The people at Fuzzwich declare they want everyone to be an animator. A bold assertion, especially as I for one don’t want to be an animator. Don’t get me wrong I love watching cartoons and quite enjoyed the Simpsons movie when I watched it the other day, but dedicating several years of my exciting life to try and get a mouse’s whiskers to twitch is not my idea of fun. Especially as it seems there are plenty of others out there willing to do it for me.
The vision from the Fuzzwich Minivids team is to be applauded though. They have created a website that gives everyone the chance to play at being Nick Park. With over 40 characters including dogs with moustaches, mad scientists, dinosaurs and Captain Jean-Luc Picard, various sound effects and backgrounds ranging from the twilight zone to a desert island there is plenty of scope to create some fun short films. Simply drag and drop your actors and animals onto a chosen scene, have them talk by typing into a voice bubble and film all the action with a click of the record button. It’s very simple and the effects are surprisingly good. I was rather impressed with my Dali-esque pugs.
Fuzzwich have purposely prevented people uploading images or music because they want to attract beginners. Of course this limits the output but they have said users will be able to save their own faces onto cartoon characters soon, which will be interesting if not potentially dangerous.
If top quality content is more what you’re after then the YouTube-style animation site aniBoom is simply stunning. Cheese by Peter Harakaly and The Lighthouse by Dan Blacker are just two of the beautifully created works on view. It’ll probably put you off animation, though. Just think of all the work.
