Some News and the Craziness...

So I'm just about finished my internship here at Chuck Gammage. It's 10 PM and I'm still in the studio working on a leica reel. Suffice to say that I'm not gonna have any new art or much news to share with you guys (I would love to show you guys some work from it but that probably won't be allowed until around November or so)! Of course, this weekend is the Comic Con Fan Expo (With Jim Lee, Humberto Ramos, Mike Mignola, and Skottie Young all present) so that will be more than occupied as well. If I can I'll post stuff - if not - don't be surprised!

Also, I'm still working on my storyboards for a pitch , tying down a 2D animation scene, and now some 3D animation with a really sweet rig courtesy of Chris Turner. So I've definetly got a lot on my plate!

Keep on the lookout for some new linetest-ish stuff in the next little bit. I'm not sure when I'll get it up, but it'll be there.

Steve Hulett posts that Disney will adopt a short-before-the-feature model like Pixar. Since the timeframe is short for Meet The Robinsons, it won't include a new one (but a "Golden Oldie" as he puts it), but the forthcoming features should. Anyone see an influx of 2D shorts coming?

And for the people looking at my schedule - the only people I've been able to confirm that are in my class are Ed Avenir, Jon Suh, and Mujia Liao. Suffice to say I'm a little nervous about who's in my group but I guess I'll get whatever I get!

Anyways, sorry for the short post, but I gotta get workin'

Some Linetests, Some Shorts, All Good!

Michael Dudok De Wit's "Tom Sweep"


I would love to see "The Aroma of Tea"!

Monster Samurai (excerpt):


A Lion King Promo Trailer with some linetests:


Deleted Scene from Sorceror's Apprentice:


The Big Story:


Some cool Monkey Animation (Make sure to check out his YouTube account!)


Shane Acker's "9"


The Cathedral:


Fallen Art:


Fifty Percent Grey:


Gopher Broke:


In The Rough:


Overtime:


Atama Yama:


An Eye for Annai:


Sheridan Student Ewen Nguyen's Leica! (The Crane's Lament)


YouTube is insane.

Schedule...

Looks like they split up the classes this year! I talked to Dave Tran, Dave Hoggan, and Robin Hall all in my class first and second year and they all seem to have different schedules.

Monday:
9-12AM
Studies of Character in Literature (Chris Mansour)

2-5PM
Figure Drawing (Angelo Libutti)

Tuesday:
11AM-1PM
Animation Preproduction and Character Design (Lecture - D.Q. and Tony Tarantini)

Wednesday:
12AM - 1PM
Character Design (Lab - Tony Tarantini)

4-6 PM
Layout and Art Direction (Mark Komza)

Thursday:
4-6 PM
Co-op (Kathleen Martin)

Friday:
9-12AM
Digital Methodologies (Doug Smith)

1-4 PM
Animation (D.Q.)

3-5 PM
Storyboarding - Advanced Story Structure (Natalie Garceau-Turner)

It seems that I have two classes at the same time on friday! Conflict!

Anyone in the same class as me?

Clearly not what Maya is meant to do...

Too many windows...

They took a long time to paint...

Your favorite blogs...

There seems to be a lack of influx of news in the past week, so I'll just post my own musings for now while I work away at a painting.

I'm curious as to which blogs are the ones that you most often visit! Here's a short but sweet list of my own favorite blogs, or should I say, the ones that I visit most often:

Mark Kennedy
Marcelo Vignali
John Nevarez
Robin Joseph
Matt Williames
The House of Cool Blog
Cartoon Brew

Of course, the frequency of me visiting blogs definetly has something to do with how often people update...

And here are some newer ones (that I've recently become aware of, anyways) that you really ought to check out:

Vera Brosgol
Arezoo Fallahi
Dave Tran
Kevin Dart
Taylor Krahenbuhl
Lines and Colors
Marcos Mateu
Armand Serrano

I really wish painting didn't take so long...

Everyone Needs to Draw Mickey! (Once)

This site looks pretty amusing - it allows artists of all types to upload their renditions of Mickey Mouse. The one to the left is my personal fave.

How original...

Oh yeah, just a heads-up for all the Sheridan people looking at my blog - your schedules will be up August 29th.

Oh, and by the way, I feel like updating that Spidey pic below. Watch for it sometime (don't know when though!)

Cheers!

What's Going on in the Grapevine...

Ah, so it looks like that "Leaf Men" picture at Blue Sky is going to be based on yet another William Joyce novel , The Leaf Mean and the Few Good Bugs, reports AWN. William Joyce also wrote "A Day with Wilbur Robinson" (the basis for Disney's Meet the Robinsons) as well as working on production design in Blue Sky's "Robots." The story goes as follows:

"LEAF MEN [...] concerns a troop of doodle bugs that tries to save an elderly woman’s garden from ruin from an evil spider by calling upon the Leaf Men, “gardeners of a grand and elfin sort."

If you haven't heard already, inside the Disney's Big Hat Studios in Burbank (I think it's Burbank?) they've constructed a new story room in honor of the brilliant storyman, Joe Ranft. He joins Joe Grant with the distinction of being the second Joe with his very own story room at Disney. See the pic over at Mark Kennedy's Blog.

Lastly it looks like Dreamworks is full steam ahead on Bee Movie, Kung Fu Panda (a film that I knew was coming but didn't post about beforehand for some reason that's beyond me), and Madagascar II. The TAG blog also says that there are two additional features in the works. In addition to Flushed Away and Shrek III, well, that's quite a lot of work to be had there, folks!

The Man Himself...

Oh Well Why Not!

Woulda/coulda/shoulda spent more time on it but sleep and work tomorrow calls.

Crazy YouTubers...

And you thought -I- was posting too much on YouTube? Check out this link. This person has uploaded full episodes from Animaniacs, Batman the Animated Series, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Beast Wars, Beavis and Butthead, Betty Boop, Billy and Mandy, Captain Planet (!), Clone High, Dexter's Lab, Family Guy, Freakazoid, Futurama, Gargoyles, Justice League, Pinky and the Brain, Ren and Stimpy, Sam and Max, Samurai Jack, South Park, Spongebob, Teen Titans, TMNT, Thundercats, Transformers, and Xmen, just to name a few. And YouTube was giving John K. heck for posting a few no-longer-available Looney Tunes shorts.

My brother has a knack for finding mind-numbingly stupid but funny stuff like this:



Enjoy!

Emperor's New Groove Linetests

Kuzco, Kronk, Yzma and Pacha linetests:



The shot progression of the dining room sequence:



Hopefully these will suffice!

Seamus...

The intrepid computer technician at Chuck Gammage.

Slowly But Surely...

Circa 5 minutes ago.

Matthew Good and Wally Wood

First up today, check out this Matt Good video by a group of crazy kids going into fourth year at Sheridan. Great job on getting your first video pirated, Sam!



Also, Joel Johnson has posted the infamous "22 Panels that Always Work" by Wally Wood. This is kind of specific to comics but can also be translated to storyboards, I'm sure.

A few things to check out today...

ASIFA's Hollywood Animation Archive has posted some UPA Model Sheets from shorts like Gerald McBoingboing. I think it's pretty fabulous stuff!

Swing by Animation Mentor and check out their Student Showcase!

Looks like Shrek 3 is going to be ready May 18, 2007.

Here's some pictures from Meet the Robinsons.

Looks like ComingSoon.net had a chance to see some promo stuff for Sony Pictures Animation's newest offerings. Seems that they have quite a few films in the works: Surf's Up, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Hotel Transylvania, and the upcoming Open Season. Some of these aren't due until 2009, however, but good to get the heads up!

And check out this interview with the recently-returned-to-Disney Eric Goldberg. Thanks to Animated News for this!

I'll have photos of the new building up this weekend as well. Watch for them!

Atlantis and some more Tarzan..

More linetests people! These are all from DVDs you can't get anymore. Enjoy!

Tarzan Meets Jane Scene: A Shot Progression

Atlantis - Various linetests:

Atlantis - Milo's Speech - Another shot progression!


I wanted to get some Emperor's New Groove stuff up but for some reason I couldn't get the disc to recognize. I shall try again sometime this weekend.

A Memory Sketch...

A thing that Marcelo Vignali does as well as the two sketch clubs is memory sketching. See a person, observe, and draw them after.



Just something I put together when seeing someone on the way home. It's not exactly the person (I'm sure it's a bunch of subconscious stuff mashed together), but it's not often that I throw enough random sketches on here so I thought I'd get this up.

Oh yeah.. one more thing - I'll get one more post about Tarzan tomorrow and put up some Emperor's New Groove and Atlantis stuff up. Disney should really still be selling these DVDs!

Tarzan and the shit-disturber.

You're probably wondering about the title.

First of all, here's some awesome stuff from the discontinued Tarzan DVD.

Storyreels:



A featurette on Deep Canvas with some awesome Glen Keane stuff:



Animation Tests:



Now that you're all semi-inspired, time to take it all down!

*Start Blatant Conjecture/Rumour/Unconfirmed Report*
So I gather most people pessimistically believe that the new building won't be finished in time for the September 11th start for this upcoming year in animation. Well, you're probably right, pessimists! From what I've heard, the intrepid animation faculty has conjured up plan B to deal with this problem! Since the only date of completion that I've actually be able to secure is a November finish, and since the C Wing will be under construction shortly for the new "relaxation area" - what's to become of the animators?

- You know all those dance studios in the Sheldon Levy Building? That's one area where they can go!
- The photolabs in the A-Wing!
- The playstation 2-shaped G-Wing ought to be the next best place, but not in the classrooms, the hallways!

And if that's not the icing on the cake, apparently the elevator in the new building isn't strong enough to lift up the animation desks when the moving crew moves the desks for when we have to move so it'll have to be brought up by hand. In the middle of the school year!

Of course, my question is - where are the photography and dance students going to go?

I hope this isn't really the solution that they've come up with...
*End Blatant Conjecture/Rumour/Unconfirmed Report*

More Richard Williams..

The featurette, "I Drew Roger Rabbit." Thanks again to Mel LaFrance.



Also check out this featurette on the Jungle Book sent to me via reader Adam King:



Stumbled into the posting of the 2006 Calarts Producers Show. Check it out here.

It looks like Vanguard animation has just signed a three-picture deal with MGM. Vanguard was the studio behind last year's "Valiant." Looks like there's going to be another big feature player in the CG market.

Blogger Updates...

Looks like Blogger is going to switch things up within a few months! The new features are currently in Beta, but they're looking pretty good! Check out the list here and take a tour of the new features here.

If you can't be bothered, here are some of the new things that caught my eye:

Labels:
Give your posts a category label so that you and your readers can easily sort by topic.

New ways to customize your template:
Drag and drop page elements and easily change your template's font and color scheme.

Create a Private Blog: You can choose who is allowed to view a blog via their email address.

New Templates!

More Feed Options:
Now you can have a feed for all the comments on your blog, and even individual feeds for all the comments on each separate post.

Instant publishing
Say goodbye to the dreaded “Publishing…” spinner. Now, when you make a new post or change any of your settings, your blog is updated and changes go live immediately; you don’t have to remember to republish!

One caveat - you can update your blog with these new features today but you both have to sign up for a Google Account (not needed if you're on Gmail already) and there are a few bugs, most notably anyone who haven't switched to the new format can't comment, you can't switch back, browsers other than IE and Firefox don't work, and the Edit HTML mode for your template is not currently accessible. Also, I say in a few months because blogger will be requiring ALL users to change to this new format once it's out of beta.

Richard Williams (And Some Other Stuff)

Looks like YouTube was down today for awhile so I had trouble getting these up.

Anyways, this is a featurette entitled "The Thief Who Never Gave Up" on Richard Williams. Thanks to Mel LaFrance for this!



This'll be my last post from the Beauty and the Beast stuff:



Maybe some stuff from Tarzan next?

Also, check out animator Keith Lango's take. on the film he worked on, the Ant Bully. "I’ve always felt that we were making a big stinking pile of average corporate mush" sets the mood for the article.

Check out this flickr gallery - the Cartoon Modern Yearbook. Pretty nostalgic stuff!

I ran into Cameron Miyasaki (Pixar Animator)'s website yesterday. Check out the Animation!

(P.S. I wasn't able to make a playlist of these for some reason - maybe when YouTube's feeling more healthy?)

One for the road...

Just a life drawing from yesterday's session at TSA.

The Art of Glen Keane Blog

Thanks to Victor for posting about this - the all-inclusive art of Glen Keane blog!

What are you doing reading this? Visit it!

Cinematography...

Ok, so this is no doubt going to be a massive post that is going to take me all day to write but I just have to get out of my system. This is mainly going to be my own research just to remind myself about who these guys are and what they did, but you're welcome to listen in. I definetly would have expected my brother to get around to doing this but I guess he's got better things to do!

After learning that my roomate is related to Christopher Doyle I started rewatching some of his movies, then doing some research, and on thing led to another and I ended up researching all of my favorite cinematographers. More on Doyle later.

So what the hell is a cinematographer? If you want to get into semantics, it means 'writing in the movement.' But their job, mainly, is to have control over the camera and lighting crews in a scene, and therefore have a lot of creative input into the final image. Though if you consider the fact that the art director is responsible for the mise en scene, the storyboard artist plans out the shots and what is actually happening, and the director is going to want to have a piece of the action, then it's no small wonder how films end up looking great. Here are some of the guys that managed to do this (in my little opinion)

Kazuo Miyagawa

What has he done?

I think his two most-notable films are Rashomon and Yojimbo with famed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. If I am not mistaken, he was credited as being one of the first cinematographers to dare point a camera straight at the sun in the forest scenes in Rashomon (I believe it was a faux-pas back then).

Some images!









Darius Khondji

What has he worked on? Se7en, Delicatessen, and the City of Lost Children with directors David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The photo on the left is him working with The Beach director Danny Boyle.

Check out this interview with the man himself.

Some photos!







Bruno Delbonnel

What has he worked on? Amélie and A Very Long Engagement with director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. I believe his next work is on the upcoming screen adaptation of Life of Pi (also with - you guessed it - Jeunet).

Here's an interview, in cas you were interest. Mais c'est en francais. Desolé.

Just watch Amélie and you will understand.


Some more images:









Douglas Slocombe.

He worked on the Indiana Jones trilogy with Steven Spielberg (as well as Close Encounters of the Third Kind).








Need I say more than this?









Christopher Doyle

Chris has worked on almost all of Wong Kar-wai's films (such as Chungking Express and 2046), as well as the Asian blockbuster Infernal Affairs, Yimou Zhang's Hero, and more recently, M. Night Shymalan's Lady in the Water.

He's my roomate's dad's cousin. Freaky.












Gregg Toland.

He worked on a little movie called Citizen Kane. That's him with director Orson Welles. He and Orson pulled the floor out of the room so that they could get the low angle they wanted for this shot - I believe it's the part where Kane loses as governor and is talking with Jebediah.





Some photos (which I'm sure you've seen before)









Gianna de Venanzo

Gianni worked with Vittorio de Sica, Franscesco Rosi, Michalengo Antonioni, and Federico Fellini - most notable on 8 1/2.







Ok I'm pooched! I've left a lot of people out but this is a pretty good working list for now I'd think!

One addendum I found the blog The Criterion Contraption fairly useful in my hunt today - this guy is "going to watch every last DVD in the Criterion Collection."

Please feel free to contribute some of your own favorite cinematographers in the comments!

Now go watch some movies!