Top Cook 2!

“Top Cook” has returned! Christine has finished animating the second episode, which you can view on the Foxhall Films website, or our youtube channel, www.youtube.com/foxhallfilms.

The first “Top Cook” short has been viewed over a quarter of a million times, and after receiving many requests to continue the series, Christine took some time off of working on our next feature to put together “Top Cook 2.”

The concept:
The first “Top Cook” was an experiment. We wanted to create a short specifically for internet distribution which would create interest in and awareness of our company and other projects. While we figured we’d never make a dime directly off of “Top Cook,” we were hoping it would help bolster sales and rentals of our feature project, “Rain in the Mountains.”

Although a live action short probably would have been easier to make, we also wanted to see how easy it was to make an animated film with the tools we had on hand. Christine has always had an interest in animation, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to test some theories we had on how to make some low-cost cartoons. We didn’t want to invest in a fancy animation program or take the time to learn to use one. We also didn’t want to spend more than a few months working on the project.

Making the shorts:
Both shorts were made using a Wacom pen tablet, Adobe Photoshop, and Final Cut Pro. Using the pen tablet, Christine created each character and background in Photoshop. Each body part (even each pupil) was given its own layer so that it could be moved independently of the rest of the body. Front and side views were made for each character as well. While we knew the short would be viewed at low resolutions, we created all of the artwork at a very high resolution. This allowed us to zoom in on characters and backgrounds without any loss in definition. After importing the layered artwork into Final Cut Pro, Christine used the motion tools to plot the movement of each body part and the camera.

The voices were recorded using an ME 67 Sennheiser shotgun mic, which was plugged into a mixer that fed directly into Soundtrack Pro. We also used Soundtrack Pro in tandem with Apple’s GarageBand to create the film’s score. GarageBand may not be the best program for the job, but it certainly was a quick and easy way to make a silly, techno-style compilation. As another shortcut, we used a CD sound library for all of the film’s sound effects.

After putting all of the elements together, the finished project was exported using Final Cut Pro’s Quicktime conversion tool.

Distribution:
When we finished the original short about a year ago, Sony had just launched its new multi-platform video network, Crackle.com. Intrigued by their approach to web video, we put “Top Cook” on their animation channel and sent out a mass email encouraging people to watch the video and vote on it.

Within a few days, the video had a few hundred hits, but it wasn’t taking off as quickly as we had hoped. The whole point of the project was to get it seen by as large an audience possible with minimal promotion on our part, so we decided to upload it to youtube.com, blip.tv, and Google video. We attempted to post it on funnyordie.com as well, but that website seemed to have problems converting the Quicktime file.

In the first few months, the short was viewed a few thousand times, but it really took off a few months ago. We have no clear idea why (we think a few links from various blogs and websites helped), but thousands of people suddenly began to watch the video each day. Soon, after, it was featured on youtube’s home page, which in turn increased the viewership even more.

Encouraged by this turn of events and spurred on by requests to continue the storyline, Christine decided it was time to try a second episode. The making of “Top Cook 2” went much quicker than the original, for Christine had already created all of the character drawings and many of the backgrounds. We also decided to make the second episode shorter than the first, because let’s face it, internet surfers, including myself, tend to have pretty short attention spans.

So if you have two minutes to spare, please take the time to check out the cartoons!
To view the first episode, click here.
To view the second episode, click here.