Happy Trails Animation

15/07/2025

While we are waiting for our Telly Award to arrive I thought I would share some after thoughts about working with Ai. I started in the animation world painting cells moved into the computer and now playing with Ai. I do feel the best results come from a hybrid of physical and digital interfaces.

Here is an Article I wrote after the second MTV music video.

https://open.substack.com/pub/growingupaspen/p/a-new-world-for-music-videos?r=2g93c&utm_medium=ios

10/07/2025

While we are waiting for our Telly Award to arrive I thought I would share some after thoughts about working with Ai. I started in the animation world painting cells moved into the computer and now playing with Ai. I do feel the best results come from a hybrid of physical and digital interfaces.

Here is an Article I wrote after the second MTV music video.
https://open.substack.com/pub/growingupaspen/p/digital-organics?r=2g93c&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

01/07/2025

What’s old is new!

As our world dives into technology with Ai I find myself trying to land in a happy hybrid place something I am calling Digital Organics. While Ai is crushing it on the production pipeline it still needs a creative driver.

Back in the day when times were slow our studio would have fun coming up with short films and commercial spoofs. Here is a spot we mocked up over 20 years ago. From the pencil storyboards and a created sound track we revamped that old spot.

https://youtu.be/mU2j3_2MJbY?si=s4GCp_blaDvOAA4Y

Thanks to:

Storyboards: Steve Hess
Voice Over: Sam Mowry
Concept: Andy Collen
Visual Artist: Josh McMahon
Edit: Andy Collen
Soundtrack: Travis Hanour

What is Digital Organics?

https://open.substack.com/pub/growingupaspen/p/digital-organics?r=2g93c&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

Check first comment!

Possession ShoesEvery once in a while our studio has fun with creative concepts and techniques. This is a spot we created many years ago and using the old st...

02/06/2025

Since a lot of studios use music videos to play with techniques and styles I thought it would be fun to compile a collection of music videos that I know helped push new boundaries. A great song can create new worlds.

Hope you enjoy these Music Videos that changed animation.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJPhfKWpSA_bUm1gaGKYMQAk4hQymZP8q&si=at7A37h8F5jd45s-

Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

02/06/2025

Congratulations to another fun project!

Happy Trails Animation took on the challenge of creating with Ai in a collage like environment creating our own whimsical worlds. In the music video "Edge Of A Knife" the challenge was to pull from the Japanese styles of MANGA and Anime creating our own original styles. This music video is a fun exploration into these popular styles as we cut back and fourth between them. The only thing liner is the journey of the story. What a fun time we had and obviously the Telly folks thought so.

More about the process:

https://open.substack.com/pub/growingupaspen/p/a-new-world-for-music-videos?r=2g93c&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

25/05/2025

Ai is not the solution but Artist Assisted Ai is. The true fear artists have about Ai stealing their styles are right on track because right now Ai is working off of major systems considered open to anyone who wants to plug in which means you are working in a big vat of image goo.

However, now with the new Nvidia unit you can create your own closed Ai brain and train it only with promptings within your own art creations. Right now Ai is open which is why I used it with these music videos … they are not for sale, plus we did create our own unique styles.

I believe the answer to creating with Ai lies in the hybrid world. It’s up to the creative folks to take the lead. Our team is developing a new project and will be posting some teasers soon.
Here are a few hybrid style snippets from the fun things we are playing with.

23/05/2025

Over the years we have had many fun projects come through our studio. As I was recently looking through the vault I found what I think would make for some pretty fun and simple social media blast today.

This was something we(Happy Trails Animation) did while we were exploring with puppeteering in After Effects. This was another studio exploration project we did before we bumped into Jeff Krelitz and built a few great years of cutting edge motion comics. My how times have changed. Just fun to be part of the process.

22/05/2025

Perspective:

Remaining creative in a technology world!

By Andy Collen

20/05/2025

Happy Trails Animation just finished making 3 innovative music videos for Freezemachine, animated for their fantastic new songs: “Thought You Knew,” “Edge Of A Knife,” and, “It’s All Over.” Our challenge was to integrate Ai into our mixed-media styles to create specific worlds for each song. Our collage of interwoven imagery is reminiscent of videos created in the 80s and 90s by music video director, Jim Blashfield, for The Talking Heads’ “And She Was,” Paul Simon’s "Boy In The Bubble,” Tears For Fears’ “Sowing The Seeds Of Love,” and many more.

For this project we payed homage to those old Bond titles in silhouette. The second video played with the ranges of style between MANGA and Anima. And the latest on playing with an old style 3D like in the music video “Money For Nothing” from the Dire Straights and early Playstation.

Jim took photos with film and motion picture silhouette cameras, printed them out on Xerox machines, and assembled them into scenes so that every spinning element was from single animated element layered together.

For Freezemachine we created a hybrid of Ai and other complimenting softwares to create our own layered styles. By experimenting what I found was, right now Ai is not quite to where everyone fears in terms of being automated but we are close. We are also at a point with this tech where if we let evil take over... it will.

Ai is not the solution but Artist Assisted Ai is. The true fear artists have about Ai stealing their styles are right on track because right now Ai is working off of major systems considered open to anyone who wants to plug in which means you are working in a big vat of image goo. However, now with the new Nvidia unit you can create your own closed Ai brain and train it only with promptings within your own art creations. Right now Ai is open which is why I used it with these music videos … they are not for sale, plus we did create our own unique styles.

I believe the answer to creating with Ai lies in the hybrid world. It’s up to the creative folks to take the lead. I am developing a new project and will be posting some teasers soon.

Here are a few hybrid style snippets from the fun things we are playing with.

19/05/2025

Over the years we have had many fun projects come through our studio. As I was recently looking through the vault I found what I think would make for some pretty fun and simple social media blast today.

This was something we(Happy Trails Animation) did for an Ad Agency many moons ago. I think at the time they called these Cine-O-Matics.... animatics with some zip.

This was just before we bumped into Jeff Krelitz and built a few great years of cutting edge motion comics. My how times have changed. Just fun to be part of the process.

15/05/2025

Going through the vault of past test projects. Here is a fun one we did for an amazing painter Eric Joyner. I feel Eric's work is so powerful you could almost see the movement on the canvas, so animation was not that hard to approach.

Thanks for letting us play with your images Eric.

Motion Comics : The animated art of Eric Joyner.In 1999, I started to enter various juried shows at Artisans Gallery in Mill Valley, CA. and the work was wel...

09/05/2025

Developing a new project and will release more info as the project develops.

I thought it would be fun to see some animated short films that started many amazing careers.

It's not about where you start it's more about where we go with the creative process. Here are a few amazing jumps into the world of animation.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJPhfKWpSA_bQOF0p3xm4LrXaJlNFMyKG&si=mhNQOymsflRPTkTF

These are a collection of animated films that started some pretty great careers. These may not be their first film but the film that set the wheels in motion...