Five frames by Michael Carr

Head over to the whiskeypail-test blog and read through the workflow post (and his other posts as well). I'm all for a structured workflow and his approach sounds good.

Of course each shot will ask for workflow adjustments, but through my years of finishing shots or picking up shots by other people I definitely appreciate a "clean" scene. When you're done with your shot and you got a second, make sure to clean up your shot file in case someone else has to pick up your shot at a later date for whatever reason. You will make many people happy. :)

Animation Mentor Newsletter - May 2011

This month we get:

-Tackling Thor: Animation Mentor graduates work on Digital Domain’s feature film, Thor
-Animals & Creatures: Online campus tour
-Animation Mentor descends on FMX in Germany!
-Annecy International Animation Film Festival
-Mariya Kalachova Showcase Testimonial
-Tips & Tricks with Tom Gibbons

The fantastic flying books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

I've received a lot of information regarding this and the short is looking very interesting. If you head over to morrislessmore.com you can check out all the info about it. Watch the trailer:



You can also watch a studio tour and making-ofs via pictures and clips (cool to see that they used real models) and they also have an iPad app ready. You'll have to pay to watch the short on iTunes or you can go to Starbucks and use their Wifi to watch the movie for free.

Student Showcase Animation Testimonial - Thomas Grummt

Check out Thomas' blog here!

Loom by Polynoid

Just wow. Loved it! - found via Carlos Baena

Loom from Polynoid on Vimeo.

Mario Aquaro showreel 2011

Nice work! Love the sticky lips. :)

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Reveal Trailer

Crazy action! Go Jorge!

Lounge - by Jim Brown

The awesome Jim Brown has a great clip up called Lounge. Check out his blog for his weekly clips!

Animation Quality vs Quantity – by Jason Schleifer

There is a great breakdown of how to approach a shot on Jason Schleifer's blog and really worth a read. He broke it down into multiple posts:

Animation Quality vs. Quantity – the great debate!

Animation Quality vs Quantity – learning to focus.

Animation Quality vs. Quantity – What about Quality?!

Animation Quality vs Quantity – Intent

Animation Quality Vs Quantity – Finding the Intent

(keep checking his site for updates!)

Spring 2011 Spungella Animation Workshops are done!

Wow! And another batch of workshops is done! Both on-site workshops wrapped this week and so is the majority of the online animators.

As always, and it never ceases to amaze me, you guys have been incredibly talented, fun and patient! This Spring session must have been the one that made me laugh the most. :)

I wish all of you only the best and good luck!

Thanks for another awesome workshop!

Cheers
JD

The Prodigies - French Trailer

It's like Heroes meets The Matrix, but could be cool! Thanks Le Roy for the tip!

"As it ramps up, Pixar's under pressure"

Hypercritial has discussion about three major companies:

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin turn a critical eye towards last week’s episode on criticism, then try to pick the single biggest challenge facing three different wildly successful companies: Google, Facebook, and yes…Pixar.

It's an interesting perspective and worth a listen.

But this article in Variety, "As it ramps up, Pixar's under pressure", was a bit surprising and unfortunately familiar. (you need to register, or as the page loads, do a quick copy/paste. :) ).

Pixar's Bill Polson outlines the strategy and worries of releasing more and more movies.

On the production side, Pixar updates its software for each new movie. That means that as many as six distinct software pipelines are working at the same time. It's a huge strain on the technical staff. It also complicates things as basic as dailies. Some versions of the software require specific hardware, and not every screening room can have every hardware setup, so some screening rooms for dailies can't be used by some toons in mid-production.

...

In short, Pixar is starting to look and feel a lot more like a traditional movie studio, with crews and productions working independently...

This sounds a bit like the structure of an FX house and the aspect of multiple independent pipelines is not exactly something that's worth celebrating There are some positive aspects about it for sure, but boy does it come with headaches as well... Why is there a need to release more and more movies? Is it because Dreamworks is doing it? Is it just the pressure of the current movie landscape? What about over-saturating the market?

Frame a Frame: Alfonso Rodríguez. Director of Pocoyo

Christian let me know that they did their first video-podcast with Alfonso Rodriguez, the director of Pocoyo, an awesome tv show you need to check out if you haven't, the style is great!
And don't forget to check out their blog, arteyanimacion.es!

The Animation Collaborative

Head over to Facebook for the Animation Collaborative for an awesome group of animators from Pixar who offer animation workshops! Don't miss it!

Cars 2: Lego Trailer

That's impressive!

Academy Announces Winners for 2011 Student Academy Awards

The plot thickens!!!! Congratulations to the Dragon Boy crew! If the nomination wasn't enough, now they are among the top three! Will they win the gold placement??

"I just want to tell you ... good luck. We're all counting on you ..."

Rough Animation Test for Mayor Shelbourne by Chris Williams

- found via Jorge Ruiz' Twitter

Tango for Jansjo by Carlo Vogele

- found via Lee Unkrich's Twitter

Podcast: Jason Schleifer

Awesome podcast with Jason Schleifer. The 11min+ mark CRACKED me up! Head over to Speaking of Animation to have a listen!

"Rain Town" by Hiroyasu Inshida

Great tone, love this one. Found at Academy of Art Animation Notes.

Pub Dog

The head smack cracked me up, reminded me of a Peter Sellers scene. :)
Found @ onanimation

"Pirate" behind-the-scenes

Another great find at onanimation. Head over there and follow the link to the behind-the-scenes of "Pirate".

Game Set Match

Great short by Joseph McCauley, found at onanimation.

Kung Fu Panda 2 clips

There's a great collection of clips at Yahoo! Can't wait to see the movie!

Cameron Fielding Demo Reel 2011

Watch the awesome reel here.

Secret Life Inside Dreamworks Animation

Very cool! Watch it here.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Screen your animation at the Barbican

This sounds interesting, passing along:

IdeasTap, the online arts and funding organisation, are working with the Barbican Centre to offer six talented young animators the chance to get their short films screened at Watch Me Move: The Animation Show, a major new exhibition.

Watch Me Move kicks off at the Barbican Art Gallery, London, on 15 June and celebrates animation and its impact on culture over the past 150 years. Featured artists will include Étienne-Jules Marey, Harry Smith and Jan Švankmajer, as well as the output of major studios such as Walt Disney and Pixar.


IdeasTap are offering six animators aged between 16-25 the chance to screen their work as part of the festival. Films must be approximately five minutes in length, and PG- or 12-rated films will have the best chance of making it to the big screen.


If that wasn’t enough, the six shortlisted films will also be screened on Wallpaper.com where their readers will vote to pick an overall winner who will then be profiled on their website.

For full details of the competition and to enter, please visit: http://bit.ly/g6NHcp

Facial Animation and Default Poses

the woman and the guy behind Tribble are default-y as well. :)

This is something I mentioned just recently in the workshop:

When there is silence or a pause between sentences (or whatever the audio is) for your character, you don't have to put the facial features back to their default position. It's okay to keep the mouth open, it doesn't have to close every time the character is not saying anything.

And if you want a real life reference clip for the weirdness of going back to default, check out the clip on Gizmodo of Al Franken questioning Guy L. "Bud" Tribble (that guy must be a Star Trek fan!). Watch how Mr. Tribble drifts into a weird default face at 2:28, which is at the very, but for the full effect, start it at 1:21. :)

Alex Orrelle Animation Reel

Alex Orrelle was my teacher at the AAU's Pixar 3 class almost 8 year ago, along with Jimmy Hayward. That class was really cool.



found via Jorge's Twitter

New Kung Fu Panda 2 clip

Watch it at movies.yahoo.com

What's a good screen capturing tool?

Camtasia seems to be used a lot, but I wanted to ask you guys out there what you would recommend for recording what you're doing in Maya (PC).

8 Sessions available for Summer Workshops!

Hey all,

there have been a lot of requests for 8 sessions in Summer (once a week) instead of 16 (twice a week).

So from now on you have the option to do once or twice a week, both for online and on-site workshops.

As a reminder for the online workshops, each session guarantees a designated feedback day. Any additional feedback requests outside of the designated days can not always get addressed immediately due to time constraints (like the on-site workshops, job, etc.). So if you're super busy and need a lot of feedback, 16 sessions are still an option.

And of course, half the sessions means half the price! :)

8 sessions (8 weeks) on-site: $400
8 sessions (8 weeks) online: $250

Cheers
JD

- pic source

2D Alice In Wonderland reference footage - Unbirthday Mad Tea Party

Pixar’s New Short ‘La Luna’

Cute character design!

Read more about the story at slashfilm.

New Kung Fu Panda 2 clip

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Congratulations to the Dragonboy team for the Student Oscar nomination!!

Very proud of the team for their Student Oscar nomination! You guys did a fantastic job! If you haven't seen it, go check it out at dragonboythemovie.com!