Oakland • currently in production 2006-2007

Directed by Jason Carswell.
Music by Justin Winokur.
Produced by Justin Winokur & Jason Carswell.

A dapper gentleman courts a lovely belle with fantastic promises at a 1930's gypsy carnival in this epic live-action love story short musical film featuring freaky puppets, rocket rides, and animated special effects set to Justin Winokur's funderful song.

Currently this project is in production but to get a rough preview watch the board-o-matic (animated sequetial storyboard movie including audio):

Oakland • May 2006

Directed by Jason Carswell & Ian Rhett.
Design and Flash animation by Jason Carswell.
Music by Ian Rhett.

I animated this activist music video to Ian Rhett's beautiful song that he composed for his sister serving in the Marines.

M&M's 'Yellow' Without Tag Line
[ on YouTube ]
Charlex, New York • Feb-Mar 2004

This version is missing the tag line at the end.

I set up the rig and animated this spot to this great version of the Petula Clark song, 'Color My World' emulating the famous style of ceramic designer Jonathan Adler. Producer Bennet Lieber and creative director Alexander Gelman contributed a few good ideas and James Fisher did a great job of rendering.

AT&T 'Coast To Coast' • [ 40.12Mb MOV ]
Charlex, New York • Apr-June 2004

This is the first of a series of transitions from the cellular phone reception signal bars over people's head to the AT&T logo. I designed and created the transitional swoosh animation with the aid of some scripts from Steve Mann. Anthony rendered.

Teletoon 'Inuit Surf' • [ 1.14Mb DivX AVI ]
Guru, Toronto • Feb-Aug 2003

Audio still needs to be synched.

I concieved the idea, storyboarded, modeled, animated and rendered this Teletoon promo myself in Maya with After Effects.

Kraft 'Crayola'
[ on YouTube ]
Guru, Toronto • March-April 2003

Audio still needs to be synched.

I worked on many aspects of this spot such as the child drawings (with my left hand) or modelling gallery frames (not the Mac & Cheese frame). I built the entire interior of the Crayola factory scene where I animated more than a dozen characters. That scene was lit and rendered by 3 other guys while I built, lit and rendered the billboard scene.

Teletoon 'Sheep' - Final Version
Teletoon 'Sheep' - Studio Version
[ on YouTube ]
Guru, Toronto • Oct-Jan 2003

I finished this Teletoon promo after several others started and abandonded it. Figuring out the previous work was a reverse engineering challenge. This is the first project I've had to not just animate but also render in Maya (comped in After Effects). This piece was submitted to the Design & Broadcast Awards.

Kraft 'Rock N Roni'
[ on YouTube ]
Guru, Toronto • Nov-Dec 2002

I worked on many aspects of this spot, from staging and blocking out scenes, to modeling sets and props, to character work. I animated the first 2 scenes. I did not render.

Drama In The Desert 'Teaser July 2002'
Drama In The Desert 'Teaser Sept 2002'
[ on YouTube ]
Raised Barn Press, San Francisco • Summer 2002
DramaInTheDesert.com

Drama In The Desert is a documentation of the art and culture of Burning Man from 1995 through 2001 contained in a coffee table art book with a DVD included. I cleaned up half the images in the book and edited and composited many segments of the DVD (Day 2, Night 2, Day 5, Night 5, and half of Night 6).

[ on YouTube ]

plus many more thumbnail images

Nature Made 'Mosaic'
[ on YouTube ]
Pitch, New York 1999

I started this project simply storyboarding. I art directed closely with the client and director focusing their many ideas into a Martha-Stewart-Matisse-mosaic-based vision, eventually supervising the project.
I storyboarded and made animatics while designing the look and art directing. I animated the spot with pencils and markers (fumes!) and that was captured on a PAR via camera. At crunch time there were 8 animators day shift and 8 animators night shift pushing pills in 3D Studio Max 2.5 while 2 compositors wrangled the elements in After Effects. I also animated my fair share of elements.

Prince Charming
[ on YouTube ]
Guru, Toronto 2001

I animated these two frogs in Maya. I matched to the background plates but did not model or rig. The characters were modeled at GVFX, rigged at Guru, animated, and then the scenes were returned to GVFX to render and composite. This TV movie 'Prince Charming' also featured sidekick Martin Short. In this scene the characters had just been turned to frogs, thrown into a bag and tossed off a bridge. This is their first scene as people recently 'frogged' - thus the un-frog-like movement.

Advantage 'Rockin Robin'
[ on YouTube ]
Click 3X, New York 1998

I animated the lead singing center dog muzzle in SoftImage. I rendered the 9 layers and composited and colour corrected them in Eddie before the individual elements were assembled in Flame. Flame artists did the cat and dog eye work.
Research & development: I developed the rig for the dog muzzles (a tricky challenge) and tested 3D tracking software. (Others in our team did 2D/3D tracking, lighting and beta fur.)

3M Scotch-Brite 'Wipes'
[ on YouTube ]
Pitch, New York 1999

I supervised three green animators, a technical director and a compositor on four Scotch-Brite commercials in 3D Studio Max 2.5 and After Effects. Three spots featured 'regular', 'fat' and 'rounded' sponges sharing the same live action plates. A fourth spot features a blue 'wipe'. With live action shot in Argentina for New York animation different versions of these spots were made for South Africa, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico and other countries.
I storyboarded, made animatics and supervised the three sponge spots, but I did not animate any sponge scenes. The novice animators were falling behind schedule so I animated this 'wipes' spot myself while continuing supervising three sponge spots in 3D Studio Max 2.5 and After Effects to timely delivery. The amateur sounding audio track is mearly a temporary working track.

Jason Carswell's
Student Demo Reel 1996
[ on YouTube ]
Academy Of Design, Computer Animation,
Toronto 1995-1996

I was a very enthusiastic student eager to experiment and learn all I could. This is a 5 minute excerpt of my 'epic' 9 minute student demo reel, made using SoftImage products and all available resources. I knew this was going to be the last opportunity for a while where I could do my own creatively limitless piece. So I went all out.

Jason Carswell's
Student Lip Synch Exercise 1
[ on YouTube ]
Sheridan College, Classical Animation,
Oakville, Ontario 1995.

I recorded and animated this little gem at school.