AH THE ACKWARDNESS!!!

ENTERING THE TWILIGHT ZONE!

*electronic sounds*

This is so weird I still can't believe it:

My name is Mark VIllagracia. I am a working animator in Los Angeles. The story of the piece "Hanging Fan" is clearly taken from a piece I created in 2004 called "Watching the Game". First off i would like to say that your piece is very well animated and that I'm flattered you would base an animation on a story I created. I have no problem with this piece being on your reel as long as you properly credit those that inspire your work. I worked really hard to create that story four years ago and I think its unfair that you claim to have written it on your own. I can tell are new to the industry of animation. You have to remember your reputation will follow you wherever you go. You have a prestigious animation school associated with your reel and because of that, I can be perceived here in LA as someone that takes other peoples work that are not in the USA and use it for myself. Colleges and other professional in animation I know very well have seen your reel to recommended that I ask you personally to properly site your work on every website you post your work. Please see to it that you attend to this as soon as possible.

Mark Villagracia

Here's my reel from 2004-05 just as a reminder.

http://markvillagracia.com/Mark%20Villagracia%20Animation%20Reel.mov

I created "Hanging Fan" from scratch and never thought these kind of coincidences could exist. His shortfilm (created in 2004 so that screws me) is almost the same story as mine. It's called "Watching the game" and it's amazing! He's got great talent with animation and fluidness.

So you're free to believe me or not. I can't prove otherwise unluckily since my story was created in 2008. Best thing I can do is to avoid any problems and take it out from my reel. I'll acknowledge him as well as the inspiration for it.

This is what I replied to him (September 22, 2008)

Hello Mark,

First of all, I'd like to thank you for your compliment on my animation work; it was a real surprise for me to receive this mail and I still can't believe I'm not in the Twilight Zone: I did this story completely from scratch, they were a couple of ideas I got while watching my best friend play videogames and get really angry and excited, combined with some conversations with my brother on a story about a truly enthusiastic guy (a fan) which would require a lot of physical humor and no talking, two of the requeriments I had on the last shortfilm assignment at AnimationMentor.

I even recall having a conversation with one of my mentors about the posibility that my story had already been created - that concept of a guy watching tv and the antenna messing up - just like in the french film "Amelie" - was probably too simple to never exist before. Since I wanted to make a simple story with a gag or two and focus on the animation, I mentioned it and my mentor simply replied that this was a posibility on all animation clips, ideas flow really easily and they tend to repeat in all layers, so I should make it as original as possible and even if a story had already been created, it wouldn't be that much similar to appear as a rip off.

So this was truly a surprise to me since I had never seen your work before.

The story is so similar! Both our characters step out and climb to the roof, then fall down (mine just fixed the signal by hanging from the antenna) It's so impressive how they are so similar! Yours is definitely better animated though. All your reel is amazing, you have a great talent man.

I know this will be hard to believe and I don't blame you for standing in your position and demand recognition, since your short was created in 2004, mine just this year. There is no way I can prove to you I came up with this by myself except for the idea text and a video pitch and storyboards; but those could easily be created after watching your clip. I am a defendant of copyright, and I know that to rip off another story and claim it as yours is the professional death: my mentors said it all the time, the number 1 rule is to never claim another animator's work as your own, the world is too small to never notice those kind of things and it will persue you forever. I can truly honestly swear I never saw your work and got the idea from it to make my Level 6 short film.

But I don't want any problems with you or any other animator that has seen my work. It would really hurt myself if this is considered as a rip off, since its not, and I had no intention whatsoever to take another story from someone else and redo it claiming it as my own. That is why, to prove my sincerity and to avoid any problems with you, I will take those scenes out of my demo reel and place a sign saying "Hanging Fan original story by Mark Villagracia" in my shortfilm. I personally know this is not true, it would be like saying it just so you don't take any actions against me; and you are free to believe in my word or not. I'm not capable of convincing anyone of the opposite. That short film was a tough work and it costed me a lot of time and effort, but it was worth it since I learned so much. I'm new in this business and I want to start with the correct foot, and never do something so low as what you've considered I've done.

Please let me know if I could do anything else to prove my good will in this.

Take care and I'll send you a mail when I correct these things, and please let your animation peers know what I wrote.

Eduardo Gutierrez

To rip off someone's animation work is UNTHINKABLE. Never do something that low as to take out someone's effort and claim it as yours. I would never do something like this, but unluckily the evidence shows that I could've taken my story out of his. My mind is calmed and I have absolutely nothing to regret of.

UPDATED: Mark and I discussed how to solve this and we decided to make our works separate themselves by using watermarks with the year. I just updated these videos and added a small text at the end of "Hanging Fan" assuring that the idea was taken from scratch and that any similarity is pure coincidence. Thanks to Mark for believing my word and sorry for the misunderstanding :)