Pick my brain…with a Moustache
Posted on January 27, 2012
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment
Pick my brain with a Moustache
Ever wanted to participate to a one hour one-to-one Q&A with an expert in a field related to animation?
There will be a free beta test for the first 5 people who sign up next week after the official announcement.
And if You are an expert in Character design, Modeling, Rigging, Animation… make yourself known! olivier.ladeuix@gmail.com. Use “I am an expert” in the subject line and provide me with a link to your showreel video or portolio
“Yummy” – short film
Posted on January 18, 2012
Filed Under Animation, Friends | Leave a Comment
After many years, my friend Maciek finally finished his short film “Yummy”.
Maciek and I started Animation Mentor together in Cassidy Curtis’ first class and after some struggles and set back, he eventually fulfilled his dream to became an animator in Feature Animation. I just hope he gets interviewed one day so he can explain how tenacious one needs to be to succeed. Ah and he could probably talk about his current workflow compared to when he started ;-)
He recently revamped his blog, check it out http://www.maciekgliwa.com/
Related posts:
Daphne’s new broom
102 Q&A
A day in the production of La Luna
Posted on January 17, 2012
Filed Under Animation, Education | Leave a Comment
Pixar’s story artist Enrico Cassarosa wrote a nice series of article where we follow him for a day, during the production of his short film “La Luna”.
One thing that surprised me was to see Mudbox being used at Pixar. I thought they were still using that stylus and digital arm we have seen in the past but it looks like they have now fully embraced digital modeling and chosen a tool that doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. No Zbrush nonsense here. I wonder if they also use 3d coat or Topogun.
The series of articles starts from the following post and you can access the next ones by clicking on the link above the posts to the right, “9am off to work” being next.
A day in the production of La Luna
While we are at it, you can also have a look at that nice 30 minutes interview with Enrico
Related post:
Enrico Cassarosa
Food for thoughts
Posted on January 16, 2012
Filed Under Animation, Education | 5 Comments
Doing some research for my shortfilm, I went through the first twenty of the 49 Wile E Coyote and Road Runner short films and it saddens me to say….. I didn’t break one laugh.
The worst is that those were all directed by animation legend Chuck Jones, a man that is wildly accepted as one of the funniest men in the animation industry.
Despite the great Carl Stalling soundtrack, gorgeous stylized Maurice Noble backgrounds, the crazy animation, brush work and comedic timing, nothing helped. I might have smiled few times to how Chuck Jones played with our expectation on the final gag but I didn’t find anything worthy of a laugh.
The Wile E. Coyote series came out at the end of the 1950s and was probably really funny at that time but I feel that the humor didn’t age well.
Would this be due to the fact that, he … invented it all? So many variations have been seen for the past 50 years that maybe we have now become desensitized to the original material?
If you want to do the same test you are in luck, Youtube user CoyoteAndRoadRunner uploaded pretty much all the shortfilms, by chronological order, to his channel .
While watching the shorts, one thing struck me…. For some reasons, Youtube kept suggesting the viewing of a series of candid/hidden camera gags and I eventually did.
Man, I didn’t expect what would follow.
After only watching one video, I was in stitches.
“Just for Laughs Gags” is an hilarious Canadian secret camera show using all the comedic elements of cartoony pantomime. The gags are beautifully set up, staged and acted by a cast of very likable characters. Even with the inevitable “background laughs” muted, it is impossible to resist laughing hysterically.
For comparison, here is a selection of Chuck Jones directed “Wile E. Coyote” short films followed by “Just for laughs gags”. See what you respond the most to. Maybe you will differ from me but if not, we need to rethink what constitutes comedy in animation.
Coyote and RoadRunner – Gee Whiz-z-z-z (05.05.1956)
Coyote and RoadRunner – Chariots of Fur (21.12.1994)
Infinite Ice Cream
Honking At Hookers
Worker Stuck In Ceiling
Mall metal detector
Stretcher In Water Prank
Related posts:
Reel FX Looney Tunes shorts online
Josh Carey VFS rigging submission
Electroshock – ESMA 2011
Posted on January 5, 2012
Filed Under Animation | 7 Comments
Look at what we got today! Elliot Maren just sent me a link to that great short film he made with four others ESMA students. Electroshock is a very good looking 8 minutes shortfilm done at French animation school ESMA and YES! it is not a FREAKING CHASE!!!! It is good to see that students still care about storytelling and acting.
The shortfilm is probably inspired by “Cloudy with a chance of meatballs” and it really matches the visual quality of Sony’s movie. I especially love the colours they put in the shadows and how they handled the SSS.
I have featured several short films from that school already and it is good to see that Gobelins and Supinfocom have a really strong competition.
The pool of talents in France is increasing dramatically, I just hope that one day the demand could match the offer. Investors, are you hearing me??? ;-)
Great job guys!
There is no making of or blog but hopefully they will put more infos on the Facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/Electroshockmovie
[update] We don’t have a website/blog or Making of but see what I just found!
Related posts:
ESMA
ESMA Mythologique shortfilm is out
Premiere CS 5.5 uncompressed output … not
Posted on January 3, 2012
Filed Under Animation | 7 Comments
I have been using Adobe Premiere since version 4.2 and as I bought a new fancy 64 bits laptop, I decided to upgrade from Premiere CS2 to CS 5.5 but it is driving me crazy.
As you can see above (click on the picture to see it full screen), Premiere 5.5 doesn’t seem to be willing to export a video to an .avi file with no compression to it. I have tried every possible option, did a fair amount of research on Google and Youtube but I can’t find any help on why Premiere is making my footage blurry when I am asking for a straight uncompressed video file as seen on the timeline.
Has anyone gone through the same thing? If I have to spend one more day on this I will have to revert to Premiere Pro CS2. Ah and the Uncompressed AVI option they have now is just a disaster waiting to happen, what were they thinking? How many people got fooled into thinking it was actually an …. uncompressed AVI option! ;-) I wonder if software makers ever have users test their softwares nowadays or is it the result of the current recession?
Ianimate 2011 showreel
Posted on December 24, 2011
Filed Under Animation, Education | 1 Comment
I know I am very late with this but hey, I was really busy for the past few month you know and I still haven’t posted any pictures from CTN 2011! ;-)
Ianimate just released their first showreel. Some really nice work is being done there but what else would you expect from a school taught exclusively by Dreamworks animators! If I had to restart my animation schooling I wouldn’t know where to go between all the great schools available those days!
Big up to my AM fellow graduates Joost, Dave and Roberto for making it into the showreel. I recognized a lot of other familiar names!
Snowman walk
Posted on December 17, 2011
Filed Under Animation, Drawings | 9 Comments
Several persons wanted to see this guy animated so here it is. Believe it or not this was animated in Maya. I placed the walk cycle on a nurbs plane and animated the UV :-) I have been told I could have just used Photoshop. I will give it a try next time or maybe use Plastic Animation Paper since it is free.
and while I am at it, here is a little teaser I made with my new camera using some footage I shot during my last Animation Collaborative character design class with Albert Lozano and Chris Sasaki.
Animschool Tom Bancroft interview
Posted on December 16, 2011
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment
Hurry up, Animschool just posted an special interview with Disney veteran Tom Bancroft. The interview will only be available to the public for few more days so make sure you don’t miss that exceptional interview.
I have only seen the beginning so far but Tom animated one of my favourite characters on Mulan, the crazy talking dragon Mushu. People too often forget that there is no one Disney animation style, it all depends on the story and the character of the character. Mushu is a great example of the exaggerated Disney animation style.
Related posts:
Animschool Free Malcolm rig
Jeff Gabor webcast recording
Dr. Seuss’ Lorax trailer 2
Posted on December 7, 2011
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment
Ahah! Just when you thought you had seen enough trailers for Lorax, a new one pops out! Trailer 2, technically speaking is actually the third one but I am guessing they finally considered the first one a screw up since it was a bit confusing regarding who those male characters were.
Trailer 2 is not giving away a lot more and making things a lot clearer. The trees we thought were populating the streets of Thneedville are actually made of plastic!! Makes sense!
Related post:
Dr Seuss “Lorax” trailer 1 is out
First Wacom Inkling review
Posted on December 6, 2011
Filed Under Animation | 2 Comments
My buddy Ross Burt also wrote a review on his blog
http://rossburt.blogspot.com/2011/12/wacom-inkling-review.html
Aardman’s “Pirates” behind the scenes
Posted on December 5, 2011
Filed Under Animation, Character design | Leave a Comment
I think we need to thank Sony for backing up Aardman on their next stop motion feature and allowing them to come up with such a great looking movie! The environment, the props, the character design, THE BOAT!!! Man this must have cost a fortune!!! I hope the quirky British humour gets a good response from the broader audience and not only animation fans. “Napoleon Blownapart” ;-)
Pirates movies, who doesn’t like them anyway??
Related post:
Aardman “The Pirates” trailers
“This is what you need” v541
Posted on November 28, 2011
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment
This is where I am as of tonight, I refined some areas, constraints and other fun business are still untouched for now. Four days left before the next crit. I just added a background for some people so they can understand the story a bit better, hopefully ;-)
Eye darts – video reference
Posted on November 27, 2011
Filed Under Acting, Animation, Education | Leave a Comment
I was watching a documentary on the Sherman brothers and found that really good eye dart video reference with two actors only few inches away from each others. It is striking how much the actress’s eyes move around when she is looking successively at the left and right eyes then at the mouth. Also pay attention to the timing of the darts, it is between one and two frames and the eye lid seems to be delayed by one frame at time.
Related posts:
Kids take – video reference
Take – video reference
“This is what you need” v.460
Posted on November 25, 2011
Filed Under Animation, Education | Leave a Comment
After Aaron Hartline ripped my shot last week I wasn’t too sure what to think anymore. It is very refreshing to hear someone showing you a very different perspective on your shot but it can also be a traumatizing experience if it is summed up by “you have some nice motion here but the story makes no sense“. Aaron suggested that I would change the story entirely as Palapatine “doesn’t have that voice” and Anakin “is blond and not a delivery boy“.
I guess it is like contemporary art, some people are more receptive than others. Some people prefer Picasso’s more figurative paintings when others prefer his cubist period. Some people prefer Jim Carrey’s humour to Larry David’s, I guess it is a question of taste.
Victor Navone didn’t have a problem with it so I will keep pushing and finish the shot with the original idea. Once I have the cloth simulation and the rest of the environment, it should make more sense for the wider audience.
So, here is where I am. A mess! ;-) The rig I am using (very old but really fast Bishop rig) doesn’t have FK/IK Snap or any fancy IK hands space switching so I am supposed to set up a lot of constraints and I am not to willing to go into that Victor is completely happy with the body animation. I was hoping to finish that shot WAY earlier than that but with only one review per week, changes can impact the completion of the shots in a dramatic manner and this is without counting the changes that were finally reverted to the original blocking and video reference and I have had several like this. Lesson learnt, show your video reference at every review! I am actually thinking of putting my video ref on a Nurbs plane actually. This way we can compare immediately the two instead of having to switch all the time which is not very easy with the shot review software we are using at AnimC.
Here is what I have today, it is not really at a presentable state but since I haven’t posted anything for the past 4 or 5 weeks, I felt it was necessary to finally post something. I am not going to pretend I have a feature animation workflow completely nailed, especially with that kind of rig. Also, let’s remember that this is a 17 seconds sequence with one long full body shot, two characters interacting and plenty of constraints. A lot of fun ;-)
As you will notice, I have also done a lip sync pass as it is pretty unlikely Victor will ask for dramatic changes and it makes the shot a bit more presentable. Also… I love lip sync and close ups.
I am posting a Youtube version as it was quicker than Vimeo Vimeo version posted but the sound seems to be slightly offset despite uploading a huge uncompressed version.
Related posts:
This is what you need video ref 02 and blocking
“This is what you need”, planning
“This is what you need’, gathering references
Lip sync observations
Kaeloo. Let’s play Scaredy Cat
Posted on November 21, 2011
Filed Under Animation | 2 Comments
I am currently in L.A. attending the incredible CTN Convention and it is a blast! I would recommend everyone to attend next year as it is a crazy event for people interested in Animated Features.
I got to meet and talk to so many exceptional people for the past two days. Among them was a great workshop with Corpse Bride character designer Carlos Grangel and tomorrow an other workshop with Sergio Pablos. I will probably write a full report in the next few weeks with pictures.
In the meantime, nothing to do with CTN but it is always a good time to post some French wacky animation. Check out that crazy episode from Cube creative/Blue spirit’s Kaeloo.
Related posts:
Kaeloo
Pixar “Brave” November trailer
Posted on November 16, 2011
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment
As announced few days ago, a new trailer just came out. That one is not a teaser but a proper trailer for Pixar forthcoming feature “Brave”. The movie, directed by “The Incredibles” Story supervisor and “One Man’s band” director, Mark Andrews, is set to be released June 22th 2012 in the US and around August in the UK.
It is good to finally see those character designs in motion. The three Lords have so much character, it is great! We still haven’t seen the Wise woman though, I can’t wait!
The accent is a bit strange I am finding, some of the characters seem more Irish I feel. Oh well.
If you want to see some high resolution pictures, check out my latest “Brave” post below.
Pixar “Brave” new pictures before trailer release
Related posts:
Low polygon modeling
Pixar “Brave” D23 concept art part 2
Pixar “Brave” D23 concept art part 1
“Brave” Concept art and teaser
Pixar “Brave” new pictures before trailer release
Posted on November 14, 2011
Filed Under Animation, Character design | 1 Comment
A new “Brave” trailer should be hitting the theatres and our computer screens tomorrow. In the meantime, here is a series of shots from the movie.
Hit the following links for higher resolution pictures:
via Empire online
Via Bleeding cool
On a side note, I wasn’t too far off with my modeling and the hair on Lord Macintosh is looking really fun.
Related posts:
Low polygon modeling
Pixar “Brave” D23 concept art part 2
Pixar “Brave” D23 concept art part 1
“Brave” Concept art and teaser
Aaron Hartline Chiustream
Posted on November 4, 2011
Filed Under Animation, Education | 2 Comments
I mentioned that great interview with Pixar animator Aaron Hartline a while back but loads of people seem to have missed it.
Make sure you watch it this time as it is really good.
Aaron was a Blue Sky senior animator until he finally made his dream true after years of effort and attempts despite many hurdles. A great lesson on persistence.
You might as well be interested in watching the following interview I just found:
Pencil Kings recently spoke with Art Directors, Animation Supervisors, Layout Designers, etc. from the most notable studios in the world. Pixar, Walt Disney, Sony Imageworks and Blue Sky Studios were all represented and some of their top artists provide insight and share their story on what it took to reach the top of their profession.
http://www.pencilkings.com/2011/07/17/how-to-become-a-professional-artist/
Aaron is currently a tutor at Animation Collaborative.
Related post:
CTN Animators tool of the trade
Aaron Hartline “Vlad”
Dice Tsutsumi on the Chiustream
Sketchtravel shortfilm
Posted on October 29, 2011
Filed Under Animation, Painting | 1 Comment
Dice Tsutsumi is a machine!!!! Look at the pretty cool Sketchtravel short film he created while working full time and preparing for the Sketchtravel auction event.
I was able to see some real size reproductions of the pages at Pixar few days ago and it looks great. That Miyazaki’s double spread is pretty sweet I must say…
I have been told the book is sold out in France and I am not sure when it will arrive in the US and other countries. Who was lucky and already bought one?
Here is some further discussion and infos on the Cartoon Brew blog.
Cartoon Brew Sketchtravel film
Related posts:
Sketchtravel – Frederic Back
Dice Tsutsumi on the Chiu-stream
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