Adobe After Effects New York

Man – what a blast. This last meeting featured 2 presentations focused around character animation, but really covered design in storytelling as whole.

First up was Max Porter & Ru Kuwahata of Tiny Inventions. They showed us “Electric Car” a video they directed for They Might Be Giants:

They even let me hold the electric car! (I sent the picture to my AENY co-leader, Jim Geduldick, who was away visiting  Adobe HQ, just to make him a little jealous that he missed the meeting).

Then Ru and Max they broke down their process for character and object design and animation. Some pretty hefty stuff and hard work for what looks to be so light and fun. They know what they’re doing. A lot of photoshop problem solving to bring their real world models into AE 3D. Also a lots of expression and cool character rigging. Not to mention all that cutting, pasting and sewing.

We’re working on getting a project file for you to play with (for the character rigging, not the sewing).

They also showed us a new piece their working on which focus on the Zodiac Killer, although the characters sill look like kid’s TV show characters (who area also modeled after Max and Ru, themselves). Check out their work at http://www.tinyinventions.com/.

Next up was Stephen Neary, in his 3^rd appearance at AENY. He showed us Chicken Cowboy. A film that he descibed as a way for him to get back to the basics of storytelling:

After the meeting, Stephen mentioned to me that the cat was inspired by my cat ford who likes to be spanked. Yes. I have a cat that likes to be spanked. Please don’t ask me how we figured that out. It’s bad enough I admitted it here…

He also showed us and broke down his process for   “Let’s Make Out” an animated short which will be a Jib Jab Valentines Day card:

And finally he showed us a project under development called Dr. Breakfast – A Serial (not Cereal) cartoon. It involved deer bathing a naked man with his eyeball hanging out. No really – it was funny as hell. It didn’t hurt that Steve did all the voices and sound effects live, so we could get the full experience.

Steve’s other work can be found at:

Finally I showed a commercial for Holomatrix that I directed, and talked about the process of filming it halfway around the world via Skype.

Then it was prize time… Oh yeah…