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Over 70 guests from 13 countries will attend Pixelatl next month in Mexico.

The post Mexico’s Pixelatl Festival Announces All-Star Lineup of Speakers appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Brad Bird, virtual reality, storyboarding, and true animation legends are part of our must-see Comic-Con events.

The post Comic-Con 2016: Five Must-See Animation Panels appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Laura Heit’s Animation Sketchbooks (published this month by Chronicle Books in the US, and earlier by Thames & Hudson in the UK) offers a peek inside the private sketchbooks of 51 (mostly independent) animation filmmakers. The 320-page hardcover has a straightforward format: each artist is allotted 4-8 pages that includes a career overview, brief statements about the process of sketching and keeping a sketchbook, and a gallery of sketchbook pages and stills from short films.

The artists in the book include many of the biggest names in indie animation (Koji Yamamura, Michaela Pavlatova Georges Schwizgebel, Regina Pessoa, Priit Parn, Paul Driessen) as well as some artists who are better known for their commercial work (Stephen Hillenburg, Luis Cook, David Polonsky, Fran Krause). It’s safe to say that unless you’re a regular festival attendee—or a reader of Cartoon Brew—many of the names will be unfamiliar. That’s not a criticism though. These are all artists who deserve greater exposure and this book does a fine job of giving it to them.

There’s a remarkable range of techniques, approaches and visual styles represented in the volume, as the author Heit explains in the intro:

You will discover many types of sketchbook keepers within these pages. You will find early ideas plotted out, sometimes repeatedly until their purpose becomes clear, thumbnail sketches of developing characters, mini storyboards scratched out in a hurry. There are those who try out new mark-making techniques, searching for the next film’s look. Others use the pages to doodle mindlessly as a kind of artistic respite, their work here unrelated to their film projects. Some keep a book like a travelogue, carrying it with them on all of their adventures…Others, such as Luis Cook, treat their sketchbook like a reliquary, part scrapbook, part personal project.

My only gripe about this otherwise commendable project is that the film stills took up an excessive amount of space in the book. When an artist like Koji Yamamura only has six pages, it’d have been preferable to not see a third of that space devoted to film stills. The reason for their inclusion—to connect the sketches to filmmaking practice—is perfectly valid, but the stills could have been presented in a way that didn’t consume large chunks of space that would have been better devoted to the book’s main selling point: the hard-to-see sketchbooks.

Not only will this book introduce the reader to names worth knowing in independent animation, it will inspire and challenge any artist with a non-commercial streak to push their own craft further. That, in itself, makes it a recommended purchase.

Order Animation Sketchbooks for $36.07 on Amazon

The craft of hand-drawn animation, virtually absent from American bigscreens (Winnie the Pooh and The Illusionist being the notable exceptions), has a far stronger presence in TV series work, advertising, and especially amongst independent filmmakers. This Sunday in Brooklyn, animators Bill Plympton and Pat Smith catalog some of the recent hand-drawn achievements in the latter area with their first-ever Scribble Junkies Festival of Drawn Animation, which they aim to turn into an annual event. Depending on the reaction to this premier edition, Pat tells me that they want to expand to multiple screenings next year, as well as accept submissions.

The screening, which takes place at the Nitehawk Cinema (136 Metropolitan Ave., Williamsburg, Brooklyn), will present recent independent work by filmmakers Ryan Woodward, David Chai, Caleb Wood, Colleen Cox, Rebecca Sugar, Don Hertzfeldt, Brothers McLeod, and Fran Krause, as well as the two festival organizers. There’s a reception at 7:30pm, screening at 8:30pm, and an after-party and awards ceremony. Tickets are $11. Regular event updates can be found on Bill and Pat’s blog Scribble Junkies.

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Bill Plympton, Brooklyn, Brothers McLeod, Caleb Wood, Colleen Cox, David Chai, Don Hertzfeldt, Fran Krause, Patrick Smith, Rebecca Sugar, Ryan Woodward

Tonight at 7:30 pm, the 92Y Tribeca (200 Hudson Street) presents “Peculiar Picture Parade: Animated Films Defying the Norms,” a collection of recent animated shorts by New York animators. The screening, curated by Joy and Noelle Vaccese (aka Twins are Weird), includes recent pieces by Bill Plympton (Guard Dog Global Jam) Pat Smith (Masks), Signe Baumane (excerpts from the feature-in-progress Rocks In My Pocket) and Fran Krause (Nosy Bear), among others.

Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the door or in advance at the 92Y Tribeca website.

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Bill Plympton, Fran Krause, Joy Vaccese, Noelle Vaccese, Pat Smith, Signe Baumane, Twins are Weird