Animation for “What’s In The Bible?” Vol. 8

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For the past couple of years VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer has been working on an ambitous new project called What’s In The Bible? It’s a 13-part DVD series that uses puppets, live action, and animation to educate children and adults alike about the contents of the best-selling book of all time. It’s an entertaining blend of Bible stories, theology, church history, and answers to tough questions, with equal parts silliness and reverence.

I’ve had the honor of animating a few short segments for the series, and it’s been a lot of fun. Volume 8: Psalms, Proverbs, and the Writings has just been released. I  animated a short segment on Proverbs to help explain the difference between being smart and being wise. Unfortunately I can’t post the animation here yet, but I do have permission to show a few screen shots:

Here’s a trailer for What’s In The Bible Volume 8. You can order the DVD here.

EDIT: The client has posted a portion of the animation I did for them on YouTube. For your viewing pleasure:

[youtube_sc url=Ynq1evqeKmg width=430]

Amazing Easter Animation

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This blew me away. Big kudos to everyone involved. (Warning: May not be suitable for young children).

From Cartoon Brew:

Here’s something a little different for fans of violent anime: My Last Day, a nine minute animated short commissioned by The JESUS Film Project and animated by Japan’s Studio 4ºC – the production house behind The Animatrix, Genius Party, Tekkon Kinkreet and Mind Game – depicting the crucifixion of Christ through the perspective of one of the thieves killed with him. Anime News Network says this was written by Barry Cook – the director of Disney’s Mulan and Aardman/Sony’s forthcoming Arthur Christmas. It’s a far cry from Cook’s previous shorts, Trail Mix-Up and Off His Rocker.


Monkey Business

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Monkey - Wonderblimp of Knowledge

Last year I designed a monkey puppet to join the cast of characters on JellyTelly.com, a multimedia website venture from Focus on the Family and VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer. There’s lots of terrific educational video content on the site and several of the characters have also crossed over into the DVD series What’s In The Bible?

The new JellyTelly site is now live and, for the moment at least, free to watch. It’s a beta site and the creators are considering some sort of subscription model for future content but at the moment the site’s primary source of revenue is donations.

The monkey character is part of a new segment called “Clive and Ian’s Wonderblimp of Knowledge”. Unfortunately I’m not able to embed a clip but you can watch the Wonderblimp segments on this page of JellyTelly.com.

Free Download of “Are You A Good Person?” Cartoon!

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Are You A Good Person?, an animated short film I produced for Living Waters featuring the voice of Kirk Cameron, went live on YouTube less than four months ago and has already racked up over 130,00 views. People are asking if they can purchase DVDs of the film for use in churches, Sunday schools, etc. Foreign language versions with subtitles are springing up online. Atheists are making their own videos criticizing the cartoon. I even know of one man who converted a U-Haul style trailer into a traveling movie theater so that he can screen Are You A Good Person? at various fairs, festivals, and other public events free of charge.

For those who want to own a copy of the film I’ve got great news. Living Waters is now offering it as a free download, no strings attached. You don’t have to sign up for anything or even create a login. The download is even in HD! It’s in Quicktime .mp4 format so it should import easily into iTunes.

Living Waters still owns the copyright to the film but they seem to have waived their right to charge money for people to view or share it. As a ministry Living Waters simply wants to get the message of the film out to as many people as possible.

If you are so inclined, please help spread the word. Of course you can also still link to or embed the YouTube version as well:

100,000

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Two months ago an animated piece I did for Living Waters went live on YouTube. As I write this it has had 99,990 views, just ten short of the 100k mark. YouTube does not update their view counts in real time so its very possible that by now the actual number has already passed that landmark. I’ll know for sure when YouTube posts the updated view count in a couple of hours. [EDIT: Yup, we are now over 100,000 views.]

The animation is about five minutes followed by a one-minute promo that was tacked on by the client. An alternate version of the animation was also posted on YouTube, identical except with a shorter promo. That version has received considerably less views (18,312 at last count) but if you put the two together we passed the 100,000 mark a few days back.

I am totally blown away by these numbers and by the overall positive feedback I’ve received. This project was personal for me and I poured a lot of myself into it. I also hired two excellent animators to help me out (Michael Foster from SaltyGraphics and Chance Dodd from Little Wolf Pictures) and they also worked extremely hard. It’s very rewarding to see that it has gone this far and I’m grateful to everyone who has taken the time out of their busy lives to watch my little cartoon.

If you like the message and want to share it with friends, or if you or your church want to embed it in a website, please feel free to do so.

New Animation: “Are You A Good Person?”

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I’m proud to announce the completion of a new animated short film that I produced and co-animated for the ministry of Living Waters. They are perhaps best known as the producers of The Way of the Master, a Christian reality series hosted by Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron:

The cartoon is loosely based on a Gospel tract I illustrated for Living Waters back in 2006, and both are adapted from Ray Comfort’s best-selling book Hell’s Best Kept Secret. I was also inspired by many of the UPA and Disney educational cartoons from the 1950’s. The goal was to communicate a very serious and important message in a fun and entertaining way yet without watering down the content. It was a tough line to walk but I think we pulled it off.

I wrote, designed, produced, and edited the cartoon. The character of Mr. Nice Guy was animated by two very talented and hard-working animators: Michael Foster from Salty Graphics and Chance Dodd via Little Wolf Pictures. They also animated a couple of misc. shots. The rest of the artwork and animation was done by me. Mr. Nice Guy was voiced by Kirk Cameron and the Narrator was voiced by radio pastor David Jeremiah.

This was a giant project that took many months to complete. We ran into a few hurdles and setbacks along the way but the team at Living Waters couldn’t have been more gracious and helpful. They were absolutely a dream client to work with!

Of all the hundreds of projects I’ve worked on to date, this one was the most personal for me and also one of which I am most proud. But then, I’m so closely attached to it that its very hard for me to look at it objectively anymore. Besides, it doesn’t really matter what i think, it’s what the viewer thinks that’s important. So I value your input. I’d be very grateful if you could watch the cartoon (it takes 5 minutes plus a one minute promo at the end). Then, if you are so inclined please leave a comment and let me know what you think.