Harnessing the power of social networking

Harnessing the power of social for your business by SocialGo:

Using Social to Grow and Engage your Customers from SocialGO

I have a SocialGo Animation Network for the students on the animation courses that I teach on:  animationetwork.socialgo.com I have found it straigthforward to set up and use. 

Animate Projects presents: 2012 (associated with Lupus Films and Channel 4)

I was sent a link to Animate Projects, from Twitter as a suggestion to follow them. I took a look at them and decided that this would be a pretty good idea. They incorporate an online exhibition space for animation within their website and you can explore the 'Animate Collection', which features artists' animation, interviews and writing. It is the only arts charity in the UK dedicated to championing experiments in animation.

'Animate has consistently facilitated cutting edge animation in the UK, making the UK an international focal point for animated filmmaking,' David Shrigley, artist.

One of the projects that Animate Projects are presenting on their site, are five new commissions in association with Lupus Films, for Channel 4’s Random Acts - the project title is 2012.

The five films were broadcast on Channel 4 and had their online premiere on randomacts.channel4.com in April 2012. The films will be viewable on animateprojects.org from May 2012. Below is an example of one of the films, titled: Ylem.

Ylem from Lupus Films on Vimeo.

Late night Club - Indie animators

I have just viewed this trailer (from the collective of Indie animators calling themselves the 'Late Night Club') on the 'It's Nice That' site. This is their mission statement from the Late Night Club site:

Late Night Work Club is a loose, rotating collective of indie animators.

That is, animators who do independent, non-commercial work. It’s an excuse to bring a whole bunch of us together and make something great, and also to promote the work of the artists involved. Some of the best, most personal, experimental and vital animation going right now is happening on the internet. It’s being made late at night when other people have gone to sleep and on weekends when everyone else is out. It’s being made by students, freelancers, full-timers and folks with unrelated day jobs. It means something to us. It’s our scene.

Here is a link to their website, it is well worth a look!: www.latenightworkclub.com/

Andy Martin's Showreel

I really like the range of styles that Andy Martin uses: Here is his showreel :)

Andy Martin Showreel 2012 from Andy Martin on Vimeo.

Flash is NOT DEAD!

I am a little bit fed up with hearing that Flash is dead.... its getting tiresome. An ex student of mine put up a post on Facebook saying that he needed advice about creating a portfolio with Flash or html and one of the comments was the usual.. 'don't bother using Flash, its dead', these comments are all due to bad press created by the feud between Apple and Adobe, where Apple blocked the Flash plug-in on their mobile products and many articles proclaimed the death of Flash. Adobe bounced back by producing a new version of Flash that could convert Flash to Apple apps - which Apple proceeded to ban! After a bit of a battle, during which rumours ensued saying that Adobe were threatening to sue Apple, there came a compromise that caused Adobe to stop producing a plug-in for mobile devices. Because they did that; Apple stopped blocking Adobe being able to publish Flash products to HTML 5 and also into apps for any mobile device - Apple or Android.

If you are a Flash user, this is not news to you, but Apple did a great marketing hit on Adobe Flash and it did take a bit of a bashing, but I think it can bounce back. There are still many users out there. The problem with all the hype about HTML 5 is that it hasn't quite lived up to its reputation as it is currently off limits to the regular person to create things in HTML 5 that you can with Flash - these things can only be created by a web developer who is hot with using code - so its not yet a contender. 

Don't get me wrong and think I am a hater of all things Apple either - I have a Mac Book Pro and an iPad and I love them. I use yummy G5's at work, but I've also got a Hewlett Packard PC and an Android phone - so as you can tell, I use what I need for specific uses and I don't let the hype get in the way of my own thought processes.... so I really enjoy using Flash and will continue to do so until something better comes along, but up till now, this hasn't happened.... VIVA Flash ;)

This is a good comment made by blogger Dave Bricker (author, designer, educator):

Flash and HTML5: Why Does Apple Care?

Though Apple argues that Flash is unstable and requires too much processor power, skeptics counter that Apple wants to keep animation and rich interactivity confined to Apps sold exclusively through their own App store. Why? Flash empowers content developers to deliver all the graphic splendor and technical sophistication of a mobile application inside the browser. That provides a conduit through which competing alternatives to Apple’s own software offerings (like iTunes) can be deployed, and it offers developers a means of distribution that bypasses Apple’s 30% commission and the requirement to have Apple officially approve their content. It makes the free browser side of the iOS platform potentially as engaging as the App side. Apple has enjoyed an exclusive “gated community” in an otherwise open Internet. Now the gates are being pushed in by the very standards they accuse Adobe of failing to support.

My thoughts exactly. Here is a link to his article, 'Why Flash is not dead and what it means to publishers'.

Here is a link to blogger Roberto Blakes article about the topic, 'Why Flash is not dead yet 2012'. Another link I came across is to Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols article in ZDNet, who proclaims that 'we all hate Flash and that even Adobe are not too keen'; but he still admits that: 'We can wish Adobe Flash were dead all we want, but there's still no universal replacement for it. And, there won't be one anytime soon' in: 'Adobe Flash: I'm not dead yet!'. 

Animation in Google trends

Here are some stats that I got from Google trends and I am surprised at the downward trend towards animation, particularly as there are so many excellent animated films being produced, and that it used so much in advertising now.

Here is a link to the page as it is interactive and has more info: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=animation&cmpt=geo

It does have embed links, but annoyingly none of them would show in the blog?! So I had to resort to a screenshot.

William Klein & Daido Moriyama Exhibition - Tate Modern

I finally found the time to go to see the William Klein + Daido Moriyama Exhibition at the Tate Modern and it was well worth the visit! Both photographers were very inspiring. It was definitely my kind of photography, gritty, blurry and contrasty... excellent work.

Below is a video of Daido Moriyama from the Tate Modern website. There is also a video about William Klein, but for some reason the embed code would not work, so here is the link to the page: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/william-klein-daido-moriyama if you want to take a look.