Adam Yaniv, an animator at Rhythm & Hues by day, recently pointed me to this small personal project he created as an entry in Heinz’s Top This TV Challenge.

What’s notable about this spot is how he used a combination of 3D software and Flash to achieve the hand-drawn look. Cel shaders in CG programs generally bother me because in order to create a hand-drawn look, they attempt to mask the CG, and the end result is neither fish nor fowl. Yaniv, on the other hand, used CG only as a foundation to assist the hand-drawn process. He explained the pipeline to me via email:

“I use 3D as kind of my blue pencil phase, getting the characters down in simple shapes, animating their action in front of the camera and so forth. Then I move into traditional frame-by-frame cleanup, using Flash in this case. The key is that cleanup is done in the same exact way that it would be in 2D, no cut corners. Meaning that I make judgment calls on every frame pertaining to model, volume, line-quality and animation style same as I would in 2D. So I use the best of both worlds, it’s all in the technique.”

Yaniv has plans to use this process in future personal projects. He’s excited about the potential of the process citing its flexibility to make changes right through the end of production, the sped-up timeframe in which hand-drawn animation can be created, and the ability to distribute the workload across a team of animators.

It should be noted that Aardman’s recent multiple-award winning short The Pearce Sisters uses a somewhat similar technique, beginning with CG roots and ending up with a hand-drawn look. Though Yaniv’s technique isn’t groundbreaking, it excites me to see artists experimenting with the digital tools at their disposal and finding ways to make technology work for them. As more and more artists like Yaniv embrace hybrid approaches, we can finally put to rest the tired 2D versus 3D debate and recognize the possibilities that exist when digital and hand-drawn are combined.

Be sure and check out this terrific article by animation veteran Floyd Norman about how Walt Disney offered creative latitude in his studio to artists with non-Disney styles like Ward Kimball, Tom Oreb and Walt Peregoy. Norman writes, “As much as he wanted things his way, Walt Disney recognized he needed people on his staff that would challenge, disagree and go against him in his own animation department. This is the stuff that breeds and nourishes creativity and keeps the medium alive and vital.” His closing thought is aimed at today’s Disney studio but is advice that all studios would do well to heed:

Today, I see the Disney Company making some of the same mistakes that were made in the 1970s. Back then, there were artists with strange drawing styles. Some had odd and quirky ideas. There were those who wanted to break new ground with technology. However, these guys just weren’t Disney. They simply didn’t fit. The talented individuals who failed to conform to the company line were allowed to walk out the door – - only to be brought back years later at considerable cost.

Walt Disney Feature Animation has had a name change, and along with that I think they could use a new attitude. This studio could use a roomful of mavericks and “crazy men” to challenge the status quo. All too often the people the studio gets rid of are the very people they should embrace. The artists who refuse to “play by the rules” and make the movies that are acceptable to the establishment.

The advent of blogging has added a new dimension to the discussion about animation, especially as it pertains to artists themselves talking about the industry. What can and can’t an artist working in animation say about the state of the industry? More importantly, what should and shouldn’t one say? Those are difficult questions and while there’s no definitive answer, CG animator Keith Lango has some interesting thoughts on the topic in this blog post entitled “Dangerous Opinions.” Well worth a read.

WHO: Obese fanboy with a thick accent hailing from Mexico
WHAT: The guy was talking to one of the dealers
WHERE: San Diego Comic-Con
WHEN: Thursday afternoon

“Animation just isn’t what it used to be. I really prefer the classic animation, the way it used to be in the old days. When I was growing up, we had quality animation like GI Joe and Transformers.”

Needless to say, I lasted barely a day at the Con this year before heading back on Thursday evening. The stench of the event—both figurative and literal—was overwhelming. There was simply too much crass commercialism on display, and too little appreciation or joy for any art form. Today at the Con, there’ll be panels “celebrating” Family Guy and Class of 3000. Somehow I think I’ll be able to live. I hope Brew readers there get more enjoyment out of it than I did this year.

As an ex-theatrical film distributor myself, I’m always following trends in the industry as it evolves due to new technologies and changing public tastes. Yesterday’s L.A. Times had a good article on Jonathan Dern’s The Bigger Picture which, through various subsidiaries, is distributing anime and kiddie films to weekend matinees on a regular monthly schedule.

Dern’s company has found a way to market direct-to-video animated features to digitally equipped theatres, usually a few weeks before their DVD release. Filling the theatre isn’t a big concern for his business model, a fact made possible due to the low costs involved with distributing a film via digital projection.

Although major studio movies attract big crowds on weekends, Dern said that over the course of a typical week auditoriums are often filled to only 10% to 15% of capacity.

“If we can move the dial 1%, that’s a big number,” Dern said.

Bigger Picture started three years ago, when Dern and Rutkowski came up with the “Kidtoons” animation programs. A typical program might include a G-rated feature, such as this spring’s “Strawberry Shortcake: Berry Blossom Festival,” plus cartoon shorts, music videos and singalongs.

“The light bulb went on,” Dern said. “We said, ‘When else are there very few people in theaters? When else could we put people in seats?’”

If I had to guess, I’d suspect that Dern’s company is making its money by charging a distribution fee from the film’s video company, who may consider this a justifiable cost of special marketing the DVD release. Is it working? I’m not sure what kind of box office money they are generating (it wouldn’t surprise me if they are offering these films to theatres for free) but apparently theatre owners are pleased.

Shari Redstone, president of National Amusements Inc. in Dedham, Mass., said the distributor was building a following at theaters such as The Bridge in Los Angeles.

At 10 a.m. on a Saturday in March, she said, the chain’s 24 theaters taking part in “Kidtoons” sold 1,200 tickets for “Strawberry Shortcake” — a strong turnout at a time when business is typically slow or nonexistent.

“When I was a kid, we’d watch a horrible print of ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ and buy stale popcorn,” Redstone said. “This is a new and better experience for the whole family. And it’s another way to ensure that a generation grows up knowing that when they want to be entertained, they can go to their local movie theater.”

As someone keeping track of U.S. theatrical animated feature film releases, I’ve been struggling with how to chart these film showings. Technically these are theatrical releases, but there are no physical prints and the movies themselves were clearly made for video release. For now I’m considering them a footnote in my long term research. Time will tell how they should be cataloged — and whether The Bigger Picture will endure .

Is anyone employed in the U.S. as an “inbetweener” anymore? Has the computer taken that over, too?

Our pal Eddie Fitzgerald has posted some theories and analysis about inbetweens using a Porky Pig scene animated by Rod Scribner from Bob Clampett’s Kitty Kornered.

Dissecting cartoons on a frame by frame basis is a full time obsession for some animators, but nobody does is more entertaining than Eddie.

Quick Stop Entertainment has a lengthy interview with Bloom County and Opus creator Berkeley Breathed. Breathed talks about the earlier troubled adaptations of his comics to animation, his current work with Robert Zemeckis to adapt one of his children’s books into a mo-cap feature (“just to annoy the animation community”), and his thoughts on the recent Calvin & Hobbes student film (“Bill [Watterson] is going to have a cow when he sees this. Not that it isn’t terrific. I think it’s like how we’d feel finding our wives naked on YouTube… no matter how hot they look.”)

File this one under Tragically Amusing: it’s the Super-Short Animation Career of Godfrey Bjork courtesy of Joe Campana’s Animation—Who and Where blog.

This essay by Troy Steele is surprisingly insightful, managing to seamlessly weave together a discussion of gender politics in the movie industry, the live-action films of Jane Campion, and the Ren & Stimpy: APC episode “Naked Beach Frenzy,” about which Steele writes:

Kricfalusi’s sexism is so innocent, so reverent of a sex he clearly doesn’t even begin to comprehend. The inclusion of a grotesquely hirsute male lifeguard only helps to make the women look that much better in comparison. Kricfalusi clearly doesn’t understand women beyond objectification, but at least that pedestal he’s putting an entire sex upon isn’t one of dour victimhood and sour grapes.



WFMU’S Beware of the Blog tells you more than you could ever want to know about one of my favorite voice actors of all time: Bill Thompson, the voice of Droopy. Interesting factoids abound including that Thompson was originally cast as the voice of Fred Flintstone, and that he left show business in the early-’60s to become a business executive at Union Oil.

Interview with the boss’s son: Animation Magazine interviews Laika animator Travis Knight, who also happens to be the son of Laika owner and Nike founder Phil Knight. I’ve heard many positive things from stop-mo folk about Travis’s animation skills, and it’s clear that Laika is embracing more interesting and promising projects than when the studio was Vinton’s, so I tend to be cautiously optimistic about Laika’s future. (via Ward-O-Matic)

And finally, the LA Daily News looks at what happens to CalArts students after they graduate with their $120k chararacter animation degrees.

21 Comments »   posted in Ideas/Commentary


Tweet Share on Tumblr
2007 CalArts Student Films

Amid Amidi
May 17, 2007 8:49 pm




Last week I checked out the CalArts Producers’ Show, the year-end screening where the best student films from the school year are screened theatrically. I hadn’t been to the show in three or four years so it was nice to see things with a bit of a fresh eye. Sad to say, but the overhwelming impression I got from this year’s batch of films is that CalArts is increasingly a school that is coasting along on its reputation than on the quality of work its current students produce. That hard-earned rep will expire sooner than later if they continue in this direction; CalArts needs to recognize that they no longer have a monopoly on teaching character animation and must significantly up their game if they wish to stay on a par with all the other animation schools around the globe. I’ll attempt to expound on the school’s problems in-depth at some later time, but for the moment, I wanted to focus on some of the positive individual achievements from this year’s crop of students.

A number of this year’s CalArts student films are turning up online and I’ve posted four of the better ones below—Off the Wall, Siren’s Melody, One Last Song and This World.

Among the films that aren’t posted online, a few honorable mentions: Them Their Eyes by Mario Furmanczyk featured the most competent Disney-style character animation, Captain Scratchy Beard by Brigette Barrager offered the most distinctive sense of character design, Slum Noir by Jahmad Rollins stood out for its mature storytelling vision, exciting animation and hardcore draftsmanship skills (I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on his future work), and Nicole Mitchell’s Zoologic was easily the strongest overall film, and one of the few shorts in the program that displayed a solid understanding of how to stage a gag, pace a story, and give the audience a payoff.

Off the Wall Episode 1: “Lady Troubles” by Alex Hirsch


Siren’s Melody Lorelay Bove


One Last Song by Dimitri Frazao


This World by Noel Belknap


24 Comments »   posted in Ideas/Commentary, Shorts


Tweet Share on Tumblr
• Page 28 of 31
• <
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• 11
• 12
• 13
• 14
• 15
• 16
• 17
• 18
• 19
• 20
• 21
• 22
• 23
• 24
• 25
• 26
• 27
• 28
• 29
• 30
• 31
• >