Daytime Emmys Escapades

Last week, four members of the CloudKid team ventured to the City of Angels for the Daytime Emmy Awards.  It was our third nomination in as many years for our work on Fizzy’s Lunch Lab.  While we didn’t win (again), our good friends and neighbors from WGBH took home the bling in our category.  A big congrats goes out to Dave Peth and the Design Squad team for a rad project that encourages kids to build stuff and share it online.

Overall, the night was a blast. Some highlights included: our friend Jack Ferraiolo winning his second Emmy for his writing on Wordgirl, Lunch Lab writer Ryan Raddatz taking home two Emmys for his writing on Wordgirl and The Ellen Show, as well as hanging out with Linda Simensky, Chris Bishop and a handful of the PBS Kids crew.

While it’s always nice to get recognized, it’s time to roll up the sleeves and dive back in.

 

Children's Media News Shout-Outs

Keyframe Caddy Update

It’s been almost two years since we released (for free) our in-house Flash extension called Keyframe Caddy. Since its release, we’ve heard from many animators and Flash studios that they love our keyframe animation tool. Today we’re releasing version 1.1.0 for Flash CS3+. The most significant change is that we added a scroll-bar to the layout as well as fixed some pesky bugs. You can download here.

Tools

Movie Outing

Right around this time last year, CloudKid embarked on its first annual movie outing. With 2012’s summer blockbusters rolling into theaters, we decided it was time for another trip to the cinema. Since we’re big fans of themes (and aliens), we landed on another alien-driven flick this year: Prometheus. Some CloudKids are super excited for the outing this afternoon, and others are just scared silly. Either way, we’re all just hoping the movie is half as good as this homespun trailer.

CloudKid Shenanigans

Lunch Lab Recipe Potluck

Like most lifeforms, CloudKids subsist primarily on oxygen, water and food.  Which is why it makes sense that a few weeks ago, we hosted our first ever CloudKid Potluck!  Everyone loves a good theme, so we thought it’d be extra fun to base the event around our favorite CloudKid project, Fizzy’s Lunch Lab.  Why not try some of the recipes featured on our website?  What could possibly go wrong?

As it turns out, nothing!  Each CloudKid picked out a recipe that tickled his or her fancy, and prepared it for all to enjoy: Caprese Salad, Almond Butter and Blackberry Jam Sandwiches, Cheesy Quesadillas, Potato Gnocchi, Guacamole and Baked Pita Chips — the list goes on!  With the exception of a rather charred Apple Frisbee (which admittedly still tasted good, minus the blackened crust), we all delighted in trying Fizzy’s recipes, and of course comparing the final products to the food illustrations on the website.  Did they measure up?  You be the judge … check out the final results in our Facebook album.

CloudKidHQ

We Be Jammin’

Game Jam  [game-jam] noun: 1. A gathering of developers, artists, and other creatives over a short period of time in which a collective effort is made to make one or more games.

A few weeks back, the creative minds at CloudKid came together to formulate and pitch ideas for our next potential game(s). The goal of each game jam (yes, we had 2!) was to produce several concepts for possible games and present them to our peers.

We met early in the morning and, after a yummy breakfast, broke into small teams of 3 or 4 (each with an artist, an animator, and a programmer). Each game jam started with a theme and some rough parameters on which our teams based their ideas. After brainstorming and discussing concepts, each team settled on an idea to flesh out and present to the larger group. We sketched, wrote, wireframed, and, in some cases, even programmed rough mock-ups of our projects. At the end of the day, the whole CloudKid crew met to view and discuss all the game jam presentations.

Results: a success! For the second year in a row, we had some great concepts come out of the game jams and had a lot of fun in the process. In fact, one of our current productions–our first iOS title–was a result of our very first jam last year.  More on that game’s launch to come very soon…

In the meantime, check out our Facebook album of some of the CloudKids jammin’ away.

CloudKidHQ Development

Emmy Nomination!

Last week the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences announced its nominations for the 2012 Daytime Emmy Awards, and we’re proud to announce that for the third straight year, Fizzy’s Lunch Lab was nominated in the Children’s New Approaches category!

This nomination is the result of our awesome artists and engineers that take many creative risks and work long hours to ensure that the Lunch Lab is always entertaining, informative (and looks great). Fizzy’s success couldn’t be possible without the tireless effort from the team and our advisors.

A big shout out the PBS Kids Interactive staff and the other nominees in our category, (which all happen to be PBS projects): Cyberchase, Design Squad, and Oh Noah.

The Daytime Emmys take place on Sunday, June 17th in Los Angeles. Hopefully, the third time’s a charm, and we’ll have some good news to report.  Our fingers, toes, legs, and eyes are crossed.

CloudKidHQ Production

Sup Dawg

Guess what? Dave turned into a dog. You need proof?

  • Exhibit A: The Dinghy and the lemon seltzer water.
  • Exhibit B: Matt’s bemused face, undoubtedly getting a kick out of something Dave the Dog just said.
  • Exhibit C: Kim’s hand on the right, positioned as if to say “Oh God, please stop!” which is how she usually reacts to Dave the Human’s awkward jokes.

…But for real, this is Maggie, our temporary CloudKid Canine in Residence (CCR?). She visited recently when her owner was out of town and brought tons of love to the office. There’s nothing like an adorable pup to boost morale!

CloudKid Shenanigans CloudKidHQ

Draw Something… or Nothing

A couple weeks ago, OMG Pop’s Draw Something flooded the digital world. It was more viral than Ebola. Everyone was playing and everyone was talking about it. The explosion was so significant, Zynga snatched up the NYC game company for a cool $180 million.

After a week of playing, I started to get bored – very bored. The words were repetitive, the game seemed to have no real incentive, and the “nudges” got annoying. I stopped playing shortly thereafter. I noticed that others weren’t playing as much either, so I decided to do some research. I sent three questions to the CloudKid team hoping to shed some light on the subject:

  1. Are you still playing Draw Something on a daily basis?
  2. If yes, what brings you back?
  3. If no, why did you slow down (or stop)?

Read the (not so surprising) responses after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

Dave Article News Social Gaming

Getting Creative

They’re hard to explain, those flashes of brilliance that seem to come from nowhere.  J.K. Rowling had that moment sitting in a coffee shop, writing on napkins and formulating what has become the world’s greatest heptalogy. Whoever made this clearly knows what we’re talking about, too. But how do we foster these flashes of brilliance? Where do these surges of inspiration come from, and how, for the love of god, can we make them happen more often? Everyone has those days where it seems that the more you think, or the harder you try, the more empty your brain gets and the more, um, lame, your ideas become.

As an interactive media studio that prizes itself on creativity and innovation, we depend on these moments, which is why we love Jonah Lehrer’s new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. Lehrer discusses the origins of creativity and how to best nurture a creative environment in the workplace. We all have routines outside of work – going to the gym, taking a long shower – that help us think clearly and originally, but how to replicate that at work? Check out the story on NPR and see what you think!

Articles Development