THE ACT

Something kinda cool to check out is the new trailer for "The Act". It's actually a video game by a company called Cercropia, Inc. Our company, Funnypages Productions, animated on this awhile back and they are starting to wrap up the project this summer. I don't know how it is going to go over, but it IS interesting. There's really nothing out there like it. It's a "film game" meaning that it should feel like you are playing-and controlling- a Disney style animated film. It is 100% traditional, hand drawn animation created with alot of the same animators and artists that animated LILO AND STITCH, MULAN, ETC. (Cecropia ended up hiring a bunch of the Disney artists that were layed off when they closed down the Florida studio.) All there is is a "PONG" style knob controller and you move it slightly to the left of right. What you are trying to do is control the character's emotions and actions with the controller. SO, if Edgar, the main character, is trying to flirt with this girl at a bar (I'm not sure this is an actual scene, but it was an early test scene) then if you move the knob to the right a little, he turns toward her and smiles. She then reacts to this by turning slightly toward him (the computer controls her actions randomly, I believe) or turns away from him slightly. If she reacts positively, based solely on body language and acting, then you move it to the right a bit more and Edgar winks at her. She may turn away, or touch his knee you just don't know. If she turns away, you go to the left and he backs off. If you turn it WAY to the right too soon, he starts laughing uncontrollably or tries to hug her or something obnoxious like that. That makes her turn off completely and throw a drink in his face or something. I know I'm making this sound kinda racy, but it's not really. They have (at least for as long as we were on it) kept it pretty G or PG. Anyway, check it out here: http://www.cecropia.com/

PS. Rob and I animated some of the shots in the trailer.