June 26, 2007

Dramatic!

June 25, 2007

June 24, 2007

Wild Things

Here's the only sneak peak so far at the creatures in Spike Jonze's big-screen adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, but they also announced who will be providing the voices of the beasts:
A diverse group of vocal talents, including Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro, Michael Berry Jr., Paul Dano, Tom Noonan, Catherine O'Hara, Forest Whitaker and Michelle Williams, has been recruited to provide the voices of the titular characters in writer-director Spike Jonze's adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book "Where the Wild Things Are."
I can't wait!!!

Info provided by iwatchstuff.

New Animation Bookstore in Toronto

If this would have been around when I visited Toronto a short while a go, I think I might still be paying off my credit card from the fun I would have had in this shop.Labyrinth bookstore

Toronto-area folks now have their own local alternative to Bud Plant and Stuart Ng’s. The Labyrinth is a brand new bookstore specializing in animation, illustration, artist sketchbooks, graphic novels and manga. The store, open seven days a week, is located at 386 Bloor Street West (2 blocks west of Spadina Subway station). The shop also has a small gallery space which owner Dan Merisanu says will be used for monthly artist shows starting in July. A website with basic details is over here and there’s also a blog which lists new books in stock.

Labyrinth bookstore

Thanks to CartoonBrew for the info!

YouTubery: Worst Movies Ever

Christmas Comes Early for Dorks

It hurts so good!

Alright nerds, I've got a present for you: 75 new Harry Potter pictures. I do have a newfound respect for Daniel Radcliffe. He turned in one of the funniest guest appearances I've ever scene in Ricky Gervais' HBO show, Extras. Check it out!

Info provided by iwatchstuff.

The Simpsons Handbook- Secret Tips from the Pros

The Simpsons Handbook: Secret Tips from the Pros
Ever wonder how they draw the Simpsons? The Simpsons Handbook: Secret Tips from the Pros is the perfect book to learn the secrets of the top running cartoon of all time.

Hey Ugly! Postcard Box

Hey Ugly! Postcards

Hey Ugly! How about taking it old school and sending an "Ugly" postcard instead of an e-mail. Let the snail-man carry these cool postcards to your favorite friends

Animation Magazine launches AniMag TV, interviews Coraline animator

Animation Magazine has launched a new broadband video channel called AniMag TV centred on “new animated shorts, classic cartoons, behind-the-scenes documentaries, clips, trailers and original content that brings the world of animation and visual effects to your computer screen.” Work so far available to browse includes a couple of new pilots from Atomic Cartoons (creators of Atomic Betty), Mythunderstood and Big City Birds, as well as Once Upon a Christmas Village by Dream Balloon Productions, an award-winning CG-animated short which is showing at the Cannes Film Festival.

Once Upon a Christmas Village.jpg

(scene from Michael Attardi’s Once Upon a Christmas Village; yes, I know it is May, but it is a lovely little animation of a Christmas village diaroma brought to life and can be viewed on AniMag TV)

Elsewhere on Animation Magazine there is an interview with Travis Knight of LAIKA, the animation studio who created the California Raisins adverts. Travis and LAIKA (presumably named for the first dog the Russians shot into space?) are now working on animating a feature-film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s quite wonderful tale for younger readers (and highly enjoyable to older readers too!), Coraline. Since Coraline takes place in both our world and a parallel fantasy world which she travels to (where she meets the disturbing Other Mother with her button eyes) Travis and his team considered using a mix of CG and stop-motion for the different realities, but finally decided to go fully stop-motion:

We were trying to figure out how best to do the two different worlds, kind of going for that Wizard of Oz-type moment where she goes into this whole new world and we were toying with the idea of having one side of the world be stop-motion and the other side CG. We did some tests and ultimately decided that this story is perhaps better suited to stop-motion. I’m glad we went that way. We were going to have some fairly extensive CG effects but again we decided this film would benefit from having a more hand-crafted look. There are obviously some digital elements in pretty much any stop-motion film you’ll see these days, but it’s almost entirely stop-motion.”

Coraline animated movie.jpg

(Coraline with the very disturbing Other Mother from LAIKA’s site entry on the animated film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel)

I’m relieved to read that since I think a CG/stop motion split would have been intrusive to the feel of the story and quite jarring. Besides, Neil’s tale has a delightfully dark fairy tale feel to it which I feel would be much more suited to traditional stop-motion animation than CG, in much the way as Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride is. I’m really looking forward to that one.

The Dark Knight Rides on a Bike


















The guns on the batbike can by operated by speaking the magic words "Pew pew pew!"


The L.A. Times has two new pictures from The Dark Knight of the bat bike, or "Batpod" as it's referred to in the movie. I've managed to combine the two pictures here for easy browsing, utilizing Photoshop skills the likes of which the world has never seen.

It's hard to see from the picture, but the Batpod actually has a chain link steering wheel and a rack for mounting a boombox from which to blast Cypress Hill while cruising through East L.A. Odelay, guey!

Kevin Smith Interviews Bruce Willis

Click on the image to see the short but sweet interview.

Also, here's the famous Kevin Smith Giant Spider Story,
definitely worth watching here.

Jack Black...

Jack Black backstage at the Tony Awards

Jack Black will be teaming up with Todd Phillips on the upcoming comedy Man-Witch.

Black will play a schoolteacher who suddenly discovers he has witchlike abilities. Taken in by a coven, he is persuaded to attend a school for witches, only to discover that his classmates are all girls.

Subway!

Bean!

Why isn't there a Mr. Bean movie every year? Click image to watch the trailer.

June 23, 2007

Peter and the Wolf

PiotruÅ› i Wilk (Pierre et le Loup)
Directed by: Suzie TEMPLETON
Designed by: Marek SKROBECKI
Country: United-Kingdom, Poland
Year: 2006

PART 1


PART 2


PART 3

Animated T-Shirts





With sites like Threadless and Bountee proving that t-shirts make the perfect canvas for illustrations, this video for Justice’s D.A.N.C.E. asks, why not animation too?

Psst!



The trailer above offers an overview of an amazing project finished last March. PSST! is comprised of nine individual films produced by 27 teams. All of the films are viewable on PsstPassItOn.com.

Clever Comedy Central Ads

comedycentral.jpg


This batch of print ads for Comedy Central shows some brilliant examples of keeping it simple.

Mythunderstood


Atomic Cartoons
doesn’t want to be misunderstood with their new show. The animation studio who gave us both Atomic Betty and Big City Birds, are working on a new series. It’s called Mythunderstood and this YouTube clip directed by Tyler Schroeder will give you a glimpse into this exciting new offering. I'm glad to see how shows