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Discover the art of Dax Norman, Cartoon Brew's Artist of the Day!

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Discover the art of Michelle Kwon, Cartoon Brew's Artist of the Day!

Discover the art of Anna Craig, Cartoon Brew's Artist of the Day.

Discover the work of Natalie Andrewson, Cartoon Brew's Artist of the Day!

Today we look at the work of Drew Tyndell, Cartoon Brew's Artist of the Day!

Today we look at the work of Stevie Lewis, Cartoon Brew's Artist of the Day!

Today we look at the work of Clayton Stillwell, Cartoon Brew's Artist of the Day!

Welcome to the fourth annual Cartoon Brew Student Animation Festival. Every Monday morning for the next eight weeks we’ll be debuting one of these remarkable student animated shorts selected from among hundreds of submissions.

We begin the festival today with our Grand Prize winner, Brain Divided, a film directed by Josiah Haworth, Joon Shik Song and Joon Soo Song at Ringling College of Art and Design. The film, which will receive a cash prize of $1,000(US), was selected for the top award by this year’s guest judge Evan Spiridellis of JibJab. Cartoon Brew would also like to thank JibJab for their sponsorship of this festival. Their strong support for student filmmakers makes this event possible.

Brain Divided succeeds on every level as an animated short. The filmmmakers’ command of both animation and technology is flawless. But the value of their film lies in how they apply their technical skills toward making an entertaining and funny film. They take advantage of every opportunity for visual humor and delight us with sharply timed gags. The personalities in the film are especially well defined: the two human characters strike just the right balance of comedy and believability, while the two sides of the brain have a satisfying evolution as characters within the span of the film.

Continue reading for comments from the filmmakers:

THE IDEA

The dating game is one of the most nerve wracking experiences that anyone can go through. So we thought that this would be a great story to pursue. The original concept started off as two guys attempting to impress a beautiful Disney Princess-esque girl, but it lacked character, fun, and a more dynamic relationship between the two main characters. One day while surfing the web and brainstorming we were inspired after seeing an animation clip of the classic angel vs. devil on the shoulder complex. we instantly thought of Kronk in The Emperor’s New Groove. Watching the interactions of his shoulder angel and devil was always hilarious and we wanted to try and recreate that comedy in our own film. However, we knew that the this concept has been done a lot in the past so we wanted to put our own spin on it. This led us to come up with the idea that the “Angel” and “Demon” were actually the “Left” and “Right” side of the brain fighting for control. We thought it would be great to literally go inside the head and see the physical battle that ensues within the mind and its effect on our main character. This gave us everything we wanted, a fun and simple story, with a broad range of character animation that we could play with.

TOOLBOX

All animation and lighting was done in Autodesk Maya 2013 using the Renderman plugin using linear workflow. All four of our characters were rigged using The Setup Machine (TSM) with some modifications, thanks to Jeremy Cantor, that allowed us to get a bit more versatility. Post processing, compositing, and effects were done in NukeX and edited together using Adobe Premiere. Adobe Photoshop allowed us to tweak individual frames as well as test lighting ideas. All of the software and powerful HP workstations that we used were provided by Ringling, as was use of the school’s powerful render farm.

CHALLENGES

One of the biggest challenges was writing and creating good comedy while making the story flow and work seamlessly. Because our piece was strongly dialogue driven, we needed to write a script that was witty, charming and real. It was very difficult because we had no prior experience in screenplay at all. It was a lot of trial and error while simultaneously coming up with fun slapstick comedy, and juggling the variety of characters that we had. It really pushed our storytelling abilities and writing capabilities to another level. Also, our film was one of the longest to come out of Ringling and keeping it all organized and on time was a huge undertaking. We had approximately 90+ shots to animate and light, split up between the three of us. But to make the films visuals work better we had to learn how to use Nuke, and before the final semester of school we had never used it. Juggling thirty shots each while learning new software gave us our fair share of sleepless nights.

LESSONS LEARNED

The most important things we learned from our film was how to streamline story and to trust in your team. Often times shots ran too long or were too complicated and we found that they read much better when they were simplified. This may mean taking out an unnecessary pose or changing the acting entirely. But making these changes helped create a well paced film that had all the entertainment and character we wanted. Even though we had never worked on a team at Ringling before, we entered this film with the confidence we could get it done and hopefully make it funny. Although creating the film was extremely difficult and stressful, through trust, constant communication, and with the help of a 24 hour Denny’s we learned how vital teamwork is to completing a film.

INSPIRATIONS

We drew a huge inspiration from actors such as Jim Carrey from The Mask and Eddie Murphy from Doctor Dolittle as well as animated characters like Pepe Le Pew and Kronk from The Emperor’s New Groove. All of them had elements that we loved to watch and wished to emulate in our film. A lot of inspiration also came from the students around us and the incredible work they were doing on their films. It was a real driving force that motivated us to make our film the best it could be. Our faculty was equally inspiring and provided us with an enormous amount of feedback and great advice.

WHERE YOU SEE YOURSELF IN FIVE YEARS

Josiah Haworth: My goal is to be doing character animation for a major studio or an up and coming studio. Of course Disney, ReelFX, and Bluesky are high on that list! Just give me a mouse, Maya, and a project and I’m good to go!

Joon Soo Song: I want to be animating. I’d love to work at Disney, Dreamworks, Pixar, Blue Sky, Blizzard, Blur, Laika, ReelFX, Insomniac, and the list goes on. As long as I’m animating I’ll be happy.

Joon Shik Song: I want to be at Disney working my way towards directing or animation supervisor. If I’m lucky I’ll be hanging out with Mickey Mouse talking about our next feature film. It’ll be just like the good old days at Ringling, late nights and coffee breaks :)

FILMMAKER WEBSITES

Josiah Haworth: Personal website and Animation Reel

Joon Soo Song: Animation Reel

Joon Shik Song: Animation Reel

Brain Divided Facebook Page

For the fourth year in a row, we are delighted to present the Cartoon Brew Student Animation Festival, the premier online showcase for animated short premieres by student filmmakers.

Our 2013 festival offers one of the strongest and most dynamic slates of short films since we launched the festival. Chosen from a record-breaking 266 film submissions, the eight films in this year’s festival represent a remarkably high level of creative vision and filmmaking skill. The films selected were made by adventurous filmmakers who show a commitment to exploring the narrative and visual possibilities of the animation art form, and whose ideas and concepts are fully realized.

More quality student work was submitted than ever before. In fact, half of the films in this year’s festival are from schools that haven’t been in the festival during its first three years—Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, DePaul University, University of Southern California and Massachusetts College of Art and Design. On the other hand, Eric Ko is the first filmmaker who has been selected twice for the festival; his junior film Troubleshooting was a part of our festival last year.

Each of the eight filmmakers whose work is featured in this year’s festival will receive a cash award of $500 (US), thanks to the generosity of our festival sponsor JibJab. Further, Evan Spiridellis, the co-founder of JibJab, will select one additional film to receive the Grand Prize and an extra $500, for a cash prize totalling $1,000 US.

The festival will debut on Monday, July 8th, and a new film will be presented every week throughout July and August. And now, we proudly present the 2013 class of Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival:

Lady with Long Hair
Directed by Barbara Bakos
School: Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (Hungary)
Synopsis: An old lady relives memories of her life contained within her hair.
Running time: 8 min 45 s

Sun of a Beach
Directed by Natan Moura
School: Sheridan College (Canada)
Synopsis: Shunned for shining a little too brightly, the poor sun feels alone in its search to connect and be wanted.
Running time: 1 min 20 s

Dumb Day
Directed by Kevin Eskew

Brain Divided
Directed by Josiah Haworth, Joon Shik Song and Joon Soo Song
School: Ringling College of Art and Design (USA)
Synopsis: The story about an ordinary guy who meets a not so ordinary girl, but his brain cells can’t agree on how to go about winning her over, which leads to Conflict!
Running time: 5 min

Our Son (우리 아들)
Directed by Eric Ko
School: Rhode Island School of Design (USA)
Synposis: Celestial bodies and the fragility of happiness.
Running time: 4 min 30 s

i
Directed by Isabela Dos Santos
School: California Institute of the Arts (USA)
Synopsis: Hand-drawn animation and dance performance intersect and interact in this short piece that deals with a well-known question: Who am I?
Running time: 3 min 35s

Wolf Within
Directed by Alex Horan
School: Massachusetts College of Art and Design (USA)
Synopsis: A father prepares his son for a world without him.
Running time: 9 min 35 s

Passer Passer
Directed by Louis Morton
School: University of Southern California (USA)
Synopsis: An animated city symphony celebrates the hidden world of background noise. Field recordings from the streets of Los Angeles and Tokyo drive imagined characters and cycles that build to form a living musical creature.
Running time: 3 min 47 s

It’s refreshing to see a student short where the filmmakers just get it. The Chicken or the Egg by Christine Kim and Elaine Wu is a solid piece of entertainment in every respect: storytelling, pacing, cutting, character animation, sound design, you name it. They produced the film at Ringling College of Art and Design.

(Thanks,Yoav Shtibelman, via Cartoon Brew’s Facebook page)

Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival proudly presents Ballad of Poisonberry Pete by Adam Campbell, Elizabeth McMahill and Uri Lotan from Ringling College of Art and Design. The filmmakers give fresh life to the tried-and-true Western genre by inserting a left-field element into the mix: baked goods. Despite the brief running time, the filmmakers create distinctive personalities and designs for all the characters. Dramatic shot composition, atmospheric lighting, and appropriate music complete this tongue-in-cheek tribute to classic Western films.

Click HERE to read an interview with the filmmakers Adam Campbell, Uri Lotan and Elizabeth McMahill.

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Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival proudly presents Ballad of Poisonberry Pete by Adam Campbell, Elizabeth McMahill and Uri Lotan from Ringling College of Art and Design. The filmmakers give fresh life to the tried-and-true Western genre by inserting a left-field element into the mix: baked goods. Despite the short running time, the filmmakers create distinctive personalities and designs for all the characters. Dramatic shot composition, atmospheric lighting, and appropriate music complete this tongue-in-cheek tribute to classic Western films.

Continue reading for comments from the filmmakers, pictured below from left to right, Uri Lotan, Adam Campbell and Elizabeth McMahill:

THE IDEA
The idea for The Ballad of Poisonberry Pete developed from a partially realized side project that we made with our good friend Josh Garlick. We had seen a lot of 24 hour films online from students at other schools and wanted to make one too, so when we had a day off from school due to a holiday we jumped at the opportunity. After the animation labs closed at midnight we went home to brainstorm and plan out the day ahead. Adam was a resident advisor and one of his residents had given him a pie, which he brought with him.

Somehow that pie got us to the Cowboy Pie that became known as Poisonberry Pete. We then stayed up making pie puns and silly drawings until 3am. The next day we set to work. By the end of the day we only had half an animatic, but it was half of an animatic that we loved. At Ringling we pitch several ideas for our thesis shorts and fully pre-produce two of those ideas in the second half of our junior year. We completed the work for and passed one idea for our first pitch. When we had to start pitching ideas for the second film we tossed in the pie western idea. Our class liked it and we liked it, so we went with it. A lot of the jokes and characters from the first version are still in the final, but the story, quality of the characters, and everything else got a huge overhaul in the weeks that followed.

TOOLBOX
We used Autodesk Maya. Rendering was done with Renderman for Maya, compositing with Nuke, editing with Adobe Premiere, and a great deal of miscellany was done in Photoshop. Our rigs were created using Rapid Rig, but we modified it to better meet the needs of our characters. To achieve better fidelity and control, all of our rendering and post was done using a linear workflow. The software and powerful HP workstations that we used were provided by Ringling, as was use of the school’s wonderful render farm. Outside of school, we had the pleasure to work with Garth Neustadter, who composed our music, as well as Mutante Media, who did our sound and mixing. They did an amazing job and really helped to bring the film to life.

CHALLENGES
One of the greatest challenges in making this short was getting the flow and emotion of the story to work. The whole film was under constant revision in the preproduction phase and right up into early production. It was all pretty much working, but everything needed to be made better. We cut a lot of gags for the sake of flow, the showdown portion probably is half of what it used to be in earlier versions. We edited a lot of stuff out but we also added a lot as well. Right before we entered the layout phase we had a gag session where we got together and just let ourselves go to town thinking of any stuff we could add or plus before really committing to the film layout in 3D—that was the night we decided little Blueberry should burst into song instead of giving her little speech. Even after our layo

We’re delighted to announce the selections for Cartoon Brew’s third annual Student Animation Festival. This year we topped over 200 submissions, which made programming this year’s festival a challenging task. We chose filmmakers whose work displayed confidence and maturity while being unafraid to experiment with new ideas, techniques and styles.

(A brief note: for the first time, we have multiple selections from two schools: Rhode Island School of Design and Sheridan. In particular, there are three films from Sheridan. We received a record two-dozen entries from Sheridan this year, and we appreciated the diverse range of voices coming out of there, as well as the consistently high technical proficiency of the school’s students.)

Each of the ten filmmakers below will receive $300. Further, we’re introducing a new twist this year. After all the films have debuted, we will conduct a poll where viewers can vote for their favorite film. The winner of the audience choice award will receive an additional $500.

Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival is made possible by JibJab, our major sponsor for this year’s festival. JibJab has consistently demonstrated generous support for young and emerging talent, and we are proud to recognize them as the sponsor of our festival.

Once again, a hearty congratulations to this year’s selections in our Student Animation Festival. Mark your calendars: the first film will debut on Cartoon Brew on Monday, July 2.

The Ballad of Poisonberry Pete
Directed by Uri Lotan, Adam Campbell, Elizabeth McMahill
School: Ringling College of Art and Design
Country: USA (Florida)

Ballpit
Directed by Kyle Mowat
School: Sheridan College
Country: Canada

Gum
Directed by Noam Sussman
School: Sheridan College
Country: Canada

Money Bunny Blues
Directed by Ellen Coons
School: College for Creative Studies
Country: USA (Michigan)

Otzi
Directed by Evan Red Borja
School: School of Visual Arts
Country: USA (New York)

Peace One Day
Directed by Angie Phillips and Phoebe Halstead
School: Kingston University
Country: UK

Pest
Directed by Nooree Kim
School: Sheridan College
Country: Canada

Troubleshooting
Directed by Eric Ko
School: Rhode Isla

Defective Detective is the week two film in our Cartoon Brew Student Animation Festival. It’s directed by Avner Geller and Stevie Lewis from Ringling College of Art and Design. To comment on the film, read their production notes, or watch their Student Academy Award acceptance speech, click HERE.

Cartoon Brew’s second annual Student Animation Festival is made possible through the generous support of Titmouse and JibJab.

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We’re proud to present the second film in this year’s Student Animation Festival: Defective Detective directed by Avner Geller and Stevie Lewis at the Ringling College of Art and Design. Every aspect of the production is done to a high professional standard, but to us, the film also illustrates the value of CG filmmakers who are well versed in traditional drawing and painting. Visit the blogs of Geller and Lewis, and you’ll discover two artists with a solid knowledge of design, drawing and color, and that knowledge is well applied throughout their film. The seamless integration of hand-drawn sequences was also a novel touch that we enjoyed.

Geller is currently working at Pixar, Lewis is at DreamWorks. Here is a video from a few weeks ago of the duo accepting a Student Academy Award, and below, dressed up as their characters from the film:

They provided us with the following notes about the production of Defective Detective:

It took about a year to complete the film from the story development until it was rendered and done. The film is mostly done in 3D. The program at Ringling focuses on 3D computer animation, and the course of study take you through all the stages of production, from the story and design stages, through Modeling, Animation and Lighting. In the first two years we take course in traditional hand drawn animation, and when we got to work on our film, we knew we wanted to incorporate that in some sort of way. The Detective’s dream sequences were a perfect opportunity to use a different technique that will take the viewers through a unique experience.

We weren’t very familiar with this style of storytelling and cinema, and had to do a lot of research. Learning more about the world in which the film takes place was one of the most fun stages of production. We collected a lot of picture reference of old apartments in France and studied different kinds of furniture and appliances that were used during that time. We watched a lot of film noir movies and were inspired by the tone and style of detective films. Once you immerse yourself in a certain world you start recognizing new references that relate to it everywhere. For instance we started to see detective images and caricatures everywhere even when we weren’t looking.

The Music for the film was composed by Raphael Beau, who wrote the music for Micmacs (directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who also directed Amelie). We really loved his work and sent him a version of our film in very early stage. Luckily he saw the potential in it and agreed to write music for us. We were extremely happy and he did such a fantastic job. From the very first draft he sent us it was clear that we are on the same wavelength, and it was pleasure working with him. The sound design was done by Clement Maleo (who worked on Gobelins, l’école de l’image film, Burning Safari) and he was also great to work with. He was very particular about every little nuance in the film and really brought it to life through sound.

It was a fantastic experience to work on this film. Animation is such a long and tedious process sometimes and it’s a really unique feeling to see how it all came together at the end. Even though it was hard to see the film through fresh eyes because we watched it so many times, we still loved watching and working on the film even until the very end. We really enjoyed working together and we hope to collaborate on more projects in the future.

Filmmaker Websites
Avner Geller
Stevie Lewis

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