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[adult swim] UPFRONT Wednesday, May 16, 2012 9p Roseland...

fredseibert — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:36:17 -0400

[adult swim] UPFRONT
Wednesday, May 16, 2012 9p

Roseland Ballroom
239 West 52nd Street (between Broadway & 8th Ave.) [NYC]

PERFORMANCE BY T.I. Immediately after the Adult Swim Upfront

Invitation is non-transferable. Photo ID required at check-in. 21+ only.

Attention, design nerds. One of favorite people at tumblr...

fredseibert — Tue, 08 May 2012 11:27:38 -0400

Attention, design nerds.

One of favorite people at tumblr is Peter Vidani, who overlords one of the most important and interesting groups at the company. As you can read in the interview below, design at tumblr has a significantly different role than at most Silicon Valley tech companies. The disparity has a lot to do with the company’s roots in New York City (rather than engineering centric Northern California) and even more about the vision of founder/CEO David Karp.

storyboard:

Peter Vidani on the Evolution of the Tumblr Dashboard

Ministry of Design senior minister Peter Vidani lays hands on every aspect of Tumblr’s visual and usage aesthetic. Initially contracted to work on theme creation, he came aboard full-time in 2009 and has steadily advanced his design philosophy of utility and simplicity. One of his primary, perpetual obsessions could be considered the real face of Tumblr: the Dashboard.

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This Kickstarter is for Arhoolie Records. Arhoolie is like...

fredseibert — Fri, 04 May 2012 22:57:17 -0400

This Kickstarter is for Arhoolie Records. Arhoolie is like nothing else anywhere. A company dedicated to American roots music started by a German immigrant. Piece by piece, they’ve recorded one of the most stunning libraries of Country Blues, Zydeco, Tex-Mex, Bluegrass, you name it.

I have a particular affection for Arhoolie because of their superior recordings of Mississippi Fred McDowell, the artist on the first album I ever produced.

But, you would enjoy Arhoolie’s music too. I know you would. Check out their website, listen to some of their music on your Spotify or MOG some other freemium streamer.

Then, donate to this Kickstarter please. The world should know a little more about this, because then the world would be a little bit smarter and have a lot more fun.

Adventure Time: Fan Art: An Explosion of Creativity celebrates...

fredseibert — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:17:50 -0400

Adventure Time:

Fan Art: An Explosion of Creativity celebrates the die-hardest Adventure Time fans in the best way possible as part of the PBS Off Book documentary series. Kornhaber Brown’s producer/director Eric Brown was nice enough to ask me (thanks to fellow interviewee Brad O’Farrell) into his film on the fan art phenomenon, and he’s obviously likes everything you’ve all done with AT, so we (you) get a lot of attention in the piece. It’s a hoot, enjoy.

-Fred

Buzz Potamkin, R.I.P.

fredseibert — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:46:00 -0400

Photo via Jerry Beck

I was heartbroken to hear that Buzz Potamkin, one of my earliest animation and production mentors, died of pancreatic cancer on April 22. My thoughts are with his widow Rosie.

Details on Buzz’s animation career are at Cartoon Brew and Animation Magazine, but I thought I’d share a few of my great experiences. It’s fair to say that I wouldn’t have the animation career I have today without his tutoring, support and depth of knowledge and wisdom.

“One Small Step” from fredseibert on Vimeo.

Buzz and I met in late 1980 through my once-in-a-lifetime media guide Dale Pon. At that time, my creative partner Alan Goodman and I were trying to figure out how we should present the look and feel of a not-yet-named cable music channel. Dale had already intro’d us to Colossal Pictures in San Francisco, soon to be one of our early animation partners, but when he mentioned Buzz’s company Perpetual Motion (soon he spun off as Buzzco) we remembered them as one of the few animation reels that had made a quality impression out of the hundreds we’d reviewed. Buzz quickly won our trust and, in his inimitable way, guided two neophytes through a grueling 24 hour editing session on his studio’s execution (directed by Candy Kugel and produced by David Sameth) of my one and only creative idea for the MTV launch, where a 1969 Buzz Aldrin is facing, not an American flag, but the MTV flag in 1981. The piece went on to be played more than 75,000 times and became an icon that helped define our careers ever after. Buzzco went on to make a number of animated MTV IDs for us, and that was even before Dale conceived the ’I Want My MTV! advertising campaign for Alan and me a couple of years later. Buzz produced them all with director Tommy Schlamme, and then the peak of the campaign with Candy again.

I Want My MTV! Produced by Buzz Potamkin 1982-1983 from fredseibert on Vimeo.

It was during those days that Buzz and I first started talking cartoons. He shared stories with me about the characters who ran the business and his point of view about what made the business work and what made it flop. He gave me lessons in the small and the large in everything from production to real estate management, and why the animation business was stalling; we continually improvised what we thought could happen if things were looked at a little differently. We talked creative, media, philosophy, art, politics, you name it. We eventually realized we had even more to talk about and we kept doing it for 15 years.

Alan and I formed a partnership with Buzz for a few years after we left MTV in 1983 (it was his encouragement that gave us the courage to quit our amazing jobs when we were itching for more entrepreneurial challenge) and we even made a few shows together. But, Buzz was itching too, and he soon decamped to Hollywood to form Southern Star to make cartoon series for the broadcast networks. We kept in touch and several years later I’d improbably moved out for the cartoon biz myself to run the legendary Hanna-Barbera studio.

Bruno Bozzetto’s Help! from Hanna-Barbera’s What A Cartoon! Executive Producer: Buzz Potamkin

My first call and my first hire was Buzz Potamkin.

Buzz was instrumental in helping figure out how to launch the first of our shorts incubators, What A Cartoon! in 1994. He’d given me plenty of insight about the theatrical shorts of the mid-20th century and when he came on as my head of production we plotted the program together and he cajoled a number of legendary filmmakers like Ralph Bakshi and Bruno Bozzetto to give this crazy idea some gravitas.

Buzz Potamkin was a unique soul. He was the kindest man you could imagine, always ready with help and inspiration. He admired creative people of all kinds, especially artists, and he could smell out smarts in anyone in a room. He had a curmudgeonly crust, but with a quick smile and wit, and always a twinkle in his eye.

I owe Buzz a lot. Many people do. He’ll be missed.

In a shameless attempt to curry pageviews, our friends at...

fredseibert — Tue, 01 May 2012 10:27:00 -0400

In a shameless attempt to curry pageviews, our friends at Animation Magazine have started a contest to pick the best ad in their 25th Anniversary issue. And since Frederator ran an ad, I guess we’re going to have to play along and ask you to please vote for our ad. I couldn’t swear to you it’s the best one, but it’s the best one of ours.

rapuze: Screaming Wolf a la Tex Avery.

fredseibert — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:32:00 -0400

rapuze:

Screaming Wolf

a la Tex Avery.

Well, I must say, I’m thrilled there’s a Frederator...

fredseibert — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 21:54:00 -0400

Well, I must say, I’m thrilled there’s a Frederator connection to three out of the four cartoons in this confession, even if “she” hates one of them.

Dr. John, the undoubtable Mac Rebennack, is releasing a...

fredseibert — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:52:00 -0400

Dr. John, the undoubtable Mac Rebennack, is releasing a fantastic new album today, a stellar addition to his discography, produced with great care and talent by the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach. Here’s a free version of the first single, “Revolution”:

The release gives me a great excuse to highlight a couple of projects I worked on with the good Doctor involved with in the late 1980s. The chance to work with one of the rhythm & blues greats was really a career highlight. In both cases Mac’s participation because one of his record producers was Ed Levine, a colleague at my ad agency Fred/Alan in New York.

Fred/Alan IDs 1988 from fredseibert on Vimeo.

My favorite was probably the set of animated IDs we did for an obscure television station in St. Cloud, Minnesota in 1988. TV Heaven was a local version of what Fred/Alan had done with Nick-at-Nite on a national basis, where we made an overnight hit station from an obscure UHF transmitter in the sticks. Mac came into the recording studio planning on recording one track for us, and ended up improvising six melodies on the spot during our scheduled time. I don’t remember the writer for this one, but I think I like it the most:

“Some people go from dollars to donuts, but I’ll take pennies from heaven. TV Heaven 41.”

The animations you see here were done after the style of the legendary Fred Mogubgub, and directed by Fred in New York, Marv Newland and International Rocketship in Vancouver, and Marc Karzen in New York.

You can get the entire TV Heaven story here at Fred/Alan’s archive.

Ed probably thought about Mac for TV Heaven because he’d already had a big hit when he asked Dr. John to play the annual Fred/Alan holiday party the previous December (invitation above). We took over a belly dancing club on a second floor on 8th Avenue in New York, and for one night transformed it into a soul food juke joint. With Dr. John presiding, natch. The whole story’s here.

I got a nice note from Shawn Harrell at the Animation Career...

fredseibert — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 17:14:42 -0400

I got a nice note from Shawn Harrell at the Animation Career Review website that they’ve named me one of their Top 100 Most Influential People in Animation. Thanks guys!

Today is pianist Cecil Taylor’s 82nd birthday. He had a...

fredseibert — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 10:00:00 -0400

Today is pianist Cecil Taylor’s 82nd birthday. He had a profound influence on the way I think about things, especially when we briefly worked together. After you listen to him (or watch him below) it might explain the thing about me that’s been puzzling you.

Cecil Taylor photographed @ International House, Philadelphia, by Mary Gaston, November 4, 2006 (via Flickr)

Cecil Taylor in solo concert, Munich, Germany, 1984

Bill Burnett is the co-creator of the cartoon series ChalkZone,...

fredseibert — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 16:49:00 -0400

Bill Burnett is the co-creator of the cartoon series ChalkZone, a Frederator production on Nickelodeon, and a longtime collaborator of mine in too many mediums to count.

Bill’s also a musical theatre writer and composer (he wrote the book and music for our animated TV movie The Electric Piper) and now he’s raising money on Kickstarter for a full scale Broadway style musical called Passing Over.

He describes the show on the Kickstarter page:

Passed Over is the dramatic escape by the Slaves of Egypt, presented here for the first time from the point-of-view of the slaves themselves, the people in the streets. It will be a full-length Broadway-friendly musical, with a fresh Rock-Musical score, vivid characters, a gripping plot, irreverent humor, and an universal message that speaks directly to the issues of today, just as it did to the inhabitants of Ancient Egypt.

I’m always happy when someone in our cartoon business works on stories in different mediums, it makes our industry better to have people with rich influences. It makes me even happier when it’s a friend.

Check out Bill’s musical and donate if you can.

The Young Influentials: Adweek picks 20 under 40 who are wicked...

fredseibert — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 22:29:00 -0400

The Young Influentials: Adweek picks 20 under 40 who are wicked smart and rebooting your world

Timothy Shey: Director, YouTube Next Lab

Digital video is old hat for Timothy Shey. The 37-year-old’s first company, Proteus, virtually invented the second-screen concept in 2002 when it created a mobile polling platform for Super Bowl XXXVI. In 2007, he co-founded online video production company Next New Networks, which Google acquired last year. Now, as director of the YouTube Next Lab, he’s leading the charge to develop premium (read: monetizable) video content online.

Tim Shey was one of my co-founding partners at Next New Networks and now he’s one of the leaders at YouTube. Adweek got it *exactly* right. Congratulations Tim, well deserved!

AV Club: As an animator with his own show, have you received any advice, either solicited or unsolicited, from other animators/auteurs?

fredseibert — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 21:38:00 -0400

Pendleton Ward: In the beginning, Fred Seibert of Frederator, he kept telling me that the workload is more than you can ever imagine. Like, there’s no possible way that you can prepare yourself for the amount of stress and work that you’re going to have. And I was like, “No, I can do it, I can do it. I’m sure I can figure it out.” But he just kept saying, “You have no idea what it’s going to be like.” [Laughs.] And I didn’t. I had no idea it would be so intense, especially in the beginning. It’s cooled off now that we’ve found a rhythm, but in the beginning it was so rough. I wanted to cry and vomit every day and there were a lot of sleepless nights. Is that advice? I don’t know. [Laughs.]

I know Eric just posted this interview over at Adventure Time Art, but since this is advice I give to every first time show runner I thought it might be worth doing as a pull quote.

I’d like to ask your support for trombonist Roswell...

fredseibert — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:21:00 -0400

I’d like to ask your support for trombonist Roswell Rudd’s Kickstarter campaign.

“Rudd extracts sounds from the trombone that go back to New Orleans and further ahead than anyone has yet reached.”
Nat Hentoff, Cosmopolitan

Roswell Rudd is a intensely deep musician, an emotional player whose music —be it dixieland, avant-garde jazz, or standards ranging from Duke Ellington to Bob Dylan— is agnostic to it’s source. This standards project, as he says in the Kickstarter pitch, “songs we all know that mark moments in our lives,” is one that I know from personal experience is one that comes directly from his heart.

Ros has had an profound effect on the way I look at the arts. He wouldn’t remember me from Adam, but we spent a couple of weeks together when he was the trombonist in composer Carla Bley’s first touring band and I was the sound engineer and road manager in 1977.

I was driving a boat of a station wagon around Woodstock with some of the musicians in the band. It was a silent, winter night, black sky with a few stars, and we were coming back from a gig in town to the house we were bunking at. Quietly, from the back seat Ros was humming a rich melody, one that could have come directly out the horn he played. When I asked what it was he surprised me with the answer.

“Queen. “We Are the Champions.”

Why was I shocked? Well, I was in full post-college hipster mode, rejecting the pop music that had formed me, and I was looking for the answers I thought “new music” might have. It was why I was attracted to the sophisticated music Carla was composing and Ros was playing with the likes of Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler.

And Queen! Well, Queen was just suburban crap, right?

“I’m teaching middle school music where I live in Maine,” Ros was saying. “You’ve got to speak to them in language they understand. Besides, it a great melody.”

It was Roswell’s ability to convey emotion in his sound, and equally make his way around melody, rhythm, and pure sound that made him the go-to guy for such a wide range of musical leaders. He could do it all, and retain his humanity in the process.

All of a sudden I was struck straight in the head with the bogus parameter’s hipness had thrust my way. Here was one of the truly hippest musicians ever saying that he decided what was important, not anyone else. If he was going to like pop, or jazz, or anything else, well damn the torpedoes. He liked what he liked.

That simple, seemingly unmemorable moment changed me. In a completely innocent reaction, a great musician shamed my hipsterness forever, from then on I was going to make my own decisions. If I wasn’t cool, so be it.

And, of course, I’ve been liking “We Are The Champions” ever since.

Thanks Roswell Rudd for the rest of my life.

This “Overture” from Carla Bley’s and Paul Haines’ 1972 Escalator Over The Hill should give you an idea of the beauty and fierceness of Roswell Rudd’s trombone.

And, if you need to refamiliarize yourself with “We Are The Champions”…

Writer and animation artist Mike de Seve came by Frederator/NY...

fredseibert — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:32:59 -0400

Writer and animation artist Mike de Seve came by Frederator/NY last week to introduce us to some of the projects he’s developing. We’re looking forward to hearing and seeing more about them, maybe there’ll be something for Cartoon Hangover. Thanks Mike.

In which Digits talks about animation: 'Cartoons are keeping you from growing up'

fredseibert — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 21:35:00 -0400

In which Digits talks about animation: 'Cartoons are keeping you from growing up':

Illustration by Megan aka animationbits

animationbits:

I want to share a little story with you just on the off chance that someone may be going through the same thing right now.

I started drawing cartoons and anime around grade 8 after I met up with a friend from elementary school whose art I admired greatly. I lived with my mother at the time and I was VERY blessed to have a mother who was also an artist and completely supported me - which was included but not limited to, borrowing record of lodoss war dvds from her co-workers, photocopying how-to-draw anime books ( all in japanese at the time, they wernt released in english yet), and always giving me helpful crit with every pic I drew. Art was a GOOD thing and there was always support for me to be creative.

This is usually the case when you’re younger. At least when it comes to drawing cartoons - its cute, its fun , its childish - just like you! When you’re of a certain age you get lots of support for making silly stories, characters and pictures.

Then , like some of you, I hit an age where suddenly it wasn’t appropriate anymore. At this point I was living with my father and stepmother and suddenly im in a world where it was weird for me to create fantasy worlds and draw cartoons. I was 18, I was just done school, what am I going to do with my life? This is a rough patch for lots of people when you’re starting to gain your independence and you’re still living under your parents roof. Theres lots of clashing opinions as to what you should be doing. For me this usually resulted in the fact that I spent more time drawing then socializing which , to my parents , was not ‘normal’. One talk with my father he had tapped the paper on the table in-front of me and said ‘THIS , this is whats keeping you from growing up - all these cartoons’ . Owch.

I totally love my father and my stepmother ( ok maybe I was a bit miffed at them at the time) but they based (at the time) success in life as what they had done. It had worked for them so it would work for me - seeing deviations as this as possible failures. If you’re in a similar situation in life with parents that don’t really see with you eye to eye on if creative endeavors are best for your future you’ll hear a lot of this kind of rhetoric. You need to grow up, you cant make money on art, when will you get a real job - ect ect. Shit sucks, but don’t give into it. Most of the time this talk comes from people who don’t KNOW of the art industry but base things on very surface conversations or stigmas like ‘starving artist’ . Now, with that being said you still need to be SMART about the job you’re going into ..if an artistic career is what you’re seeking - look into what job demands are like, how many years of schooling people who made it have, what the industry is like . Ask questions, do research , find the best path for you - don’t blindly throw yourself out there in hopes that luck will get you by. There are some artistic careers that are VERY hard to get into , but know what ones they are! Its not impossible to get a career in art,animation,design,film, but be savvy about it. Growing up is not about the content you draw, or the style - its about taking responsibility for your life. So when someone tells you to stop drawing cartoons because they think its childish, take comfort in the fact that there’s a whole industry out there thats based on this ‘childish’ talent and its waiting for yah.

GIF animation by Mel Roach (melaphantastic): Surprise! I’m...

fredseibert — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 21:22:00 -0400

GIF animation by Mel Roach (melaphantastic):

Surprise!

I’m joining forces with Frederator to make weekly animations that will explode your face off. Those guys rock!

Have I mentioned we’re launching a new, adult, online cartoon channel on YouTube this spring, called Cartoon Hangover? In addition to our original, Channel Frederator? We’ve announced three series so far: Bravest Warriors, created by Pendleton Ward; SuperF*ckers, created by James Kochalka, and a Cartoon Hangover big idea short show (the fifth in our series).

You can keep up to date by following the individual tumblrs over here.

PS: Don’t you love Mel Roach’s GIF animation of the Fredbot?

Another in a series of reblogs that most Frederator readers...

fredseibert — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:34:49 -0400

Another in a series of reblogs that most Frederator readers could care less about…

futurejournalismproject:

The Ethics of Linking II: In Which We Weigh In on the Curator’s Code.

In a previous post, the Ethics of Linking, I discussed news organizations’ linking obligations. For example, when reporting a story, should organizations have to say who first broke the news? A hat tip is always polite, but don’t overwhelm your reader with links they don’t need to click-through.

The debate continues its way to the blogosphere and at SXSW Interactive festival, nestled itself upon the roundtables of curators and aggregators. David Carr reports on two new efforts to standardize digital content aggregation. The first, spearheaded by Simon Dumenco, along with reps from key digital publications, is a Council on Ethical Blogging and Aggregation. The second is Maria Popova and Kelli Anderson’s latest project: The Curator’s Code, which offers two unicode characters for attribution (ᔥ means “via”, ↬ means “hat tip”) that are easily pluggable in a post through a bookmarklet.

Yesterday, Marco Arment, creator of Instapaper, argued that codifying “via” links is confusing and misguided. He writes:

That’s how I feel about links in general: the source author creates something worth linking to, and the rest of us can link as we see fit, regardless of how we found it. The proper place for ethics and codes is in ensuring that a reasonable number of people go to the source instead of just reading your rehash. (via Marco.org)

Marco thinks in-line links are sort of useless, because no one really clicks on them anyway. Agreed.

My personal take: Through my time at FJP and around tumblr, I’ve learned to credit a source with an in-line link if it’s not totally necessary to click on it and I’m definitely summarizing the key/relevant point in my post. After quotes or extended paraphrasing, I’ll stick in a via link. For thumbs-up to an organization or reporter that really deserves credit for starting up a conversation, I’ll stick in a hat tip. It would be great if symbols were standardized for these purposes, but at the moment, they do seem confusing and as much as I love bookmarklets, my collection is getting a little too big.

In the spirit of helping internet journalism toward a clear and healthy future, at the FJP, we’re all for transparent links, complete with the letters “via” or “h/t”.

Michael weighs in:

It’s not just a matter of giving transparent credit where credit is due. Transparent linking, and clearly spelling out to our readers where we’re getting our ideas from, is part of a larger effort to expose our audience to valuable primary sources that they may not know about and will hopefully begin to include in their future media diet.

To that I’ll add one thought. Credit and clarity aren’t simply the ingredients of good internet etiquette; rather, they are a means of adding value to our internet expeditions, and for journalism to continue to be a public service in the digital era, it might help to think of a blogger’s linking style as yet another tool that can reveal (or hide) much, and thus be harnessed for good communication. - Jihii

Image: Screenshots from the FJP Tumblr

A SXSW 2012 accepted film: a documentary about gig...

fredseibert — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 11:08:39 -0400

A SXSW 2012 accepted film: a documentary about gig posters.

Thanks to Lauren Stillwell for the tip on this trailer.