Casey Pixmintro's Traveling Sideshow

[cipher]

yeah I agree, the plot is weak but you've got some damn good animation skills

[Casey Pixmintro]

Yeah the writing still is pretty meh, it's come a long way from what it was but it's still pretty meh. If anyone has any suggestions feel free to let me know.

[logen]

make it a bit more over the top, cut things shorter and move faster, use more music (i know its in early stages, but the part where burch talks could have had the snares going) exaggerate the tension between characters more (i feel like it's not enough cartoony),

example: rebecca could do more over the top things, than just shouting at kids, and shoving them into the lake (I liked the salt on the wound one, you should stick to these ridiculous stuff)

Also her part is too long, cut some things out to make it more fluid.

I've also read your script, and think you should cut away after her making the "deal" with lolita. You could later cut back, skipping the part where lolita asks her about smiling, and just go right into her trying to compliment the kids painting, then making the "face" and lolita realizing how much more work they have.

Cutaway to two other dudes is good at here, but after that, you need something more.

You could add some musical training montage in here, with Rebecca constantly failing at becoming better, it's a cliche, yeah, but it would be of great use dramatically, and would empower the feel of the time spent teaching her. The episodes problem comes from her being unable act normally, and that should be not only greatly reinforced, but a bit drawn out. The problem shouldn't be solved too easily.

Add in the first half of the football scene here.

Which is followed by the picnic scene. After that, cut back to the football scene at the most adrenaline fueling scene and follow your script.


These are my two cents. You don't have to follow it, it's just an example.


+Edit: aw, yeah, I also forgot, you should know your target audience. I can't place this into any specific age group, "CHEESE & CRACKERS" and "FUUCK" don't really go well together. Either have the old guy swear like hell too, or use something other than fuck. (I'm guessing fuck will go, looking at the rest of the thing)

[CVG]

I really liked where it's going so far and I'm happy to see that parts of the script when I last read it were translated into funny visuals and timing that text usually doesn't convey untill you see it in action (like the smile face). But there are a few stops where they sit on the camera and look silent for too long. For example when it's on the fat guy and they just skip past him on his job duty, I think if we heard just a little "uhhh..." and then skip past him it would help less confusion about the silent skip. I mean I got the joke there but it was a bit too assuming that we knew he's a burden or troublesome...cuz I didn't really see anything wrong with the guy as he sat there with a bored face. I guess a little sound of disapproval helps to just know the head guy just didn't know what to do with him. I still think the strongest characters are the two ladies haha and the part where the hippie girl (forgive me as I don't recall the names just yet) when she was being looked at as a good example and then started eating the plants haha. Visually and animation-wise it's looking SO AMAZING :U I'd swear a team of animators or studio was making this haha that's how nice it looks. And the fact you only did this part in 2 months blows my mind (still working on 3 mins going on 1 year lmao I need to kick my ass and work harder). But yeah man this is great and I can't wait to see the finished version. Keep it up! :}  When I get some free time I want to re-read the new script and give some opinions on that too but this is what I got from the animatic thus far!

Also I agree with Logan about the audience aspect a little bit...I'm guessing this would be for adults more than kids based on the ages of the counselors, their personality relationships being the focus (like a sitcom), and the drinking and swearing too... but at the same time it's so clean and harmless and kind of has a lighter tone that's more suitable for kids networks like how teen drama island has characters all interacting and that's the core of the situational comedy. Not that I'm saying yours in like teen drama island btw, yours is LEAGUES funnier and better drawn then that crap but I'm using it as reference of where it fits in genera-wise (people comedy with talking and situations). So yeah it's a good thing to think about but don't let that stagnate your process if you are liking the cartoon and its satisfying to your own sensibilities. Draw what you know and enjoy :}

[sev]

large gay dog

[Casey Pixmintro]

Hey sorry, was gonna respond them forgot :I Thanks for your suggestions guys

You've got a lot of good points, especially concerning how the story is just kind of puttering along. It could be a lot tighter in the timing. I'm also gonna address amping up some of the absurdity.

Logen, you made a really good point about breaking up the one Lolita and Rebecca scene where it's just talking for a minute. It never occurred to me to shuffle some of the scenes around. If I move the nxt Derek and Jim scene forward to the point you mentioned that sounds like it would work well, it could also let me just fire smash cut into the next Rebecca/Lolita sequence.
Also I was thinking of doing a montage for Lolita training Rebecca but I was a little worried about doing another montage since there was one earlier on. Mainly a fear cuz I've written stuff with like 8 montages in one script before :U

Also I see what you're saying about being confused about the target demographic. Mainly the reason why there are euphemisms occasionally is because of Burch trying to avoid swearing in front of kids.

I like your idea CVG of having a disapproving sound for when Burch is addressing Norm. The joke kind of formed out of D-Mac forgetting to do the part for Burch talking about Norm but the silence played pretty well when I was getting critiques in class. Having some sound on it would totally enhance it though.
And thanks CVG, I'm pretty happy with how it's looking visually, hopefully I can keep to my deadline.

[logen]

Glad I could help.

That Burch thing makes sense, but we as the general audience never really get to know that information.

Also, don't worry about the montage thing. The first one is more like a series of flashbacks.

[Casey Pixmintro]

Burch is super kawaii!

[D-Mac]

I like your idea CVG of having a disapproving sound for when Burch is addressing Norm. The joke kind of formed out of D-Mac forgetting to do the part for Burch talking about Norm but the silence played pretty well when I was getting critiques in class. Having some sound on it would totally enhance it though.

Whoa, did you never catch my e-mail? I sent that line 6 days after the others, when I realized I'd skipped it.

[Sinitron]

for some reason i keep confusing ixintro with wac

[Casey Pixmintro]

I like your idea CVG of having a disapproving sound for when Burch is addressing Norm. The joke kind of formed out of D-Mac forgetting to do the part for Burch talking about Norm but the silence played pretty well when I was getting critiques in class. Having some sound on it would totally enhance it though.

Whoa, did you never catch my e-mail? I sent that line 6 days after the others, when I realized I'd skipped it.

Oh shit, I guess I didn't haha

[Casey Pixmintro]

Hey guys, not too much shit to report on with my pilot right now. I have a little 45-second preview I did the other day.
Summer Rec Preview

Cool news though, I got a freelance job about a month ago to make an instructional film about a sprite texture packing program my client is making. I managed to get it through http://odesk.com and it's been pretty legit. The pay system on that site is really interesting, where you have a little program you log your hours on which tracks the amount of mouse-clicks and shit you do, with a screencap every 10 minutes so there's transparency between the client and you. I'll probably post some clips soon cuz the project is surprisingly fun to animate. I even get to use the PixelTools Flash plug-in for it.

Also, my friends and I did this drawing at a party. We just passed it around and contributed to it, twas cool as tits.


And made this yesterday cuz im a faggot. and cuz Clone High is a good show.

[Casey Pixmintro]

Oh also one of my friends who's a super good comedy writer helped me out with the script and he injected a lot of great gags and shit into it and the story is a lot stronger now yup yup

[Casey Pixmintro]

Hey, here's what I have done on Summer Rec so far
Summer Rec Animatic

Also, I'm doing a Kickstarter for it.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/765327036/summer-rec-pilot-episode

[naturally]

best part was the soccer game

edit: also good luck on reaching your kickstarter goal

[rtil]

nice to see you've fleshed out the whole episode. i actually laughed out loud at a few parts i think your comedic timing is pretty good.

the amount of money you've asked for is fair, especially considering you need a brand new computer as well. i will be contributing to this project in the next week or so.

i also read in your bio that you want to work for titmouse.. you have read some of the articles detailing their cheap labor, right? they pay their entry level animators almost nothing .. i dont have any respect for an animation company that treats their talent like dirt. you deserve better than that.

[MarcK]

the soccer scenes going to be fucking awesome

i also read in your bio that you want to work for titmouse.. you have read some of the articles detailing their cheap labor, right? they pay their entry level animators almost nothing .. i dont have any respect for an animation company that treats their talent like dirt. you deserve better than that.

would you know where to start looking for good companies to work for? I have no job research skills :'[

[rtil]

i worked locally in the studio environment for a few years and gave up. now i freelance. never been happier. studios typically overwork you because you're on a fixed salary so they don't have to pay you overtime, so they purposely shorthand on artists. they pay can sometimes be great but imo not worth the being miserable and never having freetime + commute. i got sick of it, even if the work was fun.

[Casey Pixmintro]

Thank everyone. Yeah I've read that Cartoon Brew article. Not all of it is untrue, but some parts of it are a bit exaggerated. Their animators get paid fine, but the issue was the clean-up artists, specifically for the show Motorcity. They weren't getting paid $400, which is a bit of a stretch but the company admits they weren't getting paid as much as they should, based on union-standard because Disney had them under their thumb big time when the show started. Also, it was effected by an effort to keep the show 100% in-house with no outsourcing. The show's unionized now which solves a bunch of those problems which is good though. I dunno, besides the fact they produce amazing animation, I've been attracted to their crazy severe employee retention. They try to never let go of anyone, and it's apparently very easy to climb the ladder there. A lot of the people who were getting paid meh as clean-up artists got promoted to higher paying jobs within the first 3 months.

I understand your wariness, that article did raise some red flags (the parts of it that weren't embellished) but also it's more telling for the New York animation industry than just Titmouse. The industry there is still in a bit of a turbulent second infancy as companies are trying to make it in the city again after so many years of it being almost non-existent there. Although, I'm totally glad I didn't get to pursue my first choice of working at World Leaders Entertainment, that company apparently was a financial mess (before it closed down last year). Turns out they'd just use interns for fulltime work without pay, but at least with Titmouse, they'd prefer to hire you to a paid position right off the bat, or if not, advancement would be close behind to a paid position.

Also, freelance is pretty cool. Just casually working on mine is letting me raise enough money to move to New York in the next couple months.

[Casey Pixmintro]

Oh yeah Rtil, do you have any suggestions on how to drum up more for the Kickstarter? Thanks to everyone who've helped me out so far, hope this thing is a success.