Author Archives: Amid Amidi

About Amid Amidi

test

Picasso the Cartoonist

By
on
13

Picasso cartoons

The idea that Picasso was as much a cartoonist as fine artist is certainly not original, but it’s never been more evident to me than at the Picasso exhibition currently on display at the Met. It’s worth seeing if only for the last couple rooms which present a large selection of lithographs, etchings and drawings from his late years.

These drawings are a revelation–piece after masterful piece of stunning cartoon design with some sequential storytelling also thrown into the mix. Looking at them, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the pen-and-ink cartoons of indie comic artists like Gary Panter and C.F, and by extension, animated shows like Adventure Time. It turns out that Picasso was an indie comic artist long before the term existed, and approached cartooning with an uninhibited and expressive approach that puts most of today’s indie comic practitioners to shame.

I took some photos at the show. There’s more Picasso cartoons after the jump:

Continue reading →

Guy Wants Animation Like Coraline–Whatever That Was

By
on
32

Check out this embarrassing request on Elance where somebody needs 60 to 90 seconds of animation in the style of Coraline for a thousand bucks. The person writes, “At least, I think Coraline was stop motion…might’ve been 4D or some new fangled technology..you get the idea.” No, actually, we don’t get the idea.

A protip: when requesting work for a low price, you should at the very least do basic research and understand the technique you need. That effort is a sign of respect to the artist you’re hiring. Not understanding what you’re hiring somebody to do creates the potential for misunderstandings between the employer and contractor. The person who sent this to me, Chris S., writes, “It wouldn’t bother me so much if it weren’t for the up front ignorance and the lack of respect for the kind of work he is seeking.”

The CalArts Story

By
on
61

Fascinating 1964 promotional film created by Walt Disney that lays out his vision for CalArts. Sadly, Walt’s dream never came to fruition: “The art students mingle with the musicians. Sculptors mix with singers, painters with printmakers, and between times, find opportunity to know each others’ work and informally exchange ideas.” Nowadays, a lot of CalArts animation students can’t even be bothered to use original music in their films–if you’re not going to interact with the other artistic communities, what’s the point of attending a multidisciplinary art school?

More info about The CalArts Story at the official CalArts blog 24700.

(via Drawn)

Variety Attempts to Identify Future Cartoon Talent

By
on
24

Variety

Last Thursday, Variety published a list called “Tomorrow’s toon talent: 10 animators poised to become household names” and it was an embarrassing revelation of how far behind the times they are in covering the animation field. Don’t get me wrong, the people on the list are wonderful, but they are not tomorrow’s talent, they are today’s. Most of them are already established names (as well established as anybody can be in our field), and some of them have been around for years. And with the exception of the two feature directors, all have appeared on Cartoon Brew.

Arthur de Pins? “Here’s a name to start watching closely,” I wrote on June 30, 2004.

Pendleton Ward? “Pen Ward is a great new talent,” Jerry wrote on January 11, 2007.

David OReilly? Cartoon Brew was the first web site ever to write about any of his projects, back in March 2007 when I didn’t even know his name.

Michael Langan? His short Doxology was the premier short on Cartoon Brew TV.

Stephen Neary? First appeared on Cartoon Brew in November 2008.

The biggest headscratcher is the inclusion of Teddy Newton. I profiled him in Animation Blast #8 way back in 2002 (yes, eight years ago) and when I wrote that piece, he was already considered one of the most original talents in the mainstream industry.

Other inclusions on Variety‘s list are less about pointing out new talent than jumping on the bandwagon of projects that have been popular recently, like Patrick Jean’s Pixels, which was on the Brew on April 8 and Headless Studio, which appeared here on May 4.

It might be more understandable if this Variety article was the work of a single reporter who was overextended and on deadline. But they credit their findings to the “Variety staff” and list four people at the end of the piece. In other words, an entire braintrust of Variety staffers worked on this together and they still couldn’t come up with a single up-and-coming talent.

Variety‘s list is symptomatic of the animation industry’s weaknesses. Executives on the development side are unable to identify original talent using their own eyes and reasoning because they are too uneducated about the art form. They have no sense of history to understand what has preceded them, and no understanding of the art form’s possibilities to be able to predict its future. So they rely on others to tell them what or who is currently popular. The result is that they’re usually years behind in uncovering trends and artists. Conversely, when I look to some of the more prominent artist-run studios like Augenblick, JibJab and Titmouse, that’s where I find the young and fresh talents who will lead this art form into the future.

Jerry and I don’t publish silly lists like Variety, but we take our work far more seriously than those who claim they are identifying new talent. We pore through countless submissions, speak to artists, attend events, and actively scour the web to identify the future of this art form. Case in point: yesterday I posted the student short Mars! on Cartoon Brew. Prior to my post, it had had a grand total of 3 views in the eleven days since its appearance online. In less than twenty-four hours since appearing on the Brew, it’s gained ten thousand views and is starting to go viral. For those looking for a real taste of tomorrow’s animation talent, tune in to our Cartoon Brew TV Student Film Festival beginning next week.

Animated Shorts of Bob Godfrey

By
on
7

Whenever the short films of British animation legend Bob Godfrey have appeared on YouTube, they’ve been quickly removed. But now there’s good news. Bob has an official YouTube channel where he’s posting clean copies of his films including the hilariously dry and NSFW Henry 9 ’til 5 (1970), which is posted above. The other two films currently available are the classic Do It Yourself Cartoon Kit (1959) and Alf, Bill & Fred (1964). Also of note, Bob Godfrey’s grandchildren run his official website at BobGodfreyFilms.com.

Monday Morning Inspiration: Ronald Searle Lecture

By
on
9

Ronald Searle

Ronald Searle has not only inspired countless cartoonists and illustrators, his work has had a profound impact on animation artistry since the 1950s and continuing through today. A few years back, I was chatting in Annecy with fellow Searle aficionado Matt Jones about how amazing it would be if we could hunt down the reclusive, legendary artist and learn more about his work. Matt, who was living in the south of France at the time, did exactly that. He not only found the now-ninety-year-old Searle, but became friends with him. Recently he’s been presenting some lectures about Searle’s work with the cooperation and blessing of the master himself. It delights me to no end knowing that a new generation is discovering Searle’s genius through Matt’s efforts, which also include the indispensable Ronald Searle blog. The real purpose of this post though is to share this link that will allow you to watch a forty-minute lecture that Matt gave at the CTN Expo last November. Prepare to be inspired!

Mars! by Joe Bichard and Jack Cunningham

By
on
22

Mars! is a visually striking and sophisticated marriage of animation and graphic design created by Joe Bichard and Jack Cunningham at Kingston University. Sound design by Jimi Swells is also quite effective. In light of BP’s destructive behavior, the film can be read as an effective and timely allegory for how oil companies rape and pillage planetary resources without any regard for the consequences of their actions. Or maybe the filmmakers just set out to make a version of Avatar minus all the boring parts.

The Men Who Would Be King

By
on
26

The Men Who Would Be King

I can’t wait to get my hands on this book: The Men Who Would Be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies, and a Company Called DreamWorks. All the reviews I’ve read so far indicate a well researched book, and there appears to be plenty of animation-related company history as well. Here is a link to a Businessweek review of the book, and here is an interview with the author Nicole Laporte. In the interview, when asked whether DreamWorks will ever top Pixar, Laporte gives the following answer:

The Pixar culture is the anti-Hollywood studio. It’s based in Northern California. They nurture these ideas over years. At Dreamworks, it’s much more about the way a live action movie gets made. You hire Judd Apatow to come in one day and write some jokes and punch it up. At this point, Pixar is head and shoulders above everyone. I don’t see them passing on the crown any time soon. But I think Katzenberg has seen the folly of his ways. I think he realized you have to let the artist be the artist.

Buy the book on Amazon.com for $18.50.

“Not Your Grandfather’s Snow White”

By
on
49

Snow White

Director Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, X-Men: The Last Stand) is planning a live-action version of Snow White in 3-D. Ratner isn’t involved with Disney and he wants to make sure everybody knows it’s going to be a lot better than that crusty fuddy-duddy film that Walt made:

“This is not your grandfather’s Snow White. Melisa went back to the 500 year old folk tale and put in some of the things that were missing from Walt Disney’s film. His dwarves were miners, and here they are robbers. There is also a dragon that was in the original folk tale. Walt made one of the great movies of all time, but ours is edgy and there is more comedy. The original, made for its time, was soft compared to what we’re going to do.”

(Thanks, Kurtis Findlay)

“Your Love Is My Drug” Inserts by Lizzi Akana

By
on
23

Lizzi Akana created these Peter Max-ish inserts for the Ke$ha music video “Your Love Is My Drug.” Here’s a Quicktime link to the entire piece, directed by Honey, that shows how the animation fits into the primarily live-action video. I asked Lizzi if she could share details about the production and this is what she said:

I would say the bulk of the animation was completed (from design to final product) in around 2-1/2 weeks, give or take. In total, including added revisions at the tail end, I’d say the animation took a solid month. The animation was created exclusively in Flash and composited in After Effects.

The label and director wanted a psychedelic “Yellow Submarine”-inspired animation, so they thought I would be a good fit based on the work I had done on the MGMT video “Kids” that Christy Karacas directed. From the beginning, the idea was there to have animated elements integrated with the live action, which would then build up into fully animated scenes. The desert had to transition into an underwater scene, but in the end I was pretty much free to come up with whatever I wanted within that context for the first chorus. The second chorus was also wide open, so just tried to come up with images that I thought would be striking for that section. I obviously looked at a lot of Peter Max and Alan Aldridge, but I also found Moebius a huge source of inspiration.

This is my first time directing animation for a large commercial product. I was in charge of the concept/design, rough animation, and compositing for both choruses. The animation that was combined with the live action worked a little differently–with those scenes I was asked to create specific content and gave the clips to the video compositor as separate elements to integrate with the footage. In both cases, some additional animation effects/transitions were added after the fact during the final composite in LA.

There is no way in hell that I could have gotten this music video done without the help of some of my very good (and talented) friends. Henry Thurlow (who also worked on the MGMT video) and Gene Lee were my animators. We were all assistant animators on Superjail and contributed a ton of hard work to this project. Sarah Orenstein did the color design for my characters/backgrounds, and helped me come with with a lot of the texture effects in the video (the paper-y overlay, the glitter, etc.) Leah Shore came in to help as an animation assistant with certain shots, coloring scenes and animating small elements.

Salesman Pete Trailer

By
on
38

French animation students–yes, students–continue to push the envelope for cel-shaded CG animation more than anybody else within the industry. This trailer for Salesman Pete is the latest example (and among the finest) that I’ve seen from a technique standpoint. It also puts to shame the bland indistinguishable visual styling that dominates all mainstream computer animated features nowadays.

The film’s directors Anthony Vivien, Marc Bouyer, and Max Loubaresse point out emphatically on their Vimeo page that “WE ARE NOT from Supinfocom, in fact we left our school before our last year in order to make this short our own way.” Now this is the kind of dropping-out that I can get behind, but I’m really curious to learn the full story about why such a production wasn’t possible at their school Supinfocom. The have a Salesman Pete production blog with pre-production artwork from their film.

(Thanks, Dan Pinto and via Drawn)