Dec 11, 2009 t-Rex Cafe

A little colab comic-ing while we waited for our feast.






Caitlyn H, Richard B, Alex L, Laura A, Sakari S, Josh H, Evan T, Lizzy

Snow

The first true snow of the season. Oh winter, how I will miss thee. :)

WFTM 28

Today was a brain-ful. I learned all kinds of tips and tricks. The main points that stick out in my mind are,

1. Create a LLC
2. Get an accountant
3. Create a Product
4. Charge no less than $60/hr
5. Diversify
6. Backup
I know there were more points but these seemed to me to be the most essential. It's kind of scary to be shoving off into the real world in less than 6 months. This class has definitely helped prepare me for the big shock. Here goes nothing, crossing my fingers, ready to take on the world. Everything is a story, every story has a message that asks for change. Whats in it for me? POWER!!!

WFTM 27

More critiques! It seems that the best way to make a commercial is to focus. If you can hone in on one aspect of your product and then sum it up in one sentence, then you've got yourself a nice little package to sell. A commercial is concise! If you have more than one aspect to sell for your product then make a series of commercials, do not try to cram it all into one 30 second spot. So much gets lost because the viewer is overwhelmed with ideas. Keep it simple, keep it quick, sell the benefit. Do all of that, and you'll be rich in no time. :)

A CHANGE!!

It has been ages since I've posted something here that wasn't a required blogpost for my writing for the media class. While this was an assignment for that class I guess I'm not really breaking the trend here but at least this one moves! :) Fried Chicken anyone?



Maybe you were expecting this

WFTM 26

More critiques! Today we looked at the title sequence assignments. There wasn't much feedback for mine so I'm going to go ahead and start in on the production. It seems that my main ideas were well understood. My second attempt at the commercial proved to be a success, with the exception of my lack of attention to the soundtrack, but all will be fixed for the next class.

WFTM 25

All we did today was critique the rough drafts of the commercial assignment. Overall, mine was well received. There was a point of emphasis on how my commercial started off pretty slow. I'll be turning in the first draft next week with my revisions.

P.S. Over the break I had a chance to watch some television and commercials. All of the tactics we talked about in class are extremely easy to pick out, once you know what to look for. The part of the commercials that really stuck out for me was the 'Action'. Almost every commercial ended with a 'buy it now line' like "while supplies last" or "Come see us today". They can't trick me anymore. :)

WFTM 24

Today I learned how to sell myself! :) No, I don't mean on the street corner. When applying for a job, it may be best to view yourself as a product that you are trying to sell to the employer. But you don't sell yourself, you sell what they need. Most likely in the animation field, the employer needs to get a project done so you sell them a finished project. Everything starts off with a little research, find out what they need to get done. Look at their past productions and find out if its a place you want to be. Never underestimate yourself. Always be nice to receptionists and secretaries and you are always only about five people away from anything you need.

WFTM Post 23

Today we worked on creating very concise stories on cocktail napkins. The subject was toys and I decided to write about a designer toy I recently acquired. The goal of the exercise was to show us that you don't need a whole bunch of fluff to tell an interesting story. If you can manage to tell a story in which the sentences are no longer than eight words long then you will have 100% reading comprehension from your audience. It takes a certain amount of focus to do this. You must find your point, summarize it in one sentence, make the point, and then test the focus.

WFTM 22

Today was a bit of a brain break, which was most appreciated, but we still learned a little something. The secret six of persuasion. If you want to pursuade someone then you'd better be using at least one of these tactics. The magic six are, reciprecation because people are more willing to do a favor for someone whose done a favor for them, authority, people like to listen to important people, comitment consistency, generally people who make a commitment are more likely to follow through than those who make no commitments, scarcity, people like feeling special about buying something, likeability, who likes to buy something from an ass-hole, and social proof, get someone to buy your product and most likely someone else will buy in because of it. Lots of handy tips and tricks. I may be employing some of these someday, but don't you pay mind, just buy my products. :)

WFTM 18

Learning the basic shot structure is crucial to any video artist. There are three main types of shots, all of which lay the base for any other kind of shot. The three are the Wide shot, which establishes the universe, the mid shot, which is a shot of exposition, and the closeup, which acts like a visual exclamation point. I've been using these sub consciously for the past few years but now that I can put a name with a face I feel that my work will greatly improve by just knowing these few simple facts. :)

WFTM 17

FEAR ME! We learned the key to advertising scare tactics. There are four major steps. First, introduce the threat and within this step you must make the threat serious, reiterate the severity, and paint vivid word pictures of said threat in action. Second you must demonstrate that the audience is at risk. "It will happen to YOU!" Third you must introduce the solution. Finally you must demonstrate that the solution is doable. Be prepared to be scared because I know how to push your buttons. :)

WFTM 21

Today we looked at McDonalds commercials. They also fall in line with the marketing schemes of cars and presidential candidates. What I found most interesting about these McDonalds commercials is how they followed their first demographic all the way up to now. There was a commercial that we had a particularly had time viewing, which may add to the reason why it is sticking out so much in my mind, called 'The New Kid'. This commercial was about the fathers of the 50's who had first started taking their kids to McDonalds and are now falling into the 60 to 70 year old age group. McDonalds is appealing to them and saying, "Hey, come work for us!" It's odd but seems effective. I've noticed in the past 10 years a steady rise of older people working at McDonalds as opposed to the usual 16 year old Awkward Austin.

WFTM Post 20

Commercials! This day in class we looked at a ton of presidential campaign and car commercials. Surprisingly, they were pretty similar in approach. It appears that no matter what your selling, whether it be a country leader or a transportation vehicle, the basic principles are the same. First you must know your audience, as in anything you create for mass consumption. Then you must sell the benefits of your product by using its features and attributes. The consumer market moves in a cycle by generation that undulates between conservative and liberal ideas. This is all determined simply by age. For example at the age of 20 we are rebellious and curious, therefore humans tend to be more open minded and liberal whereas 30 to 40 year old people mostly have families and steady jobs and develop a more conservative outlook on life.

WFTM post 19

Last class we explored the realm of language buy listening to Orson Wells 'War of the Worlds' radio cast. It was interesting to try and draw the images we were hearing about. It seems to me that since film and images have been so heavily embeded in our society we tend to have similar mental images when it comes to imagining a story. We have been conditioned to think in a film language.

W.F.T.M. Post 10

Language is one crazy crazy thing. Have you ever heard a commercial and immediately craved what they were selling? Or have you been reading a book and find yourself watering at the mouth when the author describes food? Chances are your reacting to dual coded language which is applying an adjective to a noun in order to evoke at least one of the five senses. Take for instance the word corn, it's a pretty boring word by itself but when you say 'crispy corn' or 'golden corn' 'creamy corn' all of these are examples of dual coded language. Pretty powerful stuff.

W.F.T.M. Post 9

Be creative! So we talked about creativity in the last class. I also came to a personal realization that most of my work exists in the initial stage of creativity which unfortunately happens to be the most derivative. Now I know how to shape those ideas and cultivate valuable and unique works. So after you get your initial idea, mess around with it, reverse it, play with it. Next you let it stew. Put it away for a bit and come back to it later with fresh eyes. Then when you have your Eureka moment bring the idea back and do it. This may be why I have so much faith in my senior thesis. I've spent the time to step away from it and spend more time on it rather than just pursuing the initial, derivative idea.

Patched Together

So I joined a new network called Patched Together. It's like Threadless but instead of t-shirt designs, you submit designer toy designs. I have a few characters up in the voting stage so GO GIVE THEM A GOOD SCORE!!!

http://www.patchtogether.com/designs/designs/view/id/1786


please :)

WEBSITE!!!!!!

Hey everyone. My website is up and running so I'll be posting all my work there. I will continue to use this blog for my Writing for the Media class and less proffesional posts but my website will be where my best stuff goes. Here it is

http://evantedlock.com/

W.F.T.M. Post 8

Dialog is really hard to write. These are the things I've been learning in my writing for the media class. It's really embarrassing and just plain difficult to write realistic dialog and then have to perform it for people. Though it's probably a good thing that we have to work on it because it seems like a difficult task to grasp. Everyone's gotta start somewhere. Sticking to the guidelines can only help here; use contractions, avoid stereotypes, and never use slang. All dialog should produce an introduction, contain an exchange of information, show a moment of realization, and follow with a conclusion. DIALOG!!!

Evan, Tedlock, Dialog, Writing, For, The, Media, KCAI, Joel, Jenkins

W.F.T.M. Post 7

Listen Listen Listen. Our parents always tell us we'd better listen to them when they're talking and our teachers in school would give us bad grades if we failed to pay attention in class. But what is so important that we would get chastised for failure to listen. Why not place this blame on the speaker for not dictating in an engaging manor. All the grownup bashing aside, listening can be a powerful tool. It takes practice and a well exercised brain to pick up on the root of what people are actually saying. Take for instance when a person says, "I look so fat in this dress". Depending on the situation, tone, and many other factors of communication, this person could actually mean that they do in fact look fat, or on a more involved level they could mean that they want you, the listener to disagree with them and give them a compliment. Even one step further they could be saying, "Pay attention to me". Listening is an underestimated part of conversation that can be much more important than even speaking itself. *The more you know*

W.F.T.M. Post 6

Talk talk talk talk talk. Talking is a major part of everyday life so it only makes sense that dialog would play a big role in modern storytelling. I myself do not yet trust my recording skills or my writing skills so I have yet to attempt to tackle the beast that is dialog. I feel more confident now that I have some guides to help me stay away from poor dialog.

W.F.T.M. Post 5

To build a story one must start with a message. It's interesting how I'd never thought about that before. In retrospect I can see that most of my stories message is ,"Laugh". What I find so intriguing about this is that even if a storyteller or film maker is unaware of this story building structure, they tend to follow it. First you start with your message then you build the universe, next you create your characters, then your conflict and on and on. It seems that these steps of story building are derived from the common practice of professional story tellers.

Frank Work

Here is some recent work on my senior thesis 'Frank' I feel like I have a solid story now that is realistic and exciting. Stay tuned.


A possible Title Card


Frank Turnaround.

W.F.T.M. Post 4

It seemed that the last class was focused on coming up with a good paring blank VS blank to establish a conflict. Within each paring, Boy vs Girl, parent vs child, there seems to be a preset conflict that a story teller could draw from and expect that a majority of the audience would be able to connect. Allow me to again apply these ideas to my own story. Franks conflict seems to be more internal but I feel that I can pit him against everyone in his town. He's a sad lonely man who has no friends or social skills. So to Frank, his enemy is confronting other people, even if those people's friendship is what he desires most. So maybe Franks greatest enemy is his self. 'Frank' is a story of Man vs Self as he try's to overcome his personal fears in order to achieve happiness. That seems to be a common thread in a lot of current stories.

Changes a comin!

Big news everyone. My Frank story as it existed is now kaput. I'm still doing a film about Frank drawing friends to life but this one is a little more manigable and is structured much more clearly. I'll throw down the new idea as soon as I get it nailed down myself. Peace...

Writing For The Media Post 3

Today was a very informational class in which I learned some kickass ways to develop characters. A character goes way deeper than merely their outward appearance. A character is instead defined as what is revealed when the character is placed under pressure. We also applied the Abraham Maslow Hierarchy to the character development process to test out situations in which a character is under pressure. Basically everything boils down to one of two choices. In the worst of times does a character selflessly give and sacrifice or does it take in order to preserve itself.
After learning about these tools I again want to put my thesis under the microscope. Frank has a fear of being alone forever, this is his inner turmoil, his motivation. Acting against his nature to be lazy Frank invests his time into making these companions so that he won't have to face his fear of solitude. Frank has not achieved enlightnement as far as the Maslow Hierarchy is concerned. I would place him in the middle. He has his existence and security taken care of but what Frank now seeks is love or acceptance by at least one person. So my story is about Frank in pursuit of friendship, but does my story follow the 3 act structure? A few posts down is my animatic as it stands right now. I really want to get this story solid before I start production. Let me know what you think.

Writing For the Media Post 2

So last class we talked about story recipes and it made me wonder, where does my senior thesis story fit in? In order for this to make sense to you the reader, here is a little synopsis. The story is about a lonely, middle aged, average man waking up and trudging through his morning. He's a Google employee so his office is about 3 steps away from his bed. He checks his mail and finds a package which contains a pen. He uses this pen to draw himself a companion and they skip merrily down the street until the newly found friend gets caught in a puddle of water and melts away. Defeated, Frank somberly walks back up to his room where he adds his newest failed writing utensil to a pile of pens at the foot of his bed.
Right away it is obvious to see that this is a Romance story with the ever present Success/Failure ingredient as well. Given the short form of the story, there does not seem to be any other ingredients present.

WFTM 1

Today I learned about how everything is a story, that all stories have a message and that those messages are asking me to change. Again I found myself falling victim to this vicious cycle of advertising, the only difference is that this time I was a little more aware that it was happening. I was sitting at my desk in studio looking over the various pictures on my wall and the items laying about. One thing that caught my eye was the designer toy that I brought to decorate my new home away from home. Instantly the toy spoke very loudly to me saying, "I need to go visit my friend Patrick at Poptopia in west port and further support his new business venture." Me being the consumer whore that I am, I went and I bought. Not only am I addicted to collecting these little toys but on another, deeper level I feel that my purchases directly support Patrick's business. Boy is he lucky he has me on his side.

Also today I was talking to my girlfriend and found that I could often catch myself saying things to make her happy or make her laugh. I then proceeded to think that if I just flat out told her my intentions, I would probably not receive the response that I wanted. This story conversation thing is going to be an interesting subject and I cannot wait to find out more.

Frank Animatic First Pass

It's been a while but here is what I came up with this summer. There is still lots to be done and in no way do I consider this to be my final animatic so any feedback would be super helpful.

Frank Animatic First Pass from Evan Tedlock on Vimeo.

BTW Check this out

crazzzzzyyyyy

ha

Sneak Peak

Portfolio / Reel update

Portfolio_Reel from Evan Tedlock on Vimeo.

CET Sketches 01

Every once in a while My girlfriend Clarice Elliott and I like to sketch together... actually we do it quite a bit. Here are some of our little dumpster dive sketches.

Stefan Gruber Backyard Bananza!!

Stefan Gruber, an amazing experimental animator from Seattle, is in the middle of his summer backyard tour. Check out his website here. He rolled through KC last Wednesday night and the KC crew all showed up to support. Everyone had a great time and there was a great turn out. We ate sweet treats and observed mind boggling animated films. Here is the program that we screened...

^--The front of the program

and the back

In the end Stefan wound up crashing on an extra bed in my apartment but not until Clarice Elliott, Stefan and myself had a good chat / sketch session. Here is what ensued and I would like to point out that these were done betwixt the hours of 1 and 3am and we were striving for nonlinear stories so enjoy!

Finding Frank 5

Started sketching Frank again. The more I draw him like this the more I just want to animate him like this, instead of really fleshing him out as a dimensional character. We shall see what happens...



Here is another sketch I did a couple of weeks ago

Pop Pelham Sketch

Here goes 3 posts rolled into one.

Firstly, everyone in the Kansas City area should know about this place . It's a designer toy store that opened up 3 months ago in Westport It has a sweet selection and I my self have gotten into the Vivisect Playset. The Owner is a really nice guy so if your a long time collector or have been wanting to check these so called "designer toys" out for yourself, you no longer have to resort to trolling the internet or picking from the slim selection at your local Urban Outfitter's. This store is Evan approved.




Next I would like to tell you all about a little movie called 'The Taking of Pelham 123' and I just about threw up in my mouth. This movie is just an excuse for John Travolta to spout off f*bombs while Dinsel Washington gets in touch with his sensative side. This movie was a waste of 9 dollars which could have been better spent supporting my main man at Poptopia. Please for your own sake do not go and see this movie.

And finally here are some sketches I made the Stuart Bury way... first he lays down some Copic forms and then draws what he sees in them, my drawings are no where near as badass as his but you know what, I had fun.

Quick Collab

Everyone was instructed to keep adding to the character. It all started with the horn.

Finding Frank 3

Finally I decided to sit down and find Frank from the front, here is the rough sketch, I plan on cleaning this up and maybe taking another pass at coloring him. Any tips or suggestions about his overall shape and structure are extremely encouraged. RIP FRANK TO SHREDS, but please be constructive...

First digital sketces in a long while

I have never really been into using my tablet, I figure I should probably get better at it so here i go. just a few sketches.

Finding Frank2

Another Frank sketch. You'll have to click on this one to see it best.

Finding Frank

So based on my last post, today I finally sat down and just decided to draw. Low and behold Frank appeared so i decided to run with it. I think the 'making of' for my film should be called 'Finding Frank', catchy? Here is what jumped out of my pencil and on to the paper.

June 3, 2009 Dumpster Sketch

another sketch of my character for my senior thesis,

Damn, It looks like I need to draw this guy ALOT more often.

Quxotic 2

here is another song that I got to do the visuals for, its still up for review so this is only very near completion

Reflection Part1 for Review from Evan Tedlock on Vimeo.

Pixars 'Up' gets 1,000,000 thumbs up!

I saw Pixars' new film 'Up' last night and it was truly amazing. The first ten minutes were the saddest most heart breaking sequences that I have ever witnessed in film... ever. But don't think that this film is a debby downer because the rest of the movie will make you roll on the floor uncontrollably, laughing as if your being pined down and tickled until you can't breathe. The visuals are stunning as Pixar continues to shove the door of computer graphics open past its frame until it has become a gapeing hole. The atmosphere and vast visual landscapes make you wonder if they shot these scenes in New Zeland. It's an amazing film and there are tons of proffesional movie critics that can put it much better than I. GO SEE THIS FILM!

Thesis Sketches

Here are some sketches of my character, currently named Frank, that I will be animating for my senior thesis, I'm just trying to get used to him. Plan on seeing a ton of these as the weeks grow.
Also, I have just started up a Vimeo account. Right now I'm only using it for my internship with Bazillion but soon I will have enough time to upload some personal work.

Actuate

I know you all are jumping out of your pants to see what I've been working on at Actuate, so here you go, This is a bg I made today for a website background, I call it, "Web Site BG"

Quixotic production stills

Here are some still for the project I'm working on at my internship. Made with Trapcode Form

Internship1

Hey guys, no sketches today but here is some stuff I've been working on for Bazillion

Aperition_Test02 from Evan Tedlock on Vimeo.

May 19, 2009 Dumpster Sketch

P.S. My girlfriend makes the best Enchiladas and dirt dessert this side of Mexico!

May 18, 2009 Dumpster Sketch

Awaiting orders at my new internship with Bazillion Pictures

May16 2009 Dumpster Sketch

An impossible conversation between Me Sakari Singh, Caitlyn Hariss, Martin Lopez, and Laura Ambrosiano

Dumpster Sketch May 15, 2009

Drink and Sketch KCAI Animation Collaboration

Dumpster Sketch May 14, 2009

I've been finding it rather hard to keep this up on a daily baseis... Foreward we go

May 12 2009 Dumpster Sketch

A Sculpy mock-up of my character for my senior thesis.

Dumpster Sketch May 11, 2009

May 10, 2009 Dumpster Sketch

Happy Mothers Day

May 9, 2009 Dumpster Sketch

Sharpie, Copic Markers and Acrylic paint on scrap wood

May 8, 2009 Dumpster Sketch

Here are some chalk drawings from the end of the year KCAI open campus.

Some of my work

A collaborative effort with Clarice

It's a hedgehog

By Clarice


mowww

Chalk Chalk Chalk