Thinking About 3D Space and Installation: Locomocion

Locomocion  is essentially an animation festival in Mexico City, started by a group of young people interested in experimental animation and creating an intimate space for the sharing of this art.

Last year (2015), Locomocion invited 13 animators and visual artists to come together and collaborate on a single piece. Titled The Heart of the Visual Alchemists, this piece takes a step back from the nature of mainstream cinema by making it a 3D experience and transforming the physical space through animation, sculpture, and music.  The sculpture at the center of the room was a 118 inch tall paper heart that was covered with animation at 360 degrees.

In the piece you can see the artistically unique styles from each animator that participated.

The piece itself also represents the mission of the festival itself. As Locomocion said that the goal of the festival was to create "a space to create, experience, and enjoy experimental animation."

Watch the installation here!

Ottawa International Animation Festival

The Ottawa International Animation Festival is considered one of the biggest animation festivals in the world and the biggest in North America. I attended the festival this weekend and watched many animated films and title sequences selected for the festival. While watching the screenings I kept noticing how many different styles and techniques were being used to create the films; Hand-drawn, oil painted, cut-out, claymation, CG animation, rotoscoping you name it. It was impossible to not admire the amount of dedication and skill to create such great work, specially when I am starting to learn the techniques they are using.

At the festival they also offered various professional development workshops with people like the director of "The Blue Umbrella"- Pixar's latest short, Regular Show's creator JG Quintel, Disney animator Eric Goldberg (Alladin, Hercules, Fantasia 2000, etc...) and a few more. They talked about developing stories, coming up with ideas, animating and working in the industry.

It's difficult to find many of the films screened since most of them can't be available online after being selected for the festival, but here's one very interesting animation and the trailer for the festival, which used a lot of simple but interesting motion graphics.



Shugo Tokumaru "Katachi" from Kijek / Adamski on Vimeo.

MoGraph Festival

This is the promo for the Motion Graphics Festival 2008 and I loved the style and beat of it. I feel that the form meets the content very well in this piece and portrays a lovely irony. I also found it very fitting as it is obviously a nod to Kyle Cooper's work which was just covered in class. The Motion Graphics Festival is a festival based out of Chicago that showcases a large number and variety of motion graphics work that is definitely worth a look.


Motion Graphics Festival 2008 from Psymbolic on Vimeo.

This promo was done by Lift Motion Design (LiftMotion.com). They do a lot of commercials, (5 gum commercials, and Geico) as well as the type of fast moving, heavy impact animated graphics for sports shows like ESPN.


5 Gum - Lush from LIFT MOTION DESIGN on Vimeo.


Race to March Madness from LIFT MOTION DESIGN on Vimeo.