Sharing Animation - Mindscape (Jacques Drouin, 1976)

This week I'm coming to you with an animation that when I first saw it, when I understood what I was watching, it completely blew my mind!

The name of the animation is Le Paysagiste (Mindscape, the english name) by Jacques Drouin.

I tried for a while to look for videos that talk about this unbelievable animation technique, so before you see this animation you could actually see the process, but I couldn't find any proper video. You can scroll along this video HERE, where Drouin himself is talking (in french) and he has a pinscreen behind him and he sometimes shows something in it. I've watched a wonderful one that I just couldn't find.

Taken from the wikipedia, I found it quite right: "A pinscreen is a white screen that consists of thousands and thousands of pins in small holes. Light shines from the side of this platform causing each and every single pin to cast its own shadow. Each pin, being able to slide easily back and forth through the holes, can cast different shadows. The white screen becomes darker the farther the pins are pushed out. The more the pins are pushed in, the lighter the screen becomes, giving a grayish tone and eventually an all white screen again."

It's really a macro sized thing that can have the whole grey, black and white scale almost perfectly. The pins are so small that you almost can't see them, you just see the gradient.

So as for animation: imagine you push a group of pins until that part of the screen is white, you take a picture and then you have to go to the back of the screen push those pins out again so you can have the white area in a different place, to have the movement when you take a picture again.

Maybe you can imagine that it's a pretty difficult technique! And so this beautiful work I bring to you today it's even more spectacular.
The technique is amazing enough but Drouin managed to make a real master piece out of it!

The best video I found was in the very National Film Board of Canada website, watch it in High Quality, wait it to load, it's totaly worth it. Although the standard is quite watchable it High Quality takes too long.
So here it is, Mindscape by Jacques Drouin.

Check out the other short movies from the Sharing Collection HERE!!

See you next week with another incredible animation!

No copyright and related rights infringements are intended with these sharings, all these animations are properties from their respective authors or studios always credited in the post.

My Animations - Five

Here is another project I've been working on.

This is a 20 seconds part of a whole 5 minutes animation project (the biggest I've ever written so far). This semester in university we had to write, storyboard, test, change, test, change again, etc, and make 20 seconds of one big animation. It's a pity that during the semester I don't actually have to finish all the projects I start, since here we were learning to create, produce, direct, and all the rest, a whole short, and one semester is not enough time to finish it.
I see that this is good for learning, but the truth is that I end up with a bunch of unfinished works. When we are done starting and developing it through it's first steps, we already have another project to do, so we kinda have to let the last one as it is. But who knows, right? Maybe in the future, if I manage to make the time, I'll finish it!

This was done in tradicional animation, digitally painted in photoshop. The background has a paper texture. It has an intended rigid and trembled animation style, not at all like Disney's animations.

In very short, the story is about the greed for power and recognition among a society. The five characters, the society, all start as equals, but by various reasons and motivations their importance in the group vary and a hierarchy of recognition is created. With hierarchy comes social difference and more power to some means less power to others. In the end it's a game of power and greed among them, the society that quickly forgets that they were all equals.

This 20 second part (really the introduction and the beginning of the whole thing) shows how the first one emerge just by having the initiative to find food. He would start eating it and the others, showing hunger, would respect him and allow him to be their leader in exchange for food. Since it's an important factor for life the others will respect him for being the provider. So he'll be the first one to grow in the eyes of the society, and in the animation he would physically grow.

Ow, and the name was not quite chosen yet. Five because there's five of them! =P

Sharing Animation - Next (Barry Purves, 1989)

For this (late) week animation sharing I bow to a very very good master stop-motion puppets animator. He has some other incredible works and I'll definetely talk more about him in the future.

But today I come with the one called Next, from the respectable master animator, Barry Purves.

Next was the first animation written and directed (aswell as animated) by Purves, released in 1989. After many years animating for others, he engaged himself in this very ambicious project and I call it ambicious because he chose to represent the "Complete Works" (37 stories) of William Shakespeare in an empty stage, exploring, in his words, body language, taking the puppet to it's limit.

It's amazing to watch how Purves makes many of his animations as actual theater's plays. His use of the stage as the only scenary and the front camera really makes us, viewers, feel as in a theater. But animations are real plays, they are all carefully staged and rehearsed, and we actually are viewers sitting down and watching it. He just makes the connection between animation and real acting even more obvious. No wonder he works in real plays aswell.

Click HERE to access his official website.

His latest animation is called Tchaikovsky. I'm certainly dying to watch it. HERE and HERE you can watch a teaser and the trailer.

So here it is, Next by Barry Purves:

Check out the other short movies from the Sharing Collection HERE!!

See you next week for another incredible play!

No copyright and related rights infringements are intended with these sharings, all these animations are properties from their respective authors or studios always credited in the post.

Sharing Animation - The Old Man And The Sea (Alexander Petrov, 1999)

For this week's Sharing Animation piece, I brought to you one that has amazed me since I first glanced it. So I'll start by saying that it is amazing!

This was done in one of the most difficult types of animation of all, paint on glass. In my oppinion it's such a hard craft that few can actually make it look good. And this incredible painter, this incredible artist, certainly made it.

As some of you may have already guessed, the animation is The Old Man and the Sea, by the, once more, incredible russian Alexander Petrov.

Now there isn't much to say, just watch. The story is beautiful and the graphism even more beautiful. It took two and a half years of tireless work to complete, and looking at the awards that it picked up, it was worth it. Besides the Academy Award Best Animated Short Film Oscar, The Old Man and The Sea won several other awards.

HERE you can find a video where Petrov talks a little bit about this animation and it's dubbed in english. HERE (part 1) and HERE (part 2) you can find another two videos where Petrov is talking about his work flow. It's in russian, so I couldn't understand a word! =) But it's still pretty cool to watch how Petrov makes some frames of the movie (more or less at the end of part 1 and the beginning of part 2), his drawings for the storyboard and some reference images he took for Old man and the sea.

So here is the master piece (in English), please enjoy:

Check out the other short movies from the Sharing Collection HERE!!

See you next week for one more incredible inspirational animation!

No copyright and related rights infringements are intended with these sharings, all these animations are properties from their respective authors or studios always credited in the post.

My Animations - Rotoscope

This week I made a Rotoscopy animation exercise! It took me about 16 hours to make this 29 second, and was completely made in Flash.

It was actually my first try rotoscoping, and I'm quite pleased with the result. I wanted to make a sort of cinema history, so I started with some classic shots of some old films. A thought is to continue this project and add more classic films that I've watched to this animation.

I wanted it a black and white rotoscopy, somewhat like a sketch book, adding some color in details (the tongue and the dancing bread).

The movies added are 1902 - A Trip to The Moon and 1925 - The Gold Rush

After a while I thought it would be nice to add some detail to it, so I thought adding the smoke texture as I've done in my Music Abstraction animation.

One thing I can say, I definitely rather do "real" animation than rotoscoping! =)

Sharing Animation - Manipulation (Daniel Greaves, 1991)

I always loved animations that not only tells a narrative but also talks about animation itself. Animations that really show the process, the making of, the material, the essence of animation and present it in a way that it seems we're looking at the animator doing his job!

And on top of all that, what makes the "Illusion of life", persued by all animations, more real then having the life form creation interacting with his creator, the animator? There are tons of animations interacting with his creator, but this one is certainly one of the bests, if only for winning the 1992 Oscar for the best animated short.

The british author, name: Daniel Greaves, and his award winner piece, name: Manipulation.

Here it is, the very amusing animation:

Check out the other short movies from the Sharing Collection HERE!!

See you next week for yet another awesome piece of animation!

No copyright and related rights infringements are intended with these sharings, all these animations are properties from their respective authors or studios always credited in the post.

Animag 2011 Funny Animation Retrospective

Animation Magazine made a funny 2011 kind of Comic Book page with some of the animations that impressed during last year. I thought it was really cool to share with everyone! Of course, credit: Animag!!

Awesome stuff!!

Sharing Animation - Orgesticulanismus (Mathieu Labaye, 2008)

For this week's sharing animation I'm here to share with you one of the most amazing animations I've ever seen. This is a very well done animation with a very deep and honest meening and inspiration.

The author is the belgian Mathieu Labaye and his beautiful piece has the name of Orgesticulanismus.

The animation was done in memory of Labaye's father, who suffered of multiple sclerosis and was confined to a wheel chair since he was 40 years old. As I see it, the animation is really a shout of defiance against his father's inability. It's definitely a great use of the art of movement to cheat the prison of movement restraints. It's a beautiful way to set him free.

The animation starts with a speech made by Mathieu's father, talking about his inability with his own photos fading in the background. Then there are some very mathematic schemes of movements, showing the most banal of day to day tasks (wich is very well achieved because not even those very common things can be done by a disabled person, showing the grade of dependence).
Then he just "set him free" in a wild dance with all the movements a man can and can't do.
In the final part the liberty is still being explored, the movement still free. Labaye created a space for reflection.

In his father's words, the only way to survive is re-creating an inner space that sets him free. And this is the way his son Mathieu visualised it.




Thanks again for watching the sharing animation post, and keep sharing and commenting!

Check out the other short movies from the Sharing Collection HERE!!

See you next week for another awesome awesome awesome animation!

No copyright and related rights infringements are intended with these sharings, all these animations are properties from their respective authors or studios always credited in the post.

New Animag!

The December/January issue of Animation Magazine arrived this week in my house! I love receiving it! And this month there was a bonus! A 2012 Calendar with a lot of animation!!! =)

Here's a picture of it.

Awesome right???

This month's issue talks about the great feature Tintin (wich I have not yet seen!) with interviews with both Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. Also about Happy Feet 2, the now very famous Czech rotoscoped film Alois Nebel, the new Alvin and the Chipmunks, the spanish Arrugas, the also new Muppets just to talk about the big great huge known stuff, but there's a lot of other cool stuff in this issue! Oh... and a bunch of "for your consideration" adds for the best animation Oscars run for features animated films. The cover story is Tintin.

I just love this Magazine!!

See you next time!

Sharing Animation - Grasshoppers (Bruno Bozzetto, 1990)

For this week's sharing animation I'm here presenting another animation that has highly influenced me before.

This is a funny little piece that tells the story of the world (more the world wars) in this  sort of comedy parade. For me it's quite impressive how Bruno Bozzetto's small and simple drawings has so much to tell and are so expressive in their movements.

The name of the animation is Grasshoppers and it was nominated for Oscar in 1991 for the best animated short's category.

This extensive animator has done many other shorts, tv shows and also some feature films! He has more than 50 years of animation works, and certainly a full bag of work that many have enjoyed.
HERE you can find his official website.

So here it is:

Check out the other short movies from the Sharing Collection HERE!!

See you next week for another awesome animation!

No copyright and related rights infringements are intended with these sharings, all these animations are properties from their respective authors or studios always credited in the post.

Sharing Animation - The Man Who Planted Trees (Frédéric Back, 1987)

Be very welcome once more with this week's sharing animation post! Today's animation is a bit bigger, but definitely worth watching! Is one of the most beautiful pieces I have ever seen!

The name of the author is Frédéric Back and the name of the animation I'm sharing with you today is "The Man Who Planted Trees".

HERE is a link to Frédéric Back website, and HERE a more direct link for this particular animation.

It's a beautiful story about a man and his willpower. He is a live example how every single one of us can make a huge difference in the world with nothing but our will.

Frédéric Back is really, as said in Animation Now! book, a master drawer with great intentions. Here it is, the masterpiece.

Check out the other short movies from the Sharing Collection HERE!!

See you next week with another awesome animation!

No copyright and related rights infringements are intended with these sharings, all these animations are properties from their respective authors or studios always credited in the post.

Tales From the Toon Trenches - Michael Mallory - The Case of the Copycat Concerto

Animation Magazine's author Michael Mallory has a column called Tales From the Toon Trenches where he writes about all sort of cool issues about people and events that happened in the past in the world of animation. Since I first subscribed to the Animag daily newsletter I always loved to read it! So today I come to share one of the Tales that I enjoyed the most, about a famous Cat and an even more famous Bunny doing the same thing at the same time! So read this post on their webpage!

Click HERE to read it.

And here are the two pieces it talks about!

The Cat Concerto (MGM)
It was produced by Fred Quimby and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, with musical supervision by Scott Bradley, and animation by Kenneth Muse, Ed Barge and Irven Spence. (wikipedia)





Rabbit Rhapsody (Warner Bros.)
Directed by Friz Freleng.

You can watch it HERE (youtube) because I couldn't find it to embed anywhere. And it's in hungarian, but don't worry, it doesn't matter for the understanding of it.

I finish my post once more advising you all to subscribe to Animag's Newsletter! It's pretty cool if only for the amazing Tales From the Toon Trenches!

Sharing Animation - Father and Daughter (Michael Dudok de Wit, 2000)

For this week's Sharing Animation I'll post here a beautiful short from the very talented Michael Dudok de Wit (Link to wikipedia)!
Dudok de Wit's quality of work is always supreme, and his beatiful work with Ink is always a thrill to watch!

This short animation talks about the deep bond between a father and a daughter. She loses him and all her life she misses him. It's name is, of course, Father and Daughter.
It was the second animation created by Dudok de Wit to win Cartoon d'Or award for best european animated short of the year. (The first one will also be shared here in the future, but let's save some sweet for later!!). It also won the 2001 Oscar for best animated short film and several other awards.

HERE you can go to Dudok de Wit's official website.
And here is his piece of art, Father and Daughter:

Check out the other short movies from the Sharing Collection HERE!!

See you next week for another awesome piece of A(rt)nimation! =)

No copyright and related rights infringements are intended with these sharings, all these animations are properties from their respective authors or studios always credited in the post.

Walt Disney Studio Awards page

This week I bumped into this web page that contains some information about the Walt Disney Studio films for 2011 Awards! So there's some great stuff in there, starting with Concept Art for Cars 2, some Making of Pictures of the new Winnie the Pooh, some info about the new Pixar short La Luna, and some more about The Muppets, Gnomeo & Juliet and Pirates of the Caribbean!

The page is not huge but there's still some cool things to see!

http://www.waltdisneystudiosawards.com/

See you next time!

Blur Studio Cinematics

This guys have some great pieces of Cinematics or their page! I always loved Cinematics! Many times they are even better than the game itself!

Very well done 3D animation! Check it out!

http://vz3.blur.com/work/cinematics

See you next time!