Bruce Bickford

MONSTER ROAD is a feature length documentary about the life and work of legendary underground animator Bruce Bickford. Best known for his collaborations with Frank Zappa in the 1970s, Bickford is an international cult figure who has influenced generations of animators while somehow eluding mainstream notoriety. Directed by Brett Ingram, MONSTER ROAD won sixteen awards including "Best Documentary" at the Slamdance Film Festival before a two-year run on Sundance Channel. The new MONSTER ROAD "Collector's Edition" DVD is available, along with Bruce Bickford's animated masterpiece PROMETHEUS' GARDEN, exclusively at www.brettingram.org

Radiohead Contest Finalists

AnimBoom is in the final stages of their animated music video contest for Radiohead’s “In Rainbows" album. Voting just opened to determine which of the semifinalists will be presented to Radiohead themselves. From a field of more than 1000 entries, 13 semifinalists have been selected by users and judges from Aniboom.com and Radiohead for the final voting period and a chance of winning the grand prize of $10,000.

I find it interesting that animators went into a steampunk or vintage-y direction with their shorts. Radio head has such a moody sound, I guess it lends itself to these art directions.

Below are MY favorites from the 13 semifinalists.
Vote for your favorite here.

What is Art?

So awesome...I put it on BOTH my blogs.

Various Americans are interviewed about art.
Animated by Aardman.

Jeff Caylor Video

Not only is it a really pretty song, but I just loved this stop mo animation done by the musician himself. It made me smile. I want my own little blue bird to hang out with me while I animate.

Jeff Caylor

L'Animateur - The Animator - Der Trickzeichner

Stop Mo Animators impress me so much...

Death

Awesome!

My Paper Mind

This guy is crazy - but how pretty!

An experimental animation in a technique being called "stratastencil" devised by Javan Ivey. Each frame is one piece of 4x6 card stock.

Madame Tutli-Putli - I Can't Believe it's Stop-Mo

I do not envy the judges for the Best Animated Short Film Category. This is really amazing and doesn't look like any stop-mo I have ever seen...

Madame Tutli-Putl Trailer



Madame Tutli-Putl Behind the Scenes with the Directors

The National Film Board of Canada presents a stunning, stop-motion animated film that takes the viewer on an exhilarating existential journey. The film introduces groundbreaking visual techniques and is supported by a haunting and original score. Painstaking care and craftsmanship in form and detail bring to life a fully imagined, tactile world unlike any you have seen.

animation national film board of Canada stop -motion Clyde Henry Productions Chris Lavis Maciek Szczerbowski.

Go to the Madame Tutli-Putli website to see more...

Peter and the Wolf

Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf is nominated this year for Best Animated Short Film. It took 100 animators, sculptors and artists five years to bring it to life. There is a preview below, and the full movie is here.

The Full Movie

A Town Called Panic

Made by Aardman the series is about Cowboy, Indian and Horse, who share a house in a rural town which never fails to attract the weirdest events. Actually, I think its funnier in other languages I can't understand.







More of A Town Called Panic...

Paper Fireworks

I know that image doesn't do much for me either - but you have to see this in motion - it's hot...


Animated Life: Paper View

In celebration of the Fourth of July, artist Jeff Scher created a confetti of fireworks. Music composed by Shay Lynch.

“Paper View” was a film I’d wanted to make for a long time, and July 4th provided me with the perfect excuse. Fireworks are very cinematic. They’re a time-based light show with synchronous sound, just like a movie. In fact, fireworks might be the most popular abstract art ever.

All the paper dots, dashes and slashes were cut from paint sample chips. The actual animation took about a week of long days and nights. Each frame required moving all the cut paper in tiny, even increments. The hardest part was remembering which dot I’d moved and which dot I hadn’t.

Shay Lynch wrote the music as I was shooting the film, with each of us sending our completed sections to the other as we went. He also added the sound effects of the explosions and hissing rockets that really make the illusion complete.

Paper View

Sony BRAVIA - PLay Doh

The third installment of the Sony Bravia campaign called "Play-Doh" has released a teaser revealing some behind the scenes including a look at the crew of 40 animators.

2.5 tonnes of plasticine on set
40 animators
3 weeks
189 2ft bunnies
150 1ft cubes
10ft x 20ft purple wave
30ft giant rabbit.
6 cameras.
40 animators working through 4 hours generated 4 seconds of footage.
40 animators working on the same scene had never been attempted before.
The 60 second spot will be constructed of approximately 100,000 stills.

SONY BRAVIA SPOT

Walls Animate

Wowsie Wow...
Blu Blu

Los Angeles Animation Festival

This is one of the few animation festivals held in Los Angeles. Their animated greeting is a bit weird but this could be great for animation! They have extended the Ghost Animation submission deadline to October 1st, so there is still time to submit. Think Electronic theater without all the scientific and technical animations included. Also, it's being held at the Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax with is a really fun venue.

Here is more about LAAFEST

The Los Angeles Animation Festival aims to:
1. Help create new jobs, promote and invigorate the traditional animation industry in the US.
2. Help individuals to network, get exposure and find work (through workshops, an annual festival, and 2 sponsored competitions every year).
3. Help bridge the gap between amateur and professional, between college and career, for everyone wishing to enter the animation business.

Our first festival is on October 20-21, 2007.
Location: The beautifully restored "Silent Movie Theatre",
611 N. Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90036.

Official entry forms are available at: www.laafest.org
Current sponsors: www.s4studios.com www.zanimation.com www.parallaxstudios.com www.toonboom.com www.sprecherbrewery.com www.stopmotionpro.com www.animatordv.com

Football VS. Rabbit

OMG CG that looks like claymation - I LOVE it!
The music is so cute too...
The information below came from this thread on CG Talk.

The shading on the rabbit is done with mentalray for maya. We used a basic final gatherpass, a colorpass and some other "faked GI bounce passes" from the ground and up on the rabit. This was done by just setting the color of the ground and projecting it up on the rabbit using a standard spotlight with depthmapped shadows and then layered in comp. The detailing on the rabbit is just a painted displace that I did in Mudbox.

The rigging is actually just a couple of blendshapes for the specific poses and some stuff that our rigger Tony Österlund did with the eyes. I cant tell you exactly but I will ask him to post something about it... sorry, I'm just the shaderguy Anyhow, we didn't have time to build a fancy rig for this test project, but sometimes the simplest approach is the best. At least it worked out ok on this one and we learned a few tricks on the way. If you have any more questions please post them on this thread and I or someone else on the team will answer them as soon as we have some time over. Kind regards,
Michael Bengtsson

www.Meindbender.com

I wanna see the animation!

Verdi - Traviata - Choeur Bohémien

Fantasia meets Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - HOT!

This piece is by Gionne Leroy. She was an animator at Pixar on the first Toy Story, and then left to work on James and the Giant Peach at Skellington.

Verdi - Traviata - Choeur Bohémiens
Uploaded by Quarouble

Stop Mo Waves

Behold the glorious efforts of painstaking stop motion animation, multiple cameras, Nico Cotta at MPC and Dougal Wilson's famous attention to detail: "Crashing Waves" for Big Yellow Storage. 'The most challenging element of the job for us was combining each of the waves together and ultimately enhancing the debris referencing the ebb and flow movement and drag of a real wave. Other work we carried out included extending some objects to alter their perspective, as well as set extensions and general clean up to remove wires holding the stop motion waves in place," explains Cotta the VFX super for MPC who combined all of the footage in Flame.

See the Crashing Waves Spot!

From Stash Feed...

Joel Fletcher

I have just started a new position at the SideFX to help refine and present their new character tool set for version 9. To get "up to speed on the whole package...I am learning about all forms of animation, including flocking, particles, patterns - in addition to the character tools they are creating here. This experience has made me think of the animator, Joel Fletcher.

Joel Fletcher is an "old school" stop-mo guy who crossed over in CG a few years back. Joel has always been fascinated with motion and patterns in motion. He made these great little films to show you some of the patterns people create as traffic in spaces. He also has sculpts, stop mo anim, phototgraphy, paintings, 3d stereoscopic imagery and tons of other fun bits on his site to check out!

Joel's People Patterns Films

More about Joel

Purple and Brown

These two made me giggle...

Gumby's 50!

GUMBY'S 50

It's online Gumby, dammit!

Gumby turned 50 last week, and the aging green clay boy got a digital makeover that the world can see - for free. Joe Clokey, the son of Gumby creator Art Clokey, digitally remastered each episode from the classic TV series, which hasn't been seen in its original format for more than two decades. And ahead of a DVD release this fall, all 200-plus "Gumby Show" episodes will be posted on the streaming video sites run by AOL (http://television.aol.com/in2tv) and YouTube (http://youtube.com/dmgivideo)

Full Article...