How to use this Page

A reminder to student filmmakers that just SIX days remain to submit your film to Cartoon Brew’s 4th annual Student Animation Festival. We’ve already had a record number of submissions this year, but we’re still looking for great student films to share with the animation community.

Every filmmaker whose work is selected to screen in the online festival will receive $500 US. This year, guest judge Evan Spiridellis, the co-founder of JibJab, will select one additional film to receive the Grand Prize and a $1,000 cash prize. Go HERE for all the details.

CalArts student Tom Law has an idiosyncratic sense of design and movement, which comes through clearly in his graduation short This Actually Happens A Lot. The short attempts to find a visual solution for representing a character’s social anxiety and insecurity, which Law achieves by tweaking the rules of gravity. We featured Tom’s self-portrait timelapse piece I Always Look Angry in a 2011 installment of Animated Fragments.

Not About Us is a sensitively composed student film effort by Swiss artist Michael Frei:

The short is a symbolic staging of the complex dance of rapprochement between a man and a woman. A mechanical ballet flitting between black and white, light and dark and countless mirroring motions—until at last contact is made and a relationship develops.

Frei recently wrapped up the film’s festival run, which included screnings at Annecy, Hiroshima, Fantoche, DOK-Leipzig and the Krakow Film Festival. He is a graduate of HSLU (Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts), but produced Not About Us mostly during an exchange year at the Estonian Academy of Art under the mentorship of filmmakers Priit and Olga Parn. Frei kept this blog during the production of the short.

Thumb Snatchers From the Moon Cocoon is an unabashedly wild, funny, action-packed gem of a cartoon. Self-conscious references to B-movie genre tropes appear throughout, but the short has a fresh outlook by focusing the action around its lead character—an over-the-top short-fused Texan sherriff.

The craftmanship of the short inspires admiration, as does Schaffer’s cinematic approach to stop motion, which deserves a big-screen Hollywood outlet. Thumb Snatchers is a CalArts graduation film directed and written by Bradley Schaffer, and animated by Cooper and Ashley Arechiga, who was also the lead puppet fabricator and effects artist. Check out the film’s official website.

(Thanks, Kevin Parry)

Debora Cruchon is studying animation at Gobelins, and keeps her portfolio work online here.

She also has a blog, supersalmon, where you can find animated loops, charcoal drawings, and paintings.

Her ink and watercolor sketchbook work have a playful experimentality, resulting in appealing and curious images.

USC student Simón Wilches-Castro sent a message to let us know about his new short, Semáforo (Stoplight), inspired by the street performers of Colombia:

Due to the ongoing war in the Colombian jungles, many people are forced to flee their rural territories and find refugee in capital cities. Their only mean of acquiring money is to put on shows under the city stoplights. Some dress like clowns or do acrobatics, others spit fire or juggle; and some show the only thing they have left: deformities and amputations in exchange for some sympathy and change. This is the life of the people who live under a stoplight and the people who watch them.

Castro’s animation (made in Photoshop) is fun and creative, and he takes full advantage of the cinematic possibilities of the medium. The film will screen in competition at the Annecy festival next month.

The talk of the town this morning is this friggin’ brilliant short – The Reward – an epic “hero’s journey” in nine minutes (take that, Peter Jackson). This graduation film was directed by Mikkel Mainz and Kenneth Ladekjaer (and their team: Glenn August, Jonas Andreassen, Josefine Hannibal, Karen Bennetzen, Ole Christian Loken, Paolo Giandoso and Tanja Nielsen) at Denmark’s Animation Workshop.

Animator/teacher Mike Nguyen (Iron Giant) recently forwarded this and links to five other great films and trailers from this year’s graduating class. Mike gives a a 2-3 week workshop on character animation to first year students. (Mike is currently based in Korea, teaching traditional animation there).

Go to the link to explore further work from this outstanding school. Below I’ve embed a few of my other favorites.

Under The Fold (Director: Bo Juhl Nielson)

Memoria (Director: Elisabit Yr Atladottir)

The Odd Sound Out (Directors: Pernille Sihm, Ida Maria Schouw Andreasen)

Here’s a gorgeous little graduation film from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design out of Jerusalem, combining hand drawn animation with live miniature sets.

The filmmakers are Revital Laufer, a Stop-Motion Animator, Director, Artist, Photographer and Art Designer; and Guy Garibian, a Classic Animator, Director, After-Effects Animator and a Character Designer, working as a graphic artist in the Israel Broadcasting Authority.

They describe describe the film this way:

Our movie describes a young new couple, arriving to their new and modest house, whose construction is still in progress. The house resides in the center of a secluded forest.

During the movie the hero notices a high structure in the forest, towering above all the trees, and desires to make his house even taller.

The hero abandons the task of ending the construction of the roof of his house, and instead puts all his energy and time to the task of constructing more and more levels to it.

Meanwhile, the hero’s relationship with his family gradually degrades, reaching a point where the only way of communication between then is through the hole in the ceiling of the house. While the family spends it’s days on the lower level of the house, the hero stays on the upper levels, busily attending his construction work up to the point where he is abandoned by his family and left alone.

Technique: Classic Animation and Stop Motion Animation.

A Gum Boy (Kuchao) by Masaki Okuda is a 2010 student film produced at the Tokyo University of the Arts. The film addresses difficult subject matter—adolescent ostracism—through a creative and non-literal use of animation that marries the fluid grace of a watercolor style with frenzied use of camera and cutting. Okuda’s mastery of film technique, narrative and visual style elevates Gum Boy beyond the average student film, and for that matter, the average professional short film as well.

CREDITS
Direction, Animation and Editing: Masaki Okuda
Music: Daisuke Matsuoka
Song: Yushiro Kuramochi
Sound Design: Kyohei Takahashi
Samisen: Kohdai Minoda
Sound Design: Kyohei Takahashi
Mixing Engineer: Yoshito Morita
Music Mixing Engineer: Shinpei Kusaka

A beautifully stylized, minimilist short animation by Adar Rom and Avi Naim, created for their Motion Design Class at Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Art and Design.

A beautifully stylized, minimilist short animation by Adar Rom and Avi Naim, created for their Motion Design Class at Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Art and Design.

The Box by recent Rhode Island School of Design grad Joshua Durst is good for a giggle—and sometimes that’s all you want on the weekend.

All the fat in Fat is contained in its title; the film itself is a lean and mean laugh machine that offers a goofy series of gags hinged on a surreal visual concept. The 2011 Supinfocom Arles graduation short was directed by Gary Fouchy, Yohann Auroux Bernard, and Sebastien De Oliveira Bispo. The film’s website includes some funny concept work and animated GIFs.

By Daniel Freeman and Jason Freeman

Students are often told — perhaps by excited friends or nostalgic parents — that university is the best time of their life. Well, for some people these years may live up to their billing. For many others, however, things aren’t so straightforward. College can prove more of a trial than a pleasure.

In truth it’s hardly surprising that many students struggle with university life. For one thing, it’s probably the first time they’ve lived away from home. College involves all sorts of potentially daunting changes and challenges with the young person’s support network of family and friends usually many miles away.

It isn’t only university life that students may be struggling with. Many common psychological problems also tend to develop around this stage of life. Depression, phobias, social anxiety, panic disorder, insomnia, alcohol problems, eating disorders, sexual problems — all typically begin during adolescence or early adulthood.

Whether students arrive at university with these problems, or develop them while there, coping with mental health issues alone and in a strange town can be particularly difficult. It’s not made any easier by the assumption that you should be having a ball.

When we think about mental health, one issue that is often overlooked is gender. Yet who is more likely to develop almost all of the psychological problems we’ve mentioned? The answer is clear: women.

Indeed, although it’s commonly asserted that rates of psychological disorder are virtually identical for men and women, when one takes a careful look at the most reliable epidemiological data a very different picture emerges.

Contrary to received wisdom, overall rates of psychological disorder are not the same for both sexes. In fact, they are around 20-40% higher in women than in men. Depression, for example, affects approximately twice as many women as men. The same is true for anxiety disorders. Women are anywhere from three to ten times more likely to develop eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia nervosa. There’s good evidence to suggest that women are more vulnerable to both sleep disorders (primarily insomnia) and sexual problems (such as loss of desire, arousal problems, and pain during sex — all of which are classified as psychological issues).

This doesn’t mean, of course, that mental illness is an exclusively female problem — far from it. Very large numbers of men experience depression and anxiety, for example.

Nevertheless, though men tend to be prone to so-called externalizing disorders such as alcohol and drug problems and anti-social personality disorder, while women are more susceptible to emotional problems like depression and anxiety, the figures aren’t equal. If the epidemiological data is reliable, women clearly outnumber men for psychological disorders as a whole.

How do we explain this phenomenon? Why is it that women appear to be more vulnerable to mental illness than men? Well, this is an under-researched area. In the case of certain disorders — depression, most notably — some useful work has been done on gender. For most conditions, however, we have little evidence for why men and women are affected differently.

Things are especially tricky because mental illness is seldom the result of just one factor: a complex mix of genetic, biological, psychological, and social causes is often involved. Yet patterns do emerge from the limited research that has been conducted into the links between gender and mental health. What stands out is the stress caused by life events and social roles.

It’s certainly plausible that women experience higher levels of stress because of the demands of their social role. Increasingly, women are expected to function as career woman, homemaker, and breadwinner — all while being perfectly shaped and impeccably dressed: “superwoman” indeed. Given that domestic work is undervalued, and considering that women tend to be paid less, find it harder to advance in a career, have to juggle multiple roles, and are bombarded with images of apparent female “perfection”, it would be surprising if there weren’t some emotional cost. Women are also much more likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse, a trauma that all too often results in lasting damage.

How do these environmental factors affect the individual? At a psychological level, the evidence suggests that they can undermine women’s self-concept — that is, the way a person thinks about themselves. These are the kind of pressures that can leave women feeling as if they’ve somehow failed; as if they don’t have what it takes to be successful; as if they’ve been left behind. Body image worries may be especially damaging. Then there’s the fact that women are taught to place such importance on social relationships. Such relationships can be a fantastic source of strength, of course. But to some extent we’re relying on other people for our happiness: a risky business. If things don’t work out, our self-concept can take a knock.

Perhaps then, part of the reason why so many common psychological disorders begin in adolescence and early adulthood is because this is the time when young people start to take on the demands of their conventional adult role. If those demands are more stressful for women than men that may help explain why we see young women start to outnumber young men when it comes to psychological problems.

But we need more evidence. The best answers will come from longitudinal studies: following representative cohorts over a number of years from childhood into adulthood, and carefully measuring the interaction between biological factors, life events, and mental illness.

Such research is complex and expensive, but given the extent of the burden on society and individuals alike, understanding what causes mental illness and thus being better placed to prevent and treat it should need no justification. Yet we cannot assume, as so many have done, that gender is merely a marginal issue in mental health. In fact, it may often be a crucial element of the puzzle.

Daniel Freeman is Professor of Clinical Psychology and MRC Senior Clinical Fellow, Oxford University. Jason Freeman is a freelance writer and editor. Together they wrote The Stressed Sex: Uncovering the Truth About Men, Women, and Mental Health, Anxiety: A Very Short Introduction, and Paranoia: The 21st Century Fear.

Subscribe to the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Subscribe to only psychology articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.
Image Credits: (1) Stressed student. Photo by Alexeys, iStockphoto. (2) Hard study. Photo by Oliver, iStockphoto.

The post The best of times? Student days, mental illness, and gender appeared first on OUPblog.

Bare is a film about a bear who moves to the woods, but soon finds out that he doesn’t like nature’s messy ways. Helen Dallet’s quiet, delicate and charming 2011 graduation film from University of Wales, Newport.

Animator Luiz Stockler is a talent I’m keeping my eye on. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Stockler moved to Wales in 1994. In 2007 he attended the University of Wales, Newport, where he made his graduation film Vovô. Home is his first year film from the Royal College of Art in London, where he is going for his MA in Animation. It’s short and simple, subversive and sweet.

Today is bittersweet because we are presenting the final film in our 2012 Cartoon Brew Student Animation Festival. But we are delighted that this film is an extraordinarily unique achievement in computer animation.

Snail Trail comes to us from Germany, where it was made by Philipp Artus at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. The film draws an ingenious link between two disparate things: the spiral of a snail shell and the concept of exponential acceleration (don’t worry, we had to look up the latter one too).

Mere description fails to do this film justice though. Snail Trail is an intensely visceral experience. Excitement and surprise abound in every frame, even as the film celebrates the mathematical order of the universe. The snail’s dynamic evolution in mobililty is eloquently expressed through a luminescent line that curls and stretches across the screen. Artus achieved the fading trail of images by projecting his computer animation with lasers onto a phosphorescent material.

The totality of Artus’s vision is startlingly beautiful. Snail Trail, quite simply, uses computer animation in ways that we have not seen before, and the results are astounding.

Click HERE to read an interview with the filmmaker Philipp Artus.

A mother who has to deal with her video-game addicted son. Created by four 3rd year students (Guy Elnathan, Alon Tako, Daniel Lichter and Sivan Kotek) from Bezalel Academy of the Arts, Israel.

The Show by Rebecca Hayes offers a beautifully animated glimpse into the private lives of performers in a traveling circus troupe. Although the film’s genteel slice-of-life approach doesn’t build to much of a climax, its charm grows on the viewer. The student short was completed in 2010 at RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology), but released online yesterday.

(Thanks, Rubber House)

In the year 2000, Jesse Schmal created the most excellent student film Sub! while attending Rhode Island School of Design. Since then, he’s kept a relatively low profile, working on shows like Codename: Kids Next Door and Superjail!, while also pursuing other non-animation projects. The good news is that Jesse has recently been expanding his Web presence. He now has a nice portfolio site at JesseSchmal.com and has posted Sub! online. Here’s to hoping we’ll see more personal work from him in the future.

If you thought Disney/Dali’s Destino was a trip, check out Misaki Uwabo’s student film from Tama Art University in Tokyo. It’s nothing short of… well, I’ll let you decide if it’s genius or insane.

Personally I think this is the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time. It has no story and the animation is bizarre – but its exhilarating, and it makes me feel good.

(Thanks, Jake Parker)

A cupcake tries to survive the oven – in this entertaining little student film, created with Flash, Maya and After Effects at Qantm College in Melbourne, Australia by Andrew Bowler.

This is a pretty good student film that I somehow missed last year. It was the 2011 Bachelor film project from Denmark’s The Animation Workshop. I love its design, color art direction and its funny storyline – and I’m happy to have a chance to post it here.

The Saga of Biorn was made by Benjamin J. Kousholt, Daniel D. Christensen, Mads Lundgaard Christensen, Jesper A. Jensen, Jonas K. Doctor, Steffen Lyhne, Pernille Ørum-Nielsen, Frederik Bjerre-Poulsen, Jonas Georgakakis.

(Thanks, Chloe Booher)

Don’t let the deceptively simple character design fool you – this sweet little film from New York animator Jacob Kafka won me over with its charm. Are they teaching sweetness and charm in film school these days? This was Kafka’s senior thesis; he recently graduated from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Rough animated in Flash, inked/colored in Photoshop, composited in After Effects, 3D elements animated in Blender and rotoscoped in Photoshop – it’s a warm little children’s fable about a little girl trying to dig her way to the moon, and her adventures along the way. And I think you’ll like it:

Calling all students! Warner Bros. Animation is trying to get the word out on an animation scholarship program that the studio is offering to graduating high school students/incoming college Freshman. Below is the basic info along with a link to the application. It’s a great opportunity… don’t be a moroon – go for it!

2013 Warner Bros. Animation/Hanna-Barbera Honorship

Who: Any graduating high school senior enrolling in a college, university, or trade school to study animation.

What: Through the Warner Bros. Reach program, one outstanding student is awarded the Hanna-Barbera/Animation Honorship each year that includes a scholarship and four full-time paid internships at the company during four consecutive summers while enrolled in college. Successful Reach program graduates will be eligible for full-time positions at Warner Bros.

How: Application (w/ instructions) can be downloaded via this link.

When: Application deadline is by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, March 4, 2013