make the children aware of the positive aspects of social media at a younger age. For example, parents are advised to watch movies together with babies of one and a half years or to Skype with grandpa and grandma.

As of three years, it is recommended that babies get acquainted with digital picture books because they better understand stories. After six years they can often be left in a more independent way so that they can watch their movies. However, according to youth and Media Office, it remains essential to always pay attention to what your child is looking for thanks to the tablet or phone. It is crucial for parents to discuss and determine that together with their child.

After the ninth year of their child, it is a matter for many parents to avoid awkward questions from their children. Otherwise, they might get the answers in wrong ways. After all, they become more curious about the ' big-people ' world. They should not be given answers through unreliable digital ways.

As soon as children are teenagers, it is difficult for many parents to communicate with them. These days they are mostly hidden behind their image screen. It is essential to keep talking to them about what they see and hear at school, with friends but especially on social media. By talking about it is preventing children from forming opinions based on what they read on social media, after all, there is not a direct person for their near who is disadvantaged.

Why Every Animator Should Own a Tablet PC

The TabletPC is the greatest invention of all time.

With it, you can sketch, design, take and organize notes, dictate ideas (with surprisingly high accuracy), watch movies, listen to music, write Academy Award-winning screenplays, surf the Internet from your couch, plan out your week in your writing, and so on and so on.

It's THE tool for the creative genius.

M200shotSo what is a TabletPC? It is a pen-based laptop. Instead of using a mouse to click and drag, you use a pen that is stored within the body of the computer. There are two kinds of tablets - slates and convertibles. I have a convertible (the Toshiba M200) - meaning I can use it as a laptop, or swivel the monitor around and click it into position to use it as a virtual sketchbook. Slates don't have the keyboard but have all the same functionality. Which one you want is based on what you'll use it more for. Do you think you're also a great writer in addition to being an animator? Then get the convertible. Or do you want a portable sketchbook with unlimited amounts of materials? Then get the slate - it's about half the size.

The M200 I have is a 1.5Ghz Centrino PC with 512RAM and a 60GB HD. You'll pay a premium for being on the cutting edge - when I got it, the price difference between the TabletPC and a comparable laptop was somewhere between 800 and $1000. The price has dropped a little lately as they ready for the Christmas season and the next model.

ThumbexampleI my Tablet PC. I've got all sorts of things on it. Here you can see a thumbnail sketch for a scene I was working on a while back. I had an idea one night right before going to sleep, so I just grabbed my TabletPC flipped it open, pulled out the pen and sketched this in a program called Alias Sketchbook Pro. All the drawings posted here were drawn on my Tablet. In the future, I'll write in more detail about each program that I use, for now, I'll give a brief overview.

TantorexampleSketchbook is fantastic - I love drawing with it, mainly because you have layers (like Photoshop - or even better like a light table - remember those?!). Here's a sketch of everyone's favorite elephant - a very rough drawing (Which, I'm sure is off-model, but hopefully the upload times from Spain are so slow I won't have to hear about it). After I made the initial sketch, I then added another layer underneath it for the color. Then I just grabbed the marker pen and just started coloring him in. And if I didn't like it I could erase the color (by flipping the pen around and rubbing the base of it on the screen - just like a real eraser!) - and I wouldn't affect the original drawing layer at all. It's great!

Drawing on it does not take getting used to - anyone who says this or has a fear of it is a Luddite and reminds me of a friend I had back in '93 who, when asked for advice on what to put in my computer, advised me not to waste my money on CD-ROMs because they're really not going to take off.

Sketchexample_1There is a slight parallax problem that happens because you're drawing about 1/32 of an inch above the screen surface, but I think the payoff for having all your drawing tools at hand with an unlimited supply of paper to be well worth it. To the left you can see some sketches I did of my son while he played on his skateboard. Just grabbed my Tablet, sat out on the porch and started drawing. No searching for a pen or time wasted scanning it in - grab and pull.

Oh, and there is no lag. This isn't 1998. The Tablet I have is more than fast enough, and they're only going to get better. They're huge on campuses now. And if you're interested in printing out your digital drawings I can tell you that the effect is entirely convincing - it's hard to say which one was done with a real pen and which one wasn't.

It's too bad that the advertising for these stinks, but if you can find one at Best Buy or CompUSA, try it out - try out the Microsoft Journal program that comes with every TabletPC - if you're not hooked, I don't understand you!

Being an animator, you know there is a wealth of information out there (starting, of course, with this site!). And you probably wish there was some way to keep track of it all, maybe even add ideas of your own, perhaps something that inspires you to develop a new story, or maybe an inspirational rough sketch from the Golden Age that you wish you could bring with you wherever you go.

Well, I use Microsoft's OneNote (which came with it) to accomplish all that. With OneNote you can keep track of all your scene notes (where, if you're like me there are always at least ten notes from every dailies session!), wisdom from the great masters (like Kahl or Harris), and maybe even some ideas of your own.

Here is a shot of some notes I took while in a James Baxter lecture - just brought the Tablet with me, sat in the back so one would bother me and ask, "What's that new-fangled device?!" and just wrote right on the screen.

Now, everyone asks me about the ink to text capabilities - "Yeah, it's cool, but how long does it take to train it how to read my handwriting?" The answer is zero - zilch - nothing. Right out of the box the handwriting recognition features on these computers is fantastic - even if you scribble something out, it'll give 4 or 5 different options and 90% of the time one of them is the word you were trying to write.

If you look closely at the screenshot above, you'll see that I just wrote the title of the lecture, "Baxter, Mechanics Pt. 2" in the big title box of the note. OneNote instantly understood it and titled the record itself with the correct text (see the very top, the title bar of the window). Awesome, right?

But the point is you rarely need to do this anyways. Why would you want to? I keep all my notes in the original ink - it's just a hyper-awesome 3-ring binder that you can bring with you wherever you go (and you can always sketch if you want to!). The search feature works even if you don't convert to text. If I want to find out what James Baxter or Milt Kahl said about arcs, I on the box for Search Text, write the word "arcs" and click the Search button. In seconds, I'm presented with 6 or 7 articles with the word "arcs" in them - whether they are in my writing or an article. It works, and it's fantastic.

If you feel like entering the 21st century, there are some significant resources. The only place to start is TabletPCBuzz. This is the site for anything Tablet. Be sure to check out the forums for any further questions you may have.

A great book is "Seize the Work Day" by Michael Linenberger (link to the right). I know, it has an executive on the cover - but there is some excellent information in there on how to maximize your TabletPC.

Here is another site from someone who'll try and convince you why a Tablet is better than a laptop.

And for those of you who are waiting for the Mac version - come on, what are you waiting for?! You remind me of the people nowadays who are so excited about their iPod - how they're able to keep ALL their music in such a tiny device...

I had the PC version FIVE years ago!!

So you can wait until 2009 - when I'll be animating on a virtual light board on top of my vintage 1940-Disney hologram desk - or you can join the creative geniuses of today and buy a TabletPC!