Page A18
Where Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble once went for a 2-D-drive against ad constantly repeating background, today's animated characters, more often than not, inhabit complex 3-D worlds, rendered and composited with state-of-the-art animation software.
"Look at what the competition is," says Chris Brough, president of Mainframe Entertainment, explaining the wealth of 3-D animated programs in the marketplace. "Kids are coming home from watching $100 million effects movies like 'Godzilla' and 'Deep Impact.' When they turn on the TV, they have to see something cool or we've lost them.
SCREWBALL: "Wierd Ohs" is Mainframe's latest entry in the booming computer-animated TV series field. The show is lighter in tone than the outfit's popular syndicated series "War Planets".
Somewhat surprisingly, while 3-D animated series have a more complex and layered look than traditional Saturday morning cel animation, in large measure they are actually cheaper to produce.
Mainframe generates all of is 3-D animated programming out of its Vancouver, B.C., facility. Brough says the production cost for the new series "War Planets" is about $500,000 per half-hour. High-end cel-animated shows can cost up to $700,000 per show.
Mainframe code-writers have developed what Brough calls "interpretive software," which can take the same data used to animate the characters on screen and use it to carve perfect 3-D polymer models for use in toy manufacturing. "It's reduced our toy development cost by 50%," Brough says.
