When I started doing animation work on Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, my creative and business partner, Joe Olson, told me that 30 frames per second (or more) was standard for video games. I've always animated at 24 frames per second, that being the standard for the movie industry. Since a lot of the animation I do is hand drawn, increasing the frame rate by 20% meant a lot more hours to produce the same lenght of animation.
And so, Joe and I decided that I would animate at 24 fps and the game engine would adjust its playback speed when displaying my animation.
But then, I saw how smooth and silky my animation looked when we mistakenly displayed it at 30 fps. I was immediately hooked. I love how animation looks at this increased rate, especially when it's hand drawn!
So no worry, all the animation in the game will be at a minimum of 30 fps. No cheat!
Media Launch
May 1, 2010
Last Wednesday was the media launch of TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival. I was surprised and delighted to see how much attention Fixed Fragmented Fluid received. In his speech, artistic director Ken Pickering mentionned the show as one of the highlight of the festival. We then showed the trailer to the press and the response was explosive. From there, I was dragged in front of TV cameras, trying to do my best to answer questions about the event. I even had to do an interview in French for CBC which proved to be a bit of a challenge since I don't get to practice my native language very often.
This was my second media launch with Coastal Jazz - Last year, I created the poster for the festival.
Fixed Fragmented Fluid
April 28, 2010
The trailer for my latest animated project is live. Check it out!
A New Website Layout for Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet
April 24, 2010
I've reconstructed the layout for the official "Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet" website.
At the bottom of the webpage, I embeded a 1080P new rendering of the interstitials that inspired the game. The shorts were never showed in HD before. I still had the source files and was able to make a new version. Check it out.
A New HD Master for Prelude to Eden
April 21, 2010
Back in 1995, when I made my short film, Prelude to Eden, there was not much talk about HD. I was happy enough to get the film done on 35mm. I had a NTSC broadcast master made from the 35mm negative and that's all I thought I needed in terms of masters. I never made back-ups of the digital files and forgot all about them.
Now with the advent of HDTV, Bluray and HD web videos, I've been eager to make a new 1080P digital master. When I started to look for the original source files, I realized that they had been long lost. It seemed like my only choice was to create the HD master from the 35mm negative, which meant loosing a generation in the process.
After many enquiries, I was delighted to learn that Cambridge Animation, the company that created the Animo software, had made their own back-ups of the original files on 8mm and 4mm Helical-Scan Data Cartridges, which ended up at the Toonboom office, when Animo was bought out. I contacted Toonboom and the data tapes were sent to me.
I've now had the tapes for a couple of weeks and haven't been able to find anyone who can retrieve the information on them. The tapes were made in 1995 and the technology has changed quite a bit since then. Fortunately, I was able to find the right equipment on eBay and just purchased a drive a few hours ago. Hopefully, I'll be able to make it work and get what's on those tapes. I'll keep you posted!
Flight 6 Nominated for an Eisner Award
April 14, 2010
 I just learned that Flight Volume 6 received a nomination for the 2010 Eisner Award in the Best Anthology category.
Being the artist who has contributed the most pages to the yearly anthology - close to 200 pages over a period of seven years - I feel very close to the project. I'd love to see editor Kazu Kibuishi pick up the trophy for all the hard work he's put into the book year after year.
You can see the full list of nominees here. The results will be announced in a gala awards ceremony on the evening of Friday, July 23 at Comic-Con International.
Numar and Rex Reviewed
April 06, 2010
Here are two recent reviews of my books, The Towers of Numar and A Search for Meaning: The Story of Rex, posted on the National Center for the Study of Children's Literature. I always get a bit nervous when reading reviews of my work, but these were nicely favorable, so that made me happy!
Michel Gagne and Fuelcell Games Bring Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet to Xbox Live
March 29, 2010
Seattle, WA, March 2010 – Michel Gagne and Fuelcell Games are pleased to bring their independent video game, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, to Xbox Live® Arcade.
Michel Gagne and Joe Olson, CEO of Fuelcell Games, met in 2007 in Seattle’s Fremont district where they discussed the possibility of bringing feature quality 2d animation to the gaming world in a classic side-scrolling adventure. Shortly after, a production team was assembled and Fuelcell Games was born. Their mission: bring the vision of Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet to life.
“This is one of the most thrilling projects of my career”, said Gagne. “I love working on ITSP with Joe and his team. It amazes me to see how they’re able to expand on my concepts and animations and create such a memorable interactive experience. Simply put, this game is going to rock!”
The Fuelcell team has been busy building a studio infrastructure and quietly working with Gagne on ITSP while exploring partnerships to develop the game. After months of negotiation with several entities, it was decided that Microsoft and Xbox LIVE Arcade was the best possible home for the project.
“The team here at Fuelcell is incredibly excited to be starting production in full force on Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet”, said Olson. “We’ve assembled an extremely talented, dedicated, and passionate group of people around this unique project. The combined forces of our team of game industry veterans, Michel’s unique artistic style and vision, and Microsoft’s expertise in the downloadable game space is sure to make for a lasting impression on 2D gaming.”
“Microsoft is thrilled to have Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet heading to Xbox LIVE Arcade”, said Saxs Persson, Senior Director of Xbox LIVE Arcade. “We look forward to helping Michel and Fuelcell realize their creative vision, and continuing to support independent developers looking to drive innovation on our service.”
Catsuka is the first French television program entirely devoted to animation. Each episode features news, clips, short films, studio spotlights and artist profiles. I was honored to be the featured artist on the just released episode five (segment starts at 5:00). The episodes are in French but each one is filled with enough eye candy to keep your interest even if you can't understand the language.
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