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.
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 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”.
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…
Tonight I learned that one of my favorite graffiti spots, London’s “Undercroft” skatepark, has temporarily been taken over–or rather been given over by the authorities–to an artist named Robin Rhode. If you search Google or YouTube you can see some of the guy’s work… some of it is actually kinda interesting, but nowhere near cool enough to justify shutting down the Undercroft for a whole week, in my opinion.
His schtick seems to be taking a series of photos where he draws some stuff in chalk on the wall or floor, and then photographs himself a bunch of times miming some kind of simple action, like waving a flag made of bricks, or slam-dunking a basketball into an imaginary basket. He shows the work as a series of photos in a gallery, or a videotaped slide show of same.
The London-based graffiti writers in my Flickr circles have been putting him down because he’s an “artist” (as opposed to a writer), and in this case, they have a point: everyone else who paints at the Undercroft does so on their own time and resources, and at their own risk. Then, here comes this guy with a team of contractors to do the heavy work of priming the walls for him, so he can stroll in and do his drawings. And Southbank Centre actually shuts down the skatepark for a whole week just to give him room to do his thing. That’s got to bother a lot of people, given the strong anti-authority thread in the subculture: “real” graffiti writers don’t ask permission, and they certainly don’t hire assistants to do their dirty work. Graffiti writers, in a way, created the Undercroft. It’s hard not to feel like this action is taking their baby away from them.
For my part, I get irritated when art critics credit Rhode as doing “stop-frame animation“, when all he’s ever produced is a mere storyboard of an action. What he’s doing is almost animation, but it’s not really, because he never seems to shoot enough photos (nor have a strong enough grasp of the principles of motion) to make it work–it certainly wouldn’t play well at 24 frames per second–so instead he shows it as a series of stills. Pretty weak sauce, especially when there are artists like Blu out there doing full-on hand-painted animation on the street. And so I find myself wanting to hate on the guy, even though we’ve never met.
What’s interesting to me is that what these two responses have in common: both animation and graffiti require a lot of skill, effort, dedication and time. So when someone steps into either territory who doesn’t seem to be willing to put in that effort, it’s going to bother the people who live there.
Anyway, Rhode’s intervention is scheduled to end on October 4th, so it’ll all be over shortly. I look forward to seeing the writers and skaters take back their Undercroft with extreme prejudice.
A little stop-motion goofiness with our friends Mykle and Phina over the July 4th weekend. Starring a lizard pen, some fruit, a tiny pliers, and whatever else happened to be on the dining room table, including the cat.
Looks like they’ve gotten started on marketing for the movie I’m working on. And they’re using some of my animation in a bunch of the promo materials. This is it, man, I’ve made the big time! Forget about feature films. Projected celluloid is so old-media. Animated GIFs are where it’s at! I won’t hurt your eyes by posting ’em on the front page though. Click below for the full effect.
Over at Kevin Koch’s always excellent Synchrolux blog, there’s a discussion brewing about a new course being offered by professor Alej Garcia at San Jose State University about the physics of animation. I love the idea of this course, and I also love the openness with which Professor Garcia is engaging with animators to get the ideas and terminology exactly right, via Kevin’s blog and elsewhere. When scientists and artists get together, good things happen!
Part of the discussion has revolved around a certain stroboscopic photo of a bouncing ball:
Kevin pointed out that the ball’s arc looked strange to him, and a wonderful discussion ensued. The question in my mind was why there appeared to be a sudden change in direction and speed between the second and third “frames” of the ball’s movement. The best explanation I’ve been able to come up with is that none of the strobe’s flashes happened to coincide with the exact moment when the ball hit the ground:
This brings up a really important distinction between animation and film. In live-action film (or in strobe photography) the camera captures whatever happens to be in front of it every 24th of a second, regardless of whether the image captured in that instant is particularly interesting or important. Only one instant is captured, and the rest of what happens in that 1/24-second interval is lost. In animation, the expectations are higher: we expect each frame to do the best possible job of telling the story of what happens in the entire interval. In the case of a bouncing ball, the most important part is clearly the instant when the ball hits the ground–not what happens a few milliseconds earlier or later! The strobe photo above might be a technically accurate representation of a bouncing ball, but it does a poor job of conveying the whole truth to the audience, because the most salient moments–the bounces–are misrepresented. This is just one of many reasons why animation has something that live action (or pure motion capture) will never quite match.
Lichtfaktor brings us another iteration on the lightpainting animation meme. I like how he uses street furniture like mailboxes and trashcans as parts of the animated characters. It’s like the most non-destructive kind of graffiti imaginable… talk about leaving no trace! It’s also got a sweet IDM soundtrack.
(via Wooster Collective)
Previously:
Lightpainting animation brings everyone happiness!
This Conversation May Be Recorded…
So, Shrek the Third opens tomorrow. Y’all are going to see it, right? Of course you are! ;-)
The trailers have been out for a while, so I’m sure you’ve seen them around. As it turns out, there are shots I animated in almost all the movie trailers! Some Shrek shots, some princesses, even a few ogre babies (the cute ones, not the dancing ones…)
The shot pictured above has a little easter egg, a “shout-out” to all you computer animation industry old-timers. (You won’t see it in the image above–I’ll leave it up to you to scan through the trailer and figure it out!) “Mad props” to my “homie” Jerry Hebert for “hooking me up” with the idea! ;-)