Animation Addiction

Mad Animation God Phil Tippett

2010-11-03T11:39:00.000-07:00

Phil Tippett is a legend in the animation and special effects industry for his pioneering efforts related first to stop motion, later go-motion, and now mostly CG-effects.

Probably most famous for his work on The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Phil has forged quite a career with effects in films -- from Dragonslayer to Robocop to Willow. That all changed with Jurassic Park, however, when his initial stop motion tests were met with praise, but the new computer animation tests Steven Spielberg had seen convinced him and Phil to turn to computer generated effects for good. Tippett's team, however, still had a big hand in the film. Check out the pre-visualization for a raptor sequence in the film:

Another, from the infamous T-Rex encounter:

Phil has been posting these and other stop motion gems on his YouTube account recently. Its no wonder, then, that he's been making the rounds on the blogosphere for his renewed interest in starting up some stop motion projects again -- namely, his aborted 90s stop motion feature "MadGod" which he plans to turn into a short.

It looks like stunning, certainly, and I hope the story matches the visual splendor shown in the recently released trailer:

There's been talk that one of the reasons he's reentering the stop motion arena, other than the fact he loves it, is that now more than ever its easier to get it done. Phil got out of the stop motion game before digital frame grabbers became the norm. Now that everything is done on digital cameras with computers to aid in feedback, he can theoretically cut down on a lot of the guesswork and production time involved. Phil chose Dragon Stop Motion to work with. Its made by stop motion animators, for stop motion animators -- and besides my hands and the camera, its maybe the most important tool I use on a regular basis. The glue gun comes in a close fourth.

Phil on Dragon:

"DRAGON’s breadth and depth as a shooting package is really remarkable and is a tool that has allowed me to resurface doing the the kind of hands on work that got me into this fine mess to begin with."

I personally can't hope enough for the success for his new short. Maybe it'll lead to more in the future from Tippett and Co.

Animated Interviews

2010-11-02T11:02:00.000-07:00

Animating any type of real or found audio is tough. You don't want to mimic the actions described in the audio too much, but you still want to be entertaining and lively. Creature Comforts seems to do a decent job of translating the audio to absurd animals and locations, but now its a steadfast formula. The recent StoryCorps videos animated by the Rauch Brothers succeed greatly, I think, even with somewhat limited animation:

The Icing on the Cake from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Its important to note that they're really dramas, being depicted in cartoony form -- and they still come across not as maudlin, but sincere and moving. Perhaps the cartoon form distances us enough from the emotion that if it were live action it might come across as manipulative. Would Up work as a live-action feature?:

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Bill Wray, creator of Hellboy Jr. and artist, worked on the beautiful backgrounds for both shorts. his paintings are beautiful:

One of his backgrounds for Samurai Jack:

Stop Motion Inspiration: Will Becher

2010-10-27T10:42:00.000-07:00

It's been quite a while since I've updated, but I'm back to the drawing board for my final film, my thesis film, at UCLA. I've already scrapped one idea -- kind of a film noir with mostly skeleton characters, and I'm probably on my way to scrapping this next one. I haven't quite gotten inspired just yet. Checking out Will Becher's stop motion work, though, has got me thinking that I should do something short, visual, and that reads like a gem:

Graduated from the Edinburgh College of Art in 2002, Will has been collaborating and working with Aardman (and others) for quite a few years now. The animation in Offbeat just screams out its expressions, not in an overbearing way, but you can tell every step of the way how the character feels...with subtlety. His Channel 4 bankrolled "The Weatherman" is more cartoony, but no less effective:

I especially appreciate the sound work on the film, and the point where the non-diegetic music cuts out. It works itself into the film as a narrative device, without actually being diegetic.

Finally, check out his 30-second advert for "Feel Good Drinks". It's a cute little thing that took quite a while to make, considering the "making-of" is 8 and 1/2 minutes:

Do you remember when we met?

2010-06-19T12:54:00.000-07:00

Julia Pott has a style all her own -- and knows how to market herself. Her Etsy is chock-full of goodies featuring her art; from prints to tote bags to 'zines to even tattoos! And, on top of all this, she's an accomplished freelance animator at 25 years young working for hot indie bands like Bats for Lashes and The Decemberists. Here's a 2008 music video for the delightfully lo-fi "Casiotone for the Painfully Alone":

She cites a lot of her influence from Igor Kovalyov, the Ahh!!! Real Monsters and Rugrats designer (totally can see that). In addition to all the success she's had so far...on top of all of that...she's also just finished her first year at the prestigious Royal College of Art in London! Her first year film displays, I think, on top of unique design...more importantly, a strong sense of storytelling. I can't wait to see what she does next:

Finals

2010-06-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

Its finally happened. I'm all done with my ghost movie. To those of you keeping track, that's my first year film. I also completed a second year film, "An Inconvenient Fish", which was, let's say, a tad shorter than the 8:15 goliath that was You're My Ghoul. I literally spent the last three weeks on campus in the "mac lab" using a Cintiq and my sore hands to remove wires in After Effects. Why oh why did my characters have to fly? I certainly learned more than my share of a few things on this production. Clean plates and watching your character's shadows in regards to your wires is kinda important, unless you want to kill yourself in post later.

The production and running time of my second year film was a lot shorter -- but I had a ton of fun on it. I made the animation for each scene a different challenge, not to mention having a new set for each scene. I animated water in several different ways -- a first for me, and I even painted frame by frame, trying not to bleed into unwanted areas in fear of having to remake the figure over.

For those that are interested, my films are playing at the annual UCLA Animation Workshop Festival of Animation, or PROM to the students, this Saturday June 5th at 4PM and 7:30. Its "sold out" online, but they always have standby tickets for those interested (and its free!). Check it out.

I can't wait to see my fellow students' animations. There are actually a surprising number of stop motion films including my dear friend Debra Chow's "Til Death Do Us Part":

Her production design skills far surpass mine and its a joy to see what she cooks up. The rain in her film, in particular, is a fun analog representation that works well with her style.

I'm looking forward to cooking up some new stop motion delights over summer as well (and tackling the task of an idea for my thesis film!)

Adam Bizanski and the Amazing Technicolor Stop Motion Music Video Coat

2009-10-23T11:28:00.000-07:00

Born in Haifa, Israel in 1983, Adam Bizanski has already made a name for himself in the music video world by sculpting and creating worlds out of stop motion for some of the most popular indie bands of today. his award-winning 2005 video for The Shins' "Pink Bullets" put him on the international map:

"I didn't really have any expenses to speak of. The materials are really simple.
The figures are made of paper and wood and the background is a bulletin board
made of cork on which I scattered grass from models," Bizanski, 22, relates.
"But from my point of view, the hardest thing was the uncertainty about
whether the band would like the clip I made for it."

The Shins - Pink Bullets from Adam Bizanski on Vimeo.

i really like the simple and effective character design of the cows. they're endearing and sad at the same time. Adam's 2006 video for Wolf Parade's "Modern World" takes his style and goes a bit further.

the replacement mouths really jump out at you, like at points in Coraline, but in here its really part of the whole design and style that Adam's set up. the undulation on the piano is one of my favorite parts. the eyes look like they're done in after effects, though I may be wrong. it took him about a month and a half to complete.

Wolf Parade - Modern World from Adam Bizanski on Vimeo.

more recently, he's been taking on commercial work including this bizarre puppet-based Huggies "Little Swimmers" advert:

Critter Crunch...who says puzzle games have to look like crap?

2009-10-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

Toronto-based indie video game developer Capybara Games has been busy whipping up some amazing visuals for their primarily puzzle mini-games. originally, they were making these for downloadable content as well as for nintendo ds and iphones -- but they've ported their game "Critter Crunch" in all its full HD-glory to the Playstation 3. at $6.99, this game has made more of an impact than its $50+ bretheren with reviewers and gamers alike:

“You might not normally expect a lot of visual flair from a puzzle game, but Critter Crunch will ruin you on this. It sets a new standard for graphics in the genre and is simply one of the best looking games on PSN. Luckily, it also has the gameplay to back up the looks.” IGN

Critter Crunch PSN Debut Trailer from Capy! on Vimeo.

in addition to the fun though limited character animation, their backgrounds are really exquisite:

check out their official trailer here:

Critter Crunch - A BARF IN THE NIGHT - Launch Trailer! from Capy! on Vimeo.

The 2nd Year Blues

2009-10-08T23:14:00.000-07:00

i'm currently trying to storyboard some new film ideas for my 2nd year film (though i'm still in the laborious process of completing that darned first year film that seems to get longer and longer). last year at PROM, perhaps my favorite 2nd year film was that of classmate Sijia Luo. its a beautifully designed and animated short that follows a young kid explaining exactly why he was late to the teacher. the backgrounds were done in gouache and i believe the animation was done in Flash.

i can't wait to see what she does this year! enjoy.

How Novel!

2009-07-17T14:06:00.000-07:00

since 2003, Screen Novelties has quietly become one of the most unique and inventive stop motion boutiques in Hollywood with minimal crew and lots of ideas and expertise. you are already probably familiar with the commercials and shorts on their reel -- they were also the animation directors on Robot Chicken and Moral Orel at one point.

just this past Annie awards they were nominated for their Rotofugi spot.

and the news that their short Monster Safari, originally pitched to networks for a TV show, was picked up by The Henson Company for feature film production, still in stop motion, and directed by the guys -- Mark Caballero, Seamus Walsh, and Chris Finnegan, was well publicized and well received by the film and animation community.

i was interested to check out some of their lesser known stuff (or at least spots i hadn't seem before). here's an advertisement for The Offspring's last album "Splinter" that's a collaboration between Tawd Dorenfeld and Screen Novelties:

and while i can't say i'm a fan of the music, the animation for The Junior Varsity music video of "The Sky!" is very energetic and impressive:

they also animated the logo at the end of this mostly CG/live-action spot for career builder that played during the Super Bowl in 2008:

Edison & Leo

2009-07-15T12:26:00.001-07:00

Stop motion features, in the history of animation, have been few and far between. Until very recently, you could count them on one hand. Maybe a foot too. However, in the past year or so, there seems to have been an explosion of stop motion animation -- independent stop motion feature animation at that. Adam Eliot's Mary & Max has been playing at festivals around the world, Tatia Rosenthal's $9.99 has been wowing audiences in theaters, and, of course, Henry Selick's Coraline made a respectable showing with a big push from Focus Features earlier this year.

Now, we have Canada's first stop motion feature to look forward to -- Edison & Leo. The voice of Leo, Gregory Smith, explains the film as such: "It is about a character named George Edison, who is loosely based on Thomas Edison, and his relationship with his son, Leo. His son is accidentally electrocuted as a child so he son grows up as Electric Boy. He can't touch anyone without electrocuting them, and that is sort of the set up for these zany, crazy adventures that follow."

the animation released thus far looks beautiful. this clip seems to place the movie, perhaps surprisingly, in Disaster: The Movie type of territory in a way, but with much more mannered movements:

finally, Sylvie Trouve's animation reel is stunningly beautiful and contains a bit more animation from Edison & Leo with a character moment between the two leads:

Sylvie Trouvé animation reel
Uploaded by trouves. - Independent web videos.

Whistling is in Again!

2009-07-11T14:35:00.000-07:00

i'm not a big fan of Flash-based limited animation, but here is, I think, an economic way to do an animated video without losing any concept or value in the process. its stylized and interesting -- even if the movements are heavily tweened in the computer.

laptop wars

2009-06-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

I don't get the title. Claymation or Halogram? It seems pretty clear this is an ad either way and done well. Also, I can't wait for the new macbook pro's to come out. My brother has been eyeing the 13" entry level one for a while.

Beatles

2009-06-16T17:06:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't love the beatles? This is a great animation, I hope the game is as fun though. Found it on Gizmodo.

make a choice to tune in

2009-06-11T19:45:00.000-07:00

here's a very cool 2009 PSA for United Way Romania entitled "Choices" combining both cut-out and digital animation to a very pleasing aesthetic. the collaborative ":weareom:" including director Anton Groves and art directors Damian Groves and Richard Hardy with illustration by Sinboy created this one.

::weareom:: also created this wonderful Lego spot for Alpha Bank not too long ago.

ALPHA BANK from :weareom: on Vimeo.

also, this past week was the end of the year animation screening for UCLA MFA Students (as well as a few undergraduates of varied disciplines). this one by Aglaia Mortcheva was definitely one of my favorites. its style is very similar to Amy Winfrey's, so its no surprise to see her name on the special thanks at the end of the credits (Aglaia is also the voice of Vendetta on Winfrey's upcoming "Making Fiends" show at Nickelodeon).

The Princess and Some Contreversy

2009-05-31T10:25:00.000-07:00

I saw UP this weekend and thought the movie was great. Well done, ok story and the usual good message. What is more surprising though is something I saw in the trailer. Disney's next and some say last hurrah to make a animated hand-drawn film. I thought they would take a safe route but they chose characters and a setting that have a lot of possible controversy. The Princess and the Frog is a story about a African American princess set in New Orleans in 1920. The New York Times has featured some of the contreversy and so far it seems the jury is still out. This is not the blog to address possible racism in cartoons but Disney is taking a risk with this film either way, I'm happy though that a film like this is being made and almost surprised Disney has never had a lead African American character in any of their animated films, at least in my memory.

so, like, how do you animate?

2009-05-30T03:02:00.000-07:00

one of the most frequent questions i get, after what do you do, is so what is animation like? how do you do it?

its one of those things that's really hard to describe. especially stop motion, I think -- at least for me. i kinda, you know, move stuff around slowly, little by little. so when i come across a video that can explain the process experientially, i'm overjoyed. if only for the fact that i can relate to the painful process i can see! Max Winston's amazing looking "I Live in the Woods" seems to have been quite a fun and back-breaking ordeal and i'm glad that he helped us go through it with him:

I live in the Woods TIME LAPSE! from Max Winston on Vimeo.

this one's more of a video blog of a making of a stop motion film, but it really gets to the heart of the process and common mishaps that always seem to pop up. it documents a period of months between February and May. it also, of course, shows the life of a college student:

30 Days of shooting v.2 (the linear edit) from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

Open Submissions

2009-05-29T11:20:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a bad job filling in for Kevin. I'm not an animator so most of the material I find comes to me in commercials or music videos. Recently I've been trying to show more student work and off the beaten path type things but there much harder to cross than say, Up!. So if you are a student animator and want to be featured please send your work to here .

In the meantime I've found this website that has some great animation called Animation World Network Television. Kinda wordy but it works. They are a great one stop place to find lots of short films and clips and have a layout that someone thought about. So try to get your work in to us and we'll feature them as soon as we can.

Weekend Quickees

2009-05-23T17:24:00.000-07:00

The simpsons had a significant effect on me growing up. I met some kids in high school and we can still remember when we retold every single joke the monday after the show showed. I ran across this amazing site though called Springfield Punx. This is an awesome idea and his work is spot on. Here are some samples.

All Day I Dream About Stop Motion

2009-05-20T16:59:00.000-07:00

"The playoffs are when the year starts for me." My friend Cassie told me that and I know it to be true for all die hard NBA fans. I'm partial to the Laker's after years aimlessly following the continual decline of the Clippers. I'm surprised Kevin hasn't totally abandoned his Padres yet after their public decision to release or trade all their good players. The NBA has the best marketing of players and the game itself as these new animations, a project with free darko and Chali 2na from Jurrasic 5, show.

Free Darko came to fame as an artist who really liked making fun of the NBA. His blog title comes from the infamous drafting of Darko Millicic who was drafted ahead of future Hall of Famer, Carmelo Anthony. Darko became more infamous after the most disgusting tirade of all time and has spent his career living up to his draft position. Basketball aside Free Darko is a great artist with a style heavy on geometric shapes and design. He recently came out with a book devoted to the nba which has great art in a similar style.

One last NBA plug. These new commercials for the NBA are mesmerizing. My favorite things in life are simplicity executed perfectly and these commercials really capture what the NBA is going for and why I watch every game I can. This is not animation, per se, but anyone who has ever done masking in photoshop or wire removal will be happy to see the results.

Oops

2009-05-19T16:56:00.001-07:00

i love the Superman Fleischer cartoons of the 40s -- they have an exquisite art design and are, for the most part, wonderfully animated. the Fleischers never had budgets so good as with these series of shorts for Paramount.

while re-watching "The Mechanical Monsters" episode, one of the early classics, i thought i saw a big animation jump. i thought for sure it must have been a film print scratch or artifact. upon further review, at least this print (the one from the Bosko DVD collection as well as one up on youtube) has two characters pop up and disappear in a frame or two.

Before:

During:

After:

its much more obvious in motion, check it out at around 3:03/3:04:

on the stop motion side of things, Robin Yannoukos' latest film "Alice's Attic" from the UCLA Animation Workshop and Bix Pix Entertainment is up for the Student Academy Awards and is also featured on VSM Cinema here. the sharpness and animation smoothness is amazing, especially for "student" work. its got a great Brothers Quay type aesthetic to it, without getting too abstract that it alienates its audience, with a little Barry Purves thrown in for good measure. it must've been a lot of fun collecting all those little props! at any rate, highly recommended.

Retrosaur

2009-05-19T00:12:00.000-07:00

Around 6th grade me and my sister made a big and life changing discovery. Japenese shows re-appropiated for American audiences. It's similar to how we copied the reality boom of the United Kingdom in the early 2000's (American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Big Brother, etc...). I remember at some moment we were really into Disney's after school programming which had a commercial tie in with Disneyland's Toon Town.

Almost overnight though, a slew of Japanese shows started showing up. First it was the success of Power Rangers, who were a bunch of ethnically diverse teenagers fighting monsters after school. Then the Anime started slipping in slowly. Sailor Moon was a big hit with my sister, while I was obsessed with Ronin Warriors and the American Mighty Max.

I guess this phase ended with me with Pokemon. It may sound hard to believe to people younger than 20 but this was like crack when it first hit. The video game tie in, the collection of monsters, a popular card game, and the movies made this a phenomenon with unlimited merchandising potential. Even the shows tag line was consumer driven "gotta catch them all!" A lot of kids me included spent a lot of money on Pokemon. I'm not sure how this opened the doors for manga to infiltrate Barnes and Nobles or how much affect it had on animation in general, but it definitely seems weird to look back on. I guess we shouldn't have spent all that space cash.

PS: We have recently reached our 100th post. Kevin is planning a Best of the Blog so far and I can't wait to read it. His vision for this blog has been amazing so far and I know he enjoys working on it as much as you do reading it. Congrats to 100!

Frenchy

2009-05-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

I don't know much about this clip other than the fact its from Arthur de Pins. Who is a comic artist from France, his work is very colorful and borderline nsfw. It looks to be a commentary on the modern woman, from the eyes of a guy who wakes up as one. I hope I'm not losing something in translation when I'm looking at his work but I guess it's inevitable.

This other clip is a more light hearted story of crabs. You can find more of his work at his website. It doesn't seem to that mac friendly either, at least with Firefox. I'm really a stickler for cross platform compatability.

Chris Ware

2009-05-14T12:36:00.000-07:00

Chris Ware is one of the animators for this american life, which is a popular show on NPR. He is originally a famous cartoonist from his days creating Acme Novelty Library. Acme Novelty Library put him on the map nationally and his characters such as Quimbly the Mouse.

Quimby The Mouse from This American Life on Vimeo.

His style to me seems so familiar, I'm not sure if it due to the fact that his fact has been that influential or if his work is just that embedded around us. Either way his work is refreshing and simple. The style is minimalist with clean lines that are influenced as much by design as they are by classic cartoons. The NPR dialogue matches his work perfectly. I haven't listened to people tell stories on the radio like this but it is amazing.

[Chris Diclerico]

Toddlermation

2009-05-11T22:45:00.000-07:00

I have some friends who have babies and I'm always surprised what they show their kids. I used to think these shows were thrown together rather quickly but after reading Freakonomics I realized there is a lot of testing and research that goes into these shows. On one hand they have to teach kids colors, letters, words, etc. At the same time they need to keep kids glued to the TV. They've found and tested hundreds of ways to get kids involved.

I can't stand blues clue's though. Little Einstein though is something I actually would watch. It's about a group of kids going around the world solving puzzles. Unlike Blue's Clues there is a little more action and it reminds me more of toddler's Scooby Doo. Little Einstein is Disney backed, produced by Curious Pictures who also do other animations. Blues Clue's is shown on Nick Jr., and produced at Nick Studios in NYC. If your interested into all the inner workings of Blue's Clues I highly recommend Freakonomics.

Chromeo and Juliet

2009-05-10T18:31:00.000-07:00

for the official release of Google's new browser Chrome, they have commissioned a series of short films/commercials. one of them in particular caught my eye while checking out something on Hulu: The Evolution of Simple

the very clean and well animated short was done by Japan's Pantograph, essentially referencing the mega-blockbuster Atari 2600 game Breakout. it was one of the few games, like Kaboom!, that held its own with its addictively simple gameplay.

Pantograph also did an ad for one of Google's immediate competitors in browser supremacy in 2008:

Tilt Shift

2009-05-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

Me and kevin both love photography and many photographers try their hand at time lapse, usually with mediocre results. Not Keith Loutit though, he is one of the greatest tilt-shift photographers in the world right now. What is tilt shift? Well it is a type of camera lens that allows you to really control your focus points and gives you much more control over aperture. What does this have to do with animation? Take a look.

Beached from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Mardi Gras from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

The effect is great and these real people are displayed in a way that we think were looking at a ant colony. According to Keith "These photographs and short films were made in ordinary places, probably not too unlike where you live." I like the simplicity of it. And if I had to guess he probably uses a tripod,a intervolometer, a tilt shift lens on a Digital SLR, and animation software to stitch everything together.

I haven't found Miss Right yet, but when I do, the whole world will hear us singing!

2009-05-05T13:04:00.001-07:00

one of the most likeable and enthusiastic voice-over actors in a long time has passed. Dom Deluise died yesterday at the age of 75. his love for voice-over started with a handful of Don Bluth productions including the roles of Jeremy the crow in The Secret of NIMH, Tiger in An American Tail and its sequel (not done by Bluth) An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, Itchy in All Dogs Go to Heaven, and the lead in the little-known A Troll in Central Park. in his later life, he worked almost exclusively in voice-over in guest spots for various shows like Duck Dodgers and Dexter's Laboratory. in all the sequels and rehashes of An American Tail and Secret of NIMH, he kept continuity by voicing them through what I would imagine would be less than satisfactory material compared to the originals. check out one of the original trailers of The Secret of NIMH:

changing gears completely, Cartoon Brew featured a rather unanimated short by Michael Nason yesterday involving Confederate Fruit singing "Dixieland." While it lacks for nothing in concept, the execution left a lot to be desired for me. checking out some of his other videos, however, has led me to the realization that this guy may be a complete and utter genius.

AstroPoem XXX is rated X for ".Gif sex" -- and there's a lot of it. he uses Gif animations to create a very unique type of experience that I dare say even outdoes Tim and Eric for out-there-ness:

AstroPoem XXX from Michael Nason on Vimeo.

perhaps even more engaging is his attempt at "narrative" I suppose in the adventures of "Catman." its populated by many more gifs and limited animation cycles, but its a total film experience...if a very experimental one.

CatMan from Michael Nason on Vimeo.

Tiger Woods and pepper films

2009-05-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

Gatorade recently has been revamping their image in the face of vitamin water's popularity. their new ads though are recalling images from the lion king and jungle book. done by pepper films who has close ties with disney the new Tiger ads show him as a kid being mentored by a bear, voiced by Samuel L. Jackson.

The rest of the work from pepper films is done in the same saturday morning style, most of their work looks to be in advertising. here though is another sports related commercial of theirs.

Let the Animation Begin!

2009-05-03T21:55:00.000-07:00

so this is pretty lame, but it really excites me that i made this tonight:

super simple and not great looking, but it'll do as a coat rack for the inside of the house! for my stop motion project, that is. simple wood parts, mostly from michael's -- the base is part of a tealight (minus the bulb).

for now, i'm immersed in animation till (hopefully) the end of this month. i'm already having terrible problems trying to keep my puppets upright. here's a still from the opening setup of the film:

this gigantic house has taken over my living room. its roughly 5ft X 5ft, but its on 2ft sawhorses...so it about touches my ceiling:

while i sporadically update on the production here, my friend Dan Dao will be posting some stuff in my absence. he's pretty good at finding rare and interesting videos online.

finally, as if you weren't excited enough, here's a rough title by my other talented friend Cassie Harris:

wish me luck!

Otis v. Bigfoot

2009-03-28T22:31:00.000-07:00

from a beginner in stop motion, there' s an awesome claymated short shot on film -- its extremely crisp, has great animation, and also features wonderful timing.

the stats he provided on the film:
"Shot on Fuji Eterna 8553 (250t rated at 200) 510 feet or so.
Camera: Mitchell GC with JK animation motor (Thanks again Rick!)
Lenses: Nikkor 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, 55 micro.
Processing and HD transfer: Alpha Cine Labs, Seattle.
The 35mm neg was scanned to one big uncompressed quicktime file, about 50 gigs.
Cut on Final Cut Express
Wire removal and clean up with Photoshop CS4

Total cost for film, processing and transfer was under $300 (estimated)."

i would've liked to seen a little bit more...but its a great short. check it out if you can on Patrick Neary's site.

Tsk tsk

2009-03-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

Mark Mayerson ran a piece on his blog Tuesday referencing a video showing Disney animation that was "reused," mostly during the 70s under Woolie Reitherman's reign. its not exactly news, but to see some of it side by side now is definitely worth a look.

Ressemblances dans les films Disney - Koreus

and if you haven't gotten your stop motion fix yet today, count from one to thirteen with Milo in a segment from an early 90s Sesame Street. they always seem to have great, creative animation on the show (as well as puppetry):

The Brick of Bricks

2009-03-26T21:00:00.000-07:00

The Magic Portal, for lack of a better description, is all that is BrickFilm. It is the beginning and the end. created in four years from 1985 to 1989 on a grant of $11,745 from the Australian government, Lindsay Fleay came to create what would be both the same and opposite to BrickFilm as we know it.

shot on film and using an optical printer, Fleay is able to get all kinds of effects and aesthetics that elude regular BrickFilms because, well, they're cheap. i believe its really a transcendent work and deserves to get more visibility. besides the fact that it includes many different types of animation (not purely LEGO), it stretches to tell a unique story that isn't pigeonholed by its LEGO-ness, which many BrickFilms are. part 2001: A Space Odyssey, part Tron -- The Magic Portal is a wonderful filmmaking experience that just wouldn't be attempted anymore. the camera moves and effects are like have never been seen before in the genre.

check out the story from the man himself here.

where the indie things are

2009-03-25T15:11:00.001-07:00

the internet is abuzz with the debut of the trailer for Spike Jonze's troubled Where the Wild Things Are adaptation:

the well-publicized problems on the production included wholesale reshoots and literally changing the way that the monsters were portrayed. the trailer doesn't give up much on details, other than Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs being credited for the music. Jonze seems to be going for some indie cred here (along with the Arcade Fire song playing underneath the trailer), but he might end up misfiring considering he's adapting a children's book. the ten sentence book by Maurice Sendak has been in development hell for years, with Disney taking a crack at it (admittedly, only a test) with a combination of computer generated environments and cel character animation with John Lasseter back in the 80s:

only time will tell if its all been worth it. $115 million dollars worth it.

A Thousand Apologies

2009-03-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

i've become entrenched in creating my stop motion monster and have neglected my internet responsibilities, if there are such things. first things first. the San Diego Comic-Con four day passes are already SOLD OUT. four months to the show.

and as you can see, Saturday is going pretty fast at 69%. it gets bigger and crazier every year, so if you've gotta have it, be sure to get yourself some one-day passes.

stumbled across this hand drawn Tim Fite video that's pretty rad, animated by the singer himself.

Valerie

2009-03-15T20:51:00.001-07:00

was just taking a break from sawing and painting when i saw a very lovely stop-motion filled Coca-Cola ad on television. it was reminiscent of the work of Pes, but contained quite a bit of 3-D cutouts. it was actually Valerie Pierson through the always fun and original Partizan agency. check it out if you haven't already:

its no surprise to find out that she worked on "The Science of Sleep," which had some really innovative animation (if the story was less than satisfactory). what led to her work on the film? 2005's award-winning student film Pistache:

"Who needs sex and drugs and partying when we can cook a meal and sit around and watch Netflix?

2009-03-14T21:01:00.001-07:00

here's how i feel right now:

much apologies again for not posting. its my final week of school for the winter quarter. almost done with the main set. the POV shot is shaping up very cool. i'll try to post a test or two after next week, and then will resume a much regular posting schedule.

the only animation that i have to report on -- if you've haven't checked it out, Matt and Trey's sly skewering of the Disney business model debuted on Wednesday night, the first of the thirteenth season. call me crazy, but South Park hasn't lost its edge one bit. in fact, i think they've only gotten better over the years.

Wat a Wonderful Day

2009-03-10T16:16:00.001-07:00

apologies for intermittently updating the past two weeks -- i'm getting more and more entrenched in schoolwork and, for the most part, construction on my own stop motion film (which involves a ridiculously large scale).

anyway, i thought i'd share an old favorite of mine that got a lot of internet play back in the day. originally born in England, Philip Eddolls was raised in Ontario and attended the Ontario College of Art and Design where he produced 'Wat a Wonderful Day' in 2006, a primarily stop motion effort involving a simple, but effective story of a power-hungry bunny:

his latest work is for the National Film Board of Canada. named 'Git Gob,' its kind of a story that defies summarization. needless to say -- its weird, fun, and perhaps a little less narrative than 'Wonderful Day.' i love the ending:

check out more of his stuff if you dig it on his website. he's done a number of high profile music videos in the past couple years, some puppet and some animated.

To Oscar, or not to Oscar?

2009-03-08T21:35:00.000-07:00

there's a great conversation going on over at Cartoon Brew over the legitimacy of the Best Animated Film Oscar -- does it ghetto-ize animation into some kind of 'genre,' does it legitimize animation finally after years of "special oscars," or perhaps is it somewhere in between?

personally, i tend to look on the side of better exposure and recognition for the art form and the films involved. that said, i understand the argument in pigeonholing animated films to their own categories. they are still allowed to compete in the "regular" categories along with their live-action counterparts, but they are less likely to be included. its been almost two decades since 'Beauty and the Beast' was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.

and on a completely different topic, here's a nice stop motion animated film that deals with the imperfect process of scientific breakthroughs, i suppose. its a collaborative effort from three students: Nino Christen, Maya Galluzzi, and Tabea Rothfuchs. the only that really bothers me about it -- the assistant in the film must've had the world's longest roll of film!

"Maggoty" from Nino Gabriel on Vimeo.

Get Happy!

2009-03-05T23:39:00.001-08:00

for a studio that pretty much made mostly crap, Van Beuren had a hit or two. 1935's The Sunshine Makers is probably my favorite. its creepy, well designed, and subversive. to me, it really sticks out as a reinforcement of status quo. the sunshine makers batter the other side until they conform without a doubt. its scary stuff. and i dig it!

Congrats Justin and Shel!

2009-03-04T22:54:00.000-08:00

firstly, let me send out my hearty congratulations to Justin and Shel Rasch, who I believe are 5 for 5 in film festival awards. their film, Gerald's Last Day, has been enthusiastically received by the animation community as well as the the film community in general now. after the festival news comes the momentous announcement that their short film will be played on Delta Airlines flights to 10s of 1000s of passengers! and with that, comes (albeit) a limited engagement on Delta's website, that i strongly encourage you check out. its stunningly crafted and animated, with a pretty touching and, at times sad story to boot. the orchestral score is also quite impressive for an independently animated short stop motion film.

and on a completely different note, i've been checking out the state of webcomics on my free time. some are good, some are bad -- some are overly complicated with plot and dialogue, some are almost too simplistic in a New Yorker type of sense. one that seems to hit a few good notes every once in a while is Toothpaste For Dinner. here's a few of the simple and subversive panels i've enjoyed:

and, of course, life wouldn't be the same without Garfield. or, rather, without Garfield Minus Garfield. this is pretty indicative of my current state of affairs. you're not alone Jon!

You Never Cease To Amaze Me, MCLAREN!

2009-03-03T22:19:00.000-08:00

"Love on the Wing" is simply an amazing technical accomplishment that would rarely even be attempted in this age of digital compositing. in 1938, Norman McLaren created his final film for the General Post Office Unit of Britain. essentially, an ad. but as anyone who's ever seen a McLaren film before knows, his works usually end up being much more abstract than your average product-pushing commercial.

the film involves drawing directly onto the 35MM film strip (a practice that would become a staple of his repertoire) and over a multi-plane and from what looks like at least a partially three dimensional background. being able to keep his drawings even somewhat registered must have been a nightmare without the aid of a digital framegrabber. truly impressive -- i believe George Melies would be in awe.

Super NSFWzorz

2009-03-02T23:34:00.000-08:00

avert your eyes young children! generally considered the first pornographic cartoon, it was made as a collaboration of several different well-renowned studios in New York. reportedly involved were the Fleischer Brothers, Paul Terry, the Mutt and Jeff studio, and Walter Lantz (of later Woody Woodpecker fame). each studio would work on a section without telling the other studio what they were doing. watch out for impending bestiality.

supposedly, it was for a party in honor of animation great Winsor McCay.

Welcome to Animation Addiction 1.3!

2009-03-01T19:03:00.000-08:00

once again, be sure to check out Sita Sings the Blues for free online here.

back when Windows 95 was first released, they commissioned some "Welcome to Windows 95" animations. Bill Plympton was first in line. its pretty creative -- and it encapsulates what they want your experience to be like with the program. whether it was or not is another matter entirely.

a much more lush video art wise is Joan Granz' take on the matter. she uses a technique known as clay painting, "working directly under the camera with colored oil based clay":

her 1992 oscar-winning short "Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase" is even more impressive, showing different famous works of art morphing into each other using the labor-intensive technique. granted, it may overstay its welcome, but its no less impressive:

Joan C. Gratz "Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase"
Uploaded by vibliographer

Sit Down, Shut Up, and hope for the best...

2009-02-28T20:54:00.000-08:00

primetime animated shows that last longer than a season are exceedingly rare. especially if your name is not Matt Groening, Mike Judge, or Seth MacFarlane. coming this Spring to FOX, is an apology to Mitch Hurwitz for canceling Arrested Development! in the form of an animated series...that looks rather dull. of course, i'll reserve entire judgment till it premieres, but nothing grabs me from the promos other than the level of talent involved (Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Henry Winkler all play a part in the new series). its a remake of an Australian show of the same name from the early 00s. and FYI Fox, Sit Down, Shut Up is not the first animation to use real backgrounds with animated characters. see: Ralph Bakshi.

this all said, it could be very neat. let's hope for the best. its got to at least be better than the upcoming Cleveland Show. check out the promo to see if it might be your cup of tea. promising: Tom Kenny is part of the cast.

Welcome to Hollywood, Shane.

2009-02-27T22:10:00.000-08:00

to celebrate the release of Shane Acker's "9" finally being finished and released this year (currently on the schedule for 9/9/09), i figured a look at a few of his other short films might be fun.

"The Hangnail" is a particularly well done joke film. Shock much?

"Mr. Grenade" is of the same ilk. one thing done particularly well:

More Dinosaurs!

2009-02-26T21:36:00.000-08:00

1985's Dinosaur! hosted by Christopher Reeve features some really incredible dinosaur animation by Phil Tippett. its a much more realistic style than Will Vinton's take on the creatures and recalls Jurassic Park's later computer generated animation (that would take direct cues from Tippett and his nine months of work prior to the switch from stop motion animation to CG on the film). if you can bear the awful music, its certainly worth a look:

it also features some neat clips of dinosaur animation through the years in the movies. once again, as in the case of the Will Vinton dinosaur-filled documentary, the life of this documentary started with a short animation by Tippett earlier entitled "Prehistoric Beast." they used much of that film and produced new sequences for the CBS documentary. the duckbill sequence with the eggs is pretty interesting:

Animationasaurus

2009-02-25T22:27:00.000-08:00

dinosaurs have a long and storied history in stop motion animation. from the earliest days of film including Buster Keaton's Three Ages and Willis O'Brien's contributions to The Lost World and King Kong, as well as Harryhausen's life long devotion to the creatures, dinosaurs have been inextricably linked to the the medium-- since no footage of them has ever existed and they died off years ago, a particular style had to be appropriated to showcase the creatures in reimaginings. it just so happens that stop motion seemed to be the most apt.

the following is another film from my very early childhood that i still recall stimulating my mind and my imagination -- Dinosaurs: A Fun-Filled Trip Back in Time! is a special video designed for classrooms to begin to introduce the prehistoric world to young students. it stars a young Fred Savage in the live-action sequences, but, of course, the most interesting part is the 17 minutes of stop motion animation that Will Vinton and his crew contributed. originally a short piece in 1980, it was incorporated into the educational film in 1987. the chalkboard animation is as impressive as the claymated parts of the inspiring film. its just plain fun to watch (with some great voices to boot of the classroom kids that are listening/watching the presentation).

the end of the t-rex sequence is particularly inventive/scary. yikes!

Strömming Along to the Music

2009-02-24T23:19:00.000-08:00

Swedish animator Kristofer Ström came to prominence last year with his stunning combination of live-action and weird cartoonish characters set to the music of Minilogue. it went around the internet circuits for a while and its really impressive technically and is also just a plain fun music video. my best guess is that they did the handheld camera thing (and moves) in After Effects in order to keep the animation registered. check it out if you haven't already:

Minilogue - Animals from ljudbilden on Vimeo.

if you're curious as to what would happen if his style was appropriated by the commercial world, look no further:

Pacemaker - this is how it works from ljudbilden on Vimeo.

and for a melange of different styles and a change from his immensely popular technique, check out this compilation of some of the animation work he's done for Swedish Television:

KOBRA - a compilation from ljudbilden on Vimeo.

alot of his straight forward morphing animation on whiteboards reminds me of Emile Cohl's 1908 animation Fantasmagorie. this is the only fragment that exists:

oh, and be sure to check out Ström's blog. and his facebook graffiti illustrations:

With Respect to Dennis DeYoung...

2009-02-23T19:58:00.000-08:00

with the Oscar ceremony last night, the war between Dreamworks and Disney/Pixar has subsided for now. Wall-E took the top animated feature award over Kung Fu Panda and Bolt. i'm going to make some "bold" predictions about next year. yep, i'm calling the nominees right here RIGHT NOW:

daring predictions, i know. but i'm gonna say that Dreamworks gets shutout, even with the double threat of Ice Age 3 and Monsters Vs. Aliens...

and perhaps more endearing, Kunio Kato won for Best Animated Short Film over the computer animated counterparts with his earthy La Maison en Petits Cubes.

he ended up thanking animation, pencils, and finishing his speech with "Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto." seems like a very humble and fun guy. not to mention talented. some videos of his Oscar-winning short have been popping up (and been taken down) over the internet. check it out while you can:

its a wonderful trip through memory that i think most people can appreciate. the score, as well, is noteworthy and touching, yet simple. his series of episodic adventures entitled "The Diary of Tortov Roddle" is a much different tale -- its as enigmatic as it is fantastic. his world is almost as if Miyasaki sat down to do a lush children's book.

perhaps even more obscure is 2003's Fantasy Story in which Kato weaves incredibly short, but poignant slices of life in a young girl

Leonardo da Vinci: The Animator

2009-02-22T14:14:00.000-08:00

so, Carlos Lascano is a man of many talents. he's got no less than the following talents down pat: painting, illustration, comics, photography, animation, special effects, editing, writing for the screen, filmmaking -- all in feature films, short films, television, advertising, and documentaries both animated and live-action.

and within the animation discipline, he's mastered different types of said discipline and weaves them seamlessly to create a singularly unique visual style. his recent advertisement for Red Bull showcases this ability to mix mediums while not distracting from the content:

The Can from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

even more engaging, i think, is when Lascano wraps his techniques around a more narrative type of story (though not too narrative). A Short Love Story in Stop Motion is, once again, a mix of styles, but is more based in the titular technique than the others. his take on stop motion:

"What attracts me most is the fact that I find stop motion to be irreplaceable in providing the organic look I consider to be one of the key features of my style. I also like the way I can control the motion and wiggle of the elements, since it allows me to completely personalize the movement."

A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

and once again, not to be pigeonholed, the guy manipulates and frames a series of still photos (kind of pixilation, kind of not) into a coherent and inspiring narrative. these are the things advertising execs drool over:

Inspiration (stopmotion) from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

you guys hooked yet? check out his website and blog for more.

Sita Sings for Freedom!

2009-02-21T19:46:00.000-08:00

in case you've been living under an animated rock, Sita Sings the Blues is the 82-minute Flash animated feature by Nina Paley following both a goddess and an animator. its animated nearly entirely by Paley herself, independently too. she shares the synposis:

"Sita is a goddess separated from her beloved Lord and husband Rama. Nina is an animator whose husband moves to India, then dumps her by email. Three hilarious shadow puppets narrate both ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the Indian epic Ramayana. Set to the 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, Sita Sings the Blues earns its tagline as "The Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told."

the part about the jazz vocals is why you haven't seen it in theaters yet. copyright issues have plagued this incredibly critically acclaimed piece of animation. apparently, this is the technical breakdown, "the musical composition itself, including aspects such as the lyrics to the songs, the musical notation, and products derived from using those things, is still under copyright." but you too can see it soon! first, the trailer:

the production design is simply beautiful. anyway, back to the seeing the 2008 winner of the Best Feature at Annecy in its entirety. first, for you New Yorkers, its airing on PBS (WNET) on March 7th. for the rest of y'all, she is currently in the process of getting the film streamed for free off of web servers. WNET will stream a compressed version of the film on their website starting February 26th, but if you're looking for a permanent home for the film -- she is too. she's negotiating with the copyright holders to give away her film for free. you can also make a donation on her website and get a copy on DVD right quick! its all in your hands now.

check out her interview at Film & Video to learn more about Sita.

Meow. Meow. MEOOOOOOOOOW.

2009-02-20T22:09:00.001-08:00

so i'm probably pretty late to this phenomenon. in fact, millions of people have caught onto it before me. your mom has probably seen this series of shorts before. but sometimes some videos slip through the cracks. i've never seen Mulan. nor Hunchback of Notre Dame (the Disney one anyway). my animation peers, of course, have probably seen them more than once. this all said, i'm digging the animation style and very well-timed comedy of Simon's Cat. and since i'm home in San Diego right now, a house full of various cat-like creatures, i figured i'd relate my joy for them:

this was the first short. apparently created as a test to teach himself flash, Simon Tofield's first Simon short created a sensation on youtube. its got a very hand-drawn aesthetic to it, and yet its done in Flash. its interesting then, to create this feel he animates straightforward (though on layers) directly into flash with his Wacom tablet. he says that he's worked that way ever since he taught himself to animate by drawing flipbooks. he's, of course, very modest about it -- "I didn't think anything of it; it was just a little exercise to learn the program."

the second short, i think, is the least successful of the three. it doesn't rely as much on the feline traits that made the first one so funny and relatable.

the third one, though focusing more on the man (Simon himself), is more successful than the second -- the feline traits are back, believable, and funny.

ironically, because of the exposure he's gotten due to the films, he isn't able to work on more of them -- he's doing more commercial jobs.

ben, julia, this blog & your mom

2009-02-19T19:31:00.000-08:00

recently, i discovered the Broken Sword series of adventure games for the first time. the first two games have a very classic, and yet lush cartoony aesthetic -- all in aid of a mostly dramatic storyline. despite some annoying problems (like having your lead character, George Stobbart, learn something very important, and then act like he hasn't progressed any when he talks to others waiting for said change), its got more amazing production design than most games of the genre i've seen. check out the trailer for the first in the series (of four altogether):

something i thought was particularly interesting -- as you move across the screen, there are different layers in the foreground and background that move at different speeds along with your character, displaying a great sense of depth.

now go ahead and tell me this isn't relentlessly inventive. i dare you!:

Tahiti Boy and the Palmtree family 1973 from Ben&Julia on Vimeo.

puppets and animation have never been so seamlessly integrated into a great big ball of psychedelic fun. the self-proclaimed "French-Swiss duo" Ben & Julia spell it right out what they're trying to do in a straight-forward and admirable mission statement:

"Our aim is to introduce fresh ideas, to find conceptual solutions for projects, to give a high quality of service to our clients and to always keep smiling!"

and with that in mind, greet 2009 with the same enthusiasm as Ben & Julia:

Happy 2009 !!! from Ben&Julia on Vimeo.

more crude shorts!

2009-02-18T20:06:00.001-08:00

continuing with the crude shorts that originated lasting series' theme, here's the first Beavis & Butthead short Mike Judge created that spawned and empire (and later King of the Hill). it was created for MTV's Liquid Television in 1992. the animation is very loose and alive:

Frog Baseball - MyVideo

Judge's thought on his early stuff: "For the most part, I feel pretty good about that stuff, even though I'm not a great animator. It looks funny in the way I want it to." this short, along with the next one, "Peace, Love, & Understanding," lead the way to the fulltime show on MTV. i think this one is a little bit more successful in the humor department than "Frog Baseball":

and, of course, we can't forget Seth MacFarlane...one of his very early shorts shows an early Brian and Peter. its a little long-winded:

what's original?

2009-02-17T21:15:00.000-08:00

after lamenting the rigid character animation in new Simpsons intro, i think it best to post some of their very earliest work. here's a short from the Tracy Ullman Show back before they were picked up for a series. this is the 22nd of 48 shorts to run from 1987 to 1989 when the segment as mentioned got expanded to the half hour format.

interestingly enough, after the show became a big success, Tracy Ullman sued the network arguing that her program was the springboard for The Simpsons' success. needless to say, she did not win -- and The Simpsons has outlasted anything she has done culturally.

and just when you thought The New Yorker couldn't get any more "huh? that was a joke?" yep, they've gotten into the animation game. have a chuckle at the expense of February!

its not unfunny...its just not suited to the animation medium i think -- its all punchline and no setup. then again, many of their "comics" aren't suited to print either.

here's one of the very early episodes, "The Pacifier"

speaking of very early versions of enormously popular animated television shows, here's the "original" South Park short that Matt and Trey created at the University of Colorado in 1992. personally, i think the show has only gotten better through the years, especially in terms of style and animation. that said, there are still a few chuckles here. its always fun to see how characters change and grow -- Kenny looks a *tad* different than usual.

with all the animated primetime shows having mostly been on television for a while now, i'm curious as to what comes next other than a new Seth MacFarlane and Mike Judge show...here's hoping for something that's been as memorable and lasting as The Simpsons!

Happy Animator's Day Off

2009-02-16T23:51:00.000-08:00

Animated History?

and the couch gag withstanding (which is somewhat funny and clever), the new HD and widescreen intro for The Simpsons which debuted last night shows just how unfunny dogmatically staying on model can be! of course, we all fear change, but it just lacks the vibrancy and looseness of the original intro (and the first few seasons).

Post-Valentines Wrap-Up

2009-02-15T21:18:00.000-08:00

and just so you don't think i'm full of cynicism, here's a heartwarming commercial just in time for Valentine's Day.

its for Lay's -- they're making an argument that some things just go together (like chips and dip).

Smith & Foulkes: Part II

2009-02-14T11:25:00.000-08:00

there's been tons of interest in Smith & Foulkes' short animated film that's been nominated for an Oscar -- This Way Up. as far as i can tell, its only available on the BBC website and since i've already posted on the film before, i'll leave you with the link....AND show some more Smith & Foulkes animations!

here's a lovely advertisement they did for Honda about a Diesel engine they've been working on (sounds horribly exciting, i know). it recalls the equally lovely Pixar short Boundin':

this A to Z of rock and roll for the Observer Music Monthly is a much different style than we're used to seeing from the talented duo -- its very simple and flat.

another advert they produced espousing the benefits of taking the train versus the car...in regards to cheetahs and gazelles

TER - Cheetah
Uploaded by dekku

and finally, the opening credits of 2004's Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. once again, completely different aesthetic! they are not defined by a single look or style. how liberating that must be:

Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events - Opening
Uploaded by jeremylebre

The Amazing Dax Norman!

2009-02-13T13:55:00.000-08:00

Dax Norman has been featured on Cartoon Brew several times, but his work never ceases to amaze me. i can't believe he's been doing music videos for contests. i thought this new music video for M83's "We Own the Sky" was...the new music video for M83's "We Own the Sky". its just a contest entry! though, i think, it has more than a good chance of winning. it involves a technique he calls "double animation" where he fits different characters into the shapes of other characters. at first, it struck me as a very fun, crude style -- but boy can the man draw, as evidenced later in the video. its a very stunning use of rotoscoping that he's been perfecting for a while.

M83 We Own The Sky Music Video by Dax Norman from dax norman on Vimeo.

his video for Rafter's "Juicy" was kind of the rough cut for the M83 video in terms of style. it, of course, won the contest it was created for. its very kinetic and doesn't tire as fast as the M83 song.

Rafter "Juicy" Music Video By Dax Norman from dax norman on Vimeo.

his talents don't stop at animation, as the art at the beginning attests. he's into creating and perfecting art niches that are rarely treaded. here's his burgeoning collection of bowling pin art (he's planning to end up with more than 500 total):

his CG short, though similar in its griminess, is unlike anything he's created visually. created at the world-renowned for its stunning CG Ringling School of Art and Design and featured on Cartoon Brew TV, its a story about a man and a crusty piece of pie he stumbles upon.

The Last Temptation of Crust by Dax Norman from dax norman on Vimeo.

to check out more of his artistic endeavors, take a peak at his blog and his website.

AT-ATs, Taun Tauns, and Robocops

2009-02-12T21:59:00.001-08:00

here's a look at Phil Tippett, the guy who did many stop motion effects for the Star Wars series, Robocop, and Dragonslayer amongst others, when he still did stop-motion

his company mostly went to computer effects after Jurassic Park, most recently working on Cloverfield, The Golden Compass, and the Starship Troopers series. its fun to see the now-considered archaic use of surface gauges with the influx of cheap and easy frame grabbers. Ray Harryhausen used to swear by them.

stop motion animation thrives! so sayeth Ubatuber!

2009-02-11T19:14:00.000-08:00

Jeffrey Roche, better known online by his handle Ubatuber, is an independent stop-motion animator based out of New Orleans that's been turning out some amazing stuff. its really humbling to see the quality of amateur work coming out in the medium right now!

i showed his production logo yesterday made from "a real potato, with paper replacement eyes glued to earring posts" and "the planet...a styrofoam ball sawed in half and covered with clay, which I textured with a toothbrush"

without even getting into his animation, his paintings alone qualify him at the top of his artistic game

but no, he's got to be a master of sculpture and animation as well! here's his first foam latex puppet that has incredible detail:

what perhaps is astonishing about the whole thing -- he's come to stop motion only since 2005. other than some flicker here or there on his earlier stuff, you can't tell he's a relative newcomer to stop motion from his atmospheric reel:

Stop Motion Reel from Ubatuber on Vimeo.

most of his films are set where he lives, New Orleans, and this gives them a very unique and personal quality that most other stop motion work fails to achieve. his currently in production "Unearthed" can be seen in the first two parts on Vimeo -- the scene with the mime taking off his makeup is worth the price of a click alone!

Unearthed - Parts One & Two from Ubatuber on Vimeo.

his first stop motion short, made back in 2006 for a website contest, is the aptly titled "Pandora at the DMV".

Pandora at the DMV from Ubatuber on Vimeo.

and finally, a pair of POV Bigfoot-type monster sightings...fear....THE MOSSMAN!

The Mossman from Ubatuber on Vimeo.

the mossman puppet is perfectly textured.

watch out, or you'll step into a haunted PUNKIN PATCH

Punkin Patch 101308 from Ubatuber on Vimeo.

he's been working on a longer piece of stop motion (Jenny Greenteeth) for years, so be sure to check out his progress regularly here.

As Archimedes said when he discovered the principle of displacement: "Eureka!"

2009-02-10T21:28:00.000-08:00

one of the most frequently requested television shows not released on DVD, right under The Wonder Years, is a FOX Kids action show that ran for five years and 76 episodes and has the distinction for being the longest-running show ever based on a Marvel comic book.

yep you guessed it. X-Men: The Animated Series

it was never as well-animated or on model as the folks at Batman: The Animated Series demanded of their show -- the voice acting, while competent, was a little stiff in comparison with its fellow Marvel show Spider-Man, but gosh darnit, it was a great little show. it dealt with issues that other cartoons dare not touch; the ills of prejudice, intolerance, racism, divorce, the Holocaust, AIDS, and a plethora of other issues, though sometimes in the guise of less overt issues. plus, the opening theme song was killer:

in fact, though not quite up to par with on quality with the other superhero shows of its time, it was amongst the highest-rated and most-viewed Saturday morning programs in American history. and come April 28th, Disney is finally bringing it to us in proper chronological order:

the episode breakdown, if you must:
VOLUME 1 Disc 1:
Night of the Sentinels (Part 1)
Night of the Sentinels (Part 2)
Enter Magneto
Deadly Reunions
Captive Hearts
Cold Vengeance
Slave Island
The Unstoppable Juggernaut

Disc 2:
The Cure
Come The Apocalypse
Days Of Future Past (Part 1)
Days Of Future Past (Part 2)
The Final Decision
Till Death Do Us Part (Part 1)
Till Death Do Us Part (Part 2)
Whatever It Takes

VOLUME 2 Disc 1:
Red Dawn
Repo Man
X-Ternally Yours
Time Fugitives (Part 1)
Time Fugitives (Part 2)
A Rogue’s Tale
Beauty & The Beast
Mojo Vision

Disc 2:
Reunion (Part 1)
Reunion (Part 2)
Out of the Past (Part 1)
Out of the Past (Part 2)
The Phoenix Saga (Part 1): Sacrifice
The Phoenix Saga (Part 2): The Dark Shroud
The Phoenix Saga (Part 3): Cry of the Banshee
The Phoenix Saga (Part 4): The Starjammers
The Phoenix Saga (Part 5): Child of Light

and because I just love stop motion bumpers (like Kirsten Lepore's for her reel...), here's another for "Ubatuber Productions"

Ubatuber Productions Logo from Ubatuber on Vimeo.

more on this animator later...

thanks, Katzenberg! more sequels please!

2009-02-09T21:57:00.000-08:00

THE GOOD: Coraline exceeded expectations and took in $16 million over the weekend

THE BAD: Jonas Brothers in 3-D opens soon and will consequently push Coraline out of theaters

THE GOOD: Pink Panther 2 is a certified bomb

THE BAD: Laika has yet to greenlight a stop motion feature to follow up Coraline

in fact, the company responsible for the loveable ball of lush production design laid off 65 workers in December right before Christmas and pulled the plug on one of their long-in-development CG features "Jack and Ben's Animated Adventure". it was a headed up by Barry Cook, the director of Disney's Mulan, but alas, it was not meant to be.

of course, i don't think Laika is going anywhere -- their commercial business is flourishing and Coraline will probably make enough money to justify another feature. one interesting project in development there;
Paranorman
Only a 13-year-old boy can keep the town from being overrun by zombies, but no one will listen to him.

Henry Selick is also reportedly working on a story involving the origins of ::no surprise:: Halloween. he's working with the producer of Open Season on the project.

that said, those who worked on Coraline will most likely be on the job market in the next few months unless something concrete comes out of Laika on their stop-motion slate.

Dreamworks Animation is very hit -- Shrek, Kung Fu Panda -- and miss -- about everything else. their upcoming Monsters Vs. Aliens looks rather...ugly. and the plot looks like if Pixar decided to Jeffrey Katzenbergize The Incredibles.

of their upcoming slate of films, i'm looking forward to about one:

* Monsters vs. Aliens (March 27, 2009)
* How to Train Your Dragon (March 26, 2010)
* Shrek Goes Fourth (May 21, 2010)
* Master Mind (November 5, 2010)
* Kung Fu Panda 2 (June 3, 2011
* Puss in Boots: The Story of an Ogre Killer (2011)
* Crood Awakening (2011)
* Madagascar 3 (2012)
* Shrek 5 (2013)

i haven't seen any art from How to Train Your Dragon yet, but its at least got one thing going for it -- Chris Sanders, the director of Disney's Lilo & Stitch (though they kicked off a favorite writer/director of mine -- Peter Hastings -- who was responsible for the better episodes of Pinky & the Brain in the 90s). here's the story skinny:

"How to Train Your Dragon is the first book in the bestselling series by British author Cressida Cowell. The books follow the adventures of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, a teenage Viking who uses his brains to compensate for his lack of muscles. In order to pass his initiation, he must capture and train the biggest, deadliest dragon he can find. Unfortunately, he ends up with a small, ornery wyrm that has no teeth."

Young Stop Motion Animator Suddenly Hit with Fame

2009-02-08T16:13:00.000-08:00

young Kirsten Lepore, stop motion animator extraordinaire, seems to have become famous overnight -- at least in the animation community. the find has been documented by many a source, but perhaps her most high-profile featuring has been on Channel Frederator most recently. how would you feel if someone sent you this to introduce themselves on a reel?:

Reel bumper 2009 from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

can you tell i'm a fan? having just graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2007 with her BFA in Experimental Animation, she's been lining up clients with her very distinctive and lively freelance work. let's start with her co-production with Garrett Davis (who also sings the song) of a drawn animation of said song espousing the values of valuing a spider's life like your own. it was featured on Motionographer last month:

Story from North America from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

next, here's a fun take on the old Guess Who? game, with assistance from Grandmaster Flash:

Guess Who from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

her commercial for Heinz Jalapeno poppers won the contest for it:

Heinz' Poppers web ad from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

finally, her masterpiece (and she agrees as well that its her best work), is a 10-minute stop motion piece entitled "Sweet Dreams." it was her thesis project for her BFA at MICA. she put the better part of a year of work into the sucker and it shows. the idea and storytelling are fantastic alone, not to mention the animation. she uses many food products to make up the sets and props (though the main characters are foam puppets).

"Sweet Dreams" from Kirsten Lepore on Vimeo.

check out her site for more stop motion Kirsten Lepore goodness.

Andy Bruntel tells it like it is.

2009-02-07T19:50:00.000-08:00

today, i thought a change of pace was in order

how about a few animated music videos? i've been a fan of this music video for a while since my friend Dan introduced me to it. its a pretty big accomplishment technically and the song propels the animation forward. i've always wanted to do some kind of a quality pixilation, i've dabbled in it, but this particular video is pretty fun -- its not smooth. it purposefully keeps that jumpy stop-motion feel and uses it as an asset. it comes off of 2005's Face the Truth album by Stephen Malkmus (of Pavement) & The Jicks. direction by Lana Kim and Andy Bruntel.

Lana and Andy both work for an outfit called "The Directors Bureau" along with Roman Coppola, brother of Sophia Coppola and son of Francis Ford. together, Bruntel and Coppola made this fun short on the history of the color red...some details may not be entirely accurate...

Bruntel on his start with the company:

"I interned for Mike Mills and then started doing animation and FX for other directors at the Bureau. The video reps gave me a chance to write on a few low budget projects which just sort of cascaded into more work. I didn't officially become a part of TDB until after my video for Bonnie 'Prince' Billy."

and finally, here's a video for Rilo Kiley he co-directed. its got some really interesting design elements. i really like the psychedelic ending that looks very handmade -- is it bead animation? i'm not sure, but it sure looks neat.

his advice on "making it":

"Keep making work and focus on establishing an original voice. That term is thrown around so much in L.A. but I think it still holds value. Also, making one outstanding and original video / short film / spec commercial is worth much more than having a long list of mediocre work. Keith [Schofield] had some great advice if you're primary focus is getting yourself into a commercial position. "

coraline unveiled: go see it!

2009-02-05T23:38:00.000-08:00

just a few brief thoughts today...

saw the ASIFA screening of Coraline Wednesday night. very impressed. even for a stop-motion enthusiast such as myself, it was a visual orgy of delight -- especially in 3-D. except for a short part in the beginning, it resisted the standard gimmicky use of 3-D, instead choosing to give frames exceptional depth and vibrancy.

the story, while not equal to the visual and technical brilliance of the movie, is still pretty good and much better than I expected. a classmate asked me about the mouth movements on Coraline -- naturally I thought that they were simply replacement heads, like Selick's other films. essentially, I was correct. but he's upped the ante, according to Hollywood Jesus:

"Unlike most previous stop-motion features, Coraline added even more dimension to its puppet players by foregoing the use of replacement heads and using replacement faces instead. Based on scans and castings of the original puppets, the replacement faces were built by CG artists, printed out on 3-D printers, and then painted by hand. In addition, characters' faces were divided in two, with one set of replacements for the lower half and another set for the top half. As a result, where The Nightmare Before Christmas' Jack Skellington had only 150 possible facial expressions, Coraline has over 200,000 potential ones."

i guess they digitally removed most of those separation lines where the two parts of the head meet, but I remember seeing in some closeups the distinct lines marking their puppet nature -- and reminding us we're watching stop-motion instead of a computer animated film, which I think it could definitely be mistaken for. Selick pushed to have the lines stay in:

"I actually was pushing very hard to leave that line in; Most people, after five minutes, they wouldn't see it anymore. It disappeared. Initially, it's like, here's proof that this is handmade, kind of showing the technique in its lips; If you're going to do stop-motion, I'd like there to be the proof that it's stop-motion in the work," continues Selick. "Why not make it a little more obvious about what it is; I kept telling the animators, 'It's okay. It's these flaws that make it human, that make it unique.'"

and here's an interesting if cursory article on the evolution of stop motion animation. its a fun breeze through many years of history -- pick your own film or movement that was left out, but its a nice introduction nonetheless.

cartoon time! with Pendleton Ward

2009-02-04T16:28:00.000-08:00

while one will swear things were better "back in my day," i think the general landscape for children's programming has seen better days. that's why i'm excited for "Adventure Time" at Cartoon Network. besides putting animators and artists to work, the original short that its based on is a stream-of-consciousness ball filled with fun and imagination.

young CalArts grad Pendleton Ward (born only three years earlier than I) created the short for Nickelodeon's animation showcase "Random! Cartoons" put on by Frederator Studios, the program itself an offshoot of the earlier "Oh Yeah! Cartoons" which spawned the highly successful The Fairly Oddparents. the short was nominated for the best animated short film award by the Annies in 2006. he then went on to do storyboards for "The Misadventures of Flapjack" at Cartoon Network until a deal for Adventure Time was finally made. he first came to minor fame with a webcomic in 2003 called "Bueno the Bear".

this animation opens his website:

the Frederator blog for Adventure Time shows a great deal of the behind the scenes work as well as loads of artwork, layout, and model sheets to eat with your eyes. here's a background for an episode entitled "Good Buddies":

and, of course, the Candy Kingdom!:

and finally, another Ward creation for Random Cartoons: "The Bravest Warriors". it retains his very unique drawing style as well as his sense of humor, but just didn't seem to catch on the same way Adventure Time did. see if you can spot Rob Paulsen with your ears... (and yes, that was Bender as the dog in Adventure Time -- John Di Maggio)

Coraline in the Blog Dimension

2009-02-03T20:35:00.000-08:00

as most any animation fan knows, Laika's first stop-motion feature is being released in theaters this Friday, February 6th. the hopes of Laika, stop-motion animators and crew, as well as the commercial viability of the art form will ride on the box office of Coraline. granted, stop motion animation has been declared dead many times before, and will be many times in the future -- but the success of the feature will have an immediate impact on how fast Laika and/or the rest of the industry will get more of these types of features into production.

the film is based on a short novel by Neil Gaiman, adapted by Henry Selick -- the director of such mixed fare as The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, Monkeybone, and the stop-motion portion of Wes Anderson's idiosyncratic The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Neil Gaiman, while well respected in the fantasy and comic book community, has a less than stellar relationship with animation -- he cowrote Robert Zemmeckis' motion-captured Beowulf.

Selick is, put simply, a master of his craft -- the films he produces have such a smooth aesthetic and just plain attractive design that all other stop-motion competitors have yet to achieve. from what i've seen of the film so far, its no less than some of the most smooth puppet animation i've ever witnessed. much of the smoothness is achieved through the method of replacement body parts (mostly heads) that George Pal pioneered. that said -- i'm not entirely engaged with the story from trailers at least. however, one thing i must applaud is the use of a young girl as a lead character for an animated film -- and film in general. this point-of-view is very often neglected in the commercial landscape of movie plots.

Henry Selick is the right man for the job. Coraline wouldn't be better suited for anyone else. he got his start with his student award-winning Phases and Tube Tales at CalArts before going on to in-between at Disney on Don Bluth's featurette "The Small One" and the live-action/animation mix "Pete's Dragon" before becoming a full-fledged animator under Glen Keane on "The Fox and the Hound." he eventually set out on his own to create a production company that ended up revitalizing commercial campaigns for Ritz Crackers and Pillsbury. he also worked on MTV station IDs that helped solidify MTV as alternative culture. he was asked to create a series of animations that would eventually be pieced together as a 30-minute piece for MTV -- he came up with "Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions," a crazy mixture of stop-motion, live-action, and cut-out animation -- its not David Lynch weird, but its kind of in the same vein in that not too much is explained for oddity. he wasn't able to complete his series because he signed aboard as the director on Tim Burton's long-gestating The Nightmare Before Christmas. here's the pilot to the aforementioned series:

Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions (Henry Selick, 1990) - The most amazing home videos are here

get ready...get set...get depressed!

2009-02-02T22:25:00.000-08:00

i've just recently been introduced to the works of Suzie Templeton. she's a stop-motion filmmaker that fashions herself as an 'art film' type of director for the medium -- her stuff is miles away from anything Aardman does, or even Henry Selick. i'm not saying its better -- i'm just saying the tone is usually exceedingly somber. her puppets and situations are usually very dirty and ugly, but hyper-real.

she recently shot to fame for her adaptation of Peter & the Wolf when she won Best Animated Short Film Oscar nearly one year ago. here's her first foray into stop-motion animation, produced while at the Surrey Institute of Art & Design in 1999 in the U.K. the film oozes with style and hardship -- its not her best effort, but I think Templeton manages to put quite a bit of emotion and life (or lackthereof) into her puppets.

while Stanley was a festival favorite, it did not enjoy the immense success of her next short film -- "Dog". Dog, completed at the Royal College of Art, won the BAFTA award for Best Short Animation and the National Film Board of Canada's Grand Prize, not to mention a plethora of others.

the 2001 film, if its possible, is even more bleak than the aforementioned Stanley. for some, its gut-wrenching, for others, its maudlin -- i think it hits more emotional notes than it misses, though these kinds of stories usually aren't my cup of tea. its unrelentingly bleak.

her final film (as of yet) is much cleaner and less dark than her other films. that said, it is still definitely a Suzie Templeton film. here, she puts together the elements for a much more engaging film to my mind. i'm not entirely satisfied with the ending, and there certainly is a little fat to trim in regards to pacing, but its really a beautiful work full of engaging and lively characters, like this one:

considering it took five years to complete, its a stunning accomplishment on technique and determination alone. without further adieu, Peter & the Wolf:

(be sure to check out the other three portions of the film after this one, yep, its an epic)

falling lizard

2009-02-01T23:48:00.000-08:00

every year, the ucla animation workshop animators get together to produce a bunch of animated films in a weekend on a theme -- this year its "Bad Dreams."

i'm helping Basel and Jae with a film that's tentatively titled...."The Mysterious Case of Harold Pecker."

here's one of last year's films -- its pretty amazing for being done on the weekend (and mostly while drunk i'd imagine...)

a matter of illicit animation

2009-01-31T11:41:00.000-08:00

looks like "This Way Up" by Smith & Foulkes is up for a short time anyway on youtube...catch it while you can!

speaking of things up online that perhaps shouldn't be without permission, its the non-Oscar nominated, but the Annie-Award winning "A Matter of Loaf and Death" starring the loveable claymation duo Wallace & Gromit! it was the highest rated show during Christmas 2008 in the UK at 14.4 million viewers and indeed the highest rated in five years, along with the most watched programme in the UK in all of 2008.

the production of the film was the fastest of any Wallace and Gromit short they had ever done, with thirteen sets being employed at the same time. Nick Park seems to be relieved to have a bit quicker schedule and a smaller film:

"I felt I wanted to get my ideas out quicker and the 30-minute format is more humane. The first film took seven years to film and this one took seven months."

Kazaam!

2009-01-30T12:09:00.001-08:00

its been pointed out that i didn't cover ALL of the films nominated for the Best Short Animation Oscar -- i forgot about Presto! and since its online (of which only three are), i should at least touch on it briefly. Doug Sweetland, the director of Presto, has been an animator on Pixar's feature films from the very beginning -- from Toy Story to Cars -- he's done some very recognizable work on those: Woody walking out of the box from Toy Story, Sully fainting three times in Monsters Inc., Syndrome laughing at Mr. Incredible and saying "You sir truly are Mr. Incredible. I idolized you!" in The Incredibles.

as most everyone has suspected -- Doug was very influenced by Tex Avery's work and his kinetic style of animation and gag humor -- all showcased in Presto. in an audio interview with Spline Doctors, he guesstimates that he was the 12th animator hired on Toy Story, by the recommendation and support of Pete Docter (later director of Monsters Inc. and the upcoming Up) after coming out of CalArts. if you're an animation buff, be sure to check out the interview -- he's a very down-to-earth but excitable animator.

i enjoyed Presto quite a bit -- its got an amazing sense of timing. there's never a false note. that said, its a lovable homage to the films of Tex Avery. its a formula extremely well done, but its not necessarily new. of course, what's original today, but what i'd really love to see from Doug is a great story for a feature film with his off-the-wall crazy animation style. we haven't really seen a feature from Pixar like that before -- though parts of Monsters Inc. comes close. i certainly look forward to what's going on with him in the future -- he's a talent to watch. without further adieu, Doug Sweetland's Presto.

and just for fun, here's the classic MGM Tex Avery cartoon "Red Hot Riding Hood" for a little comparison:

This Way Up, Smith & Foulkes!

2009-01-29T22:26:00.000-08:00

UPDATE (2-15-08): CHECK OUT THE MOST RECENT POST TO VIEW "THIS WAY UP" ONLINE

the directing team of Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes (or Smith & Foulkes, as they prefer to be credited) of Nexus Productions is responsible for the final short animation nominated for an oscar: "This Way Up." i think you'll agree after watching some of their work -- its very kinetic, bouncy, and just plain alive. graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1997, they made an immediate splash in the advertising arena by hooking up with Nexus.

this high profile spoof they did for Coca-Cola of the Grand Theft Auto genre of games comes across pretty damn well -- its a spot on spoof and makes a case for Coca-Cola solving the world's problems as they always do...its fun, trust me.

Cole - Smith & Foulkes
Uploaded by Razorbuzz

just recently, they made an advert for British television on road safety for children -- its hauntingly effective.

the directors on the commercial: “We wanted these commercials to act as a pause in a child’s TV viewing, holding the gaze of the immobile injured characters almost painfully long as a contrast to the hi-energy multi-coloured frenzy of your average childrenʼs programming break.”

they don't just do computer animation either -- here's a stop motion intro they did for an animation film festival involving many, many boxes:

more technical information behind the video:
“Smith & Foulkes used a Canon Digital SLR camera linked up to a laptop allowing them to capture frames and play them back checking the shots as they went along. By shooting digitally Smith & Foulkes ended up with a much larger image size to work with when compared with the normal 35mm motion picture frame. These frames were then taken into After Effects and Photoshop for a clean-up where people and rigs from shots were removed. A final grade was then added in Flame.”

finally, the trailer for the first personal film they've made since "making it" -- although it was commissioned by BBC specifically for The Animation Show. "This Way Up" was available through iTunes for free for a while, but no longer -- you are certainly welcome to purchase it through Shorts International for a very reasonable price however.

how about them apples?

2009-01-28T22:31:00.000-08:00

...back to looking at the animated shorts that are nominated for an Oscar --

La Maison en Petits Cubes is not available as of yet to view online. but fear not, for a short clip exists at least to get you a little taste to appease the animation addiction you've been diagnosed with.

you can't really tell too much about the film from the clip -- but its quite an amazing artistic style that Japanese filmmaker Kunio Kato has shown time and again. as a part of the ROBOT character and animation design team, Kato has won praise over the world with his fantastic designs. La Maison en Petits Cubes won the 2008 Annecy Cristal award that honors the best short film at the festival. the blurb on the 12-mintue hand-drawn film given to the press:
"It is difficult to keep the house made of blocks out of the water. The grandfather who has lived in it has been constantly adding to it as the water level rises. This is the story about his family memories."

in 2001, he made the exceedingly surreal "The Apple Incident" which involves apples kind of...taking over the planet? my feeble attempts at categorizing the short do not give it justice -- its just plain weird and breathtaking at the same time.

the uncanny valley of pumpkins

2009-01-27T22:33:00.000-08:00

here's a still from the opening of my next stop motion film...if you can't tell, its halloween-themed.

i'm going to attempt to construct some kind of dolly for animating stop motion camera moves with my technical engineering/set construction/cinematographer extraordinaire buddy Jose Bedoya.

totally switching gears now, i'm looking forward to animators and designers overcoming the "uncanny valley," but they're just not there yet. as anyone who knows me, i've always been a more traditional kind of animator and story teller -- do it with your hands and tell it well, no matter the technology. of course, i don't mind well-told and well-animated stories in any medium -- Pixar tells amazing stories in CG and South Park (say what you will) is consistently telling engaging and hilarious stories, while being animated fairly simply and flatly. needless to say, i'm not a big fan of motion capture -- i'll be the first to congratulate them when they tell an engaging story, but something's missing and here's a good deal of the reason why:

the idea behind the uncanny valley is tough (at least for me) to get your head around. its kind of the notion that the closer that something non-human gets to being human, there's a point that when its so close (but not quite there) it induces a very negative reaction in the viewer -- or at least a reaction where it takes one out of the illusion of the thing looking human. one can see this effect in the motion capture movies in the past few years like The Polar Express:

because we're so attuned to ourselves and other human beings -- we realize the slightest difference between us and an impostor. of course, we don't care when its stylized, like in most animated movies -- most of Disney's stuff for instance. they are not necessarily trying to recreate reality. with stuff like The Polar Express, Beowulf, and the upcoming A Christmas Carol (with Jim Carrey, god help us all), the imitation of reality tries so hard but misses some basic things. people often complain of the soulless eyes and emotionless marionettes that come from such motion capture. video games, in particular, try to recreate reality at an alarming rate and, i think, have less of a problem than feature animated films because people aren't necessarily there for reality recreated -- they'll settle for a lot less because of the interactivity. if people wanted reality in gaming, they'd have latched onto the Full-Motion-Video craze of the early 90s...

Ward Jenkins put it pretty succinctly back when Polar Express came out:

"when Hanks pulls his head up to belt into the mic, there's some straining going on in his neck area. This, again, is lost in the digital version. The way he thrusts his head up and out, with his shoulders going down, and the way his right arm is positioned all get mussed up, and become stiff and weak. There must be something in the way that the characters are created, or "modeled", that no matter how much the digital artists tried to tweak to get the body just right, the CG model would still win. All the characters I've seen in FINAL FANTASY and THE POLAR EXPRESS have a puppet-like, marionette-style of construction. The shoulders, the way they walk, the way the head is held in turns, etc. - even when you are capturing real live action for the performances - all have a stiffness to them that apparently cannot be tamed."

David Cage, behind one of the best games I've played in the 00's Indigo Prophecy (despite a disappointing third act), likes to motion capture his performers and treat his games likes movies. they're exceedingly engaging and keep you feeling like you're in the story. you have to interact with your environment constantly, especially during action sequences where you have to make split second moves to get out of the way. he's been working on his latest million dollar venture, "Heavy Rain," for a few years now and it looks very interesting. they've put a lot of work into making the characters look and act real -- but they've got a long way to go before that happens. its still in the creepy realm of the uncanny valley. this is a demo for the PS3 game that played at E3 in May of 2006 (a much higher quality quicktime version of the video here):

heavyrain_e3_720p
Uploaded by Frazzal

here's a more updated video of the game from last year that stands as the trailer for the (hopefully) soon-to-be-released game.

What is the Secret of Monkey Island, Alex?

2009-01-26T19:55:00.000-08:00

i've recently found myself discovering computer adventure games from the late 80s and 90s that i'd either forgotten or never knew about. there's a structure of thought in regards to what kind of an adventure gamer you are -- you're either a Sierra man or a LucasArts man (or woman of course). Sierra was often characterized by well-written stories, erudite dialogue, and, most importantly, a god-awful need to present death to the user at every corner. they're notorious for the ease in which you can enter a dead end and die. the puzzles, as well, are usually pretty difficult -- and many are copy-protected by vital information being included in the manuals.

LucasArts games, on the other hand, were characterized by off-the-wall scenarios, characters, and humor -- their primary purpose was for the user to have some fun and maybe solve some deceptively simply puzzles. they often used item based events, as most adventure games do, but LucasArts in particular depended rather heavily on them to move the game forward. some were more difficult than others, but to me, they were infinitely more playable (and replayable for that matter). possibly my favorite computer game of all time, certainly at least my favorite adventure game, is The Secret of Monkey Island, represented here on some Converse sneakers by a fanatic follower of the series from Madrid:

until recently, i had never been able to get my hands on a copy of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge -- its one hell of a game. what it lacks in the originality of the first game in the series, it makes up for in some pretty out-there humor including the infamous ending, which i adore. adventure games seem to be chock full of some great art and this is no exception. pixels were never rendered so well in 1991. here's the amazing cover done by Steve Purcell (creator of Sam & Max: Freelance Police):

it routinely shows up on top 100 pc games of all time lists and for good reason -- its of one the best examples of its genre. if The Secret of Monkey Island is Ron Gilbert's Star Wars, then LeChuck's Revenge is his Empire Strikes Back. the opening, while short on the animation -- and its got no voices, like the entire game -- is charming and shows just how many people had to work to get an adventure game like this finished and out there.

on a completely unrelated note, Sundance just opened with a claymation feature film by Adam Elliot, the guy who made Harvie Krumpet back in 2003. to my mind, this looks a little bit more suited to the medium than say $9.99.

you have a great effects animation on me

2009-01-25T18:17:00.000-08:00

often times, the general public and even us animators don't realize how much effort goes into animation that seems almost trivial to a scene -- effects animation. when its done great, you hardly notice it. when its poorly done, it sticks out like a sore thumb. Kathleen Quaife has done traditional effects work since the early 80s for all the major studios including Disney -- and she teaches life drawing to boot.

here's a cycle on twos for fire she worked on:

she (along with seven other animators) worked on this car commercial for Sprint:

most of her work is not available on youtube persay -- because no one thinks to put up just feature effects work in clips for those who peruse the digital boobtube. but on her blog, she has gaggles of her effects work available to view including some really beautiful stuff from The Pagemaster, The Chipmunk Adventure, Once Upon a Forest, and even a commercial she did some effects for Will Vinton -- Michael Jackson as a California Raisin of course. be sure to check out all the wonderful clips she has on her blog including her simply dazzling reel of effects animation.

hey clayarnold!

2009-01-24T23:16:00.000-08:00

here are the three original shorts that the popular Nickelodeon television show "Hey Arnold!" was based on -- all by Craig Bartlett while working at the Will Vinton Studios. the first one and arguably the best is "Arnold Escapes From Church" from 1988. its got a great flat clay aesthetic.

coincidentally that Groening you see in the credits is Lisa Groening -- Matt's sister and Craig Bartlett's wife. Vinton was notorious for encouraging his animators to make short films. Hey Arnold! in particular started originally as a comic strip. here's the next short, "The Arnold Waltz" -- it shows a little bit more of the rest of the characters in the later series, though it continues the idea of a very daydreamy Arnold:

this last one was featured on an episode of Sesame Street. once again, not much to say, just very inventive. i'd love to animate clay on glass some day -- Rex the Runt did it beautifully.

Konstantin

2009-01-23T15:19:00.000-08:00

continuing with the films up for the Oscar under Best Short Animated Film, here's a 2-D film from Russia by Konstantin Bronzit called Lavatory Lovestory. its a charming piece of animation with true emotional beats. as you can imagine, its involves a woman who works as an attendant in at a public bathroom whose heart yearns for another.

it seems like its animated in Toon Boom, but please forgive me if I'm in error...at any rate, its top notch work from a man who's directed seven animated films including a feature animation. here's an article on Bronzit's 2004 feature Alosha.

2003's The God offers a much different aesthetic from Bronzit. its got some layers beyond the obvious implications...

finally here's a short and very traditionally animated gag film by Bronzit in 1993 when he worked as an animator and director for Pilot Studios in Moscow. his films have received more than 50 awards in film festivals around the world including the coveted Grand Prix twice at Annecy. without further adieu, "The Pacifier":

i am so proud of you.

2009-01-22T22:49:00.000-08:00

the nominations for the oscars came out. here's the list for short animated film:

La Maison en Petits Cubes - Kunio Kato
Lavatory - A Love Story - Konstantin Bronzit
Oktapodi - A Gobelins, L’école de l’image Production
Presto - Pixar, Doug Sweetland
This Way Up - Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes

kinda disappointed "I Am So Proud of You" by Don Hertzfeldt isn't in the bunch, but such is life. surprised Bill Plympton's Hot Dog didn't make it either, but i suppose since its part of a "series," its time to honor some other shorts. here's the only student film among them, Oktapodi:

its got some great animation -- and its very smooth, but like I remarked before...I would've liked to see some more challenging animation story-wise recognized by Academy. maybe one day...

the fluffy fluffy kevin kevin show

2009-01-21T22:54:00.000-08:00

so this is a pretty forgotten piece of pc game culture -- an adventure game that follows frustrated cartoonist and creator Drew Blanc (Drew a Blank...get it?) and his inability to come up with something to revitalize his failing cartoon series The Fluffy Fluffy Bun Bun Show. when he falls asleep, complications arise and....you guessed it, he's sucked into the cartoon universe he's created! its a more twisted take on Who Framed Roger Rabbit starring noneother than the villain of the aforementioned piece -- Christopher Lloyd. in the beginning, if you listen closely you'll probably recognize the voice of the secretary that calls Blanc as voice actress extraordinaire Tress MacNielle (Dot Warner from Animaniacs, as well as a slew of voices from The Simpsons and Futurama). fellow Simpsons voice actor Dan Castellaneta plays Drew Blanc's first creation Flux Wildly -- Blanc's equivalent of Roger Rabbit.

as a game, its got some issues -- namely that it can't be played very smoothly on today's computers -- but its a very charming cartoon-filled game with some great animation provided (surprisingly) by Nelvana, the company perhaps best known for buying and animating The Care Bears from American Greetings. here's the intro to the game, featuring a lot of FMV with Lloyd and Ben Stein.

another rare Nelvana-for-hire creation was for the disastrous and rightfully shunned by society and its creator Star Wars Holiday Special in 1978. Nelvana was contracted to do the nearly 10-minute animation sequence which is really the only part of the special that people are interested in seeing. its a very fluid, if rough piece of traditional animation that boasts the first appearance of Boba Fett (who would later grace us with his appearance in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi).

you humble me, Mike Jittlov

2009-01-20T16:46:00.000-08:00

Mike Jittlov got into animation after taking Dan McLaughlin's UCLA animation night class in 1968 while majoring in math language. it made it to the finals of the nomination process for the Academy Awards. he's perhaps best known for, however, his short film and subsequent feature featuring amazing pixilation techniques (amongst others) called "The Wizard of Speed and Time." here's the original short film:

this was created for Disney for their "Major Effects" special in 1979. before that, however, he got Disney's eye with his acclaimed short films and was contracted to do a special tribute to Disney's 50th Anniversary. here's the second part of that animation:

a very considerate fan has uploaded a great deal of Jittlov's early work onto MySpace here. in particular, Jittlov's Animato is a very dynamic collage type of film -- its actually a reel for Jittlov's work in the 70s, but it acts as a dynamic short film in its own right.

the story goes that Regis Philbin as a young local LA reporter saw Jittlov's work and insisted it be showed on television, which led to Disney's offer of work.

Walt Bakshi

2009-01-19T21:13:00.000-08:00

Junktown was an early '60s comic drawn by a young Ralph Bakshi. this is one of my favorites:

it was later made into a special for Nickelodeon called Christmas in Tattertown (the name changed from Junktown). originally, it was meant to be a pilot to a 39 episode series in 1989, but the idea was abandoned.

and just so you have a little something to watch, check out the trailer for his seminal classic (no, not Fritz the Cat) Heavy Traffic. i watched it for the first time last year and i'm starting to see why this Bakshi has such a reputation. its sort of an animated Mean Streets -- its dark, gritty, funny, offensive -- and everything else the trailer mentions. its also very free-flowing. i assume at least parts of it were animated straight ahead (instead of drawing the keys first). i remember reading that Bakshi didn't do many pencil tests for his films and saved not only money, but also some creativity that got lopped away with incessant checking. he's certainly the anti-Disney he set out to be, at least here in Heavy Traffic.

yes mr. harman?

2009-01-18T20:55:00.000-08:00

i'm currently creating the animatic for my upcoming stop-motion ghost short...

so i don't have too much time to blog -- but perhaps i can take time to ruminate a bit on the creative process:

animation great Will Finn (animator on Secret of NIMH, Little Mermaid, Aladdin and co-director on The Road to El Dorado) has been doing some comics on his own creative process -- its something that most artists (or anyone who's ever had to create something) can relate to.

check out part I and part II.

also, this floated around the internet a little bit after the Comic Con last year -- its kind of a call to arms to current animators from Ralph Bakshi. i think its pretty inspiring (and after reading the new book on him "Unfiltered," I think i appreciate it even more). he's straight talking, at least moreso than that McCain guy and he is truly a guerilla filmmaker, but it just so happens he's in animation.

blogger meets far side

2009-01-17T17:39:00.000-08:00

Gary Larson hasn't made much of a ripple since his retirement from The Far Side in 1995. beloved by millions, its still reprinted in thousands of papers around the world. his drawings seem like they would lend themselves to animation -- and it has, but you've probably never seen it. 1994's "Tales from the Far Side" was a short film collaboration between Larson and animation veteran and teacher Marv Newland (Bambi vs. Godzilla). after winning the Grand Prix at Annecy and airing on CBS for Halloween, it was rarely seen again.

that didn't stop Larson and Newland from working on a sequel, the aptly named "Tales from the Far Side II" in 1997.

eventually, they were only available on a limited run VHS which goes for quite a pretty penny on ebay -- you can now buy both on Larson's website for $30 altogether. its not the best price, but much better than it had been going for. from what i've seen of it, its looks interesting, if a mixed bag -- as any type of anthology film is bound to be. this is one of the funnier clips from the 2nd film:

from the first film, here's a less successful skit: "Dead Ranch"

and just for fun, one of the most successful and least animated animations of all time. the story goes that Marv Newland missed magic hour for his live-action short that was due for class, so he decided to do something quick -- an animation. and so began his illustrious career...

and if you just can't stand any more drawn/cartoony farsidedness, then check out this recent movement of live-action still renactments of Far Side cartoons.

what's your medium? and i'm not talking about patricia arquette...

2009-01-16T11:22:00.000-08:00

i'm always intrigued by what medium (or mediums) people choose to animate with. its very hard to make mixed media work and it seems like its always a challenge when animating something different from the rest of the pack.

my friend and fellow animator Jessica Hokanson's chosen medium (though she can animate clay with the best of them) is rubber bands. this first video that she did was one of her first animation projects in school (for a short film production class). it still plays in festivals around the country; Wake Up Alice

watching it again, i think the medium really has lots of exploration to do. it has so many possibilities -- its got such a unique, 3-D look, but can be animated on a flat surface. the next short she did on 16MM, Fatty and the Sandman, is a little shorter, but no less endearing.

fast blog

2009-01-15T16:03:00.000-08:00

here's a music video that defies definition of exactly what style it is -- i think its perhaps best categorized as a hybrid between cut-out and 3-D stop motion puppet animation. regardless, its a fun and technically impressive romp by Frenchman Victor Haegelin (represented by Partizan) for Caravan Palace.

CARAVAN PALACE - Jolie Coquine
Uploaded by wagramlabel

Haegelin also did this identification for a French radio station that can best bedescribed as Pes meets Fast Film...if that makes any sense. its really quite beautiful.

Nova Le Grand Mix - Jazz
Uploaded by 917mn

speaking of which, Fast Film is essential viewing for the animation connoisseur, so here you go. it involves using film images from one film...with film images from another film. all on paper.

a little bit about the making of the film:
"In a technical sense, it meant that individual images were taken from various films or printed out, and then these printouts were folded into various figures. The objects were then assembled in various arrangements and a background was added so that four, five and up to 30 different films are visible within a single shot. That was the idea behind Fast Film. The challenge was to combine found footage in a meaningful way. The content and perspective of each image must match, but the individual shots must also fit together and tell the story, and do that extremely quickly. Applied to literature, that would be like taking individual sentences that rhyme from all of Shakespeare’s plays and using them to write a love poem which tells its own story. In that sense Fast Film is a journey through film history and at the same time a new film which is created in the heads of the audience members. In my opinion the fun thing about Fast Film is that everyone sees his or her own personal memories. Everybody has certain stimuli which trigger specific reactions, or recognizes certain actors or directors immediately. Suddenly the viewer is watching not Fast Film but his or her memory of the film from which the image was taken. I think that, when watching it, the audience switches back and forth in their heads between their perception of Fast Film and their perception of the films it references, so that everyone sees a completely different film."

check out Virgil Widrich's website for more info.

this is where i live

2009-01-14T13:35:00.001-08:00

here's a stunning stop-motion short by London-based Asylum Films completed in just three weeks for 4th Estate's 25th Anniversary -- its a whole city through different parts of the day where everything is made out of books (and their insides). its a technical marvel -- done with a homemade dolly no less.

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

here's another animation from the guys at Asylum. this time its a lego music video -- its no Michel Gondry, but its very well done.

Black Ghosts - Someway Through This from Asylum Films on Vimeo.

Master Manipulator

2009-01-13T17:22:00.000-08:00

i'm a big fan of animations that play with the art form. Duck Amuck, of course, was of the most famous examples, along with the Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell series. here's a 1991 Oscar-winning short by Daniel Greaves that plays like a lost Don Hertzfeldt film (I can imagine that Don was at least a little inspired by it while thinking up "Genre"). this really must've taken quite a long time -- the moves are so well choreographed and timed together. enjoy:

here's a later CG short by Richard Jack and Daniel Greaves about the secret life of billiards balls from 2001 called Rockin' & Rollin'

harryhausen wouldn't approve

2009-01-12T13:24:00.000-08:00

so, you don't see stop-motion used for effects work much anymore, mainly since the computer graphics revolution started mostly in the 80s, but popularized by Jurassic Park when Phil Tippett, the stop-motion animator said upon seeing the first computer test for the film "I think I'm extinct!" of course, he adapted to CG on the film:

"Dennis Muren: "Eventually Phil realised there was a place for him, and I was able to convince him there is a place for you and your shop on the show. He had some really terrific animators there that understood how we could make these dinosaurs move naturally."

but i digress. recently on The Sarah Silverman Program, Rob Schrab (yes, the Rob Schrab that created Scud: The Disposable Assassin and Monster House) decided to use stop-motion for a creature that Sarah gives birth to...

Doug Tennapel and the Chiodo Brothers took the job. its a pretty cool mini-behind-the-scenes along with a great face-melting scene to boot.

speaking of Doug Tennapel -- the creator of Earthworm Jim and the Neverhood (an all stop-motion Dreamworks game created in the 90s) -- here's an unfinished/effects-less stop-motion short he did called Kog-Head and Meatus. and let's be honest, he can tell the story better than I:

"This was for a character I made associated with a video game company in North Carolina. Koghead and Meatus are blue creatures that are supposed to be violent cartoon beasts in battle with giant synthetic monsters. Yes, it's a lot like GEAR and a common theme in a lot of my work.

I wrote and directed, but my lead animators were Mike Dietz and Ed Schofield. I think we did this in the year 2000 or 2001. We never finished it because we sent the footage back to North Carolina to do some effects work and they went out of business and now we can't find the people who might have the material.

The voices are by Rob Paulsen.

The characters are owned by the NC company and are pretty much tied up and dead at this point since the company doesn't seem to be in the gaming business anymore.

This version of K and M you're looking at is a work in progress. It's not finished at all and shouldn't be seen as such. I'm mostly showing you guys how we do our work. If they request I remove it for any reason I'll have to do it immediately."

Rob Paulsen is of course the voice of Pinky and Yakko, as well as Arthur from The Tick amongst countless others. its truly a cute short, effects or not, and technically very impressive. without further adieu: