So I posted about this animation yesterday. I thought it was pretty cool to see someone create an entire movie all by themselves.
So if you want to create your own animation/anime/manga you can. Here are some of the questions I asked and some of the answers I got from the creator.
1. How did you make this so quickly by yourself? 18 months felt like a really long time for me to make this.
2. Was it self financed or is someone sponsoring you? It was self financed but it was only to pay my personal bills while I was making it. So about $15k total.
3. What do you think about perfectionism while creating? Are you a perfectionist? Or do you think that would hurt productivity? Do you just move on? I mean a see a lot of great shorts which usually take folks about the same amount of time you took to make an entire movie. Perfectionism definitely hurts productivity, sometimes I would get lost in the details while texturing the characters in Mari, or when creating the blendshapes in Maya.
4. Where can I see Kaptara and Chance? Chance had me in my seat. No one has ever created this theme before in animation. Very unique. Kaptara is up on Google Play store, ITunes, XBox, etc, don’t think its hard to find.
5. What is your day job if you don’t mind me asking or is making movies it? Right now I am the Animation Director at Arconyx.
6. Do you have any making of? this is the only known compilation of my behind the scenes work on Battle Oasis.
https://vimeo.com/101570429
7. What did you start with? Do you have several shorts before attempting making a movie? I started this process about 12 years ago, learning each aspect of 3d just enough to be able to create what looked like a shot in a movie, then you just have to duplicate that work 1000 times, (1000 shots in a film about).
8. What advice would you give CG artists about making their own movie? My advice for making your own movies, is only learn the basic fundamentals of each stage, just enough to get the job done. Don’t over complicate things like, rigging, or rendering, just go with basics then try to make the lighting look unique.
9. I’ve commented alot about the cost of making animated films. I don’t think it should cost as much as it does 250 Million for Tangled. Folks told me to basically shut up and I don’t know what I”m talking about but for someone who has made 3 films themselves what do you think about the inflated budgets and what could you do with 40 Million dollars for a movie? You think you could reach Tangled quality? What if you had a 2 million dollar budget like they do on Asylum films? It’s definitely possible to make animated films a $100k budget, its just if you have a small team, no one wants to work for free, especially in this industry.
I really enjoyed watching this film. I like that this artist Mike Johnson was able to create an entire movie all on his own. Personally I’ve seen a lot of haters in the CG World basically telling folks making a movie can’t be done, you need 100 Million dollars and utterly hating the quality of a film when it doesn’t look like Pixar.
That is really sad to think. The fact is it can be done. Someone proved it can be done. It didn’t take even 1 million dollars to make and it does not need to be Pixar quality. We would all like Pixar quality but at this time it is not possible for a one man team but most audiences really don’t care. I’m sure most people would love to drive a Bentley, Porshe or Lambo but that doesn’t mean we don’t buy a car because we can’t have those. We buy the Toyotas, Hondas, Kias and Fords. They have nice cars even though they are not as fast or fancy.
Your audience is the same. You can still make a good looking CG film. Yes it may be lower quality but it does not mean that audiences will not like it.
There are 100s of stick animations out there that have Millions of views and people like them just as much as they would a Pixar movie.
So never let anyone tell you that you cannot make a movie especially if it will not look like Pixar.
Eventually technology will catch up and a one man person will be able to make a Toy Story movie but it will be the people who start now that will be there when it happens.
Yes you can make your own ANIME! I hope this site inspires and helps you.