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Dan Meth's Blog

Animators in Ottawa

September 22nd, 2008

I’m back from the Ottawa Animation Festival, and I already feel like booking my flight for next year. It was so fun! I have the same elated feeling that I had returning from last year’s Platform Festival. There’s just something about being immersed in an environment of fellow animators and sharing hundreds of hours of the world’s greatest cartoons that makes you feel really positive and inspired.

Some general observations about animators.

  •  Animators are really nice and down to earth. They can only get so famous. Unlike Hollywood directors or rock stars, they rarely are arrogant jerks who won’t associate with up-and-comers. Even the most legendary icons of animation like Richard Williams were kicking back and echanging business cards with students. I talked to some heroes of mine and within moments I realized that they are just regular dudes. The egos don’t get too big in animation, I guess.
  • Animators love to dance. And they [Read more…]

Mammal Magazine Party

September 16th, 2008

As some of you may know, I’m a co-founder of Mammal Magazine. We just published Issue 2 and we’re having a free open party to celebrate . Please attend and have a blast. There’s gonna be ROCK BAND. -Dan

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The second issue of Mammal Magazine! 96 burly pages of macho flexing with artwork by Devin Clark, Jim Cooke, Matt Dorfman, Eric Eley, Tom Forget, Chris Hosmer, Les Kanturek, Benjamin Marra, and Dan Meth.

Wednesday, Oct. 1st
Angels & Kings 
(500 E. 11th st. btwn A & B)
7 - 10pm.
 

We look forward to seeing you all there!

www.mammalmag.com
www.angelsandkings.com

Nite Fite Episode 11: Marriage

September 12th, 2008

The sacred institution of marriage is under fire tonight when Penalty’s wife calls in and and dishes the dirt on Lloyd. Could this be the fight to end all fights?

Dan Meth Speaking on Panel at Ottawa Animation Festival

September 11th, 2008

Dan Meth Speaking on Panel at Ottawa Animation Festival. I’ll be on a panel discussion entitled “Launching Into Online Space: Ins And Outs Of Web Series” at the annual Ottawa Animation Festival next week. If you’ll be there, reserve your seat today. It will be on Thursday, September 18th at 11am in the Château Laurier.  I’ll be there at the festival all week if anyone out there feels like going out for some Molson, poutine, or listening to Rush.

I’ll be on a panel discussion entitled “Launching Into Online Space: Ins And Outs Of Web Series” at the annual Ottawa Animation Festival next week. If you’ll be there, reserve your seat today. It will be on Thursday, September 18th at 11am in the Château Laurier. 

I’ll be there at the festival all week if anyone out there feels like going out for some Molson, poutine, or listening to Rush.

College Radio Interview.

July 14th, 2008

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Last week I was interviewed on the air by Ian and Abel of the Hofstra University morning radio show. They had some great questions about The Meth Minute and it was fun to chat with them. In case you didn’t happen to be listening to 88.7 Fm in Long Island that morning, I’ve got the mp3 of it for you here.  Click here to download mp3 of the interview  PS: It’s ironic that I was interviewed on college radio, because we just finished an upcoming episode of “Nite Fite” that is a flashback to Penalty & LLoyd’s college-era radio show in the 70’s (see above). An uncanny coincidence.

ASIFA “Meth Minute” Screening

July 1st, 2008

picture-8.png Last Thursday, Dave Levy of ASIFA East arranged for us to show a selection of Meth Minute cartoons on the big screen at NYU front of an audience. It was great to see the cartoons projected huge (how many pixels wide? MILLIONS) in front of a large group of people. It’s sort of like seeing these films for the first time, and also the way cartoon were originally meant to be viewed.Afterwards, Dave moderated a Q & A session. It was nice to answer some burning questions about The Meth Minute that people had. (13 Watermelons. That’s how many it took!) Fred and Carrie joined me on the panel. We’ll most likely do this again in some form or another, so don’t be sad if you missed it.Dan

Van Guarding

June 20th, 2008

Vanguard & Producer

I’m honored to receive the Frederator Vanguard award this year. At first, I wasn’t 100% positive what “vanguard” actually meant, but when I looked it up I was flattered that Frederator saw me in such a light. The truth is that without Frederator giving me the chance to run with my cartoons, almost none of you out there would have seen my work at all. Frederator, by which I really mean Fred Seibert, saw something in my work that he liked and by gut instinct, predicted that others would like as well. He took some serious risks, put his name on the line, and then we both did what we did best: He packaged, promoted, programmed and advised. And I animated night and day for over a year trying to make the kind of cartoons I’ve always wanted to but never had the support or clients that allowed me such freedom. [Read more…]

We Were The Meth Minute

June 19th, 2008

Back when you were all watching episode the 9th or 10th episode of the Meth Minute, I was already planning episode 39. I knew it had to be epic, touching, and also something that included every character. The 80’s all-star charity video “We Are The World” seemed like a great format for such an episode. Since we started this with a song, I figured we ought to go out with one too.picture-8.png

My friend Scott Zillitto (the voice of James Brown in Sex Machine) seemed like the right man to help compose such a song. He’s a talented musician and a fellow connoisseur of 80’s cheese tunes. He came over one night and we sat at my kitchen table with a Casio and wrote “We Were The Meth Minute”.

Mind you, this is months before the the series was ending, so I had plenty of time to record each cast member [Read more…]

Cruddy Quicktimes! Anyone Know of a Solution?

June 18th, 2008

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Yikes. Is anyone else having this same problem out there? You’re exporting a Quicktime .MOV from Flash CS3 on a Mac. You play it back and BKRSHHKRK! A character on screen moves and leaves behind a trail of pixelly crud (see the above picture). I’ve been wrestling with this for months now, searching for an answer on bulletin boards and such. I believe the term is “artifacting”. Pixels from previous frames staying on screen when they shouldn’t.

The only solution I’ve so far found is to laboriously save down to Flash 8 and export it from there. It always works with no problem. But if anyone out there has found a way to successfully export perfect Quicktimes from Flash CS3, PLEASE leave a comment with your sage-like wisdom.

Thanks!
Dan

Meth Minute is … Complete!?

June 17th, 2008

Meth Minute Look BackWow, less than an hour ago I finished the last episode of the Meth Minute 39. It airs Thursday and it’s touchingly climactic as any series finale should be. As you can imagine, working on two series at the same time can be a bit hectic, and my blogging has suffered lately, but now I’m back. There’s alot to write about and I’ll get to it all, even the stuff I missed before. Onward into the future.