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Mark Simon and Toon Boom Animation Win Telly Award for The Key

Posted By : Mukesh Dube    At 25-02-2015 12:25:28

Tags : Mark Simon     Toon Boom Animation    Telly Award    

The Telly Awards has named Mark Simon and Toon Boom Animationas a winner in the 35th Annual Telly Awards for their animation entitled The Key. With nearly 12,000 entries from all 50 states and numerous countries, this is truly an honour.

The Key was created to showcase the power and options of the Toon Boom suite of animation software tools. The goal was to include elements like integrating 2D and 3D elements, atmospheric mist, fire, liquid, shadows and more.

The Key tells the story of a young man and his grandfather who battle for control of the family car (a hot rod) for a night on the town. Simon designed the look of the show with character designer Willie Castro and concept painter Humza Khan to be a mix of Eastern and Western styles.

“Toon Boom gave me a list of parameters they wanted to show off with this short. I wasn’t interested in directing scenes that didn’t mean anything, so I wrote a story that incorporated all of it and more. It was a fun challenge,” said Simon. “It was more than they asked for, but I’m a giving kinda guy.”

Simon and Castro storyboarded the project using Toon Boom’s Emmy®winning software Storyboard Pro. The finished board and animatic were sent to Yeson in South Korea, where they used Toon Boom Harmony animation software to finish the project.

“I was stunned by how few notes I had on the production,” said Simon. “The software tools work so well together that the project looked exactly the way I wanted it to after the first pass.”