Keith Osborn

Charm

2007-08-12T01:26:00.000-04:00

This is a charming Disney short called “Off His Rockers”. I remember seeing this in front of “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid”. It’s one of the more successful early attempts of blending CG and traditional animation. To help put the technology in perspective, this was released 3 years before Toy Story. The CG might be a bit simplistic (by today’s standards) but that didn’t prevent Disney from instilling a believable and wonderfully captivating personality in the rocking horse. Just click on the image.

Back to school

2007-08-11T23:54:00.000-04:00

Wow, it’s been over a year since my last update. In short, I’ve shifted gears and have just finished up teaching my first year at Ringling. It felt, as has been accurately described by my fellow faculty, like I’ve been hit by a bus. I knew going in, the dedication the Ringling faculty have to their students, as I was proudly one of those who benefited from a Ringling education. However, I don’t know that I could ever have been prepared for the sheer amount of work required. It’s pretty much nonstop communication with the students. When I wasn’t in class teaching, I was usually answering questions in e-mails or giving critiques. In the lulls, I would prepare for upcoming classes. This summer I got some much needed rest. As crazy as it was, I’m excited to be returning for another year. I must be nuts!

Latest Reel

2006-05-02T19:23:00.000-04:00

Click the image above for a look at a compilation of some of my latest work, including animation from "The Wild" and "Boz". You can see a supersize version here and a reel breakdown (pdf file) here. Enjoy!

A Studio Is Born

2006-04-14T13:49:00.000-04:00

No it wasn’t Jurassic Park. It was Beauty & the Beast, the film that truly inspired me to pursue animation. I was working at the movie theater at the time and during some time off just wanted to kill a couple of hours. It was the only movie I hadn’t seen yet that was playing at our little six-plex. I went in with little expectation and walked out blown away. I couldn’t imagine how a cartoon, for Pete’s sake, could carry me on such an emotional ride. A hopeful, wanna-be Disney animator was born.

Fast forward a decade. Under realization that my draughtsmanship just wasn’t up to par, I enrolled in the Computer Animation program at Ringling, still hopeful for one day becoming a Disney animator. Ringling exposed me to not only the animation side of things but to the whole process of filmmaking. I loved every aspect of it (well, except for the incredibly painful and ego-destroying story crits). Because of that exposure, another dream was born, to one day have my own studio.

Upon graduation, I was fortunate to have several employment offers as many studios were ramping up for big productions. However, I went with a little guy at the time, Reel FX Creative Studios. It was small enough that I could get my hands dirty in more than just animation. After putting in a few years, learning all that I could in a production environment, it was time to follow up on that second dream. By the way, even though I never worked at Disney, I have had the extreme pleasure and honor of working with Disney veteran, Ken Duncan (Beauty & the Beast, Hercules, Tarzan, Shark Tale) on the prologue for the Disney film, “The Wild”. In some small roundabout way, God has granted my first dream and I’m extremely grateful. The second dream, having my own studio, has also been granted. Lasso the Moon Animation is open for business.

Slow Trickle

2006-02-05T23:57:00.000-05:00

I've got some new animations going up soon. I don't want to show anything that hasn't been publicly released so it's going to be a slow trickle. "Boz" is coming in March and "The Wild" is coming in April. In the meantime, I've added a very short clip from "Aunt Fanny's Tour of Booty", the short film included on the "Robot's" DVD. I've included a link to a hi-res version for those who want to look at the clip outside me head. I've also added blurbs to each animation - not as artsy looking as before - but will hopefully give more context.

Time for Change

2006-01-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

3 years with one company, while common in the traditional workplace, seems to be rather unique in the field of animation where contract work is often the norm. Reel FX has been good to me but it’s time to explore some other options. I’m still trying to figure out what exactly those options are. However, in the meantime, I’m hoping to secure some remote freelance work to help keep the boat afloat while I try to cement the path ahead. If you need an animator, feel free to give me a holler.

"Boz the Bear" is up!

2005-09-23T08:52:00.000-04:00

Just a follow up to my previous post. Bozthebear.com is now up and running. You can even request a free preview DVD!

What about Boz?

2005-08-11T10:04:00.000-04:00

Finally, I can talk some about a project I’ve spent the last year on. His name is Boz and he’s a big green bear dog, bog, er… initially he was a mix between a bear and a dog but seeing as how infinitely curious children were bound to ask what Boz was, it was decided that Boz was indeed a bear. He lives next door to some twins, Drew and Gracie. It’s aimed at preschoolers so there are lots of catchy songs. They’re all stuck in my head forever! Actually, all the animation so far has been focused on the singing and dancing bits which has been quite a challenge. You see, I’m a white male. Therein lies the problem. It wasn’t that bad though as most of it was silly dancing. Heck, I’m 9/10’s goofball so it worked out alright. After the models were built and rigged we had about a couple months to do animation testing, finding the character and just having fun with him. That’s a luxury on series work. It gave us the opportunity to explore different ideas of how he might behave and move which was great! That time was so valuable. It may seem like a waste of money (to some producers anyway) but man, it really enabled us to help define the character and move forward with confidence when animation began. All in all, it was a blast to work on. It’s not scheduled to hit the streets until early 2006 so there’s nothing for me to show just yet. I have a feeling you’ll hear about it when it does come out. It’s going to be big, big, big!!!

Welcome to my head!

2005-07-20T16:50:00.000-04:00

Trying something new with my site. We'll see if it sticks. I'm also updating my journal via Blogger and it makes the process much less painful than before so hopefully I'll be updating more often than say... twice a year!!!

Out with the Old

2005-07-07T00:00:00.000-04:00

07/05/05
Animations are now Firefox friendly! No more fancy (if you can call it that) embedded movie clips.

07/04/05
We're getting close to a press release on the current project I'm working on so maybe I can show some stuff soon. We'll see. I'm also hoping to update this website - maybe even a blog format. As you can see however, I don't have too much to say. Maybe that commitment will force me into being more talkative. Or, maybe I should leave the animation pontifications to the likes of smart feller's like Keith Lango. Too many maybe's.

03/25/05
We've just started production on a new video series aimed at preschoolers. That's about all I can say really. For the first time in over a year, I'm able to just focus on animation and I'm having a blast. The talent at the studio is growing by leap and bounds and now there's a serious amount of iron to rub up against. I'm learning so much and loving it.

12/02/04
During our pre-production class at Ringling, we were to flesh out two story ideas for our senior thesis. "Baby Changing Station," seen here, was one of them. I was actually leaning heavily toward my alternative concept – however, I had some real story problems that I couldn’t resolve. Well, I’ve dusted it off and am ready to tackle it again. Granted, the story problems are still there, but I have a little more time and determination to make it happen. For now, all I have is a title graphic. Here’s the link to the launch of my next short film.

09/14/04
Valor vs. Venom is finally out. You can check out some of the shots I animated here.

07/03/04
Looks like some browsers can't view embedded movies. I apologize for the inconvenience. Eventually, I'll get around to fixing that. 07/20/05 UPDATE: Using quicktime .mov's seems to overcome the problem. I'll eventually encode all the movies that way.

07/03/04
G.I.Joe "Valor vs. Venom" is done! It's being pressed and packaged and should be released mid-September. Not much I can say about though - else I get the axe.

05/03/04
For any "My Little Pony" fans out there (you know who you are), I've added the test cycles I animated. They're the first version of the modeled pony - no hair and longer noses than the final design. Unfortunately, My Little Pony is now being done by another studio so Pinkie Pie and the gang are no longer with us. Sad day. The toys still grace our studio however, as their magnetic feet stick to the exposed sewage pipes. My Little Pony, My Little Pony, race you too the Cotton..... Candy..... *sniff* Cafe.

01/19/04
For the premiere of the first G.I.Joe movie "Spytroops", I was asked to put together a fun little animation for the folks at Hasbro who were attending the event. I've heard rumors that My Little Pony people and G.I.Joe people are often at odds with each other. So, what better way to mend fences than to unite the two on the big screen. Check the animation section for the clip.

01/18/04
In my rather hectic schedule at Reel FX, I managed to eke out a couple shots for "Hermie and Friends: Flo the Lyin' Fly". It's a cute DVD/Video about a bunch of Christian bugs. You can see the two shots in the animation section. Oh, the voice of the Fly is Vicki Lawrence of "The Carol Burnett Show".

09/21/03
Yo Joe! A compilation of shots I animated for the Spytroops movie and commercial is now uploaded.

09/20/03
I've had some requests to put back up my old demo reel so it's now in the animation section. Everything on the reel was completed during my Junior year at Ringling.

09/20/03
New animation added. Now that the "My Little Pony" commercial is airing, I can post the two shots that I animated. I spent a tremendous amount of time studying horse movement and their three main forms of locomotion (walk, trot and gallop) only to hear the client say "These aren't horses, they're little girls". How exactly does a quadruped little girl move? Hmm... who knows for sure but after some trial and error, they were happy with the finished product.

06/05/03
Gallery section is up.

06/04/03
Happy 4th! Animation section is up. Currently the only animation uploaded is my Ringling senior thesis "Baby Changing Station". Even though the project is complete, I welcome any and all criticism.

06/01/03
Site is barely up and running. Yippee Skippee!