Here’s an interview I did a little while ago with Taylor Jessen for the Animation Show. It’s mostly about Learn Self Defense, for the upcoming DVD. We also talk a bit about the new Mystery Work In Progress. I ramble a bit, but that’s just how I am. Enjoy.
Hiya, everyone! It’s been a looong time since I’ve updated this site. I’ve been busy doing the comic over at We The Robots. That takes up all my time lately, so the animation projects have suffered a great deal. I’ll be posting some more stuff here soon, but in the mean time I wanted to encourage anyone who’s interested to:
Go VOTE FOR MAKE MINE SHOEBOX at Channel Frederator. It’s up for best Flash animation. I don’t know what happens to the winners, but it would be kind of neato, so I appreciate any votes.
Thanks! I’ll post more updates on some other goings on soon.
Aaron Simpson of Cold Hard Flash did a presentation at Flash Forward Boston this year called “One Man Bands.”
Aaron presented demonstrations and a behind the scenes look at the work of five independent Flash Animators, and interviewed all of us about our work. The participants were the ultra-talented Anton Bogaty, Max Lang, Ian Culbard, Joel Trussell, and Ol’ Chris Harding.
Here is Chris Harding’s contribution to that little presentation, which Aaron has posted over at CHF.
Chris Harding did a long-ish interview with a local Kansas City arts and entertainment publication called PRESENT Magazine.
It’s kind of long, because Chris Harding does not know how to be concise. It’s also much more serious and pretentious sounding than was intended, but the interviewer asked pretty good questions. So, go… read… skim… enjoy… Chris Harding’s very bad attempts at answering questions about independent animated shorts.
Learn Self Defense is now available as part of the Shorts! Volume 4 DVD collection, which is published by the Colorado Film Foundation. It contains 3 hours of award winning independent shorts, both live-action and animation.
Each film is accompanied by 2 ridiculous, superfluous commentary tracks. Learn Self Defense has a story commentary about the ideas behind the film, and a technical commentary discussing how the film was physically made, removing all mystery and wonder from the process. Both also include introductions by Chris Harding’s mom, which are really the highlights of each track.
You can order the DVD straight from the Film Festival Collection website, or you can also order it at amazon.com.
Here’s a weird thing. At the South Axholme Community School in South Yorkshire, they have a project on Satire In Animation. Somehow, Make Mine Shoebox is one of the films being studied. (link to the project here)
Some of the questions in the exercise are probably impossible to answer, because they are inside jokes, intended for an audience of people who work at the company. Others are really good questions.
Here’s the best quote from the exercise:
“Why is it that a company would pay for this satirical animation– what is in it for them?” Indeed.
Anyway, it’s flattering to see it being studied. You kids keep up the good work!
By popular demand, a new t-shirt design has just been added to the shop. Based on the most quoted line from Learn Self Defense, it is guaranteed to please some, and offend others.
Here are some of the other recent additions to the shop:
We were determined to “haul ass” through the site redesign, but we failed to account for our utter lack of css and php mojo. Somehow we finally got through it. So welcome to the brand new Animation Concern Web Destination!
Everything looks similar, but the new design is just different enough that the entire site had to be redone from top to bottom. But the real improvement is that it’s now all automated and running on blogging software. Also, we’ve added a couple new things:
- Chris Harding’s production log
- A new Shop with actual stuff in it (it’s cafepress stuff, but still…)
- a new Work In Progress Page where the new cartoon will be documented
+ a fancy new logo and a bunch of new random writing and pictures scattered around
Thanks for your patience– especially those of you who kept coming back to check on the site– and especially, especially those who joined the mailing list.
OK, we’re taking the Website down for a bit so the new one can be developed. We’ll be putting up a temporary page and then hauling ass to get through the redesign. Please stand by.
It’s been a long time since anything has been updated here. But it’s been a busy few months working on the new, improved website and rebuilding the high-tech Animation Concern basement studio.
Soon we will launch the new website with lots of new features and things to see. Maybe there will even be pictures of the new studio set-up.
In the mean time, be sure to note that several really good festivals have been added to the Learn Self Defense tour this summer, inlcuding Animafest in Zagreb, Croatia, the Fantasia Film Festival in Montréal, and a special screening in the 2006 Annecy Animation Festival’s “Politically Incorrect” program, making it the second year in a row Learn Self Defense has been included in the Annecy line-up.
More soon!
