Spook Squad—a TV Pitch animated in Moho Pro

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PeterR51
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Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2016 11:24 am

Spook Squad—a TV Pitch animated in Moho Pro

Post by PeterR51 »

As a recent convert to Moho Pro, or Anime Studio Pro as it was when I first picked it up, I thought I would share my story of how I got involved with this fabulous software.

A couple of years ago, my writing buddy Roger Hurn and myself thought that we would try and get an idea we had worked on out beyond the very niche audience we had established for a series of books we had devised for reluctant readers.

Roger and I had always though that the Spook Squad books centred around a group of four girls who are constantly battling evil forces from a parallel universe would make a great animated series.

I devised a storyboard and we made a short animatic, which we presented to a leading UK animation studio. They really liked i, but said that to produce a polished animation would require about £20K. We just didn't have that kind of money and so, instead with the very few shekels and groats at our disposal, we booked a stand at a major brand licensing show and, with great timing, an irresistible offer from Smith Micro arrived on my email in-tray.

With three months to go to the big show and other projects on my desk, I set to with the aid of some amazing YouTube tutorials from folk such as Troy Picou, ShoNuff93 and (of course) McCoy Buck, to name but a few.

Came the big day, and I had the animation completed, we went with just banners for our stand and the animation running on a couple of laptops and we were inundated with enquiries and the amount of enthusiasm that was generated was just incredible and very validating—we even had the head of the studio that had said it would cost about £20K to animate asking who had done the animation—saying that the budget for what we ended up with would have been closer to £40K.

We are now actively promoting the idea and we have some seasoned supporters on our case, as well as being featured in a recent issue of Variety magazine (we were on of 5 IPs selected by the Cannes MipJnr jury this year)—we still haven't landed the all important anchor broadcaster yet, but we have had a couple of close calls.

Here's a link to our 48 second 'elevator pitch' teaser, complete with song by Michael Plowman who very generously has got on board with us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVVbzDqLWS4

and here is a longer teaser with a snippet of an episode titled, 'The Vampire Bites Back'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhlt1RazVhM

and here is a link to our seriously scary Spook Squad website:

https://www.spook-squad-productions.com/
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jahnocli
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Re: Spook Squad—a TV Pitch animated in Moho Pro

Post by jahnocli »

Congratulations! You've done a great job -- looks very professional.
You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
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mdmodeler
Posts: 74
Joined: Tue Mar 07, 2006 5:36 am
Location: Maryland, USA

Re: Spook Squad—a TV Pitch animated in Moho Pro

Post by mdmodeler »

Congratulations and thank you for posting your experience! This is very inspirational and exciting!
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neeters_guy
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Re: Spook Squad—a TV Pitch animated in Moho Pro

Post by neeters_guy »

It's an appealing concept and the pitch is very professional. Thanks for sharing your experiences.

chucky
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Re: Spook Squad—a TV Pitch animated in Moho Pro

Post by chucky »

Great to see animated girls who are not solely interested in fashion and competitiveness. Bravo.
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Greenlaw
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Re: Spook Squad—a TV Pitch animated in Moho Pro

Post by Greenlaw »

That was a lot of fun! Nice designs...reminds me of the horror comics I read as a kid. :twisted:

Congratulations and thank for sharing your work.
PeterR51
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2016 11:24 am

Re: Spook Squad—a TV Pitch animated in Moho Pro

Post by PeterR51 »

Many thanks for all your very generous and encouraging comments—it really means a lot to receive such validation from you guys.

I have had a great time checking out your own animations and show reels—some truly inspirational work!

Best Wishes,

Peter

http://spook-squad-productions.com
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djwaterman
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Location: Sydney

Re: Spook Squad—a TV Pitch animated in Moho Pro

Post by djwaterman »

I think you have the look and tone down, the only thing that these promos lack is good sound design, voices and so on, I guess that's what a budget is for. I hope you have success with this and get to create a little production unit for it.
PeterR51
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2016 11:24 am

Re: Spook Squad—a TV Pitch animated in Moho Pro

Post by PeterR51 »

One of the things I love about these discussion forums is the very insightful replies—many thanks for your comments DJ—the sound design is lacking, but we are very grateful for the contribution Michael Plowman has made with his compositions and theme song—he has done a tone of work for animate series as well as films and produced the soundtrack for one of my favourite ever films—'A Lonely Place to Die'. If, like me, you suffer from chronic vertigo—this film is a must-see!

I have been checking out your work—lovely stylings on the 2D animation and your 3D work is also very impressive.

Many thanks for your warm words!

Best Wishes,

Peter
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lwaxana
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Re: Spook Squad—a TV Pitch animated in Moho Pro

Post by lwaxana »

Wow, very nicely done! The black and white with pops of color help this project stand out, but I strongly suspect children would prefer the art to be in color. You could test this by creating color concept art (with a well-designed color palette) and polling kids on their preference. Looking forward to seeing more!
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Pinesal
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Re: Spook Squad—a TV Pitch animated in Moho Pro

Post by Pinesal »

It's great.

Criticisms:

Animation is too slow paced. Kids will lose interest fast.

The animation looks like it has a very low framerate which makes it look cheap to me.
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