House of Cool Inc. is a pre-production studio with a focus on the development of original content. Their business is built on transforming their client’s most valued intellectual properties into compelling and marketable products. They have developed and designed content for Pixar Studios, Blue Sky Studios, Laika Entertainment, Universal Studios and the Weinstein Company. They have also completed television series projects with Disney Studios and Nelvana Limited.
House of Cool Inc. is a pre-production studio with a focus on the development of original content. Their business is built on transforming their client’s most valued intellectual properties into compelling and marketable products. They have developed and designed content for Pixar Studios, Blue Sky Studios, Laika Entertainment, Universal Studios and the Weinstein Company. They have also completed television series projects with Disney Studios and Nelvana Limited.
House of Cool provides concept and pre-production environment and character designs, digital storyboard, and story development services for a host of clients in commercial, television, feature film, gaming and interactive media. Broadening the scope of their services, House of Cool acquired high-end CG studio, Red Rover in June of 2008. Red Rover Studios provides their clients with a variety of full CG and graphic design production services to complete the pre-production and production life cycles. "We feel it is a natural fit as both studios are committed to quality and creative excellence as well as artistic and technical innovation" explained Wesley Lui, Co-founder and Director of Operations at House of Cool.
Since opening the studio doors in June of 2004, House of Cool has grown from two employees to 65 artists, producers, production managers and management both at House of Cool and Red Rover Studios. House of Cool’s first big break came from Nelvana. They both worked together to develop a pre-production platform, which would allow them to focus on digital storyboards and designs. It was with Nelvana that they were introduced to Toon Boom and its array of software capabilities. "Toon Boom was an emerging force in animation software and is now the leading innovator helping artists to create content while minimizing IT hiccups. Toon Boom, primarily Toon Boom Story
Board Pro, has allowed us to develop creative story in an efficient manner without sacrificing quality in our boards" continued Wesley.
In the past, House of Cool created a show for Disney Television titled Lumber Jacksons. More recently, House of Cool developed kids television series Betty Banner Party Planner and El Hombre La Mancha, signing a distribution agreement with DECODE Entertainment. The team looks forward to gearing up for production on these properties as well as launching a number of new properties in the near future. They are currently in development on two more children’s animated series, Spaghetti West, a series of 26 twenty minute episodes and Roboyo, a series of 26 eleven minute episodes.
The team behind the company is as cool as its name. Let’s introduce Ricardo Curtis, the Founder and President of House of Cool. Ricardo has over eight animated feature films under his belt as an animator, supervising animator, story artist and head of story distinctions on such films as Monsters Inc., The Incredibles (Pixar Studios) and Horton Hears A Who! (Blue Sky Studios). He has taught at CalArts and Sheridan College for Animation and Story Development. Wesley Lui is Co-founder and Director of Operations. As a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University with a degree in economics and with his past experience in commercial lending and investment advisor positions, Wes played an integral role in structuring the acquisition of high-end CG studio Red Rover by House of Cool, leading negotiation and valuation of the deal. Andrew Ng is the Television Story Supervisor at House of Cool and attended Sheridan College Classical Animation Program. He has worked in the industry since 1995 in various departments of pre-production and has been storyboarding since 2000. He is responsible for overseeing storyboards on series production, and producing high quality and consistent storyboards for all clients.
House of Cool has been using Toon Boom Storyboard Pro since 2007 in series production and has integrated it into their production pipeline. "The program is very easy to get accustomed to since most people are computer savvy these days, and after a day of training most board artists are up and running by day two. With the tools available in Storyboard Pro, we are better able to concentrate on storytelling and not the peripherals that make the job tedious," commented Wesley.
"There are numerous advantages to Storyboard Pro, the biggest being able to work more effectively with numerous board artists both in-house and freelance. Whereas storyboards are normally a solitary job, we can now build an effective team of artists that can maintain quality and consistency for our clients. Working with Directors has been simplified as they can now draw right onto the file instead of writing their revisions, which can be vague or misleading at times."
"Being able to create one file that can be used from the rough stage through to the final board is very convenient. It’s a lot more difficult to have something go wrong with a computer file, which can be backed up numerous times, than a paper board where spilling a cup of coffee on it can ruin weeks of work. By using a server, artists can now check their boards to previous boards to maintain a consistent look to a show, which is a big priority to clients who ask us to deliver season’s worth of shows."
"The formatting tools in Storyboard Pro have been a great time saver in tight-deadline shows. Just re-numbering a storyboard for delivery can be a real messy and tedious chore, but with the renumbering tool, that stage is now an after-thought. I’ve seen a lot of boards where something as important as Action Notes are illegible because artists tend to have messy handwriting, but being able to type it out saves us a lot of time and clients big headaches."
"The turn-around on a board is much less complicated specifically in regards to revisions. Being able to work on the original board to do the revisions, and not have it get muddled as it would on paper is great. Normally we’d have to use post-it notes all over a revised board in order to save time, but that creates a cumbersome board. And in practical terms, getting a board with lots of post-its and tape through a photocopier is a real chore."
photocopier is a real chore." "By having the digital board, we are now able to upload boards to multiple clients at the same time. This is especially useful when dealing with clients in multiple time zones, and offers a huge savings in time and shipping costs. Now everyone can get the board at the same time."
"Story artists are always trying to find ways to be faster. Since the job is repetitive in many respects, saving a minute here or there on a task can prove to be very beneficial in the long term. Not having to erase is a big one, now control z allows us to draw as freely as possible without having to worry about a misplaced line. We just get rid of it and start again."
"Another thing clients love is that all the panels of a storyboard now have a background in it. Being able to drag a background layer into multiple panels makes the board aesthetically pleasing and much better to view during the leica stage. The transition from paper to digital was very easy as most people these days are pretty savvy with computers. Most people are up and running within a day, so there is very little learning curve."
"The key features we are using the most are probably the Light Table tool, as well as the Onion Skin tool. The Onion Skin tool is great for syncing up poses through long animation scenes, and the Light Table tool is great for when we go to clean-up. These tools allow us to concentrate on the actual drawing instead of worrying whether or not the character is getting bigger, or if the drawing has moved over time when it shouldn’t."
"We are also using the Library and Import functions to bring in actual backgrounds to use in the board. This stops us from wasting time re-drawing things that don’t need to be reproduced for a storyboard, as well as ensuring that characters are acting in the actual environments that they will be inhabiting. This is something that is beneficial all the way through production from storyboarding to layout and to animation."
"We have storyboard teams for shows that involve multiple episodes and the tool has allowed us to be a more effective team. Where before, having someone help out on a board could sometimes be more trouble than it was worth, in terms of maintaining consistency, we can now have multiple people working on one board. We can then take those individual segments and place them back into the original file. This allows us to hand out the board to multiple clean up artists and then recompile the board into one file. Since we can send them the whole file, they have an idea how their section is working with the rest of the board. This is especially useful with freelance artists who would normally just receive their section and have no idea how it relates to the other parts."
"When Exporting, we normally use the PDF format since that is universally accepted. Also, we export JPEG files to the clients so that they can create animatics. This is a huge time saver on their side, instead of having to scan in the paper boards and then lift off each panel to go into their editing suites."
House of Cool and Red Rover’s current plans include an ongoing drive to cross-pollinate the two studios creative and technical capabilities, as well as reaching more clients with innovative, high-calibre production and creative services. House of Cool also seeks to work with clients and strategic partners to develop its own library of extraordinary IP, pushing entertainment content to new heights.
