How to use this Page

The Titmouse animated feature will hit U.S. theaters on December 6.

The post Samuel Goldwyn Films Debuts New Trailer For R-Rated 2D ‘Nerdland’ appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Another R-rated animated feature is headed to U.S. theaters.

The post Samuel Goldwyn Films Will Release R-Rated ‘Nerdland’ Theatrically appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

How much do animation workers make in Vancouver? Barely a living wage in some instances.

The post Vancouver Animation Industry Survey Reveals Alarming Low Wages and Unpaid Overtime Practices appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

"Pearl" will be one of the thirteen animated projects screened at Tribeca next month.

The post ‘Feast’ Director Patrick Osborne Will Debut New Short ‘Pearl’ At Tribeca appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Titmouse's first feature film project promises strong bloody violence, drugs, nudity, and puckered anuses.

The post Titmouse Reveals Teaser for Adult Feature ‘Nerdland’ appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

A veteran of "Adventure Time" and "Gravity Falls," "Niki Yang steps out on her own with "Yoyotoki: Happy Ears!"

The post Niki Yang’s Empowered Fantasy ‘Yoyotoki’ Energizes Amazon Pilot Season appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

The voice cast for the film includes Paul Rudd, Patton Oswalt, Mike Judge, Brendon Small, and Jackson Publick.

The series will be directed by a rotating group of directors.

"Niko and the Sword of Light." which began as an independently produced animated comic book app, has been turned into a 22-minute pilot produced by Amazon Studios.

Meet the Burrowing Owl. He has recently lost his mate to a large predator that is hunting in his treacherous natural habitat. How will he survive in this dangerous wilderness alone? This is a story of love lost… and survival.

Scheduled to debut in 2015, Comedy Central's "Moonbeam City" is described as an absurdist take on the sex-drenched crime dramas of the 1980s.

In a sign of changing times, animated programming produced for both Netflix and YouTube has begun to earn a significant number of Emmy Award nominations, competing alongside traditional broadcast and cable series.

Last night Adult Swim premiered its first exclusively online animated series "King Star King." A punk psychedelic space adventure about a He-Man-esque sci-fi figure who works in a waffle restaurant, the show was created by J.J. Villard, a former DreamWorks story artist ("Shrek the Third," "Monsters Vs. Aliens") who's also known for his CalArts student films "Son of Satan" and "Chestnuts Icelolly."

Titmouse created this lively spot to promote a collaboration between Lancôme and designer Alber Elbaz (who makes a cameo). Watch in HD for full effect. Production credits to come.

Ronald “d-pi” Wimberly is an artist who has worked in film, fashion, comics, and most recently, animation.

He is the author of the comic book Prince of Cats, which was published by Vertigo. As his foray into the animation production world, Ronald has been designing characters on Black Dynamite: The Animated Series for Titmouse.

Ronald’s artwork often features figures in action, stretching and lunging through exaggerated space. He posts a lot of new work on his blog.

5 Second Day is an annual tradition that gives Titmouse animators on both coasts the chance to bring to life whatever strange, beautiful, disturbing and funny ideas they’ve had all year as a short format cartoon. For the first time ever, the studio will be opening up the screening of these masterpieces to friends, neighbors and fans.

The screening is on Friday February 15th in Hollywood, at the Egyptian Theatre, 7:30pm. The program will also include a screening of the unaired Motorcity pilot and a selection of rarities from the studio’s vaults – with a discussion following with Titmouse founder Chris Prynoski.

Tickets are available through the Egyptian Theater.

Pinched is an animated short with slick production values written and directed by David Vandervoort. He produced it in 2009 at Titmouse, but debuted it online just a few days ago. More recently, Vandervoort has worked as a character designer on the Laika feature ParaNorman.

This new video, directed by Mike Judge and produced by Titmouse, premieres today on CMT. The video, for the Zac Brown Band features a guitar-shredding, big game hunting robot. That’s good enough for me.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Mike Judge, Titmouse

Whatever happened to limited TV animation? For those of us who remember when Jonny Quest was state-of-the-art for TV adventure animation… this leaked footage (below) from Disney’s Motorcity is pretty amazing. The animation looks really slick for a TV production, and especially good for a show that’s digitally animated in flash.

Here is an eleven minute compilation of nine sequences pulled from upcoming episodes. These clips showcase the animation and compositing techniques employed in the series. Each sequence features the final composited footage, followed by the animation in it’s rough form.

Created by Chris Prynoski, Motorcity is produced by Robin Red Breast, Inc. (a subsidiary of Titmouse, Inc.) and Disney Television Animation. It premieres this Monday, April 30th at 9pm, ET/PT on Disney XD. The first episode is now available to watch for free on iTunes (there’s a free iPhone/iPad game on iTunes as well). More information on this clip reel after the jump.

The following information was provided by the studio. It corresponds to the footage in the clip reel:

Motorcity is animated with a combination of Flash, Maya and After Effects – with backgrounds and other elements created in Photoshop.

1) Mike and Chuck explore the auto parts store: This features some really subtle character animation by supervising animator Mike Roush. It showcases how the motion of the floating screen was animated in Flash, then used as a guide by lead compositor Steve Kellener to swap out with screens generated in After Effects.

2) Deleted scene from the first episode: This is a sequence that was taken all the way to completion, only to be cut from the episode at the very end. It’s features Jacob swooping in to save Mike and Chuck in his ride, Sasquatch. Character animation by Albert Pardo.

3) Taking down the Ultra Golems : This features a heavy integration of 3D vehicle animation and 2D effects. Having grown up on a steady diet of Japanese anime, Edward Artinian is our 2D effects guru. Keith Yan handled the complex integration of all elements in the composite stage.

4) Mutant HOUND attacks Mutt: Directed by Juno Lee, the sequence from this episode combines one of the most ambitious combinations of 2D and 3D animation in the series. The impeccable design hand of Brandon Cuellar brought not only the vehicles, but the HOUND to life.

5) Tooley Fight: Animated by Jeremy Polgar, this sequence showcases just how full the “tradigital” animation is being pushed in the series.

6) Texas confronts Kane: In this dream sequence, Texas finally squares off against Kane. Animator Sean Covernton, brought both incredible comedy and action to this sequence.

7) Electroblades fight: This sequence features incredible action animation by Ben Li. This is another sequence that had to ride the line between action and comedy.

8) Mushroom Runnin’: Animated primarily by Braden Poirier, this sequence showcases not only the animation department, but the incredibly talented background artists. The BG paintings were keyed by Anthony Wu. (With crazy jumping scene animated by Jeremy Polgar!)

9) Chuck vs. The KMG : Once again, Mike Roush brings incredibly full animation to Chuck. Marina Gardner animated much of the Mike action. This is another sequence that employed extensive composite techniques by the team of Tom McDonnell and Mike Newton.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink |

Though they share the same name and the same owners, there is a wide starting salary gap between the two Titmouse animation studios that operate in Los Angeles and New York City. While wages for artists in the New York TV animation industry have historically been lower than their Los Angeles counterparts, the gap appears to be widening.

Cartoon Brew decided to investigate after learning that some New York Titmouse animation artists who are working on Disney’s upcoming TV series Motorcity are earning as little as $400 per week. If not the all-time lowest, it ranks as among the lowest wages ever earned by an American artist working on a Disney animation production. By contrast, an artist doing the exact same job working on the same show at Titmouse in Los Angeles would earn no less than $1,055 per week under the studio’s union agreement.

Titmouse Inc., founded in 2000 by the husband-and-wife team of Chris and Shannon Prynoski, opened a Manhattan studio in the summer of 2010 to support its growing West Coast operation. Prior to launching the studio, Mr. Prynoski, a veteran of MTV Animation in New York, created the TV series MTV Downtown. The company’s emphasis on quality has helped them to expand from a mom-and-pop operation into a major producer of animated programming, including shows like Metalocalypse, Superjail! and The Venture Brothers. In an interview published this week on Cold Hard Flash, Prynoski said that his company now employs over 250 people.

The company has recently been producing two shows for Disney’s action oriented XD channel: Motorcity and Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja. In order to receive its sub-contract deal from Disney, Titmouse signed a union contract to satisfy Disney’s requirements in the IATSE Basic Agreement. Titmouse didn’t want to convert its entire Los Angeles studio into a union shop, and thus created a wholly-owned subsidiary called Robin Redbreast. The new company is the signator with the Animation Guild, IATSE Local 839, though it shares the same ownership and managements of its parent company, Titmouse.

The decision to split Titmouse into two separate companies was not an uncommon tactic for a company in its situation, Cartoon Brew was told by union officials in Los Angeles. Under the contract, Titmouse must pay union scale wages to artists in Los Angeles who work on Motorcity, but has the option of subcontracting work to non-union companies where it can pay lower salaries. While the studio sends work on the show to multiple places, including Canada, it chose to subcontract the Motorcity cleanup to its New York studio, along with some of the show’s animation. A staff of nearly twenty clean-up artists works in New York, where they are responsible for cleaning up the drawings of the animators in Flash and coloring scenes as well as doing occasional animation edits.

Cartoon Brew has learned that some of the animation was being cleaned up in the Los Angeles studio as recently as last October, when Titmouse decided to shift the entire clean-up operation to New York. An artist in the New York studio was told by his supervisors that the reason for the shift was because the quality of work by the Los Angeles artists was considered sub-par. Chris Prynoski declined to comment on the reasons for why the clean-up work was transferred to the New York studio.

Cartoon Brew interviewed four New York artists working on the series. Though Titmouse offers group health insurance, none of the artists interviewed in the clean-up department could afford the option with their current salaries. Many of the hirees are recent graduates from animation schools

Heads up fans of NBC’s Community. Tonight’s episode has a Retro Anime sequence animated by our friends at Titmouse. The sequence has characters from Community animated in the style of 80’s anime (Robotech/Voltron/Bubblegum Crisis style designs). We’ll add an embed of the piece after it airs, but in the meantime enjoy these exclusive advance images. The animation is directed by Grif Kimmins, animated by Parker Simmons, and Produced by Ben Kalina. Additional credits include: BG Layout & Paint: Lauren Airress & Khang Li, Composite by Mike Newton. Community airs at 8pm on NBC.

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Community, Titmouse

On President’s Day (February 21), Titmouse asked its animators to spend the entire workday animating their own ideas. The only rule was that it had to be at least five seconds long. Both Titmouse studios (Los Angeles and New York) participated, and the results of this year’s 5 Second Day can be seen on the studio’s blog. I’ve posted a couple of my personal favorites in this post: above by Mike Roush and below by Phylicia Fuentes.

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | One comment | Post tags: Mike Roush, Phylicia Fuentes, Titmouse