Animation and Video Life

USA Presidential election campaign speeches are so much more interesting and inspiring than the election campaign speeches given by Australian politicians. Personalities play a big part in deciding US elections (as does the Supreme Court for the cynical among you). I enjoy listening to campaign speeches in the US elections and Mitt Romney's speech at the 2012 Republican convention was a doozie. The video of his entire speech is embeded below but it was his closing comments from about 30 minutes into the speech onward that really caught my attention. Mitt talks about the threat in Iran and notes that Obama's diplomatic talks with Iran have achieved nothing. He reinforces the idea of a United America and highlights the many soldiers that have died fighting for the values and freedoms that America enjoys. Which got a big cheer. I wonder if anyone who'd actually lost someone in the Afghanistan or Iraq conflicts were cheering? Do those people feel any more free now for ...

Over the 2011 Christmas break I started work on Men In Black 2 - Part 6 unaware that GoAnimate's license for the Super Rica and Rashy theme would expire on January 1, 2012. Had I known the theme was going to expire, I would have not only fast tracked this episode, I would also have fast tracked part 7 - which will be the final episode of the series. Thanks to GoAnimate's CEO, Alvin Hung, who allowed this episode to be published despite containing a character (Rashy) from a discontinued license. If you're not yet familiar with the series then check out MIB2 - Part 1 to catch up on the story. Essentially it's a parody of the MIB films with President Obama playing the Will Smith role but the story is my own original script. For those of you up to speed, knowing that Sock Monkey, Rashy, is an Evil Genius and a master of disguise, below is Part 6 for your enjoyment. In this episode we see Rashy's diabolical scheme unfold with disastrous results... Pt6 - Men ...

This installment, part 5 of my parody series, Men In Black 2 , Rashy launches his evil master plan with devastating results but for who? Find out in the video below. Note: be sure to watch the video below before reading further as my behind the scenes notes WILL spoil the final scene of this episode if you haven't seen it. Pt5: Men In Black 2 by etourist Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! When I started making part 5 of MIB2 I had three objectives: Explain how George and Dick came to be working for Rashy despite being on his 'hit' list in episode 1.   Get Rashy into the White House.   Break Barack and Joe out of their cell so they could start heading back to Earth and expose Rashy's brilliant disguise.   The first two were pretty straight forward. George and Dick did in fact mess up after a practical joke by Barack and Agent A. Rashy's ingenious disguises meant he'd have no trouble getting to the White House (and t...

This installment, part 4 of my parody series, Men In Black 2 , Rashy's disguise once again doesn't fool Agent Obama and the chase is on but who really has the upper hand? Find out in the video below. Pt4: Men in Black 2 by etourist Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! Spoiler Alert: Make sure you've watched the episode before reading further! Initially this whole episode was going to be Barack and Joe chasing Rashy. I wanted there to be lots of action and comedy in the style of many cartoon chases you see, such as the classic 'hallway of doors' where the pursuer and those in pursuit run between numerous doors across a hallway, almost impossibly emerging from different doors each time. Then, as I thought about the episode more, as a viewer I'd be disappointed with a long, drawn out chase scene where the story doesn't really progress. Plus I already kind of did the same thing in the first Men In Black series wi...

My Men In Black, episode 2, parody series continues in these latest two installments where Agents Obama and Biden, having seen through Rashy's clever Newt Gingrich disguise, are now hot on his trail. In part 2 we see the return of Rashy's reluctant, double crossing partner in crime and what could be better than seeing a democrat firing off a few hundred rounds from a big gun! Pt2: Men in Black 2 by etourist Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! Then in part 3 not everyone is happy with Agent Barack's skill with a rifle whilst Rashy forgets his 'guest' status and clearly over stays his welcome. Agents Obama and Biden seek solace in a few after work drinks and Rashy regroups with yet another cunning disguise. Pt3: Men In Black 2 by etourist Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! Neither of these parts have much to report behind the scenes. Everything is mostly stock standard GoAnimate born ...

GoAnimate recently launched it's new US Election 2012 theme with a stylish set of new characters reminiscent of newspaper editorial cartoons. You can check the characters out right away by clicking the above link which will take you to the GoAnimate Quick App for the theme. Making your first Election 2012 animation is as simple as following the four step process in the quick app. If you want to make something a little more advanced you'll need to choose the Full-Featured App option which will fire up the GoAnimate studio. For me the new theme is an excellent reason to fire up a second episode of my popular Men In Black series  from a year or so ago. The premise is that Barack Obama is nearing the end of his term as President and, as a particularly gifted MIB agent who can see through disguises, he spots the Evil Genius Sock Monkey, Rashy (from the first episode), posing as Republican Candidate, Newt Gingrich. Watch part 1 below. Future parts of this episode w...

What used to be called 'Type a Video' animations is now known as 'Quick Apps' on GoAnimate. The apps have been upgraded to include a limited range of facial expressions and, if you're a GoPlus user, some apps will even let you use your own custom Lil' Peepz or Comedy World Custom Characters. That's how I came to make Ironman Vs Metal Detector... Ironman Vs Metal Detector by etourist Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! If you've seen my previous post, Cleaning Out my GoAnimate Account - Unused and Unfinished , you'll recognise this sketch as a kind of sequel to the Super Charge/Superman metal detector sketch in my Unused and Unfinished animation. In fact that particular scene is directly referenced in the Ironman sketch. You may also recognise my Ironman character (well as close as you can get to Ironman with GoAnimate's Comedy World Character Creator) from my Charlie Sheen animation, Charlie Sheen agre...

GoAnimate is #winning when it comes to creating topical animations whilst a hot topic is on fire. No matter what all the GoAnimate detractors say, there's few traditional animators that can get a one minute or greater, satirical animated cartoon made within hours of a topic exploding. Take the launch of the iPad 2 or Charlie Sheen's Two and a Half Men melt down. There are few traditional animators that would sit down and make a cartoon specifically to make fun of these events. It's a lot of work and time to devote to something that will be out of date probably within months or maybe even days of being finished. That's a niche that GoAnimate can fill. In the right hands a fairly good satirical animation can be made in hours, providing a fun way to interact with an issue beyond writing a blog post or filming a live action response video. Below is my iPad 2 parody promotional video that I created for my main blog post titled, iPad2, Steve Jobs - Easy Targets . WARNI...

Mid last year I finally concluded my Men In Black series staring Barack Obama and AKON, the parody series I started way back in December of 2008 - and boy had things changed at GoAnimate by August of 2010 when Part 5 was finally released! If you haven't seen the previous episodes then I strongly urge you to take the time to watch them otherwise the current episode may not make a lot of sense. Click the following links, Episode 1 , Episode 2 , Episode 3 and Episode 4  to take you to each animations corresponding blog post. I was lucky to have started Part 5 before all the major changes came in at GoAnimate with the introduction of Premium Goplus+ accounts because one change was that AKON's theme vanished from public access. Even for Goplus+ members. Fortunately, if you already had an AKON animation in draft or previously published, all the themes components would still show up in the GoAnimate studio. I think this is still the case too. If you copy an old AKON anim...

The third and probably the final installment of my political satire, Barack Begins, is finally finished. Whilst it doesn't hurt to watch Part 1: The President and Part 2: War all you really need to know going into part 3 is that George Bush still refuses to accept that he is no longer the President. Just as an interesting footnote, I originally released the first episode of Barack Begins on January 1, 2009 (not in February as stated in a previous blog post). Seems quite fitting to have released this episode (on GoAnimate - not in this blog) on the last day of 2009. Part three focuses on Michelle Obama because she played a huge part (and continues to play a huge part) in Barack's election victory and his time, so far, in office. Hence I wanted to reflect that in the series by giving her a bigger role. Unfortunately, as is often the case with a beautiful women, the media tends to focus on Michelle's fashion and style. Pt 3: Barack Begins by etourist Like it? Create your ow...

It's been several months since episode 3 of my Men In Black series staring Barack Obama and AKON but finally the two MIB Agents are back and hot on the trail of wanna be Evil Genius, Rashy (the sock monkey) - or are they? If you haven't seen the previous episodes then I strongly urge you to take the time to watch them otherwise the current episode may not make a lot of sense. You can either click the links in the GoAnimate player below to view each episode on GoAnimate or, if you'd like to read my background notes, then click the following links, Episode 1 , Episode 2 and Episode 3 to take you to each animations corresponding blog post. MIB - Part 4 by etourist Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! As with previous episodes, when I started I had no idea where the story would end up. Episode 3 ended with Rashy about to set his special robot agent onto Bush and Cheney with Barack and AKON heading out to track Rashy down. I did know that I wante...

As it turns out when I entered the last Unofficial, Official Animator Dominator Contest on GoAnimate I meant to let you know the results but didn't. Quite remiss of me considering I won and was crowned the new Animator Dominator. If you're not familiar with this competition then here's some background. Originally the competition was inspired by an animation by skits called Ryco vs Ro (two high profile GoAnimate members) where viewers could vote for who they thought would win. A debate then ensued. Ludvig II then made a joke comment that the only way to settle it was to have an 'Animate-Off' with Ryco and Ro actually competing to determine who would win. Ludvig came up with some pretty crazy and humorous rules. His original comment was as follows: The comments on the animation show that Ryco was inspired by Ludvig's rules to actually attempt an animation based upon them. From there Ro soon followed and the informal competition was on. The winner was deter...

Dudeman32 is a GoAnimate member whom I felt created an interesting animated character coincidently called, Dudeman32. This beer drinking, head transplanted, war hero with the unusual looking head seemed to have a lot of potential for some serious animated action adventure. At least that's what I thought after watching Dudeman's Story below. It's a bit of an epic but you really only need to watch the first five minutes as the second half is just listening to music. Dudeman's Story by Dudeman32 Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! Dudeman32 himself (the GA member not the cartoon character) asked if I'd be interested in participating in his Dudeman32 story challenge . I said maybe but, after seeing the rules of what to include, I had an idea just snap into my head. Hence I decided to put something together. The animation had to include Barack Obama, Sara Palin, Tom (the blue body used for the Dudeman Character with Dudeman's head) wi...

My Men In Black parody series is a classic example of my script writing style. Way back in December of 2008, when I started the series on GoAnimate with Episode 1 , I could never have imagined where this story would go. By Episode 2 , Paul Dini's Little Rashy had become central to the plot as I started referencing two of my other animations ( The Boss of Everything and The Copier - Part 2 ) that feature Rashy on his quest to be the boss of everything . The key to my writing style is that I don't plan stories from start to finish. I just start them and see where the story and characters take me. By doing this I'm never daunted by the enormity of the script or how much work it might be to animate. At the same time I'm always thinking about what has happened previously in the story and seeing if I can relate the current story back to some of those references. MIB - Part 3 by etourist Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! As you can see in t...

It's been quite some time since the first episode of Barack Begins (which I completed back in February of this year). However it was worth the wait before producing another episode because in that time President Obama announced that America would be sending more troops to Afghanistan. Something of a surprise announcement but great for me because that made it much easier for me to link Barack Begins to my previous series The Bikini Proposal (which was all about the war in Iraq). This second episode of Barack Begins continues the theme of former President, George W. Bush, refusing to concede that he is no longer the President (he actually stated that he would give up playing golf whist he was President out of respect for U.S. Troops in Iraq). It also links the dreaded economic downturn to war and how war can boost the economy. Something that many people believe is the real reason for prolonging the war in Iraq. Nation re-building creates jobs. Hence, the more you blow up, the more ...

The continuing story of my Men In Black parody staring Barack Obama and AKON . If you have yet to see the first episode , it's not essential but does set up how Barack happens to be a MIB agent. I'd recommend you take a look. In this second episode Barack learns the truth about the former President and Vice President and attempts to play a practical joke that goes wrong. MIB - Part 2 Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com . It's free and fun! Paul Dini's, Rashy , once again makes an appearance in one of my animations as the boss of everything (well almost). After being foiled by Underdog in The Copier , Rashy continues his scheme to graduate from being the boss of a corporation to world and universe domination! When I started this series I had no idea Rashy would make an appearance but that's just the way I work. I start with an idea and see where it takes me rather than scripting the whole thing from beginning to end. As soon as I wrote Cheney saying "Th...