How to become an Animator - with Bobby Beck

Make sure to watch the Animation Mentor webinar with Bobby Beck. Great advice and tips in this one.

Monster vs. Alien Character Images

Those guys on the right look awesome!


Bigger versions here

Animated-News also has a link to the first image of an actual shot.

Simon's Cat

These are awesome!




Thanks Bernie & Lisa!

Ringling Shorts

Head over to ringling.edu to watch all the shorts. - found @ Kevan Shorey's blog

"Emily in the Clouds", "Gotch Ya'" are cool. Remember my hatred for the lower eye lid twitch? It's in "Snack Attack"... But there is some awesome timing stuff in that one too. Love it how he wants to grab the steak but then hits glass wall. "Fame and Fortune" is by Nick Pitera, which has crazy singing skills.

Doug Sweetland Spline Cast - Part 1

Head over to Spline Doctors for it.

Nice

Thanks Lisa! :)

2008 Emmy nominees

Found @ Animated-News

2008 Emmy nominees announced

Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour)
• Creature Comforts America
• King Of The Hill
• Robot Chicken
• SpongeBob SquarePants
• The Simpsons

Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming One Hour Or More)
• Blue Harvest (Family Guy)
• Imaginationland (South Park)
• Justice League: The New Frontier

Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music
• Phineas And Ferb

Outstanding Original Music And Lyrics
• Phineas And Ferb, for I Ain’t Got No Rhythm

Outstanding Music Composition For A Series (original Dramatic Score)
• Family Guy, for Lois Kills Stewie
• The Simpsons, for Treehouse of Horror XVIII

Outstanding Nonfiction Special
• The Pixar Story

Outstanding Special Class - Short-format Animated Programs
• Camp Lazlo, for Lazlo’s First Crush
• Chowder, for Burple Nurples

Jacob Gardner's Animation Workflow

Here's a very cool and detailed workflow from Jacob Gardner (thanks Regis!), covering planning, pre-production, animation, etc.

Animation Mentor Tips & Tricks Blog - Webinars

Just a friendly reminder to always check online for animation info. So if you haven't already, go through Shawn Kelly's "Animation Tips & Tricks" posts. Latest one being: "What is a Key Pose?".

The point is, even if you know what a key pose is, don't just skip that post, I encourage you to go through it, because to me it's always interesting and helpful to hear and read other opinions and other approaches.

So once you're done with that one, check out the free AM webinars and Carlos Baena's site of course. Yes, I'm repeating myself but again, just a friendly reminder.
The webinars are long (which is good), so get a drink ready, make yourself comfortable and go through them. For instance, one of the topics in Shawn's videos is how to use video reference, and he will show you step by step what his process is.

So go check it out!

Cheers
Jean-Denis

Street Fighter IV - Anime Trailer

Watch it @ capcom.co.jp

Inside Wall-E

From the San Francisco Chronicle about tomorrow's event:

Pixar Animator Michal Makarewicz will answer audience questions during a Saturday appearance at the Balboa Theater, which is screening Disney-Pixar's "Wall-E".
Makarewicz will speak after the film's 7 p.m. showing and before the 9:15 p.m. screening.
The animator also worked on such features as "Ratatouille", "Cars" and "The Incredibles.". He won an award from ASIFA, the animated film society, for his work on "Ratatouille".
The theater is at 3630 Balboa St., San Francisco. For more information, call (415) 221-8184, or go to www. balboamovies.com.

Disney/Pixar's "Presto" on iTunes

Upcoming Pixar tells us that Disney/Pixar's "Presto", the short in front of "Wall-E" is available on iTunes for $1.99. So head over there, get it and frame through it! :)

The Tale of Despereaux - Trailer

Animated News points to The Tale of Despereaux Trailer. Nice look!

"Bolt" Trailer

You know what, looks better than I thought! Could be a lot of fun! Watch the trailer @ Empireonline

- pic source

Animation News

Here a few interesting posts and articles:

- Written Interview with Andrew Stanton about Pixar's "Wall-E"


- Official Trailer for Futurama's "The Beast with a Billion Backs"



- Kung Fu Panda sequel coming as well as new 2D material

- This post @ Animated News got tons of "Wall-E" related news (from review to interviews, etc.)

- Cooked Art points to the "2008 Annecy Gobelins Shorts", which are always worth a look.

New Animation Book/DVDs by Goldberg and Williams

Cartoon Brew points to Eric Goldberg's new Character Animation Crash Course! and Richard Williams is releasing a DVD version of his The Animator's Survival Kit (which I hear is close to $1k, which is not exactly student friendly, but hey, 16 DVDs!!). But head over to the official site for a glimpse of it via a 10min clip, and/or click on the "Disks 1-16" tab and watch more clips.



The list of the clips:

Starting Right

Timing and Spacing

Working Methods

More Timing

More Spacing

Building Walks

Flexibility in a Walk

Sneaks, Runs and Animal Action

Flexibility

Overlapping Action and Weight (cracked me up!)

Takes

Vibrates

Accents

Dialogue 1

Dialogue 2

Giving the performance

Putting it all together

And btw. if you don't own the book, you should get it. :)

Call of Duty 5 - Trailer

Warning, footage is graphic!

Apart from that, there is some really nice animation in there.

Goofy’s "How To Hook Up Your Home Theater" on iTunes

Animated-News points out that you can get Disney's "How to hook up your home theater" on iTunes for $1.99. I'm ashamed to say that I haven't seen it yet, so I will definitely get it. Does anybody know if you can get it on DVD/Blu-ray?

Animation Mentor Newsletter - June 2008

It's that time of the month! And as always I encourage you to sign up for the free newsletter!

This time you get the following:

• A Moving Subject: Motion Capture in the Animation Field
• Animation Mentor Gets Social!
• JasonRyanAnimation.com
• Animation Short: "World Record" by Arne Kaupang
• Mentor: Jim Brown - Tippett Studios
• Student: Jessicka Herman
• Animation Tips and Tricks Blog

Pixar's "Wall-E" Screening

So I did get to see it and it was really good. Definitely different than your usual talking animal movie. There are a few parts that didn't work for me (possible SPOILERS - highlight to read: no need to have live-action actors in there, the progression from real to CG makes no sense, real actors are absolutely not warranted and the CG humans stick out as plastic-y amidst all the super real robot renders; music didn't work for me, especially the songs; beginning third features too many joke scenes one after the other, we get the point that Wall-E is cute and in love, lets move on), so I wouldn't call it a masterpiece and Pixar's best (like the reviews so far have been doing). There's just something about "The Incredibles", "Monsters Inc." and "Toy Story 1 & 2" that's hard to beat, but it's definitely very well done, a wake up call (hopefully to other companies) that you can do so much through pantomime alone and not relying on super blockbuster actor voices. What they got out of Wall-E and Eve in terms of acting was awesome. The story is really cute, has a great not-so-subtle message (bravo to that), no poop or fart jokes (we really don't need to see another creature involved with poop). It's reminding me a bit of Monster's Inc. to an extend (foreign object messing up an established environment), which can only be good since I love that movie, but leans more towards Finding Nemo in terms of emotional value and even the music (same director & composer). The music did not work for me unfortunately, I was hoping for something more original (less Nemo-ish). Plus I'm just not a big fan of known songs in a movie, but I'm picky about that. There are two cues which are awesome though, leaning more towards "Alien" in style and mood, yet keeping a quirky cartoony style. Those sections were genius, but unfortunately it's not like that throughout the whole movie. The renders are insane, with many really cool shots compositionally where you wish you had a poster of that frame. All the robots are really well designed in terms of appeal and coolness factor, the merchandise department will have a field trip. I wish Gentle Giant or Sideshow would select a few robots and do super detailed statues of them. There's more to point out that was awesome, but you just have to go see it for yourself.

It's going to be very interesting to see how the audience reacts to Kung Fu Panda and Wall-E, or how the Oscars will turn out. Two totally different movies, Panda having fantastic set pieces, beautiful art direction, lighting, music and characters, but overall a more straight forward movie delivering on the entertainment factor - and Wall-E, more simplistic in its delivery and presentation at first (only three characters and no (conventional) dialogue for at least the first third, MUCH slower pace than Panda), but emotionally so much stronger and daring exactly because of that, strong message and going beyond the pure entertainment factor. It's almost Spielberg vs. Ridley Scott. Both are here to entertain and they do it well, but yet they are different. :)

I hope Dreamworks is listening and learning from Panda's success and why it works and I hope Pixar keeps pushing the envelope as well as they do. Quality wise they are both at the same level so we are in for a treat. Make sure you catch both movies in theaters and study them on Blu-ray, mandatory homework!