As we cut the cord and slap this baby on its ass, we figured some people would have a few questions about Motionographer. Specifically, we thought you’d be curious about the demise of Motionographer’s former incarnation, Tween.What follows is more of an imagined conversation than a FAQ. If there are any questions left unanswered, please visit the Contact page to send us a missive via your favorite medium.Let’s start with the obvious:

What is Motionographer?

As the About page states, Motionographer (pronounced like “oceanographer”Â?) seeks to be a source of inspiration for filmmakers, animators and designers by sharing:

• outstanding work from studios, freelancers and students
• feature stories that give readers a closer look at influential studios and individuals
• commentary that sparks discussion or introspection about the creative process
• miscellaneous items that Motionographer contributors find interesting

Motionographer isn’t just about motion graphics. Inspiration can come from anywhere, and the Motionographer contributors hope to provide you with interesting material regardless of the medium in which it was created.

For more general information about Motionographer, please read the About page.

Okay, but why’d you have to kill Tween?

The main reason Tween needed to die was because of its decidedly egotistical URL (justincone.com/tween). When Justin Cone was the only guy making posts, it wasn’t a big deal, but as he invited more and more contributors on board, it started to make less sense. Readers often assumed that Justin wrote every post (even though every post had a byline declaring its author).

An exhaustive search for domains containing Tween came up dry, although there was some heated debate about buying tweenrocksmyballs.com. After a little deliberation, a new domain and a new name were decided upon.

Yeah, about the name… um… Motionographer? What the hell is that?

Someone who studies motion. Get it?

That’s retarded.

Some of the contributors don’t like it either, but it’s gotten a generally positive response, and Justin likes it. So there it is. It’s certainly no worse than Tween.

How is Motionographer different from Tween?

Why, I’m glad you asked! Aside from running a new backend (more details below), Motionographer sports the following improvements over Tween:

• Larger, segmented Cream O’ the Crop
• Quickies section for brief news items
• In-depth feature stories
• Better comments system (no more stupid codes)

What’s under the hood?

Tween is powered by WordPress 2.0.1, which has evolved from being a simple blogging tool to a full-fledged content management system. Justin has tweaked the code a bit to bend it to his will, but mostly it’s a stock installation with a couple highly tweaked style sheets.

The headlines use Mike Davidson’s sIFR technique, in case you’re curious.

What are all these “Become a Sponsor”? links about? Is Motionographer already selling out?

We spend an assload of time working on this thing. Most of us are busy with jobs or school. We really shouldn’t be fiddling around with a blog. We should be working or falling in love or drinking, probably in that order.

A little money might help grease the wheels a bit. So we’re playing with the idea of having sponsors. Maybe it’s a bad idea. We’re not sure yet, but we’re going to put it out there and see what happens.

All right, I guess that’s it.

Cool.