This spot for Coca-Cola was directed by Punga’s Tomi Dieguez, the spot integrates CG animation with live action footage. The Madrid-based agency Sra. Rushmore oversaw the production of the ad, which is titled Wrestler.

For a while there, Up was basking in perfect “freshness,” holding steady at 100% over at RottenTomatoes.com. But with 2 negative reviews submitted, a little air has leaked from the balloon. You can’t please all the people all the time, or so the saying goes, but what I’ve found even more interesting is how the critical community over at RT has leaped to defend the film’s honor. The New York Press’ Armond White, who didn’t care much for WALL-E either, picked Up to pieces, calling it “sentimental” and a “rip-off.” The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern lobbed in the second rotten grenade, writing that “I admired the film much more than I enjoyed it.” Subsequently, White and Morgenstern were drawn and quartered in the comments section at RT; dismissed as heartless villians bent on ruining Up‘s grand reception.
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Not satisfied with a simple BLT, McDonald’s has gone and created their own acronym sandwich…. the CBO. Sounds like Chief Burger Officer to me, but it actually stands for Chicken, Bacon, and Onion. To help promote the new sandwich in countries like Switzerland, France and the Czech Republic, McDonalds teamed up with DDB Prague and director Wolfberg at Stillking Films to create a website and this stylish, sci-fi TV spot, titled Heavenly Steak:

BY MICHAEL VOGEL

Long before I was an animation executive, I was just an animation dork with a ton of ideas and a vague idea of the types of shows I would like to create one day. Like most people who make their way out to the West Coast, I started putting the ideas together and planning my eventual takeover of the whole animation industry. Recently, I went back through some boxes and found some of my old pitches… and was truly horrified. NOT because the concepts were silly, NOT because the art was bad and NOT because nobody in a million years would ever go for a project like the ones in the box marked “Ideas.”

illustration by Greg Franklin

No, I was horrified because I clearly had NO IDEA what I was doing or how to put together a solid pitch.

After sitting on the other side of the desk for a few years and hearing A LOT of pitches, I’ve gotten pretty good at figuring out what makes a solid pitch and what makes a pitch… well, NOT so solid. Now let’s be clear here: I’m not talking about what makes a great idea. We could all argue for hours about character, story structure and what we classify as “good,” (I spent a few hours recently arguing with a friend about why Goonies is a modern day classic – how is that even a debate?!!?) But outside of the subjective world of taste, there are certain things that you can do to hone your pitching skills so that, regardless of the perceived “quality of your concept,” you have done everything in your power to make your pitch show off all the best aspects of your idea while making YOU look like a total animation badass who is on top of his or her game.

So without further ado, here we go. A list of concrete things you should definitely be aware of when prepping an animated pitch:
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