We've received word this past week that Mr. Lux's "At Your Service" has been accepted into the 2008 Festival de Cannes Short Film Corner!
This kind of thing is always fun.
Directed by Michael Jantze
Animation by Kelly McNutt
Good luck!
K
More animation!
Tech Tips:
Written by Michael Jantze
Animation, me.
Because cartoon head trauma is funny.
Good luck!
K
Hey! I get to show one of the things I've been working on lately:
Animated Zits!
Produced by Jantze Studios
Directed by Michael Jantze
Animation - Me!
Sound - Jory Prum (studio.jory.org)
Embellishments - Chris Turner (his website) & Michael Jantze
Fun project - oh, how I love my job.
Good luck!
K
I am currently looking for local (Minneapolis/St. Paul area) animation production artists. Projects starting as soon as March. Traditional inking, digital coloring, and possibly even assistant animation. Must be Mac 10.5 capable and able to meet solid deadlines. Not for the faint of heart or those who have given up coffee. Actually, if you thrive on black, greasy coffee without getting all shaky, that'd be great, 'cause then we'd have something else in common besides animation... and being human...
Do you know an artist who might be interested? Let them know & send them the link! Are you an art student and want some honest-to-goodness production experience? Shoot me your stuff for consideration!
This is short-term work, but if you rock and dig what we're doing, could be more of a regular thing.
Link me to your reel and/or portfolio if you're interested in being considered. You know the drill, too; list what you did on what if it's a collaboration you're showing.
I'm looking forward to making a wanted poster.
To link me to your work: email me kel(at)kmcnutt(dot)com
Thanks, and as always, good luck!
K
After pushing my hard-working but showing-its-age '02 G4 to the limits with several animated shorts last year, I've finally made the jump to Intel and the new Mac Pro, which arrived yesterday.
The box was fairly beat up, with a sizable chunk gashed in the bottom corner. That made me a little nervous, but true to Apple form, the computer was boxed and packaged very well and all is good, it seems. No visible damage on the MP itself.
First impressions even before I got it hooked up?
This thing is (HUGE! MASSIVE!) quite big.
As you can see in the picture above, I had my G4 nicely tucked into a hand-made computer shelf/desk leg where it was accessible but out of the way. Problem is, the Power Mac doesn't fit - it's too tall by at least two inches. So I'll have to modify that shelf before I can get this thing off my desktop. Although... it's a desktop computer... but whatever. I feel like I've got the monolith from the movie 2001 looming over me. That's gotta change.
Now, as alarming as the size is, it's not without its benefits. First off, the computer is really really quiet - whisper quiet. That's thanks to the way the enclosure is set up to allow maximum airflow and cooling with minimum help from the fans. And they have a lot to cool: two quad-core 2.8 GHz Intel Xeons, four hard drives, a 512 MB graphics card (which has its own fan as well...) plus various computery bits and pieces. (That's a technical term; computery, and sorry for throwing that one down on you lay people, but try to keep up.)
Just being able to get four internal drives in this thing is a cool capability in my book. Lots of hard drive space, less of those cluttery power bricks taking up outlets. I could only get two drives in my G4, and they weren't nearly as easy to install. Not that it was hard, but that's just how easy it is to put a drive in the MP. I almost felt cheated, not being able to put all that hard-won technical experience to use. Remember, I'm an artist, not a tech, so any tech experience is hard-won by default.
Setup was easy as could be. I chose to manually re-install my applications and configure my communications stuff. You can let what's known as the "Migration Assistant" take care of those things for you, which makes the process even easier, but coming from a PowerMac (Motorola) to a Mac Pro (Intel), I wanted to keep things simple and lean without importing a bunch of settings and applications that would just clutter things up.
Before really digging in, I ran Software Update to get the much needed (actually, absolutely necessary, for the most part) .2 part of the update to Mac OS 10.5 which fixed many of the oddities of 10.5.1. Additionally, after 10.5.2 is complete, you should be aware that you need to run Software Update again (as in right away) for the "Leopard Graphics Update" which... takes care of, um, graphics. Moving on...
After system updates, Adobe CS3 Production Premium installation and updates, configuring and all, it was about a 3.5 hour operation. Still some things to do, such as installing the remaining drives, RAM and adding the second monitor (my Apple LCD is stuck with the old G4 - I didn't want to fork out the $100 for the ACD to DVI adapter I would need to hook it up to the MP... as a result I'm stuck with one second-rate 17" LCD for now... yech) but I'm ready to roll for now. If all keeps working as well as it has for the first day, I'm really going to dig working on this new Mac.
Should you be looking at a Mac, these are the things to consider regarding a Mac Pro:
Pros (heh):
• expandability (adding hard drives, expansion cards, etc...)
• powerful (and it's powerful, too!)
Cons:
• huge (as in really big) which could pose a problem for users with smaller spaces, unless, like me, you don't have a choice.
• pricey - unless you use it for work or are a well-heeled hobbyist, it's costly, but relatively speaking, of course.
There are other cool things (or uncool, depending on what you like) like the keyboard - it's the thinnest, flattest thing I've ever seen for an external keyboard. Think "laptop thin". I'm not sure if I dig it yet. So far it's not bothering me, and I may grow to really like it. For now, I'm undecided.
At any rate, I'm off to put this thing to work.
Good luck!
K
I've made the jump to Mac Pro. A dual 2.8 GHz quad-core Penryn processor with a nVidia 8800GT graphics card, to be more precise... and I'm all a-tingle. Once I've got it fired up and clicked around a bit, I'll let you know how it goes.
This machine will take over the main lifting from my long-suffering, hard-working and fondly thought of 2002 vintage dual 1.0 GHz G4 Quicksilver Power Mac, which will semi-retire to the more sedate duties of iPhoto, a little gaming, acting as a remote renderer for After Effects and the main web-surfer.
What's in store for the newest Mac? Adobe CS3 After Effects, Photoshop, and Toon Boom, mainly. I'm really anticipating giving these applications a strenuous workout. So! On to Geek Happy Place. I shall report back soon.
Good luck,
K
Happy Monday! Here's a present for you. A handy-dandy homemade genuine 720x480 (square pixel aspect ratio) field guide. Feel free to download and use away. If you want a few free Photoshop tips to help you maximize the use of your new field guide, just leave me a note!
Good luck,
K
Minnesota is actually part of the primaries this year. Wow. As a result, we've been treated to an onslaught of political advertising.
Whee.
With as much money as these people reportedly spend on their advertising, you'd think that they might come up with something watchable. If you're using television to get your message out, use the medium for what it's good for. (Hint: At least give us some stimulating, eye-catching visuals to ameliorate the predictable and mind-numbing platitudes you keep dishing out for people to nod with thoughtful looks and mumble "mmm-hmm, right, right - just so" to.)
When is someone going to wise up and hire those people that do the Miller Lite commercials?
"Hey, daddy - I'd like you to meet my democratic candidate for president in '08." and let it roll from there - dog gets them a beer, (exhibiting leadership ability) candidate saves uncle Horatio from choking on a peanut (metaphor for saving the US economy from a downturn) etc... all in slow-motion with roman candles and wind machines and "Ain't that America" rockin' the soundtrack.
I'll have to do an elephant to compliment the donkey... but in the meantime, here's a pelican.
Don't forget to vote.
K
Up! A new comic over at Working The Void! Check it out, leave a comment, and have a great week.
Going to bed now...
K
When one looks at the year past and the year coming, it's hard to get a full grip on the enormity of life. For my family and I, it has been on the whole a wonderful year. Life wouldn't be life without the daily trials and stresses that sometimes threaten to take up all of my attention until I step back for a moment and reflect; we're healthy, we have a warm roof, food, clothes, healthy babies, and feel safe. We are blessed.
This has been my first full year back as a freelance artist and I'm a happy man. Blog-wise it hasn't been all that good as everything I've designed, drawn and animated this year is not mine to divulge, which doesn't bother me one bit, it just means that if I'm to blog about my animation and art, I need to dig out old stuff or do some personal stuff on the side, or just remain mute. On the whole, I've been mute, but that ought to change soon, and I'll be blabbing on a regular basis about animation this and that for some time to come. What's changed? Well, the house we live in and have been slowly remodeling over the past two-and-a-half years is nearly done. (Woo-hoo!) When I haven't been animating (or the stuff that goes along with animating) I've been staining, trimming, installing, painting, cleaning, unboxing, etc... That combined with a pregnant wife (who really wanted to help, but physically couldn't and I wouldn't let her anyway...) a rambunctious three-year old daughter who really wanted to help, but physically couldn't and "pretend help" only satisfied her to a certain point left little time for the fun pass-time of blogging and posting art. My goal has been to have something coherent to say about a certain artistic point on this or that and hopefully get a conversation going with those that might happen to read (and might actually care) about something I've said.
So, now that my wife is no longer pregnant (our new daughter was born on November 13th this year - babies take a lot of time as well, it turns out) the house is as good as done, and the three-year old is almost four (and is now actually helpful) I'm anticipating being able to post on a more regular basis. In addition to everything else, I've ventured forth and am working on a web comic that I've gone live with over at my new site, www.kmcnutt.com. I'm not sure how that whole thing is going to work out, but I think at least I'll have a bit of fun in the attempt. I'm also wondering about moving my whole blog over that-a-way... blogger has been very good to me, but I'm finding that I need a bit more flexibility in the look of things... who knows - it may be another year before I ever get around to that.
On the topic of the web comic, I think I just might pick up "How to Make Webcomics" by Scott Kurtz, Kristofer Straub and Dave Kellett.
Above all, I have to tell you about Michael Jantze's "The Norm" - Jantze moved from newspaper syndication to online distribution and has changed the common perception of how a comic can tell a story. If you're not reading it, you probably should!
So - here's wishing you and yours a most Happy New Year. Thanks for reading, I hope you'll stop by now and then in the new year, and above all, I'd love to hear from you.
Good Luck,
Kelly McNutt
Well this is exciting news - the film I worked on, "Fall Into Me", a local independent film by Tim VandeSteeg of Indiewood Pictures has been picked up for distribution by Westlake Entertainment. I animated the opening and closing credits, plus the several special effects sequences in the film. Congratulations to Tim and Indiewood for this huge stepping stone, and thanks - I'm glad I was along for the ride. You can find "Fall Into Me" online at Amazon and Target.com.
Wild Rumor Dept.
I've recently heard that people have been seeing trailers for another film I worked on, "The Poughkeepsie Tapes" which means it's going to theaters large-scale after making the film festival circuit. I created the motion graphics that come up here and there within the film. So, congratulations to the Bros. Dowdle on their distribution deal, and again, thanks - it was fun to be able to be a part of your movie-making.
Good Luck,
K
My wife gave birth to our second daughter this past week, making me the proud daddy of two beautiful girls! Kaili Cole McNutt was born Tuesday morning at 8:37. She's a little peanut, almost a full pound smaller than our first, but strong as can be, and she's an eating machine... It took us a while to name her, as we had several girls' names to choose from; we had only one boy's name, which virtually guaranteed it was going to be a girl. But by the late afternoon, we had decided on Kaili (pronounced "Ky-lee").
Nicole is doing well - she's feeling great, actually, but she's dealing with some high blood pressure issues which we're keeping close tabs on. Alix is such a good "little big sister" and shares her blankets with her little sister, and lets us know the second Kaili is awake.
Somehow I'm lucky enough to have such a beautiful family; a wife of beauty, strength and grace, and daughters who follow in their mother's footsteps.
Truly, I am blessed.
K
Kaili - about 15 minutes after she was born
Proud big sister Alix holding her "little stister"
Kaili in the afternoon sun
I made the jump to 10.5 on the laptop yesterday (12" PowerBook G4 1.5 GHz 1.25 GB DDR SDRAM for those that are keeping score) and while it was a rather bumpy ride, I managed to make it through unscathed. Had I elected to erase the hard drive and do a clean install, everything would've gone much smoother, I'm sure, but when you've got a couple years' worth of preferences and passwords and the like, I just can't see that doing a clean install would be any less of a hassle for getting everything back where you need it. The biggest problem I had was that suddenly (after finally getting it to boot in 10.5) my account was no longer recognized as an Admin account. What's that mean? Well, no changing anything, and next to no trouble-shooting capability. Regardless, I managed to get that squared away and get my storyboards done as well (during the three attempts of installing which ran at least an hour and a half each). Now things seem to be running nice and smooth, and yes, I do like the look and feel of it. Mail is much more useful, Safari is much more useful, things are just more useful. And it appears that all my apps (Photoshop, Toon Boom, Illustrator, Anime Studio Pro, Flash, etc etc...) all work just fine. Apple and Adobe have dropped a big bomb on After Effects CS3 users though; AE needs an upgrade to work with 10.5, and Adobe won't have it until December, so they say. What?! I think this is just another symptom of Apple disregarding their computing platform for their gadget platform. I've said it before and I'll probably be saying it again soon, but I'm waiting (along with many many others) for an updated Mac Pro to come along. It's been well over a year now, and the rumors are barely starting to trickle in about anything new on that front. First I was waiting to make the jump to Intel Macs because they didn't make a universal binary version of the Adobe Creative Suite - it would run, but only through emulation software which countered any speed gains made by the new computer. So, I waited... and waited. They came out with the universal binary finally in June (I think) but by then the Mac Pro was close to a year between updates, so it would've been silly (I thought) to get a Mac Pro only to have them update them a week or two later. Well, it's been four months now, and while it's probably good I waited, I am now one impatient and frustrated Apple customer.
Oh, and all you laptop fanboys whining about wanting a Macbook update, just shut up. It's only been 5 months since your last refresh. Pansies.
That's it. I need coffee.
Good luck,
K
Click on the link at the right to see the beginning. I'll be updating weekly.
Thanks, and good luck!
K
OK... how'd it get to be mid-October already? Sheesh. I guess I'm having fun, 'cause the time is simply whizzing by. We're going to have a new baby in the next few weeks and I still don't have the baby's room done. Trim, curtains, crib... Well, with any luck, I'll get that situation turned around in the coming week or two.
Another big first for us today: our very first parent/teacher conference for our preschooler.
I like being a dad.
I'm suddenly reminded of a time about a year-and-a-half ago (she would've been about two) when I brought home a drawing of a bug for our daughter; she loves bugs and I thought she'd have a little fun with it. Well, she said "thank you" when I gave it to her (such a polite child, she is) looked at it dispassionately for a moment, crumpled it up and handed it back to me saying, "Here, daddy. Garbage."
She's a tough critic.
Here're some turtles I managed to save from the crumpling.
3x4 - Pitt brush pens on Canson Pro Layout marker paper
Oop - gotta get back to work.
Good luck,
K
My journey to the posting of my first webcomic is coming close to its end... or its beginning... er - I'm almost there. Click on the rough teaser strip for some roughs and a look at the new home of my forthcoming webcomic!
Good luck,
K
OK - I didn't feel like digging out any more of the TCM stuff. It's Friday and I've got a wedding to attend, and I must say, it is one beautiful day for a wedding. Congratulations to Melissa and Joe! Many happy returns of the day.
And since I don't have any wedding related items, here's an owl.
Because owls are wise.
Good luck,
K
The mascots had their own trading cards in 2004. They were pretty slick - nice aqueous coating on the front, but didn't feel much like a trading card on the back. Actually, they didn't feel anything like a trading card on the back... but maybe memory fails me. I'll dig one up and scan it in. Well, later, not now... gotta get back to work.
After they approved the character art, I whipped out a few background designs. This first one was one of the (I think) three I gave them to choose from:
This is the final.
Good luck,
K
This was a small spot illustration to announce a coloring contest or some such thing. I'm not sure if this has ever been seen before now, actually, so feast your eyes!
Pencil on animation bond, colored in Photoshop. Can't remember what the original size was, but it probably wasn't much bigger than 5x5.
Good luck,
K
This week the theme is all Twin Cities Marathon - or more specifically, the mascots. This is a rough test run of the rabbit that was to be turned into Flash and used somewhere on the Marathon's website. It never made it past the Flash testing stage, however, as we were unable to find a Flash animator that was able to complete a satisfactory test. I never got the feeling that there was much enthusiasm behind the whole idea to begin with... but what's a worker bee do? C'est la vie and all that.
height="296" codebase='http://www.apple.com/qtactivex/qtplugin.cab'> controller="true" loop="false" pluginspage='http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/'> |
The Twin Cities Marathon is this weekend, and while I'm not running it this year (I've never run the Twin Cities one...) I still dream of running it. Maybe next year. (smiles and rolls eyes) Well, you never know.
I did run the 10-mile race back in '03 which was just a few months before our firstborn... my wife was in Chile for work, my dad was my support group (Advil at milemarker 6, and please take this sweatshirt 'cause gee it got hot right quick) and some good friends came to point and laugh.
And for a bit of small trivia, I'm the fellow who designed the TCM Mascots Harry & Shelly. I did not name them, however.
Spaghetti Dinner spot illustration rough - 5x5
I've never been fond of the whole "tortoise & the hare" thing. It was too easy. Too... I don't know... cliché, I guess. There were some great ideas about more abstract images and "emotions" turned icon at the beginning, but I guess I didn't do a good enough job of pushing those. But at any rate, they are what they are and there they are. I'll have a few more leading up to the big day itself and to those of you running,
Good luck -
K
Oof... get out the wool blankets and hang by the fire or get out and move around a lot. Those are the only things for a day like today here in the southern third of Minnesota.
Or, post a sad pooch on your blog. That works, too.
Good luck,
K
A thumbnail I did a couple years ago for a a guy's story about a pooch.
5.5x3.5 color pencil on animation bond
Happy Friday, and good luck,
K
This is a thumbnail rough I did for a larger drawing of a toucan. I'll look to see if I can find the final drawing - I remember it was pretty cool, but memory is tricky. At any rate, I'm not sure where that scan would be, or if it's been lost to the digital netherworld. In the meantime, please enjoy this crappy little 10-second thing.
3x2 color pencil (Prismacolor) on scrap paper
Good luck,
K
From time to time I am approached with interesting requests from clients who think an animator who does illustration as well must be able to do just about anything. As much as I'd like that to be the case, I won't be turning out a Norman Rockwell looking piece in any reasonable amount of time, let alone at all. I just don't do those kind of illustrations. I'm pretty specialized and my style tends to be cartoony. Nevertheless, when asked to do something out of my lane, I always at least look at what is needed and see if it is something I can do. If I don't feel I can at least somewhat exceed the client's expectations, I turn down the job. My reasoning is simple: I'm servicing the potential client better by steering them towards someone who would be better suited to the task than I am by struggling to do it myself and falling short of expectations. Choosing to struggle with something outside of your experience and fall short looks terribly unprofessional, in my opinion. Not to range too far off topic, but the same goes for deadlines. I'm not doing anyone any favors by agreeing to a deadline that can't be met. At any rate, here's a part of an illustration job that was well outside of what I normally do but was able to complete (well on-time) and with great satisfaction to the client.
On top of everything, it was a really interesting illustration to create as well.
Created entirely in Photoshop.
Happy Monday, and good luck,
K
More random render-doodles.
I haven't anything witty to say, as I haven't had my coffee yet. Some would argue that the coffee won't help. Unto them I offer both a mighty and heartfelt "foo".
Happy Friday! & as always,
Good luck,
K
