We reported last week (www.animationmagazine.net/article/8752) that Yair Landau, former vice chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment and president of Sony Pictures Digital, has been tapped by Intel Corp. to produce and direct a collaborative animation project dubbed Mass Animation. We recently spoke with Landau to learn a bit more about this ground-breaking initiative, which will essentially produce the first movie made on Facebook. The animated short film will be created by animators around the world, potentially for theatrical release.
‘We’re looking at the short as a beta prototype and, if it works out and we create something good, a lot of good things can come of it,’ Landau tells us. ‘The primary idea is to tell a good story and introduce compelling characters to the world. If we successfully do that, then we can take them other places and maybe build something feature-length and beyond.’
Landau says more information on the short film, including the story and animation style, will be released soon. He did, however, shed a bit of light on the production process and what it means for the aspiring animators of the world.
‘Distributed computing power, powerful high-end software, social networking utilities and broadband connectivity can allow you to, on your own, be part of a project and process that you used to have to work at Disney, DreamWorks, Pixar or Sony to do,’ Landau remarks. ‘We think that there will be thousands of people engaged, and ultimately we’ll see what the caliber of their work is and, collectively, the filmmakers and participants will determine what we end up with.’
Autodesk is providing downloads of its Maya Unlimited animation software and models for participants to use in laying out and animating sections of the script. Reel FX Ent. animation studio will then use proprietary tools to convert the selected videos to final animation frames for posting and sharing on Facebook.
The project is also tapping Aniboom’s experience in supporting a community of animators from around the world, as well as its content management infrastructure to help manage the community element of the project.
‘We brought them in because I saw no point in reinventing the wheel in terms of how to successfully manage a group of animators online,’ says Landau. ‘They did a project with [rock group] Radiohead, where people submitted animation for a music track that became a Radiohead music video. I started talking to them and they got jazzed about the project.’
Aniboom is building the underlying technlogy to be hosted on Facebook and www.massanimation.com, where more information on the will be posted soon. We’ll also have more info for you as we get it.
