New Animated Short

[Yosemite Sam]

Hey guys, if ya get the chance, check out the quick short I assisted on with Chad Troftgruben.

Warning: Some language

[Nicohk92]

Thanks for warning about some language. Pretty hardcore and quite funny. I'm not going to to a fast food for a while after this.

[Yosemite Sam]

Thanks for warning about some language. Pretty hardcore and quite funny. I'm not going to to a fast food for a while after this.

Haha, thanks!

[Danimal]

Well I'll have to sigh deeply before replying and hope that you remember I am normally a fan of your work...

More than once I checked to see how much time was left, and that's seldom a good sign. The cursing you warned about was certainly there but added nothing, therefore it shouldn't be there. The main joke seemed to revolve around the word "balls" which was done to death in the Saturday Night Live sketch with Alec Baldwin. Mostly it came across as an attempt at gross-out humor except without being either gross or humorous.

The good: the character design, and the Clinton impression, while not spot-on, was certainly good enough to get a chuckle.

[stealingfeathers]

I will never again - eat at a restaurant or fast food. LOL

[Yosemite Sam]

Well I'll have to sigh deeply before replying and hope that you remember I am normally a fan of your work...

More than once I checked to see how much time was left, and that's seldom a good sign. The cursing you warned about was certainly there but added nothing, therefore it shouldn't be there. The main joke seemed to revolve around the word "balls" which was done to death in the Saturday Night Live sketch with Alec Baldwin. Mostly it came across as an attempt at gross-out humor except without being either gross or humorous.

The good: the character design, and the Clinton impression, while not spot-on, was certainly good enough to get a chuckle.

Thanks for sharing your impressions. I worked on some character design aspects and did some BGs for this piece. But I'm sure Chad will appreciate your feed back, writing wise. And yeah, I liked his Clinton impression too!

[sargumphigaus]

I'm a little on the side lines about Chad's style. I give the man props because his tutorials gave me the means to get the ball rolling on my way as an animator. His writing style is a little strange to me. He has entirely too much of a reliance on shock value. I liked it, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't feel right. There should be something more...maybe animate the acts of fastfood sabotage instead of just them standing there and talking about them.

Meanwhile your visual style is definitely an improvement to his style. I enjoyed the smoothness of the lipsyncing of the characters and the way Clinton's hair bounces when he moves his head. And I chuckled when I saw Binek in the background. Good stuff.

[drichird]

Up early and spun out on coffee, so this one's gonna be long sorry!

Re the humor, I liked most of the humor but didn't get a small part.

The great part... I used to work in fast food years ago, I like how the story humorously details all the horrible things workers (not ME of course, I would never even THINK of doing that!) have thought of doing to rude customers, and customers have worried that workers might do to them. Very funny how (perfectly timed) he finishes sip of his shake and a danglee is hanging from his mouth, small touches like that where you let the audience figure it out without explaining are fantastic, I'll remember that one with a smile. A couple of other great small touches: worker#1 first guess at celebrity is Ted Danson; the symbol for Fatty Fried Chicken an appropriately morphed (shirtless and colossal!) Colonel Sanders; the acme on steroids on (teenager) worker#2, and how (older)#1 hates Clinton while (more impressionable)#2 is all googoo-gaagaa,. You set the overall tone of the animation right at the beginning with the "what the hell do you expect" which is good cuz I (almost always) like to know right away what the overall tone of an animation is going to be. The humor has that "South Park"-esque feel to it (as does the animation style, so they go well together), it's no holds barred humor, put it all out on the table what people think but are afraid to say. I definitely cannot go to McDonald's today like I had planned!

Animation... Clinton's voice, face (big nose!) and mannerisms are excellent!. From 1:04 to 1:10 you take the time to animate some customers at a table in the very background, seems like a lot of work for small background detail but that really gives reality to the whole animation. Worker#1 rolling his eyes at all the fanfare, and muttering "I hate you" which the self involved Clinton doesn't even register he's so busy impressing his audience.

Nitpicks... The muttering :40 to :48 of #1 while #2 goes on and on about the celebrity visit did not quite work for me until the end "I hate him" maybe just have him repeat "I hate him" for the whole time? #2 Long hair looked like beard at first. Also... I didn't get Clinton wanting balls in his mouth part since the big sex scandal with him was with Monica Lewinsky so maybe change balls to chicken breasts or something? Otherwise the humor has a slightly hard edge to it which could almost seem politically driven (of course there's plenty of Clinton haters out there). I'm not sure if that's part of your message? Political humor is a whole other area of humor I personally stay away from and cannot comment on, since personally although I have very strong opinions I want to reach as many people as possible and once you take that road you are risk losing large segments of viewers. Again you are not way into that territory in my opinion but you are at the border, and again if that's what you want then that's good too an artist should speak from his heart and you did a good job even while balls are involved of keeping an overall respectfull tone !

[Yosemite Sam]

I'm a little on the side lines about Chad's style. I give the man props because his tutorials gave me the means to get the ball rolling on my way as an animator. His writing style is a little strange to me. He has entirely too much of a reliance on shock value. I liked it, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't feel right. There should be something more...maybe animate the acts of fastfood sabotage instead of just them standing there and talking about them.

Meanwhile your visual style is definitely an improvement to his style. I enjoyed the smoothness of the lipsyncing of the characters and the way Clinton's hair bounces when he moves his head. And I chuckled when I saw Binek in the background. Good stuff.

sargumphigaus,

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. Good stuff. Chad appreciated it too. Unfortunately he can't respond at this time because I smashed his fingers with a hammer. Long story. But thanks again.

And bring back thwomped! Love the way you play that guy, never gets old.

[Yosemite Sam]

Up early and spun out on coffee, so this one's gonna be long sorry!

Re the humor, I liked most of the humor but didn't get a small part.

The great part... I used to work in fast food years ago, I like how the story humorously details all the horrible things workers (not ME of course, I would never even THINK of doing that!) have thought of doing to rude customers, and customers have worried that workers might do to them. Very funny how (perfectly timed) he finishes sip of his shake and a danglee is hanging from his mouth, small touches like that where you let the audience figure it out without explaining are fantastic, I'll remember that one with a smile. A couple of other great small touches: worker#1 first guess at celebrity is Ted Danson; the symbol for Fatty Fried Chicken an appropriately morphed (shirtless and colossal!) Colonel Sanders; the acme on steroids on (teenager) worker#2, and how (older)#1 hates Clinton while (more impressionable)#2 is all googoo-gaagaa,. You set the overall tone of the animation right at the beginning with the "what the hell do you expect" which is good cuz I (almost always) like to know right away what the overall tone of an animation is going to be. The humor has that "South Park"-esque feel to it (as does the animation style, so they go well together), it's no holds barred humor, put it all out on the table what people think but are afraid to say. I definitely cannot go to McDonald's today like I had planned!

Animation... Clinton's voice, face (big nose!) and mannerisms are excellent!. From 1:04 to 1:10 you take the time to animate some customers at a table in the very background, seems like a lot of work for small background detail but that really gives reality to the whole animation. Worker#1 rolling his eyes at all the fanfare, and muttering "I hate you" which the self involved Clinton doesn't even register he's so busy impressing his audience.

Nitpicks... The muttering :40 to :48 of #1 while #2 goes on and on about the celebrity visit did not quite work for me until the end "I hate him" maybe just have him repeat "I hate him" for the whole time? #2 Long hair looked like beard at first. Also... I didn't get Clinton wanting balls in his mouth part since the big sex scandal with him was with Monica Lewinsky so maybe change balls to chicken breasts or something? Otherwise the humor has a slightly hard edge to it which could almost seem politically driven (of course there's plenty of Clinton haters out there). I'm not sure if that's part of your message? Political humor is a whole other area of humor I personally stay away from and cannot comment on, since personally although I have very strong opinions I want to reach as many people as possible and once you take that road you are risk losing large segments of viewers. Again you are not way into that territory in my opinion but you are at the border, and again if that's what you want then that's good too an artist should speak from his heart and you did a good job even while balls are involved of keeping an overall respectfull tone !

drichird,

You're a man of few words. Thanks for taking the time to share all that. I've printed your message and attached it to a carrier pigeon. Chad should have it within the week. Thanks!

[sargumphigaus]

alas. I think that Thwomp is dead. Todd, the guy who plays his voice has disappeared. Nobody can find him. I wrote a majority of my characters in my new project with him in mind...but then he just fell off the grid. Without that voice, there can be no thwomp.

[Yosemite Sam]

alas. I think that Thwomp is dead. Todd, the guy who plays his voice has disappeared. Nobody can find him. I wrote a majority of my characters in my new project with him in mind...but then he just fell off the grid. Without that voice, there can be no thwomp.

Damn. He really did have that great voice/delivery. Wonder what happened to him.... hope he didn't thwomp the wrong person.

[sargumphigaus]

Damn. He really did have that great voice/delivery. Wonder what happened to him.... hope he didn't thwomp the wrong person.

I do have audio for a skit I never animated. It involves a miner back in the 1920's digging him out of a vein. The Thwomp uses his business savvy demeanor to talk the miner into digging him out of the wall. Kind of like an origin story. I decided not to do it because in the end, it was too weak. Fun fact, I wanted it to originally take place in south america and have the whole thing to be in Spanish. Even though none of us speak it. oh well. Maybe one day he will return.

[Yosemite Sam]

Damn. He really did have that great voice/delivery. Wonder what happened to him.... hope he didn't thwomp the wrong person.

I do have audio for a skit I never animated. It involves a miner back in the 1920's digging him out of a vein. The Thwomp uses his business savvy demeanor to talk the miner into digging him out of the wall. Kind of like an origin story. I decided not to do it because in the end, it was too weak. Fun fact, I wanted it to originally take place in south america and have the whole thing to be in Spanish. Even though none of us speak it. oh well. Maybe one day he will return.

Haha, that would have been great! Thwomp origin... too bad. Love the way you think though.