Intro to the All New Blades Animation Blog

Hello so Ive been reading friend of Blades Animation the talented live action director Malcolm Kennedys recently started blog. Below is Malcolm's logo please click on the link to be taken to his website. (don't do it yet till you've read this blog though)

www.malcolmkennedy.co.uk

Malcolm's first entry is an introduction to who he is and what he's about. I thought "umm did I do this?", No I did not. I had a look over my old post to double check as I couldn't really remember but No definitely didn't. So what follows is finally an introduction and welcome to the Blades Animation Blog.

I am actively trying to be more proactive with Blogging, tweeting and facebooking so this entry is all part of this new marketing blitz. Im aiming to blog about once every other week, tweet about once a day and put something on facebook once a week.

When I first started this blog it was just going to be updates of what I was doing, which I guess it had been. I decided that this was in-fact boring so out the window with that and from now on its the all New Blades Animation Blog. I based its boringness on the repetitive titles of the blogs they are all just variants of the word update. My favourite blog post is the networking one, I re-read it the other day and I just thought "THIS IS BLOG GOLD!" Anyway so this made me think from now I'm going to try to put in more useful blogs that are hopefully more interesting. I've got lots of draft blogs I've been compiling for a couple of months now, most of them are just titles with a few notes. I've even got the blogger app so am totally committed to getting these posts done and online.

Right so things Im going to cover going forward are still some updates of projects and what Im up to but less of these. The next puppet I make I intend to document the full process and stick it up on here as a sort of puppet making tutorial. Im planning a day trip to london to buy some studio lights which is going up on here. At the end of September Im going to be walking Hadrian's Wall as research for a project I'm working on which will probably be a mix of smaller posts. I've got lots of creative businesses posts I want to put up, this covers, my work process, marketing advice, scheduling, pricing, how to keep costs low, book reviews, all sorts of stuff and some fun blogs like favourite films etc. If readers have requests then please message me and I can probably do requested blogs or answer questions as well, cos Im nice.

So I think that works as a indication of what this Blog is about from now on. I want to avoid doing any really long blogs and keep them nice and digestible, so I shall stop now. I will try to follow this post up with some history on how I began on my journey into animation, where I started, the routes I took and so on.

Thanks for reading, please like the facebook page to stay up to date on whats going on.

Rich

Inspiring Websites/people/programs

I am well aware I have again failed to keep the blog updated and I haven't produced videos of the studio as I think I said I would last time. Iv'e decided not to make videos incase you see all my cool stuff and come and rob me!

Today I am going to talk about website that I find inspiring that I recomend you check out. I find them inspiring for a number of reasons the people who make them and their content. The following is a list and descriptions so please read on.

Angry Video Game Nerd/James Rolf
I cam across the angry video game nerd while at Uni trying to avoid doing some work. The AVGN is a  web series staring and made by the film maker James Rolf. Theres over a hundred AVGN episodes, he has also worked on other web series and produced his own short films. So if you are trying to procrastinate and want something funny check this out.
James Rolf seems like a cool guy and seeing his work is really motivating. He made a joke game review and uploaded it to youtube and the AVGN took off from there. He's currently working on a feature film of the character. I really like the do it you self culture and use of the internet to self publish work and to find an audience. This is what I am working towards making my own films for the internet.

Nostalgia Critic/Doug Walker
While watching the AVGN nostalgia critic kept coming up on the side on youtube and eventually I checked him out as well. The first episode I watched was his review of He-Man and She-Ra christmas special which is so funny definitely worth a look. I again find him inspiring for similar reasons to AVGN as it is a DIY show that he makes a living off. As well as the Nostalgia Critic he does lots of other shows the other most famous is the 5 second movies.

The Guild/Felicia Day
The Guild was a business model I was advised to look after i had finished pitching my project on the Transform@lab last year. I had watched a couple of episodes before but never really got to fussed about it. When I finally sat down and watched it from the beginning I then proceeded to binge watch all 5 seasons. This series is a comedy and follows a group of gamers who play a warcraft clone called the game. The series is created by Felicia Day who is an actress that wanted to expand the parts she played so created the guild. It was originally meant to be a television series but her producer suggested turning it in to a web series. The first episode were self funded until they ran out of money. They then added a pay pal button for donations and managed to fund the rest of the series. Microsoft came in and said they would begin to sponsor the series and the guild has continue since. It is now transferring to the youtube channel Geek and sundry. Felicia Days channel that also hosts lots of other cool programs.

Zero Punctuation
This is a web series I have only recently discovered. A new episode comes out each week and and they are comedy reviews of computer games. The reviews take the format of a high speed commentary with minimalist animation. I don't really find this so much as inspiring more just really funny and great when Im having a quick break from doing some work.

Zak Ryder
Zak Ryder is a professional wrestler with WWE and from that it may sound like he has already made it in his career choice. He was actually a failing wrestler who no one liked and was barely on television. He started producing a you tube show Long Island Iced Z to try to make a connection with the fans and save his career. As it turned out it worked audiences in attendance at show started chanting his name and demanding he come out. Eventually he started being featured on the TV shows, has a DVD and tons of merchandise. He still does his show though it is now featured on WWE's youtube channel. The episode are mostly comedy based and padded out with lots of catch-phrases but its a great example of some one picking up a camera and using the internet to find an audience. Since Zak Ryder has been so successful the WWE has heavily embraced social media and now you can barely see the wrestling as there are so many images of social media logos on the screen.

Well thats all I can be bothered to do at the moment i might do something like this again in the future. I've some cool stuff Im going to be working on in the coming months for now you will just have to wait probably for another 6 month before I update the blog again.

Rich