The "Miracle" of Kemono Friends

Recently, something has been done in the anime industry that hasn't quite happened before, at least, not to this extent. A studio known as Yaoyorozu was asked to produce an animated series based on a mobile game known as Kemono Friends. A lot of mobile games get their own series, but here's the problem: The Kemono Friends game ended service months before the show began production, the team creating it only consisted of ten people in an apartment, they had 500 days to complete it, and they had a 500,000 dollar budget. To put that in perspective, most anime studios consist of 90+ team members, and it only takes them about 9 months to finish a top tier production with a much larger budget. The team was essentially left with a product that was dead on arrival, but instead of giving up, the team decided to write their own extensive story for the series and severely cut the quality of animation in favor of making a quaint but fun show that destroyed everyone's ideas of how an anime production should be. In a stagnant industry full of tired tropes and demographic pandering, they set out to make something truly unique with the meager resources they had. No one expected anything from them, and they used that to their advantage. When Kemono Friends finally aired, it was met with the criticisms one would expect. Many thrashed the show for it's awful animation quality, but what they didn't know was that it was building up to something much greater. By the fourth episode, most people were hooked. The plot thus far had been about a girl living on an abandoned island that used to be a zoo. She meets another girl who happens to be a serval, and learns that all the animals on the island have been turned into human-like beings known as "Friends". The girl does not know what species she is, so serval gives her the name Kaban, which means "bag" due to the fact she wears a backpack. She and serval set off to discover what kind of "Friend" she is. Of course, the viewer instantly, and correctly assumes she is a true human, but the real mystery is the nature of the island they live on and the nature of the Friends. As we get to episode 4, we learn a little bit about the strange history of the island, and the alien menace it's inhabitants spend their days avoiding known as the "Ceruleans". By the end of the series, as long as you are willing to look deeper, every question brought up in the series is answered in a satisfying manner, and upon a second viewing, you realize that everything was foreshadowed in the very first episode, and I mean EVERYTHING. The show carries an underlying theme of existentialism to keep it's otherwise calm and almost childish setting interesting. Folks who stuck around in spite of the horrible CG absolutely loved it, and it rose to the top of the charts for the season, and it is the second most tweeted thing on twitter. Sales on Kemono Friends merchandise sky-rocketed, and so did attendance at zoos. The anime industry is full of success stories, but none of this caliber. Many people now refer to it as "the Miracle of Kemono Friends" and it will be interesting to see how it changes the industry landscape. Hopefully studios will go back to focusing on trying to tell good stories again instead of selling blu-rays to a niche audience. Here's an interesting video about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkCMRBWYoKc

Incredibox

For my exploration, I found an interactive website that focuses on music again.
This website is called Incredibox. The basic idea is that you have five groups, that add to the song in their own way. Instruments/percussion's/effects/chorus/and voices. And for each section, there is an animated character who sings the selected sound.

So after piecing together each section, you should eventually be able to form a song/beat! It is really fun and a great way to pass time. It is really interesting how people combine music and animation to art work.

Animation Smears

When viewing something in motion, it tends to blur at certain speeds. Your eye simply cant register each "frame" of motion, so it compensates. In animation, this can be applied through smearing. Smearing is a simulation of that motion blur, hand drawn in a warped way to only be seen for single frames and replicate that visual phenomena. The Animation Smears Tumblr collects as many of these smears as possible, showing off how a single frame can be a surreal work of art on its own.

Weather and Music

For my second blog I found this other website called Climatune presented by Spotify and AccuWeather. This website makes a connection between weather and music in which  the weather can have an impact on what the people are listening to.  In this website, you can see the weather depending on where you are located with animation and interactivity, but at the same time listening to a playlist regarding the weather.  Spotify and AccuWeather stated on their website " analyzed the music from each weather type with acoustic attributes developed at The Echo Nest that 'listen' to music and measure things like energy level and valence, or how happy or sad a song is likely to be, based purely on how it sounds." You can also click to see what happens in other weather conditions like snow, rain, sun and wind.  Its a pretty cool website because the weather goes with the music and at the same time there is interactive activities you can do for example if it is cloudy there is a 'cloudy spray can'  that you can move with your mouse and at the same time spray little foams of clouds around. It changes for every type of weather!


https://weather.withspotify.com



- Celina Campos

Species in Pieces

I found this website called Species-in-Pieces which combines creative interactivity and a bit of animation regarding  thirty species that are on the face of extinction. This website is created by Bryan James, and it is a CSS-based interactive exhibition celebrating evolutionary distinction. I really liked this website because it was very well crafted and I could tell that Bryan James took the time to do his research thoroughly on each species. I love his use of color combinations and how each time you click the next button the animal morphs in another animal smoothly. I like how he included videos and other websites to show his audience a bit more about the species.  This website is definitely engaging, interactive and at the same time educational.


http://www.species-in-pieces.com


                 -Celina Campos

flashy

http://www.tokyoplastic.com
http://www.tokyoplastic.com/


TOKYO PLASTIC ↟⟰⏫⇱⇧⇓⇑😊👽💥

This is one of the coolest animation blogs I've found. It's a London-based animation company showcasing their work for us on the interweb.
It has a BOLD interface, showcasing all of their work in a simple yet fascinating display. It's huge bright colors draw the eye towards the work, simple not complicated, making easy for the viewer to go through and explore.
All the different squares show a different project the animation company has made.
It ranges from sketches, drawings, to full on 3-dimensional animated scenes and movies. They're all so interesting, and humorous, definitely my type of entertainment.
The animations are well made, inspiring me to make my own. A very interesting one is a spin on tangled, with a hilarious twist at the end, must watch.
I love how they don't just box themselves in one type of animation style, they branch out into varying narratives.
The website layout is even fun just to navigate with its unique layout.

I give them a 10/10 professional neat and interesting design.



- Jessica Campos

Resources Exploration- Derek Forrester

While researching resources for Flash, I was a bit surprised the content and information was not abundant or easy to find.  A web search did have returns and resources, but not nearly as many as I am accustomed to.  FlashKit seems to be an excellent website to begin with, because it offers tutorials, sounds, fonts, and other Flash developer resources.  One of the most important aspects is that they have a Flash Resources Links library that allows users to post and rate other website resources for Flash/Animate.  This makes it a great bookmark page for your Flash resource needs, as it offers a full library of links that are rated by other users.  A4Flash offers a website with Flash templates of source code for making mini games like golf, shooting, kids, music and others.  They provide templates, introduction, multimedia programming and Flash presentation services.  I found this site interesting because the games are for sale and cost upwards of 300 dollars.   The templates are also described for educational purposes.  Such that you could buy the game and dissect it to learn how they made it.  FlashDaWeb is a resource site that offers articles, tips, tutorials, free components and sources codes drawn from their own experience in productions.  They offer insight into what developers create and what the market demands.   They can help your website become more visible on Google searches and can teach you website monetization strategies to add income to your site or blog.  PhotoShopGuy offers his personal collection of Flash files, templates, images, and personal portfolio he has collected over the years.  All the content is free to use for personal or commercial.  He also has tutorial videos specializing in Photoshop.  Overall, I found the Flash resource information much harder to find and realized that good links and resources could help a new developer a great deal with learning about Flash.

            

Not for Arachnophobes

I came across this really interesting stimulater, geared around a spider!

You can feed it, tug it, and move it around by it's tiny legs. I thought this was really cool from how realistic it was, and not only could you play with this spider, you could also toggle some characteristics.

There's options to change the height, weight, length, ect of the spider according to your preferences. He also seems to like following the mouse cursor.

Created by Tomas Eriksson--he  also seems to have a lot of other neat interactive flash pages.

Spider Flash

How CG can be so good you can't tell if its real or fake.

In the recently release movie Logan. The CG special affects are so spot on they look life like and at time you can't tell if its a real actor or a CG actor.

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/vfx/cg-actors-logan-never-knew-149013.html