Animation and Video Life

In February of 2009 the Star Trek, Quogs theme came to GoAnimate and of course I had to try it out. As per usual my first idea was anything but predictable. As soon as I saw the bridge background for the Star Ship Enterprise I had a vision of Captain Kirk relaying his directive, "Mr Sulu, prepare to start the rinse cycle." I don't know why I thought of that, maybe it has something to do with how far household technology has come since Star Trek first graced our TV screens. All the flashing lights on modern technology and all the flashing lights on the bridge of the Enterprise. In any case it was just such a funny idea and, one custom washing machine prop later, Laundry Day just kind of wrote its self. Star Trek - Laundry Day Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! It's the simple ideas that are my favorites and Laundry Day is just that. It references some accepted Star Trek themes and juxtaposes them with a bit of my own humor from left fi...

The Re-Animation of Khan may only be four minutes and fifty three seconds long but it took just over four months to get the script out of my head and into a completed animation. It truly was the script that was the stumbling point as this animation features only one custom prop that was specifically made for it (the GoAnimate screen shot). Everything else is 'straight off the shelf'. Before I go into to detail of what went on behind the scenes please watch the final animation below. The Re-Animation of Khan by etourist Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! The Re-Animation of Khan originally began as the third installment of my original series, How to Get Views - The Evil Genius Way . Khan was the ideal 'Evil Genius' since his back story from the nineteen sixties TV show placed his origin firmly in twenty and twenty first centuries - hence he just may of heard of GoAnimate (well, you never know... could happen!). So sure was I that this wou...

The Star Trek Fan is the second installment of an earlier animation I created back in March of 2013 called The Star Wars Fan . If you haven't seen it I would recommend you view it first as The Star Trek Fan is a kind of continuation of the dialogue but in a new subway location. Once again the Tourist, his travel companion Mia and their R2D2 unit are minding their own business when they are approached by a metro cop who inquires about their droid. With it being such a long time since the first installment I don't think I managed to get Mia's voice sounding the same or get any real difference between all of the character voices. Also the voices aren't consistent because I just wanted to get the animation finished, since it had been sitting in my GoAnimate account for months as I tinkered away on it between business animation clients. However I think it still works and the script is strong enough for people to overlook my poor voice work effort. The opening l...

I think the fact that Captain Kirk had a bit of a reputation of being successful with the ladies was what prompted me to use the Star Trek theme on this animated music video for Tone Loc's song, Funky Cold Medina . Although I'm a huge fan of the song when it was released back in 1989 I uploaded it to GoAnimate intending to use it as a backing song to my GoAnimate Complaints Department Plus animation. However it just didn't seem to fit. In December of 2010 I decided it would be a great song to help feature Some of GoAnimate's new Musical Action packs including 'Lead Singer', 'Black Guitar' and 'Drummer' as well as the not so musical action pack, 'Romantic Male'. Those of you with a musical ear should listen out for all the different samples Tone used to create this awesome track. Funky Cold Medina was made at a time when mix artists were ripping samples from all kinds of songs without a care in the world for copying rights. One of t...

Be sure to watch Star Trek - Laundry Day (Part 1) before continuing with this post otherwise you'll be missing the first part of the story. There's not much to add with these two episodes other than to say I'm trying to follow a similar structure and intentionally keeping them short. It's all just a bit of fun and I'll probably do a few more episodes because there's a Klingon joke still begging to be used! Laundry Day - Part 2 Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! Laundry Day - Part 3 Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! Be sure to watch Star Trek: Laundry Day - Episode 4 .

Animation site Xtranormal is having a Summer Movie Contest  with a $1000 first prize and they also just released a new set of Star Trek themed characters and backgrounds called Trekkiez . I decided to combine the two into this blog post by featuring their new characters in my Summer Movie Contest entry below. If you enjoyed the above animation then I'd really appreciate it if you took a moment to visit the animations Youtube Page to click the Youtube 'Like' Button under the video . The top ten most liked videos will all win a prize. As mentioned, first prize is US$1000, with second prize being an iPad 2 and third an iPod Touch (any of which I'd be happy to win but first would be awesome). The competition ends at the end of July 2011. Long time fans of my online animations may find the theme and script of the above animation some what familiar. That's because I based it upon the ideas that feature in the script of my original GoAnimate, Star Trek Quogs seri...

The Last Complaint... March 12, 2012 is the day Jim Benton's Happy Bunny Theme license expired on GoAnimate. Before it did I wanted to release just one more episode of this topical and much enjoyed series. This was the result, completed in just five days. (I usually spend at least a couple of weeks on these). The Final Complaint - GoA Complaints Dept. by etourist on GoAnimate Animation Software - Powered by GoAnimate. Over the years my series The GoAnimate Complaints Department has become synonymous with the Happy Bunny theme for many people on GoAnimate. Here's something I wrote in the comments on the video... The Complaints Dept. is one of GoAnimate's longest running series, with the first one minute episode appearing about two and a half years ago. Even though there's only 10 episodes it's continued to be popular and has been one of the most imitated series from my own catalogue. All but one uses speech balloons to tell the jokes. Including thi...

To understand what's going on be sure to watch Laundry Day - Part 1 and Laundry Day - Parts 2 and 3 before this latest installment. In this episode things get more serious as a Klingon Ship snatches the Enterprise's jettisoned washing machine before it can be vapourized. Captain Kirk is concerned for the Enterprise's schematics (accidentally left in Scotty's pants pocket in the machine) and Lieutenant Uhura is concerned for the fate of her underwear. Watch for the 'Klingon underwear' joke that has been begging to be used since I started the series. Laundry Day - Part 4 Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! Be sure to watch Star Trek: Laundry Day - Part 5 .

Remember Xtranormal ? The site that said "If you can type, you can make movies." Although its online studio was very limited it was still pretty good for making short, dialogue driven videos with visually interesting 3D characters and backgrounds. Here's a reminder with one of my best Xtranormal videos using some of their Star Trek based characters. I enjoyed Xtranormal quite a bit but its pay as you publish business model and the need to purchase themes made it expensive. Particularly if you graduated to the downloadable desktop version, State , which gave you more functionality, increased possibilities and an even lighter bank account. Last year, around mid 2013, Xtranormal closed down its website with a promise to rethink its business model and maybe make a come back. As it turns out Xtranormal is no more. Its intellectual properties were liquidated and, early this year, sold to a new company called Nawmal . Presently Nawmal is still in the process of assess...

GoAnimate made some major changes to their site mid way through 2010 creating something of a divide when they introduced Premium GoPlus+ accounts. i.e. paid accounts that give you access to more features. Unfortunately what this meant for free GoAnimate users, who now found themselves with a 'Basic' account, was that they lost a lot of things that they used to get for free. A major loss was the ability to mix themes - which now became a Goplus+ feature. Basic account holders also had their animation lengths limited to 2 minutes where as previously there had been no limit. Adding further insult to injury, in order to upgrade a basic account to Goplus+ users needed access to a credit card. With many younger users on site you can imagine the uproar as trying to convince your parents to pay for an upgrade with their credit card is not always the most easiest of tasks. At around the same time GoAnimate started to roll out its Lil' Peepz theme and Character Creator with mor...

Xtranormal, Star Trek Entry Summer Movie Contest. To begin, I'd like to thank all of you that took the time to vote for and Youtube 'Like' my entries in Xtranormal's Summer Movie Contest and the Sydney Opera House's Graphic Contest . Thanks to your efforts I managed to place a very respectable seventh place in Xtranormal's contest - where the top ten most Liked entries received a prize. Seventh won me 2000 Xtranormal points - which I think equates to about US$20.00 in real money if I had to buy those points. Still, you can do a lot with 2000xp on Xtranormal so it was great to have even placed when I thought I'd be lucky to squeak in at tenth. You can see all the winners on Xtranormal's blog . GoAnimate SOH Graphic Competition Entry. I wasn't quite so fortunate with the Sydney Opera House's Graphic Contest. My entry was accepted into the first round alongside about 53 other entries. Unfortunately I don't know if I got enough...

I'm aware that I've come late to the whole Leeroy Jenkins phenomenon a.k.a Ben Shultz who daringly bypassed his World of Warcraft team mates and their careful planning session to launch a one man attack on... well god only knows... I'm not a WOW player. Just watch the video below which started the whole thing. As you can see Leeroy basically got his entire team killed because he missed the planning meeting due to a snack attack - hence his last words "At least I have chicken". The video below is an interview with Ben, who's become something of a celebrity at gaming conventions, explaining what happened and giving that legendary battle cry. Anyhow, some time ago GoAnimator, Ludvig II , did a parody/mash up using some of the audio from the original clip (and possibly some audio from one of the many Leeroy Jenkins music mash ups) to match Leeroy up against Star Trek's, Captain Kirk and the U.S.S. Enterprise. What results is a hilarious contrast of Captain Ki...

The continuing saga of Lieutenant Uhura's underwear (or at least the washing machine that contains them). If you have yet to watch previous episodes then here are the links: Part 1 , Parts 2 and 3 , Part 4 . In this latest installment the crew of the Enterprise attempt to retrieve their errant washing machine by boarding the Klingon's ship undetected. Laundry Day - Part 5 Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! This particular episode is almost double the length of previous episodes and, in my opinion, is not quite as funny. One of the complexities of writing a series is keeping the ideas flowing. I had hoped this might be the final episode but the way things worked out it looks like the story may just continue.

Lil' Peepz Jokester, Bat Storm and Bat Flash. The Lil' Peepz theme arrived on GoAnimate in a big way back in July of 2010 (can you tell how behind I am on updating this blog?) with it's own custom character creator it's been going from strength to strength ever since. To the point where nearly all the other themes on the site have paled by comparison. The first thing you notice about the Lil' Peepz is their complete lack of arms or legs. Their hands and feet just kind of float around their body (or if you prefer, in the case of their feet, their body just kind of floats above them). This makes them relatively easy for GoAnimate staff to add new costumes and most recently, action packs. Adding new actions, for the most part, appears to be just repositioning the character in the poses required without having to create any new drawings. Well maybe a new hand position here and there but not too much else I imagine. At around the time of the release of Lil'...

Ever since the introduction of the the import video feature for GoPlus users of GoAnimate people have thought about the possibility of creating Roger Rabbit style animations, combining live action people with cartoon characters. I first attempted this when the video import feature was introduced with my animation TET's PA Video Test . In that animation I simply overlaid cartoon elements and characters in front of the video. It worked reasonably well. However to truly combine live action people with cartoon characters you need to be able to place the cartoon background and characters behind the live action video as well. To do that you need either a blue or green screen to combine the cartoon and video together in a technique known as chroma keying (more commonly referred to as 'green screen' or 'blue screen'). Watch my test video below to see my completed example using GoAnimate. Note that I recorded the video with a really short time frame to get it done so ...