A Fool and his Munny

This is my first munny. We had a contest at our studio holiday party. I went with Doc Ock mainly so I could do the robotic tentacles.

Brisk, That Is

Want to congratulate Modi, Chris, and the team at Aatma Studio for completing this awesome Brisk spot that will be popping up soon in theaters everywhere. Modi gave me my first break in this business and he's a great guy to work for. I reluctantly had to turn down the opportunity to work on this spot and boy do I wish I could have been a part of it. The animation is fantastic and they did a great job emulating the stop-motion look and feel of the Brisk campaign.

Animating Animals Master Class

Tippett Studio Animation Supervisor William Groebe gives an hour-long talk and demo about what goes into animating believable animal characters in a live-action feature. Will is a fantastic creature and character animator and has been my anim supe at Tippett on Cats & Dogs 2, The Smurfs, and Mirror Mirror. He's also created lectures for Animation Mentor's Animals & Creatures Master Class.

Reel Feedback

My Norwegian buddy Hans had a great idea. Set up a system where job-seeking animators can get direct feedback on their reels from the industry pros who judge reel submissions all the time. If you've ever submitted your reel to a studio and just didn't hear back, you always wonder what they thought of it, what they were saying about it when they watched it, and what kept you from getting that interview. Hans' brainchild Reel Feedback pulls back the curtain and lets you know where your reel stands and how to make it stronger.

In December the RF crew held their first major event - an evening of free pizza, beer, and critiques for everyone who showed up.  Over a hundred people came with reels in hand and everyone left with solid feedback.  Check out this video for an idea of how the night went down.



There will be more events coming up so be sure to connect with Reel Feedback on Facebook to stay in the loop.

Happy New Year!

 What better way to start the new year than with Calvin and Hobbes!  My gift to you is a collection of Calvin's New Years ponderings...

Breaking Dawn Wolf Animation Featurette

Here's a cool video clip of our Visual Effects Supervisor and Lead Animator explaining a bit about how we approached animating the wolves in Breaking Dawn Pt 1.

Winning! Congrats, Tun

I was just scanning down my sidebar of blogs and noticed a post about last month's 11 Second Club winner on Spungella. I clicked out of curiosity and was met with an unmistakably familiar name. Veerapatra Jinanavin. I never called him that though, always knew him as Tun. One of my best buds from the Academy and one of the hardest working people I've ever met. Years ago Tun tipped me off about a freelance gig that turned into my first animation job. Before that he gave me some much-needed help on my grad school thesis short film. I got to work with him professionally for about 2 days before he bowed out to take a summer internship at Pixar.

Anyway, I'm indebted to the man and I'm proud to congratulate him for winning the February competition. And I have to smile at his continuing habit of using "familiar-looking" characters. If you ever get to work with him, ask him about his love of Wendy's.

Check out his winning entry!

Me and Tun 6 years ago. Wait, 6 YEARS?!? Geez.

Grickle

Hello. Happy 2011.

I love Graham Annable's shorts. I subscribed to his youtube channel years ago. If you haven't seen any of his work you should check it out. His films are perfect examples of visual storytelling that is simple yet clear and entertaining. Watch them and marvel at his use of pacing and creating atmosphere. And the occasional skull-headed fellow.

Here is one of my favorites.

Poll: Best Animated Films of the Decade

I took a look at this list and couldn't believe all these films came out just in the last 10 years. I suddenly feel a lot older. And I haven't seen the bulk of these movies. Many I intentionally skipped, but now I have a bucket list of animation features I really should watch (Fantastic Mr. Fox, Secret of Kells, Persepolis, The Illusionist, Triplettes of Bellville, and Bill Plympton's features Hair High and Idiots & Angels). It's embarrassing to admit I haven't seen some of those. Almost as embarrassing as some of the ones I did see. Some more than once. Usually due to circumstances beyond my control.

So follow the link and pick your top 15 before December 27.

Twi-ing too hard?

I can't sleep so I thought I'd share an observation I made earlier today at Best Buy.

If you buy the Twilight: Eclipse DVD/Blu-ray as the 2-disc Special Edition, the actors on the cover gaze back at you at eye-level.


But if you decide to save a few bucks and go for just the single-disc edition, the actors look down at you in scornful disapproval.

Niquitin Mini's TV Spot

I didn't think this was online anywhere but I stumbled across it today. I worked on this ad about two years ago at The Orphanage. It was part of a series of spots directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, of Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack fame. It was a fun style to work in and definitely cool to be working with/for an animation icon like Genndy.


Niquitin Minis Advert

Animation Show of Shows

If you can catch it, this is a pretty cool traveling collection of animated short films. Ron Diamond puts it on and usually has a couple of the filmmakers with him to discuss their stuff. Last year I got to meet Cordell Barker who was screening his short Runaway. I got him to sign a DVD copy of his Oscar-nominated The Cat Came Back, which I've always loved since I was a kid.

Below is this year's playbill and the screening schedule is here.

Back to Tippett's

If this were an actual blog it would be a pretty terrible one. Why do I even have this?

Well since I do I might as well say hey, I'm back at Tippett Studio for a stint. Working once again with some unbelievably talented folks. I'll leave you with a sketch of the Godfather himself, Mr. Phil Tippett drawn by my current Animation Supervisor. Click the pic to see more animators' doodles of the big guy on his facebook page.

UPDATE: Just launched today - Phil's YouTube channel! Lot's of great interviews, behind-the-scenes "making of" clips, and animation tests!

Sims 3: Late Night Trailer

I may or may not have been spending my summer working on this EP...

The Survival Kit expands...

This may be kind of old news, but I just found out there is a new revised/expanded edition of Dick Williams' Animator's Survival kit with an extra 40+ pages tacked on.



Check out some samples from it here and here.

I just ordered my copy to arrive tomorrow so I can study up over the weekend. Rock on!

A Taste of My 2009: Cats & Dogs 2 Trailer

So what have I been up to most of the year? Here's your first glimpse at the long-awaited sequel to the spell-binding 2001 blockbuster everyone remembers so fondly - CATS & DOGS.

Aye Carumba!

The voice of Bart Simpson turns 52 today. Also apparently she's a Scientologist.

UPDATE!

About a year ago I was working on a series of anti-smoking PSAs for the state of Arizona. I rolled onto another production before they were completed, but I was kind of excited to see the final product go live. After the spots were delivered, I remember hearing that the client had a change of heart and decided to hold off on airing them. I was hoping to at least find them online, but I couldn't find them and figured they may never see the light of day.

This past weekend I caught up with an old college buddy and he mentioned having seen the PSAs online and liking them. He'd found them on the blog of the guy who directed the ads. It turns out Arizona finally decided to air the ads and released them online as well. Below is the one I was most involved with. It's the most subtle of the three, but I enjoyed reading in the comments that it also seems to be the most relatable to smokers.

(Watch it in HD by clicking the video twice then clicking "HD" in the Youtube player)

Check out the director's blog to see the other ads.
 

It's All True

???

Everything you've heard or read about Transformers 2 and/or Michael Bay is absolutely true. Unfortunately I verified it this weekend.

I've been collecting the reviews and such that were floating around work last week. So rather than beat an undead horse, I'll share some of the best critiques and lampoons.

Michael Bay finally made an art movie

Transformers 2 FAQs

Storyboards from Michael Bay's The Great Gatsby

If everyday life was directed by Michael Bay

Michael Bay Facts (like Chuck Norris...)

Michael Bay signs $50M deal to f--k up 'ThunderCats'

Roger Ebert's brutal-but-spot-on Transformers 2 review

Transforminators (because really, there's no need to see both... or either)

One more day

As a reformed comic book junkie whose favorite character back in the day quickly became the furball/runt/canucklehead, I am starting to dread the day that I used to wish for. There was a time when the idea of a Wolverine or even an X-Men film was a pipe dream restricted to the "who would play who in the ______ movie" section of Wizard magazine. Clint Eastwood and Jack Nicholson always stood out as prime candidates for Wolvie, if only you could reverse-age them by a decade or so.

Times have changed and probably thanks to the trickle-down effect of advanced technology, comic book movies are practically saturating the box office. What's funny to me though is the characters and plots on the screen today are taken from the comic books of my youth and not from the crap I see on the shelves these days. I always felt like Marvel's universe hit a second Golden Age right around the time I started getting into comics (age 10 or so), but I couldn't make an impartial decision because... well of course I'm going to think stuff was the best when I was into it - that's just how people are - the "back in my day" syndrome. But maybe this on-screen onslaught of heroes and villians from yesteryear serve as evidence to support my self-serving theories. Or maybe it's just that today's film-makers are around my age, got into comics at the same time, and are glorifying what we thought was awesome when we were growing up.


At any rate, much of the appeal of Wolverine's character stems from his mysterious past and origin. Even when I was into the comics I would get antsy when some writer took it upon himself to make his mark on Logan's backstory. Because - for better or worse - once that change is made it becomes canon (assuming there won't be any later time-travel or alternate dimension nonsense). Some very good writers have woven a rich history for Mr. Logan and for the most part still managed to preserve a core mystery to the whole thing.

And now here comes this movie that I'm trying to remain excited for, but the more I hear and see of it, the more it seems like a stinker. For one thing... (stop reading now if you're desperately trying to avoid spoilers) Wolverine's history is vast enough - why the heck are they adding in all these other characters that have nothing to do with it? Gambit is cool, but does he really need to be in the Wolverine origin movie? Young orphan boy Cyclops? Really? Of course you need Sabretooth, but it seems like the film-makers are screwing up that relationship. Then there's the rest of the Weapon-X folks, including Deadpool apparently. I mean geez, are they going to throw in Alpha Flight as well? Elsie-Dee and Albert? They already screwed up Lady Deathstrike in X-Men 2, so I guess we won't see her. Then again, they screwed up Sabretooth in X-Men 1 and we're definitely seeing him...

And what's with Sabretooth being twins with Wolverine in this movie? Wolverine is too tall and Sabretooth is too small. You lose the whole dynamic. This is turning into one of those nightmare IMDB message board ultra-loser rants, I know... I just hate to see something that has so much potential get so short-changed. Hmm, maybe that means I'm in the wrong business.

I think a good Wolverine movie would almost have to be presented Kill Bill style. You gotta have two parts... and you gotta jump around a bit, and allow for segments to have their own visual styles. I don't see anything from the previews about Wolvie's time in Japan - I mean that's huge. That could be a Frank Miller segment, I mean he drew a great miniseries about Logan in Japan.

Well. Anyway. I may have to see it, but I don't have to like it. Here's hoping though.