December 31, 2015
December 30, 2015
Credited As: Stop Motion Animator
I've always proclaimed that Animation in general is the most refined of all the art forms, however out of all the different styles and techniques of animation, I've always sworn that stop-motion is the the most highly skilled, highly focused, highly elegant and seemingly most difficult of them all. I'm so glad in to see more spotlights on stop-motion animators and their methodology and process these past couple years.
December 29, 2015
Google Spotlight Stories Presents: Special Delivery
A cool semi-interactive short by Google ATAP & Aardman.
Heat: The Perfect Blend of Realism and Style
Interesting note, he mentions the painting by Alex Colville, the late great Nova Scotian artist.
December 21, 2015
December 20, 2015
December 19, 2015
December 18, 2015
December 17, 2015
Love Freebies? Get Them Legally
What a brilliant idea, The Harvey Nichols department store has been using camera footage from their surveillance footage to place some animated heads on their shoplifters' heads.
December 16, 2015
December 15, 2015
December 14, 2015
The Works of Kevin Bailey
Keep you eye on this guy, someone will be giving him his own series to run very soon.
December 13, 2015
December 12, 2015
December 11, 2015
December 10, 2015
December 09, 2015
December 08, 2015
December 07, 2015
December 06, 2015
December 05, 2015
December 04, 2015
December 03, 2015
Journey Into the Arctic
An nice interactive video adventure in which you play an explorer on a mission to find the Northwest Passage. Produced by Tank & Pascal Blais studio for Canadian Heritage, and Canada's 150th anniversary.
December 02, 2015
December 01, 2015
November 30, 2015
November 29, 2015
November 28, 2015
November 27, 2015
November 26, 2015
November 25, 2015
November 24, 2015
November 23, 2015
Morgans' Story
SGCH has provided homes and social and economic opportunities to the vulnerable and low income people of NSW for 30 years. This film features the true story of Morgan, who with the help of SGCH rose above a troubled upbringing.
- Credits -
Director: Stefan Wernik twitter.com/StefanWernik
Producer: Guy Jamieson twitter.com/GuyItchy
Writer: Lisa Madden and Guy Jamieson
Production Company: The Magnificent Itch
Designer: Jason Pamment
Designer: Alexander Watson
Animators: Arthur Collie and Jonathan Iskov
2D FX Animator: Quentin Cordonnier
Character modelling: Tristan Lock
Comping: Jason Morice
Composer: Stephen Frost
Voice Actor: Natasha Beaumont
- Credits -
Director: Stefan Wernik twitter.com/StefanWernik
Producer: Guy Jamieson twitter.com/GuyItchy
Writer: Lisa Madden and Guy Jamieson
Production Company: The Magnificent Itch
Designer: Jason Pamment
Designer: Alexander Watson
Animators: Arthur Collie and Jonathan Iskov
2D FX Animator: Quentin Cordonnier
Character modelling: Tristan Lock
Comping: Jason Morice
Composer: Stephen Frost
Voice Actor: Natasha Beaumont
November 21, 2015
Buster Keaton - The Art of the Gag
Before Edgar Wright and Wes Anderson, before Chuck Jones and Jackie Chan, there was Buster Keaton, one of the founding fathers of visual comedy. And nearly 100 years after he first appeared onscreen, we’re still learning from him. Here we have Tony Zhou talking about the artistry (and the thinking) behind his gags. Press the CC button to see the names of the films.
Recommended Reading & Viewing:
The Gag Man by Matthew Dessem - thecriticalpress.com/books/the-gag-man/
Keaton by Rudi Blesh - amazon.com/dp/0025115707/
Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow (1987) - youtube.com/watch?v=WjCDuNzv6yM
Studs Terkel Interviews Buster Keaton - studsterkel.wfmt.com/blog/interview-with-buster-keaton/
Recommended Reading & Viewing:
The Gag Man by Matthew Dessem - thecriticalpress.com/books/the-gag-man/
Keaton by Rudi Blesh - amazon.com/dp/0025115707/
Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow (1987) - youtube.com/watch?v=WjCDuNzv6yM
Studs Terkel Interviews Buster Keaton - studsterkel.wfmt.com/blog/interview-with-buster-keaton/
November 20, 2015
November 19, 2015
November 18, 2015
November 17, 2015
November 16, 2015
"Psychonauts" - The spanish indie animated feature film
Teenagers Birdboy and Dinky have decided to escape from an island devastated by ecological catastrophe: Birdboy by shutting himself off from the world, Dinky by setting out on a dangerous voyage in the hope that Birdboy will accompany her.
Directed by Pedro Rivero & Alberto Vazquez
See more imagery on their site.
November 15, 2015
The Works of Peter Chung
Since the very beginning of Flooby Nooby, I've been showcasing Chung's work. He has a very unique and distinct visual style of design and animation.
November 14, 2015
November 13, 2015
November 12, 2015
November 11, 2015
Whaddup Fish!
Written, Directed, and Animated by: Tomek PILARSKI - facebook.com/pages/Tomek-Pilarski/1474922859461989
3D Bathyscaphe Animation: MEGGOT - meggot.pl
Digital Ink & Paint: Tomek PILARSKI & Anna CHRZANOWSKA - anna-chrzanowska.tumblr.com/
Music: Mateusz GUDEL aka BRAT JORDAH - facebook.com/bratjordah/?fref=ts
Sound Design: Tiago CARDOSO & Dinis HENRIQUES - facebook.com/tiagocardososounddesigner/?fref=photo
Consultants: Jacek ADAMCZAK & Paweł PREWENCKI - University of Arts in Poznań
WHADDUP FISH! is a short animation about Scientist who is looking for extraordinary species deep under the ocean surface. When he stumbles upon Dumbo octopus he immediately decides to follow this cute little creature, which leads him to an unexpected underwater event and into DEEP trouble.
Flooby Nooby had a chance to chat with Tomek about the film.
How did you first come up with the concept for this short?
This is rather a long story, but I think that I need to clarify the process we had to take. At University of Arts in Poznań (where I’m studying) every student works on his/her own animation by themselves until completion, but me and my colleague wanted to try collaborating on something together, so we got permission from our professor do to so. It was back in the 2014 academic year so it’s one year since then and the idea had evolved from my old unfinished animation about a castaway to the concept I had now for this film. We liked the idea of setting the story in the ocean, but we wanted to make it more visually appealing and intense. So we decided to put it underwater and add mermaids and the a big party. The beginning of developing this shirt film was slow-going, but I was always filled with enthusiasm and hope as I pressed forward. Our main goal was quality... and because of that we missed our first semester deadline, and 'Whaddup Fish!' became a two-semester project, of course it was accompanied by the usual problems and disappointment throughout production. It was a fantastic learning experience!
After some pitfalls and with the awareness of how much work was needed to achieve the final result, I worked on 'Whaddup Fish!' day and night at every spare moment I could squeeze in. After a short while my partner on the production began to give up his responsibilities and Had to finish the film on my own, I struggled a bit to make my professor understand that my partner abandoning the production would cause delays for my film. I had put sooo much effort into this project, and I cared about it so much that I decided to finish what I started. 'Whaddup Fish' was completely revised and re-done by myself, and with an ungoldy amount of work done, it finally got completed.
How long and detailed was your storyboarding stage?
Storyboarding was quite difficult because I wanted to fit it my whole story in less than 1 minute. First part (before the party) was easier, but when it came to the epic party, I did lots of work to show keep the main idea clear and avoid having the audience getting lost in all that dancing.
Did you have any specific inspirations that you drew from for the color design?
'Whaddup Fish!' is my first animation in color, and I was apprehensive about that. I’m rather systematic and compulsive person, so first I dive into lots color theories, and researched underwater photography. Then I analyzed lots of animation which were set underwater. I think that I started with 'Finding Nemo' but as time went by, I realized that I have pretty solid knowledge and it’s time for me to leave all the references behind and start to create my own color script. I wanted the color palettes to support the story, and I’m pretty happy with the end result. Especially because it’s the first time I did a color script. I can tell you now that producing color script is a life saver for your film!
There's plenty of FX animation, 2D traditional, plus lots of glows, blurs, and lighting effects made with (After Effects?), where or how did you learn to use these techniques?
Thank you for noticing this! I always take care of every little thing in my animations. Somehow from the beginning of my studying at Univeristy of Arts in Poznań I was fastinated with traditional animation but at the same time I experimented a lot with After Effects and how it can bring more depth to flat animation. Now, after a few animations done solely in After Effects, I was comfortable with this software, and I use it to add dimension to my own personal traditional animations. Basically, I look at some great animation and nature, then I just try to find the way to translate from what I observe, and learned from it to later apply it to my own work.
You are a student at University of Arts in Poznań, how in-depth is the course? Did you enjoy learning the process and principles of animation?
First of all we must take a 3 year BFA and then 2 years of MFA. And I’m at the last year of the MFA course so this is my graduation year. About the course; we briefly review the animation principles and a bit of theory, then we go straight to animating. Professors insist to make “your own personal animation" without basic knowledge and it ends up unreadable for viewers and unpleasant to watch. But on the other hand if you know what you want (like me) it’s a good time to learn on you own without worrying about finding a job. This lack of fundamentals motivates me, because at the end of my education I will become alumni of a 5 years animation program and the industry demands certain skills from its employees, so I push myself harder to work on my own to reach that level of quality that employers are looking for. So overall, I consider myself as self-taught.
How long did it take you to make the film from concept to completion?
If we are only talking about the second version; it took about 5 months.
Any future plans for another independent short film?
Now I need to make my graduation short and for that I received a Scholarship from Animation Educators Forum/ASIFA-Hollywood. I have an idea, but I don’t want to talk about it just yet. I'm assembling a team of talented people, and I hope to make it a great short, so wish me luck!
November 10, 2015
November 09, 2015
The Works of Bob Kurtz
Director/Story Man/Designer Bob Kurtz started out working on The Alvin Show, Roger Ramjet and Linus the Lionhearted, and went on to a long and distinguished career directing commercials, here's some of his best.
November 08, 2015
November 06, 2015
November 04, 2015
The latest and greatest from Gobelins
- SHUDO by To-Anh BACH, Charles BADILLER, Hugo WEISS.
- QUE DALLE by Caroline Cherrier, Hugo De Faucompret, Eva Lusbaronian, Arthus Pilorget, Johan Ravit.
- WILDFIRE de Hugues OPTER, Pierre PINON, Nicole STAFFORD,Valentin STOLL, Arnaud TRIBOUT, Shang ZHANG.
- MADE IN CHINA by Vincent TSUI.
- LE DERNIER JOUR D'UN CONDAMNE by Perrine BAYSSAT, Sarah DHORNE, Etienne MOLINIER, Emilie PHUONG, Isabelle PIOLAT.
- AMA by Liang Huang, Mansoureh Kamari, Julie Robert, Juliette Peuportier, Tony Unser.
- UNE NOCE EN ENFER by Yannick BOIREAU, Pierre BUTET, Magali GARNIER, Clémence MARET.
- TEASER by Pierre BASSIL.
- QUE DALLE by Caroline Cherrier, Hugo De Faucompret, Eva Lusbaronian, Arthus Pilorget, Johan Ravit.
- WILDFIRE de Hugues OPTER, Pierre PINON, Nicole STAFFORD,Valentin STOLL, Arnaud TRIBOUT, Shang ZHANG.
- MADE IN CHINA by Vincent TSUI.
- LE DERNIER JOUR D'UN CONDAMNE by Perrine BAYSSAT, Sarah DHORNE, Etienne MOLINIER, Emilie PHUONG, Isabelle PIOLAT.
- AMA by Liang Huang, Mansoureh Kamari, Julie Robert, Juliette Peuportier, Tony Unser.
- UNE NOCE EN ENFER by Yannick BOIREAU, Pierre BUTET, Magali GARNIER, Clémence MARET.
- TEASER by Pierre BASSIL.
Brutus The Bound - The Infinite Gladiator
Brutus, a great warrior from a distant planet, is ripped from his past and taken to the future of an evil Overlord. The Overlord holds Brutus’ family hostage, and binds Brutus in a temporal harness, forcing him to become an Infinite Gladiator, fighting opponents throughout time and space. Created By: Joe Croson Animation: Exit 73 Studios
November 02, 2015
November 01, 2015
October 31, 2015
October 30, 2015
October 28, 2015
October 26, 2015
October 25, 2015
Somewhere - Composition of Lonliness
Sofia Coppola is the master when it comes to making films about loneliness. 'Somewhere' is a beautiful example of such a film. This video was created to highlight how Coppola has used shot composition to communicate loneliness.
October 24, 2015
Only God Forgives - Shooting for Balance
Between Frames presents Shooting for Balance, a study of the use of symmetry in Nicolas Winding Refn's 'Only God Forgives'.
"I believe this film can be summed up by the old Chinese philosophy symbol Yin & Yang i.e. the good that can be found in evil and the evil in good. Nicolas Winding Refn uses many techniques to convey this from the lighting used to music played in a scene. This video aims to help viewers look at how a shot is framed and what the balance of a shot can tell us about the power or motives of an object or character."
October 23, 2015
October 22, 2015
October 21, 2015
October 20, 2015
October 19, 2015
VIAJE A PIES (Travel by feet) - Trailer for the short film by Khris Cembe
A night train journey. A wagon full of passengers. An annoying companion in your compartment... What would you be willing to do in order to have a peaceful journey?
October 18, 2015
October 16, 2015
Download Goodies - Part 7
Digital Painting and Drawing
- Autodesk SketchBook Copic Edition - This is the limited edition of SketchBook Pro with 72 Copic colours to choose from
- Krita - Krita offers CMYK support, HDR painting, perspective grids, dockers, filters, painting assistants, and many other great features
- GIMP - GIMP is a well known free alternative to Photoshop with similar features
- Mischief Free Version - With six essential brushes, a basic palette of colors and an infinite vector canvas, Mischief-Free is perfect for hashing out ideas, life drawing, and endless doodles
- MyPaint - MyPaint is a fast and easy open-source graphics application for digital painters, and comes with 39 different brushes
- Verve Painter - Verve is a small painting application that uses fluid dynamics and brushes to push the paint around, though it is still in development.
- Inkscape - Inkscape is an open-source professional quality vector graphics software with sophisticated drawing tools with capabilities comparable to Adobe Illustrator.
- FireAlpaca - A similar program to Paint Tool Sai that offers features such as a snap feature which creates a variety of perspective overlays.
- MediBang Paint - A free lightweight painting program for Windows, Mac Os and Android with cloud saving to allow users to easily switch between platforms.
- SpeedyPainter - Basic painting program with a simple layout and features such as perspective grids and reference view mode
3D Modelling
- Google Sketchup - Drawing-based tool for architects, designers, builders, makers and engineers who design for the physical world. SketchUp Make is a free version and SketchUp Pro is a paid version with additional functionality.
- Sculptris - A free, introductory digital sculpting tool, a great stepping stone for digital sculptors, created by the makers of Zbrush.
- Blender - A powerful application with full-fledged professional tools, Blender has a wide community and resources to help you learn.
- SculptGL - This handy modelling program works online in your browser and is compatible with wacom tablets
Animation
- Synfig - Synfig Studio is a free and open-source 2D animation software, designed as powerful industrial-strength solution for creating film-quality animation using a vector and bitmap artwork.
- EmoFuri - EmoFuri is a new animation software that helps artists easily animate photoshop illustrations in a 2D-3D style.It uses PSD files of character illustrations to animate them.
- Pencil2D - Pencil2D is an open-source animation/drawing software that lets you create traditional hand-drawn animation using both bitmap and vector graphics.
- Live2D - This increasingly popular 2D-3D animation software is similar to Emofuri with sample models available to experiment with, and is also available in english.
Pixel Art
- Piskel - An online pixel art app that lets you animate pixel art with a live preview of your work.
- Piq - While it doesn’t have the best looking layout, this online tool has lots of interesting features including a colour-drift tool that’s great for making colour palettes.
Etc
- Thisissand - An online fun and unique playground for creating colourful sandscapes, also comes in an app version
- Flame Painter - A free demo of the full program, it allows you to try out the flame generator and change different brush settings and paint your own flame paintings
- Silk - An online interactive generative art program that creates bright silk-like patterns, with options to change colours and rotational symmetry.
- Bomomo - This interesting program has a group of dots that move around the screen in the pattern you choose, then paint the canvas according to when you click the screen.
- Drawpile - Drawpile is a software collaborative drawing program that allows multiple users to sketch on the same canvas simultaneously.
Sources: Drawingden
Bonus
- Incompetech - Thousands of royalty-free music clips ready for download, totally legal, totally awesome!
October 15, 2015
Foxcatcher - Keeping The Distance
This video explores how director Bennett Miller consistently uses wide shots throughout Foxcatcher to highlight the physical and emotional distance between characters, their situations and how we, the audience relate to them.
October 14, 2015
October 13, 2015
A Legacy of Filmmakers: The Early Years of American Zoetrope
Winner of numerous awards, this one-hour documentary received its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, followed by a New York Film Society screening at Manhattan's Guggenheim Museum. The film illuminates the creation of Francis Ford Coppola's landmark San Francisco film company American Zoetrope, set against the changing landscape of American cinema in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Narrated by Richard Dreyfuss.
October 12, 2015
Input/Output
A nice short that imagines unpredictable relationships between cause and effect. A perfect blend of practical effects and CGI.
October 11, 2015
Oxfam - Food Security
This is The Philippines is the most disaster-prone country in the world and Climate Change is a contributing factor. This video, commissioned by Oxfam, is an educational piece explaining how acting locally can have a global effect.
Produced by The Magnificent Itch
Produced by The Magnificent Itch
October 10, 2015
October 07, 2015
October 06, 2015
October 05, 2015
October 04, 2015
October 03, 2015
October 02, 2015
October 01, 2015
September 30, 2015
September 29, 2015
September 28, 2015
Tako Faito! by Giant Ant Studios
-- Breakdown of the process --
First Panel: Rough Key Poses/Layout
Second Panel: Rough Breakdowns & Inbetweens
Third Panel: Tie Downs/Overlap/Follow-Thru
Fourth Panel: Clean-up & Color
September 27, 2015
September 26, 2015
September 25, 2015
Film Fanatic Friday: The Discarded Image
Observing certain filmmaking techniques employed in the movies Good Fellas, Carlito's Way and Jaws.
September 24, 2015
September 23, 2015
September 22, 2015
Weird Simpsons VHS
Directed and animated by Yoann Hervo
with the help of Hugo Moreno
Sound design by Florian Calmer
Music by Valentin Ducloux
This opening is just a small part of a collaboration project made up by Charles Huettner, Ivan Dixon and James Hatley.
The original idea was to invite some animators to produce, in their own style, a short story in the Simpsons universe.
Despite the fact that the project hasn't been achieved, I wanted to finish what I started.
September 21, 2015
September 20, 2015
September 19, 2015
September 18, 2015
Gargoyles: Awakening
This animated series from 1994 still holds up quite well.
Much darker and more mature in content from the usual Disney shows of the time. After re-watching it recently I was surprised how well structured the plots are and well developed the characters were. This 5 part pilot episode stretched out to a feature length of 2.5 hours and cover a lot of ground quite well; introducing you to a large cast of characters and multiple timelines.
Gargoyles features a species of nocturnal creatures known as gargoyles that turn to stone during the day. After spending a thousand years in a petrified state, the gargoyles (who have been transported from medieval Scotland) are reawakened in modern-day New York City, and take on roles as the city's secret night-time protectors.
The show is a mixture of urban and medieval fantasy within a science-fiction/action/adventure genre. The writing is surprisingly engaging, and the animation is a style that is since long-gone, like a more squash and stretch version of Young Justice. You don't see this classic Disney/Japanese, high-quality 90s era of traditional-paper-and-pencil animation too often anymore.
The series was critically acclaimed and is noted for its relatively dark tone, complex story lines, Shakespearean themes, large cast of celebrity voice actors, and its character arcs that were heavily employed throughout the series.
Much darker and more mature in content from the usual Disney shows of the time. After re-watching it recently I was surprised how well structured the plots are and well developed the characters were. This 5 part pilot episode stretched out to a feature length of 2.5 hours and cover a lot of ground quite well; introducing you to a large cast of characters and multiple timelines.
Gargoyles features a species of nocturnal creatures known as gargoyles that turn to stone during the day. After spending a thousand years in a petrified state, the gargoyles (who have been transported from medieval Scotland) are reawakened in modern-day New York City, and take on roles as the city's secret night-time protectors.
The show is a mixture of urban and medieval fantasy within a science-fiction/action/adventure genre. The writing is surprisingly engaging, and the animation is a style that is since long-gone, like a more squash and stretch version of Young Justice. You don't see this classic Disney/Japanese, high-quality 90s era of traditional-paper-and-pencil animation too often anymore.
The series was critically acclaimed and is noted for its relatively dark tone, complex story lines, Shakespearean themes, large cast of celebrity voice actors, and its character arcs that were heavily employed throughout the series.
September 17, 2015
September 16, 2015
Advice from Bob Camp
Short Cartoon Writing Tips!
OK, here are my ideas about writing a funny 11 minute TV cartoon.
Most important!
Know your characters and how they relate to one other. Take any great comedy team and you'll find that the humor is based on the personality of each character and the dynamics with the other characters.
When writing cartoons, do not exclude cartoonists from the process! Writers are great and all but they cannot draw a funny expression or work out the poses and timing necessary to make a funny cartoon. Believe it or not there are lots of really funny cartoonists that write funny too!
Imagine if writers wrote the great Termite Terrace 40's and 50's era Warners cartoons and Bob, Chuck and the boys were excluded from the process and forced to work from scripts.
Now I'm not dissing writers here. They are a huge important part of the industry and deserve as much credit and support as anybody on the crew. Unless they suck.
Use outlines and not scripts. This leaves the storyboard artist (who in my mind is really directing the artistic vision of the cartoon) room for his or her mind to work out the funniest gags for the cartoon and write dialogue that fits the gag not the other way around.
If you must use scripts then NEVER write more than 11 pages for an 11 minute cartoon.
A PAGE A MINUTE!
A PAGE A FUCKING MINUTE! OK?!
Do your self a favor and watch the funniest 7 or 11minute cartoons you can think of.
Watch each one over and over with a notepad and a stop watch. Note each sequence paying attention to it's purpose (like setup, gag, payoff etc.). Note the type of gags and how the comedy pays off. Is the reveal funny? How does timing make the joke work, or not.
You will begin to see patterns that are typical to an individual studio, director, story artist and animator. Watch old 2 reel shorts like Laurel and Hardy, the Stooges too. It's what I grew up watching and I learned so much about comedy from them,
When writing an 11 minute cartoon, don't get all wound up in plots, secondary plots and too many characters. This is no way to make a funny cartoon. Keep it simple! Avoid stereotypes and tired old ideas.
Come up with a funny idea. If the initial idea isn't funny then don't bother going forward with it.
Write down about 20 one line ideas.
Stimpy's invention- Stimpy is an inventor. His latest invention makes Ren really mad. Stimpy must invent a helmet that makes Ren happy against his nature.
Stimpy's Chicken- Stimpy falls in love with the chicken that he was preparing for Ren's dinner. He elopes with the chicken and Ren is tortured with Hunger and jealousy.
Now you get the four or five funniest bastards (who all have lists of one line ideas) into the same room and go at it coming up with gags and making quick sketches and laughing their asses off. We used to rent a suite at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood for a week and write the whole season. That was fun!
You have your idea for the cartoon. Now you go through all of the gags and lay them out eliminating the least funny. Start with the setup, put the best gags in order building to the funniest and ending in a ironic funny ending.
Set-up, series of gags, ironic pay-off.
Don't be satisfied with something that is only amusing keep bouncing ideas around until you are actually laughing outloud.
Type it up into about 3 or 4 pages and let the storyboard artist do his job.
Afterward it's good to pin up the board so the director can work on fine-tuning the gags with the other board artists helping out. Always be open to upping the comedy at every level. A funny board can be made ten times funnier by pushing character layoutout and animation. The acting and adlibs that the voice actor came up pushed the comedy again!
Notes on character design and posing.
Here are a few quick character studies for proportion, style and movement.
Gotta do lots of drawing to bring a character to life!
I hope this helps, enjoy!
September 15, 2015
The Innovations of Fleischer Studios
Besides changing the face of animation by bringing the world the invention of the Rotoscope, as well as the concept and animation technique of “Follow the Bouncing Ball” sing-alongs, Max Fleischer and his studio also pioneered a revolutionary technique in animation, known as the “Stereoptical Process”.
In this process, a circular, 3-D model of a background - a diorama - is built to the scale of the animation cells. It allowed for a spectacular sense of depth and dimension, long before Ub Iwerks came up with the Multiplane. Within the model setup, the animation cells could be placed at varying levels from the scenery, and even between objects, so that foreground elements could pass in front of them, adding to the dimensional effect. It was an effective method for panning and tracking shots, which would require a turn of the table with each photographed cell of animation.
The process was used in many of the studio’s cartoons, particularly in their longer, “two-reel” shorts, such as Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (1936), Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves (1937), and Betty Boop in Poor Cinderella (1934) - the only color (albeit in two-strip Cinecolor), theatrical cartoon ever made starring the iconic animated songstress, which features her as a redhead!
September 14, 2015
Everything is a Remix
The acclaimed online informational series has now been remastered and combined into one short film.
September 13, 2015
September 11, 2015
Step into the Page
For nearly four decades at Disney, Glen Keane animated some the most compelling characters of our time: Ariel from The Little Mermaid, the titular beast in Beauty and the Beast, and Disney’s Tarzan, to name just a few. The son of cartoonist Bil Keane (The Family Circus), Glen learned early on the importance of holding onto your childhood creativity—and how art can powerfully convey emotion. Keane has spent his career embracing new tools, from digital environments to 3D animation to today’s virtual reality, which finally enables him to step into his drawings and wander freely through his imagination. At FoST, he'll explore how to tap into your own creativity, connecting to emotion and character more directly than ever before. Witness him creating sculptural animation drawings using the Steam VR Tiltbrush.
'But Milk is Important' by Anna Mantzaris and Eirik Grønmo Bjørnsen
"A man with social phobia gets followed by a naive and clumsy creature..."
See the production blog here.
See the production blog here.
September 10, 2015
September 09, 2015
September 08, 2015
September 07, 2015
September 06, 2015
September 05, 2015
September 04, 2015
September 03, 2015
September 02, 2015
September 01, 2015
August 31, 2015
Animator's Guide to Health and Wellness - Part 2: Back Pain & Posture
Here's a good little video for exercises to help with your back and posture.
Here are exercises for preventing tendinitis and carpal tunnel, and they apply very well for animators, VFX artists and CGI artists & technicians of all kinds doing long days of work gripping that stylus pen.
In this clip, the focus is on a few hand stretching exercises that are essential to every guitarist's warm-up routine, of course these stretches apply very well to animators as well. These types of exercises can really go a long way to keeping your hands healthy and in good condition.
Reminding animators and artists to sit up straight, pull their shoulders back, pull their necks straight usually isn't too effective or long-lasting. We all sit for long periods of time, deeply focused on our work, not thinking about our postures or the grip on the pen. Eventually we all slouch down, our heads and necks stick out in front of us, whether we work with a tablet-and-monitor, or looking down at an angle on a Cintiq or some other graphic monitor system, or down on a flat table using good 'ol paper and markers.
So the big thing is to take breaks, get up and walk around, because the main cause of your neck sticking out, your shoulders rolling in, your eyes getting dry & sore, and your back curving forward is from many, many hours of sitting motionless at your work station.
So get up and stretch your hands, arms and back, walk around, give your eyes a rest, just for a few minutes, a couple times a day. Don't forget to do some of the exercises shown above, at a minimum of once every evening. It will help with blood circulation, prevent some strain on your back and neck, and help correct your spine from buckling.
From the book DRAW STRONGER:
See more...
Animator's Guide to Health and Wellness: Part 1
Animator's Guide to Health and Wellness: Part 1