Friday, June 30, 2006

Annecy, Ken Harris, and a little bit about boarding.

The Annecy film festival ended not too long ago, with the award winners comin up here for those of you who wanted to know. Sub mentioned something to me about Renaissance, the winner of the best feature film this year. Cartoon Brew posts some links to some of the available shorts:

Rabbit.

Tragic History with A Happy End.

Astronauts.

Abigail.

Also, check out this cool site dedicated to master animator Ken Harris.

And last but not least please check out Mark Kennedy's post on staging. This really hit home with me as I'm working out some boards right now and it definetly has tons of insightful tips within. Check it!

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Today's stuff







There was a massive water spot in the middle of my paper and it was really hard to avoid. I know that sounds like a lame excuse but it's true!

Canadian National Comic Book Expo

I don't know how much you guys are into comics, but the Canadian National Comic Book Expo (CN) is on Sept 1st to 3rd in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. I mention it now because I've just their impressive guest list which you can check out here. Drawing to the left by Jim Lee and co. (Alex Sinclair and Scott Williams I think).

The four names that caught my eye were Jim Lee, Humberto Ramos, Skottie Young, and Mike Mignola. Even if you guys don't like comic books these guys are innovative, and can draw like stink. Definetly recommended to go out and see! I should also probably mention that a lot of Sheridan students are likely to be selling at the artist alley so be sure to check them out too if you go.

There was no life drawing yesterday, hence no art. I'm going today so they'll be some up late tonight or early tomorrow. I'm working hard on a story pitch at the moment so there likely won't be much peripheral art goin' on but maybe a few designs for that might pop up sometime soon.

I saw this today. Ceci n'est pas un powerbook? People are crazy, haha. And so is Magritte.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

MacTech Labs Selling Used Macs

For Sheridan students/Faculty only...

The MacTech Labs are selling used macs for rock-bottom prices. They've sold out of all their laptops, but there are two desktop configurations left for whoever wants them.

iMac G4 800Mhz
768 MB Ram (1 Gig Max I think)
Geforce 2 MX 32MB
60GB Hard Drive
32X Combo Drive
15" 1024X768 Display
$391

More detailed specs here. If you want one of the iMacs you'll have to act quickly because I don't think there are a lot of them.

Also there's this (I believe they have a lot of these but I could be wrong!):

Power Mac G5 1.6Ghz
768 MB Ram (4 GB Max)
Geforce FX 5200 64MB VRAM
80GB Hard Drive
Superdrive
17" 1280 X1024 TFT Studio Display Included
$793

More specs available here.

No warranty on either, both include mouse and keyboard and Mac OS 10.4 Tiger pre-installed. These prices include tax and are final sale. They are also available only on a first-come first-served basis. Email Brian Smith if you have any more questions.

So, by the way, who knew that Jim Lee had a blog and didn't tell me? Linked permanently at right! (ok so it's not just Jim Lee, but it's still pretty cool!)

Monday, June 26, 2006

New Podcast



Hey there, the Animation Podcast has released a new show, with Burny Mattinson.

Mp3.

Mpeg-4.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

The Frog Princess to be Disney's next 2D feature?

A friend gave me a little information about the fact that John Lasseter had greenlighted a 2D feature at Disney and it was in the early stages of pre-production at this point. We both speculated that it was John Musker and Ron Clements helming the project but we didn't know anything else.

[The Laughing Place] sheds some light on this subject. It reports:

"The report is that Lasseter first offered director Glen Keane the opportunity to re-tool Rapunzel for production as a traditional hand-drawn feature, if he so desired (pay attention to this unusually supportive and respectful offer of “a choice”), but Keane, who had done so much work in advancing and adapting current CG technology to get the look he wanted for his fractured fairy tale, felt committed to its production in CG. That was fine with Lasseter. Next up was Lasseter’s offer to directing and writing team Ron Clements and John Musker, currently at work penning the screenplay for The Frog Princess. Described as a decidedly “American fairy tale”, the project is currently in the very earliest stages of development, and not yet green-lit for production, per se. Nevertheless, Lasseter was confident enough to have made mention of the project at a division wide meeting held on one of the studio’s sound stages recently, and it is confirmed that the Ron and John project was given the option of being produced in either hand drawn or CG. With a script expected from the Ron and John (and only Ron and John) sometime in the late fall of 2006, and with no artistic staff yet in place for even visual development or storyboarding, its nonetheless official - Musker and Clements have elected to produce their project in the traditional hand-drawn approach, and Lasseter is 100% behind that choice!"


Read the full article here.

I guess you Futurama fans out there will get a new fix, because Comedy Central has decided to pick up 13 new episodes of Matt Groening's other series. Check out the Reuters article.

Box Office Mojo predicts that Cars is to make 22 Million this weekend, down 33% from last weekend's earnings. The bad news? Adam Sandler's "Click" has surpassed Cars in ticket sales. The good news? Cars is now the second highest grossing animated film of the year, and fourth highest film in the year. Ice Age 2 is at 192 Million and will likely be beaten by Cars in a few weeks time so long as Superman doesn't take too much of the earnings off of it. An interesting point is that Cars took 120 million dollars to make, meaning that it's only been in the black pretty much since this weekend. Three more interesting comparisons are: Top 23 Openings for Animated Features, Top 27 Computer Animated Total Grosses, and the top grosses for a Car Racing movie. Ok, the last one isnt' so interesting but it's amusing nonetheless.

And wow, this totally made -my- morning. Amid of Cartoon Brew sent me over a link for posting the Disney Family Album episodes. I'll have the Milt Kahl episode up on Monday. Thanks Amid!

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Thief and the Cobbler: The Recobbled Cut

Garrett Gilchrist has taken the time to put together as much of the original footage as he could find to reconstruct Richard WIlliam's original Thief and the Cobbler. It's split up into 17 parts and I believe the below is a embedded playlist so one should play after the other. I believe Kaj screened this film thjis year but this is apparently a much better cut than the workprint version that was shown to us. Enjoy!

Friday, June 23, 2006

Ward Kimball Disney Family Album

This is the Disney Family Album feature on Ward Kimball. The beginning was cut off so it's only two parts at 17 minutes total.

Here's part 1 of 2:



Part 2 of 2:



Milt Kahl's the last episode that I have and will be up sometime soon.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Getting bored?







Too bad! Here's more life drawing.

Frank Thomas Disney Family Album

Hey guys! Here's the Disney Family Album's feature on Frank Thomas, at around 30 minutes, spread into three chunks. Here's part 1 of 3 for now:



Part 2 of 3:



Part 3 of 3:



Enjoy!

Make sure to check out Jenny Lerew's awesome blog for some really sweet drawings by Glen Keane. I've got a little clip featuring the Keane-ster myself that I'm going to upload after finishing these Disney Family Album things.



[Update x2] Part two and three are now up. Ward Kimball will be next I think (though the copy does not have the whole episode (17 minutes worth I believe are still intact).

Some Life...





Life drawin' for all you kids...

A 1 and a 5 minute.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Marc Davis Disney Family Album

Hey there folks!

Chuck threw me some DVDs of the old Disney Family Album episodes. I figure I'd throw them up on YouTube. I've only got the first one compressed so far - and keep in my that YouTube limits me to 10 minutes per clip so each episode will be three parts.

Anyways, the first is on Marc Davis. Here is part one of three for your viewing pleasure (Please note that the original file I uploaded was around 50 megs so please allow the time for the slider to reach the end for a better viewing experience. So press play and pause the video while the slider loads the entire thing!)



I'll try to upload the rest of them when I can. There's one on Milt Kahl, Ward Kimball, and Frank Thomas.

The Tag Blog posted this kinda interesting breakdown of the percentages of who's working where in Cali. Check it!

[Update] Here's part two of three (again, the file is pretty large so allow it time to download!):



And Part Three of Three:

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

More inspirational stuff...

[Cartoon Brew] pointed me towards John Lasseter's student film, The Lady and the Lamp. Check it!




Mark Kennedy posts some Milt Kahl drawings to his blog. Just to put us in our place.



Charlie was showing me some stuff from Filmax, and they've got some pretty wicked things goin' on! First up is the short they've been working on for some time now, Nocturna. Make sure to check out some of the stills on that page! Also, check out the trailer here.

Also check out the El Cid the Legend. Bad dubbing but some pretty nice lookin' stuff! Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Carlos Ruano (linked at right as well) is working on this in some capacity.



Make sure to stop by Arglebargle's blog. He has posted up some scans from an old Ken Hultgren book, The know-how of cartooning.



AWN has posted three pages development artwork for The Little Matchgirl, the Disney short screened at the Annecy Animation Festival this year. The drawing to the left is by Hans Bacher.

I think that's enough to take in for today! Check back later for some life drawing if I do anything good today. Kind self-conscious about having my crappy drawings two inches away from Milt Kahl's on this page though, haha....

Oh yeah, one more thing, I'm working on several story ideas and an animation right now. When I get some art together for the stories (and finish the animation) I'll post 'em up. For now it'll be mostly news and life drawing though. And maybe the occasional layout, which I wanna get back into (I'm working on one right now as we... speak? As I dictate and you read?) Anyways...

Inspiration

Two shorts (commercials I guess) for your viewing pleasure:

The first one's a Toyota commercial, the second's for MTV HD.





YouTube rocks.

Monday, June 19, 2006

Oh Man!

Andrew pointed me in the direction of one Alexander Kanevsky, painter extraordinaire.

Here are four of his paintings:









Two websites to see his stuff at:

Some Paintings
Dolby Chadwick Gallery.

Make sure also to check out this wicked in-progress slideshow.

Perma-linked at right.

Studio A.K.A, Nagi Noda, and More.



Trevor was showing me some stuff from Studio AKA today. Really nifty! A big range in styles.

Make sure to check out their spot, The Big Win.

Also check out Jojo in the Stars.

Here's a commercial for Coca Cola featuring a song by Jack White and directed by Nagi Noda. I saw this featured in the June issue of Boards magazine.





[Cartoon Brew] posts a little ditty about Hans Bacher today. The more interesting part of the post (to me) is the inclusion of this little clip, from "The Little Matchgirl", a 2D animated short from Disney submitted at the Annecy Film Festival this year. Apparently many who saw it at Annecy say that it's no good, but it's got some pretty nice character animation in it from what I can tell.

Also I found this forum for the Calarts Character Animation program. Check it!

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Yesterday's Life

Yesterday's life drawing from TSA. Don't know the model's name.

I'm using just conté nowadays - I'll switch back to NuPastel after I'm comfortable with my lines and shadow shapes again. Practicing structure and simplifying at this point in time. I think I got kinda complacent with smudging and erasing with long poses and doing the same ol' thing with short poses, so I just gotta mix it up a little. At least the drawings are turning out ok! At this point I might call them a little too graphic and the shadows a little too contrived/shape oriented. I always liked the smudging technique for it's feel of finish as well as it's adherence to atmosphere.

One 1, Two 5's and a 10.







Friday, June 16, 2006

So what's the deal with RSS?



Hey guys!

I've decided to sign up to BlogLines. It acts basically as a web-based RSS reader. I find this better than RSSReader and the likes simply because I can access my rss reader from any computer that has the internet, and every 'new post' will be something I haven't seen before because it's web-based, not computer based.

I've also shared my bloglines links to the right. Basically it'll be a web-based rss reader for you that contains all of the links that I have on my blog. You can also export the feeds and import them into your own bloglines account and possibly (I'm not entire sure on this however) export it to any other rss reader that you might be using.

Please note that I haven't added all of my links to my bloglines account yet. It'll be a few days at the very least.


Hey, cool! Cartoon Brew has posted up an article about the commercials at Chuck Gammage. Make sure to check out the Spider and the Fly by Sam. His blog is here.

Plots and Stuff



Hey there space rangers!

[Jim Hill Media] posts some 'spoilers' (more like the info you'd find on the back of the dvd covers) for several new animated films coming out.

First up, there's Meet the Robinsons - Walt Disney Feature Animation's next film:

"Meet the Robinsons"
Release Date: March 30, 2007

"Meet the Robinsons" is about Lewis -- a brilliant twelve-year-old with a surprising number of clever inventions to his credit. His latest and most ambitious project is the Memory Scanner, a machine that will help him find his birth mother so that they can then become a family. But before he can find her, his invention is stolen by the dastardly Bowler Hat Guy and his diabolical hat -- and constant companion -- Doris. Lewis has all but given up hope in his future when a mysterious boy named Wilbur Robinson whisks our bewildered hero away in a time machine and the two travel forward in time to spend a day with Wilbur's eccentric family. In a world filled with flying cars and floating cities, they hunt down Bowler Hat Guy, save the future and uncover the amazing secret of the Robinson family. Based on the book "A Day with Wilbur Robinson" by William Joyce.


Then there's Enchanted, being worked on by several studios (?), but primarily by James Baxter's Animation studio (correct me if I'm wrong)

"Enchanted"
Release Date: November 2, 2007

A classic Disney animated fairy tale meets with the modern, live-action romantic comedy in Walt Disney Pictures' "Enchanted." Featuring an all-star cast, the film follows the beautiful princess Giselle (Amy Adams) as she is banished by an evil queen (Susan Sarandon) from her magical, musical animated land and find herself in the gritty reality of the streets of modern day Manhattan. Shocked by this strange new environment that doesn't operate on a "happily ever after" basis, Giselle is now adrift in a chaotic world badly in need of enchantment. But when Giselle begins falling in love with a charmingly flawed divorce lawyer (Patrick Dempsey) who has come to her aid-- even though she is already promised to a perfect fairy tale prince (James Marsden) back home -- she has to wonder: can a storybook view of romance survive in the real world?


*Vomit*

And finally, Ratatouille, Pixar's next film:

"Ratatouille"
Release Date: June 29, 2007

Pixar, the creators of "Finding Nemo," "The Incredibles" and "Cars" now cook up "Ratatouille," a delicious new animated-adventure centering on an ambitious French Rat named Remy who dreams of becoming a great chef. Because of his passion for cooking, Remy accidentally uproots his family from the French countryside to the sewers of Paris, and finds himself ideally situated beneath a restaurant made famous by his culinary hero, Auguste Gusteau. When Remy helps create a soup that wins rave reviews from the world's most powerful food critic, he sets in motion a hilarious and exciting rat race that wreaks havoc on the entire city, allowing him to achieve the impossible and pursue his true gift. The screenplay, written by Academy Award-winning Brad Bird ("The Incredibles"), is flavored with a colorful cast of characters and exquisite French backdrops making "Ratatouille" a tantalizing recipe of imaginative fun and unexpected delight.


Apparently the voice of Remy from the trailer is none other than comic Patton Oswalt, and the chef will be played by Brad Garrett. Oh ya, and the imdb.com Ratatouille page says that John Ratzenberger is going to be a voice in the film. Surprised? One thing about the quote (other than the fact that Ratatouille is spelt wrong (I fixed it in this post) is that I believe that at least the story concept was by Jan Pinkava. Perhaps the screenplay is by Brad Bird, but I haven't had any indication that he was anything other than director on this film.

Follow that link if you want to see the synopsis for the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which I have little interest in.

Just out of interest, the Tag Blog posts an estimate that there are around 3500-6000 people working in the animation and gaming industry in Southern California.

Check out this film, Fairy Berry. It's got some pretty interesting visuals for a 3d film. I think it's by the folks at the french school EESA (Ecole Européenne Supérieure d’Animation).

Ok, so I know I'm gonna be called a geek on this one, but I figure it's relatable enough that you guys would be interested in the techie stuff. Engadget posts about how Toshiba has released a new tablet pc. It features an Intel Core Duo Chip, up to 4 Gigs of Ram, an 80 Gig Hard Drive, A Dual-Layer DVD Burner, at 14" Tablet-enabled 1440X900 display, weighs around 6 pounds (ugh!), around 3 hours of battery life (ew!), has wi-fi and bluetooth, and a 128Meg nVidia Quadro NVS 110M Graphics card. Not available in Canada yet so no idea on specific pricing. This is the best tablet pc that I've seen (Toshiba has two other 'good' models - one that has an integrated graphics card (The Portege M400), and the other that doesn't have a newer core duo chip (The Tecra M4) -both are glaring omissions that I think make them not very good value-wise). I know a few poeple were interested in tablet pcs so I suggest you check this one out (so long as the actual price is reasonable). If you want more detailed specs check here. No actual pictures for it yet I don't think.

Oh yeah, Bill Gates is quitting his job as chief software architect as well. That's it for geekiness today.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Today's stuff







Turned out ok today.

Today's News

There's a plethora of news abound! Apologies for the stinginess on posts lately, a computer at home that I use to post got hacked and the hard drive doesn't boot anymore! I'll try to post as often as I can nonetheless.


First up is 'Le Bon Roi' (The Good King)- a student film from Supinfocom. I can't believe how long it is for a student film! Anyways, enjoy!



According to Animated News, Jan Pinkava is now co-director on Ratatouille. It was previously thought that he was taken off the project and replaced by Brad Bird, and would be co-directed by Bob Peterson. Now it looks like it's a team-up of Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava. For those of you that don't know the name, he directed Geri's Game.

For those of you who like paying to have a iPod-playable version of Pixar shorts, One Man Band can be bought off the iTunes music store for around $2 Canadian.

AWN have posted some really cool stuff on the making of Cars. Check out the post on Character and Lighting Innovations as well as Creating a Complex World. One of the craziest parts that absolutely killed me in the first article is the fact that early on in the production of Cars the rendering time "approached 17 hours per frame." Per frame!? Another cool techie thing that they made is "ground locking" - a tool (presmuably in marionette) that makes cars automatically stick to the ground so the animators could focus on expression. Apparently Pixar has 200 times the computing power that they did in Toy Story, but with all the extra detail and lightning settings (occlusion and raytracing), the images still take the same time to render as they did back then! Something in the second article that I did happen to notice was their use of color - that Radiator Springs starts very pale and slowly begins to become more vibrant as Lightning warms up to the place. One point that I want to make as well is that Sophia Wong, a relative of a friend, was the head of layout on Radiator Springs. Wow! (Or should I say - Kachow?)

Also, Check out the Cars Die Cast Toys. They're really spiffy! And they have a set that has Guido in it. Mattel has my money.

For those of you that liked Way of the Pyrats, the fab team that made the short have posted a pretty cool website to tie in with the film. Check it out here. Also check out the making of shorts by Yves Bigerel, Bruno Dequier, Ben Fiquet, Nicolas Gueroux, and Julien de Rolland.

One last thing - for those of you wondering who got the Pixar Story internship, I know of three Calart students who got the nod. They are: Jennifer Hager, Adrian Molina, and Steve Macleod. I believe they got 6 people in total this year, but I'm not entirely sure who the other 3 are. To my knowledge no one from Sheridan, but I could be wrong. I'll get back to you guys when I find who else did get in.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Life.



Bad life drawing from today. A 5.

Hopefully better stuff tomorrow!

Monday, June 12, 2006

Anotha Gal...





Lineart and color. Oooh!

[Update]





Two more from before for your viewing enjoyment.

Cars Box Office Earnings

Cars pulled in 62.8 Million Dollars this weekend according to Box Office Mojo.

How does that fare against other animated films' opening weekends? Shrek 2 pulled in 108 Million, The Incredibles got 70.4, Finding Nemo got 70.2, Ice Age 2 got 68 million, making Cars having the 5th highest opening for an animated film.

That means it also got ahead of Monsters Inc (62.5 Million), Toy Story 2 (57.3 Million), A Bug's Life (33.2 Million) and Toy Story (29.1 Million) to make it the third highest opening for a Pixar film.

Want to see the list of the top 23 highest weekend openings? Check here.

And in more number soup - I finally hit 15,000 hits today. Thanks so much to all you guys who keep coming back!

I don't see nearly enough interviews from Ed Catmull, co-Founder of Pixar (and now President of Walt Disney Feature Animation). Make sure to check it out!

You've got to check out this quote:

"Disney has had two major heydays," (Ed) Catmull said, referring to animation's two golden eras — the first beginning in the late 1930s, the second in the 1990s. "We're going to make a third."

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Way of the Pyrats and Gobelins Annecy 2006 Shite!

Gobelins releases my favorite student work year after year.

Last year the most exciting thing was "Le Building" - this year it's Year of the Pyrats.

Check out the rest from Annecy 2006 here

Also make sure to check out the Way of the Pyrats Blog, as well as Nicolas Gueroux's, Ben Fiquet's, and Julien le Rolland's blogs - all people who worked on Pyrats.

Cars Sequence Images













Hey there space rangers!

Turns out that that storyboard image I posted a few posts ago is actually part of a sequence of images! Check it!

So, the first is the storyboard panel (looks like Joe Ranft-styled boards!), the the wireframe mesh for the models (look at how closely it matches the board!), the models as they would appear for the animators, global illumination (or something that looks just like it) to set up shading, reflection map, and final render.

Pretty cool, eh?

If I can find any more of these I'll post 'em up.

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