August 24, 2019

'The Lake' by Gunner



Illustration: James Noellert, Rachel Reid, Nick Forshee
3D Animation: Rachel Reid
3D Modeling: Ryan Reid, Collin Leix, Nick Forshee
3D Rigging: Chris Nelder
2D Animation: John Hughes, Collin Leix, Marcus Bakke, Nick Forshee
Cel: Guille Comin, James Noellert
Producer: Brandon Delis
Audio: Steve Saputo, Bryan Pope
Music: Marcus Bakke
Lake Monster: Boots

August 22, 2019

'Fender Pedals' by Gunner



Project Lead: John Hughes
Story: Michael Burdick
Animation Direction: John Hughes
Art Direction: Michael Burdick
Illustration: Michael Burdick, Andy Most, Jay Quercia, John Hughes, Collin Leix,
Cel Animation: Matthew Everton, Ryan Boyes, Rachel Reid, Andy Most, Jessica Rowden, Eli Watkins, James Noellert, Collin Leix, Michael Burdick, John Hughes
2D Animation: Marcus Bakke, Collin Leix, John Hughes, Ian Sigmon, Nick Forshee
3D Animation: Collin Leix, John Hughes, Marcus Bakke
Producer: Brandon Delis



Animating on 3s is the best!!

August 21, 2019

‘Allergy Pills’ by Daniel Damm



Direction And Animation: Daniel Damm
Concept and Background: Fernando Peque
Compositing: Drazen Zeljković, Daniel Damm
Additional Animation: Martin Nyberg
Ink and Paint: Daniel Damm, Sidonie Vidal, Rembert Montald
Additional illustrations: Rembert Montald
Music Composer: Pedro Marques
Sound Design: Rita Gradim
Voice Over: Alexandra Sirola

August 19, 2019

The Hand-Drawn Cinematography of 'Adam and Dog'

Here's an analysis of the compositions and colors of Minkyu Lee's 2011 film "Adam and Dog".



See the short film here.

It was nominated for Best Animated Short Film for the 85th Academy Awards and won Best Animated Short Subject at the 39th Annie Awards. It is a retelling of the Adam and Eve story (as found in the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis), but from a Dog's point of view. Dog wanders around, alone. Then one day he meets a strange creature, Adam. Side by side, they spend their days in the flourishing garden, and become inseparable companions - until a new creature arrives: Eve. After meeting this new companion, who is similar to him, Adam neglects Dog. But after the Fall of Man, when the two Humans must leave the Garden, he consorts with them into the realm of hardship.

First off, lets look at samples of rough line tests from the film.
The movement of the characters on screen will always affect the shot's composition. The space they occupy within the frame and how they move inside the frame makes the staging organic and ever-changing.



by Jennifer Hager



by James Baxter



by Jennifer Hager

For the sound design, Vladimir Sivc wanted to leave room for the music and let the sounds themselves lead the story. Much of the sound design was created with his voice and effects like the hippo was simply his voice pitched down with a tremolo (vibrating effect) mixed with the reverb. Dog sounds were also created with him barking into a condenser mic, and kept modifying the tone until it worked, and other vocals were used for many of the birds as well. All other SFX was recorded with a zoom H4n and Rode NTG1 shotgun microphone.

Written and Directed by: Minkyu Lee

Animation by:
Minkyu Lee
Jennifer Hager
James Baxter
Mario Furmanczyk
Austin Madison
Matt Williames

Associate Producer:
Heidi Jo Gilbert

Technical Direction:
Ethan Metzger

Musical Score:
Joey Newman

Consultants:
Glen Keane
Thomas Ethan Harris


Various versions of the 'rule of thirds', centered compositions, diagonal lines/shapes, negative space, leading lines, repeating elements, clear silhouettes, and the use of dynamic symmetry and dynamic rectangles are methods seen in many of the compositions for this film.



Hand-drawn character animation + hand-painted background art. Natural color palettes are used, from the sunny, joyful sequences to the dark, rainy somber ones. Even bright sunny days are treated with a fairly muted earth-tones color design.

Observe the astounding hand-drawn cinematography of Adam & Dog.
















































Expertly staged and planned out, Point of View shots like these use the classic "shot / reverse-shot" to connect the audiences with these characters, seeing what they see and in doing so helping to experience what the on-screen characters are experiencing, which feeds into every animated filmmaker's ultimate goal: to convince the audience that there's a thought process going on inside the characters' heads, that you can tell what they are thinking and feeling.

Wide shots tell us where they are and uses visual storytelling to inform us of the environment they're in. The closer we frame the characters in the shots, the more intimate it becomes, the more we can tell what they're thinking and feeling the more that it shows us about the character, and what they're doing.