A year ago this search yielded no results!

People who said it can't be done shouldn't disrupt those who are doing it.

Brief History of TULDOK in Fudge Magazine's April Issue

Our story began with a very SIMPLE IDEA - what if we combine Ben's strength (management) with Ramon's strength (animation), and Ayeen's strength (voice acting and production house expertise), coupled with Toffer's strength (Information Technology)? The end result was the foundation of the Core Group. Just mix it with hardwork and luck, fate sealed the deal . . . everything just fell into place . . . and the rest was HISTORY! This is OUR STORY. It can be yours too! Why not?

TULDOK is not just the four (4) of us, it is also about all the members involved in the PRODUCTION PROCESS (from management to voice acting to animating to promoting etc.)

TULDOK is about PEOPLE working TOGETHER as ONE and channelling this CREATIVE ENERGY in ONE DIRECTION and PRESTO we have a FORCE to reckon with! Lead it to the right path and it becomes a CATALYST not just in the Animation industry but in other facets of life as well . . .

Our JOURNEY was not an easy ride as you may see it. We are no extraordinary individuals, we DREAM of the same things as you do. The ONLY DIFFERENCE is that we decided to WORK TOGETHER and not COMPETE with EACH OTHER and SHARE THE SAME DREAM OF CREATING AN ALL FILIPINO ANIMATED FILM.

The Filipino is a very talented artist INDIVIDUALLY and there is no doubt about that, but have you seen him as a TEAM PLAYER and think of the WELFARE of ALL and not just himself? This is what Tuldok wants to make a POINT. We believe that by being UNITED AS ONE we can reach GREATER HEIGHTS that we have not seen before . . .

That WE can ACHIEVE and CREATE something that WE CAN ALL BE PROUD OF. It is ABOUT TIME that WE BELIEVE IN OURSELVES and do something for this COUNTRY in whatever capacity we can.

This is what TULDOK is about - PEOPLE SHARING DREAMS AND SEEING THE POSSIBILITIES OF WHAT WE REALLY CAN DO BY BEING UNITED AS ONE.

We do not aspire to be the FIRST neither do we aspire to be the BEST instead we would like to INSPIRE other people or groups to band together and start their own thing as well. If WE can DO IT, YOU CAN DO IT TOO! Let us stop talking and whining and start CREATING . . .

TULDOK featured in TRANSIT Newspaper's March Issue

Tuldok Core Group on the cover of Transit Newspaper's March Issue

TULDOK featured in the center spread of Transit Newspaper's March Issue
Click on the photos to read the Transit Article by Didy Evangelista

Libingan Movie Poster

The Cast of "Libingan"

"ANNA"

Character designed and Animated by: Ramon del Prado

Voiced by: Rachelle Tesoro

"RAMBO"

Character designed by: Ramon del Prado

Voiced by: Che Bello

Animated by: Jeffrey Capili

"BINOY"

Character designed by: Mikey Javier

Voiced by: Roan Belle Ng

Animated by: Ramon del Prado

"TENYONG"

Character designed by: Carmen del Prado

Voiced by: Mai Saporsantos

Animated by: Jeffrey Capili

"SAM"

Character designed by: Mikey Javier

Voiced by: Pocholo Gonzales

Animated by: Kenji Dormitorio

"MOM"

Character designed by: Ramon del Prado

Voiced by: Sharon Francisco

Animated by: Jun Mediavillo and Ramon del Prado

Please click on the characters to see bigger resolution.

GoodNewsPilipinas: Tuldok Animators empower Pinoy artists

Dreaming to make the world realize the artistic and creative talents of Pinoys, a group of four Lasallians formed the Tuldok Animation Studios Inc. Not only as a tool for outsourcing talents, the group believes that Pinoys have the ability to create original and captivating stories.

Tuldok is composed of writers, artists, animators, voice actors, and other talented people aimed at creating original Filipino animated short film. Although this is not the first group of Filipino artists and graphic animators, Tuldok is one of the few groups involved in producing all original content. It is now registered in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a non-stock, non-profit organization.

Purpose driven animation

Coming from diverse backgrounds, the proponents of Tuldok are Benedict Carandang, Ramon del Prado, Toffer Liu, and Ayeen Pineda. All are graduates of De La Salle University – Manila and former members of The La Sallian, the school’s official student publication. They conceived forming the group in October 2005.

Each of them has his own specialization: Ramon is good in animation, Ayeen in voice acting, Toffer in software and information technology, and Ben in management. Combining their strengths became the pillar of Tuldok. From then, the group invited friends and artists who share the same dream of creating an all-original Filipino animated short film.

Despite the lack of funds, the group is still capable of creating animated stories with their available resources: digital technology and generous writers who are willing to participate for the love of it.

“Filipino artists, by and large, are a creative bunch and are very individualistic by nature. By producing an all original content as one big group, we would like to inspire them that by being united, by collaborating and by sharing our individual talents, we are able to create something bigger than ourselves that we can all be proud of," Benedict marked the challenge.

Launching pad of animators

The country is known as an outsourcing powerhouse in the field of animation. “US, Japanese, and European studios already have contacts here for quite some time now affirming the talent of the Filipino,” Ramon said.

In fact, Pinoys already worked on animated cartoons like Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, X-Men, Dexter’s Lab, Power Puff Girls, Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo, Disney’s Tarzan, among others. Benedict furthered: “Filipino’s ability to tell stories visually has also been exemplified by the recognition of several independent films in several international film festivals.”

But Benedict said the country is only recognized as an outsourcing hub – the grunt work behind animated stories abroad. “It is recognition of our skills as artists to copy someone else’s style but not for our creativity in producing our own animated stories,” he added.

Some attempts have been made before to create original animation, but these Filipinos remain few and rare. Benedict explained: “Financing has been the main reason behind the lack of support from big companies. Animation’s high initial costs due to equipment have scared away mainstream companies who have chosen to stick to safe and formulaic content.”

Good news. "The advent of digital technology has been able to significantly lower the costs of producing an animation to the point that anybody with a good personal computer can produce one. Animation may only be a medium to tell stories, but it is a very powerful one," Benedict added. Tuldok is maximizing the digital technology to create their animations. Basically, they use Macromedia Flash 8 and Adobe Photoshop.

Libingan: the first project

The first and only project that Tuldok has undertaken is the 20-minute shortfilm "Libingan". The National Commission for the Cultural Arts (NCCA) granted the project with a monetary fund. Many projects are expected to follow.

The proponents encourage anybody to visit the trailer of Libingan at http://www.tuldokanimation.com/ and their production blog at http://www.tuldokanimation.blogspot.com/. Tuldok will be officially launched on July 17, 2007 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP).

This article is written by Paul Darwynn Garilao last June 7, 2007 and you can check it out at the website of GoodNewsPilipinas as well: http://www.goodnewspilipinas.com/docs/tech_milestones/archived/tuldok.html

the month of April

Ahhh April had just dropped by, she smiled and zipped away as quickly as she came. oh well, at least we've got the trailer out and we've got a kickass website to show it in! check it out at
www.tuldokanimation.com
in all its bandwidth stealing, buffering, non connection-resetting-by-peer glory!!!


as of this blog we've got 1300+ hits already in the two weeks it has been out, not bad huh? considering we just appeared from nowhere! kudos goes to the following amazing people:

• Jeff Capili- the man behind the animation of the Teaser, he animated everything you see there! psycho!
• Pepe Manikan- this guy did the original soundtrack to the trailer. yup you heard it right, its original! why settle for anything else???
• Jun Mediavillo- he did some of the prelim Backgrounds used in the trailer!
• Lito de Lara- for the spooky background you see on the website!
• Bella Guevarra- did the colors for some backgrounds and the background used in the Transit newspaper article!

there are a lot more artists from where that 1 minuter came from! youll be seeing the full list of brave souls soon...

of course that doesn't mean that its time to sit back and relax, that's just the trailer of what's to come!

...well back to my little cave to finish the scene compilations, email the animators and background artists their tasks, corrections, suggestions, and oh yeah, eat something every now and then!


i must admit i don't blog. but this is actually kind of theraputic for the madness that is...


...ANIMATION! woohoo! lah dee dah...


but I'm an animator... right mind? yeah right!

K-Zone feature on "Libingan"

You can read this feature at K-Zone's Blog at http://www.kzone.com.ph/blog/?p=449

Storyboards of "Libingan"

Storyboarding

Here's how we did the storyboards... :)

The master at work! and meanwhile...

and at the end of the day, it all comes down to one thing...

no not that... its one step closer to finishing this baybeh!

Delays? what delays?

Now delays are nothing new to an animation production, it is in fact the nature of animation to have delays. Animated film production wouldn't be animated film production without delays! ahoohoohoo... anyhoo... things still seem to be on track, so here's looking to mid 2007 guys! :)

Animatics are done! everyone's happy, now to dissect each scene as to how many animators and bg artists we will need per scene... ahhh... dissecting...

good bye world! see you in a few days!

-Ramon

signing papers

21 Feb 2007

Just a meeting to sign Tuldok Animation's
official registration papers...

Calling Animators, BG Artists, Colorists!

Hello everyone,

I'm part of a group we formed called Tuldok.

The Philippines is known as an outsourcing powerhouse in the world today, especially in the field of animation. US, Japanese and European studios already have contacts here for quite some time now affirming the talent of the Filipino.

However, our talents are only being used to produce their stories, and not ours, with little or even no credit to the artists involved.

Tuldok was formed with a vision in mind, to create an all Filipino animated film, or a collection of short stories, showcasing not only the technical proficiency of us Filipinos, but our creative abilities as well.

Tuldok is a group of me and my friends, hoping to be able to create animated shorts to show to our countrymen and to the world. If you share the same dream as us, then this is an open invitation to flash animators. We are in need of your skills in realizing this dream. We are currently in the production stage for a 15 minute animated short film that revolves around Philippine Folklore.

We are now looking for Flash Animators, and Background Artsists & CG Colorists (Photoshop) who could help us make these dreams a reality.

• Flash animators with experience in character illustration is great, and even better if you have tried Character animation as well, of course since we will be a team, we will be working as a team.
• Background artists who can create forests, indoor scenes, and/or color them as well would be great.
  

If you are interested send us a sample of your work (jpg, gif, swf) or a link to your stuff to
tuldok.animation@gmail.com

set your subject to:
I'm a FLASH ANIMATOR!!! I CAN HELP!
or
I'm a CG ARTIST!!! PICK ME!

Should you be accepted, let's meet up and discuss the project.

There will be compensation for each scene/BG you will be doing, (it isnt studio rate, again this is an indie production, but there will be food and other freebies, aside from your compensation, so don't worry, we're trying to keep everyone involved happy!) plus you will be working with a team of talented people whom you can share or get new ideas and techniques with (if you wish).

Yes, the Filipino can, we always could. Let's just remind & show the whole world, and our countrymen about it.

We are hoping others share in our dream.

Ramon del Prado
Animator/Director: Project "Kapre"
http://www.ramondelprado.com/

Jan GA for 2007

Ben set them straight.

Doing soooo much...

We're a little behind on our production timetable...and we need...

- more background artists, flash animators and colorists
- a tuldok animation website
- a final venue for voice recording
- a final script

Although we've done a lot (and I mean a lot--voice auditions, script discussions, background design meetings, online chats, planning, BIR registration, name reservations at DTI, etc.) it seems we still have a mountain of stuff to do. But I'm not worried...the delay is still not alarming. That is unless Ramon, our animator-director, says it is. Until then, I have resolved not to resort to panic--be calm and collected. I will just continue to believe that everything is manageable. And that hopefully by sending out another call for animators, we'll be able to find more people who share in our dream.

-ayeen
Member, Tuldok Core Group