Joe Murray's Journal

A new video blog for you.

I know I posted this sketch before, but I’m offering it up for sale, with a portion of the proceeds going to Haiti Disaster relief. It’s the original pencil sketch that was used for the cover of my upcoming book “Creating Animated Cartoons with Character” from Random House/Watson Guptil.

Check it out here on Ebay.

After discussing how much I loved “Princess and the Frog” and hopeful that it did well so Disney would continue with 2D features, I got a great post from my friend Connor which included this link to an article that discusses the success of the film, and how it has generated a re-birth of the 2D feature.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/leap-of-faith-the-princess-and-the-frog-1870801.html

Quote from article:The film’s apparent success (it made $100m in the US ) has also persuaded Disney to now greenlight at least one new hand-drawn film every two years.

I am so jazzed about this. Thanks to everyone who supported the film. It’s great for the animation industry.

© 2010 Joe Murray Studio Inc.

I’ve never asked my blog readers if you were more attracted to the name “Croakville” or “Frog in a Suit” for an RML type cartoon about weird demented toads and Frogs?

Which do you like? Could I see a vote?

Thanks.

Just added a 20th Anniversary edition ( give or take a year) of my very first animated film “The Chore” to the Tin Box Theatre on the home page of my site at www.joemurraystudio.com . Its my very humble origins done on typing paper with an felt pen and shot on an erector set camera stand with a baking pan for registration. I didn’t have cels, so each background was hand drawn for each new page of animation.

Surprisingly enough, this film won a couple of awards, and was included in both the Animation Celebration and Spike and Mike festivals of animation.

When I spoke recently to a group of animation high school students, I showed this film mainly to say, “its just important to get something out there. As you can see, the animation and style can be crude, but if the idea has some merit, that’s more important than flashy animation or effects”. This student came up to me afterwards ( born several years after this film was done ) and says “….so,,, was this film considered….uh…. good back that long ago? You know. In your day?”

I thought that was pretty funny.

” Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” -T.S. Eliot

When explorers thought the world was flat, and that if they went to far they would fall off the edge, some of them still tested how far they could go. It was only in that way we discovered the earth was round.

Sometimes, metaphorically, I feel like I’m in danger of falling off the edge of the earth. I appreciate the feedback from everyone so much, but there is sometimes feelings of pressure for this to succeed in the capacity that everyone views as success. I’m attempting to start something at a grassroots level. So that means, not convincing  a couple of TV executives that your ideas are good and should go out there, but convincing thousands, if not millions that the cartoons on Kaboing are worth taking up space on the creative landscape. You need the permission of the marketplace to truly move forward. Just as a politician has supporters when he announces his candidacy for president, he or she needs to start winning primaries to gain the momentum for others to jump on board.( and to see if their message is one that resonates with enough voters to make a run at the presidency realistic.) I have just over 500,000 readers to my blog equaling over 3 million hits a year. But I will need to reach much more than that to make Kaboing TV start rolling. If the content connects with enough viewers, it will work. I mean, lets be realistic. Rocko has it’s cult following, but nothing close to mainstream numbers like Spongbob. Lazlo was one of the top shows on Cartoon Network, and won two primetime Emmys’ but it could have been the case of a big fish in a small pond. Will my reach be enough to bring others to give the shows a shot?

Thanks so much to everyone who is so supportive. I will  give it my all to accomplish this. But there are many ways the creative Gods could say it’s not right. But hopefully, I will see what went wrong, try it again, or hoist someone else up on my shoulders to reach the golden ring.

So it’s official. Here is the final cover of my book coming out this summer. This version of the book is slightly more mainstream, but still holds  a lot of information, as well as cool interviews with Steve Hillenburg, Tom Kenny, Everett Peck, etc.

So I’ve been doing some research on companies who have attempted this cartoon channel idea in the past ( most notably “Icebox”.).

Of course , when Icebox made it’s run, it was the big dot com boom, and everyone was throwing money at the internet without have a firm business model on how they could make money. There was an enormous amount of cash infused, and many extremely talented people were hired, funny stuff was produced. But when the investors said “Show me the money”, that seemed to have been a detail that was left out. When the dot com boom went bust, investors pulled out everywhere, including Icebox.

My intention is that we have the talent and the content to pull in quality viewers, but in the beginning we will be a very lean machine in order to get up and running on our own revenue as quickly as possible. It will still take time to pull in viewers and network ( I would love any help others could provide.) but it will all depend on if I and the other creatives provide content that you will want to watch.

I feel pretty confident we will. But in art, you never know how connections  will happen.

Thought you might get a kick out of this. This is myself and a portion of my Rocko crew in an old “Whose Responsible” promo that ran on Nickelodeon in 1994. It cuts off rather abruptly at the end. And no fair laughing at my 80′s hair.( Okay, you can if you want. I deserve it.)

Just went to see Disney’s “Princess and the Frog” and I have to say, it was very entertaining and beautiful to watch. The future of 2D feature animation rests on the shoulders if this film, ( although the Secret of Kells looks like a strong contender) so full support from the animation community would help a lot.

The animation employment picture here in LA has been rocked since Disney laid off it’s 2D department. We all need to help each other. Put the word out to go and watch this film. I highly recommend it!

Happy New Year. First post of the new decade. I finally put together a short travel log of my trip up to San Jose to meet with students of my old high school and catch up with my former art teacher Mark Briggs.