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.

Bale-out

Check out the winning entries to the Spline Doctors' Christian Bale meltdown audio animation challenge! My favorites are from Brandon Beckstead and Alex Jansen. They exhibit some spot-on timing and great choices.

I ♥ Coraline

Coraline is my valentine this year.

Congrats to the folks at Laika. I'd been looking forward to this film for a long time and it didn't disappoint. I hope it attains the success it deserves and enables to the studio to bring us more good stuff. I was saddened that in box office terms it took a backseat to an epic shallow regurgitated garbage heap, but at least it did better than an ill-conceived sequel to a needless remake. Hopefully word of mouth will spread and the people who decided to watch crap last weekend will redeem themselves and see Coraline this weekend. And you should too! In 3D or not, it's well worth it.

Check out this interview with character designer & sculpter Damon Bard as well as examples from his amazing portfolio.

End of an Age... an Orphan-Age

Most of you following the industry will have heard by now - last Friday The Orphanage closed it's doors and a lot of wonderful, talented people suddenly had to say goodbye and scramble to find the next big thing. You can read the more or less official announcement on Stu's blog. I'm happy, grateful, and proud to have been an Orphan and to have worked with such amazing folks.

Lisa Simpson once asked her father if he realized that the Chinese word for "crisis" is the same as "opportunity." Wise Homer replied, "Yes... Crisi-tunity!" I hope this crisis quickly becomes opportunity for all the Orphans and I'm excited to see where everyone goes next.

As for me... well that's a story for another post.

The Pilz

Well I don't know what to say about this short except that I pretty much animated the whole thing (except for the last couple of shots) and I only had two weeks to do it. Not sure if any of it should go on my reel since I wouldn't consider it finished or polished animation, but there are a couple moments I'm happy with. It was fun and a good exercise in scheduling and time-budgeting. Obviously the amount of expression achievable in these characters was limited, but if I had it to do over I would definitely try to push everything a lot farther. (Also I wish I could have done the sound mixing.) Supposedly the client may want a sequel, so maybe I'll get another shot at the Pilz family.

There is a larger version available on the client's site, but it has big obtrusive subtitles just in case you miss any of the medical technobabble.

Happy Halloween!

Today I dressed up as my hero - Danny, better known as the Tourette's Guy.


I promised to post more stuff I've been working on so in the spirit of Halloween I thought it'd be appropriate to show a little work I did for Cobra Creative's new site. In fact I think they launched the site just today. I animated the menu side pieces on the Works and Studio pages of the site (skull, shield, tentacles, all the little bits). This job popped up just as I was in the middle of a crunch week on another project. There were a couple days I was already working overtime and then I'd have to put nearly a full day's work into this after hours. I don't think I'll ever do that again if I can avoid it. Still, it was a fun little side project and it's neat to see it go live.

Well my Disney Afternoon toon poll ended today, looks like DuckTales came out on top. For me it was between that and TailSpin... to this day those themes will get stuck in my head.

Right now at work I'm on a big push to finish some massive feature vfx work. Supposedly I'll finish this coming week and start on another TV spot that should be really fun. Check back in a couple months and I'll probably have more to say/show about it. In the mean time, there's still one or two more recent pieces I'll be putting up soon. Mmmm... Reese's pieces.

Balloons

Wow, it's been 2 months since I've written anything here. The O has kept me pretty busy, which I'm especially thankful for considering these uncertain times we're living in. But if you've been watching TV at all recently you may have caught one announcement that offers a pin-prick of light through the dark days ahead. Disney has decided that next year you can go to any of their big theme parks free on your birthday. And what better way to illustrate this landmark of self-celebration than...


Lots... and lots... of balloons. That needed to be animated. And so that's what we did. If you don't watch TV (like me) or you haven't seen these spots yet, you can watch the premiere 60-second version here on Disney's site for the campaign or a higher-quality version here via the Orphanage's commercial portfolio. It's also all over YouTube - here's one with the alternate ending I worked on.

These images are some of the shots I worked on. I'll try to post more work I've done recently again soon.

O-dee-doh

I'm happy to say I'm back at the Orphanage for a few weeks. They even saved my old spot for me. I'll be working on some commercial spots. I just finished a fun stint at my (P)alma mater from last summer - Palma VFX. Actually I'm still finishing up a few things... it was a beast of a project, but really fun stuff. Always enjoy going back there. Was up until 5:30am trying to finish up and consequently got 2 hours of sleep before starting at the O this morning. Supposed to see Dark Knight in IMAX tonight... my exhausted mind and body aren't going to be happy about that.

The Internets

So yes... I read Slashdot. It gets fed into my Google homepage so I usually scan the headlines for interesting articles. Well today "Wall-E Supervising Animator Tells His Story" caught my eye. It led to an interesting interview with Pixar veteran, former Spline Doctor, LEGO aficionado, and directing animator on WALL-E - Angus MacLane. Back when I began going through the "Pixar classes" at the Academy of Art, Angus was co-teaching the Level 3 (and final) course in the series and struck me as an intimidating figure. Sometimes he'd barge into the lower level classes and throw in a blitzkritique (hey, I just coined that term!) or just hassle the other teachers. Anyway, there's some great stuff toward the middle part of the interview.


In other boredom, the latest JibJab video is surprisingly well-animated. It just shows to go ya that the principles of animation transcend any preference for medium.

Desti? No.

This sucks. I've been wanting to see the full Destino short for so long. Come on, Disney. If you won't release it on DVD, at least put it on iTunes for us.


More info on the short here and some clips here and here.

Wall-E is to Pixar as ________ is to The Beatles

That was always my favorite and highest-scoring section on standardized tests. It's how I think; in comparisons and analogies. Combine that with the fact that I'm a massive Beatles nut and you'll understand why the following article really caught my attention when I ran across it at Upcoming Pixar...

Pixar, Wall-E and Rubber Soul

(bad photoshop by me)

The Good and the Bad, Ugly

Good dog!

Bad dog.