Timbuktoons Studio

The hamster city model of a production pipeline (like we use at Timbuktoons) is creative, flexible, colorful and scalable.

The factory line versus the hamster city.
For decades production companies have built pipeline systems to get their content (film, commercial, short, series, webisode, game, etc.) from start to finish. The pipeline is basically a linear system of creating content from idea to finished product, much like the factory assembly line first developed by Henry Ford.

A hamster city, on the other hand, is fun, creative, colorful, flexible, and scalable. You can easily customize and accessorize it at will and still have a system that leads the hamster thru from beginning to end.

Revolutions require new systems.
What happens when…

• …software and hardware become very affordable, powerful, and available?
• …technological advances allow you to skype, Cisco, or Facetime, your way to an LA or NY production meeting from anywhere, even Augusta, GA!?
• …studios or distributed teams from different countries decide to co-produce (as with the Oscar nominated film, Secret of the Kells)?
• …you find yourself in what Seth Godin calls “the land of a million channels” where content is delivered on your TV, internet, smart phone, and a host of other devices?

Rethink your business.
You rethink and offer new services to new markets. You focus on what differentiates your business in order to be noticed in all of the clutter. You customize your pipelines into fun, colorful and unique hamster cities tailored just for your clients.

For example, Timbuktoons has worked with educational, and faith-based non-profit organizations all over the world, providing them with animation and motion graphics services that would have been difficult for them to produce even 5 years ago because of location, budget and time.

Our most valuable asset is our customer service. Our systems make you feel like we’re “right around the corner” even if we’re 3000 miles away.

Enjoy the product AND the process.
Instead of maintaining a rigid system until it breaks, studios need to put as much creativity into the production system as they do in the content they’re creating.

There are well established and logical milestones necessary in each phase of development, pre-production, production, and post-production…but there is plenty of room for customization too.

Our goal at Timbuktoons is to customize the hamster city for each project to maximize customer service, collaboration, and creativity at every step of the process.

Next, I’ll share some stories, tips, and insights on how we build Hamster Cities!

About Timbuktoons
Timbuktoons is a leading pre-production and 2D animation cloud based studio with customers all over the world. Founded in 2003 by animator and illustrator Todd Hampson, they specialize in creating family-friendly media for the broadcast, education and gaming industries.

Apple's 32-foot glass cube flagship store, Fifth Avenue NY. Apple Stores have four times the foot traffic than all MLB stadiums combined. (Image courtesy of Apple)

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the brick and mortar Apple stores that, in typical Apple fashion, brought refreshing innovation to the retail industry. I was one of the more than 1500 that waited in line for hours to see what was behind the big glass doors at Tysons Corner in McLean, VA.

Looking back 10 years at my 15 minutes of fame
While there several reporters interviewed me about the experience. Just for fun I did a Google search for my name and Apple and surprisingly my quotes appeared on sites like PCWorld, BusinessWeek, MacWorld and more…

“Nobody can do it like Apple does.”

“It’s a Gap with Apple products!”

“There’s an aesthetic quality to using a Mac. It only goes without saying that their store would be the same way.”

“People here actually know what they’re talking about.”

Why did I wait in line at a mall, usually the bane of my existence? To see a bunch of Apple products? To be welcomed by dozens of cheering and clapping employees? No, although both experiences were, well, amazing.

It happened one night at a CompUSA
Yes, I’m a fan boy, but back in 2001 I’d only been using Macs for about 5 years. The real reason had to do with the miserable retail experience of being a Mac user pre iMac days…back when you couldn’t read an article about Apple without the word “beleaguered” in it or hear rumors of a buyout by this or that company (Sony, Sun, Disney, etc.).

It came to a head for me one late night at a CompUSA (remember them?) searching for a printer cartridge for my Stylewriter. It wasn’t enough to tell me they were out of stock. The clerk had to call his buddies over for a laugh and literally taunt me for owning a Mac. “Does that company still exist?!” “I heard they just got bought by Sun?”

I slinked back home and read my MacAddicts. It was crazy, but typical. When market share determined shelf space and availability (buying online was just taking off) it was a frustrating chore to find knowledgeable people and the right product.

The Apple experience: branding at it’s best
That kind of experience didn’t match Apple’s brand promises. Well, maybe their tagline “Think Different,” but I’m pretty sure that’s not what they meant.

Fast forward to 2001. Apple begins opening retail stores (while others are closing and analysts think they’re crazy) so they can control the whole experience of owning a Mac, from purchase to product.

Everything they do from advertising, product placement, even packaging all supports Apple’s promises that the experience will match their brand’s reputation.

Does a strong brand really matter?
At Timbuktoons, Apple has always been a brand hero. Their devoted attention to the customer’s journey is an inspiration for the way we approach our work. It drives us to understand the spirit of a client’s brand and translate that emotion and information through animation.

Branding matters more than ever in a cluttered market where everyone is vying for attention. Companies like Apple have shown us that, yes, product, price, promotion and placement still count…but so does the experience.

For me, the Apple Store was the last piece of the puzzle to creating one of history’s most valuable brand leaders.

This sums up our post-production scare in the Summer of 2010.

Here comes the train!
Animation, motion graphics, and video production studios easily get so focused on the daunting task of production that we forget about how hairy post-production can be. We forget that the light at the end of the production tunnel is the train known as post-production coming at us…full speed.

Big studios aren’t immune.
When most of Pixar’s Toy Story 2 was finished, the files were accidentally deleted. In less than 30 seconds critical assets and entire scenes disappeared from their main systems right before their eyes. Even worse, when trying to recover those they discovered that for over a month their back-ups had been failing!

The situation looked bleak until they discovered that one of their employees out on maternity leave had backed up all of the assets so she could work from home and be with her family. This detail-oriented mom saved the day (and hopefully received some extended maternity leave!).

Racing against time to render the final scenes for the feature film Jonah, Big Idea Productions had several unique post-production challenges. Not only did they have to crew up and hire additional lighting artists, they had to obtain 200 more render machines to meet their release date just two months out.

With no room available to store the machines, they had to run fiber optics to the other end of the mall where their studio was temporarily located. On top of that, while rendering final scenes, they discovered that their high-end render farm was rendering some scenes into a black hole!  It was a couple months of chaos!

Our 2010 post-production scare.
Last summer we were wrapping a large graphics package project up when post-production ate our lunch for over five days. Files refused to render completely, audio and video wouldn’t sync and at the lowest point the source files completely disappeared. To this day we still aren’t sure why!

We had so many things go wrong that Murphy’s Law had a few amendments added to it!

We pulled two all-nighters in a row, had files rendering on four different machines in two locations and the project was overdue. I had to leave for a trip after the second all-nighter but a couple of files still didn’t render correctly. So, our creative director worked the weekend, learned three new programs on the fly and earned some major stripes to get it done.

7 Lessons learned:
1.    Block out at least twice as much time you think you’ll need for post-production.
2.    Budget at least twice as much as you think you’ll need for post-production.
3.    Expect Murphy to show up at some point.
4.    What you sow in pre-production is what you will reap in post, so plan well.
5.    RAM is your friend.
6.    Don’t use .aif files in After Effects.
7.    Don’t under estimate post!

Bonus Lessons:
•    One all-nighter can be fun. Two in a row is not…at all.
•    Sabotage and Enter Sandman played loudly will help keep you awake at 3AM.
•    Coffee can only do so much.

Client, Project: Wierhouse Creative, All Good Pest Solutions, motion graphics

Description: The creative brand gurus at Wierhouse contacted Timbuktoons to provide the text animations and motion graphics for a series of 0:15 commercials. The hilarious and very memorable campaign (www.pestify.com) offers customer “Pestimonials” for All Good Pest Solutions.

Client, Project: [atc] AutoCenter, illustration, motion graphics, broadcast design

Description: [atc] AutoCenter is a local automotive service and repair shop with over 50 years of history. As part of an extensive rebrand project, [atc] commissioned Timbuktoons to produce a series of seven 30 second internet commercials. The commercial campaign entitled “That’s [atc]” serves a dual purpose of establishing the new trade dress and brandmark of the company as well as reinforcing their new brand messaging. Each commercial focuses on one key brand message and attribute customers can experience “at the center.”

Awards:  2011 Davey Award (Gold), 2011 Addy (Silver), 2011 Telly Award (Bronze)

We’re pleased to announce that Timbuktoons has moved to a new location! What does that mean for you? Actually, not much.

Your Little Studio In The Clouds
You see, we’ve always thought of ourselves as your little studio in the clouds.

So, location has never been an issue for us. The technology and talent we use allows us to work with clients and studios from all over the world to produce affordable high quality media.

Since day one, Timbuktoons has worked closely with organizations across the globe that focus on strengthening and encouraging children through creative media. I guess you could say we were cloud before cloud was cool!

Why Choose A Cloud Studio?
We won’t bore you with too many details on why you should choose a cloud studio but here’s a few perks: bigger and fresher talent pool, a team sized to fit your project, big city quality for small town budgets and there’s more!

Our customers repeatedly tell us that working with us is like we’re in the next room. Take a look below to see the nice things they’ve said. Interested in working together? Visit Timbuktoons.com for more details.

Remember, even though we have a little more elbow room now (yay!), we’re still your little illustration and animation studio in the clouds.

Timbuktoons
7013 Evans Town Center Blvd. Suite 102
Evans, GA 30809

1. Know Thy Script.
At Timbuktoons we typically write our own and our client’s animation scripts, so we’re familiar with the concept and characters. In cases when we’ve hired a writer we still developed the concept, characters, tone, and story beats before pulling them onto the project.

This helps greatly when it’s time to direct voice actors during a recording session. You need to know the characters and the story well if you want to give the actors/actresses good direction.

2. Don’t Be Shy. Direct!
Don’t assume the actors have the same vision or understanding of the characters that you do because they don’t. You hired them to act, not self-direct. Several years ago I learned a valuable lesson when I hired a fairly experienced stage actor to voice a few characters.

I gave him a one line description of a character, handed him the script, then let the sound tech start recording. I didn’t like the takes but didn’t want to say anything out of respect for the actor’s experience.

After several lack luster takes he said, “You’re the director!…Direct!” I learned a valuable lesson that day. Actors act. We direct. Give them what they need to do their best work. They feed off the direction you give and they understand that it’s your vision that they’re working on. Have confidence in your idea and direct with no inhibitions.

3. Go Deep
Explain the emotions the character is feeling. Describe what led up to this line…what this line is setting up…etc. Pick an analogy or relatable story to help put the voice actor in the characters head.

Refer to character types, or even specific famous characters. Use expressive words to describe the character. Show them the character designs. Your job is to make them that character.

4. Think Through the Logistics
Send beforehand all of your forms, intructions, directions to the studio, script, etc. to prep them. Put yourself in the actors shoes and think through what they need to know and make it a smooth ride for them so they can focus on acting.

5. Don’t Forget to Record the Incidentals
Even if you don’t think you need it, go ahead and record a few laughs, giggles, grunts, breathing,…and maybe even a burp or two. Do it while you have the talent there. Once your project is in post, you’ll be glad you did!

6. Do Several Takes
Even if they nail it on the first take. It’s always better to have too much than not enough. While trimming wood for house projects, my Dad used to say, “I cut it 3 times and it’s still too short!” So, make sure you have more wood than you think you need!

7. Calm Their Nerves
Climbing into the booth to record your lines in front of the director, sound tech and other actors, can make even a seasoned actor a bit uncomfortable. Joke with them. Have them take a deep breath or two when they need it. Have some bottled water on hand incase their throats get dry.

Frame your corrective direction in an encouraging and disarming way. The more relaxed they are, the more you’ll get a fluid and natural voice session from them.

8. Go With Your Gut
Don’t analyze too much. Pay attention to the nuances of each line and go with your gut. If something doesn’t feel just right, think about it for a second and give some direction, or have them do a couple more takes.

9. Invite Happy Accidents
Leave room for the actor’s interpretation. Cast your vision and have them record specific takes but allow them to run with it. You might be surprised what happy accidents occur. Animation is a collaborative art form from start to finish so invite creativity at each phase of the process.

10. Have Fun!
Last but not least, you must have fun at a recording session. No one likes a stuffy, boring session. If you and the actors are having fun it will come out in the dialog! Don’t forget why you first became interested in animation, because you loved it and it was fun!

Hey there Fuzz Feud fans! As we wrestle with vital questions like, “Do anthropomorphic squirrels wear underwear?” we wanted to give you a quick update on the production of our pilot…

We have all of our voices cast and recorded. We tapped our LA connections and were able to get some really talented actors and actresses to try out for various parts. Their screen credits include extensive commercial work and voice acting for various animated TV series including The Mr. Men Show (Cartoon Network), and Olivia (Nickelodeon).

We’ve finished layouts and backgrounds and the second pass on our animatic. We added more boards to flesh out the nuances and action sequences and we’re finishing slugging and scene prep this week so we can begin our first pass of rough animation by the end of the week!

Stay tuned for some animation tests and other artwork we’ll be posting in the near future…and if you have an opinion on undergarments for squirrels feel free to chime in!