Vintage PAPER Pencil Test Analog VHS Animation 90s n Y2K

This Animated shorts found HERE are ENTIRELY my body of work from the Art Institute of Philadelphia from 1999-2001/Y2K. Most notably THESE all contain "Sound Reading" (I never did sound reading at the U-ARTS in Philly) which is a BASIC yet ESSENTIAL SKILL that ALL traditional animators MUST KNOW (back in the day). There were various methods of this. If you are NOT doing digital frame by frame animation by analog, YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS for lip syncs.

I used software called "Magpie" in which I would slap in my audio file, then choose the frame rate (24 FPS was typical), then I would play each "frame" where the audio portion was and typed in which phonetic sound the vocals were speaking. I would THEN Copy & Paste these into a Spreadsheet Word processing software like Microsoft Word or whatever I had and made a Spreadsheet which I would then print out a sound reading/timing chart.

I typically would do the standard Cinematic Disney/Dreamworks Style (AKA 90s Renaissance Animation Period) which typically involved a MIXTURE of shooting on 1s & 2s at the Cinematic/Film Frame Rate of 24FPS (analog). This meant that some frames would be exposed twice, and others only once to fix the audio/lip sync.

The Sound Timing Sheet/Charts were ESSENTIAL because I wrote all my notes on there either BEFORE I shot, and DURING my Keyframing & In-Betweening. I needed to take notes FOR SHOOTING the animation frames on the Pencil Test Machine, and AGAIN for the digital Photoshop scanning Clean-up work to composite in After Effects & Premiere.

The process is laborious, tedious, and time consuming...
Oh! And I literally spent THOUSANDS of dollars and went into debt for my entire young adult life FOR THESE FILMS YOU SEE HERE.

I just could never get Shockwave/Macromedia Flash to ever work, which was eventually bought by Adobe and became "Adobe Animate". I do however MUCH PREFER to use the Canadian software ToonBoom. Even their old software versions WERE GOOD! In ToonBoom u could just slap in the audio and directly animate to it by ear. You can also achieve this in DragonFrame if u want to shoot Penciltests direct to digital on an DSLR lens, or Camcorder camera w direct line in.

Old versions of Adobe Premiere actually allowed for this Direct to Digital camera shooting for Penciltests & Stopmotion. I worked on several projects for a Claymation/Stop Motion heavy animation studio for HBO Family, Nick Jr., PBS Kids, and NOGIN (along with whatever else they piled in front of me), and that was my UNPAID JOB in 2001 using the Y2K iMacs that were colored like lollypops.

I mainly was focusing on eventually becoming a KEYFRAME ANIMATOR like Disney or Dreamworks. My 2 DREAM JOBS at the time were Dreamworks and Warner Bros. I wanted to work on ANYTHING that was Batman! But, so much stuff was outsourced, closed, or taken over by 3D. 9/11/2001 hit and I was screwed hard core. The industry was INCREDIBLY SEXIST. People would often lead you on, expect sexual favors, or hire men over women. I also would often get promised opportunities, jobs, and positions, and even built relationships with directors and producers, only to be left hanging or ghosted.

Another thing that was a BIG PROBLEM was major studios wanting FREE LABOR when they were bank-rolled, and well paid themselves. I could SERIOUSLY throw some BIG NAMES under the bus on that. they would pester you constantly to do work and "love bomb" you by showing you with compliments, messages, emails, and even call my cellphone. The WORST MULTIPLE TIME offenders were DISNEY and studios with lets say "religious" backgrounds (as well as Google, and News media channels). They were relentless and manic.