Today was the last day of super-intern Joshua Jularbal’s time at Frederator. It is the end of a short but awesome era. This guy can do everything and do it well. He did backgrounds, animations, roughs… anything I asked Josh to do he could handle. He will be hard to replace.

Josh graduates from SVA this week and then heads to California to start his professional career with the studios out there. If anyone in the L.A. area is looking for a killer animator and/or background guy contact him here: instantjosh@gmail.com

Now I look for the next super-intern. Any student animators out there looking for school credit and experience should get in touch with me ASAP. And yes, this is in the New York area.

Dan Meth

You can really tell that Saturday Night Live is jumping on the bandwagon of cheesy Internet humor, which is smart considering the growing demographic. Though I admit I laughed pretty hard at this, it is just kind of sad to see the direction humor is going these days. SNL has not been that funny in a long time and the Digital Shorts are one of the few things that make me laugh on the show, but it just feels like these days we’re replacing smart humor with stupid humor. I guess I just long for the days when it was the actors and their characters that made SNL funny, like Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley. I probably couldn’t tell you the name of one actor or one reoccurring character from the past four seasons of SNL, except for the Falconer skit, which hardly got any play. It will be interesting to see how our sense of humor will change with the overflow of technology and the capability of anyone being able to get themselves out there and its impact on networks and TV programs. On the bright side, it’s nice to know that if you want to be a writer for SNL you don’t have to graduate from Harvard anymore, or have a college degree for that matter.

-Hadley

Episode 77

“Libraryhead” by David Bazelon takes a whimsical look at how the world appears to a little girl when filtered through the books she places in her head. Winner of Best Student Film at the Nicktoons Network Animation Festival 2006.

MELISSA: How did you come up with the idea for this film

DAVID: I was an undergrad in Mathematics and had worked for a while before making a bit of a life change and becoming a graduate animation student at the University of Southern California. USC was wonderful for me because my professors really pushed us to not only focus on technical aspects of animation but to really experiment with our own ideas and creativity. So the little character of Libraryhead is kind of me, stuffing books into the bookcase and trying to see the world through those books. At some point the character gets a chance to pick up a pencil and draw a little bit and that’s when the character’s world becomes a little more balanced.

MELISSA: How long did it take you to animate this?

DAVID: I started on the film for class three years ago and worked really hard on it for three months. But I had to put it aside and work on other classes for awhile and finally got it inched out just last year.

MELISSA: What do you do when you get stuck creatively?

DAVID: I stick a book in my head! Well, kind of, I love to look at other people’s work and get inspiration from animation, books, and art. But really the only way I can get out of a creative slump is to just start working, even when I don’t know where it’s going.

MELISSA: What was the most challenging part of the short to animate?

I’m glad I get to tell someone this! Back in high school, I took technical drawing/architecture classes in Camp Hill, PA. We learned how to draw stuff from two straight-on views and then use those drawings to extrapolate a perspective drawing. For the films opening shot, I wanted to make a book look like it was rotating, but had no idea how to do it. Then bam, I took some of that old knowledge and was able to draw out how to change perspective on a book as it rotated in space. Math and animation, they really are a pair!

MELISSA: What are you working on now?

DAVID: I am finishing up my thesis at USC which involves a Grandma who is represented by a line and her love for her grandkid who is represented by a shadow. The two tell a story by means of morphs and optical illusions. If anyone has any good optical illusions, please send them my way!

MELISSA: Who are some of your influences?

DAVID: I grew up watching Nickelodeon and love everything they do (and love what Frederator has done with them!). This is not a shameless plug, I seriously watch Nickelodeon every day with my girlfriend and her hamster. I love classic animations and you can of course see what styles influenced today’s great cartoons when you watch some U.P.A. or the humor in the Fleischer cartoons. I’d love to list all my influences, but it’s time for me to go watch some Spongebob!

Thanks so much David! It was a pleasure meeting you at the Nicktoons Party last year, and I hope that you submit again this year! Call for entries is open!

Melissa

We finally wrapped up the sound on my short cartoon “Drinking and Drawing” last night. By “we” I mean myself and audio wizard Mark Vitelli of W222 Studios. I’ve mentioned Mark on the blog before for having provided numerous voices in my cartoons, but he also is an amazing sound designer. Take a look at this clip from the short to see and hear how much his audio magic contributes to the cartoon.

Dan Meth

Do you like theatre? How about cats? How about cats performing theatre? If you answered yes to any of these, then you might enjoy “Cat Head Theatre”.

This piece is available on the “God Hates Cartoons” DVD found at www.brightredrocket.com

-Floyd Bishop

Hey Stephen!
Again I have to tell you how fabulous your animated cartoon “Ace and Aqua” is!
Stephen and I spoke on the phone this evening about his creative process during the making of his film. Really amazing.
Great timing, voice talent, cutting, animation, writing and design. You have a wonderful future ahead!
I’m very proud of you and you should be proud too!
It’s an honor to have you with all us Random Frederator Cadets.
Take care buddy.
This one’s for you!
Your Cartoon Pal……Jeff

Ok, this book has been out for a couple months. Still, it’s the freshest thing since Gary Larson.

What you’ll get: rejected New Yorker one-panel cartoons, separated into chapter by artist.

Noteworthy is the intro to each chapter: eveyr contributing artist filled out a questionaire about his or her experience as a cartoonist. And while I didn’t read through every cartoon, I did read every questionaire. Not only do we get a window into the twissted mind of a New Yorker cartoonist [something I had aspired to be for about 4 months in 1995] but we get to glean their techniques and tricks of the trade, including how they conque writer’s block!

Browse the book at your local bookseller or at Amazon.com

-Jake

We’re shaking it up here at Channel Frederator. And no, we’re not talking about those three martinis we had for breakfast. We’re talking about this newsletter—delivered to you on a Tuesday. Because sometimes Mondays give us that not-so-fresh feeling. Yesterday we were forced to disinfect ourselves. With gin.

— Deerhoof—Kidz Are So Small, submitted by Face 3 Media. Dancin’ doctors in a delivery room!

— Libraryhead, submitted by David Bazelon. A whimsical look at how the world appears to a little girl when filtered through the books she places in her head. Winner of Best Student Film at last year’s the Nicktoons Network Animation Festival.

— Predators of the Sprawl: A Staggering Simian, submitted by James Buren. The fourth episode in the series from The Nursery.

Watch Channel Frederator by downloading the episode at our website or by subscribing to the whole series through iTunes.

*New on Channel Frederator!!!*: You’re now able to embed each episode of Channel Frederator onto your very own website or blog! Unlike morning breath, our embeds are “Always fresh!” Go to the website for the link.

Submit. Why? Because we love you.

This weekend I watched the DVD set of “Tomorrowland: Disney in Space and Beyond” and had my mind continually blown. These late 50’s era TV specials have incredibly creative design and animation that will make you both drool and weep for a bygone era of grooviness.

Sorry for the scruddy pics. There was too many cool things to take screenshots of so I just took camera pics as I watched it.

-DAN METH

Fred Wesley & the J.B.’s > Doin’ It To Death (full version)

Never was a song so aptly named. (Put it on a loop, play it all day, and I guarantee the result.)

Though the official assignation was “Fred Wesley & the J.B.s”, they could have just as easily been “Maceo & the Macks”, “The Last Word”, or just plain (not vanilla) “The J.B.s“, all essentially the later instrumental recordings of James Brown. James was in such demand twenty years into his career that the market just couldn’t absorb yet more singles, so he just kept releasing them under whatever name made sense that day.

This single just seems like a JB party from start to finish. From the opening “Hit it!” to “We’re gonna have a funky good time” through “We’re going to take you highhhhhhherrrr” everyone sounds like they just showed up, hit the deep groove and kept going all night. The fade out must have just been the convenient place to master the record.

Fred Wesley & the J.B.’s > Doin’ It To Death (full version)