New Film Progresses Slowly

Have finally (after 8 months of agonising) started the construction of characters for my new film 'The King and The Princess'. Here are 4 heads started - they'll have interchangeable mouths and foreheads. The heads will be proportionally large, making the characters feel much less 'realistic' and much more like puppets. The film will use the 'cutbacks' production pipeline, but I'll endeavour to (in the words of Steve Woods) 'make it look a little bit more finished'. I'm still thinking of using Paradjanov style collage layouts... Hopefully start shooting on Paddy's weekend...

first heads for 'King and Princess' film

Murakami Funeral

Yesterday afternoon, in St. Patrick's in Monkstown, we gathered to say goodbye to Jimmy T. Murakami. Some really touching words, reflecting the man's great generosity and his human impact on us all. Farewell Jimmy!

Ming posts us on Facebook!

Jazis - thanks to Ming Flanagan for the posting on Facebook! Go Ming!

https://www.facebook.com/Lukemingflanagan/posts/10201334659677096?comment_id=5512721&notif_t=comment_mention

Cutbacks - Justin Bieber!

Dominic and Iggy make a 2014 start with 'Justin Bieber Bad Boy!'. The cutbacks2010 site on Youtube is at 809 subscribers and 182,376 indicated views (although it's 397,000 over the channel's lifetime. I've just started work on my next animated short - not quite a 'cutbacks' project, but using parts of the 'cutbacks' production pipeline...

500th Cutbacks Episode!

Jazis! I've just noticed that yesterday's video 'More Folk Furniture' is marked as the 500th episode of cutbacks! 500 episodes since September 2009... I feel it!

Irish Folk Furniture - The Sequel

With apologies to Tony Donoghue, (and continued congratulations on his Sundance win), I present as a cutbacks homage, 'Irish Folk Furniture - The Sequel'! Wardrobes and dressers discussing woodworm, dryrot, loose knobs and big screws...

Lovingly made over five hours on a Sunday, using cardboard and masking tape...

Jazis, the threeamazingmen point out that 'it seems a little Sminky inspired'... True enough, the wardrobe does sound a bit Sminky...

 

http://cutbacks2010.blogspot.ie/2013/01/irish-folk-furniture-wins-at-sundance.html

 

http://cutbacks2010.blogspot.ie/2013/01/irish-folk-furniture.html

That's Life!

It’s been another traumatic week of video view culling on our various internet video platforms… I'm not going to whinge... Dailymotion culled 32,000 views off the original ‘cutbacks’ channel.  Youtube culled 27,000 views off my old ‘castopani’ channel, and 2,400 views off ‘rinkytv’. A few weeks ago, I was shocked by such 'adjustments'. Now, I realise that important lessons must be learned from these random and apparently unexplained culls. The yahoo News article below quotes ‘Youtube Video marketing expert’ David Jenyns...

“As part of their terms of service, YouTube is likely to continue de-spamming data to keep their statistics as accurate as possible. But, those of us who publish videos with the audience’s best interest at heart, and don't employ external businesses to falsely bolster watch counts, aren’t likely to be affected at all.”

This is a rather sycophantic misrepresentation, lumping honest Youtubers in with spammers, hackers and ‘fake’ views. The reality is that lifetime channel views are now being differentiated from what’s being described as ‘active’ video views. In the past, some of us (naively) deleted successful videos in order to keep our internet video channels ‘fresh’. Now we’re losing credit for those fairly earned historical views. A simple option would be for Youtubers to be able to select ‘video views’ or ‘lifetime views’ on their channel frontpage (I'm not holding my breath in anticipation).

The main lesson is that internet video as a medium changes every hour.  The next lesson is that IP producers do not and will never control internet video! It’s a no-brainer, but there’s a huge flaw in our ‘internet video is the future of broadcasting’ optimism.  The flaw is that platforms like Youtube and Dailymotion are (of course) running the show, treating IP producers like so many parasites who are just along for the ride! The internet video platforms are controlling revenue, information, stats, procedures and access to audiences in the same ways that tv broadcast companies did in the past, except now the system is working at light speed! Our future resembles our past, except much faster! SEO is the way forward! That’s life!

 Interesting times!

In the meantime, here's 'Enda Kenny Worse Than Herod', although killbotone suggests that Enda's now becoming 'worse than Cowen'! How times change! Or, same old, same old?

http://news.yahoo.com/youtube-keep-deleting-billions-channel-views-melbourne-video-070028750.html