Copyright and Ownership of Creative Property

LECTURE: S235, Noon

This week we're lucky to have guest Graham Peddie, Operations Manager of booming visual effects studio, Mr. X, Inc. freshly returned from his trip to Hollywood for the Visual Effects Society's (VES) 2016 Awards ceremony (spoiler - Star Wars cleaned up in live action, Pixar for animation).

Graham is also a copyright lawyer and worked as such for years for Sullivan Entertainment, makers of the Anne of Green Gables series. Along with news from the VES Awards, he'll give us the rundown on ownership of creative work, both your own and the work you do when employed by a studio. And maybe if someone asks him he'll talk to us about the implications of the reversal of the Happy Birthday Song's copyright status.

Please note that there will be no Wednesday workshop this week due to scheduling difficulties.

Composer Available

https://soundcloud.com/pgm/demo-reel-jan-2016

Peter Grant Mackechnie

Hello filmmakers! I am a huge fan of film, particularly animated. You make 'em, I score 'em. Let's work together! My style is... eclectic? I enjoy trying to match your filmmaking vision, so if you're interested in chatting further, send me an email and we can discuss the direction you'd like to go.

grant.mackechnie@gmail.com

Wednesday February 10. 

LECTURE
Graham Peddie , Operations Manager for Toronto's Mr. X Visual FX studio is away in Los Angeles this week to attend an award ceremony the company has been nominated in.  Graham was previously scheduled for this week's lecture but he's had to postpone due to the award nominations. He should be able to visit us some time in the next couple of weeks instead.

In the meantime, we'll take the opportunity to catch up on the Animatic reels which haven't yet been screened. S235 at 12 noon. 



A151, 2-4 PM -- TOONBOOM WORKSHOP 
Barney Wornoff's Toonboom drop-in and workshop is back by popular demand this week in Lab A151. Bring your ToonBoom work-in-progress for Barney to brainstorm, or just drop in and pick up a few tricks and techniques.

Wednesday February 3 - The Music Spotting Session and ToonBoom workshop with Barney Wornoff

S235 and A361, 12 noon to 3 pm (time approximate) -- MUSIC SPOTTING SESSION 

As I mentioned in my posting yesterday, this Wednesday is our meeting with the visiting composers from the University of Toronto's film composition course.

Please look carefully at this listing of partnerships with the UT music students (below). During the first portion of tomorrow’s get-together I will confirm and correct this list, so it’s very important that you be present in S235 at noon if you want to schedule a meeting with your composer. 

After we take care of this bit of book-keeping we will move over to the 4th Year studio to make use of the workstations for the actual one-on-one meetings. Remember to bring a pair of headphones!

A151, 2-4 PM -- TOONBOOM WORKSHOP 
Also planned for tomorrow is a ToonBoom drop-in session with Barney Wornoff in Lab A151. Bring your ToonBoom work-in-progress for Barney to brainstorm, or just drop in and pick up a few tricks and techniques.

Note that there is some overlap between the two events, so if anyone wants to be involved in both you can do so by going early to the Spotting Session and coming a little later to the ToonBoom workshop. Speak to me in S235 tomorrow and I'll make sure you can squeeze both into the day.

(U of T Partnership list as of January 14, 2016) 

========================== 

Afif, Ian

Aisha Ibrahim
Sarah Overend
possibly Xin Wu "Ha Gow",

                 

Bidner, Lora 

   Stefanie C "Missing"

   Arthur Banes "Sushi",

   Crystal's "Rotten Love"

   and possibly 

    Keely Prop's "Home Hunting"                         

Chiu, Vicky (dropped out)

   Xin Wu "Ha Gow",                         

Coe, Henrique 

   Ashley Kozbial (otter in a whirlpool)                        

Denenberg, Joshua

    David Du, ”Dung Fu." 

De Niverville, Abigail 

   Soo Kim "Jella Fantasia",

   Sara Mota "Batty",

   Allen Yu "Untitled",

   Valerie Garnace "Cotton Candy"                        

Hamilton, Blake                 

TBA

        

Hammell, Evan 

   Meghan Taylor "Bone Mail",

   SooHyun Kim "(Untitled Wizard Shop short)",

   Andres Derakhshani "Crocodile Dentist",

   Carly Dziob "Guard Duty"                        

Jager, David 

   Eric Bourdages "Sky Pirates"                        

Michalski, Caleb    (dropped out)

Jing Gang - “No Zuo No Die”

Samantha Tan - “Mayham"

McIntire, Matthias                         

TBA

Orlando, Stephanie 

   Kit Kee "Dr. Narren's Lab"

   Katharina Brzezinska "I love my doggie"

   Sean Cornish "Monster Hunt"                        

Petkovski, Katharine 

   Rebecca Murrell (Little Red Riding Hood)

   Brendan Lindsay

   Julie Eum                        

Pylypczak, Greta 

   Robin Blake "Release",

   Terence Ng "Mia and Mr. Philips",

   Mary Tacuyan "In the Blank",

   Paprika "Untitled Alien Mockumentary"                        

Steinwall, Jack                 

Rebecca Boehn  - “Something Nutty"

      

Thompson, Jacob 

  Ricky Chen - NightFall

  Katherine de Vries - Crow's Keep                     

The Music Spotting Session; Effects Animation with Trevor Davies

THE ART OF THE MUSIC SPOTTING SESSION

In two weeks the U of T musicians will be visiting us, with their purpose in mind being specifically to work out the details of the musical score for your film. This important meeting between film-maker  and composer is traditionally known as the the "Music Spotting Session."

To help you prepare for this meeting, Wednesday's Lecture and Workshop are both oriented to an explanation of the Music Spotting Session.

(You might want to also read this recent blog posting  by Mark Kennedy, Disney's Head of Story.  He talks about the importance of spotting temp music while working on the Leica reel, links to some interesting examples of the use of musical score. Thanks to ames Caswell for pointing out this blog to me.)


LECTURE
A while ago I wrote the music for Chris Walsh's stop-motion film,  True Family Story.  We recognized our collaboration as a "teachable moment", so I saved the files I created as the score developed. These files now make an  effective demonstration of the collaborative process between a film-maker and a composer.

This year I'm supplementing the talk with examples from a more recent project, Save Our Bees, a Public Service Announcement animation, with music in the style of the Warner Bros classics.

During the lecture (11 am, S235) I'll walk you through the three stages of the Music Spotting process as it took place in recent work, and play for you some famous and not-so-famous historical examples of "Temp Music" and musical scores.

WORKSHOP - EFFECTS ANIMATION

Do you have fire, rain,  snow or water in your film? How about fog, glows or sparkles? Come talk to Trevor about the best software techniques to use in animating these various effects challenges. A151 at 2 pm. 

Visual FX and Character Animation in The Force Awakens (WIRED)

Short video documentary on how Maz and other characters were animated in The Force Wakens.

http://www.wired.com/2016/01/design-fx-force-awakens/

Wednesday January 20, 2016 - Lecture

As I  mentioned last week, due to the change of scheduling for our lecture class we've had to cancel tomorrow's planned introduction to managing an Animation-oriented small business by Jim Caswell.

Instead we'll take advantage of the time slot to view your Animatic reels on S235's fabulous Christie projector and Surround Sound system.  Please note that due to time constraints we will not be able to view all the films.

As you may know, this projector is an $80,000 industrial monster and  it is a real privilege to be able to screen our work on it. It is an excellent way to test the colour and brightness of your film image. And because it's the same system that will be used on Industry Day you can be sure that you'll be seeing exactly what our Industry guests will see on the day. The room's sound system is also an excellent reality check on the levels and clarity of your soundtrack.

Sheridan graduate Melody Wang wins People's Choice award for "The Casebook of Nips and Porkington"

excerpted from the site:  http://www.filmfestivals.com/blog/editor/my_internship_in_canada_has_been_voted_winner_of_the_canada_s_top_ten_film_festival_people_s_choice_award 

Student Film Awards

The Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival spotlights student shorts in its annual lineup, presenting the top student shorts from colleges and universities across the country. In a ceremony held on January 15 at TIFF Bell Lightbox, prizes were awarded to student films in the live action and animation categories.

The winners were selected by the Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival shorts panel of filmmakers and industry professionals, including: filmmaker and writer Sarah Goodman (Army of One, Porch Stories, National Parks Project); TIFF Senior Canadian Programming Associate Lisa Haller; producer Aeschylus Poulos (Sleeping Giant, The Book of Negroes); artist and filmmaker Nicholas Pye; and filmmaker Albert Shin (In Her Place, Point Traverse).

...

Best Film (Animation)

The prize for Best Animated Student Film goes to The Casebook of Nips & Porkington, directed by Melody Wang (Sheridan College), a delightfully imaginative animation with clues and characters literally jumping off the page as two policemen investigate a mysterious crime.

The award comes with: a DCP output of the film courtesy of Technicolor; $1,000 courtesy of the Directors Guild of Canada; two tickets to the Directors Guild of Canada Awards, and a Sales & Industry Pass to the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.

Welcome Back to the Senior Film Project!

WHAT TO EXPECT
The coming semester is naturally devoted to your film’s production but it has a secondary purpose- to prepare you for the business realities of life outside the College. Lectures and workshops will address not only production issues but also other concerns such as small business management, legal considerations for artists, development insights for animation projects, and panel discussions with recent grads to gain perspectives into what lies ahead. Keep an eye on the Lecture schedule page on this blog for details as they become available.

MILESTONES

Regarding the Production Milestones, you can take a look at the outline for the semester here (pdf) ((also available on SLATE.) It lays out the production and post-production timeline for the coming semester.  Especially important is Milestone 2, the Scene Workflow Test, which is due in Week 2. (I'll explain this one in our lecture on Wednesday.)

LECTURES AND WORKSHOPS
You can also take a look at the Lecture and Workshop schedule here. Please note that some of the bookings are still tentative and subject to change.

============================

Back to SCAET!

After last semester's epic failure when attempting to screen the Animatic reels in J102, I'm happy to announce that we've been able to move our lecture series back into S235 for the remainder of the school year.  This means that we'll be able to use the excellent Christie Projector and sound system for our remaining screenings coming up in March and April.

A small side effect of the move back to SCAET is that we've had to shift our Lecture start time to 12 noon.  The workshop remains unchanged from 2-4 pm, in A151.

============================

ADVANCED COLOUR DESIGN FOR 4th YEAR FILMS

This week's lecture and workshop feature our own Michael Hitchcox on the topic of Advanced Colour Design. The lecture begins at 12 noon in S235 and the workshop follows in A151 at 2 pm.

Mike requests that you send him some background artwork for his lecture demonstration. You can reach him at michael.hitchcox@sheridancollege.ca

Composer - Animator Partnerships (as of January 2016)

Here is a listing of the pairings between students in Sheridan 4th Year Animation and U of T Film Composition classes. This list shows the pairings as understood by the U of T students as of their last class before the Christmas break, and is obviously incomplete and subject to confirmation.

=====================================

Afif, Ian
TBA  

Bidner, Lora
   Stefanie C "Missing"
   Arthur Banes "Sushi",
   Crystal's "Rotten Love"
   and possibly Keely Prop's "Home Hunting"

Chiu, Vicky
   (dropped out)

Coe, Henrique
   Ashley Kozbial (otter in a whirlpool)  

Denenberg, Joshua
David Du, "Dung Fu"

De Niverville, Abigail
   Soo Kim "Jella Fantasia",
   Sara Mota "Batty",
   Allen Yu "Untitled",
   Valerie Garnace "Cotton Candy"

Hamilton, Blake
Aya Akl (to be confirmed)
Anna Starkkova (to be confirmed)


Hammell, Evan
   Meghan Taylor "Bone Mail",
   SooHyun Kim "(Untitled Wizard Shop short)",
   Andres Derakhshani "Crocodile Dentist",
   Carly Dziob "Guard Duty"  

Jager, David
   Eric Bourdages "Sky Pirates"
   Keith Vaz 

Michalski, Caleb

McIntire, Matthias
Salome Yeung "Untitled"
Joshua Wald "Tea Time with Dragons"
Jason McLean "Blue"

Orlando, Stephanie
   Kit Kee "Dr. Narren's Lab"
   Katharina Brzezinska "I love my doggie"
   Sean Cornish "Monster Hunt"  

Petkovski, Katharine
   Rebecca Murrell (Little Red Riding Hood)
   Brendan Lindsay
   Julie Eum  

Pylypczak, Greta
   Robin Blake "Release",
   Terence Ng "Mia and Mr. Philips",
   Mary Tacuyan "In the Blank",
   Paprika "Untitled Alien Mockumentary"  

Steinwall, Jack TBA

Thompson, Jacob
   NightFall- Ricky Chen
   Crow's Keep - Katherine de Vries

This Week - Animatic Screening and Special Holiday screening of "Sanjay's SuperTeam" and "The Snowman"

The annual Animatic screening of the 4th year works-in-progress will take place tomorrow at 10 AM in J102.  The screening will be about three hours long. Please note that the groups will be presented in reverse order at this screening.

There's also a special Holiday screening of Pixar's Oscar nominated short, Sanjay's Super Team, along with the classic 80s animated film, The Snowman. A151, 2 PM. Kaj Pindal will be present to answer discuss these films.

Film Composer available

I just received this email from a young lady who is interested in expanding her experience of writing music for animation. You can check out her demo reel at the vimeo link in her email. 

This might be of special interest to those of you who have had some trouble locking down a partner at U of T.  

----------------------------------------------
Dear Bruno Degazio,

My name is Emily Klassen and I'm a film and television composer. I am looking to pursue composing for animation, so I'd be very interested in working on any animation projects you may need original music for-- student or otherwise. Last summer I won an award from SOCAN for an animated opening credits sequence, which can be viewed at the start of my A/V demo reel.

Currently, I am one of only 3 composer residents in the Canadian Film Centre's Music Residency program, and I recently got accepted to attend Berlinale Talent Campus 2016. I am experienced and easy to work with, and have scored features, shorts, corporate videos, etc., but am most interested in getting into the world of animation and developing ongoing collaborative relationships with emerging animators.

Sincerely yours,

Emily

--

Emily Klassen

Custom music for media

www.emilyklassenmusic.com

www.soundcloud.com/emklassen

Soundtrack Help

Media Arts student Steven Roberts is again offering to help any 4th Year students assemble and mix an effective soundtrack for their Senior Project Film.

I know that some of you are still looking for a composer, so you might want to try out Steven in that respect as well, either as composer himself or as music editor creating an effective temp track. 

He can be reached at stevieray.sound@gmail.com 

This Week's Lecture - Collaborating with Your Composer & Polishing Your Soundtrack for the Animatic Screening

Many of you know Tony Tosti from the 3rd Year Sound Design course. Tony is with us this week to help you with two aspects of the sound design for your film.

1. Collaborating with Your Composer - Tony Tosti

The first is the Wednesday Lecture, at the usual time, 11 am. Tony Tosti will give a talk entitled "Collaborating with Your Composer." He'll attempt to walk with you through the process of effectively communicating your musical intentions for your film to your composer, avoiding the common pitfalls and misunderstandings. 

2. Adobe Audition Refresher and Soundtrack Discussion - Tony Tosti

At 2 pm, we have our workshop in A151. Tony Tosti is again on hand to give you a refresher course on the how to use Adobe Audition, and how to mix for effective presentation in the SCAET Theatre. Bring your work-in-progress soundtracks (in Premiere, Audition, or already mixed in a Quicktime file) for specific advice from Tony.

3. MILESTONE DUE THIS WEEK! 

 

ALL PROJECTS   - PRODUCTION PLAN

3D                            - Rigging Completed.

STOP MOTION     -  Puppets (100%), Sets & Props (70%)

Voice Actors available from Creative Talent Network

Via Tony Tarantini at the recent Creative Talent Network Animation Expo -

These actors are interested in doing voice-over or character voices for your films.  They seem to be from Los Angela and Miami respectively, but I'm sure some arrangement can be made online to send and receive your files.

Claireare  Dodin

www.clairedodin.com

www.claire.dodin.net

claire@dodin.net

1 323-934-5500

Valeria Zunzun (friend of Claire)

Valeriazunzun@gmail.com

786-879-2905

Library & Stock Music Services for your Leica Reel/Animatic

As your film concept begins to take shape cinematically in the form of your Leica Reel,/Animatic/Pose Reel, now is the time to establish the essential musical character of your film via the use of a temp music track. 

THE INDUSTRY APPROACH

Unless you have a composer already signed on to provide you with music, I would suggest that your first attempt at a temp music track involve a review of film soundtracks in a style or genre similar to your intended project. For example, If your story is a comic prehistoric adventure, then Alan Silvestri's score to The Croods will probably give you some ideas, and may provide you with a track or two that can be "re-purposed" for your film. This approach is universally used in the film industry in the early stages of a project. 

The Croods - Soundtrack CD

As the world's largest music retailer, the ITunes Store is an ideal tool for this tactic. Its main attraction is that you can review a huge range of possibilities free of charge, because up to 90 seconds of any musical track is playable as a free preview. And if you decide that a particular music track works for your film you can buy an un-copyprotected file immediately for just 99 cents. 

Regarding the copyright aspects of this approach, it is perfectly legal under the Fair Use (aka Fair Dealing) provisions of US and Canadian copyright law to use these commercial recordings as Temp Tracks.  The operative word here is "temp".  Your musical choices cannot be used for public presentation outside the academic context. However, well-chosen temp music can be a useful stand-in during the early stages of production, and will also make an excellent guide for your future composer to work with. 

LICENSED MUSIC - CREATIVE COMMONS AND OTHERS

In addition to the industry approach just described, there are many websites that will provide licensed music for free or for a relatively small fee. The most common arrangement for "Free" licenses is via Creative Commons. Usually the required "payment" involves simply giving credit to the creator of the music. Sometimes there is a restriction on commercial use as well, so be sure to read the fine print (i.e. the type of Creative Commons license imposed.) Most of the websites listed below offer music under Creative Commons licenses. The Internet Archive and Jamendo are both quite good in this respect. 


There are also many websites that offer original music that can be easily licensed for use in film.  Usually the costs are relatively low ($25-$99) and the legal arrangements are very simple, so that everything can be done online with a few clicks (and a credit card number!) 
Two websites that offer some an interesting range of music this way are With Etiquette  and the Vimeo Music Store. 

VIMEO MUSIC STORE -- BROWSER

Of course, here at Sheridan we also have the Cyclops Music Library server, where 
technologists Mario Positano and Rick Andersen maintain a listing of approximately 10,000 titles of stock music, for which the college pays a flat fee each year on your behalf. 

Below is a list of just a few of the many places online which can provide Creative Commons and other licensed music: 

Jamendo - Jamendo has a LOT of free stuff. Try it first.


The Internet Archive: Mostly older material,including historical recordings and soundtracks that have fallen between the cracks of copyright law and are therefore free. 

Vimeo Music Store - mostly commercial ($99 for a festival license) but also has free (Creative Commons Share-Alike License)


SoundCloud - online file locker for audio. Nice player software, and many items licensable for the asking. 


Overview | Music | Musopen - recent site with only copyright-free material. Mostly old recordings and/or government produced. 

With Etiquette - collective of alternative musicians who make their music available for low license fee. ‎
songfreedom.com - commercial stock music site

UniqueTracks Inc. - commercial stock music site, good selection, low rates ($40)

Royalty Free Music Library from premiumbeat.com - commercial stock music site

Stock Music - Royalty Free Music with an Edge - commercial stock music site

Inspired Acting: A Study of Great Moments From Great Actors; Industry Day Primer

This week we have two events focusing on Acting & Performance in animation courtesy of Stephen Barnes. In addition, Tony Tarantini will give us a primer on the basic logistics of Industry Day. Not to be missed.


Wednesday 11 am J102
First up in the Wednesday lecture  is the Industry Day primer from I.D. director Tony Tarantini, who'll explain how it works, and answer many of the questions you probably have on your mind.

This is followed by Sheridan's Stephen Barnes who offers his insights into acting as applied to animation. Stephen does this in a way that might be new to you - carefully studying the subtle cues used by actors in live-action film and television. Steve's talk, titled Inspired Acting: A Study of Great Moments From Great Actors, is essential viewing. It's also very entertaining, as Steve  peppers the talk with many fascinating and unusual film clips.







Wednesday 3 pm, A361
This is followed at 3 pm by an introduction to the Video Reference system that we have set up in the 4th Year studio. Stephen Barnes is again in charge, showing us the basic usage of video reference for animation. It would be great to have someone perform a character action scene from their film for the purpose of demonstration. Any volunteers?

Virtuoso Guitar Player-Composer from the Royal Conservatory Available for Animation Score

Raffi Altounian is a classical guitar player and teacher at the Royal Conservatory. He's also interested in writing music for animated film.

Raffi is a virtuoso guitarist and performs regularly with his group, consisting of guitar (of course), violin, clarinet, bass and percussion.  They perform Raffi's arrangements of a wide variety of music, ranging from Ravel to Oscar Peterson to Radiohead. You can hear them play on his Youtube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/rtor7

If music like this seems right for your film, give Raffi a shout. His email and telephone number are below.

raffi.altounian@rcmusic.ca
416-528-5349

This Week's Lecture - Nelvana Layout Artist Terry Lenko

This week's lecture and workshop both come courtesy of renowned layout artist Terry Lenko.

Terry's work includes the layout for TV series and theatrical films such as Sidekick (2010-11), Curious George (2006), and Ann of Green Gables (2000). He has also been a production designer for  Backyardigans (2006) and has worked for studios such as Nelvana and Yowsa.

Terry has taken some time away form his busy schedule at Nelvana to talk to us about the topic of Professional Design for Layout (Wednesday, 11 am, J102). He'll also be on hand to assist you with your own layout design in the workshop (A151 at 2 pm.) The layout lecture and workshop are very timely because of the Animatic deadline (Milestone 6, Week 10) which is mainly about layouts and character poses (for 2D projects.)

Maury's Production Planning Worksheet, 2015 Edition

As promised, Maury's Production Planning Worksheet, 2015 Edition :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bcmnzrhkiyxgfth/Production%20Planning%20Charts%202015-2016.xlsx?dl=0