LONDON, UK — Trunk’s amazing directors Lore& Jun have just completed the festival credits for the 16th International Film Festival of Animation in Catalonia (Animac).

The directing duo was invited to lead a workshop for students from EAM Leandre Cristofol. They showed the 1st and 2nd year students a lot of experimental animation, discussed movie titles and did some animation exercises. Inspired by the work of Jeff Scher Lore&Jun decided to shoot a video about the daily moments of an illustrator/animator which was used as a baseline allowing students to trace the frames with whatever style they chose. In total 320 frames were drawn during two and a half days. The finished work was overlaid by Lore & Jun with the names of the invited artists at the festival thereby forming the credits for the festival. Finally, with the help of Albert Marcet and Gacy Sarubbi, Rita the adorable French bulldog was introduced into the film.

The resulting film with a great soundtrack by Sunny Graves is a beautiful kaleidoscope of colours and line formed by the wide variety of media used. It’s energy and pace is a credit to the students who were great to work with.

NEW YORK, NY – Fresh off the promotion of director Ryan Dunn to company ECD, Charlex has added creative talents Kristian Mercado and Elliot Lim to its lineup. The versatile directors each bring a unique aesthetic approach to Charlex’s studio, further expanding an already robust creative staff.

Mercado joins Charlex from 1stAveMachine, where his work included an entertaining spot for Tassimo featuring a dancing brewpot and an HTC campaign revealing new smartphones through narratives speaking to human connectivity. The award-winning Lim comes to the studio from Digital Kitchen, where he worked on TV spots, music videos, installations and more for high-end clients such as Reese’s, Coach, Rotary Club, Cosmopolitan Hotel and Ghost Robot.

“I was like a kid in a candy store when Charlex showed me all the bright, beautiful toys here,” stated Mercado. “My mind flared up with possibilities. Art is a kind of wish-fulfillment fantasy, and there is limitless potential to make those fantasies reality at Charlex.”

“Kristian is a versatile talent who possesses a relentless creative dedication to finding the perfect approach for each project,” noted Charlex Founder/Company Creative Director Alex Weil. “Rather than let himself be constrained by the subject matter, he constantly explores new styles to find something that will leave a mark on his viewers. I am particularly impressed by his fluency in organic, filmic and CG created imagery and his ability to make them come together as one.”

Lim has worked with Dunn in the past, and came to Charlex primarily to work under his leadership. “Ryan and I have the potential to make some really great work together,” Lim remarked.

“Elliot has well-developed sensibilities in terms of design, concept, and animation,” explained Weil. “He can execute all three and, just as important, help others to do so. In one of his first projects he seemed to get to the heart of the story that the client was trying to tell in a comprehensive and very elegant first take. He’s the sort of team-first guy that we’re always seeking here at Charlex.”

MONTREAL, CANADA – Fabric Engine, a software engineering company focused on bringing multi-threaded, compiled performance to developers working with dynamic languages, announced that it has officially launched v1.0 of its high-performance computing platform, Fabric Engine. Having recently earned Judge’s Choice at January 2012’s NodeJam, the server- and client-side Fabric Engine technology is now available to programmers under the AGPL license.

Fabric Engine taps into the power of modern, multi-core hardware to bring multi-threaded, compiled performance to dynamic languages such as JavaScript and Python. The benefits of dynamic languages are well-known – they’re easy to use and fast to work with. However, they are slow when compared to compiled languages. Until now, dynamic language applications have to be re-built using compiled languages in order to provide performance, which introduces significant costs. Fabric Engine gives the same performance as multi-threaded C++, yet retains the ease of use and speed of iteration of dynamic languages.

“With Fabric Engine’s technology, it’s possible to take current backend infrastructure and redeploy it to scale and gain impressive performance increases,” said Guido Vieira, General Manager at Nexalogy Environics, a company focused on social media analytics and an early user of Fabric Engine. “Fabric Engine has other advantages too. In addition to using a language very similar to JavaScript for the high-performance operators (vanilla JavaScript/node.js for everything else), which reduces the need to use C++, you can avoid the whole code-compile-run cycle with its sometimes long delays, and use a more immediate execute model.”

On the desktop, Fabric Engine is ideal for high-performance applications, such as those used in game development, animation, film production, GIS, medicine, and other industries that are greedy for performance. Fabric Engine currently runs as a browser plug-in, and is currently in beta for a Python/QT desktop framework.

On the server and in the cloud, Fabric Engine is ideal for addressing compute-bound problems that require raw execution performance. With node.js, Fabric Engine provides an asynchronous compute model that works well alongside the other services that node provides.

Proven uses of Fabric Engine include:

- 3D animation
- Facial recognition
- Image/video processing
- Remote collaboration on 3D data
- GIS visualization
- Medical visualization
- Semantic analysis (Nexalogy Use Case)
- Statistical analysis
- And any other compute-bound challenge.

“This launch marks the culmination of more than two years of hard work,” said Paul Doyle, CEO and co-founder of Fabric Engine. “We have many ideas of what can be achieved with our technology, but we also look forward to seeing all of the creative directions in which developers push Fabric. With our open-source licensing model, it is easy for developers to get started with Fabric Engine and start building high-performance applications.”

Fabric Engine is now available for download: http://fabricengine.com/products/download/. Developers can use Fabric Engine under the AGPL open-source license. Developers that do not want to use the AGPL license can contact sales@fabricengine.com to request a commercial license.

VOLDA, NORWAY – Raindog Studios has completed its first commission for Norwegian TV2. Produced by Eivind Netland at TV2, and directed by Raindog Studios’ Torjus Førre Erfjord and Ole Herigstad, the 16 x 5 second spots were created for Tippeligaen broadcasts, to represent each of the league clubs.

Taking a fresh approach to the team emblems, with a strong emphasis on stylised animation, the spots are designed to highlight both cultural and geographical landmarks from individual towns and cities.

The spots will air on TV2 from Sunday March 25, 2012.

LONDON, 26 March, 2012 - Random House Children’s Screen Entertainment (‘RHCSE’), a full-service UK production house created by Random House Children’s Books and Komixx Entertainment, has optioned Dog Loves Books by acclaimed author, Louise Yates.

The option for Dog Loves Book securedby Random House Children’s Screen Entertainment is the latest project to be based on books and characters from the Random House Children’s Book (RHCB) portfolio.

Dog Loves Books is written by award-winning author and illustrator, Louise Yates. Published in 2010, it won the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and was nominated for the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal. The story has global appeal with co-editions sold in 6 territories to date. In the US Dog Loves Books debuted as a New York Times bestseller and won the Parents’ Choice Award. The sequel Dog Loves Drawing was released in the UK in February 2012, and selected by The Sunday Times as children’s book of the week. A further book, Dog Loves Counting, will be published next year.

Andrew Cole-Bulgin, Partner and Head of Film & TV, RHCSE comments: “Dog Loves Books is a story about a dog that owns a bookshop and embarks on an imaginative adventure through his love of storybooks. It’s a wonderful platform that will take children into the exciting world of their own imagination. The quality and variety of short-listed books from Random House provides us with a unique advantage at a time when many broadcasters are focused on finding global properties. We can deliver not only these brands but also material with an established commercial audience. We’re also able to develop worldwide partnerships and co-productions that ensure not only commercial success but products with broad market appeal that will stand the test of time.”

Louise Yates, author, comments: “Part of the great appeal of working with RHCSE is the intelligent, sensitive and playful way that they bring a work to a new level of artistic expression and an even wider audience. I am delighted to be working with a company that fully appreciates the spirit in which Dog Loves Books was created and who share my hope that this series will allow young (and old) minds to indulge an infectious enthusiasm for life and a passion for discovery through reading.”

Philippa Dickinson, Managing Director, RHCB comments: “I am delighted that RHCSE continues to develop material from the extensive Random House portfolio. The opportunities for taking these stories to a wider audience are very exciting for both our authors and artists.”

Today Optimizer International Group, Inc. (FRA:3OP) announced the launch of its new division AnimationWRX. Earlier this year the company acquired Auckland based motion graphics and animation company, Desaign, which formed the basis for setting up this new division.

At the time of the acquisition, little was disclosed about the purpose, strategic reason or future of Desaign in context of Optimizer’s existing brands and market focus, however, in a statement released today, Optimizer CEO Manas Kumar said that “our market research revealed a major need for motion graphics and animation related services for organizations around the world, especially those competing online. With an expanded team and our already strong online footprint, this division is perfectly positioned to bring cutting edge animation services to SMEs around the world.”

Kumar went on to say that “Animation WRX extends our portfolio of products and services offered globally, adding one more link in the chain that connects various aspects of online business.”

Tan Desai, former CEO of Desaign, now Vice President of Visual Media says, “Animation WRX carries on from Desaign’s original quest to simplify and explain complex ideas. People’s attention span is diminishing while competition is increasing and animated videos offer a sense of engagement making it one of the most effective medium of communication online. These are exciting times as a global market awaits a service such as ours.”

AnimationWRX is already working with clients in New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, Canada and the US helping them explain complex ideas, express innovation, and present sales pitches.