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25 years of Photoshop

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It all started from 1987 when the developer Thomas Knoll created a very simple pixel imaging program called Display.  It was displaying gray scale photos on a black and white monitor. His brother John Knoll was supervisor at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic). The other digital artists were impressed at the post production facility of George Lucas with Display and eventually it was used into James Cameron‘s The Abyss. Later on Knoll brothers renamed it to Photoshop.

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Above is the very first Photoshop image ever edited  which is a photo of John Knoll’s wife in Bora Bora. Kinda cool…

Adobe bought the software from Knoll brothers and Photoshop 1.0 released on Feb. 19, 1990 for the Macintosh. As a storm, it took the entire Media and Entertainment industry talking about it. Digital photo retouching was costing $300 by an hour and one time buying price of Photoshop 1.0 was only $1000.

Just by end of the decade, it sold over 3 Million copies and the rest is history.

I remember being introduced to Photoshop (and Premiere) back at Hanna Barbera around 1994 when it was at version 2.0 and the things I remember most is that it had one Undo and no layers so you really had to be diligent with your saving iterations to make sure you didn’t destroy hours of work. Still it was a fascinating program even then!

Watch John Knoll demonstrate the very first iteration of Photoshop below. We’ve come a long way, baby!

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Robertryan Cory

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is Robertryan Cory and I’m currently a character designer on Secret  Mountain Fort Awesome at Cartoon Network.What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Well I started working in animation when I was 15 so it was sort of my first  job, but I did have a weird job when I went to college. (Warning this is not PG) I worked for a porn company doing comics and they had me animating “money shots” for a series called “Pop-up Porn”. It was sort of like a dirty version of Pop-up Videos on VH1. I remember having to work late one night
and thinking “what am I doing with my life?”. I quit the next day even though the money was really great.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?

Well I guess Ren & Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon because working on R&S was the  only goal I had in life at the time. I thought it was impossible since it  had been off the air for nearly a decade. It was one of the worst experiences emotionally, but I met so many talented people and it made me practice harder.  2nd would be Spongebob. I feel like I wasn’t a good artist until that job.
That was another job with an incredible crew that really made me push myself  because I wanted to earn their respect. Also it’s cool to be involved with  something that the entire world knows… it even impresses my niece, which  means a lot to me.
How did you become interested in animation?
There was a program during middle school where students would get to animate  a 30sec spot promoting anti-smoking. I did that 3 years in a row. The 3rd year my short was banned for Continue reading
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DreamWorks Animation To Sell Glendale Studio As It Grapples With Liquidity

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Newest Innovations In Consumer Technology On Display At 2014 International CES

Sad news for the animation community here in L.A.

Deadline.com is reporting that DreamWorks Animation execs apparently failed to impress investors with their cautiously upbeat financial forecasts in a conference call after releasing a generally disappointing Q4 earnings report. The company stock price continued to fall in post-market trading as the call progressed, falling 9.1%.

Read the entire article here.

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New music video “Feel the Light” from DreamWorks’ upcoming film “Home”

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DreamWorks Animation and 20th Century Fox are pleased to share a NEW lyric video for “Feel the Light” by Jennifer Lopez, for the upcoming animation HOME! Featuring Jennifer Lopez and members of HOME‘s star studded cast including Rihanna and Jim Parsons, the new video gives you a sneak peak at the heartwarming and inspirational journey, that hits theaters everywhere on March 27!  
Watch the brand NEW “Feel the Light” Lyric Video on Yahoo here: https://www.yahoo.com/movies/first-listen-j-los-heart-warming-hip-shaking-111965209857.html
HOME hits theaters everywhere on March 27, 2015!  
Please find additional information about the film below and feel free to share with your readers.
Thanks!
DeAnna
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HOME
Animation
Release: March 27, 2015, in 3D
Director: Tim Johnson
Screenplay:  based upon the novel The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex
Producers: Chris Jenkins, Suzanne Buirgy
Cast: Jim Parsons, Rihanna, Steve Martin, and Jennifer Lopez
SYNOPSIS
When Oh, a loveable misfit from another planet, lands on Earth and finds himself on the run from his own people, he forms an unlikely friendship with an adventurous girl named Tip who is on a quest of her own. Through a series of comic adventures with Tip, Oh comes to understand that being different and making mistakes is all part of being human. And while he changes her planet and she changes his world, they discover the true meaning of the word HOME.
HOME Official Assets
HOME Official Socials
 #DreamWorksHOME
DreamWorks Animation Official Socials
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James Wood

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What is your name and your current occupation?
My name is James Wood.  I am currently employed as a freelance animator under contract with a major Canadian animation studio creating character animation for a tv show.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
One summer I got a job working in a hospital as a photographer’s assistant.  One of the duties required me to take photos in the operating room during surgeries – usually done on Fridays.  On the day when I was “indoctrinated” into that task, I was assured the surgeon was doing “just a little operation on someone’s hand.  It shouldn’t be very extensive” he said.  Little did I know, they were doing an elbow reconstruction.  When I walked in, I thought the patient was lying on their stomach with their elbow bent out behind them.  Then I realized the patient was lying on his back, and their elbow was opened up and bent (urp) the wrong way.  I didn’t hurl, but I was mighty shaky – not a good state for taking pictures.  Every Friday for the rest of the summer… I hid out in the darkroom!

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I was fortunate enough to work with the highly-skilled, very clever, fun, very hard-working people at Weta Workshop animating Dragon and other animals on the tv show “Jane and the Dragon”.  It meant I got to spend a year in New Zealand which was pretty interesting.  The work was quite demanding, but I think the end product was pretty darn good.  Also, in the summer of 2012 I did a  short for an animation contest.  We were given sound tracks and six weeks to animate whatever we wanted.  Just a few weeks before the contest I’d finished programming an autorigger, so I whipped up a character model, rigged it, modeled and rigged props and created a location, animated like crazy, added sound effects to the audio and posted the thing about two and a half weeks after starting it.  Sure the model is crude, and the animation is far from wonderful, and even though I didn’t win the contest (no comment) I feel very proud of my work.  The autorigger worked great (it took about an hour to fully rig the character), the animation is serviceable, and the whole thing tells more story than what was conveyed by the audio.  I realized how do-able it was to create a reasonably good short and it was great to hear how well it was received.  I’m eager to do more.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business? 
I’m from London, Ontario in Canada.  When I was a kid, I was always drawing and making Continue reading