{"id":2392,"date":"2012-02-13T22:08:05","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T06:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tequilawhisperer.com\/?p=2392"},"modified":"2012-02-17T14:02:04","modified_gmt":"2012-02-17T22:02:04","slug":"google-doodle-valentines-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tequilawhisperer.com\/?p=2392","title":{"rendered":"Google Doodle – Valentine’s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Hi Gang! Your Tequila Whisperer<\/strong> has animated his first long form Google Doodle!<\/strong> Click above to play it (and don’t forget to watch hi-rez<\/span> FULL SCREEN!<\/strong>)<\/p>\n

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Here is the story of how I got involved in the production and why it was such an important piece for me:<\/p>\n

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<\/p>\n

As a veteran character animator, I was beginning to doubt whether I\u2019d ever again have the opportunity to create a short narrative piece – then I got the call.\u00a0 When Google calls and says, \u2018We\u2019d like you to drop everything and make a short narrative piece that will be seen by hundreds of millions of people\u2019, you heed that call!<\/p>\n

Since the dot com crash I, like many of my Flash animation contemporaries, have been content to reboot my career to a trade less concerned with storytelling and more concerned with making online game characters perform repeatable incremental actions.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fine living, but the urge to tell a story, even a simple one, is what drives most animators to continue to create. I have always been humbled by watching my fellow animators working insane hours on their own time to try and squeeze a few more \u201dstory beats\u201d into the opening cutscenes of the game they\u2019re working on.\u00a0 I\u2019ve done it myself many times.\u00a0 It\u2019s the creamy center of any game production job: designing\/storyboarding\/(and if you\u2019re lucky) animating the intro sequence: a mini-movie for all of 20 seconds.\u00a0 Unlike the dot com glory days when animators had full time work telling stories for well-paying online patrons, these days working to create short pieces comes at a steep price: you must fund your animation independently out of your own pocket.\u00a0 Then it\u2019s up to you to market, advertise, and, against-all-odds, try to squeeze some money out of the whole endeavor.\u00a0 It dissuades a lot of potential storytellers.<\/p>\n

And yet hope springs eternal.\u00a0 My call came on a Tuesday.<\/p>\n

After a whirlwind of pre-production calls, on-campus meetings, and massive file transfers, I found myself working on Google\u2019s first ever long-form animation: a Valentine\u2019s Day \u201cGoogle Doodle\u201d!\u00a0 I was working from the inspiring design paintings of Willie Real in the Doodle dept.\u00a0 Willie has recently returned to the Bay Area from Blue Sky Studios feature animation studios in New York.\u00a0 He has a great feel for story beats and honest emotion.\u00a0 Animation is generally timed to a soundtrack, and for this piece, what a track we had: the legendary Tony Bennett crooning his 1951 version of the Hank Williams nugget, \u201cCold, Cold Heart\u201d.\u00a0 (Luckily I am a huge fan of both Williams and Bennett, which is good because I had to listen to that track more times that I can count).<\/p>\n

So after all of the late night work sessions and early morning conference calls, my valentine is complete.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be taking my lovely wife out to dinner tonight to celebrate.\u00a0 But I can\u2019t help being surprised that in working on this project, I too was courted.\u00a0 It was a sweetheart of a deal: I got paid to tell a story to the world again.<\/p>\n

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<\/p>\n

Many thanks to all of my friends on the Google Doodle<\/strong> team especially Ryan Germick<\/a> & Willie Real<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s Willie’s<\/strong> “retro-current” designs that really make this piece.
\n LOVE RULES!<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is Willie’s original storyboard drawing:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

.. and this is my final frame layout for the animation:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

To see more of Th’ Lip’s<\/strong> animation go to LIPPY.com<\/a><\/strong>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google Doodle for Valentine’s Day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[225],"tags":[487,486,485,127,488],"class_list":["post-2392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-show","tag-animated","tag-doodle","tag-google","tag-lippy","tag-willie-real"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tequilawhisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tequilawhisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tequilawhisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tequilawhisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tequilawhisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2392"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/tequilawhisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2422,"href":"https:\/\/tequilawhisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2392\/revisions\/2422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tequilawhisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tequilawhisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tequilawhisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}