Mike Milo's Journal

Three years ago I created a seven minute animated film called “Flavio” for Nickelodeon/Frederator Films, about an over-emotional goat who works as a dishwasher in a pizzeria and longs to be a famous inventor like his hero Leonardo DaVinci.

I have not been able to post it on my site because it had to air on telivision first to be eligible for Emmys and Annies and all that stuff that only animators care about. Anyway, I can finally show it. Please check it out and as always I love to here your thoughts!
You can see a production blog about the making of Flavio at Frederator.com and learn more about Flavio here.

This morning I had a woman contact me wondering how to write a script with MS Word and that she couldn’t find any info on how to do it. In the interest of helping here I sent her a template that an old friend made for me back when I was trying to learn how to write.

I figure that others might want to use this tool as well so I am uploading it here so people can find it easier. (more…)

As I’ve said before I was on the beta team for SBP earlier this year and my frequent posting and keyboard diarrhea on the forums there got the attention of the guys over at Autodesk I guess.
Anyway, they asked me to write an article on Digital Storyboarding and I have to say I had so much fun doing it, I want to do more! Article writing is fun! I only wish I had learned that writing could be fun back in school. I might have turned out better!

Anyway, you can read the article here.

A Lexiophile is someone who loves words and the way they’re put together. I love how in the English language, putting certain words together produces different result. Check out some examples below.

1. A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France, resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.
   
2. You are stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.
   
3. Local Area Network in Australia: The LAN down under.
   
4. He broke into song because he couldn’t find the key.
   
5. A calendar’s days are numbered.
   
6. A lot of money is tainted: ‘Taint yours, and ‘taint mine.
   
7. A boiled egg is hard to beat.
   
8. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
9. A plateau is a high form of flattery.
   
10. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
    
11. When you’ve seen one shopping center you’ve seen a mall.
    
12. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine
    
13. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she’d dye.
    
14. ]Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
    
15. Santa’s helpers are subordinate clauses.
    
16. Acupuncture: a jab well done.

So, lately I have been doing nothing but writing. I have just finished my first treatment for an animated feature and am anxiously waiting to see if my boss likes it. I am also actively developing ideas for live action kids films as well and I am having more fun than I have in a long time. I love to draw but to me, writing is sort of like drawing with your mind.

What I love most about writing is that you do not have to use anything but your imagination. The better your imagination is the more outlandish you can go and it does not cost a dime! With making films usually my role comes after the script and it is my job to visualize that script. In the case of writing, (more…)

I guess what with having a big website you end up getting a lot of people contacting you. In my case it is mostly kids or teens liking something I’ve worked on in the past, or artists that want to say hello and show me their work or writers soliciting material and wanting it to be made. Quite often it is a company looking for a quote which is a slippery slope because a lot of them don’t really what to hire me they just want to know how much something costs so they can charge it themselves. They want me to send them a budget they can use. I hate that. I also get a lot of students who ask for advice in their film or in their careers.

The letter below is from a student looking for help on their film. I hope you don’t mind my posting this but if you do then please let me know and I will take your idea down although I’m not sure what he’d do with it because it’s not very original.

Anyway, rather than simply telling him “hey that’s awesome, bye now.” I thought I should try to help him if I could. I got rid of the name to ‘protect the innocent’ so to speak. Why did I post this? I dunno, maybe it will help someone else in the long run and I won’t have to type it twice! Just kidding. Anyway, check out his letter and my response below.