Comment

Eight-year-old Zoe, future animator, visits FableVision Studios

What’s one thing – anything in the world – you want to learn more about? If you’re eight-year-old Zoe, the clear choice is animation. She's interested in being an animator when she grows up but she "may change [her] mind in the future."

"I did coding in school and when I did coding it really interested me," she explained. "I could do video games but I want to do movie animations." 

A few weeks ago, we received a letter from Zoe’s dad telling us about her desire to learn more about art and animation for a school research paper. She had one request: could she stop by our offices and speak to one of our animators to learn more about the life of a professional artist and animator? As an added bonus, Zoe would be visiting our offices on her birthday, arguably the best day of any kid’s year.

Her favorite part of visiting FableVision? "Meeting all the animators and seeing how animation was done," Zoe says. "I thought it was really cool to visit a real animation studio. I would really like to visit again one day. It was fun to be there."

Zoe sat down with Hannah O'Neal one of our artist/animators in residence, to talk about animation, inspiration, and advice for future animators. Here are just a few of Zoe’s questions, and Hannah’s answers, from their chat.  

Thanks for stopping by, Zoe! We’re cheering you on in your creative journey. And happy birthday!

Zoe (Z): What is the hardest part of being an animator?
Hannah (H): Making sure to constantly learn new things. That’s true of a lot of technology jobs. You need to make sure you know the right technology, and keeping up your skills as an artist is difficult at times. 

And, sometimes you don’t have a lot of time for your own characters. When I was a kid, I used to draw a lot of characters. Sometimes, when you’re a grown up, you don’t have time to work on your own stories and characters, but you have to learn to make the time. 

Z: What is the easiest part of being an animator?
H: Watching all my stuff come to life! It’s so much fun! I also love watching other people’s stuff come to life. I get to see how my co-workers Sonnye and Bob and Keith make characters, and that’s really cool. I also love working and hanging out with really talented people.

Z: How much school did you have to do?
H: I drew my whole life but and that felt easy because I liked doing it. As far as animation, I learned it in college, so, about four years. But I learn something new every year, so I keep learning, which is both hard and easy at the same time. When you do stuff, you learn stuff.

Z: Who is you favorite artist?
H: One of my favorite animators is Chuck Jones. He did the Looney Tunes animations. He’s a really, really funny guy. He was able to translate humor and talent into goofy animations. Another one is Milt Kahl, he was one of the nine men who were animators at Disney. He created Shere Kahn, the tiger in the movie The Jungle Book. Milt Kahl animated Shere Kahn in a way that was really scary. He made believable animation. Rebecca Sugar is another great artist and animator. She’s a modern animator who works on shows like Adventure Time. I met her when I was in college, she’s doing wonderful work.

Z: What are you working on now?
H: At the moment, I’m doing research for a project but I was working on something before that for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. There’s a girl who’s a little older than you named Neshama. She had cancer but she’s okay now. She wanted to make an animated short for her wish, so her family and Make-A-Wish contacted our studio and now we’re making a movie with her!

Z: What advice would you give a young artist who wants to become an animator?
H: Draw and color all the time! That’s what’s going to help you become an animator. Keep loving life and showing life in your artwork. When you’re in the park and you see a bee, pull out your sketchbook and draw the bee. If you’re in bed and you wake up and you have this great idea for an animation, pull out your sketchbook and draw it out.

Comment

1 Comment

January FableFriday: Michael Fogarasi, Associate Producer

Johnny Cash said it best, “Travel, I've had my share, man. I've been everywhere.” And for FableVision’s Associate Producer Michael Fogarasi, it couldn’t be more true.

Michael white-water rafting in Bali with his family. 

“Growing up, my dad worked for the U.S. Embassy, which meant that we would typically spend two to four years in each country before moving on to our next posting” Michael says and explains that he’s lived in five countries. “Besides giving me an insatiable wanderlust, I think it’s made me a very adaptable and easygoing person.”

Michael's wanderlust eventually brought him to FableVision, where his love of a journey is channeled into his work.

“I love the entire process of production—how we can go from a concept on paper into a tangible finished product. It’s a great feeling to play or watch something that you and your team built from scratch.”

No matter the production challenges that can arrive on a day-to-day basis, Michael is always along for the ride with a good sense of humor and a laid-back state of mind.

This month we sat down and chatted with Michael about his background, the culinary adventures he goes on in his own kitchen, and some of his favorite FableVision projects.

Explain a bit about your job here. What’s a typical day in your shoes like?
I like to come in a little early and go over my project log, which is big document with notes for each of the projects I’m on. It’s a great refresher to go over everything that’ll need to be done that day.

Then, depending on what phase of a project we’re on, my typical day involves a lot of meetings with my teams or the client. We’ll typically do status updates, go over plans, and take a look at any problems or snags that will stand in our way.

If we’re in the later stages of a project, I’ll spend a good amount of time on QA. I’ll go through and test our games or websites to make sure that everything is working correctly. If not, then I’ll log bugs and make sure the developers know what’s wrong.

Then by the end of the day, I’ll fill in my project log, so it’s a cyclical process every day.

What is challenging about your job? What feels rewarding?
The biggest challenge is making sure that we’re meeting the needs of our clients. I find the Define and Design phase—where we hone in on concepts for our games or animations—to be the toughest, since we’re making decisions that’ll influence the rest of production. We have to make sure that both sides are on the exact same page or else we could face big problems down the road.

As a producer, a lot of things are rewarding—the first time you play or view a prototype, or hit a major deliverable. Obviously the end of the project is very satisfying, but when we end up with a great product that we are proud of and the client loves—that’s the best!   

What’s your journey to FableVision story?
When I was studying at Boston College, I was heavily involved with our student-run TV station. At that point, I was convinced I wanted to go into TV production, and so I bounced around with a couple internships at local access shows. But then my good friend (and former fellow Associate Producer), Katie Tusch started telling me about her job at FableVision Studios and I was intrigued. I started researching the company and the more I read, the more interested I became. And so when Katie told me there was an opening, I applied and one thing led to another!

You were the associate producer on Zoombinis – can you share a bit about that process?
Working on the remake of Zoombinis has been a definite highlight of my time here at FableVision. Though I hadn’t heard of Zoombinis before we started the project, I quickly fell in love with the game. As we started development, my role evolved into becoming an expert on the original game to make sure we were staying faithful to its signature quirks and whimsy. I got to spend countless hours playing the original game on an emulator learning the rules, strategies, and solutions to the puzzles. There is so much replay value that I never got bored—the toughest levels never get any easier!

The real-time feedback we got from Zoombinis fans via the Facebook page and Kickstarter campaign was another great aspect of the production process. David Libby [Director of Technology, TERC] posted our artwork and designs as they were being created and the fans would respond instantly. The comments and messages from both old and new fans were so nice to hear, especially when they loved certain changes we had made. It was really motivating to get that level of excitement on a project in progress.  

We’re working with long-time partner Classroom, Inc. on the third game in their award-winning literacy learning Read to Lead game series. What has it been like to work with them throughout the years?
It’s been awesome! The Classroom, Inc. team is incredibly talented, both creatively and organizationally, which makes our collaboration fun and hassle-free. Our collaborations have led to a couple of great games that incorporate rigorous assessments into really engaging storylines while keeping students interested. They also offer an in-depth look at the responsibilities and requirements of the featured jobs, which can help get students thinking about their future. I’m very much looking forward to our third game.  

You majored in film production, right? What do you love about film? How do you take that background and knowledge and work it into your work here?
Well, technically it was Film Studies, since the Jesuits would never let you get away without some history and analysis classes, but production was a big part of my studies. I was and continue to be most drawn to film editing—a passion and hobby that I’ve been doing since freshman year of high school.

I was really drawn to the freedom and influence you have as a film editor since you are in charge of piecing together the story. In certain genres, like documentaries, the editor can have the power to create the story itself. But at the end of the day, you still have to answer to the director and make sure that your work matches their thoughts. In a way, it’s pretty similar to my work here at FableVision. We create stories—in the form of websites, interactives, animation, and other media—and have to make sure that they match, enhance, or are in-line with our client’s vision.   

You’re a great cook! What got you into the kitchen in the first place and what makes you keep going back?
I’d say it’s a tie between not wanting to eat my own horrible food and the influence of great cooks in my family. Basically, I realized that if I wanted to eat something better than a sandwich, I was going to have to learn some cooking skills. From there, it quickly became one of my favorite hobbies and now I really look forward to both trying new recipes and perfecting old ones.

Tell us about the fantasy football league you play with. Do you consider yourself a competitive person?
Great news on that front—I won the championship this year! I play with a bunch of college friends and this year the commissioner went all out and bought a huge WWE-style title belt so I’ll be the first one to put it on!

More About Michael

Top three places on your list to live, besides Boston:

In no particular order:

Filbert and Ivy, the Fogarasi family dogs. 

Favorite food: Ribs
Early bird or night owl: Probably more of an early bird, but it really depends on the day
Favorite book: Harry Potter, what else?? Also, anything by Michael Crichton.
Sweet or savory: Savory
Football or baseball: Baseball to play, football to watch
Game to play with your dogs: Fetch with a squeaky rubber chicken—the only thing they won't destroy!

1 Comment

Comment

Top 10 FableVision Moments of 2015

2015 was an epic journey. FableVision visited (and created) amazing worlds this year, from the colorful hills of Zoombiniville to the idyllic town of Shady Acres to revisiting planet Braxos. To celebrate, we've crafted our FableVision Top 10 Moments of 2015. The year was filled with rewarding memories and signature FableVision fun!

1. New creative collaborations

FableVision made some new friends this year, including Make A Wish, Mindset Works, and McGraw-Hill Education. We love working with kindred spirits on media that inspires, educates, and moves people to action.

2. Continuing partnerships 

We're proud of our ongoing collaborations with innovative clients, including Maryland Public Television, PBS Kids, and Pearson, who inspire and encourage us to continue to push the envelope. 

3. Events and open houses 

We welcomed hundreds of creative minds to our studio this ye—hey, remember that one time Olympians Meryl Davis and Charlie White visited FableVision and we got to hold their gold medals? That was awesome. Miss Massachusetts 2014, one of five STEM scholarship recipients at the Miss America pageant, stopped by our Night Powered by STEAM Thinking event co-hosted with the Reynolds Center TLC. We also opened our doors for the Children’s Media Association’s GAME ON! event, which featured our own Bob Flynn on a panel talking about the creative gaming landscape in Boston. And for the third year in a row, Team FableVision raised funds (over $7,000 this year!) for Boston Children’s Hospital through Extra Life.

4. Another winning year!  

We were honored with some amazing industry recognition for some of our recent work this year. Here are some of the highlights:

  • 2015 Tech & Learning Magazine Awards of Excellence, New Products Award for After the Storm
  • 2015 International Serious Play Awards, Bronze Award for After the Storm
  • 2015 American Association of School Librarians, Best Apps for Teaching & Learning for Ripped Apart: A Civil War Mystery
  • 2015 Animation Block Party Summerfest for Good Thinking!: The Science of Teaching Science
  • 2015 Association of American Publishers (AAP) REVERE Award, Beyond the Classroom, Play category for Renegade Buggies
  • 2015 Excellence In Financial Literacy Education (EIFLE) Award, Instructional Game of the Year for Renegade Buggies

5. Thought leadership 

Our co-founders Paul and Peter H. Reynolds traveled the country this year, continuing to lead the charge in the STEAM education and Maker Movement. They unveiled the second book in their Sydney & Simon book series, entitled GO GREEN!, inspiring readers to take a closer look at protecting the environment by implementing small changes to make a big difference. Among dozens of other appearances, they stopped by the STEAM Carnival, keynoted the World Creativity Forum and CPSI. Throughout it all, they championed creativity as a superpower and called for action in creative problem solving.

website1.jpg

 

6. Marketing highlights

Our website turned one this year! Cake for everyone! We’re very, very proud of our league of creative FableVisionaries, and the world is taking note too. Creative super couple Keith and Renee Zulawnik are both alumni of Lesley University and met here at the studio. If you were paying attention in April, you might have seen our little rebranding project. Welcome, TableVision. And our FableFriday blog series continues to highlight a new FableVisionary on the first Friday of each month.

7. On the road with friends and fans

Did you hear that? That was the sound of a party horn, and it was going off in FableVision’s 2015 ISTE booth all conference long. We celebrated creative educators, and hosted fun, informative sessions with some of our partners. Earlier in the year we hopped a plane to Orlando for FETC, where Creative Director Leigh Hallisey joined a panel to discuss what creates an engaging learning game, and CEO Paul Reynolds and Dr. Peggy Healy Stearns dove into the world of 3D fabrication and the development of Fab@School Maker Studio.

8. Art highlights

We make this look good. (Did we just date ourselves with a Men in Black reference?) Our artists had a hand in some of our biggest projects this year, including the relaunch of classic math/logic game Zoombinis, a free animated professional development resource in Good Thinking! The Science of Teaching Science, Con ‘Em If You Can, a financial literacy games that teaches how to protect yourself from schemes and scams in the real world, and ParkPals: Kindness Rules teaches second and third graders the four qualities of kindness and how to be fair, kind, and helpful to others.

9. Technical highlights

Go on, spend some time outdoors. Just B is a small interactive musical toy produced by the FableVision Studios development team. Stop and smell the musical flowers. Then, practice your sustainable farming best practices with Top Crop: Farming for the Future. The game teaches the importance and responsibility of sustainable farming and how technology can be harnessed to aid their crops and revenue.

10. Incredible interns

The hope, with every intern, is that they learn as much from us as we learn from them. Our interns join us along their creative journey and do some great work while learning industry skills and gaining experience in their concentration of choice. Each intern has the opportunity to work on an independent project during the course of their time with us. Here are some highlights. You can learn more about our internship program here.

Make School Work is a podcast created by marketing intern Carl Haber. Click on the image to listen to the pilot episode.

Make School Work is a podcast created by marketing intern Carl Haber. Click on the image to listen to the pilot episode.

This is part of a larger piece called TableVision, with art done by art intern Paloma Diaz-Dickson. Click on the image to read the full post.

Cheers to a new year with new challenges, new projects, and new friends along the creative journey! What were some highlights from your year? 

Comment

Comment

FableVision, Make-A-Wish, and Macy’s celebrate Neshama Ryman's wish on National Believe Day

Though FableVision has been creating meaningful content for nineteen years, the project we’re currently working on truly ranks as one of our most rewarding to date.  We are honored to be working with the Make-A-Wish Foundation on fulfilling Neshama Ryman’s wish of directing an animated short film.

Neshama is absolutely amazing and the vision for her short film stems from a very personal place. In the Ryman household, accidents, messes, and unforeseen instances of chaos are always attributed to fictional creatures created by Neshama called the Klumz. Considering all that Neshama and her family has endured in the wake of her cancer diagnosis, the analogy of the Klumz is not lost on us.  

Make-A-Wish has been part of the global dialog of “do-gooders” for decades and the New York chapter chose to highlight Neshama’s wish at Macy’s in the Bronx for National Believe Day. At the event, they debuted an exclusive “making of” video that captures the beautiful Neshama/FableVision collaboration so far. 

To echo Macy’s sentiments – we, too, believe in the magic of giving. You can donate to Make-A-Wish here. We can’t wait to show you the whole film, which will be completed in 2016 – stay tuned! Here are some photos we snapped at the event.

Update: Here’s the full film, which came out in 2016. Enjoy!

Comment

Comment

December FableFriday: Matt Brelsford, Developer

Matt Brelsford is the proverbial man behind the curtain – but he’s certainly worth paying attention to. Interested from an early age with “the way things work” and the intricacies of production, Matt joined FableVision’s team as a developer in 2014.

“Being a computer programmer is the closest thing I've found to being a real-life wizard,” Matt says. And his work here at FableVision helps bring the digital worlds we create to life. His background in theatrical lighting, gaming, and a deep-seated interest in an audience’s experience play into his work here seamlessly. Programming and lighting have a lot in common. They direct the audience’s gaze, can help along plot lines, and can have control over how the story as a whole functions on the stage (whether that stage is a literal or metaphorical one).

This month we sat down with Matt to talk about the overlaps in art and technology, the path that led him to FableVision, and a small side project that’s kept him buzzing around our Studio.

Humor us on our first question. Let’s say you’re talking to a five year old. How do you explain what you do to them?
Computers, by themselves, don't do anything. Seriously, they just sit there. However, they are absolutely great at following instructions, and can do things in one second that would take a human a lifetime to do. It's my job to write those instructions. It might sound boring, but those instructions bring games to life, and lets you search for kitten pictures on Google.

Matt and his wife, Jamie. 

Matt and his wife, Jamie. 

You have a background in theatrical lighting, can you talk a bit about that time in your life? Why make the full-time switch to programming? 
Like many people, I went into college without a clear idea of what I wanted to do with my life. I originally wanted to be an engineer. Then I wanted to do studio art. During freshman year course selection, a lot of the courses I wanted to take were already full, and I wound up taking a theater course. By far, it was the most engaging, interesting class I was taking. I had an absolutely amazing professor, Lynne Greeley, and I instantly fell in love. Lynne was incredibly encouraging and suggested that I continue. She even recommended the class where I ended up meeting my wife, Jamie. The next semester I was taking almost exclusively theater classes, including intro to lighting design with another amazing professor, John Forbes. I was totally captivated. There is something so overwhelmingly magical about controlling light. I still get chills when I think about sitting in the booth behind the audience in a pitch-black room and bringing up the lights on Act 1.

After I graduated, I struggled to find meaningful work in the theater (go figure). I always had an interest in programming and the infinite creative potential of computers, so I did some freelance web development work for friends and local businesses, and I eventually decided to pursue that as a career.

What is your journey to FableVision story?
After doing some freelance web development, I found a job in Boston at a small web development agency. I then worked at two other ad agencies in the city until the desire to something more creative and meaningful became overwhelming. I wanted to make games. At some point, my wife suggested educational games, and something clicked. I found a position at Tufts University where I worked on a grant-funded research project making an educational game about sustainable tree farming. After that, I discovered FableVision, which seemed to be exactly what I was looking for, and applied that night.

You were lead developer on the recently released Top Crop: Farming for the Future, which we created for National Geographic. From a developer’s perspective, what were some of the challenges and successes working on this project?
Developing educational games is always a balance. In the case of Top Crop, we needed to devise creative ways to meet the educational goals of the game, be scientifically accurate, and of course, meet the schedule and budget. You can have ideas that don’t quite fit. I think we have a solid model for what a game can look like without traditional sprite-based animation. And the game looks beautiful. Every time I look at it I am impressed with the game and UI art.

Committee for Children’s ParkPals: Kindness Rules is designed for young kids (7-9 year olds), how did that inform your decisions when working on the project? 
When presented with a game, kids tend to ignore text, which means that in order to teach them how to play all of the mini games, we had to show them with visual and audio cues. There were also a number of challenges creating a log-in system that wouldn't require them giving any personal information.

What draws you to FableVision’s mission?
I love the idea that my work is actually doing good out in the world. In my ad agency days, it wasn't uncommon to work for a huge billion-dollar company where you weren't totally on board with what they were doing. It's so motivating to know that I'm helping kids learn about sustainable farming, or how to be fair and responsible.

You have a creative side, how do you approach web development and programming as an art?
I don't know if I would say I “approach programming as an art,” but rather that I am trying to make art using a computer and a keyboard instead of paints and brushes. If there was a more powerful, easier to use medium for making art, I'd switch to that in a heartbeat.

What inspires your creativity?
I wish I knew! It can be anything. Art, movies, games, people, music, books. I guess if I had to pick only one thing, it would be games, since they usually include every kind of creative medium inside of them. However, most of my work starts out not due to some inspiration, but rather as a problem I want to solve, like how to procedurally generate an island, or how to manipulate a webcam feed.

Tell us about the toys, games, and interactive experiments that you make in your free time. 
There are a lot of them.

The weirdest one I've made is a small program that, given enough time and space, will generate every possible image ever. All of them. Pictures of you riding a dinosaur through ancient Rome, pictures of Abraham Lincoln break dancing, and lots and lots (and LOTS) of pictures of nothing at all. Unfortunately, generating all of those pictures would take an astronomical amount of time and hard drive space. The formula looks like this: number of different colors ^ number of pixels in the image = total number of images generated.

So for an image that's 256x256 (which is a small image) with only 16 colors (not that many, most computers are capable of displaying millions of colors), you'd get 16^65,536 = ~1.6 × 10^78913. If you could generate 100 of those small images each second, it would still take you ~5.1 × 10^78903 years to generate all of them. I don't have that much time.

Some other, less esoteric things I've made:

  • A music visualizer that takes your webcam feed, and distorts it based on the music that's playing.
  • A game where time only moves when you move.
  • A web application where users can upload children's drawings, and other more “well trained” artists can polish the image. Kids can see their vision realized, and artists have an infinite supply of super creative inspiration.

What is Just B?
Just B came about due to my desire for FableVision to work on our own internal game project. People had mentioned it had been done in the past, but always seemed to fizzle out. I was determined to not let that happen, so I tried to make the absolute smallest thing possible. At some point early in our process, we sat down with our marketing leader, Sarah, and she mentioned doing something to celebrate the springtime. We all liked that idea, so I put something that looked like a Bee on the screen and just started playing. Then I added some flowers. Then I made it so that when the bee ran into a flower, it played a note. We refined it just a little bit more, and that was that. Even though it's one of the smallest projects I've done, it's the one that I'm the most proud of. It's focused, pretty, and it exists for no reason other than to bring joy. Probably the closest I've come to making true "art" with a computer.

Favorites! 

Movie: I love most of Wes Anderson's movies, but if I'm being honest with myself, I'd have to say the new Mad Max or the original Star Wars Trilogy.
Snack food: Cheese and crackers
Game to play with a big group: Two Rooms and a Boom
Game to play with only a couple people: Betrayal at House on the Hill
Month: It's a tossup between October and April.
Vacation: I love taking a week off and working on one of my game projects. If I had to pick a real vacation, it would be going to LA to stay with my best friend Greg.
Dessert: German Chocolate Cake
Cartoon character: Tina Belcher, from Bob's Burgers
Play: I really can't think of a favorite. I just loving being in a theater!
Video game: Super Metroid. Dark Souls. Portal. (Not necessarily in that order.)

Comment