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By Stephanie Jorgl “I started making up stories and songs at a really young age. I think it actually started with GI Joe dolls when I was 5 or 6 years old. I would get into extremely elaborate plots that would go on for days. It was kind of like a soap opera,” explains Liam Lynch, the creator of MTV’s hit series “Sifl N Olly,” who now tells his stories with Final Cut Pro. “I’ve always been a huge fan of imagination in general,” explains Lynch. “As a child, I would get caught up in TV shows or movies and then would try to recreate them at home. After I saw ET, I spent months trying to build my own alien. I was that type of person—a motivated dreamer.” Lynch’s puppeteering skills, imagination and the contents of his sock drawer have brought him worldwide success on television as a writer, actor and director for the “Sifl N Olly” show, which ran for three seasons on MTV. Who would think a pair of socks and a little personality could buy you a house and a car? “I guess it’s proof that people should follow a gut feeling,” says Lynch. Learning By Teaching In 6th grade, the young Lynch was put in a “gifted” program at his school in Hudson, OH. It turned out to be an experience that changed his life. “They really saved me,” he explains. “I have so many learning disabilities, and the program really let me lean on my strengths rather than punishing me for my faults early on.” He stayed in the program through the end of high school, writing stories and poetry three days per week. “By eighth grade, I was teaching younger gifted classes on music and poetry, art and creative writing” recalls Lynch. Also interested in music, Lynch released his first record in 9th grade, and a second album in 11th grade. To show his thanks to the program that had been so good to him, Lynch used profits from his album sales to help start a scholarship for other kids with learning disabilities. Liverpool Studies “My parents got me a 4-track when I was in 7th grade. It became my diary growing up,” confesses Lynch. “I’m always surrounded by tape recorders and cameras and computers. I’m only happy if I’m recording something.” Lynch also studied in Liverpool with Paul McCartney for three years. “It was an incredible experience. I was lucky enough to get accepted as one of 40 musicians from around the world to attend the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts,” he says. “While there, I had amazingly mind blowing, life changing opportunities that ranged from working in the studio with George Martin to lectures with Brian Eno.” The Advent of Sifl N Olly In fact, Lynch got the idea for “Sifl N Olly” while living in Liverpool. He saw a series of British Gas advertisements which featured animated clay animals which appeared to voice comments from real people talking about their gas heating. “It was brilliant,” says Lynch. “I wanted to make some sort of film with real language—the way people really speak—but I didn’t have the right supplies to make claymation,” he says. “So I thought, ‘Ah ha… I’ll make puppets!’.” Lynch pulled two socks from his drawer and made them into the Sifl and Olly puppets that soon went on to fame and fortune.		“I took tapes of my friend Matt Crocco and me talking and edited them into short and strange, one-minute conversations,” explains Lynch. “I would take a comment from one conversation and add it to a question from another conversation, so it would create these really odd and quirky moments that often had no meaning at all.” He then borrowed a camera and filmed the puppets to the audio of the edited conversations. “I made 10 shorts and thought they were really funny,“ says Lynch. “Then it dawned on me that they would be great as an ‘ident’—those weird little, self promoting ads on MTV.” Falling Feet First Into MTV Lynch sent the shorts to MTV Europe and America, and within a month, MTV Europe called and licensed all 10 of them and asked for more. Soon after, Lynch licensed more than 80 shorts to MTV Europe. And Lynch’s Sifl and Olly characters aired between videos for two years before they aired in America. “I kept sending tapes to MTV America and calling from England two to three times a day,” he explains. “It took almost seven months of calling each day until they watched.” Finally Brian Graden from MTV called and offered Lynch a half-hour daily show. From Lo-fi to High-fi Puppeteering “ Sifl and Olly originally was very lo fi,” explains Lynch. “Later at MTV Europe, they wanted me to start coming to London to edit. They rented a digital camera for me to film more episodes with and wanted everything to be digital. “I am a big fan of digital recording now and couldn’t live without it—but it wasn’t like we were filming a beautiful wildlife documentary,” he adds. “It was two socks and a damn microphone.” Later, when the show came to America Lynch recorded and mixed all of the audio in ProTools, and edited in Avid on an Mac. The pilot got picked up on MTV America for two seasons, for 41 half-hour shows. “Sifl N Olly” Online Lynch later did a third season for MTV online, using some innovations in computer production that got “Sifl N Olly” onto the cover of New Tekniques magazine. “We filmed the whole series with Sony digicams going directly into the computers,” he explains. The final episodes never aired on MTV, but Lynch recently released them on video for sale on the official www.sifl-n-olly.com web site. One trip to any search engine will show you the huge following “Sifl N Olly” still has today—countless fan sites, mail groups, chat rooms and fan clubs. One email list, Sockheads, organized and recorded a tribute album to “Sifl N Olly.” And there is a “Sifl N Olly” convention planned in Nashville during the first week of August 2001. It’s Not The Dryer’s Fault “The original Sifl and Olly sock puppets I made in Liverpool were the only ones ever used.” explains the puppet master. “But we normally had about 200 to 250 characters a season, so we went through several hundred socks through the process of filming all three seasons of the series.” “Our art department all went a bit insane during the process.” he adds. “So many socks, so little time.” His Other Brain “I think Macs are the only thing a creative person should use for anything. It’s funny, because 10 years ago, if you asked me, ‘If your house was burning down, what would you grab if you could only save one belonging?’ I would have said my guitar,” says Lynch.

Sifl N Olly's Liam Lynch.

“But now there is no question that I would run for my Mac—it has all my ideas, my images, my sounds, my scripts, movies, schedules. It’s my other brain,” he adds. “What an amazing, magical machine … all my work, ideas, entertainment, tools and art happening in one box.”

Lynch currently has three Macs—two Power Macs and a PowerBook. “The new G4s are so incredible and for the type of high-end video work I produce now, I really need the speed and flexibility,” says the puppet master.

Selling TV Execs
“When I was in rock bands, we would record demos and send them to record companies. It was easy to show your ideas,” explains Lynch. “In the television and film industry it is not so easy.

“Often the person on the other side of the desk doesn’t share your vision,” he says. “They might be thinking about their lunch while you’re trying to explain a concept for a show or what something would look like.

“Since many of my ideas are quirky and different, I decided to start making demos of my show ideas. This way, the TV exec can just watch what I would spend a meeting trying to explain,” he adds. “This hands-on method is really becoming the trend, now that Apple has given people the power to produce video productions at home.”

Blue Screen Dining
Lynch runs Lightwave 3D on his PowerBook, which is networked at times to a Power Mac with a 22” Cinema Display. He runs Final Cut Pro with Adobe After Effects and Photoshop on his computers. A Medea 100GB drive connects to the Power Mac, holding all of Lynch’s video files.

MTV's Sifl N Olly logo

“When I’m not working on a project, I just back it all up on DVDRAM cartridges. I import the footage via FireWire from a Sony X1000 digicam,” says Lynch. “All of this—coupled with the fact that I turned my dining room into a full blue screen set—allows me to do anything from home.”

“I’m really excited about the new DVD capabilities. With iDVD, I can edit my demo reel in Final Cut Pro and burn it to a DVD,” explains Lynch. “I can also put extras like my resume and songs and videos—homemade DVD press kits to go. Plus, DVDs hold up so much better in the mail.” Sifl and Olly puppets

Final Cut Puppet Pro
And when it comes to keeping your puppets in line, there’s nothing like keyframing in Final Cut Pro. “I love how easy it is to key and layer stuff in Final Cut Pro. I’ve tried other programs but Final Cut just clicked,” says Lynch. “There are so many keying and compositing options—you can blue or green screen, or color key … you can choose any solid color to key by simply sampling the color with the ‘eye dropper’ icon.

“Coming from working with Adobe Photoshop, the effects and transitions in Final Cut Pro just made immediate sense to me,” he adds. “I hate when the process gets in the way of things, and I guess what made me love Final Cut Pro… is just that I felt like it wanted to jam with me from the second I started using it.”

Plug-ins for FCP
Lynch plugs into as many amenities as possible when it comes to movie editing. His plug-ins of choice include After Effects and DigiEffects “Delirium,” and for backgrounds and transitions, he recommends Artbeats.

The Delirium package includes around 40 plug-ins which allow you to do everything from earthquake simulations, creating snow or fire, or adding video noise, to turning video shot in daylight look like it was shot at night. And each plug-in is fully modifiable, via its own control panel.

“DigiEffects thinks ahead when mailing its plug-ins,” explains Lynch. “They include caffeinated candies because they know that their customers will be staying up all night playing with all their new effects.

“Artbeats offers really high quality and versatile elements that can make a home produced project look like it was done by pros,” he says. “This, coupled with the right plug-ins and Final Cut Pro, can really surprise you. You’ll sit back and think, ‘Damn… Did I make that?’”

Video Cooking
The original “Sifl N Olly” group is now working on a pilot for MTV called “El Powerful Television.” Following the theme of their previous success, this is an animated series that splices different TV shows into strange new combinations. “It’s like cooking and using different shows as ingredients,” says Lynch.

Source: www.apple.com



“But now there is no question that I would run for my Mac—it has all my ideas, my images, my sounds, my scripts, movies, schedules. It’s my other brain,” he adds. “What an amazing, magical machine … all my work, ideas, entertainment, tools and art happening in one box.” Lynch currently has three Macs—two Power Macs and a PowerBook. “The new G4s are so incredible and for the type of high-end video work I produce now, I really need the speed and flexibility,” says the puppet master. Selling TV Execs “When I was in rock bands, we would record demos and send them to record companies. It was easy to show your ideas,” explains Lynch. “In the television and film industry it is not so easy. “Often the person on the other side of the desk doesn’t share your vision,” he says. “They might be thinking about their lunch while you’re trying to explain a concept for a show or what something would look like. “Since many of my ideas are quirky and different, I decided to start making demos of my show ideas. This way, the TV exec can just watch what I would spend a meeting trying to explain,” he adds. “This hands-on method is really becoming the trend, now that Apple has given people the power to produce video productions at home.” Blue Screen Dining Lynch runs Lightwave 3D on his PowerBook, which is networked at times to a Power Mac with a 22” Cinema Display. He runs Final Cut Pro with Adobe After Effects and Photoshop on his computers. A Medea 100GB drive connects to the Power Mac, holding all of Lynch’s video files. “When I’m not working on a project, I just back it all up on DVDRAM cartridges. I import the footage via FireWire from a Sony X1000 digicam,” says Lynch. “All of this—coupled with the fact that I turned my dining room into a full blue screen set—allows me to do anything from home.” “I’m really excited about the new DVD capabilities. With iDVD, I can edit my demo reel in Final Cut Pro and burn it to a DVD,” explains Lynch. “I can also put extras like my resume and songs and videos—homemade DVD press kits to go. Plus, DVDs hold up so much better in the mail.”		Final Cut Puppet Pro And when it comes to keeping your puppets in line, there’s nothing like keyframing in Final Cut Pro. “I love how easy it is to key and layer stuff in Final Cut Pro. I’ve tried other programs but Final Cut just clicked,” says Lynch. “There are so many keying and compositing options—you can blue or green screen, or color key … you can choose any solid color to key by simply sampling the color with the ‘eye dropper’ icon. “Coming from working with Adobe Photoshop, the effects and transitions in Final Cut Pro just made immediate sense to me,” he adds. “I hate when the process gets in the way of things, and I guess what made me love Final Cut Pro… is just that I felt like it wanted to jam with me from the second I started using it.” Plug-ins for FCP Lynch plugs into as many amenities as possible when it comes to movie editing. His plug-ins of choice include After Effects and DigiEffects “Delirium,” and for backgrounds and transitions, he recommends Artbeats. The Delirium package includes around 40 plug-ins which allow you to do everything from earthquake simulations, creating snow or fire, or adding video noise, to turning video shot in daylight look like it was shot at night. And each plug-in is fully modifiable, via its own control panel. “DigiEffects thinks ahead when mailing its plug-ins,” explains Lynch. “They include caffeinated candies because they know that their customers will be staying up all night playing with all their new effects. “Artbeats offers really high quality and versatile elements that can make a home produced project look like it was done by pros,” he says. “This, coupled with the right plug-ins and Final Cut Pro, can really surprise you. You’ll sit back and think, ‘Damn… Did I make that?’” Video Cooking The original “Sifl N Olly” group is now working on a pilot for MTV called “El Powerful Television.” Following the theme of their previous success, this is an animated series that splices different TV shows into strange new combinations. “It’s like cooking and using different shows as ingredients,” says Lynch.