Interview with Steve 'Spaz' Williams

Interview with ILM animator and VFX Sup Steve Williams

Steve on Vimeo

 

Thien Long: Fun facts

Nicely designed commercial from the international advertising and marketing agency Ogilvy & Mather.

'The Human Face' from the BBC (2001)

This is a great series from the BBC about the human face. It provides some interesting perspective on a variety of topics ranging from emotion to structural symmetry.

Ronald Searle's Birthday Sketches

Legendary British artist and cartoonist Ronald Searle turned 91 last March! Some Pixar artists contributed sketches wishing him a happy birthday. Check them out here:

Happy 91st Birthday Ronald Searle

Interview with Ronald Searle (2010)

Interview with David Allen

This is a rare interview with animator/director David Allen. He discusses his work on the film 'The Howling' (1981).

This is deleted footage from "The Howling"

ALT Animation Podcast

This is a new animation podcast site. You might find some pretty insightful interviews listed there.

ALT ANIMATION 

Advice from Steven Spielberg and George Lucas

Salad Francois from 'Easter Parade' (1948)

This is a great bit of pantomime acting from the 1948 classic 'Easter Parade'. The 'Salad Francois' action starts at 19sec. 

Animation Results From Google Trends

Here's some interesting data from Google Trends concerning animation searches ranging from 2004 - 2011. Notice the decline in volume and check out who is in the top 10 for anim searches.

search // ANIMATION

search // 2D ANIMATION

search // 3D ANIMATION

search // VISUAL EFFECTS

*search // ANIMATION SCHOOLS

*search // ANIMATED MOVIES

Gotye - Bronte

Liked the style and mood of this short.

Directed and animated by Ari Gibson at Mechanical Apple
Background art by Jason Pamment

MÖBIUS - A collaborative stop motion sculpture

MÖBIUS was animated over a period of two weeks in Melbourne, AU. The design studio ENESS conceptualized the project. You check out their website here - ENESS

Hayao Miyazaki Interview at UC Berkeley Center for Japanese Studies

 I had the pleasure of attending this lecture a few years ago. My favorite part of the interview was when Miyazaki talked about his house and how it's located next to a river that frequently floods. He said that he has enough money to move the house higher up the mountain but instead would rather keep it where it is so that when the river floods he'll experience the disaster with his fellow neighbors. I also liked his thoughts on chaos and how he uses it as a theme in many of his films.

Miyazaki is also featured on CNN's 'Talk Asia' this week. He talks about Studio Ghibli and the recent earthquake that rocked Japan last March. If I can find the full length version of the interview aired last night I'll post it up. Below is a link to the story and a couple of clips from the interview.

Hayao Miyazaki: The world's greatest animator via CNN

Ormie the Pig

loved this short!

Chuck Jones Extremes & Inbetweens

Cutting-Edge Animation On A DIY Homestead [via NPR]

This NPR article about the creative studio Encyclopedia Pictura is very interesting. Not only do they create super cool commercials, music videos and animated shorts but they have also built a DIY 'Hobbiton' like community called Trout Gulch in Aptos, CA. Wow! Check out the links below to view the village and listen to the interview.


Listen via NPR \\  Cutting-Edge Animation On A DIY Homestead

EP's DIY village \\  Trout Gulch pics

Studio Website \\  Encyclopedia Pictura

View EP's work on Björk's 2008 video 'Wanderlust'

New Animation Blog 'Frame by Frame'

The new animation blog 'Frame by Frame' has post some nice sequential animation stills and gifs. It's great to be able to review the frames individually then view them in motion.

Check it out:  Frame by Frame 

Motion Capture from Body-Mounted Cameras

Check out this new tech from Disney Research and Carnegie Mellon Graphics that was shown at SIGGRAPH 2011. It's an interesting spin on the method of motion capture because it uses body-mounted cameras instead of markers.

More info here: Motion Capture From Body-Mounted Cameras

Spline Cast: Lee Unkrich and Darla K. Anderson

Spline cast is back with an interview with director Lee Unkrich and producer Darla K. Anderson from Toy Story 3.


Spline Cast with Lee and Darla

Peanuts Documentary (1985)

This is the "It's Your 20th TV Anniversary, Charlie Brown" documentary from 1985. Artist Charles Schultz creator of the comic strip Peanuts narrates the piece. You can also find the interview with animator/director of the Peanuts TV specials Bill Melendez here:  Bill Melendez Interview



Part 1


Part 2


Part 3 (embed disabled / click on pic for link)

Part 4


Part 5

'GULP' - The world's largest stop-motion animation

This is impressive! 



Making of 'Gulp'

Impersonations by Kevin Spacey

I know this vid has been floating around the net for a long while but I get a kick out of it every time I watch it. Love the simple body postures and actions Spacey chooses to caricature/impersonate the actors. Brilliant!



thanks Adrian!