October 08, 2005
PATRICK MORGAN
Thank you Patrick Morgan for sending me your full color, 54 page sketch book! And you have a blog! Keep up the great work.
October 07, 2005
Why Europeans Teach Animation Better
A lot of people over the past few years (myself included) have been highly impressed with student animation films coming out of European schools such as Les Gobelins and Supinfocom. We've even mentioned a number of the films on the Brew including OVER TIME, LE BUILDING and SUPER TIBETAN RACER. This interesting AWN article by Christopher Panzner attempts to explain why the films produced by European students are so damn good. Want to know the most impressive figure cited in the article? Cost of one year's tuition at Gobelins: US$2,200. That should make a few CalArts and RISD students weep over the weekend.
R.I.P. TV GUIDE (1952-2005)
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War Photographer
Cold Hard Flash liked this music video.
Drawn liked this music video.
And now it's my turn to like it.
"War Photographer" is a Flash animated music video directed by Joel Trussell for musician Jason Forrest. The design, color and graphics are all superb. Little surprise considering Joel's list of artistic influences. The video is smartly designed, and serves as a great example of how to achieve a dynamic effect with a relatively limited amount of animation.
Dali and Disney in PRINT
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The making of DESTINO is a reminder of how daring Walt Disney was in initiating and exploring this film, which is so unlike any he ever produced. It also underlines how comparatively timid today's mainstream animation producers are, and how animation's unlimited potential for expression remains restricted to children's fare.
This issue of PRINT also has a piece on the young Kansas City motion graphics/animation studio MK12 (their A HISTORY OF AMERICA short looks promising) as well as a profile of JibJab's Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, the duo behind the cult Flash cartoon of 2004, THIS LAND.
October 06, 2005
Book Illustration Done Right
Illustrator Eric Sturdevant has a really excellent collection of scans of children's illustrated books on Flickr. There is gorgeous art by a lot of mid-century illustration greats, including a number of artists who worked in animation, such as Aurie Battaglia, Martin Provensen and Mel Crawford. For more of this type of art, check out Ward Jenkins's Flickr group, The Retro Kid, with a constantly updated stream of inspiring children's book art posted by lots of different Flickr users.
Magic Malibu Kingdom
Now that Michael Eisner is no longer desecrating the Disney name on a daily basis, he's going to spend his time building his dream house in Malibu, at least according to Kim Masters at Slate.com.
October 05, 2005
Devin Crane Art Show in LA
Devin Crane, currently a vis dev artist at DreamWorks Feature Animation, is having a one-man show at Gallery Nineteen Eighty Eight (7020 Melrose Ave., corner of Melrose & La Brea). The show is called "Illusion Factory: Fairy Tales from Hollywood" and the idea behind the paintings is to "reinvent traditional fairy tales and classic book titles, while commenting on the superficiality and shallowness of modern day Hollywood." I'm not familiar with Devin's work, but if the rest of his paintings are as cool as the "Snow Queen" one they're using to promote the show, then it should be worth checking out. Opening reception is this Sunday, October 9, from 6-9pm. The show only runs for one week, closing on October 16, so you better drop by quick. More details at Gallery1988.com.
(Thanks, Jon Gibson)
More Praise for Wallace & Gromit
Former ANIMATO! editor Harry McCracken calls WALLACE AND GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT "the most enjoyable non-Pixar non-Japanese animated feature I've seen since Lilo and Stitch." But Harry also has some very legitimate concerns about where Aardman goes from here, and wonders whether the studio is capable of "reaching deeper into our emotions, in the way that the major characters in the best Disney and Pixar features do." Read McCracken's thoughts HERE.
October 04, 2005
Ottawa Trip Reports
I'm still working on my own little write-up about the Ottawa Animation Festival, but there's a whole lot of festival coverage being posted around the blogosphere. Here we go:
Primal Screen director Ward Jenkins has posted part one of his Ottawa coverage. Stay tuned to the Ward-o-Matic for further installments. Ward also has a nice Flickr photoset from Ottawa.Tom Neely, director of the delightful rubber hose-styled Muffs music video 'Don't Pick On Me,' has a trip report on his I Will Destroy You blog.
Bill Robinson, an animation student at RIT, also has a trip report HERE.
Roque "The Rogue" Ballesteros, whose exquisitely designed short film MOLE IN THE CITY took home the award for best Internet cartoon, has the first part of his Ottawa coverage posted on the Ghostbot blog.
Jeff Hasulo is doing a number of updates on his blog, and he also has a Flickr photoset. Jeff writes about the Michael Dudok de Wit masterclass, which was one of the festival highlights for me as well. Talking about animation is never easy, but Dudok de Wit eloquently verbalized his thoughts about creativity and art for two whole hours. And I could have easily listened to him speak for two more. Check out Michael Dudok de Wit's site HERE.
Ken Priebe, a filmmaker who works at VanArts, has a five-part festival report on his blog.
Don't be fooled by the photo gallery of sixteen-year-old Lev Polyakov, who won the elementary/secondary film award for his film PIPER THE GOAT AND THE PEACE PIPE. He looks harmless enough, but give him an award, and Holy Christ, you better watch out.
OTTAWA PIX ON FPS
Emru and Tamu Townsend have posted a plethora of pics from the Ottawa International Animation Festival (including a few capturing the Brewmasters of this blog) on their mighty fine animation website, FPS.
Click here to dig in.
October 03, 2005
VOICES FOR KATRINA
In an effort to raise money for the Red Cross to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina, the CESD Talent Agency is sending their clients to the monthly Los Angeles Comic Book & Science Fiction Convention this Sunday at the Shrine Auditorium Expo Center. Appearing in person to sign autographs for this cause will be cartoon voice actors Richard Horvitz (Invader Zim), Bob Bergen (Porky Pig), Kevin Michael Richardson (The Batman), Scott Menville (Teen Titans), Bill Farmer (Goofy) and many others. The show opens at 10am. For more details click here.
ZIP-A-DEE-DOO-DAH!
FILM THREAT on the current status of Disney's SONG OF THE SOUTH.
JANET KLEIN
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This gig has finally caught on (despite limited press coverage) and the crowd grows larger every month. If you want to be musically transported back to the late 20s/early 30s - this be the place. I usually run a few Fleischer cartoons to set the mood and Janet usually sings a few songs that are familiar from movies and cartoons of the era.
Join us!
MONDAY MORNING INSPIRATION: Toru Fukuda
Contemporary Japanese illustrator Toru Fukuda's work is dripping with mid-century, Abner Graboff-flavored goodness. There's plentiful examples of Fukuda's work on his website, ToruFukuda.jp, especially in the "Drawing" section.
(Thanks, Will Kane)
October 02, 2005
Sunday Pants
SUNDAY PANTS is a new animated variety show that premieres on Cartoon Network tonight, Oct. 2, at 9:30 pm (ET/PT). Each episode will include "a fast-moving selection of short animation pieces from around the world" in "a variety of animation styles, from traditional hand-drawn animation to artists working on computer-based Flash and CGI." Creators include Monkmus, Lance Taylor (Facelift Enterprises, Inc.); Lincoln Pierce (Global Mechanic); Tim McKeon and Adam Pava (Cartoon Network Studios); Andy Fielding (Red Kite Animation); and Andy Merrill, Craig "Sven" Gordon and Stuart Hill (Cartoon Network).
Sounds like an excellent idea, but the clips shown in the promo look uniformly weak. The kitschy Sixties-themed branding of SUNDAY PANTS sadly reinforces the idea that the show is cheap. Quite disappointing; it would have been nice to see Cartoon Network air a quality series of independently produced animation. About the only upside so far is that the series will apparently feature the television premiere of the PERIWINKLE shorts by Aaron Springer. These shorts have only aired publicly once -- at the Genndy Tartakovsky retrospective in LA earlier this year. I've yet to see them, but everybody that I know who has says they're terrific. That's hardly a surprise considering that Springer is one of the most singular talents working in commercial animation today.
WALLACE & GROMIT
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First off, (for the three people out there who care about such details) as I am someone chronicling animated features - not only for future updates to my THE ANIMATED MOVIE GUIDE, but for Leonard Maltin's MOVIE GUIDE as well - I have to note the film's several title discrepancies. On the posters and ads the title is presented as "WALLACE & GROMIT The Curse Of the Were-Rabbit" with the characters names twice as large as the subtitle. The poster's credit block (small print) have it as "WALLACE & GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT" (all the same size) with a colon separating the character name from the subtitle. On the film itself, the title is presented this way: "WALLACE & GROMIT" as one card, "in" as a second card, and "THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT" as a third card. Never since ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE KILLER, BORIS KARLOFF have the film's principals and the film's title been so intertwined and confusing!
Regardless, THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT is certainly the best animated feature of the year. Thoroughly entertaining, inventive, charming, hilarious, clever and fun. A total pleasure, produced with the highest standards of craft and creativity. I won't go into story details - you should just go and enjoy that for yourselves - but I really admired, despite the story's simplicity, the filmmakers ability to cram as many jokes and visual sight gags into the 85 minute running time. It never feels forced or overwhelming. The audience I saw it with laughed consistently the entire time.
Dreamworks did an interesting thing: before the film begins (at least at the press screening I attended) they tagged on a three minute film explaining the film's stop motion process - with behind the scenes footage, explaining what plasticine is, showing the set builders and animators at work. I think this was a good idea - I'm concerned that audiences are now so familiar with computer graphics, they're unaware of the painstaking work that stop motion animation is. The animation in CORPSE BRIDE was so smooth, I'll bet most viewers of that film probably thought it was the same technique as ROBOTS or THE INCREDIBLES. I applaud Dreamworks for informing the audience that what they are about to see was produced by hand, frame by frame, and shot on motion picture film.
I predict this feature will be a box-office smash of SHREK 2 proportions. I hope AARDMAN is considering another feature length WALLACE & GROMIT adventure. I'll be first in line.