An update on the Disposable Film Festival: apparently tickets for tonight’s 8pm screening at the Roxie are already sold out, so they’ve added a 10pm show! Tickets available here, and other info here.
Category Archives: animation
See us on the big screen, if you’re so disposed.
Good news: our short film, How to Make a Baby, is heading for the silver screen! It will be in the competitive shorts program at the wonderfully named Disposable Film Festival. The big event is Thursday, March 4th at 8pm at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater. Sure, you’ve seen it on the internet. But the Roxie’s screen is, like, a million feet wide! How big is your screen? You can buy tickets in advance if you like, and there’s a party next door after the screening. Come hang out with us and all the other disposables!
Another Dragon trailer
I guess there are two different trailers making the rounds. This one is the “international” trailer (which I think really means “not the USA or Canada”.) It’s interesting to see how they pitch the movie slightly differently to different audiences. The same warnings apply: watch this only if you don’t mind spoilers!
How to Train Your Dragon trailer
This is the movie I’ve been working on for the past year or so. I can’t say enough good about this film. By far the best one I’ve ever worked on, I can recommend it without hesitation. Yes, it’s that good!
The trailer is finally up, and it has a bunch of my shots in it! (The freeze frame you see below is one of them.) I have mixed feelings about posting the trailer here: on the one hand, compared to the previous teasers and leaked footage that’s been out there, this does a much better job at representing what the movie’s really like. But on the other hand, it takes a lot of sweet moments and shows them out of context, which could take away some of the surprise and enjoyment when you see it in the theater. So, if you don’t mind spoilers, watch the trailer below. But if you’d rather keep yourself pure and unsullied, just wait ’til March 26th and go see it on the big screen!
And here’s a link to the full-res trailer if you’d like to see it a bit bigger!
On the Value of Drawing for CG Animators
Last weekend I got to see a live interview with one of my all-time heroes, Hayao Miyazaki. He said, through a translator, all kinds of interesting things. When asked about computer animation, he had this to say: “One time we hired an expert to animate some scenes on the computer, but in the end we found that we could draw the scenes faster with a pencil.”
Now maybe this was his choice of words, and maybe it was the translator’s, but I found this response pretty revealing. It reflects a thought process about what animation is, in which drawing is central to everything. If what you’re trying to do is draw a scene, a pencil really is faster than a computer. But is that necessarily true? Is animation, at its heart, about drawing?
Continue reading On the Value of Drawing for CG Animators
So that’s how babby is formed!
Looks like our How to Make a Baby video has gone viral. It’s been on Boing Boing, Neatorama, Geekologie, Cartoon Brew, MSN.com, and about a zillion other blogs. In the mainstream media, it’s been on Canal Plus, Metro (UK), Epoca, Glamour, and ESPN of all places.
As of today, our original video has been watched over 400,000 times. (I’m still trying to figure out how much popcorn that would mean if all those people had to go see it in a movie theater.) Meanwhile, an unofficial copy on YouTube has garnered another quarter of a million views (although for some reason my “official” YouTube copy has a scant 10,000… go figure!) And I guess the lack of dialog gives the short some kind of global appeal, because it’s been blogged in Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish. Whew!
Here are some of the best comments I’ve seen so far (in English, anyway…)
“The pope was right – condoms ARE useless. Rubber gloves, however!”“Excellent! I played it for my 5 year old daughter and her 5 year old cousin before they left for school. I’m sure it’ll make for an interesting day for their teachers :)”
“Scientifically inaccurate – fails to show the crucial contribution made by the stork.”
“Now that is dedication! I’m watching this on the set of a stop-motion film, and it certainly puts our long waiting times between takes into perspective.”
“Adoption is much easier and less stressful on the lungs/stomach.”
“That is exactly how my wife and I did it. By the way, NEVER blow on two fingers at once. Yep … twins!”
“My girlfriend is inflatable, too. God, I’m so lonely.”
Surreal theatrical moment
At the El Capitan theater in Hollywood, I was treated to this surreal bit of pre-show entertainment: a dancer dressed as Pinocchio, wordlessly performing bits from the movie we were about to see, to rows and rows of empty seats.
I half expected David Lynch to step out and take a bow.
The art of Coraline
Today we went to the “Art of Coraline” exhibit at San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum. It’s a fantastic show, full of gorgeous drawings, maquettes, armatures and full puppets from the making of the movie (which comes out next weekend by the way… we’re gonna try to catch one of the stereo 3D screenings, don’t wanna miss that!)
My personal favorite thing to see was a little black journal, chained to the wall, labeled “Secrets”. It’s a reproduction of the working diary of Jeremy Spake, one of the armature builders. Not only is it a beautiful object, but it shows just how experimental the process really is. Stop motion is still very much an evolving art form, and it’s the thought process of guys like this that keeps it evolving. Rock on!
Here are a few more photos from the show:
But it’s really worth seeing this stuff in person. The armatures and puppets are so detailed that no photo can do them justice. And strangely, a lot of the artwork in the show doesn’t appear in the only available “visual companion” book
How to Make a Baby
How to Make a Baby from Cassidy Curtis on Vimeo.
Having a kid is such a memorable experience, but it’s kind of hard to convey to folks who haven’t been through it. So we made this little educational film to show you how it’s done. (Don’t worry, it’s totally worksafe!)
For a bigger version, and some behind the scenes details, see How to Make a “How to Make a Baby”.
Animation Mentor rocks on!
I just finished shooting a video lecture for Animation Mentor‘s revised curriculum. The topic is “personality”. It was an incredible challenge trying to tackle such a meaty subject in a one-hour video (not to mention doing all the preparation and research while raising a newborn! Man, what was I thinking?) But the team at AM did an amazing job reining in my rambling ways. My old cubicle-mate Luci Napier directed the shoot, and I was blown away by her ability to focus and keep everything on track, as well as adding great ideas of her own, from her experience as an animator, improv performer and student of psychology. (That’s her in the photo, with founder Bobby Beck, who suckered me into doing this in the first place. ;-) Now I know how it must feel for a writer to have a really smart editor. What a fun collaboration! Can’t wait to see what AM’s crack editorial department does with the footage…