Laser Beak Man - the animated series - starts on ABC3 on Tuesday February 9th, 2010. The series is created by artist Tim Sharp and produced and animated at BigFish TV* in Brisbane.
Update: French Roast has been nominated for this year's Oscars along with; "Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty," "The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)," "Logorama," "A Matter of Loaf and Death." See how it compares to the Annie Awards List.
I'm hoping. I'm hoping the second year animators at SBIT are getting their thoughts together for their major projects. The place to start is coming up with some ideas. Just in case some helpful advice is needed, there is this short film (only about 1 minute long! Like the planned narrative should be. But... "Worry about ideas first. Execution later." Bewdiful).
Researching animation education resources on the Internet can lead to all types of wonderful discoveries. The Speaking of Animation blog is a new one for me. It becomes relevant when I chat with recently graduated animators looking for work and what they should do to improve their show reel. This short post by Jacob Gardner (DreamWorks animator) has some good advice.
"He would put down on paper, very rough, these beautiful thumbnails and planned the best way he could do the scene," explains Sandro Cleuzo, animator on The Princess and the Frog, about his research on Milt Kahl.
Concept art and colour scripts. "Many people don't realize we have almost as many artists at Pixar working in traditional media - hand drawing, painting, pastels, sculpture - as we do in digital media," notes John Lasseter in the programme Introduction to 'PIXAR 20 Years of Animation'. I'm looking through it planning storyboard classes for the 2nd year animators at SBIT.
"In animation, it's the imperfections that are so charming," says Mike Surrey, one of the supervising animators. "In fact, the computer is so precise that with CGI you spend a lot of time making it imperfect, so hand-drawn does feel more romantic. There's a lyricism to hand-drawn, which makes it a very intuitive thing for artists." more ...
This lovely short film looks 2D. See if you can recognise the 3D elements. That is, if you can resist being swept up by the story. Found the link via Alonso's Monotreme Dreams blog.
There is an animation form sometimes labelled "experimental", but possibly better labelled "experiential", as the form is actually an experience from the audience viewpoint, as much as an experiment from the animator's creative perspective. I found this clip quite primordial.
The product of roughly 7 months of work from 13 students in the 3rd year of the BAA Animation program at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, Canada.
If you get a chance to see Australian comedian Tim Minchin live, the experience is heartily recommended. His hippy shaking beat poem "Storm" is being animated. There is a taste of it up on the web complete with double base and cymbal brushes. Tim is from Western Australia, so I claim him as kin.
If you are visiting Brisbane this southern summer, and wish to discover a taxidermy caribou covered in crystal plastic spheres to test your perception of reality, surf into the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA). Some of the AV displays have snippets of a very interesting exhibition, worth donning the animation pith helmet, to explore: The Cypress and the Crow: 50 Years of Iranian Animation.
Watch this short film twice. It just gets better. Rodrigo is a Pixar animator. But be clear, the film is an idependent short film. I think the film is only up on the interweb for a short time. For those who have wandered the streets of Barcelona, you will appreciate the architecture of the shop. Found on the Artistry Gone Awry blog.
Luke now works at DreamWorks. There is a post about his student film "Reach" on the ARC earlier this year that includes a link to his show reel. This post, however, is even better because it links to how he made his animated short story. A process that the 2nd year animators at Southbank Institute of Technology should take note of as they form ideas for their own narrative. Luke makes reference to a book by Robert McKee called Story.
'9' opens in Australian cinemas on Wednesday 9th Dec 2009.
ABC 1's "Scene by Scene" program (episode 2) is a show about film making in the Asia Pacific region. The first 10 minutes of this past week's episode features Australian made stop motion animation. See it on ABC iView (until 20 Dec 2009).
"$9.99" is discussed on ABC TV. The "Scene by Scene" program has a 10 minute segment that is viewable online until 20/12/09.
Graduating with an animation diploma can be daunting during a global financial crisis. Souls are being sold left, right and centre for an opportunity to find a pencilhold in the animation industry. Nina Paley, whose film "Sita Sings the Blues" is becoming more notorious and famous by the second, has grasped creativity by the horns in many ways to find success in marketing her art and philosophy for "free". Possibly that would read better untruncated?; for "freedom of expression". Maybe there is some inspiration in this tale for recent graduates? No need to sing the blues. Watch the film, it's free. Or is it?
The principles of physical animation number up to 13, if an animator includes 'spacing' as different to "slow-in and slow-out".
"What in all of hiccup am I going to do now?" Final year students at SBIT are finalising their showreels and short films for the end of year screening. Then there is a bit of tidying up other assignments for assessment and finally graduation. What then?
Simon's Cat creator Simon Tofield is a technophobe. So how does he use Flash? Read more... His animation reveals the appeal in detail observation of domestic cat behaviour. (Previously on "Simon's Cat".)
Students may find this recent interview with Nick Park interesting. He talks a lot about his student days and inspirations. Interestingly he talks about the connections he made as a student with other students. For example, making a connection with a music student. If you are an animation student and not sure who Nick Park is, you will quickly find out by watching the interview.
Marc started his animation career in Sydney. His 2004 debut short film "JoJo in the Stars" won many awards. This is a short lecture he gave in Berlin in 2009 on contemporary character design. Very interesting comments about simplicity in design... "Animation works when it is simpler". Marc describes how his 'pica' characters were given the ability to express emotion because they could move their eyes... "It's all in the eyes". This video comes to us via a Keith Lango's blog post.
A new poll has named TOY STORY as the greatest animated film ever. Click on the link to see the full list and an accompanying newspaper article.
Click on the link. Then, if you make it back from that adventure, add what you have learned to these previous posts. You will have in your hand some of the shiniest animation gold nuggets ever unearthed for people interested in studying the craft of animation.
"Uh-Oh!" indeed. Cool from the moment the guards pull up to the cemetery gates riding Vespas. The mash of comic book styling and motion graphics animation has high appeal. Not sure what vintage it is, but haven't seen it on the larger video share sites. Warning: Horror themes.
Lately I've been working on some animation with a more realistic feel. It means there is a lot of time spent examining subtleties, and one thing you become painfully aware of is that when you're working on a piece that has lots of over lapping movement like a walk or run, its easy to loose sight of things. You can end up chasing little bumps and wiggles around in circles until you reach a point where you don't even know why they are there and what they mean. As your cycle gets nearer to completion it gets harder and harder to isolate the movement on particular parts of the rig.
How many arms does Jesus have when he lands at the table after jumping through the window?
Interesting animation x 2 being watched by 1st year animators in their coffee break(s). Thanks to Andrej and Bobbi for these.
Check out some of these fantastic inbetweens from Jesus 2000
Hey! Where is Zagreb? Maybe we will find out in the comments? Why so many unanswered questions? Whyeeeee?!
Alexei Alexeev's "KJFG No.5" (aka. The Forest Trio) is still the best animation ever created, in my honest opinion. Note that this is not Ian posting. So a look at some more of Alexei's work is in order. More can be found under the 'short films' link @ Studio Baesarts.
I werz checking out Alonso's blog like. Werrrd! And he had a link to the Ghibli blog what-ev-fah, and since I'm 'hip with the Jennys' (the Gen "Y"s), werrd. I thought I'd link to something Alonso pointed out, duh!
Apologies to anyone who has tried to follow links from the ARC to any of Jason Ryan's tutorials of late. He moved them from screencast to his webinar site some time ago I think, but I've only just caught up :P. I'm so glad he has kept these "ramp up" tutorials freely available, they are right up there among my favourites. Jason, you rock!
Puppets and animation come even closer together with the help of high powered computers, software and motion capture suits. It is very interesting how the puppeteer does the lip synch and facial expressions. A hand inserted in a special rig that links directly to the character's facial animation software so that the puppeteer can produce the voice and animation in real time. Some animators see the looming gates of doom for the craft with this technology. It certainly is an interesting career to be pursuing.
This is way cool :) 
They Might Be Giants together again with great animation (and a good message or two). Its like there is some kind of cosmic alignment of something.
I don't post about feature films much, but just thought this was a nice making of about a film that hasn't got much attention yet. I love how they recorded the dialogue in real situations.
An awesome lecture from legend Eric Goldberg, with heaps of examples of his work over the years. I was particularly amazed by his high school flip book animations, produced using information gleamed from just a couple of TV shows. Also inspirational is that Eric's entry into the world of animation didn't go as he has dreamed, but he continued to find ways to move forward and grow. What a rare treat provided by the Academy of Art University and an amazing guy. You have to select Erics lecture from the list on the right side of the page.
Since the ARC is an animation blog with its base in Brisbane Australia, it is time to post about the 'local' industry.
The Rainplace Blog has a great series of posts on squash and stretch, its in 3 parts (Part1, Part2, Part3). Frank found this one and brought it to my attention, thanks Frank. Adding to the Basic Physics section.
