Miyazaki again

I'm not making a story yet, that's too limiting.

Starts with just images that make you question and wonder what is happening. Totorro started with just the image of the kid and totorro at the bus stop. Then builds the story around the moments he explored.

doesn't matter if it's just an illustration, it works so long as it's interesting, if people are bored it's game over.

funiko - atmosphere or mood. japanese animation emphasizes this idea of strong emotional resonance rather than gag based cartoons. the environment is a character and has a feeling mood and story about it. The particularity of place, there'a narrative anchored in the larger world. How does this particular environment push on and change the story elements.

You must animate will, not just movement, the drive behind it.

easy to understand movies are boring. Logical storyllines sacrifice creativity.

empowers his protagonists with a sense of action, the power to do what is right despite adults perhaps not doing it.

he's creating worlds for the next generation.

self satisfied people are boring. we have to push to surpass ourselves

Alex Henderson

Just ran across this guy  Sheridan Grad, 1 man animation band.


Breathing Space - Animated Short Film from Alexander Henderson on Vimeo.


His twitter is full of tons of matte background painting, which look great with the flat shaded animation.

He storyboards pretty tightly. Uses zbrush and mudbox for modeling, feel like he's able to recycle his models some to jump off to a new one. For rigging he uses Rapid Rig to do a lot of the heavy lifting, and has other auto rigger scripts that he hasn't named. (wonder what he does for faces), and then corrective blendshapes for big changes. VFX are a large part preset's he bought for aftereffects. All of those skills are a career in their own, it's impressive how well he does them all, he has commissions on his site for doing quick animate portraits and it seems fairly cheap to be making a new character all the time.

Pretty inspiring what's possible.

He's currently running a kickstarter for a short