Today is Nina Simone’s birthday (Feb. 21, 1933-April 21, 2003), and to commemorate the date, here’s a soulful stop-motion music video for her performance of “My Baby Just Cares For Me”. The film was produced by Aardman Animations, and apparently quite a long time ago. There’s some nice subtle animation of the Simone feline throughout. If you want to hear more of her music, I highly recommend this collection of her work.
(via Screenhead), Tags: Animation

Mexican reader Uriel Durán writes to let us know that Oswald is popular nowadays in Mexico, as well as Japan:

The situation is that in the 1950s and ’60s, many comic books based upon American cartoon characters were translated and published here for Mexican audiences. Then, when the American imprints stopped making comics, Mexican companies bought licenses and kept making new stories, written and drawn by Mexican artists. Some characters like Pink Panther, Droopy and Tom & Jerry still appear weekly in small comic books (5.5×8in) aimed at children. Some of the cartoons are still on air too on some local networks.

Now, Woody Woodpecker is also a character that still has a comic book series. About two or three years ago, as a request from Universal, the comic was cancelled and relaunched to fit the new character designs used in the most recent TV series - until then, the characters were still drawn in the softened style used in the first Woody cartoons. Oswald did not appear in the new cartoons but he kept appearing in short stories in the Woody comics, now using a retro look very much like the Japanese toys. Art could be better though, as the current artists are not very talented and not very familiar with the original black-&-white Oswald cartoons. Just wanted to let you know about the situation of the character as it seems he’s used almost everywhere except his native country.

Uriel also sent along a few examples of the Oswald comics. Click on images for larger versions. This is what the older comic looked like:

And here are a couple pages from more recent Oswald comics, using the old-school redesign also seen in current Japanese merchandise.

Tags: Comics, Disney, Animation

There’s a lot of animation nowadays that has a retro-pixel look with blocky graphics. None I’ve seen execute the look as elegantly as the British short WELCOME TO GLARINGLY (2003) by Grant Orchard. The film’s Orwellian theme is a perfect match for the style, and the animation is smartly done to take advantage of the pixelated look. With over a half million public surveillance cameras installed around London, the film’s idea is not far removed from current realities, and eloquently points out the pitfalls of relying on technology as judge, jury and executioner.

Grant Orchard has directed commercials for StudioAKA (like this terrific spot for MTV) and also is one of the founders of the studio The Hope & Anchor. Also, it should be pointed out that the graphics and sound on GLARINGLY are not too great on this online version I linked to, but it’s the only complete version I could find online. Here’s a CLIP that gives a more accurate sense of the film’s quality.

This is an interesting, if not entirely successful, CG ad for Johnnie Walker produced by Aardman Animations. The one-minute spot brings to life the paintings of Delacroix, Hokusai, Seurat, Miro and Magritte. View ad HERE.
(via Hydrocephalic Bunny)

Pixar previewed a couple clips from CARS at WonderCon in San Francisco last weekend. Here’s a description of the clips shown. More interestingly, below is a collection of blog comments I found online that offers some sense of what WonderCon attendees thought of the clips. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Ohmi

They showed a couple of clips of it. Ugh Nascar.. and the main car character makes me think Nemo got turned into a Nascar car :P I sure hope this movie is better than it seems to be.

DocPockets

Pixar showed updated trailers to Cars that looks much better than the advanced trailers we saw last year (it’s a very NASCAR movie, with some camera moves that are impossible in the real world. It looked cool.)

Macaco

Also I saw One Man Band and CARS IS GOING TO BE SO AWESOME oh my god I cannot even describe, it looks AMAZING they showed the first sequence in the film and like… I really don’t like cars much but that bit they showed us… man it made me want to go hump a lambhorghini.

Michael

Overall, the trademark Pixar humor is still there, but I felt the topic of auto-racing limited its potential, as the footage didn’t make me more excited about seeing the film.

SFist

The Pixar panel was pretty snooze-inducing, but we did get to see the Oscar-nominated short “One Man Band.” We only wish Cars looked half as entertaining as that short.

Elton Wong

The clips shown generated excitement and laughter from the crowd. Looks like Disney and Pixar’s merger will prove to be a valuable partnership in the long run.

Ryan Olsen

“Cars” looks a lot better with some of the fully-rendered clips presented by a panel from Pixar. The details are pretty breathtaking, IMO. Before I was concerned because the cars looked like Silly Putty in last-year’s trailer. I’m still a little ambivalent, but I’m willing to see it.

LOS ANGELES LETS BE FRIENDS is a delightfully inventive CG/live-action spot from 2005 directed by Greg Gunn, Reza Rasoli and Diffan Norman of the Los Angeles animation collective Three Legged Legs. The designs were inspired by the work of Jeff Soto. Too bad Los Angeles isn’t actually like this.
(via Tween)

REMIXING THE MAGIC opens this Friday, February 17, at Gallery 1988 (7020 Melrose Ave., corner of Melrose & La Brea). Opening reception is 7-10pm. The exhibit features the work of fifty contemporary artists, including many animation folk, reinterpreting Disney characters and films. Jerry mentioned this show on the Brew last weekend, and now we’re offering an exclusive preview of a few of the pieces that’ll be on display.

Show co-curator Jon Gibson tells the Brew, “The most amazing part of this show is the broadness of the theme - some artists went all-out theatrical classics, while others dug into the vault of Disney shorts, while others, like Biskup, did Disneyland. There’s even an Oswald piece!” Personally, I think there’s a great symbolic quality to this show as well: artists are reclaiming classic animated characters that have for too long been slumming it as corporate symbols. The timing of the show couldn’t be more appropriate considering that in the past month artists have begun reclaiming the Disney studio as well and helping to set it on the right path again.

(click on images for larger versions)

Gepetto’s Dilemma
Greg Simkins
Inspiration: PINOCCHIO, misc.

Tinkerbell’s Lucky Day
Aaron Jasinski
Inspiration: PETER PAN

Bambi
Chris Roth
Inspiration: Duh!

Tomorrowland Man
Tim Biskup
Inspiration: Tomorrowland (Disneyland)

Skeleton Dance
Alex Kirwan
Inspiration: THE SKELETON DANCE

The Unbirthday
Brandi Milne
Inspiration: ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Alice Spills Her Tea
Lola
Inspiration: ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Baby Mine
Amanda Visell
Inspiration: DUMBO

Yoo-Hoo!
Joe Ledbetter
Inspiration: BUILDING A BUILDING

Tags: Art, Disney, Animation

Classic Disney cartoon shorts are slowly being made available for download in Apple’s iTunes music store. The plan is to release every Disney Oscar winner and nominee over the next several months, ten at a time. Among the first titles available are THE OLD MILL, THE BRAVE LITTLE TAILOR and THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE. We applaud the decision to include the original version of THREE LITTLE PIGS with its original 1933 United Artists opening titles and the infamous Peddler gag intact - a scene which was subsequently re-animated in the 1940s to be less offensive (the Apple download combines the original 1933 picture with the Wolf’s voice, in that one scene, re-dubbed from a 1940s reissue). This stuff is highly recommended in any format!