monotreme dreams

John Cleese on creativity

2012-01-31T15:12:00.000-08:00

John Cleese - a lecture on Creativity from janalleman on Vimeo.

be open, relaxed, look at things as they are and consider possiblities and be curious about what is up. Penecilin wouldn't have been discovered if the scientist had been closed and just went about his business, instead of being curious why this one petri dish didn't grow what he wanted.

be closed once you know what you're gonna do, be focused and see it through

conditions that can encourage being in the open mode
1.space
can't be playful and creative under usual pressures, because you're closed mode to get stuff done
2. time
have to have a time period to have your space in, you know you won't be interupted
3. time
most creative people are willing to put extra time in instead of taking the 1st easy answer that comes, push for the creative one
4. confidence
open to fail, just experimenting
"you can't be spontaneous within reason"
5. humor
gets us from closed mode to open mode quicker than anything else
laughter makes us relax by turning the world on it's ear

then keep your mind gently upon the subject your trying to crack

it is easier to do trivial little things we know we can do instead of big things that we're not sure about like "being creative",resist the noise of your mind looking around for a distraction. 1/2 hour to get in the zone

more creative when playing with friends, be open and positive. just like the rules of Improv, never say no.

joke comes when you connect 2 different frameworks in a new waya new idea is the same thing, connecting 2 seperate ideas in a new way

if you're stuck, start generating random connections and your intuition will tell you which ones are worth keeping

* found on animation

Archetype

2012-01-26T10:37:00.000-08:00

Archetype

by Aaron Sims

Krampus

2012-01-23T23:27:00.001-08:00

The more I learn, the more it seems like the fairies and devils of England and Ireland (and Tolkein) are just watered down versions from ~~Scandinavia~~ elsewhere(lol clearly I don't really know what I'm talking about :). I would love to delve into the real stuff.

http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

*
again from puppetvision.info

Hands Vid Ref

2012-01-23T23:13:00.000-08:00

hands can be supremely emotive but seem to not be tapped for their full potential. Here's an over the top video that may have some ideas

so far best animated example I have seen is from Florin Toma (who I can't find anything about)

Hands-FINAL from Florin Toma on Vimeo.

*
found at puppetvision.info blog

Justin Rasch

2012-01-19T22:33:00.000-08:00

Justin Rasch went in under 5 years from stopmo virgin to working on Laika's latest. A journey he chronicles on his blog (awesome). I've looked up these vids a couple of times, his early experiments in stop mo, to see how he started out.

Here's the stuff he's doing lately.

here's the early work.

Every once in a while I poke at stopmotihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifon for an evening.(an older attempt) Nice to see that my cg animation skills are theoretically transferable. But so far I think I still have a lot of stumbling blocks before I can actually see what I could achieve (ala badly made puppets, flimsy little stages the cat knocks over, having to sleep) or maybe it's just a lot of excuses.

(things to figure out:
fixing the puppet when not on feet
easier feet (currently 1 nut in foot w/ a bolt & wingnut below, tedious to do)
change poses without having to pick up the whole puppet (especially compressing expanding spine, if I try and do it in pose it bends in the wrong places and doesn't give me the graphic shape I want)(maybe not double wrapping the wire)(maybe just having a durable stage that I can really lean on so I can do it in pose)
cleaner solution for holding/interacting with objects
and clearly lots of practice animating

hi Justin, hope you don't mind me putting these up (I had tracked them down a couple times on your youtube page and wanted to be able to find them faster) I'll take down the post if it's not ok.

Oh Willy

2012-01-17T11:55:00.000-08:00

Emma De Swaef and Marc James Roels

pretty awesome to have a look that hasn't been done to death

(must be a nightmare to animate with, slightest touch must make everything jitter)

*found on animation

Ornelie

2012-01-16T15:12:00.000-08:00

Gobelins student Lili Ornelie

hand drawn love it

Azureus Rising

2012-01-15T22:54:00.000-08:00

Azureus Rising

Was thinking about this one today. It kind of seems like "let's make the most awesomest awesome thing we can." like they were just trying to stuff it full of "cool". It's flashy, and I guess decent eye candy, but in the end it doesn't http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhavehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif any weight, it doesn't mean anything, so why do it. Decent to study I guess if you need to put some cool into your project.

Similar to Rosa, plenty of eye candy, but what's the point?

this post goes against my philosophy of "only be positive online" so maybe I'll pull it back down...

Hey

2012-01-12T14:11:00.000-08:00

Adam & Dog

2012-01-10T11:39:00.001-08:00

Adam and dog Trailer from Minkyu on Vimeo.

I'm sure this will be over the webs in a second,but looks awesome

ArtBeats

2012-01-04T11:29:00.001-08:00

Artbeats is like clip art for film, so if you're working on a live action film and need some establishing shots you can pick them up from here.

AnimSchool EyeBlink

2012-01-04T11:09:00.001-08:00

seems that plasticity and meat in the face is one of the things that seperates the pro's from the rest of us

PS Brushes

2012-01-03T12:45:00.001-08:00

stumbled across a page of artist's photoshop brushes and tutorials

http://theroundtablet.com/2011/06/27/photoshop-brushes-of-the-pros-for-free-skills-still-required/

(happy new year)

Girl and the Siren

2011-12-29T21:35:00.001-08:00

Flickan & Sirenen Teaser ( The Girl & the Siren Teaser) from Jakob Arevärn on Vimeo.

article over at AnimateClay (where I found it) Something charming about the silhouette foreground elements and cardboard city.

William Groebe from Tippett on Animals

2011-12-16T13:40:00.000-08:00

good animation - know your principles

good acting - fits the plate it's on

good action - so it feels real. so a cat walks across a talbe like a cat, a dog walks like a dog

good attention to detail - all the little intricacies and details in the real world (cat's scrunching nose) how toes spread when landing (of a cat) good polished animation

power of reference
find it and shoot it (yourself if you can't get an animal to do it)

he's pro w/ 14 years but if he just knocked out a dog walk and compared it to life it would be missing something. Like drawing a self portrait from memory, instead of from a mirror. Be humble, accept that you need reference. (slow mo often very helpful, smaller animals are often too fast to see)

shoot ref of cat walking and sitting, but also of yourself to get acting beats and timing you wanted

make it happen, don't let a rig hold you back from recreating what a real animal could do

head, neck and tail on world orient (so hips bouncing doesn't wig tail out, chest turns, head still acts where you want it)

just because you have controls doesn't mean you have to use them

he animates foot/palm into place first, then corrects wrist/heel

breathing trick: grab all spine scale them all a tiny bit (expand relax chest), then offset depth first then width, then offset the different spine ctrls from each other, then sometimes animate shoulders reacting to the chest

The Thing 2011 Practical Effects

2011-12-16T13:14:00.000-08:00

Awesome (and annoyingly not embeddable) from StudioAdi, something supremely awesome about real world effects, light and actors all work better with them too.

Protéigon

2011-12-13T14:18:00.000-08:00

nothing ground breaking, but fun

PROTEIGON from BURAYAN on Vimeo.

* found on animation

Kyle Balda - Layered Walk

2011-12-12T16:52:00.000-08:00

I just finished taking a course at Animation Collaborative. One thing a lot of the Pixar animators talked about is working in a layered approach. What was really interesting was them talking about being A LOT faster using a layered approach. Well I have to give try on it, and along comes this Kyle Balda tut, perfect.

*found by spungella

Aardman Pirates

2011-12-08T13:51:00.000-08:00

making of, incredible the amount of stuff they have to build, makes me suprised we don't see more stop motion films that take place inside a featureless room. awesome crazy

12 drawings a Day

2011-12-07T11:10:00.000-08:00

drew a second a day for 3 years. GAAA hand drawn is so awesome

12 Drawings a Day - 12 Dessins par Jour from Denis Chapon on Vimeo.

During 3 years (2008-2011) i have been drawing 12 drawing of animation every day, it make one second of film. I had no plans what so ever before starting the first drawing. And then, each of the folowing days, I took the 3 last drawing from the day before and kept on animating. I use a none erasable pen, and drew on the back side of used A4 paper.

* found by JHD

IndieAnimator Tumbler

2011-12-06T12:06:00.001-08:00

Found another short film aggregator indieanimator.tumblr.com

some stuff I haven't seen on there

Aleksandr (english subtitle) from Aleksandr Team on Vimeo.

1979 Muppet film test

2011-12-05T16:36:00.000-08:00

I just know I'm gonna come looking for this later

so much appeal on such few controls

Kenny Roy Articles

2011-11-30T13:18:00.001-08:00

Kenny Roy's released articles he's written.

good one on email cover letters

IAnimate Showcase

2011-11-30T13:15:00.000-08:00

iAnimate.net 2011 show reel from iAnimate on Vimeo.

not downloadable :(
way long

Destino

2011-11-30T13:14:00.000-08:00

want to be able to track it down later

(feels like Aeon Flux)

Thick as Thieves

2011-11-30T12:59:00.000-08:00

Kalle Mattson - Thick As Thieves (Official Video) from Kevin Parry on Vimeo.

Kalle Mattson / Thick As Thieves - Storyboard Reel from Kevin Parry on Vimeo.

Kevin Perry

Carla Veldman

Andrew Wilson

* found on animation

Film Riot

2011-11-23T22:55:00.000-08:00

Saw this on the plane going to my Mom's for Thanksgiving. Ryan Connolly learned film craft at Full Sail (which my co-worker who's also an alumni speaks very poorly of) and has been making these "how to do movie tricks" videos ever since (I think that's the summary.) Anyway there's a ton of them and I'm sure lots of good tricks to pick up. Here's the youtube channel.

Teetering Bulb

2011-11-21T12:41:00.000-08:00

Kurt Huggins and Zelda Devon are a illustrative pair. They've got a cool style. And comics.

Dear Melissa
King of an Endless Sky
The Tempest Wakens
The Dreaded Question

Pixar Tour

2011-11-16T10:20:00.000-08:00

Finally had a Pixar tour. Pretty amazing. So swanky, glass and brick and steel and huge ceilings and lights. Palm trees and green grasses everywhere (but I was visiting at night so I didn't get the true tropical experience.) Art everywhere on the walls, pretty intimidating, if you're there you definitely have to be at the top of the game being surrounded by so many awesome artists. Animator's area was smaller then I expected, and I was really surprised the director's desk's where in the middle in the open, no privacy (was told they want it that way, super open and accessible). Pretty inspiring, where the magic happens :)

Rosa

2011-11-11T12:44:00.001-08:00

1 dude (Jesús Orellana), no budget, 1 year. Rosa Movie

ROSA from Jesús Orellana on Vimeo.

Passion

2011-11-09T10:39:00.000-08:00

Saw these at On Animation, and have come back to them a couple times already. I believe that if you trust your instincts and follow your passions you will find be succesfull. (You may wind up working some dumb job to pay the bills, but if you're following your passion when you can you will be happy, and that counts as a win to me. And often I think it works out that what you're passionate about will come around to pay the bills.) So anyway, always helps motivate to hear other people talking about pursuing their passion.

Made by Hand / No 1 The Distiller from Made by Hand on Vimeo.

Made by Hand / No 2 The Knife Maker from Made by Hand on Vimeo.

Cinematography of Films

2011-11-08T11:40:00.000-08:00

Evane Richards blog is all about looking at the cinematography of films.

Flooby Nooby does it often as well.

Beat

2011-11-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

BEAT from or bar-el on Vimeo.

pretty awesome by Or Bar-El. Rhythm is so intuitive and strong, very clever to combine it with the visuals

*found on spungella

Standard Action

2011-11-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

So if you have a high tolerance for geekness, there's this pretty cool web series being done by some Canadians. Standard Action I think it's the woman with the fur vest's project (Joanna Gaskell), and funded by her. Pretty decent, I mean you won't mistake it for a big budget HBO series or anythinhg, but is good enough that you can buy into it if you let yourself. This is exactly the kind of thing I had expected to flood the interwebs once the bandwidth issue was solved, but instead of we have people pasting Evanescence over anime movies, human creativity disapoint.

panel with the creators
There were a lot of people we wanted to get involved with our project so we thought lets just do it, make it, get it out there, let's just do it as fast as possible, we didn't want it to get lost in post production because the editing process just mires you down because it's so difficult. Instead of getting really parylized with having to make it perfect, we decided to just make it. We filmed 10-12 pages in a day. If the director gives the actor freedom to run with their ideas it always turns out better. We shoot on the weekends, every other weekend we do post production, a lot of hours, so basically the hours of another day job. Tried to do block shooting (all the shots in a scene from multiple episodes at the same time). An intense schedule for 7-8 months.

using
Cannon DSLR T2i (think you can get better camera's now for same price)
Zoom H4N (and just got a rode)
Adobe Premiere Pro for editing
Adobe AfterEffects for fx
Audacity for sound editing (reaper was recommended by an audience member)

Wakfu

2011-10-27T12:36:00.001-07:00

fun looking

Presto Storyboard

2011-10-26T13:20:00.000-07:00

don't know how long this will last

*found on Flooby Noob where there's some production art also

Danger 5

2011-10-26T10:51:00.000-07:00

this looks awesome. Except that I think it's made with real money and not just dedicated amateur's, in which case maybe not as awesome, but still pretty fun camp.

Danger 5

Sketchtravel Short

2011-10-21T11:21:00.000-07:00

trailer short for the sketchtravel book by Daisuke Tsutsumi

clearly he's an illustrator, but he gets the feeling across. Again, simplified storytelling.

* found on Scott C.s blog

How to Play Musical Saw

2011-10-19T11:40:00.001-07:00

Parallell Lines

2011-10-19T00:07:00.001-07:00

this is pretty old, but it bubbled up in my mind again. A contest I think by Phillips for people to make a short film about whatever that must include 6 specific dialogue lines. Check out the rest.

Audience is acting

2011-10-19T00:04:00.000-07:00

been thinking about this one a lot lately, again Kuleshov is occurring to me. I'm thinking maybe it's not us who are acting, we're just keeping the characters alive and setting the mood and letting the audience project the acting for us. The current piece I'm working on seems better and better the less I do

Guacamelee

2011-10-18T15:52:00.001-07:00

awesome look, impressive that they can get that stylized look to work with gameplay

Less

2011-10-12T14:03:00.000-07:00

Been getting some heavy hitting help with my acting animation lately.

I always feel like I have so many ideas that I want to squeeze in: eye darts, little brow flicks, physical accents etc, and really my piece is stronger with less of it.

The thought occurred to me to try looking at things backwards. So next time I'm going to try and figure out how few ideas I can get in, and let the audience fill the rest in.

Minimum amount of ideas possible, if I have a new idea then it can replace an existing idea if it's better. Instead of trying to squeeze more ideas in, try and squeeze more ideas out.

Survival of the strongest.

Skeleton Pinup

2011-10-07T14:15:00.000-07:00

Eizo a medical supply company made a pinup calendar for a promotion, but it's all xray, useful to see what the bones are actually doing in those typical sexy poses.

* found at babeland

Gene Kelly with Snake

2011-10-06T23:15:00.001-07:00

wow, love the inventive movement of the snake, those hand drawn peeps are amazingly inventive, the computer sure doesn't want to let you play as easily

*found on mayerson

Puppetworks

2011-10-06T17:01:00.000-07:00

one of those service shops that does the grunt work for companies. Nice game reels pupptworks
out of Budapest (can't embed :(

Babe Lab

2011-10-06T15:38:00.000-07:00

My coworker found a decent (nsfw) blog breaking down how to make good pinups, some good tips in there for drawing pretty in general

Lorna 2.0

2011-10-06T13:37:00.000-07:00

a bit embarassingly mudflap art like, but I like how bold the look is (though that isn't new either)
digging the flame hair

*from arte y animacion (told you I needed to check them out more ;)

Sergio Pablos Interview

2011-10-06T13:33:00.001-07:00

Frame a Frame: Sergio Pablos ( English Subtitles ) from Christian Dan on Vimeo.

*found on Flooby Nooby but it's really from arte & animacion (who I need to visit more often)

Timber Timbre

2011-10-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

awesome look and color palette

* found on animation

What Light

2011-10-03T12:34:00.001-07:00

What Light (extract) from Sarah Wickens on Vimeo.

*found on animation

Marc Taro photocollage

2011-09-30T13:24:00.000-07:00

Marc Taro. Feng Zhu uses a pretty similar technique, not quiete as bluntly. Could be a useful technique.

The Wizard

2011-09-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

so awesome, wish they would make a whole show like this

Miyazaki at Berkeley

2011-09-30T11:53:00.001-07:00

That lecture that I took notes on, just found it recorded

Game making

2011-09-29T22:33:00.000-07:00

This goes right up there with "hey let's make a movie with a virtual studio across the internet" but since I just found the link I may as well put it down here for when I get those megalomaniac impulses.

Unreal Engine used to make gears of war etc free developer's kit. Here

apparently a pretty easy engine to use and mod and have pretty reasonable royalties: US$0 on the first US$50,000 in revenue, and US$2,500 on the next US$10,000 in revenue)

walk thru setting up a easy game
official help
vid tuts

time time time
never enough of it

Robert Altman on Rashomon

2011-09-28T13:43:00.001-07:00

when you ask someone about the movie afterwards everyone will have a different story of what had happened, which is why it's art

I love extreme weather because it gives the audience another level of sensation that the audience can react to

Francis Ford Coppola

2011-09-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

how he brought the godfather out of book onto screen

Hitchcock was a master to making sure the audience is equipped with the knowledge they need so that they can enjoy the scene

South Park in 5 minutes

2011-09-28T11:40:00.000-07:00

crazy, an entire episode in a week. Doesn't seem sustainable, but they've been doing it forever

Harp

2011-09-26T21:31:00.000-07:00

last music post I think. I took a blues harmonica class recently. The guy recommended these youtube folks as great free learning resources.

Jason Ricci

Adam Gussow

Dave Barett

but there's tons of stuff out there also, like this girl who's quick little video sped me on my way

Effects pedals

2011-09-26T17:13:00.000-07:00

sorry, another divergence. I've built two cigar box guitars which are fun, and now my attention's been caught by the idea of DIY guitar effects pedals.

Build Your Own Clonehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

General Guitar Gadgets

free stomp boxes

and an intro to electronics cuz I have a lot to learn

tracking cheap pedals on ebay to deconstruct and improve

of course I need to find time to actually play the guitar before bother spending time on making gadgets for it

Cry Baby: The Pedal That Rocks The World from Jimmy Dunlop on Vimeo.

2 Animation Tricks from me

2011-09-24T00:17:00.000-07:00

I have two new tricks (for me) to help myself animate.

1. write down what my next move is for when I get back to the computer. It can take a long time to get what's going on in a scene uploaded to my brain's ram, so at the end of a session when my brain is humming and keeping track of all the spinning plates making a note of which plates needs a respin next for when I get back seems to be helping me get faster to the doing part of animation.

2. having the steps of my workflow labeled helps me troubleshoot (if I'm having lots of problems may need to step back a step, if I'm not sure what to do next it's time to move to the next level) and stay on target. Newest addition for me is splitting up rough blocking into ruff block poses and ruff block timing.

my stages (often blur together):
prep:
listen to audio on repeat, try to tease out the true meaning and emotions,
think about the point of the scene (try and put the scene in a totally different context then source audio that still fits the emotions) thumbnail ideas
vid ref a lot 20 minutes at least, then cut together a short vid with the most interesting parts
layout build the scene and props, put characters in their spots, set camera

rough blocking: getting the meat of the scene down
block goldens the essential story telling poses of the scene, the ones that would be drawn if it were a comic strip instead (ignore timing, focus on flow between poses) key whole body
block timing shuffle the golden poses around until the timing works, copied pairs

blocking 1st pass: contacts and extremes, all the poses that describe the bounds of the movement key whole body

blocking 2nd pass: breakdowns, all the poses that describes the kind of movement, eases and arcs and stuff key whole body

polishing the two parts go together, whatever it takes to make it look right
partials blocking: frame by framing through on each body part and putting keys to smooth out arcs and eases (just keying parts, no longer whole body keys)
curve polishing: smooth curves, make sure there's no weirdness, then just go down heirarchy making sure it looks right (setting keys or tweaking curves)(I try not to tweak tangents anymore, if the curve overshoots I lock it with a key so that a global tangent change won't kill it)

review: on loop, walk across room and watch it big, shrink it tiny, flip it horizontally ,watch it over and over and make notes of everything needing fixing

fix it: fix all the things on the list

repeat last two steps until done

Live Action with Cartoon Mouths

2011-09-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

Remember talking about stopmo puppets with liveaction eyes tracked in?

Here's the opposite, live action with a cartoon mouth tracked in, I think I like it more. (I don't really know Scroobius, thug rap is so ubiquitous it's hard to trust that it's not a spoof, especially with the English accent, but it's pretty cool he's http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifso positive. Liked this one by him more.)

(Reminds me a bit of the gobelins kids )

Gawper

2011-09-21T12:23:00.000-07:00

Gawper from A Large Evil Corporation on Vimeo.

fun by a large Evil Corporation (all CG I think)

makes me think of Screen Novelties who are awesome and actually Stopmo and puppets

Balcony

2011-09-21T10:25:00.000-07:00

I get the feeling I'll come looking for this later so

Cutting an action sequence

2011-09-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

In the Cut, Part I: Shots in the Dark (Knight) from Jim Emerson on Vimeo.

In the cut by Jim Emerson. Dude knows his stuff and presents it clearly and simply. I'll have to watch more of it.

Now I'm confused, has the same logo as the chaos cinema guy, but different guy?

Few short films

2011-09-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

lovin the look

Enid from Leanne Towers on Vimeo.

these two are by Mechanical Apple which is really Ari Gibson

not so into the song, but the visuals are cool

Nick Bruno - How he studies animation

2011-09-17T21:54:00.000-07:00

So I guess the lost boyz of Blue Sky have a blog going. (like spline doctors, or speaking of animation)

Big 'ol long post by Nick Bruno about how he studies animation, don't want to lose it before I get a chance to read it so I'll stick it here.

Here's his questions, obviously new questions occured while he was going through this shot (unless he made the whole thing up on the spot, not just some of it. ) But this list seems a decent place to start asking questions from.

Pick a shot that resonates with you

Context:
1. brief description of the scene
2. if not stand alone, what's the context?
3. Why did you pick this shot?
4. Initial thoughts on why you responded to this shot?
5. What is the shot saying? (that she is in pain but needs to put that aside for now and find a way out)
6. What does that mean? (that there are more important things at stake then just her personal well being)
7. How does the moment feel?
8. Why do you think it feels that way?
9. How would I have screwed up that shot?
10.Is there anything else you respond to in this shot?

Mechanics of Performance:
1. What is the storytelling pose of the shot? (image)
2. Why? What does that pose communicate to audience?
3. Why is that the most important thing?
4. What are the beats? (Goals, & thought processes through the shot)
5. How is the thinking sold?
6. Quick description of the character. How did the animator convey that?
7. Can you personally relate to the characters experience in this shot?
8. Disect the poses:
8a. Body poses
8b. Facial poses
8c. Hand poses
9. What is the texture to the timing? Do different body parts have different speeds?
10. Quality of spacing texture, soft vs sharp? Do different body parts space differently consistently?
11. How does rhythm of dialogue/score affect animation? (eg. Hit beats, move lyrically)
12. What patterns of movement do you see?
13. Where are there reversals?
14. Does the animator do more then just getting the story point over?
15. What is motivating the movement?
16. Silhouette? Shapes in front of shapes?
17. Where is the viewers eye? Any choreography between elements? How is the eye lead?
18. Any twinning? How was it handled?
19. How were contacts handled?
20. How was keep alive handled?
21. Any subtle cues from the audie incorporated or ignored?
22. How is the point delivered without sound ?
23. What animated details where added?
24. Is the character an animal? How did the animator keep us reminded of that?
25. Was there anything bad in the shot?

Principles of animation
Just frame by frame through it looking for every example of every principle you can find.

Pretty cool get your energy back up post by Stewart Shaw

Comedians Talking

2011-09-16T13:20:00.000-07:00

haven't watched it yet, but seems worth a listen

Talking Funny by FabioMBarros

head trip

2011-09-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

green and blue are same color, (check it in photoshop) just trippin with your head, amazing how much surrounding colors affect perception.

* found on gizmodo

Reel'y inspring reels

2011-09-13T11:14:00.000-07:00

ran across a channel collecting awesome reels like the one above.

similarly there's Reelbarrow

go get depressed ;)
(then get angry and come back swinging)

South Park creators story advice

2011-09-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

So you have your funny scenes, your story beats, and if the words "and then" belong between those beats you're f*#ed; basically you've got something pretty boring. What belongs between them is therefore or but. "This happened but this happened so this happened but this happened. " Causation between each beat makes it a story, not just a bunch of stuff happening.

Plug the New World

2011-09-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

stop mo by the folks behind Domo

*found on brew

BladeRunner Making of

2011-08-31T12:30:00.000-07:00

Blade Runner Convention Reel 1982 from Future Noir on Vimeo.

* wow that got yanked quick, glad I jotted down some notes

a society where life had become very difficult, the urban environment had become a trap for the people. So started with very clean design concept then successively layered on top an accumulation of details and repairs and extra pieces of equipment that weren't the original equipment idea, and achieved this fixit it because it has to run which is the whole visual flavor which is the essence of the film, so it isn't a shiny futuristic society it's a society where the supply lines have broken down. the street level became like the sewers the underside of the city being trapped on the street was not only just unromantic but a thoroughly nasty way to spend your life because the street is just a service access to the upper city, Decent people didn't live below 40 floors above the street so you get an accumulation of detail of vent pipes generators and left over kind of society that your forced to live with because you can't afford to go up. It takes a trend from the current larger urban centers and accelerates it and charicatures it makes it more brutal and more glamorous at each end of the scale.

*found on animation

Chipotle Ad

2011-08-31T12:24:00.000-07:00

Boom, hand done. Johnny Kelly behind the scenes flickr set

* found on Cartoon Brew

Getting going

2011-08-31T10:26:00.001-07:00

I think I have a new trick. You know when it's time to get down to work but you feel that big resistence to start (the lure of nets trying to get you to put it off.) A few times now I've done 5 minutes of figure drawing (15 second poses) and that did the trick of gear shifting my brain to get to business.

Elder Vid Ref

2011-08-30T16:19:00.000-07:00

such a brief flit of light, this puff of life we have

Chaos Cinema - Shakey Cam

2011-08-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

Chaos Cinema Part 1 from Matthias Stork on Vimeo.

Chaos Cinema Part 2 from Matthias Stork on Vimeo.

like it or hate it it is part of the modern movie lexicon. Interesting how the sound track is what knits it together. It may not allow the viewer to securely know where they are in the picture, but it trades that for visceral feeling of such chaotic events.

Portal: No Escape

2011-08-23T16:42:00.001-07:00

pretty cool, kind of bugs that the gun doesn't pull up to her elbow

Cigar Box Guitar

2011-08-22T14:52:00.000-07:00

Nothing related to anything I usually post about, but I'm all excited about Cigar Box Guitars. The idea being you don't need a big fancy expensive consumer product to make music, just whip something together and start rocking.

There's a whole ning site dedicated to it. (saw one made out of a frying pan over there) and they have a ton of how to's, from super simple to lutheir quality.

Uncle Crow threw up a how to build one in an hour video walk thru for a cost of less then $15

Red Dog Guitars has a lot of fancy nicely done ones, and has some great music on the site.

Dr. Oakroot made a bass guitar using weed wacker strings

a 2nd ning group on the same thing

I just love the raw sound and the D.I.Y. approach

anyway, now I have the links wherever I go

and as long as we're talking home made instruments:

Cranes are Flying

2011-08-22T12:13:00.001-07:00

Daaang. Check out this clip and think about where the camera man must have been. Skillz

Clothes for stopmo Puppet

2011-08-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

Nice thread on puppet cloth making, quick summary of possibilities. Options are, follow a simple pattern. (ala Nic Hilligoss, ton of knowledge on his site)

Some folks just glue the cloth on. Jon does, and uses clay for collars etc (which can get tellingly thick in cloth.)

Others pin cloth on, and either sew it and pull it off and turn it right side out, or sew it on with invisible seams (sounds harder)

Leevi Lehtinen points out that he doesn't attach the parts, sleeves are seperate from torso etc.

Nathan and Josh Flynn have pro looking clothes which they sew, but they have good tricks for little details.

Roger Evans - Johnny Quest

2011-08-22T10:53:00.000-07:00

Roger Evans has been plugging away at putting the Johnny Quest intro into stopmotion. You can follow along shot by shot on his page. He's finally finished. Pretty awesome project.

Frame by Frame

2011-08-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

Iestyn Roberts found this cool tumblr that has snippets of animated films and the frames individually so you can pull it apart and put it back together.

AnimSchool

2011-08-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

promo video for Animschool has really fantastic animation in it, they definitely have appeal nailed.

FPS Russia

2011-08-10T14:58:00.001-07:00

Awesome sauce. Um, we'll file this under reference, in case you ever need someone shooting,anything. Love his attitude and accent.

Impressions Jim Meskimen

2011-08-10T13:38:00.000-07:00

Jim Meskimen

* found by Jesse Rignall @ 11second club

as Jesse pointed out, great for mouth shape, facial shapes, and head accent timing

Jim Hull Story Fanatic

2011-08-09T15:48:00.000-07:00

I have a link that I haven't gotten to yet, so I'll put it here to clean up my bookmarks.

Jim Hull's Story Fanatic page, lots of great articles on story structure, analyzing and breaking down stories and why he thinks they work, lots to learn.

50 most inluential disney animators

2011-08-09T15:44:00.000-07:00

Grayson Ponti a highschool student put this together, how cool is that. Haven't had a chance to go through it yet, but seems like an awesome blog.

50 most influential disney animators

5 posts in 2 hours, maybe I should get some work done :P

quick list of things to do to your character

2011-08-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

25 ways to F**k with your Characters by Chuck Wendig, looks like he may have other useful articles, gotta do some mining.

Horse=Brick

2011-08-09T15:22:00.001-07:00

horse cheat sheet by Emma Coats from her twitter

and since we're at it, Gurney had thrown up this cheat sheet from Spirit days (though I don't think he was involved)

Black Dynamite Animated

2011-08-09T15:17:00.000-07:00

Black Dynamite was a fun campy recent blaxploitation (c'mon he nunchuck fights Richard Nixon!)

Now there's an animated series.

(my favorite part was when they were tapping on his fro with the boom mic)
*found on flooby nooby

How To Cheat at Maya

2011-08-09T13:53:00.000-07:00

Eric Luhta, who I went to AM with for a while, wrote How to Cheat in Maya (which has a lot of the approaches you learn in AM in it) and now has re released it with new stuff and a guest author Kenny Roy (who I learned a TON from).

They have couple of videos on their site, and any time you see Kenny Roy in a video it's worth paying attention!

vid on 2ndary animation (he touches on his frequent spiel of 2ndary animation = subtext which is a useful idea) but this idea of using animation layers to allow you to build up your animation and make changes easily is one I was vaguely aware of but haven't had a chance to explore. But here he is making it seem like a very useful approach allowing for late changes without headaches. Example here was having a tapping finger on a new layer, so can key it in and out easily to play with the thought shown through 2ndary acting happening.

vid on buffer curve: saw this from him elsewhere but it's a great cheat to re write it down, basically if you use buffer curves it's like having a save as alternate version of animation just by using the swap buffer curve button

Public Domain music

2011-08-04T12:45:00.001-07:00

Public Domain music resource. Haven't checked it out thoroughly, seems like a good start but do your research (don't wanna get hit like Nina Paley where the songs are copywrite free but someone still holds the rights)

Don't forget the sound fx to go with it

Move Eat Learn

2011-08-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Rick Mereki : Director, producer, additional camera and editing
Tim White : DOP, producer, primary editing, sound
Andrew Lees : Actor, mover, groover
All Music composed and performed by Kelsey James
Music Recorded and mixed by Jake Phillips
Colour Grade : Edel Rafferty and Roslyn Di sisto
Online Edit : Peter Mirecki
Assistance in titles and production design : Lee Gingold, Jason Milden, Rohan Newman

the world is such a small place, and we are all connected through more similarities then differences, vids like this help us remember, nice production value on this really professional feeling, but in a way Where the Hell is Matt is better because he just has more joy in it, so the lesson I take Passion trumps proficiency (not to diss the Move Eat Learn guys, there piece is really cool)

and something else Matt and the Numa Numa guy have: Dance like no one's watching just be joyfull in yourself and don't worry about everyone else

Ormie the Pig

2011-08-02T16:32:00.000-07:00

nice and simple, beautifully animated!

by Rob Silvestri

*found at short of the week

Claythings - how to clay animation

2011-08-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

a solid walk thru of animating in clay

*found on animation

High Heels

2011-08-01T21:01:00.000-07:00

was animating a woman in high heels today

Future of CG - no more polygons

2011-08-01T16:42:00.000-07:00

of course being able to model atoms isn't a garauntee for fun games, more of a garauntee that a game will never be released and have a huge budget to make it all, but this is an amazing new tool used in the right hands. I mean it's the future, if the virtual world can be as detailed as the real one the next step will be to improve our interface with the computers (a la matrix plugs) very interesting

Bechdel Test

2011-08-01T12:25:00.000-07:00

So I just learned of the Bechdel test, such an easy test and so sad that so many films completely fail it.

Trucker

2011-08-01T12:15:00.000-07:00

This is a super old one, very NSFW and pretty misogynistic but if you can put that aside it's pretty fun.

FLAIRS - TRUCKERS DELIGHT from 3rd Side Records on Vimeo.