Papa Joe...

Joe....

Unfortunately I'm not getting as much time as I'd like to draw for myself nowadays. I've been so busy!

Taking up a huge chunk of my time is the story reel for my upcoming film, Unicycle Joe, who I'm working on with Philip Rodrigues.

Here's some mad quick sketches that I threw together today. We have quite a bit a ways to go on the design and art direction front, but I'm happy to say that we have a rough reel fully thrown together and its just a matter of pulling things around and making things work better now (and cleaning up the boards, and throwing in scratch tracks, and finding music - it never ends!).







I hope I'll soon be able to dedicate more of my time to designing the short. We'll see!

Today's haul...

Alberto Ruiz, Joe Weatherly, David Colman at the Labyrinth...

If any of you readers are in the GTA area on the 25th of August, make sure to check out the art show at the Labyrinth book store featuring the very talented lineup of Alberto Ruiz, Joe Weatherly, and David Colman.

Check here to find out more.

Que WOW!

As it turns out, the Teletoon finalists are in.

There are four Sheridan films in the running for Continuing Education! Jeremy Canton's "Picture Day", Halya Mychaskiw's "Monster Backpack", Guillaume Chartier's "Monster Drawing", and James Higuchi's "Babushki".

Also up for Most Promising student.. 6 Sheridan films!

Trevor Jimenez's "Key Lime Pie", Nick Thornborrow's "A Foolish Bet", Johannes Uy's "Mr Elephant Goes to Work", Louis Norris' "Sandbox", Jessie Ilham's "Lemonaid Stand", and Brandon Scott's "Cruel Fauna."

Congrats to all of you!

[Update] You can see all of these films online as well - because there's a voter's choice section! Vote for your favorite!

Are you going....

I'm going to San Francisco for the weekend, and won't be back until Monday - that very likely means that the blog goes silent until then.

Have a good weekend all!

Starring You!

One of the first things I worked on here at JibJab is Starring You! A flash app where you can take a photo of anyone, cut out their head, and apply it to hilarious madness. Straight out the door JibJab has 5 dances for you to choose from to exact your revenge on unsuspecting mugs. They are: Chiquita, Disco, Charleston, Hula, and Cucaracha. Check them out here.

The JibJab Bloggedy Blog has been hinting at this for a little bit of time, now, complete with hilarious shots of workers and various dancers in the somewhat funny, sometimes disturbing getup featured in the dances.

JibJab gives you the chance to post your created video (with free registration) to a plethora of social networks it works with MySpace, Facebook, iGoogle, Blogger, Windows Live, Email, and many more (including straight-up vanilla embed code for those who prefer just that). And it's all free!



Starring You! works by first uploading an image in any common image file format (jpeg, gif, png) - it then bounces you to a window where you can cut your head out, and save it for later use (in multiple videos, for instance). You can also make your head 'public' and share it with all the other JibJab users. A quick hint for Photoshop users - if you are photoshop savvy and prefer cutting out your head in photoshop, cut it out and make sure the background is transparent, then save it off as a png-24. Move the dots in the Starring You! Head cut tool outside of the head (anywhere), and since the app supports alpha, the head will look like it has a perfect cut. The app is still in beta but works quite well already!

Here's a quick video I threw together using the app:



Check it out! If you like it (and even if you don't), let JibJab know!

Elizabeth...

Break Time...

Monsters Vs. Aliens...

Last news post of the day, promise...

Found this awesome hi-res photo of concept art from Dreamworks' upcoming "Monsters Vs. Aliens":



It's labelled "Insectosaurus"

We shall see...

What's Next From Sony?

After Surf's Up, I was curious as to what Sony Pictures Animation was cooking up. According to this slideshow and WikiPedia, Sony is working on "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," based on a book by Judi and Ron Barrett. Apparently it's the most stylized 3D you've ever seen.

Also, there's "Hotel Transylvania"

Both seem to be due in around 2009.

Gobelins....

I've been doing some small-time sleuthing to find out a little bit more about Gobelins, the cool school of animation amongst us all.

For those not familiar with the amazing work from Gobelins, check out The Animation Gallery.

First of, for those interested, it is apparently possible for professionals and/or graduates of animation programs to apply directly for the third year of animation at Gobelins (Check out this Google Cached page) after applying with a specific portfolio.

This page also gives a little bit more info about the school, claiming that "early 90% of the teaching is done by working professionals taking time out from their busy schedules in the studios and production companies."

Also notable, it says that "the third year program is devoted to classes and exercises to perfect 3D character animation skills (September through November) and to the making of a short film in teams (December through June)." Interestingly, the course seems to be set up in workshops, where they have sequential 3 to 30 day workshops working on one specific task.

For those interested, Gobelins also runs an international summer school, for two weeks in length, in July. Read more about it on this Google cached page.

Lastly I dug up this old Variety article featuring Gobelins.

Another....

Took a short break from my film...

A doodle...

Sketchclub...

Went sketching today at lunch with the fabulously talented guys and gals of Sketchclub - Noelle Triareau, Armand Serrano, and Marcelo Vignali

A few quick headshots I threw together



My version of this week's 'mark' (to be drawn from memory)



Check out the Sketchclub blog here.

OIAF 07

The Official selections have just been announced for the OIAF 07 (Ottawa International Animation Festival)



Notably, they are playing the features Persepolis and Aachi and Ssipak.

Also, the NFB's 'Madame Tutli-Putli', Chris Walsh's 'The Magic Protector', Casper Konefal's 'Kat Fight', Trevor Jimenez's 'Key Lime Pie', Gobelin's 'Cocotte Minute', and JibJab's 'Nucking Futs' are all playing at shorts this year.

Check out the whole list here

Should be a good year.

Today in featured videos...

A Gentleman's Duel by Blur Studios.

Also, if you didn't already, check out Pixar's Lifted.

Samurai Jack and Will Wray...

Check out these amazing paintings by Will Wray for Samurai Jack.

Life...

Thank goodness for life drawing.. keeps me sane.

Nothing too exciting in this bunch, unfortunately....

Wall-E at SDCC

First off, I should probably reference this article for you guys again in case you haven't read up on Wall-E's plot.

Secondly, check out Buy N Large, a tie-in site about the company who makes the wall-e robots.

I got the chance to see the presentation at the SDCC today on Wall-E. It featured Ben Burtt and Andrew Stanton. No pictures were allowed (sorry guys!)

Basically, the presentation started off with a revised pixar intro, where luxo enters and does everything like normal, but Luxo's lamp breaks when stomping on the I. Wall-e comes in midway through, replaces the lightbulb, and tries to roll of screen, but knocks over the r in the logo, so he stops and tries to hide (and when he hides he turns into just a plain box) and sticks his arms out to form the r, and it fades out...

Andrew Stanton then went headlong into the story of Wall-E. He states that the main idea brought out of the lunch featured in the original teaser was just a seed, which was "what if humans left earth and forgot to turn the last robot off?"

Stanton went on to say that the idea stuck with him and caused him to procrastinate when he was still working on Nemo.

He went on to give out the same basic plot details from the first link (nothing really new here).

Ben Burtt (the legendary sound designer) then went on to talk about how there is no dialogue in the film in a normal sense,showing a great featurette using pastels and digital paintings and sound to evoke the moods that would be felt while watching Wall-E.

Then, using a piano, went on to demonstrate the range of sounds that Wall-E and his wanted companion, EVE, could make. With these same range of sounds they displayed Wall E and Eve both in their own animation scene (unrendered, but very well animated).

To contrast Wall E, who is essentially a cube with binoculars and treads (which can fold up into his body so he's then essentially a cube), EVE is based on circles and ovals - EVE's head is a floating sphere and its body is an upside-down teardrop. Wall-E is rustic and worker class, EVE is sleek, white, and smooth. Stanton said that Wall-E's design was inspired by Luxo, but he didn't feel Luxo's design could hold an audience, so he wanted to play around with eyes, and during a baseball game, saw some binoculars and made it into Wall-e.



Next up was an around-10-minute clip of Wall-E, which was fully rendered. It opened with a downshot of Wall-E on top of a vehicle, sleeping. Some lights come on and the Apple Power On chime sounds as Wall-E wakes up (a funny Mac nerd reference) and starts off towards the heaps and heaps of junk. Wall-E and his vehicle are on top of a broken up freeway near a city, and there is atmosphere and gas everywhere.

Wall-e departs off of his vehicle and we see he is followed around by a cock roach. Wall-e enters the vehicle for a moment and, upon leaving, accidently squishes the roach. It jumps up and cries in surprise, then leans down to see whether or not he killed what is clearly his friend. After a pause, it springs back up, and Wall-e scolds the bug, pointing at it to keep out of his way.



Wall-e then starts his rounds, compacting most junk into squares. But he doesn't do this for everything - he searches the garbage trying to find any trace of anything unusual or interesting. He picks up a ping pong paddle with a string and plays with it (accidently hitting himself in the head repeatedly with it), finds a wedding ring case and throws away the diamond ring, finding the case much more interesting. Everything else, he compacts into a square and piles it neatly in a pile. When lifting through one bunch, he notices a small plant, and crouches down to take a look..

He uproots the plant and places it into a jar very carefully. But as he's doing this, he notices a small red dot that appears on the ground (like a laser pointer dot). The dot dances around and Wall-e follows in pursuit. We see, though, unawares to Wall-E, that the one dot is being trailed by a huge circle of similar dots to the one he's chasing. Then, a space ship comes down right on top of him, shooting its rockets down into the ground. The world is melting around him and Wall-E frantically digs down into the ground to get away from the heat.

We then see a closeup of the molten rocks left behind. After a pause, we see Wall-E poke his hands through the surface, and his head pops up. He looks around, and we see the spaceship unfolding, as it drops down EVE, who is asleep and unmoving. Wall-E rolls up to it, pokes it, and it wakes up, causing him to jump and hide. We then see EVE turn on, and that's the end...

Sorry I couldn't get any pictures. Hope you enjoyed reading that!

[Update] Forgot a few details:

They also introduced a character named Auto who is the auto pilot of the space liner.

Eve is a probe droid that is held together by magnetic fields. She also features a few special functions and and smaller weapons for self-protection purposes.

Then there's the ship captain, a tentacle eyeball-ed character that has a very deep voice, and sounds makes lots of bell and whistles. The captain has lots of prehensile finger digits that orbit around its eye.

Lastly, there was M-O, who is an obliterator droid that rolls around on a track ball. He constantly says "unsanitary" and waves around a vacuum roller.

Also notable is that Wall-E has a laser- between his eyes- that he uses to seperate trash.

It's interesting to see how the characters are being differentiated by their sounds.

Thanks to ComingSoon.net for reminding me of this.

Check out Aint-it-cool for an alternate description of this as well.

Also updated the pixar intro to better reflect what happened.

[Update 2]

I found some pictures of the concept art that was shown online. There's only three but here they are anyways.







[Another Update] Check out the Audio from the Q&A session at the panel.