The Animation Podcast

Author: Clay

  • A slight adjustment

    I love having a site that people enjoy, and I’m flattered when other sites see fit to link back to what I’m doing, but I have seen a couple examples out there of other sites blatantly re-publishing my every post, word for word, images included. I feel that using my work as a source of content without my permission is downright despicable and I certainly wouldn’t consider myself a “Contributor” to any site that takes without asking. Don’t worry if you’ve merely blogged about The Animation Podcast, I like you guys. The real offenders are quite aware of what efforts they make to misappropriate my work for their own profit.

    So, like Jim at Seward Street, who is in the same boat and equally unflattered, I’ve made a slight change that I hope you will tolerate. If you subscribe to the RSS feed, you will see that each post will have a copyright message attached to the end. It not a big deal, but I like it when it shows up on those sites I’m talking about, just to let people know what they are reading when they happen to go there.

    Also, this has caused me to reconsider how I link to good stuff you might like. Now I will point you to the place where I originally hear about something cool, instead of directly to the file. I’m not doing this to cause you more work, but to honor the work that others do on the web.

  • Recent links to animation podcasts and interviews

    The past few weeks have brought quite a bit of animation media to digest:

    PODCASTS/iTUNES

    Channel Frederator – Awesome show. Each video podcast episode has a handful of great little shorts to watch. We were snowed in over the holiday and my video iPod (thanks honey) kept me entertained with shorts like The Naive Man from Lolliland and The Bastard. (iTunes link)

    Happy Tree Friends – Each brief episode features another way of killing off the cuddly stars of the show. Disgustingly amusing. (iTunes link)

    Vintage Tooncast – Distributing a new public domain cartoon in each podcast. It’s nothing you couldn’t find on archive.org, but they do all the heavy lifting for you. (iTunes link)

    CGCast – CG-centric interview podcast. (iTunes link)

    The Wubbcast – “The free weekly video podcast for pre-schoolers.” If you’ve been following their blog like I have, now you can see them in action. (iTunes link)

    INTERVIEWS

    John Kricfalusi interview – An animated version of a John K interview. I don’t know why it’s this way, but I like it! (via Cartoon Brew)

    Mae Questel Interview – Brief audio interview with the voice of Olive Oyl. Hearing her voice brings me back to the Sunday mornings of my childhood. On the local station KTLA, Tom Hatten was the man!(via Cartoon Brew)

    Walt’s People Volume 2 – Volume 1 was part of the inspiration to start my site (along with Seward Street’s Milt Kahl audio files). Great book containing interviews with people who worked with Walt Disney, edited by Didier Ghez.

    John Lasseter Interview – Half hour audio regarding the MOMA Pixar 20th Anniversary retrospective. You can also check out the museum’s audio tour online. (via Cartoon Brew)

    Dominic Sidoli interview – Visual effects producer for Double Negative on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (via FXGuide)

    UPDATE:

    Of course I should have mentioned Christian Ziebarth’s transcript of his interview with Eric Goldberg. (via Animated-News)

    UPDATE UPDATE:

    The Spline Doctors speak! – Listen to their first podcast where they discuss preferences for animating with splines versus linear keys (or knots).

  • Show 010 – Eamonn Butler, Part One

    Eamonn Butler (on the left)

    Interview with Eamonn Butler (he’s the one in the tux), Animation Supervisor on the films “Chicken Little” and “Reign of Fire.” Eamonn recalls his animation career from “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” through “Chicken Little.” Part one of two.

    Get the MP3 here: Show 10: Eamonn Butler, Part One
    Animation Podcast Show 10 MP3

    (17.5MB, 38:06 minutes)

    Or get the enhanced version playable only in Quicktime or iTunes
    Get the AAC here: Show 10: Eamonn Butler, Part One
    Animation Podcast Show 10 AAC

    (9.8MB, 38:06 minutes)

    Continue for Show Notes…

    (more…)

  • iLife ’06 – good news for all of us

    Three things real quick-like:
    1. I’m still alive and I haven’t quit – because I can’t quit you!

    2. I just got iLife ’06 and the new podcast features in GarageBand will make my life so much easier!

    3. That means I won’t dread the tedium and time of packaging a podcast (the way I like, with chapters and pretty pictures), so this darn three-months-between-shows-wait will be a distant memory. YEEeeeHah!

  • Another map, by Wayfaring

    Wayfaring is a new site that allows anyone to make custom maps and stick pins in them for whatever purpose they want. Of course, my first instinct was to make an animation map. I started it by putting on all the studios whose locations I was sure about. I know there are many more, so if you know where you work, add it to the map. Anyone can add to it, but I think you need to register. Even before I’ve finished writing this post, two people have added Mainframe Entertainment and (now it’s gone) Aardman Animation to the map. Woohoo!

    If you add a location, try to remember to at least add a tag for ‘animation’ – and ‘studios’ if it applies.

    Click here for the Animation Places of Interest map.

    UDPATE: Now I can have it on my site. Here it is –

  • Archive of American Television interviews on Google Video

    I haven’t spent much time going through Google’s video search site, but I saw something interesting over there today. They’ve added a bunch of interviews from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation that feature television producers. Most relevant to animation are interviews with Joseph Barbera of Hanna Barbera and Phil Roman of Film Roman. I haven’t watched them yet, as the interviews are quite lengthy, but I imagine they’ll provide some great insights.

    If you do some more digging, there are brief clips where Sherwood Schwartz talks about the Brady Kids animated show, James Garner mentions his voice work for Atlantis, and Quincy Jones talks about working with Chuck Jones. One more to check out might be Joan Ganz Cooney who helped create Sesame Street, probably everyone’s gateway to animation.

  • Music for your animating pleasure

    I’ve had a lot of listeners say that they like to listen to The Animation Podcast while they animate. I think animating is hard enough as it is, so, personally, I can’t do it. Even listening to music takes some of the pep out of my animating muscles, so normally I work in silence. ¬°Qu?© l?°stima!

    If you’re the type who is fueled by syncopated rhythms or a driving baseline (uh, yeah, I sound cool), then you’ve GOT to check out Pandora. It’s a free website that asks you for a song or artist you like and then it makes a surprisingly accurate playlist to keep you tapping your toes for hours. It plays through your browser and it really is amazing. You’re allowed up to 100 playlists so chances are good that you may discover new bands that you never knew existed.

    For the last hour I’ve been coasting (that’s KOSTing in So. Cal.) along to a sweet blend of mellow seventies pop based on my search for the dearly dissolved band, Bread. Somehow that stuff doesn’t take much brain power.

    I’m always on the lookout for some audio entertainment for you guys in between shows. Of course you’ll have to turn it off when my next show comes out, but you knew that. So what’s your playlist based upon?

    Go to Pandora

  • An about me page

    I guess I should have done this a while ago, but I always have felt that this site isn’t about me, but the guests on the shows. I’ve finally gone and made a page with all the juicy details about how I came to work in animation, as that subject (not me particularly, but in general) seems to be an area of great interest for many people who have contacted me. I think that’s what they wanted. At least I hope so. When someone asks, “What do you do?” they want a little something more than, “I do this thing,” don’t they? Well, I know I like a little history thrown in, so that’s what I did. Enough already, there’s a link in the sidebar as well as here.

  • Show 009 – Ron and John, Part Three

    Ron Clements and John Musker

    In part three, directors and writers Ron Clements and John Musker describe their writing process as well as developing The Little Mermaid and Aladdin.

    Get the MP3 here: Show 9: Ron and John, Part Three
    Animation Podcast Show 9 MP3

    (11.9MB, 25:27 minutes)

    Or get the enhanced version playable only in Quicktime or iTunes
    Get the AAC here: Show 9: Ron and John, Part Three
    Animation Podcast Show 9 AAC

    (11.6MB, 25:27 minutes)

    Continue for Show Notes…

    (more…)

  • Where are you?

    I know, I know. You want more shows. They will come, I promise. In the meantime, I just took a break and set up a Frappr map. You can go there and add yourself so we can all see who’s listening and from where.

    Be sure to use the Shoutout box to tell something about yourself like your homepage, where you work/go to school, what is your favorite type of animation. You can add a picture (or a creatively drawn rendition) of your mug too! And by mug I mean face, not coffee.

    I started it off, but it’s so lonely on that map. Fill ‘er up!

    If you ever want to change what you’ve put up there, send me an email and I’ll delete your name so you can start fresh and clean. By the way, I’ll add something that looks more like me when I’m at home with my scanner.