The Secret of Kells - Pencil Tests

Here are some nice pencil tests from 'The Secret of Kells'. It's a beautiful film! Check it out if you haven't already! And thanks to Péter Nagy for posting the clip!


from

Hook Animation

Michael Sporn has posted an awesome shot of Hook (animated by Woolie Reitherman) from Peter Pan. Check them out!

Hook Part 1
Hook Part 2

The 600 Years - Prague Clock Tower Anniversary

This was just to cool not to post! 

Digital projection mapping during 600 years anniversary of the astrological tower clock situated at Old Town Square in center of Prague.



via/ Jenny at Blackwing Diaries

Disney's 'Mars & Beyond' (1957)

This is a great old school Disneyland film directed by Ward Kimball. The Mars creature designs and animation are fantastic!

Will Vinton Studio 'Claymation Documentary' (1978)

This is a great 1978 documentary on the early days of Will Vinton Productions. It's amazing to see how the animators planned out their shots!







More on Will Vinton Studio:

Making of 'Spiderwick'

'Thought of You' by Ryan Woodward

'Thought of You' by Ryan Woodward




Behind the scenes:

Animation Roundtable

Interactive Puppet Using Xbox Kinect

Well this is just too cool! Could you imagine using a camera like this when creating video reference for animation? Amazing!

Tangled Clip - 'Horsing Around'

This is a great sequence from Tangled! Love the personality animation in the horse Maximus!

Interview with Pixar Storyboard Artist James Robertson

Great interview here with story artist James Robertson. Be sure to check out his blog as well: The Iron Scythe

Hat Lieberman On Storyboarding via TheArtCenter

Josh 'Hat' Lieberman recently posted some great staging/storyboarding material on the 'Art Center Blog'. Also be sure to check out his blog for more story crafting goodness!

Hat Lieberman On Storyboarding via TheArtCenter

Josh 'Hat' Lieberman's Blog

Designer Massimo Vignelli

This is a great short documentary featuring legendary designer Massimo Vignelli. Some of the important points he makes can also be applied to animation and filmmaking. Hence the importance of studying all types of art forms because it can only enhance and enrich our abilities as animators. Here are a few highlights:

Lines last longer.

Details last longer.

Good design lasts longer.

Train yourself to have vision, courage, and determination.

'You should not have a fear of failure... but courage to fail.' -- Massimo Vignelli

'Bedknobs and Broomsticks' - Animal Football Sequence

I hadn't seen this in years! Talk about gags on top of gags! Love the goalie gorilla! A couple of the nine old men worked on this as well.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Motion reference: quadruped

Here's some more quadruped reference. The tiger stalking vid is just crazy!

Subaru vs Battling Robot Spider Flipbook

Very cool 2d and live action piece here! Thanks for the heads up Slice!

via//gizmodo

'Otto and Stella' by The Animation Workshop

Some great subtle character acting in this piece! Fun stuff! Also check out The Animation Workshop.



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Q reads 'The Raven'

'Tis the season for a good reading of Poe's "The Raven"! Also a great opportunity to study the subtleties of facial motion!

via/QmX

'Coyote Falls '

This is a great attempt at the Warner style of animation in 3d. I believe Reel FX in Dallas, TX finished three of these shorts for WB. I'm looking forward to seeing the other two! Thanks Oz for the heads up!

Watch 'Legend Of The BoneKnapper Dragon'

Clip from Dean Wellins short ‘Tick Tock Tale’

This is a fantastic clip from Dean Wellins short! Love all the pantomime acting!

here: ‘Tick Tock Tale’ via /flim

Mark Andrews On Story

Awesome clip from a story lecture Mark Andrews gave at CalArts.




Spline Doctors On Story

Also, just reminding you of an older SplineCast with Mark Andrews and Ted Mathot! It's great!

here: Story Spline Cast with Mark Andrews and Ted Mathot (2007)

Amazing Dog Reference

Amazing dog reference here! Never thought I'd see a 'free running' dog lol love it!! Thanks Catherine Hicks for the heads up - you can follow her on Twitter here: @Cathicks

"Animation Nation" - BBC Documentary (2005)

A bit of interesting trivia here - according to this BBC documentary the oldest existing animation in the world is British?! It's a stop motion advertisement made by film pioneer Arthur Melbourne-Cooper called 'Matches Appeal'.

March To Save 'The Hobbit'

So there's a good possibility that 'The Hobbit' will be filmed in England or Ireland?!

Latest news info here: Hobbit looks headed overseas

More images from the protest here: Wellington Film Protest

Pencil Tests from 'Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon'

David Martinez' pencil tests for the short 'The Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon' featured on the 'How To Train Your Dragon' DVD. Really nice stuff here!

Making of Disney's 'Alice In Wonderland' (1951)

Agile Robot Demonstration

This is just amazing stuff! The motion on these robots is getting pretty impressive! Now George can afford to build a REAL Droid army at $305,000 a pop!

More info here: NIKKEI and AIST

Longer Version here: Agile Robot Extended Demonstration

Time Warp = Cool Reference

I love this stuff! High speed footage is just awesome!

Gobelins

Some excellent shorts here from Gobelins 2010 and a few from 2009.

HOLLERADO - AMERICANARAMA

Cool stuff of the day -- The "Human 8-bit Video" by Hollerado.



thanks for the heads up Matt!

Tom Wilson - Stand-up Mastery talk

Tom Wilson gives a serious lecture here about his life as a comedian and an actor. The real meat of the talk is in part 2 but there's some interesting bits in part 1 as well.

part1




part2

Big Animal Reference from 'Out Of Africa Park' in AZ

Here's some pretty incredible big animal reference from 'Out Of Africa Park' in AZ. The leopard's off the wall gainer is just crazy! I want to go this place!

Roy Disney Interview (2007)

Here's a fantastic interview with Roy Disney. It's pretty long at 2.5hrs but it's worth a listen! 



part 1


part 2


part 3


part 4


part 5


part 6

Weekend Discoveries

Well another week is upon us. So why not start it off with two cool projects by Renaud Hallée?! The focus on music and rhythm in these pieces rock!!

Gravité from Renaud Hallée on Vimeo.

Sonar from Renaud Hallée on Vimeo.

Richard Williams - The Thief Who Never Gave Up (1982)

This is a great documentary on the making of Richard Williams 'The Thief and The Cobbler'! Though the film had may troubles some of the animation sequences are just mind blowing!

The Theif Who Never Gave Up via Behind The Scenes


You can find more great info on 'The Thief and The Cobbler' here:  The Thief Blog

Shorts by Tout Court

Here are two films by Tout Court. The first one 'The Ugly Square' is a stop motion piece about circles and squares. It kind of reminds me of Chuck Jones film 'The Dot and the Line'. The second is 'Ruelf' and is about how some abstract 'color characters' bring color back to a black and white world. Both films are very interesting and worth a look!

You can learn more about these films here: http://toutcourt.fr/blog/





Le vilain petit carré / The ugly square from Tout Court on Vimeo.

Reulf from Charlesque on Vimeo.

Interview With Bill Melendez

This is a fantastic interview with legendary animator/filmmaker Bill Melendez! It's long and runs about 3.5 to 4hrs but it's a great window into the history of animation. You can also check out his website here http://www.billmelendez.tv/.


Part1


Part2


Part3


Part4


Part5


Part6


Part7


Part8

'8BITS' animation short

This is an interesting short. It has lots of action and is basically a long chase sequence. My beef is that the characters lack every emotion except anger (but maybe that's what the creators were going for) and I'm still trying to figure out the story (other than the 'save the girl' angle). I did like how the directors experimented with combining 3D and video game styled sequences despite how confusing some parts were. It's definitely worth a watch.

Film website here: 8Bits



8BITS_hd720 from 8BCREW on Vimeo.

Eric Goldberg talks animation

Here are some great bits of wisdom from Disney animator Eric Goldberg.

The Pioneer Series: Don Bluth and Gary Goldman

Dot. The world's smallest stop-motion animation character shot on a Nokia N8

The tiniest stop-motion animation ever! Turns out this short earned Aardman a Guinness Record ! More info  here: Aardman Earns Guinness Record via Animation Magazine



thanks for the heads up Cameron!

10 Memorable Movie Screen Tests

Some great acting reference here! Check out these screen tests that feature Marlon Brando, Sharon Stone, Henry Thomas, Dustin Hoffman  and others.

Actor Screen Tests via moviefone blog 

Face Research : Psychology of faces

This is an interesting website that studies the psychology of the face. It's free to register and no email is required.

Face Research

iPad Light Painting and Stop Motion

This is just too fun! Bet you could create something like this on the iPhone as well! Maybe there's already an app for it heh heh

More info here Dentsu London



Making Future Magic: iPad light painting from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

'Animating Art ' -- featuring Disney Legend Art Babbitt

A documentary about legendary animator Art Babbitt; featuring interviews with Art Babbitt, Richard Williams, and Andreas Deja.

Sketchy Duel

This is just great!!

'Motion Reference' on the high seas!

This is fascinating CCTV footage from a Pacific Sun Cruise liner that has hit a very rough patch of sea! The side to side havoc and mayhem is great motion reference! Made me think of Titanic!

'How To Train Your Dragon' story sketches

Toby Shelton posted some great story sketches and character designs from 'How To Train Your Dragon' on his blog. Check them out if you get a chance!

Toby Shelton: stuff i did

Bruce Ferriz Pencil Tests

Some really inspiring work by Bruce Ferriz --



via/ CatHicks

Angry Reference via the U.S. Open!

Direct from this weeks U.S. Open comes some great acting reference! Check out the gestures on this guy as he argues.
(heads up: here's a fight at the end and a bit of language)

more here: Spectator Brawl U.S. Open

'No Pets Allowed' new animated feature

This just looks amazing! Thanks for the heads up Dave!

More at Studio Nest Barcelona and Six Birds


NO PETS ALLOWED (Animation feature film) from Josep Pozo on Vimeo.

NYTimes: The Beauty of the Power Game

There's an awesome slow-motion gallery featuring top female tennis players over on the NYTimes website. 

The Beauty of the Power Game

Interview With Disney Legend John Hench

In this interview animator John Hench talks about his experiences working at Disney's during WWII. As a bit of trivia, Hench is also the longest term employee of Disney Studios. He was also made a Disney Legend in 1990 for Animation & Imagineering.

John Hench Interview Part 1  --  Part 2

6 Minutes of Super Slow Motion!

This is a great motion study! The large concrete block karate chop and the egg in the mousetrap are awesome!


6 Minutes of Slow Motion

Iron Giant test sequence

This is a great pencil test with Hogarth. Check out the full series of drawings here 'Ultimate Iron Giant'.




Iron Giant test sequence
Hogarth & Giant Levels
Lead Animator: Greg Manwaring

Disney Withdraws from Annie Awards?

Just had to pass this on:

Disney, Pixar Withdraw From Annie Awards via animation mag

 

 

Floyd Norman's "Memories with the Mouse"

This is a lecture give by Disney animator Floyd Norman from back in 2008. Norman shows slides and shares some fabulous stories from his years working at Disney Studios. He was named a Disney Legend in 2007.The sound on the footage has a bad echo but the content is great!

 You can also follow Floyd on Twitter (floydnorman) and through his blog Mr. FUN.




Part 1



Part 2


Part 3


Part 4

Inspiration: David Holt Plays Mountain Music

This TED episode really takes me back to my roots growing up in the foothills of Tennessee. David Holt's passion for folk music and storytelling is very inspirational! He plays "olde tyme" rhythms, instruments, and lyrics that echo from another era. The sweetness of contrast, melody, timing, exaggeration, anticipation, finesse, staging, etc. in music all apply to the craft of animation. I think the same basic words can describe all art forms (ever heard of the golden mean).
Anyhow, enjoy the performance and check out David's website www.davidholt.com!! 

Bowerbirds 'In Our Talons' -- Stop Motion Vid

This is just great stuff!!


Bowerbirds "In Our Talons" from Alan Poon on Vimeo.

'Danny & Annie' by The Rauch Brothers

This is one of those pieces that really gets you down deep. I mean REALLY deep. Love is the greatest thing on earth and it's beautifully represented in this short film.  Check out StoryCorps for more info about the project.


Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

The Creative Person: Richard Williams (1966)

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3