Jabloo on MySpace

I've set up Jabloo on MySpace - myspace.com/jabloo was taken, so I went with "/jablooproductions" - hey, it works. Even weird words get snatched up pretty quickly, I suppose - and that's why I wanted to set something up now, before the full Jabloo site launches. Like the Cafe Press store (and this blog itself), it won't get much activity at this point, but it'll be up and ready to go when Jabloo is fully operational.

And hey - it's neat to see how many different artists there are on MySpace doing music for kids. That's sure to come in handy down the road.

*edit: I've actually set up a second profile, just for Jabloo's music - just so I could add the theme song to the main Jabloo MySpace. So now, two MySpace Jabloo's... for you.

Inspiration Source: Free Prize Inside

I admit that I have serious doubts when I hear people attribute the significant achievements in their lives to one single element - a moment, a comment, a work of art - but I suppose I have to give in to the fact that direct inspirations like that do happen from time to time.

Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin was that kind of direct inspiration for me - not merely inspirational in conceptualizing Jabloo, but in executing it. I read the book over the course of a few days (it's pretty short), and as I was taking in Seth's ideas, I felt my own big idea brewing. At the same time, the topics he covers - creativity, innovation, being brave and bold, planning and execution - were helping me to fortify myself and my idea for the time when I'd let it out into the world.

The morsels that Seth dishes out in the book are still rolling around in my head more than a year later, and have helped me keep my project on course when the path has become shaky. Seth is known as a marketer, an author, a blogger, a consultant and an entrepreneur - but to me, his most valuable role is that of a protector of creativity and innovation. Since reading Free Prize Inside, I've purchased copies for several people. I have no doubt that five or ten years from now, a bunch of Seth-inspired projects will be out there, making the world a better and more interesting place. Here's one of my favorite quotes from the man himself:

"99% of the time, in my experience, the hard part about creativity isn't coming up with something no one has ever thought of before. The hard part is actually executing the thing you've thought of. The devil doesn't need an advocate. The brave need supporters, not critics."

- Seth Godin

Getting the Gear

I'm in the midst of technical development for Jabloo at this point, and I realize that I may be practicing purchase avoidance. This week I've acquired:

• The GarageBand Orchestral Jam Pack, because I feel a lot of the music for Jabloo will be lush and classical, and so I wanted to expand the capabilities of GarageBand to accommodate those sounds

• iLife '08 - solely to update GarageBand (I'm especially liking the multi-take feature)

• an M-Audio Key Rig 25 - tiny MIDI keyboard controller, but just the size I need for my office - I have two other M-Audio MIDI keyboard controllers, but they're set up in my audio recording studio downstairs - I needed something extremely compact for my office, for quick song-sketching, and this product is perfect

• a small keyboard stool, which I'm actually using to hold the Key Rig

My conclusion from all of this: the music for Jabloo is very important to me - which is no surprise. But a bigger part of the music purchases surely comes from the fact that developing the music is a very fast, satisfying way to make progress on the project, and it not only boosts my confidence in completing all the little pieces of the project, but it always helps refine my thoughts about the characters and the overall moods I'm trying to create for Jabloo.

Plus, of course - it's always fun to get new toys.

Online Store - Open For Business

In the spirit of putting the cart before the horse, I've set up The Jabloo Online Store on CafePress. It's nice to see the collected items – especially the individual characters' products. I bought a couple items myself, which felt kind of weird, admittedly. It was very easy to set up the shop, and even easier to add - and keep adding - products.

I set up a Flash header with the animated character heads - users can click each character to see their individual merchandise, and the Jabloo logo goes to the general merchandise featuring all five characters. Fun.

Alpha Site - Up and Running

After more than a year of development, I've finally placed a very simple Alpha version of Jabloo online. It's just the basics - a character overview - but it is phase one. Next will come a functional Beta version of the site, revealing the full concept. Soon... soon.

So, if anyone is reading this blog at this very early stage, check out Jabloo - Phase 1.

"The Camp Out" Closing Music

When I began writing the first Jabloo cartoon, "The Camp Out", I knew I wanted the incidental music at the end of the episode to be slow and soothing – typical kids' sleepytime music. The piece needed to be more serious than the lively theme song. So, this weekend I opened GarageBand and just started plunking down notes. Within about an hour, I had the song down, and after a couple more hours' tweaking I'm really happy with the end result. It's got the warm, cozy, childlike feeling I wanted.

Here it is - it's nice when something comes out effortlessly and exceeds your hopes. I wish that happened more often, but hey – I'm grateful that it happens at all.

Meet Galoo

Galoo is the most easygoing member of the Jabloo crew – he’s friendly and outgoing, and is usually the first to greet a newly arrived friend. Galoo is very relaxed – he quickly grows comfortable when his surroundings change, and frequently proposes new adventures for the group. He’s extremely generous, and genuinely enjoys making others feel better about themselves.

Galoo is a charmer, but he doesn’t have an inflated view of himself – he’s happy to be part of a group, and always does his share of any work that’s required. He’s also well-grounded and responsible – if a problem arises, Galoo will feel compelled to ensure that the group takes care of anything that needs to be addressed, even if it means spending time cleaning up their mistakes.

Art – in particular, sculpture – is the thing that excites Galoo most. He carries a sketchbook and other art supplies around with him, and often pulls out a lump of clay or a few markers, and lays down an interpretation of whatever is inspiring him at the moment. Galoo’s art, and his general positive nature, make him the affable friend that he is.

Inspiration - Part 1

When I began this project, I made a short list of the people and things that gave me the inspiration to tackle my own creative projects - specifically, this project - Jabloo! Some have been around since my childhood, and others I've only discovered in the past few years. Here's what keeps me shooting for the stars:

Jim Henson and The Muppets
The godfather of all things creative - warmth, imagination and... fun, of course! The older I get, the more I realize what an influence he's been on myself and a score of others.

Nolan Bushnell
Founder of Atari, creator of Chuck E. Cheese, and so much more. I used to write him letters when I was eleven, and he wrote back a few times... or so I thought, until I realized it was his secretary taking pity on me.

Seth Godin
Marketer supreme, and defender of innovation. I love the guy, and got to see him speak in Philadelphia on his speaking tour for his book The Dip. I read his blog daily, and his book Free Prize Inside was the push I needed to take on the project that eventually became Jabloo.

Choose Your Own Adventure books
Analog interactivity from the early eighties.

Captain Zoom
Customized flexi-disc records integrating children's names into a spacey song. "Happy Birthday, Steve" was played very often in my youth - certainly not only on July 12th, my special day. Stewart Sloke was the original voice of the good captain.

Homestar Runner
The untouchable online cartoons series that cannot be stopped, and has integrity and credibility beyond compare.

Arj and Poopy
Amazingly animated cartoon series, featuring comedian Arj Barker and animated by Bernard Derriman. Pushes the boundaries of Flash by recreating, and updating, that classic Warner Brothers animation style.

Bitey Castle/Brackenwood
The animated world created by Adam Phillips. Ditto on the above - this is groundbreaking Flash work.

Smeshariki
I know very little about this Russian cartoon series, but I absolutely love the warm, friendly style. I'd love to see a translated version someday - for now, I watch the short episodes and try to absorb as much of the Russian language as I can.

Happy Tree Friends
The ultra-violent tone of this series couldn't be further from the concept of Jabloo - but I love love love the Flash animation style - it's a great little kick of pure, unrestrained entertainment.

FableVision
A media company from Boston, MA, that uses storytelling as an innovative and compelling way to educate children. FableVision's CEO and Founder Peter Reynolds is a force to be reckoned with.

I plan to go into some of these in more depth in the future, elaborating on the ways they've kept my creative juices flowing as I've worked to develop Jabloo, and pushed me to keep the quality bar as high as possible. I find it's helpful to keep lists like this available, so none of that valuable inspiration mojo has a chance to slip away.

Meet Sham

There's no way around it - Sham is a crankypants. He complains often, gets snippy with his friends, and is usually in a grumpy mood. Despite his generally surly demeanor, Sham is an important part of the Jabloo crew, and his friends still want him around.

Sham is a doubter, and he doubts himself most of all. When one of his friends has an idea for a game, a project, or an adventure, Sham is often the one who speaks up against their idea, and has to be persuaded to change his mind and participate. Once he's joined in, however, Sham is likely to reluctantly admit that he's having fun - and might even say that he was wrong to complain in the first place.

Sham's passion is music, and his favorite genre is orchestral music. This is because Sham plays the trombone, and though he's still learning, he's able to play quite well. He especially loves doing loud slides on the instrument, which he will sometimes use to punctuate one of his friends' comments or actions. It takes some effort, but Sham tends to warm up to a situation once his initial concerns have been overcome, and he can relax and enjoy being part of the group's activities.

Name Origins

When this project began, I knew it had to have a unique name – and like most modern web companies (I’m trying to avoid the overused “Web 2.0” term – because that’s not really what Jabloo is about) – I needed a name that not only reflected the feeling of the concept, but had no associations with any other company or concept. I didn’t want a compound name, a name that seemed composed of parts of other words, or something generic that required a tagline or positioning statement to give it context – so I let my brain vomit up as many nonsense words as it could generate.

The first name I came up with for this project was “Spume” – which didn’t really fit the above criterion of being completely made-up, but the domain was available, and it felt right – for the first couple weeks, anyway. Then I put together a list of companies and websites with similar qualities: Gund, Galoob, Kandoo (though there’s some meaning mixed into that one), Squidoo (I particularly liked that double-O at the end), Mego – those kinds of names that have little-to-no meaning when you first hear them, then slowly become the brand/product/service over time.

That inspired a list of purely imagined words that could serve as the name of the company. I’m almost embarassed to list these, but entertainment purposes, I’ve transcribed the name possibilities from my original scrawled list. In the order they were generated, we have: Plimp, Jabloo (!), Floon, Noofee, Bloon, Yooney, Takoi, Ipple, Waggle, Garf, Glutes, Gluke, Ort, Loo, Ellum, Blue, Furl, Fleck, Yeeko, Fliff, Hin, Wafty, Yoobee, Voobee, Wimble, Gribbee, Unibo, Durl, Urd, Dingle, Prog, Odge, Moogie, Woogle… and Bibi.

I’m not a parent, but I’m told that no matter how many potential names you go through for your child, once they’re born and you give them their name, you can never imagine any other one having worked. That’s how I feel about Jabloo – it really couldn’t have gone any other way.

Meet Burr

Burr is the one and only girl member of the Jabloo crew – and she’s totally comfortable with that fact. While not a tomboy by any stretch, Burr is completely at ease hanging around with a group of boys, and because of her status as the only female, she’s able to gently give orders to the boys that they typically follow with minimal complaints.

Burr loves to write, and she has the introspective demeanor typical of writers – she lives a rich internal life, and notices little details around her that her friends often overlook – until she points them out. Burr has spent so much time in libraries and book stores studying the works of history’s great writers that she’s developed an enormous amount of patience for a young girl. This attribute serves her well, especially when her friends start to get too rowdy.

Because she’s used to spending time by herself, writing or just observing her surroundings, Burr is capable of not speaking for long periods of time. This can sometimes be misconstrued as her being upset or standoffish - but that’s almost never the case. Burr simply prefers to speak when she has something of value to say. She likes it when she and one other friend are alone, and can calmly discuss their interests and dreams, of which Burr is always supportive.

Jabloo, Jabloo - Theme Song

A few weeks after I started developing Jabloo, I wrote and recorded the theme song to help give me a push creatively, and to keep up the momentum of this then-burgeoning project. The song came together pretty quickly, but it's been a year and I'm still happy with it. It has the simplicity I was looking for, and still conveys the concept and feeling of the project. It's also proven to be adaptable as incidental music, which is great since I plan to use variations of the song in each episode.

The song was recorded on my MacPro using GarageBand, though I'm now using Logic Pro, so I'm sure it'll get an upgrade (and maybe some real, non-MIDI drums) at some point. Here's the song itself, followed by the lyrics - and you can even hear each character speak their own name in the bridge.



Jabloo, Jabloo

(kids:)
Jabloo, Jabloo,
That means I am one of you
Jabloo, Jabloo,
Jabloo

Jabloo, Jabloo,
Think of all the things we'll do
Jabloo, Jabloo,
Jabloo

(narrator:)
When your room is feeling gray
And all your friends are far away
We've got a story you can jump into

So step on up and come inside
Grab a seat and take a ride
With

(Moco:)
Moco

(Burr:)
Burr

(Sham:)
Sham

(Yubi:)
Yubi

(Galoo:)
and Galoo!

(kids:)
All in...

Jabloo, Jabloo,
Think of all the things we'll do

Jabloo, Jabloo,
That means I am one of you
Jabloo

That means I am one of you
Jabloo

That means I am one of you
Jabloo

music and lyrics © 2007 Jabloo Productions, L.L.C.

Meet Yubi

Of the five Jabloo characters, Yubi is the most exuberant, and the most unrestrained when it comes to showing his excitement outwardly. He is a little bundle of enthusiasm, curious about the world and happy to let everyone around him know what he’s thinking and how he’s feeling. Yubi is often so effervescent that his words emerge in a rapid-fire stream of thoughts that’s difficult to decipher – but no matter how jumbled he may sound, his meaning is never so mixed up that he can't be understood.

Yubi’s main hobby is filmmaking – the most technical of the Jabloo gang’s creative interests. He carries a video camera with him almost everywhere he goes, documenting the adventures he and his friends undertake. Because video, sound and editing equipment can be complicated to operate, Yubi is considered to be the “fix-it” guy in the Jabloo gang, and frequently gets asked to repair anything that’s broken. When these situations arise, Yubi puts on his glasses, which he needs to see small things clearly.

With his spitfire-like energy, Yubi is the instigator in many situations, spurring the group on to go to new places and try out new things. When one of his friends is unsure of themselves, Yubi can infuse them with renewed confidence, giving them the push they need, when they need it. He is the upbeat, verbose, energetic member of Jabloo.

The Cast

Here's the cast of Jabloo, hanging out inside a tent on their first adventure, "The Camp Out."

On a technical note, when I began rendering the characters, I decided to keep them almost completely free of any type of photographic effects - so the faces each have a slight edge highlight, and the eyes contain radial gradients – but other than that, the characters are pretty darn flat. Their shadows are tints (and simple oval shapes), and, except for elements like skies, which will be gradients, the backgrounds will also be mostly solid shapes.

The linework is semi-loose - these are vector-based characters, so the outlines don't have the fluidity of a true ink outline, but they're dynamic and varied enough to give some life to the characters, props, and background elements.

That's it for now. When the site launches and the first cartoon is viewable, you'll be able to see just why they're in a tent!

Meet Moco

Moco was the first of the five Jabloo characters to be created... first by under an hour, though – they all emerged quickly. After a few way-too-generic sketches and false starts in September of 2006, I opened Adobe (then Macromedia) Freehand and began directly drawing the characters in a vector enviroment – designers who use vector-based programs will understand, this does not typically lead to well-crafted, naturalistic results – but on this Saturday morning, everything came out much better than I’d hoped, and within three hours I had the full cast finalized – and they haven’t changed a bit since that first day.

I wanted a “boy band setup” – five diverse characters, each with his or her own unique skills, interests and traits. And though I hope all five characters are equally important, Moco was destined to be the gateway character – and, likely, the main face of Jabloo. He’s my Kermit, my Gene Simmons, my Scarecrow. Here’s what I know about Moco so far:

Like all the Jabloo characters, Moco is a little kid – if I had to pin down an age, I’d say he was five, though at times he acts a bit older or younger. Moco is, above all, earnest and compassionate – he’s everybody’s friend, and wouldn’t be able to intentionally hurt anyone’s feeling if he tried. Moco sometimes has a hard time getting his thoughts together, but that’s okay – his endearing nature encourages his friends to be more patient, and to give him time to say what he has to say.
Moco is good-natured, often to a fault – he will be the peacemaker in any situation that calls for it, even at his own expense. Because he makes no attempt to gain credit for his efforts to keep the group happy, Moco’s interpersonal skills are often overlooked – and he’s okay with that.

Moco, as with each of the Jabloo characters, has one area of the creative arts that he is especially interested in – acting and theater. Though naturally introverted, Moco has a deep passion for performing, and will often entertain anyone around him with monologues from classic plays, or even pieces he’s written on his own. He frequently stumbles on his lines or forgets them temporarily, but because his memory tends to lead him astray he’s become skilled at improv – a skill which makes Moco even better at talking – and listening – to the people around him.

My Meeting With Batman

In the spirit of childhood memories and imagination, here's a piece I wrote on my friend Rob Kelly's excellent blog, Hey Kids, Comics!, which collects recollections of discovering comics.

"Stevie Meets Batman" on Hey Kids, Comics!

A big bonus to clicking the link is the photo of me, at age six, in a horrifying seventies kid-sized leisure suit. And that hair - blech!

Welcome to Jabloo!

...or, at least, welcome to the blog for Jabloo, an online children's entertainment project that has yet to be launched! I'm Steve, creator of Jabloo, and I'll be posting information about the project as it becomes available. For now, those are the five main characters (or at least, their heads) at the top of the screen - Moco, Yubi, Burr, Galoo and Sham. There's really a sixth main character, but I can't give that one up until Jabloo is fully operational.

I plan to make this blog a transcription of Jabloo's progress, which began in secret in September of 2006 and has still only been seen by a few people at this point. All of that will change when the project launches, and the Jabloo crew can hit the streets - or at least, your computer screen. I'm guessing few, if any, people will be reading this until well after the project has launched - but if nothing else, it will serve as an archive of the stages of Jabloo's life.

So, thanks for checking in - there's more to come, I promise!