Cletus Clay is a unique computer game that uses stop motion animation techniques. The clay characters in the game are all handcrafted by Sarah Webb  of  TunaSnax – home of Tuna, developers of Cletus Clay.

Below is a transcribed interview with Sarah and Alex Amsel talking about Cletus and the stop motion design behind the game.

Sarah Webb: Cletus Clay is cool and interesting because we made it.

Alex Amsel: Yeah, pretty much.

Sarah Webb: and We’re cool.

Alex Amsel: Yep.

Alex Amsel: Yeah Cletus Clay  is homage back to the 1980’s, 1990s arcade games. And this time we’re doing it as we are doing it with clay.  And the  ??  Is that those games were really really entertaining. They had a set of humor about. They didn’t take themselves too seriously. And I think that is one of the nice things about Cletus. When you hear Cletus talk you know he doesn’t takes himself seriously. He’s the funniest game character that has been for many years. Hi, I am Alex Amsel. I’m the managing director of Tuna.

Stop Motion-Puppet-CletusClay - Copyright - TunaSnax - home of Tuna, developers of Cletus Clay.

Sarah Webb: I am Sarah Webb. I am the stop motion artist here at Tuna.

Why stop motion game?

Alex Amsel: We wanted to do something that looks a little bit different, more original. And so we started working with guy called Anthony Flak. He is a stop motion animator.

Average day of Cletus Clay team?

Alex Amsel: Anthony is based in New Zealand and that means he has an eleven hour time difference. So my morning starts talking to Anthony. And as he so starts motor making with Sarah. What we are doing is actually, doing  the interesting which is how the game plays. So my typical job is to generally coming and speaking to Anthony, get Cletus running around and beating up aliens and finding new ways to make the aliens die.

Sarah Webb: Anthony does a load of level designs, which is what we base our model designs upon. So there are these really long sketches that he does using Photoshop.  So we go through those and work out what models need to be made for each level. And for me, I tend to go to make another sketch, particularly if it’s a big model , just so that I can firmly establish in my head what kind of model I’m trying to make. And then I can send them back to Anthony, and he can say that’s really good or no no no, that’s totally not I wanted to for that level.

Sarah Webb: This is chicken house mark II which is a model  I built for level 1 of Cletus Clay. It took about 12 hours to make.

Sarah Webb: It’s all squishy!

Alex Amsel: I kill stuff. that’s my day, mainly aliens.

Why your game is unique?

Sarah Webb: I guess it is its tactile nature. It’s like when you watch a film like Coraline or Fantastic mister fox,  because what you’re looking at are a set of still images. It has its own little em, idiosyncrasies. And so people can pick up on that ,as you can’t really mimic that with any medium which is why clay is quite special.

Alex Amsel: And the interesting thing for me is I’m a pro ??. I have to work with all the art work produced by the artists. As he gets, you never quite know what you’re going to get. And because you never catch your way and look at it at anytime and they can take a slight different photo of it. You put it in the actual game and you can see the thumb prints, when you are actually playing the game and that’s really different from doing CGI. CGI is really really dull in comparison and lifeless.

What was the first feedback so far?

Alex Amsel: There are people who didn’t like it. We don’t have to lie.

Sarah Webb: No, we don’t have to lie. There was a very little negative feedback from we trying to both the scenario came out. And there was one Japanese who called, who played the same level for about 10 times, over and over again because he said he can’t stop playing it which was really awesome.

Alex Amsel: He kept playing over and over again.

Sarah Webb: Yeah

Bad moments?

Sarah Webb: Mark hid one of my clay models and said that it had been squashed and there was a moment of gullibility where  I did think he was serious and there was this model that took me 12 hours to make had been squashed and the evidence has been swept away and it can’t be produced and it was cake and that was pretty bad.

Alex Amsel: Anthony had  a very bad day all playing to making all the clay models. This was supposed to be the first previous game of Cletus. And we got back home and his house was burning down with all his discs and all his models, everything he’d been doing back for back two years. And, luckily he’d been showing the game to a friend, and his friend had the discs. So he didn’t lose all his works completely, just his house and his belongings.

Favourite character?

Sarah Webb: I am gonna be with one of the bunnies. The bunnies were cute. There were really cute clay bunnies so it might be a bunny. And you could be the really cute gun terror.

Alex Amsel: I can’t be the gun terror because it’s destructive.

Happy memories?

Sarah Webb: The most exciting moment for me the first time I saw was something I had created actually in the game.  It was just a little test level. Cletus running back and forth and I was “that’s my tree!”

Alex Amsel: And there’s been a lot of things on Cletus. But a friend of mine Betamin Weirs, the first game I ever made that was so commercially was going to the shop and seeing it, in the shop in like a top 10. And of course it wasn’t a no. 1 but  what I did do is picked up all the copies and moved into no. 1. And I did that in every shop I went in to and so all around Sheffield as well.

Deadlines?

Alex Amsel: There’s been a lot of learning on the way because there is no model to follow, no one has ever done this before in the way we are doing it. So, some deadlines we’ve met but other deadlines we missed badly I have to admit. But it’s inherent when you’re trying to do, when you’re doing research and development. We’re doing new things therefore, some objects just go wrong and we have to do it differently.

Your experience?

Alex Amsel: 14 years worked on platforms from the older Amiga days, and now working across onto the IPad, the latest platform we’re working on. And I think the experiences we had across all these different products and all the different platforms, working with a wide range of clients and licences and now we work with clay. I think it makes us interesting and I’ve got experiences that so varied that we have a lots of things to table.

Sarah Webb: Yes, it is really good to see the clay graphics on the ipad. I think they were really well. I know we’re still developing the actual mechanics of the game but even playing upside down and backwards. It’s still pretty fun.

Industry nowadays?

Alex Amsel: Something I think is interesting, that is happening more and more now is more and more people playing games on facebook or console or on their iphone, I think there’s a quite a lot of scope for new products to be created or appetised by creating a game around those products instead of traditional boring advertisements, which tended to speak – 30 seconds adverts on tv or a boring flash ad on the web. I think creating proper interactive, interesting adverts, which is our base of the game. I think that’s the move we really would like to get involved with.

Scribble - Prototype for Flipbook Animation

 Students Penn Greene, Ryan Thurmer, Chris Parker and Alexis Stepanek received a $2,500 top prize for their Scribble handheld animation prototype.
at the  University of Michigan, US.

A small group of innovative University of Michigan students with an interest in animation has brought the old-school flip book into the 21st century with the “Scribble”, a handheld touchscreen toy that turns digital drawings into flipbook stop motion animations.

With a plastic-tip pen, users hand-draw and save a series of consecutive images, which the Scribble then plays back in sequence to create the illusion of movement (once saved, drawings can be edited). A functional prototype of the device recently netted first place in a toy design competition co-sponsored by the University of Michigan College of Engineering’s Center for Entrepreneurship, and Giddy Up Toys.

To make their product, University of Michigan Art and Design undergrads Penn Greene, Ryan Thurmer, Chris Parker, and Alexis Stepanek ripped electronics from an Asus Eee PC. They specially ordered their touchscreen and custom-wrote the Scribble software. The device also comes with a built-in camera for those who want to go the stop-motion animation route.

The Scribble grew out of a December focus group in which student designers asked third-graders what they wanted for the holidays. “Many wanted interactive touchscreen devices such as iPods or Nintendo DSes,” Thurmer said. “Using this information, we reflected on vivid memories of creating flip books as children. We knew we wanted to recreate those experiences and memories, but in a more environmentally friendly and technological way, without the use of paper.”

The Scribble has a touchscreen, and you sketch  on it with a plastic tip pen. Then when you’ve drawn and saved your first image, the lines of that image change from black to grey. You can then draw your second image over the top of the first one, using its gray lines as a guide for the progression of your animation. When you’ve saved the second image, the lines of the first one will disappear, but the lines of the second will still be there to guide you as you draw the third. Get the idea?

Movie greats such as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Nick Park all cite Ray has one of their inspirational heros in the field of animation.

Harryhausen is modest about his elevated status this these Directors, he prefers to give the credit to Willis O’Brien, the visual-effects supervisor on King Kong (1933) and the man who gave Harryhausen his first feature film job, on Mighty Joe Young (1949).

But it is Harryhausen who, on the occasion of his 90th birthday this week, will be celebrated with the exhibition of his drawings, models and film footage at the London Film Museum, and by a collectible limited-edition book called Ray Harryhausen: A Life in Pictures. And it’s Harryhausen who is cited as an influence by film-makers from Steven Spielberg (“I salute him every day”) to James Cameron (“We all owe Ray a great debt”); from Pixar (who named a restaurant after him in Monsters Inc) to Tim Burton (who said Mars Attacks! was a direct homage).

Nick Park, the Oscar-winning animator behind Wallace and Gromit and another avowed Harryhausen fan, says that Gromit’s famously expressive eyebrows were partially inspired by those of Mighty Joe Young. “I remember seeing Ray Harryhausen on I think it was a TV programme called Screen Test. I just got to work straight away in my own little attic studio. I made a brontosaurus out of coat-hanger wire and foam and my mum’s old tights.”

Live long and prosper Ray. We look up to you and celebrate with you on your upcoming birthday.

New Look Cartoon Network Looney Tunes

One of the worlds largest cartoon publishers “Cartoon Network” are planning to breathe new life in to the classic Warner Brothers Looney Tunes shows. Just last month Cartoon Network during its upfront presentation, announced a number of new animated shows including an animated version of the Mad magazine.

The new Looney tunes shows which will included the ususal suspects of Daffy Duck , Bugs Bunny, Sylvester , Yosemite and more will see a new format. Rather than the original 7 minute cartoon the network is planning half hour slots for the animated series. Also Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny will be moved out of the woods and placed in a suburbian neighbourhood.

However the half hour episodes will be interspersed by cartoons within the cartoon. There will be two-minute ‘Merrie Melodies’ music videos — original songs sung by such characters as the Tasmanian Devil, Speedy Gonzalez, and Marvin the Martian – and two and a half minute Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote shorts, which will be computer-animated.

However Cartoon Network modern take on these originals does not go down well with some of the original fans of the format. For example Fatty Fat comments ..

I just plain don’t get the need to tinker with Looney Tunes at all. It’s just more reinventing the wheel. I’m nostalgic for the originals that were around in syndication all during my childhood, and if I can be nostaligic for cartoons that were made 50 years before I was born, so can/have/will others. It’s not like I was sitting through Bugs Bunny cartoons thinking, “I’d be interested in this if they’d just make this character edgier…maybe Rastafarianize him by, say 30%…now that’d be a totally outrageous paradigm!”

For me I welcome the reviving of these old cartoons for a whole new generation by Cartoon Network. Us old folks should just move on and hand over the good times to the next generation.

Disneys' Familyfun - iKITMovie

It was Recommended by FamilyFun digital manager Samuel Mead and kids, Ruby, age 8, and Finn, 5 (plus  cousins Cedar, 15, Silas, 11, Matia, 12, and Noah, 9) – Their tips were ..

Our Tips

Stop-motion animation programs are compatible with most digital video cameras and some digital still cameras (check before you download). I had to adjust my camera’s settings from HD to DV before beginning.

For a more professional look, we set our camera on a tripod and shot against a flat, brightly lit sheet of white paper.

To inspire my young animators, I showed them some of the many finished works posted online. The kids were particularly jazzed by a short called “Western Spaghetti” (eatpes.com).

Also we got an really nice article by Karin Piper author of “Charter Schools – The Ultimate Guide for Parents” about us on Examiner.com.

Karin is a speaker, school choice advocate and author of award winning Charter Schools: The Ultimate Handbook for Parents. Karin provides communications and tools necessary for parents to become informed decision makers in the expanding world of education options. She also works with various organizations in engaging with surrounding communities and creating dynamic relationships with families. Karin can be contacted through Karin@theeducationchoiceexpert.com or visit her website at charterschoolmom.com.

How to Train Your Dragon from Dreamworks animation will be in theaters March 26, 2010. Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, America Ferrara, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Craig Ferguson, Kristen Wiig and T.J. Miller are the voice actors in the film. It’s directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois. The trailer is below for your enjoyment. I hope they improve on the graphics for the main dragon, as it currently stands it looks out of place with the other characters and background. While it may well be worth going to see if only for the 3D experience it does not look as good as Pixar’s recent offerings.

So if you are looking for a complete kit for stop motion it is a very good package indeed.

The “Big Man” is a mythical giant who has come back to Scotland after 10,000 years. He is going to walk through the streets and towns to view (via a webcam inserted in his head) what the inhabitants are doing to welcome him back. The webcam view will be viewable live on his website TheBigManWalking.com.  The Big Man is 8 metres tall and weight 0.6 tons. He is held in place by a telehandler (crane). He is made from polystyrene and steel. A group of eight puppeteers assist him walking using a very unique internal clockwork mechanism.

Find more videos like this on Big Man Walking

Simon McIntyre, artistic director who conceived this idea and is anxious to get ducks in a row for first walkabout on the 26th..and I quote

Phase 1 the build is finished. Phase 2 rehearsals are progressing smoothly. There are a few operational snags but we are all eager to bring the Big Man from his secret location to the first event in Bute on the 26th September. Be prepared for his …

Edinburgh’s Puppet Animation Festival and Puppet Lab put their £450,000 award towards its Big Man Walking venture. We wish Simon and the crew every success in the forthcoming return of the “Giant Man” and we hope that he may even make it further afield across the oceans. I am sure we would all welcome him.

Also Cecil ( our mascot ) gets more exposure in the setup. He sure likes the limelight.

Cecil in the Limelight Again!

The MSI version of the Trial copy of our stop motion software also now allows trial users to test the export of their movie made in iKITMovie. This will allow the testing of export and upload to Youtube and so forth. There is a watermark on export to indicate it is a trial version but this will be removed on purchase of a full license.