November 30, 2008
Macy's Parade Rick Roll !!!
This Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., Rick Astley performed the biggest live Rick Roll since he used to perform live back in the '80s. I take that back, it's the biggest live Rick roll ever. After all, isn't Thanksgiving the day where we get together with our loved ones and let them know that we'll never give them up, let them down, run around or desert them?
A Comic Strip
The back story of this little cartoon starts with me teaching at the Digital Arts College a couple months ago, I realized I was out-numbered, four 3D animation teachers versus just one 2D animation teacher (me), so I began posting up some posters with cartoons on them expressing how superior 2D cartoons are to 3D animation, just to poke fun and start a mock-war, the students loved seeing two sides in a fake conflict over which style is better. It was all in good fun with plenty of back-and-forth battles over the propaganda of the superiority of the 3rd dimension being better than the flat world of the 2nd dimension.Anyways, a student by the name of David Crocker in my Fundamentals of Art & Design class drew this up for me, I thought it was great!
November 29, 2008
November 28, 2008
November 27, 2008
November 26, 2008
November 25, 2008
Restored: First Image of the Earth from the Moon
Pictured above is the first image ever taken of the Earth from the Moon. The image was taken in 1966 by Lunar Orbiter 1 and heralded by then-journalists as the Image of the Century. It was taken about two years before the Apollo 8 crew snapped its more famous color cousin. Recently, modern technology has allowed the recovery of higher resolution images from old data sources such as Lunar Orbiter tapes than every before. Specifically, the above image recovery was led by Nancy Evans as part of the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project. Images like that above carry more than aesthetic value -- comparison to recent high definition images of the Moon enables investigations into how the Moon has been changing.
November 24, 2008
Animation Recession
An excerpt from Mark's Open Letter to Nova Scotia Animators:
Download the five page document here.Consider yourself a professional in an actual career as opposed to a collector of Green Lantern comics who works in animation sometimes. Research your field, learn new technologies, challenge yourself to improve your skill-set, create a network and use it, communicate with peers, work on updating/creating your portfolio. All of the tools are at your disposal to make an informed, educated, well thought out decision on the future of your career. A slow period in this industry often has the effect of purging the weaker workers who don’t take their jobs and opportunities seriously, and that’s a healthy thing for the region and the industry. Is this your career, or is it just a job?
Though it's specific to NS animators who have been hit hard in the last 12 months during this drought of work, it applies to places like western Canada as well who are suffering from lots of unemployment in the character animation industry. It's all commons sense, but as I'm swamped with many e-mails as well, asking about the sad state of affairs, many of us need constant reminders that this IS the industry we're in. Every few years we hit very busy times then it's usually followed by times of unfortunate hibernation where animators in film and television have to sit and wait for things to happen, or find work elsewhere, in other fields.
See related articles here:
The Animation Guild Blog
Canadian Animation Jobs list
A Strange Payscale Chart for Animators
Panel Discussion about the Industry
MarketWatch
A Stupid Article from the Metro Newspaper
A depressing article about the Canadian Animation Expansion of 19 months ago
November 23, 2008
True Blood Title Sequence
I just started watching this HBO series, great show, and I love the opening credits!
Click to Watch (contains nudity)
Click to Watch (contains nudity)November 22, 2008
Samples from The Totoro Forest Project
The Totoro Forest Project is an international charity effort to save Sayama Forest, also known as Totoro Forest. This Endangered Sanctuary on the outskirts of Tokyo is where director Hayao Miyazaki got the inspiration for his much loved character "Totoro". Over 200 top international artists from animation, illustration, and comics are donating artwork especially created for this cause. Via John Nevarez Blog
Beautiful Compositions
The Conformist, a film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and shot by Vittorio Storaro.
Via Ted's Blog.
Via Ted's Blog.
November 21, 2008
Ira Glass
Here is Ira Glass of "This American Life" talking about the building blocks of a great story, avaliable to download (24 MB / MP3).
