Live Music

The Common Room Other Animation
#1

Now this looks like something Mr Lasseter would direct! :slight_smile:

From Mass Animation studios and some of the folks behind the Academy Award-winning short ‘The Chubb-Chubbs’ and Academy Award-nominated ‘Surf’s Up’ comes a story about a rock n’ roll guitar who falls in love with the song but ends up with the violin of his dreams.

Inanimate objects being personified and brought to life has always been one of my favourite plot devices (you could tell, from my two most favourite Pixar movies :wink:). The model and production quality is not as awe-inspiring as Dreamworks, Pixar, or even Blue Sky, but for a modest animation studio, this has to been one of the most creative and ambitious projects I’ve ever seen.

I mean, this is the first time I’ve heard of a studio actually outsourcing its film to the entire world (or at least, a select few) on Facebook as an online collaboration! :open_mouth: This really breaks down the traditional model of studios imposing barriers and hiding their production secrets from the rest of the world (like, er, Pixar? :smiley:). Copyright out the window, Creative Commons FTW!

Anyhoo, the story sounds cute, and the instruments are so endearing!

And come on, Deep Purple’s classic number is unbeatable! :slight_smile:

“Dun, dun, dun…! Dun, dun, dundun!” :smiley:

I’d rather pay to see this than its following movie, Planet 51 (it seems Sony seems to be following the Pixar tradition of including shorts before their feature films).

Live Music trailer

I hope RIff gets the ‘girl’. :-D)

#2

There seems to be two distinct camps on Live Music’s method of animation production by the masses. The former champions a new era where copyright protection and stifling intellectual property laws are broken down, and where the ‘hive’ community of the Internet can be harnessed to produce something of artistic value of which everyone can be a part of. The latter points out that it may actually destabilise employment union practices, and is nothing more than a cheap exploitative self-promotion exercise (since only the folks who submit the best animation of a scene get paid, and at a measely $500 per scene).

Now, I, for one, don’t think it’s that manipulative. Yes, I think the producer should give a higher ‘cash prize’ for the winner of each scene, but this is no different from submitting your work to an art competition, where only the best gets the award and recognition. Nobody is obligated to do this, and the people who don’t like this are either insecure or threatened that their livelihood will be ‘outsourced’ to more talented individuals (and they shouldn’t worry in the first place, since this competition is actually aimed more to graduating students or those looking to get their foot in the door of the industry), or are luddites who can’t embrace the power of Internet synergy and co-operation.

Yes, I may sound overly optimistic (although I can be a cynic at times), but I don’t see the reason for all this brouhaha over a small creative exercise (it’s not like Pixar or the other major studios suddenly decide to fire all the employees and offer their job to the highest bidder). This still remains a competition of talent, and if the elitist folks think they’re better than this, they’re free to look for opportunities elsewhere, as there are many more hungry people out there who are willing to fill their spot. But as it is, those who did participate said they have made valuable contacts and gained some sort of experience out of the project, even if they didn’t eventually win the cash incentive. This is the future of Animation, folks, creative content is now liberated to the public, and the only differentiating factor in this new economy is skill.

Sorry for the massive Wall of Text. But I had to get this off my chest, as some of the skeptics just annoy the h*ll out of me.

What do you guys think? Is this another way corporations are working the system to make monkeys out of us? Or is this the dawn of a new age of distributed creativity? I’m very interested to hear your opinions on this issue.

New York Times - “An Animated Film is Created Through Creative Consensus”

LA Times - “Mass Animation’s Facebook Gambit”

TAG Blog - “The LA Times Animated Vision of Tomorrow”

Motion Graphics - “Mass Animation = Mass Exploitation?”

And now you can even pick sides on Facebook! :slight_smile:

Mass Animation

ANTI Mass Animation

Discussion time! :mrgreen:

#3

Classical VS rock - the ongoing battle! :smiling_imp: That is quite a novel concept and probably a great way to get exposure and experience. It would look good on someone’s resume to be chosen to animate this film. I have to admit the quality of the animation is a bit distracting, but if the story is good then I suppose it’s ok. It reminds me of Pixar’s pencil test with the inanimate objects and being able to bring anything to life.

I didn’t realise it’s ok to bow along the fingerboard, though. ;-p I was told not to do that…

#4

hmm… looks interesting! :smiley: I think it’s amazing how the internet can bring together so many talented people! ;-p

#5

The end theme has just been released for stream listening. :slight_smile:

Two Worlds Collide - Cahn & Yang

I love the fusion of rock and classical! Lyrics describe the theme of the short pretty well, too.