Chuck Jones Interview - The Fine Art Of Laughter

I found this awesome interview with Chuck Jones today over on the Academy of Achievement website. Chuck covers a ton a material during this interview. He touches on everything from his early childhood influences to his opinions on art and creativity. Each section of the article has a video clip of the actual interview to view. Check it out when you have a chance!


Chuck Jones Interview

Gene Wilder Lecture!

Last week Tiff and I were lucky enough to catch a special screening of "Young Frankenstein" with a guest lecture and Q&A by no other than the mad doctor himself Gene Wilder.

Gene gave a great talk about his acting days covering everything from his experiences with Sidney Poitier to his crazy collaborations with Mel Brooks. The whole lecture was amazing but what really perked my ears was Gene's elaborations on method acting and how he used his Stanislavski's 'system' training from the Herbert Berghof Studio to support and strengthen his comedy roles. He said his use of the system really helped to focus his actions and timing...hmmm...so why not try to apply it to animation and help strengthen our own character acting performances?

For starters here's a brief bio on -
Constantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski

Stanislavski's method style of action is explained here -
Stanislavski System of Acting

I also found some great notes on Stanislavski's system of acting here
'An Actor Prepares'

Other notes - Main Points of the Stanislavski System

FX podcasts

Over the past week I've been listening to some podcasts from fxguide. They're pretty good and the commentators are actually industry professionals. I just finished listening to the Weta Digital and The Water Horse episode with Richard Frances-Moore. He gave a great commentary on creating and animating the cg water horse.

Check out the library here:


fxguide Podcasts

Art of Disney Post

I just found this website a while ago that has tons of art work from various "Art of" books from Disney films. All the pics are hi-res which is nice. Check them out here :

Art of Disny

Horton Hears a Who

I saw Dr. Seuss's classic 'Horton Hears a Who' last Saturday afternoon with some friends and I must say I was pleased. The animation performances were amazing and the book to film adaptation seemed to work even thought I haven't read the book in a loooong time. I loved the slapstick comedy complete with bulging eyes, staples in the head, and cliff side face plants.

My only critique about the film is the 2-3 minute 2D anime clip used to portray a "day dream" sequence where Horton envisions himself as a fearless ninja. I was totally pulled out of the movie at that point. I understand what BlueSky was going for but I felt the styles totally conflicted.

Aside from the random anime insert I loved the film. At the theater my friends and I attended in Palo Alto the audience actually applauded at the end.

UPDATE!

I just found some great featurettes on the making of HHW! You can check'm out here:

Making of Horton Hears a Who

Old-Fashioned Filmmaking

I just read a great article about the shooting and technical direction of "There Will Be Blood" over on a website called digitalcontentproducer.com. The piece explains a lot about the classic lighting approach of the film and dips into the "film vs. digital" debate. Paul Thomas Anderson directed the film and wanted vfx to be "invisible" but at the same support story. I wish more Hollywood directors had the ability to think this way. Anyhow, you can check the article out for yourself after the jump.

Old-Fashioned Filmmaking

New Flip blog post

Turok: Animation Workflow

Cameron Fielding has posted a blog dissecting his animation work flow for Turok. It's an in depth view into his process of animation. Check it out here: Flip