Mad Lab Productions- Review of 2012

2012 was our first year, and much like bull riding, it was exciting and exhausting.

Unlike bull riding, no bulls were involved.

 As a small animation production company, we don't have a heap of admin or infrastructure, and that gives us the advantage of being pretty nimble and able to respond and react quickly to feedback, and to what we learn as we put stuff out. We can make essential decisions quickly, and that keeps things FUN, and exciting.

The flip side of that is, well- we don't have a heap of admin or infrastructure! That means all the heavy lifting, creatively and admin-wise, is done by the two idiots (wait, wrong word- geniuses) who head the company up, Geri and Chris. Thank goodness both guys possess incredible amounts of energy, passion, talent, and most importantly- good looks.

 We spent the year pursuing TWO things: service work for clients, and development of our own animated content, made entirely from within our company. This is a pretty classic pair of objectives for media production companies, so why should Mad Lab reinvent the wheel?

 In the realm of providing animation services, we found ourselves working with a fantastic client in Inhabit Media. This company has offices in Toronto and Iqaluit (which is in Nunavut, which is in Canada's far, FAR north). Inhabit Media focuses on telling stories of the north, with a focus on Inuit legends, myths, and tales. And so Inhabit and Mad Lab are working together to create a stop motion tale of childhood friendship, bravery, and child-eating ogres.

The use of stop motion, with its tactile, physical quality, works wonderfully as a way to tell these tales that are honest, primal, and very, very magical.

The project is ongoing, with Mad Lab overseeing storyboards, puppet fabrication, sets, and animation, under the direction of Neil Christopher of Inhabit Media. We'll post more information about the project over time...  but it's looking wonderful so far, and is truly exciting and inspiring to work on.

Another client we worked with was the Burlington Animation Festival. We created their signal film that was shown around online and at the event itself. Here it is.

This little project was a great chance to do some NON- stop motion work, since the animation is drawn.  It went over with a big bang (pun certainly intended).

 As for our second objective, making our own content- we spent the year making MORE zombie shorts, which played in festivals like TAAFI (Toronto Animation Arts Festival International), we created  a mini-series using drawn animation called Vampire Instructionals, and we created a couple of  "secret projects"- these are short animated pieces that we're very proud of. We're planning to reveal these pieces over the course of 2013. Based on audience responses, these could be the projects we continue to pursue over time.


We'd like to thank a bunch of folks for their efforts in 2012, namely Noam Sussman, Peter Grecco, Phillip Stamp, Rich Duhaney, Pete Emslie, Ben McEvoy, Alex Gorelick, Nora Keely, Daniel Baker, Carla Veldman, Max Racz, Larry MacDougall, Patrick Sweeney and Amy Pagnotta from SPACE.  All these folks have websites/blogs, so look 'em up!

Thanks also to SPACE, Rue Morgue, Fangoria, Daily Dead, and Strange Kids Club, for the great coverage of our new business and our various projects.

 Extra special thanks to Jason "Thumbs" Burch for his work as our intern. He created fabulous stuff you'll see in 2013... and to Phil Postma for his continued (and amazing) Mad Lab-inspired artwork that can be seen via our Facebook page, and our Twitter feed.


Best and last thanks goes to our families. Without their support and love we'd still be lying on a couch just watching cartoons, instead of out in the world, MAKING 'em.

What does 2013 hold? Invasion by alien overlords? The rise of a bizarre superbug that will crush the human race beneath its feet? Perhaps a new album from Justin Bieber? We really can't say.. but regardless of how crazy the new year gets, we'll just keep making with the Mad Lab goodness...

Our Hero, Jack Davis

Today, we thought we'd just refresh your memory about an artist that deeply inspires Mad Lab Productions. Much has been written about the man and his art, but here's a brief intro, dragged straight from Wikipedia: "Jack Davis (b. December 2, 1924) is an American cartoonist, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories. He was one of the founding cartoonists for MAD Magazine."

We love his work (especially his monster stuff) because as detailed and as highly rendered as it is, it never lose its sense of cartoon fun. His monsters are funny to look at, but are still monsters, to be sure. They have a violent, toothy, dangerous edge... but also a wonderful silliness.That balance of spooky and fun is something we really hold dear to our darkly beating hearts at Mad Lab Productions. There's a newly published book on the art of Jack Davis as well, so look for it.



^{Here's some of our fave pieces of art from Jack Davis:}

<sup>Here's a fantastic flickr page about Jack Davis.


And finally, here's a cool piece by Chuck Dixon that features Jack's You'll Die Laughing cards.</sup>

Mad Lab on Electric Playground!

A few weeks ago Chris of Mad Lab found himself being interviewed about Springtime Zombie by the awesome folks at Electric Playground. We shot at the historic Silver Snail on Queen Street, in Toronto. The piece was within a feature piece on TAAFI (Toronto Animation Arts Festival International), that hits next week. Springtime Zombie is playing as part of that fest, so check it out.

If you don't know, Electric Playground is a highly respected (and fan-favoured) destination for video game, movie, and general pop culture news updates, interviews, and reviews.  So Mad Lab was very excited about it all.

Be sure to check out the bitchin' Mad Lab T-shirt Chris is sporting! Would you buy one? Let us know!

Thanks again to Shaun and Darcy- true fans of all the things that Mad Lab holds dear.

You can see the clip here (TAAFI and Mad Lab's segment starts around the 12 min mark)...

Alexander Gorelick- Stop Motion Maestro

 This pic is from Alex's website, and features non-Mad Lab work he has done (just to be clear).

We have a larger stop motion project that we are developing, that is full of spooky goodness. We've been working very hard on it, to say the least.

Essentially, we're getting a promo package together that we hope will WOW everyone, and give the world complete assurance that this project is going to be a wonderful thing to behold.

Part of that promo package is a piece of promo animation, that shows off a central character, the tone of the project (funny and spooky), and the overall production value we are capable of achieving.

To that end, we reached out to a remarkable stop motion animation talent, Alexander Gorelick, to tackle the actual animation of the promo piece.

Alex is, in the truest sense of the word, a maestro. The life he can bring to a puppet borders on the uncanny. We're beyond excited to have him bringing our creation to life.

IT'S ALIVE!!!!

If you are a stop motion fan, you MUST check out his website, and his demo reel.

You can watch check it all out, here.

SPACE CHANNEL Visits Mad Lab Productions

SPACE Channel is Canada's national sci-fi TV channel, and last week they came out to visit with us, and record a segment for their daily news show, INNERSpace. We were extremely excited, to say the least.

They first did a series of questions with Chris on camera, then a sequence with Geri AND Chris on camera, and finally a piece with Geri on his own. Then they mixed it all around through the magical process known as "editing," and BEHOLD. You can watch the segment here.

In the sequence, they also used footage that we provided them with,  known as "B roll" (since it's not main or "A" material, but is required nonetheless when it comes to editing, in order to beef up a sequence). This was footage of Geri and Chris working at storyboards, and of us on-set working with the sets and puppets.

We also provided them with an original piece we're calling "Zombie Pile Up," and a cool time-lapse making of. We'll be posting all this to our YouTube Channel in the coming days...

To give credit where credit is due, Zombie Pile Up was animated by Chris and the wickedly talented Mad Lab intern, Jason Francis Burch. We'll post about the awesome skilz of Mr Burch in coming blog posts...

They also incorporated segments from our zombie shorts, so it was exciting to see our own work re-edited and re-packaged to make a segment. We think SPACE did a great job in all ways. It's a fantastic piece that shows what we do and who we are...  what more could we ask for?

Well, maybe a magical robot goose that shoots golden eggs out of its bottom, but those still haven't been invented. YET.

Thanks especially to Andy Feige (Senior Camera for SPACE), and  Amy Pagnotta, who pulled the whole thing together, and who conducted the actual interview. They put us at ease with their polished professionalism.

SPACE Channel is welcomed in the Mad Lab, anytime!

New Zombie Animation This Week!

Hey, blog updates are only supposed to be on Fridays, what gives?! All we can say is "Life is full of happy surprises." And this update couldn't wait till next Friday!

So far, we've been posting content on our YouTube channel that has been seen pretty widely in festivals, and online.

But coming this week to our channel is our newest and absolutely "world premiere status" ultra-short film. It's called SPRINGTIME ZOMBIE. No one has seen this film yet. So it's exciting to be getting ready to release it.

Our past zombie films were kept off-line, and released via traditional film festivals, for about half a year BEFORE posting online. It was a way to keep the content exclusive so festivals would like it. But it seems festivals aren't too concerned if something has already played online, as long as its good quality. And how can you deny the attraction of suddenly having the huge audience that is THE INTERNET primed and ready to see your new content? As content producers that want large audiences, it just makes sense.

The plan is to still submit our films to festivals. Having your work shown to real live audiences, to get real live reactions (and laughs!) is a rush you can't replace, no matter how many people watch something online. And festivals are a fantastic way to build community amongst genre fans. So we'll still be hitting festivals with SPRINGTIME ZOMBIE, and maybe you will to see it on a big screen somewhere over the next year. 

But the reality for this film is this: next week (follow our FB page and Twitter feed for ultra current updates), we will be premiering our next film, exclusively online, for Mad Lab fans every where.

We're hoping you like, and we're hoping you offer comments on our YouTube page. That helps us get noticed even more. And please subscribe to our channel as well. That helps us prove we have fans that want to watch us on a regular basis. And that's good for business.

Updates to follow!

Got To Love Fridays!

Thanks for checking back on our blog.

Our other pages (Facebook and Twitter) are great for short and fast updates, but there's nothing like a cozy blog to really let us relax into a detailed (and at times wildly self-indulgent) posting.

 It's a place where we'll be able to do more "behind the scenes" stuff of our productions, and climb upon the occasional soap box to rant a bit about this or that. The plan, loyal Mad Lab reader, is to update this blog no less than once a week. And in general, that will be on FRIDAYS. Not Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays... but FRIDAYS. And not on the weekend. FRIDAYS. Got it? Good!

So why this Sunday morning update?

Because this is the internet, and there ARE no rules. Get used to it.

 No seriously, most updates will be on Fridays.