Coming in August!

Ever since the release of "Junior College Men's Camp" way back in March, the friends of Animan have been asking, "What's next?" Today I am officially announcing that the next video will be "Carmen". 

In many languages, the name Carmen is both male and female, and so that's where the idea started. Animan always loves exotic locales, and nineteenth-century Spain is the perfect place for colorful costumes, distinctive architecture, and drama!  

Way back in one of my April posts, "Animan's Schedule April~August", I posted my first completed background for Carmen. In the original story of the opera, Carmen works in the cigarette factory in Seville, Spain... and there are some soldiers guarding the area. That building actually exists, and it is still standing, but has been transformed into the University of Seville.

A fan of Animan videos contacted me about this picture. He knew immediately what story this was from, because he's Spanish and was born in Seville! He has offered to help with doing the voices for this video--not only the old-world type of Spanish language, but even the Spanish dialect used by the gypsies! This will give the video an authentic sound, against a backdrop of the famous music from the opera Carmen.

Is that lucky or what??!

I asked my Spanish friend: "Do the classrooms in this university smell like cigars?"  "Not any more", he told me. "There are orange trees on the grounds now, so the air is fragrant with blossoms and oranges."  He knows about this, because his sister attended the University of Seville.  If you look in the picture above, you'll see an orange tree next to the little guard's shack.

Animan's Carmen is still under production, and I'm hoping to have it finished by the 20th of August. If I can finish it before that, then so much the better! As you can see, the characters are drawn with colored lines, so I have to keep changing the colors as I trace the animation, and it takes more time. Some of the costumes like Don José's uniform have more detail, so that means more drawing time. 

This will be the biggest animation project I've ever undertaken, but I think it'll be worth the wait. There will be more news about the video in upcoming blog posts. ¡Olé!