Aleksandr Petrov - One More Time!

"The film "One more time!" - is a moving memory of the finest part of every person - a carefree childhood. The action takes place in Yaroslavl, 1930. The authors managed with great precision to convey the atmosphere of that time.
The film "One more time!" is the graduate work of young animators. Its authors - Alina Yahyaev, Ekaterina Ovchinnikova, Tatiana Okruzhnova - in one -and-a-half years have created a film under the guidance and in co-creation with the teacher, Alexander Petrov.

Alexander K. Petrov - a famous animator, film director and artist. Member of the Union of Cinematographers of Russia, member of the International Association of animators ASIFA, a member of the American Academy, an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts. Winner of two national awards (1990, 1995). He was awarded an Academy Award in 2000 for his film "The Old Man and the Sea." Alexander Petrov, creates its own unique films in the technique of oil painting on glass."

This piece is hand-painted with oil paint on glass, one frame at a time!



Stills from the film can be found HERE.

Another of his short films The Old Man and The Sea, can be found HERE.

Joanna Quinn & Girl's Night Out

Joanna Quinn is an English animator. She was born in Birmingham. She received an Academy Award nomination for Famous Fred, nominated in 1998.
She attended Middlesex Polytechnic. Her student film Girls Night Out was completed in 1987 and won 3 awards at the Annecy Film Festival.





Joanna's commercials for Charmin toilet paper and Whiskas cat food feature her distinctive drawing style, always rendered on paper or cel.
Her latest film "Dreams and Desires-Family Ties" 2006 has already won 14 international prizes including the 2006 Cartoon d'Or.

More info HERE.

GIF Animation Goldmine

"Don’t you shush me! Eighteen years of total silence, and you shush me.”
Life of Brian (1979)

If we don't, remember me is a Tumblr blog that contains some of the best gif animations i've seen. Not only do they loop very well, but they are taken from some of the best films ever!

Walt Lantz on Stress

"Walter claims that he was always able to avoid taking things too seriously, even when he was commandeering a department of one hundred twenty people or struggling to keep his independent outfit afloat. “You can really help yourself by not letting stress get inside you,” he says. “The people who let stress get them are the ones who worry so much about the little things. When you’re busy and interested in what you’re doing, it just seems to pour out naturally, you don’t think of stress. It’s not ego, either, it’s just that you love what you’re doing and feel good about it.'"

Via OnAnimation

Interview: Pete Doctor

Pete Doctor

Director: Monster Inc. 2 (2012), UP and Monsters Inc.
Animator: Toy Story

Interview: Bobby Beck & Carlos Baena

Nice interview with Bobby Beck and Carlos Baena, two awesome animators and co-founders of the very awesome Animation Mentor.

Hannah Acock on Recruitment

Hannah Acock, who is the head of recruitment at one of the top VFX studios in the UK has written a good article on working in the industry.

There has never been a better time to be working in visual effects. Each year global VFX facilities are contributing amazing effects to a film industry that is constantly raising the bar in order to push visual boundaries and cinematic experiences further than ever before.

As well as being great news for audiences all over the world, this drive to create bigger and more elaborate effects is great for established and aspiring VFX professionals who want to work at the highest level, creating cutting-edge visuals...

FINDING THE RIGHT MATCH
THE REEL DEAL
LEAVE YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR
FINDING THE TALENT

Read the full article HERE.

Interview: Austin Madison

Great interview with Austin Madison, on being a student at CalArts, Pixar internship and dispensing advice and inside stories from Pixar.

Mighty Antlers

Check out this awesome fight scene, created by Sune Reinhardt, Mikael Ilnæs, Michael L. Fonsholt, Jouko Keskitalo from The Animation Workshop. The Animation Workshop have been producing many great animations over the past few manths. Watch more HERE.

Seth Godin on Leadership and Movements

Seth Godin argues the Internet has ended mass marketing and revived a human social unit from the distant past: tribes. Founded on shared ideas and values, tribes give ordinary people the power to lead and make big change. He urges us to do so.

I love what Seth Godin says in this TED Talk. Check out more of what he says HERE.

Black Swan VFX

This rather good VFX was made at Look FX.



More info on: fxguide.com and cgsociety.org

Day & Night

Had to add this to the blog! Love it so much. Great work, Pixar.

There Will Be Blood - with gaze locations of 11 viewers

This fascinating video shows you exactly where on the screen and for how long 11 viewers are watching this clip from There Will Be Blood.

This is an excerpt from There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007). 11 adult viewers were shown the video and their eye movements recorded using an Eyelink 1000 (SR Research) infra-red camera-based eyetracker. Each dot represents the center of one viewer's gaze. The size of each dot represents the length of time they have held fixation.

Created by The DIEM (Dynamic Images and Eye Movements) Project:

Research in the DIEM project is focused on understanding human vision during complex real-world scene perception. Because human visual perception involves active information seeking via eye movements, much of the work in the lab focuses on eye movements and human gaze control.

Topics of interest in the lab include fast scene recognition, visual search in natural scenes, visual memory and scene representation, eye movement control during static and dynamic scene viewing, and the integration of visual and linguistic information in natural contexts.

We are also interested in computational approaches to these questions and implementation of underlying processes in the human brain as revealed by neuroimaging techniques such as pupillary response, fMRI and ERP.

More videos HERE.

Bugs Bunny GIF

Found on Flooby Nooby

Eye Of The Storm

Official video for Lovett's Eye of the Storm directed by Christopher Alender, from the soon to be released debut album, Highway Collection.



Musical artist Lovett, director Christopher Alender, and producer Kris Eber give an in-depth behind the scenes look at their epic steampunk fantasy "Eye of the Storm".



Pre/Post side-by-side VFX comparison by Wes Ball of Oddball Animation, Visual Effects Supervisor of the official video for Lovett's Eye of the Storm from the soon to be released debut album, Highway Collection.




Soundtrack: Faraquet - Rex

John Martyn - John Wayne (Live)

Every so often I find a song that I find so indescribabley beautiful. It just shoves me over, I am in awe and I have to play it over and over and over again. It could be anything, any genre.

The most recent one has been this song (the live version) of John Martyn's John Wayne. John Martyn sadly passed away in 2009. The work he put out for over forty years is truly a gift to us. He blended jazz, blues, rock and folk into his own unique sound, and was a fantastic guitarist!


Recorded in Germany, 1986.

Eliminating 90% of the Tension Between Creatives and Managers

I've certainly noticed and overheard a bit of tension in the studio between the creatives and the clients. It's quite disconcerting when this is a full time job. Communication is paramount! So it was good to read this bit of advice from Todd Henry's blog on communicating and eliminating the tension.

To summarise:
Managers could say...
“I see what you’re doing here. Explain to me why you chose to make X as small as you did?"
Instead of...
“can you make X a little bigger?”

Creative's could say...
“So…I want you to know that I’ll go whichever direction you decide, and I’m cool with that. I’d like to show you why I think this direction is best.” [Insert brilliant work.]

Read it in full HERE

Man As Industrial Palace

Created by Henning Lederer

There's something appealing about putting little people inside the human body and seeing how it all works on a more grand scale; Osmosis Jones, Fantastic Voyage etc.

The Making Of: Samuri Jack

I can't believe I have never seen this. It looks so great - many episodes to catch up on!

The Ministry of Slow Motion Silly Walks

Made in Cambodia.

Via Thinking Animation

Everything You Need To Know About Bouncing Balls

There's an amazing and hugely informative post on the Bouncing Ball exercise of animation on the Follow-Thought blog. There, they have compiled a huge amount of excellent resources to perfectly illustrate what the bouncing ball exercise teaches us.

Read the full post HERE

Working Overtime

There's a post on the TAG blog that among other things, breaks down the cost and implications of working overtime for a studio and not getting paid for it. As it stands in my current job, I don't mind putting in an extra hour a day, but I haven't given much thought into it, so this post has really struck a chord with me and it's something to remember for the future.

If you work sixty hours and only put forty hours on the time card, here’s what you’re doing to yourself and your fellow union members, not just in TAG but in the entire IATSE, over a one-year period of employment:

• You’ve screwed yourself out of $1,000 per week, $52,000 per year — and that’s just at straight time.
• You’ve screwed yourself and everyone in our Hollywood-wide benefit plan out of 1,040 hours of health, pension and IAP contributions.
• You’ve essentially lowered your hourly wage from $50 to $33.33.
• In so doing, you’ve screwed a fellow union member because you’ve taken work at lesser conditions than someone who might have insisted on being paid legally.

If you consider how many people do this at studios everywhere, the damage is astronomical.

Read the full post HERE

John Cleese on the Creative Process

This is from the Creativity World Forum 2008 in Belgium.

via Accidental Creative

Turning Ideas Into Projects

Recently i've had some ideas for a couple of short films that I want to make in the next couple of years (when I find the time). I have thoughts, and ideas whizzing around in my brain, but what I really have to do soon is get all this down on paper.
Turning an idea into something has rarely been taught to me by others, i've always just done it and learnt from experience, whether it was for music or for a Multimedia project at Uni. Today however, i've been reading some great advice and guidelines to confidently taking those ideas and turning them into reality.

Phil Willis, 5 steps on his blog, which aim to have you ready to move forward with a project.

1. Flesh out your idea
2. Find feedback
3. Finish it
4. File it
5. Forget about it

Another article which coincides with the same topic is on Derek Sivers' blog. He explains how ideas are just a multiplier of execution:

AWFUL IDEA = -1
WEAK IDEA = 1
SO-SO IDEA = 5
GOOD IDEA = 10
GREAT IDEA = 15
BRILLIANT IDEA = 20

NO EXECUTION = $1
WEAK EXECUTION = $1000
SO-SO EXECUTION = $10,000
GOOD EXECUTION = $100,000
GREAT EXECUTION = $1,000,000
BRILLIANT EXECUTION = $10,000,000

To make a business, you need to multiply the two.
The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20.
The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000.

Finally, Nick Campbell posted some great advice on his blog about how he gets a project done under the deadline time constraints that worry us all.

So hopefully you could find this information as useful as I do. It has prompted me to flesh out my ideas soon and i'll post them up on here at a later date for feedback.

Shutter Cal

I've just joined Shutter Cal from reading Rob's own experience with it so far. I think what finally got me to sign up for this though was today when I read that another blogger, posted one image everyday for three years! I can compare that with my facebook account, because i started it in my first year at uni, so it really documents my uni life for three years quite well. But i'm not using it that much anymore, so that made me think what I could do with taking a photo a day. One thing for sure is that my attention to seeing things will be more focused.

The process of updating photos is a long way off from being convenient. At the moment I have to upload my photos to dropbox (so that they're on my computer) and then upload them to the calender. iPhone users have the upper hand with an app, so i'd like to see an Android app! But as soon as they make the update I can see this catching on.

Behind The Scenes: IMDb

It's a bit short, but could be the first of more. Quite an interesting look into the operations at IMDb HQ.

Rubika

Ludovic Habas is onto something really great here! I can't wait to see the whole film.

The Making Of: Bad Taste

This is off topic (apart from the mention of stop motion), but it's awesome!







And if you haven't seen the film, check it out here...

Hoodwinked

This doesn't look too bad. Although, I really don't like the chipmunk voice of the squirrel character!



And here is the trailer from the first film. Massive difference! Squirrel character has a way better voice and movement. More like scrat from Ice Age.





The animation reminds me of Terkel In Trouble! Although a little less sinister :D

Interview: Jason Ryan

Thank you to Animators Resource for this!

Jabberwocky

Here is a fantastic reading of Jabberwocky by Christopher Lee, who was the voice of Jabberwocky in Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Via Brian Sibley

Everything Is A Remix

Kirby Ferguson has been hard at work putting together this great series on how we use and reuse each others art, in this case music.

Anatomy Lecture with Robert Beverley Hale

Robert Beverly Hale is recognized as one of Americas greatest teacher of figure drawing and artistic anatomy. His legendary classes at the Art Students League in New York, where he taught for forty years, inspired generations of artists. Now Contrapposto is proud to present the first video in a series of 10 rare recordings of his famous Art Anatomy course. We have edited, digitally restored, and remastered these videos and although they are old, poorly shot, and reflect a late point in Mr. Hale's career they still capture his magnetic charm and unsurpassed knowledge of the subjects of drawing and artistic anatomy.

- Contrapposto Studios















For his books try:
Artistic Anatomy
and
Artistic Lessons from the Great Masters

Mind Heist Visualiser

This is a really cool bit of visual-complementing-audio work by the people at Band Camp.

First you have to move your cursor into the blue box and change the setting from Equaliser to Flowers (it is definitely the best one). Then, you simply play the track from Inception called Mind Heist by Zack Hemsey and enjoy!

LINK!

Via Speaking Of Animation

Another Thing They Don't Teach You...

When I graduated from University, I had no idea what the real world of work was going to be like. If there is one thing I would criticise, it is the lack of information for the students about the reality of business in the UK (it doesn't paint a pretty picture); that most of us will at some point be self-employed/freelancing if we want to stay in the chosen industry (on my course this covered CG, Web and A/V). Fortunately, it hasn't taken me too long (approximately 4 months) to land a cushty job as an Animator in a very nice studio in the West Midlands. And there have been quite a few things to learn-on-the-job, one of which has been brought up over on the Muddy Colors blog; INVOICING.

The invoice is very important to any self employed person and this post takes the various sections of the invoice and breaks them down to describe what they actually mean to us.

When Your Art Is Used Without Permission...

It's a question I rarely think about these days, but i'm sure it will be more important to address from now on as I begin to create more of my own work that will inevitably end up online.

But in the case of Dan dos Santos, a writer on the collective blog of Muddy Colors, he describes the legal journey he took, when he found out that a Bollywood film (produced by Sony) had used his work without his consent.

Definitely a good read and finishes with a way of registering your own art for copyright (USA only). Find the UK equivalent HERE.

Read the post HERE and be sure to read the comments too!

Raving Rabbids Travel In Time

For Christmas 2010, my girlfriend and I bought my friend Raving Rabbids for the Wii. We played it literally straight after he opened it and i'm now a fan of the game! So I was more than happy to see a short film of those raving rabbids created by French studio AKAMA. This short has been awarded Best Advertisement at Imagina 2011.



Here are a few more to watch...

Nosy Bear

Here's another great short film created by Frank Ruse titled; Nosy Bear. It is followed by a short making of. Very inspiring, thanks Frank!

Anatomy of a Linocut

Bit unrelated to animation here, but I have to say this is really cool to see. Bill Fick shows us his process to linocut printing; a painstaking and precise way of printing art. I would love to have one of these!

Superman Classic

There are a lot of great short animation films being created at the moment and it's great to see the flood of creativity. They are so inspiring to me. Here is without exception another great one by Robb Pratt. Thanks for doing the making of at the end Rob!

VFX Education To Be Overhauled

There's quite an interesting article on televisual.com about VFX education in the UK. Read it HERE

Image from escapestudios

You May Now

Here's a really fun short animation film about the wonders of stereoscopic 3D in cinemas, created by Dan Keeble and Dane Winn. Apparently it only took a few days to make!

Mr. Hublot

I think Mr. Hublot is one to keep an eye on. Animation (and lighting!!) looks really good. This is their animation test as it's still well in the production pipeline.



Being made by Zeilt Productions

The Indescribable Nth

A love story of a boy born with his heart inside of a snow globe. This award winning 1999 independent short was produced at Character Builders Studio in Ohio.

Monstrous Wildlife - Graboids

If you've seen Tremors, you're going to like this one! An educational animation film about those dangerous creatures of the earth; Graboids, otherwise known as the Landshark. I hope more like these are made...

Sita Sings The Blues

Written, directed, produced and animated entirely by Nina Paley.

Sita is a goddess separated from her beloved Lord and husband Rama. Nina is an animator whose husband moves to India, then dumps her by email. Three hilarious shadow puppets narrate both ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the Indian epic Ramayana. Set to the 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, Sita Sings the Blues earns its tagline as "the Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told."

Full 1080p HD and other file types can be found HERE

The story also goes that Nina released this film for free, because some giant company have the copyrights to the entire music of Annette Hanshaw (which could be a reason for her music being unknown, i.e. red tape) and demanded that Nina pay them for the music use if she were to be making money with it. Nina wanted to make new art by responding to someone else's art (that was recorded over 80 years ago!) but legally she couldn't afford to. If the money was going to Annette's family or children it would be different, but it's just going into the bank of a corporation that won't even notice it. Nina says:

"Well, there's a good answer to that. The corporations that hold these copyrights are media companies that also control most of the new media that comes out. Estimates vary, but it's said that 98 percent of all culture is unavailable right now because of copyrights. So the reason they hold the copyrights isn't because they want to get paid, it's because they don't want all the old stuff competing with the media stream that they control now. ... I don't think any of this is conscious, or that it's a conspiracy theory. All these rules were developed before we had the internet. The times are just changing so fast, business law isn't coping very well."

Nina quote via Alonso

Image from sepiamutiny.com

Movie Magic Episode 9 - Computer Animation