Colin Sanders, a game development student at UOIT, was frustrated by the quality of instruction in his animation class. Below is the animated piece he created for his final using all of the techniques that were taught by his professor. He concludes the piece with a “Thanks for nothing” note in the credits.

(Thanks, Dai Kun)

CG filmmaker David O’Reilly (RGBXYZ) has redone his website DavidOReilly.com and also posted an enticing trailer for his new short Serial Entoptics. What continues to impress me about O’Reilly’s work and what makes him one of the more exciting young CG animators working today are his efforts towards finding a true and honest graphic expression befitting the CG medium instead of trying to force traditional graphic concepts to fit a CG mold as most everybody else does.

In other words, his work is designed from the groundup for the digital world. It doesn’t look like anything that could be accomplished in a medium besides CG. Impressively, he’s uncovering this new visual terrain sans a bloated crew of hundreds or an overblown Pixar-sized budget; the only things necessary are creative aspiration and a clear sense of artistic purpose.

O’Reilly gave a talk last month at the Pictoplasma Animation Festival, which impressed cultural commentator Régine Debatty so much that she calls him a ‘genius’ in this discussion of O’Reilly’s work on her blog.

Previously on the Brew: Up-and-Coming: Miwa Matreyek & David O’Reilly

San Francisco commercial director Carl Willat has the shocking and hilarious answer.

(Thanks, Karl Cohen)

A few years back, when MTV wanted to revive the Terrytoons characters, they commissioned an animation test in CG (of course, what else could a revival be done in?). Below is the test featuring Hashimoto, Sidney the Elephant and The Astronut. It’s about as good as one would expect it to be.

(via Animation ID)

Graphic design students from Brazil attempt to recreate Chuck Jones’ One Froggy Evening in CG as their finals project. Here is the two-minutes they created:

And for comparison, this is the Jones original:

UPDATE: Virgilio Vasconcelos, one of the students who made the film, offers some background about the reason for the project. He wrote in the comments below:

“As a regular Brew reader, I never thought our project would be shown here.

Before anyone yells that we had killed the masterpiece, I would say that everything was done only for learning purposes. We never wanted to say that CG is better or even that we could make something comparable to the original.

We never had formal education in animation (neither do we have where to study animation where we live), so our goal was to study a classic from a great master frame by frame to see if we could learn something. I believe it was quite successful on its goal: we have learned a lot.

The original, 2D one, is an all-time classic. Just incomparable. Chuck Jones is my hero, and I thank him and all fellas at Golden Age who motivated us to learn about animation.”

Superfad has delivered an impressive 3D spot for the Sony PS3, directed by Kevin Lau and Frank Pichel. Superfad’s animation of the ‘exploding’ PS3 are tightly integrated with the videogame footage but also make a unique impression of their own because of the stylized b&w art direction. The use of a simple grey background also heightens the impact of the piece. It’s refreshing to see such restraint on the part of directors working with CG.

(via Motionographer)

What to make of Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf.

Is it to be considered a pure animated film or a digitally enhanced live action feature? Is it of a piece with Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and Polar Express? Or does it end up in the company of 300, Sin City or Sky Captain and The World Of Tomorrow?

I haven’t seen the film; I’ve only seen the trailers and clips. So far, I’m not impressed. And so far I’m having a hard time accepting this as an animated feature. Should this film compete for an Annie or an Oscar against Persepolis, Ratatouille and The Simpsons Movie?

Buzz from the first public screenings this weekend is overwhelmingly positive (these screenings were in 3-D Imax). This film is shaping up to be huge at the box office. Early reviewers are blown away by both the filmmaking and the technical razzle dazzle. Even sourpuss film critic Jeffery Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere (no fan of animation nor sword & sorcery pics himself) has posted an ecstatic rave:

“Robert Zemeckis’s Beowulf is an exceptional film on its own terms, but the 3-D version I saw last night is, no exaggeration, something close to stupendous… This film is obviously animated through and through. It deserves the Best Feature Animation Oscar, bar none. I don’t care what anyone says — this is not live-action except in the most rudimentary sense of the physical acting aspects, which represent, in my view, a relatively small portion of the whole.”

I’ll decide for myself what camp this picture falls into after I actually see it. In the meantime, I’d be interested in hearing what our readers have to say.

Performance capture and opera: a match made in heaven. Quick, get Robert Zemeckis on the phone and have him follow up Beowulf with this:

(Thanks, Pete Emslie)

Starting today, Leslie Iwerks independent documentary The Pixar Story will begin a small Oscar-qualifying run in 14 select cities across the United States.

The film contains never-before-seen footage from the Pixar library, along with exclusive interviews with some of the key players in the Pixar story including John Lasseter, Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs, George Lucas, Brad Bird, Michael Eisner, Bob Iger, Tom Hanks, Billy Crystal and more. Go see it if it’s playing in your area - it’s incredibly informative and very entertaining.

SCREENING SCHEDULE: October 23-25, 2007
Chicago – Landmark Century Centre Cinema
Dallas – Landmark The Magnolia
Detroit – Landmark Maple Art Theatre

October 30 - November 1, 2007
Washington DC – Landmark E Street Cinema
New Orleans – Landmark Canal Place Cinema
Denver – Landmark Chez Artiste
Seattle – Landmark Metro Cinemas

November 6-8, 2007
San Diego – Landmark La Jolla Village Cinemas
Boston – Landmark Kendall Square Cinema
Atlanta – Landmark Midtown Art Cinema
Milwaukee – Landmark Downer Theatre
Indianapolis – Landmark Keystone Art Cinema
Minneapolis – Landmark Lagoon Cinema

November 13-15
San Francisco – Landmark Lumiere Theatre

Iwerks’ award-winning theatrical documentary The Hand Behind the Mouse-The Ub Iwerks Story will be included on the forthcoming Disney Treasures: Oswald The Lucky Rabbit dvd, on sale Dec. 11th.

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