British Animation Awards

This week were the British Animation Awards, which celebrate the best films and animation in the UK. While Shawn the Sheep took best long form (to no big surprise) the other films all seem really interesting.

The biggest headliner is that Martin Freeman won best voice acting for his performance in BBC One's The Stickman. It is actually a rather remarkable little short, but isn't currently available to stream in the US. Check out the trailer below:

Urbance by Steambot

For the past few years I have been following the progress of a new TV series titled Urbance. Set in dystopian future where sex kills the characters attempt to have relationships and to live, but a government controlled agency, COEVO, controls all aspects of life.

A 10 minute pilot just premiered on vimeo and the style took my breath away. With geometric shapes and neon colors, Urbance stands out to me and I can't wait to see what they do.

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Pilot

It's Actually Such a Beautiful Day!

In light of the recent weather anomaly I've decide to take a trip back down memory lane. A few months ago I stumbled upon a film called “It’s Such a Beautiful Day” by Dan Hertzfeldt, and it has changed they way I looked at stick figure drawings. Yes of course you need skills to animate anything, but the fact that he created a beautiful story centered around a stick figure character names Bill blows my mind.

The first impression you get of this film is that it is a lighthearted tale about this stick figure guy as he goes though his daily life. Then really quickly the mood changes that film takes a more serious tone. Although it is unlikely for an animation to take a serious turn, when it does, usually for me it is very impactful. Bill's story, the story about a stick figure, actually brought me to tears but that is beside the point. Although it is a stick figure animation against a very clean background, the film is very interning in the way the tit operates. The film is cropped out, only showing what it wants to show you at any given point in time. This blocking out created a very interesting visual effect as it jumped from scene to scene, or even within the same scene it self. The narration over the entire film while this blocking out gives the feeling of attempting to follow a story along in your own mind. At any rate, this film is as beautiful and here’s a clip that demonstrates most of what I talked about and more!

Video Copilot's New Saber Plugin

A few days ago, Video Copilot released a new After Effects plugin called Saber. Video Copilot founder Andrew Kramer recently finished working on the visual effects team for Star Wars VII, and although he didn’t do any work on the actual lightsabers, he was inspired to create an After Effects plugin to make the process easy. Saber is an effect that can be applied to a color solid in order to create a beam of light. The beam has a core and an outer glow, each with a whole host of controls that allow you to tweak each part however you like. It can also be set to match mask shapes, which makes it incredibly easy to work with. There are over 50 different presets that come with Saber, each with a unique look/feel. I’m currently messing around with Saber in my name project, hoping to learn more about it for future use. Some animations I’ve found on Reddit that use Saber include this portal that resembles the Portal video game series, this Diet Coke bottle, and this neon text. Saber is available for a free on Video Copilot’s website.

Death to All Bees

Death to all Bees was created by Studio Smack and was commissioned by Greenpeace NL. This short clip uses 3D modeling to create the Bees seen in the film and then with the combination with perviously shot stock footage creates a humous PSA about exterminating Bees. If it is not clear why exterminating bees would be humorous it is because with out the bees pollenating plants life would be very difficult. Check it out for yourself down below.

Tackling Animation with Infographics

As I start to tackle my infographic project I realized how much animation is required. It may not necessarily be the most complex animation but I looked into some tools that will help. I was told the puppet tool would be very helpful for this project so I found a great tutorial for it from lyndia.com on youtube. I also found a principles of animation video that brings some theory to animation movement. These elements have been very helpful when building this infographic project.
 

2 Chainz - Watch Out

Rapper 2 Chainz just released a video recently where his head is edited on numerous characters. Lately Ive been very overwhelmed when it comes to coming deciding on an idea for the next upcoming project but when I saw this video I realized what I want to do. I plan on doing something similar but just to make the editing process a bit easier I think Im going to use still photos for the characters and take videos for the main head. I also plan on choosing a different song to change it up a bit but it'll be pretty similar to the 2 chains video.

Charlie the Unicorn

Charlie the Unicorn is an animated series that started back in 2005 and has since become an internet phenomenon. After a few years of inactivity they have announced that they are planning to make a half hour final episode.  The video above pitches the project and links people to their kickstarter. Below is a link to the series thus far.

Adobe Capture is quite cool

While I could easily use this blog to geek out about the new saber plugin that VideoCopilot released, (that'll be for a later date) I would like to bring to light the really cool app that Arturo showed us right at the beginning of the semester.  It was this neat little application called Abode Capture, and one of its main functionalities is that it can take a picture and identify the color palette within the photo.  But what's intuitive about it is that the palette isn't completely locked once you take the picture; you can drag your finger on the colors it captures and move it to other areas to change up your palette.  

What really caught me by surprise though was how after I was playing around with it and picking up a lot of color palettes, the data showed up in one of my After Effects windows in the library panel.  When you sign into the app on your phone it will automatically sync the palettes to your Creative Cloud library, and that way you can use whatever you find on the go in your creative projects on your computer.  That made me realize that this app can be a very useful tool, because you could come across a range of colors that you might want to save for later, and with the help of this app you can accomplish that and integrate it into your projects.

What's even cooler about it that I just discovered recently is that you can take a picture of a pattern and save it as a special brush preset for Photoshop or Illustrator.  This pattern can really be anything; a pattern on a wall, a clothing texture, or even your own hand-drawn pattern on pencil and paper.  The Youtuber Draw with Jazza was the way I heard of this, and he was able to take a hand-drawn pattern and integrate it into his animation for the new Adobe Animate CC.  I think this is a great invention to come from Adobe, as it can totally help bridge the gap between hand-drawn and computer animation techniques.  For more information on the app, check out this video:

Malak and The Boat

This animation is part of a new campaign launched UNICEF meant to bring attention to the struggles of young Syrian refugees. The animation is narrated by an actual child refugee as she tells the story of how she fled Syria. I thought this was a really cool idea and was executed very well, most definitely an impactful way to tell these children's stories. Along with the animation there is also an interview with the Creative Director, if you click the link below, who takes you through the creative process and why they made certain decisions in the animation.

http://motionographer.com/2016/02/26/making-an-unfairy-tale-malak-and-the-boat/

Lilo & Stitch

One of my favourite Disney films and TV shows was definitely Lilo & Stitch. It was cute and heartfelt and gave lessons about finding a place in the world. The animators/designers of the show  chose to use watercolor painted backgrounds for Lilo & Stitch, as opposed to a more traditional technique called "gouache." Watercolors have been used in the past on Disney animation shorts as well as some features like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but it has been abandoned within the past few decades mostly because there have been less complicated techniques (such as gouache). The character designs were based around Chris Sanders' personal drawing style and the film's extraterrestrial elements, such as the spaceships, were designed to resemble sea life. 

Shake It Off Rotoscope

Shake It Off Rotoscope

A friend of mine showed me this animation last semester. Animation students at University of Newcastle were given 52 frames of Taylor Swift's Shake It Off music video to rotoscope.

Last semester I did a bit of my own rotoscoping in my animation class--it's hard work! We shot video of ourselves and traced each frame of the video in Photoshop. Rotoscoping even a few frames takes a lot of patience, so it's super impressive these students stuck with it through 52 of them.

Source: https://www.newcastle.edu.au/newsroom/featured-news/shake-it-off-newcastle-style

Waltz With Bashir

Walk With Bashir is a uniquely animated feature film that I stumbled upon recently. The film by Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman is a mix between the biographical and documentary. The unique animation (art done by David Polonsky) has a dark, high contrast look to it, that seems both graphic and realistic. The film essentially is a way for Folman to deal with his and other veterans' experiences in the Invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

The film has an interesting narrative and the story told through a series of interviews conducted by the filmmaker. The animations are gritty and very atmospheric of the disturbing and violent content that is portrayed. Overall, the film has an anti-war message while revealing the stories of those who experienced it first-hand.

The Peanuts

The Peanuts is an American comic strip that was written and illustrated by Charles M. Shultz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000. The comic eventually grew into a well-known franchise, including famous films, books, and characters. Recently, Blue Sky Studios just released a new Peanuts film, however, the film included a 3D animation world while the old fashion Peanuts lived in a 2D animation world. However, Blue Sky was determined to stay faithful to that world in which it was built on. That meant they had to come up with a technical solution that would ensure the studio that they were consulting with the original comic strip to create the film. Personally, I thought the film was adorable, it had all the classic characters we had come to love, with just a little more flare. It was interesting to see how they took a 2D animation world and created into a 3D animation world, but still had that nostalgia feeling about the story. The Peanuts is such a classic franchise that everyone loves, and the definitely did not disappoint when it came to remaking a new film featuring the world.

Animation & Music

Golden Wolf is an animation company in London that has been in action since 2013. While researching something to blog about, I came across this animated music video that this production team has recently made. The teams at Interscope and Blood Company approached Golden Wolf about doing the music video for the artist Zedd. They gathered a team of artists from all around the world to create a film using many different animation styles. They put together a story line and divided the shots between themselves and 10 other collaborators. They made a black and white film with a creative hand drawn feel that mesmerizes the viewer. 

Animation Can Be Powerful!

In the new Android commercial, the animation gives off a powerful message for anti-bullying. Through the years, animation has progressed so that it can evoke emotion even from the simplest of things. Oddly enough, it is simple to relate to these characters in the commercial, and it makes you attracted to the product as well. Here's the video to watch yourself and see how animation can provide messages just as well as real life actors.

Perspective in "Zootopia"

Walt Disney Animation Studios' new movie Zootopia came out last weekend and was an instant hit at the box office. In its opening weekend, it made more money than Frozen and critics gave it a 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes' "Tomatometer." So what makes Zootopia so likable?

Many sources have reported that the movie is made both for kids and adults--which is something I find very common in animated films. What I learned through researching the film (I'm hoping to see it this week or weekend) was that two thirds of the way through, Walt Disney Animation Studios' made a tweak to the story that completely changed it.

Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps

Apparently it was originally supposed to be told from Nick Wilde's perspective. Nick (Jason Bateman) is a fox and low-level criminal that does not like the city of Zootopia. They ultimately changed the film to be told from the perspective of Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), a bunny who wants to be a police officer and loves living in Zootopia.

Rich Moore, the director of the film explained why the perspective swap was necessary in a Q&A event in St. Louis:

"About two-thirds of the way through production, we changed the story to Judy's story, because Nick, being kind of a cynical character, he didn't like the city of Zootopia. He was kind of oppressed by the city of Zootopia. And in our movies, we want the audience to like the world, not dislike the world. And it was very confusing with our main character as someone who didn't like the city, how do we feel about this world? So we said, let's just try, as an experiment, making Judy the main character--since she's an optimist, she sees the best in everything--let's try making it her story and see what happens."

Based on the estimated $73.7 million made during the opening weekend, I think it's safe to say that this change paid off (literally) in a big way.

Film Riot

Film Riot is a YouTube channel that deals with all aspects of filmmaking. If you have not checked them out you seriously should. I have watched hours and hours of their videos and to be honest feel like I have learned more about filmmaking from this YouTube channel than many of my film classes over my four years here.

The videos feature Ryan Connolly, the host, with appearance from his team as they tackle various aspects of professional filmmaking as simply as they can. The videos include the final result of what they tackle, and then through hosted explanation, they explain how they did what they did. They are quite thorough and easy to follow and learn. They also have some DIY videos for making cheap filmmaking gear on a budget. They have a store where they sell a variety of different assets, make gear recommendations, sell merchandise, and more. They are a fantastic and useful channel and I highly recommend you sift through it, you will definitely learn a lot.

Film Riot:

Youtube | Twitter | Store

Jamón

I'm the kind of person who is always browsing Vimeo for good short films because it's such a fantastic collection. If you're new to Vimeo I recommend at least following "Vimeo Staff Picks", they curate some amazing stuff. I'm also part of the "Everything Animated" group which posts exactly what it sounds like, animated shorts! This is one that I found a while ago and has remained one of my favorites.

Jamon is a Spanish short by Iria Lopez about a pig who lives in a human's world. It's tragic and funny and definitely deserves a watch. I'm a sucker for traditional animation and this one is beautifully done using silkscreen backgrounds.

If you have time please give it a watch! I promise you won't regret it.


Jamón film from iria lopez on Vimeo.

It's interesting when seeing these giant sequences in films and what it really took to make it all happen. One of my favorite scenes in Avengers: Age of Ultron was the scene in Seoul and this featurette really highlights some of the major keys into making it successful. For instance having Marvel shutting down major highways is huge. For something of that scale to happen it would require a lot of preplanning and preparation. The sequence where Black Widow is on the motorcycle chasing down the truck was shot at full speed with a car traveling right behind it getting all the shots, though it was a stunt driver wearing a special helmet that acted as Widow's hair, it's intense to see that entire sequence(minus the green screen of Scarlett Johansson) is 100% real. In an age of CGI, it's exciting to see some massive sequences actually be practical. The stunt man for Captain America was actually on the truck going at a fast speed as well which really intrigues me with how much planning has to go into having an actor work with high winds blasting you on a moving truck with wires.

Check out the featurette. It's really quite something.