Cog & Turbine Boot Up for New Animated Short

Daniel James Cox first got serious about his animated short film ‘Cog & Turbine’ three
years ago. Fuelled by a good story and a skilled team, he has now launched a crowd-
funding campaign to support the project.

Check out the artwork, animatics and animation for this project on the 'Cog & Turbine'  campaign page. Dan’s project grew from a comic strip he had been developing about two robots that appeared in Mania Magazine about 10 years ago. It was well received, and while he felt they had more potential, he needed to leave the characters on the back burner and move into film and TV work to earn a living.
Unplugged “It wasn't until 2009 when I was playing the Nintendo Wii with my kids, that it occurred to me that it'd be cool if, even when we turned off the game, there was a world still going on inside the console that didn't stop just because I unplugged it,” he said. With this idea brewing in his head, he remembered his robot characters and began working on a story and artwork for a short film. He has commissioned several artists to help with the 3D development, and is relying on the volume of experience he has gained over the last decade working as a visual development artist on kids’ animation, feature films and TV series. His work has also appeared in comic books by Image, Dark Horse and Ape Entertainment, and has been featured in ‘Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantasy Art’.
Meanwhile Dan has done considerable animation market research, pitched his project in a contest and shown the concept - with favourable responses, though no takers - to PBS, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. He said, “It was about this time that I started seeing some success stories with crowd-funding, and that seemed more and more like the best option. We have now launched a funding campaign on Indiegogo that will run till 8 August.” Meet the Team Dan is inspired and encouraged by his team. “I've been lucky enough to work with some very talented colleagues during my work in film and TV,” Dan said. “Animation director Chris Bradley completed all the ‘Cog & Turbine’ poses for the preproduction key art and is a Disney Features trained animator, having worked on ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ in 1996 and ‘Mulan’ in 1998. He occupied a major role at Disney Australia before it closed down in 2006. Since then, Chris has made a successful transition to Maya and been an animation director with Flying Bark studio in Sydney. He is currently overseas directing several TV series in China.
“Lead animator is Mike Paech, who animated on the Harry Potter films. Mike designed the walk cycles and logo animation, which you can see on the campaign page Facebook page. Neil Mayo will be handling editing. Neil joined Weta Digital in their Visual Effects Editorial working on ‘The Adventures of Tintin’, ‘X-Men: First Class’, ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’, ‘The Avengers’, ‘Man of Steel’ and ‘The Hobbit’ films. Cameron Smith, in charge of compositing, is also at Weta Digital where he works as senior compositor. He was a sequence lead on ‘Tintin’, and worked at ILM for ‘Transformers 3’ and ‘Avatar’. He also happens to be the major compositor for the Disney logo animation that plays before Disney movies.” Lighting artist Tim Kenyon lit Chris Bradley’s 3D for the production art. He formerly worked with Animal Logic on ‘Happy Feet 2’ and ‘Legend of the Guardians’. Modeller Jason Li, from ‘Paradise Lost’ and ‘Charlotte's Web’, worked on the Cog & Turbine models, and will be assisted by Harsh Borah with modelling experience for the Xbox platform. Storyboards will be created by Rizaldy Valencia, who Dan worked with as art director at Flying Bark.
Console World In Dan’s story, we first meet ‘Cog & Turbine’ when the user puts a cartridge into the console. The heroes are rushed to the loading platform, and transported into the game. Once the user is finished playing, they exit the game and head back to their barracks. One day as Cog & Turbine are on their way to the loading portal, the user accidentally spills coffee on the console, causing it to short circuit and accidentally suck the pair into the ethernet port, They emerge into the larger world of the gaming console where they must overcome the dangers of the world outside the XP-1O City - the abandoned Modulator Canyon where they encounter a gang of 'virus', the high speed 'bits' of the Power Supply Highway and the peaks of the 60 Pin Mountains.
Making their way out of the Mountains, Cog & Turbine discover a virtual gamer’s theme park and become trapped, but soon start to embrace the theme level and end up having so much fun that they decide not to leave. Meanwhile back at the XP-10 Headquarters, the game’s bad guy Socket has learned of their disappearance and plots to make sure they never return! The action proceeds from there, ultimately asking - can Cog & Turbine make it back to the portal before the user loads the game?
The Campaign Trail Artwork, animatics and animation for this project can be seen on the campaign page. There are some engaging bonuses for contributions, such as a "Making of book", and limited edition print by Jack Davis, Mad Magazine artist. Dan said, “We'll also be setting up a production blog so all backers will have access to the storyboards, animatics, pre-viz animation and other material at every stage of the production. They will also be able to give feedback and contribute ideas, if they wish. I want the process to be completely transparent - and you never know where great ideas will come from!”