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Winning an Oscar for best animated short can do many things for a filmmaker’s career, but it does not guarantee an endless stream of funding for the remainder of their lives. That is why Oscar-winning English director Daniel Greaves has turned to Kickstarter to fund his next project Mr. Plastimime. Greaves and London-based Tandem Films are asking for £33,450 (approx. $51,000). They have reached more than two-thirds of their goal with less than a week left in the campaign.

Greaves won the Oscar in 1992 for his short film Manipulation:

His new short Mr. Plastimime mixes clay animation with hand-drawn facial expressions and CG backgrounds. Greaves often mixes animation techniques in his work, such as in his well-received short Flatworld:

The rewards packages are well considered, and include artwork from the earlier films Manipulation and Flatworld. The new short Mr. Plastimime also appears to be well into production at this point. The project updates on Kickstarter show an impressive amount of visual development and dedicated craftsmanship, including hand-animated pencil tests by Greaves.

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)

Former New York City mayor Ed Koch died yesterday at the age of 88. A caricature of Koch was the star of Jimmy Picker’s 1983 Oscar-winning animated short Sundae in New York. (Koch did not voice the character.)

A cartooned Koch also appeared once on The Critic:

Filmmaker PES, currently nominated for an Oscar for his short Fresh Guacamole, directed this striking title sequence for the Dutch TV series Het Klokhuis (Apple Core). The long-running show, which first aired in 1988, is the Netherlands’ oldest youth television show.

Credits
Directed by PES
Production Company: PES Productions
Het Klokhuis (NL) Editors-in-Chief: Loes Wormmeester & Jan Pieter Schaap
Fabrication/Production Studio: SCPS Unlimited
Animation: Dillon Markey
Editor: Joshua Balster
Sound Design: PES

Six months after Disney pulled the plug on Henry Selick’s film The Shadow King, Selick wants to revive production on the film. He is shopping the film this week at the European Film Market in Berlin.

In its new incarnation, Selick (director, Coraline and The Nightmare Before Christmas) has teamed up with Beasts of the Southern Wild producer Josh Penn, and has enlisted K5 International to rep the film’s international rights. This is the official synopsis of the story, which Selick wrote himself:

Hap Dagger, a nine-year-old orphan, hides his fantastically weird hands from a cruel world. But when a Living Shadow Girl teaches him to make amazing hand shadows that come alive, his hands become incredible weapons in a shadow war against a ravenous Monster who could destroy Hap’s brother and all of New York.

According to a press release from K5, the film has a committed crew that includes director of photography Peter Sorg (Frankenweenie, Coraline), frequent Selick collaborator Eric Leighton (animation director on Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls Of Ga’hoole), production designer Lou Romano (The Incredibles), editor Wyatt Jones (Immortals, Rango, TRON: Legacy, Zodiac), and composer Bruno Coulais (Coraline). Voice cast includes Jaden Betts (voice of Hap) Pamela Adlon (voice of Richard) Brendon Glesson (voice of Darce) Jeffrey Tambor (voice of Cuzzie Bell) and Catherine O’Hara (voice of Miss Fern)

K5 also released the following montage of art from the film:

Timothy Reckart’s Head Over Heels was posted online today. Reckart produced the film as a graduation project at the UK’s National Film & Television School.

Head Over Heels is the fourth of this year’s Oscar-nominated animation shorts to appear online along with Fresh Guacamole, Paperman, and Adam and Dog. The only short that hasn’t yet appeared online is Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare”.

Even if you don’t care about football shoes, this Nike commercial provides good entertainment value. Montreal-based filmmaker Patrick Boivin (of Iron Man vs. Bruce Lee fame) directed the stop motion spot starring a marionette version of footballer Andrés Iniesta. Aardman produced the animation, South Korea’s Coolrain created the figures, and Wieden+Kennedy (London) was the agency.

(Thanks, @eee)

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Aardman Animations, Coolrain, Nike, Patrick Boivin, Wieden+Kennedy

Even if this documentary is simply 92 minutes of these guys* praising Ray Harryhausen, I’d say it would be worth the time to watch it.

* “these guys” include: James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Nick Park, Phil Tippett, Terry Gilliam, Dennis Muren, John Landis, Ken Ralston, Joe Dante, Randy Cook, Guillermo Del Toro, Steve Johnson and John Lasseter.

But it hints to be more, with rare production footage, tests and experiments, and interviews with Harryhausen himself shot over a five year period. Ray Harryhausen – Special Effects Titan will have its U.S. premiere showing at The Bal Theatre, San Leandro, next Saturday September 8, 2012, as part of the Bay Area Film Events. Guests that night will include ILM’s Dennis Muren and Phil Tippett of Tippett Studios. For more info, click here. What are you waiting for? Go!

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 6 comments | Post tags: Ray Harryhausen

If you have ever tried to create even the shortest of stop motion animations, you know how incredibly time consuming this art form can be. Still, it is easy to get lost in the story line of a good stop motion animation and forget about the time staking work that went into its creation. However, having the viewer mesmerized by the story line is the aim of stop motion, or any video for that matter.

Listed here are five of my favorite all time stop motion animations. I share these with not only my Computer Art & Animation class but with all of my classes including Art One and Art History.

So that my students gain an understanding and appreciation for the work that went into each of these videos, I often play the "making of" video as well. Below each video, I've also included a link to the "making of" video (where available).


Top 5 Stop Motion Animations I share with my High School Art Classes


#5. Cardboard Animation
by Sjors Vervoort



This animation created by Dutch based artist Sjors Vervoort brings monsters to life on the street. The characters are painted onto cardboard and filmed interacting in a real life environment.

I couldn't find a making of video so here is a link to Sjors Vervoort website


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#4. Light Warfare
by Freddie Wong and Brandon Laatsch




I'm a big fan of drawing with light. Freddie Wong and Brandon Laatsch team used slow shutter speeds and lights to create this campy, yet entertaining street battle.

Here is a link to the Behind the Scenes of Light Warfare

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#3. In Your Arms
By Kina Grannis
Directed by Greg Jardin
Produced by Daphne Raves
Concept Art by Lauren Gregg




What would you do with 22 months, 1,357 hours, 1 still camera and 288,000 jelly beans? Create a stop motion video for Kina Grannis, of course! The background of each scene is created entirely out of jelly beans but you still get lost in the story.

This is a much watch video of the Making Of In Your Arms

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#2. Strawberry Swing
By Coldplay
Art by Shynola




This incredible stop motion video was created on the street using chalk by a group of friends who met in art school. Shynola, their team name, asked the actor Chris Martin to balance on a skateboard in order to save a princess from an evil squirrel. Meanwhile, they created chalk drawing after chalk drawing.

No video but here is an Interview with Shynola 

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#1. Art History : Beginning to End
by Apex HS Art





OK, maybe I'm bias but this class did a great job creating this stop motion video. The video was created over the span of the semester. Though it appears to be a sped up video, it is actually thousands of single photographs put together.

i a n s a n d s :

I’ll be seeing Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie on Saturday afternoon with my Asifa-Hollywood peeps at a screening on the Disney lot. Looking forward to it – especailly as Betsy Sharkey in The Los Angeles Times says “the artistry reaches absolute perfection… and Burton has never done it better” (though she notes, “it’s the story that poses some problems”). A.O. Scott in The New York Times simply calls it “a sweet and creepy homage to classic monster movies”.

It’s out today and you can see it yourself. How does it compare to The Corpse Bride or Nightmare Before Christmas? Where does it stack on the list next to ParaNorman and Hotel Transyvania? Give your opinions here (and, as usual, this discussion is only open to those who have actually seen the film).

Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie debuted weakly last weekend in fifth place with $11.4 million. The opening is significantly lower than Burton’s last stop motion feature, The Corpse Bride, which debuted with $19.1M in 2005.

The opening of Frankenweenie concludes this year’s great stop motion experiment. It was the third major stop motion feature this year, following Aardman’s The Pirates!: Band of Misfits and Laika’s ParaNorman. None of the three films were able to crack a $15 million opening. In fact, no stop motion feature has ever had an opening north of $20 million. It begs the question, Are stop motion films simply incapable of grossing as much as CG or has no one ever made a stop motion film with mass audience appeal? In a year with more stop motion features than usual, it’s a question worth considering.

Meanwhile, Genndy Tartakovsky’s Hotel Transylvania is on its way to becoming one of Sony’s biggest animated hits. The film dipped a modest 36% in its second weekend, grossing $27.1M and pushing its U.S. total to $76.7M.

When was the last time a prime-time TV Christmas Special was really special? I’ve seen this one – and it really is. Nickelodeon’s first full-length stop-motion animated special, It’s A SpongeBob Christmas! will premiere on CBS on Friday Nov. 23th, then begin airing about two weeks later on Nickelodeon, starting Sunday Dec. 9th. Inspired by the classic Rankin/Bass specials of the past, and featuring John Goodman and the voice of Santa Claus, the show was animated by Mark Cabellero and Seamus Walsh at Screen Novelties in Los Angeles. The special is available for purchase on DVD starting today.

Production on the show began in October 2011. Sixty pounds of baking soda, 42 pounds of glitter, 22 pounds of wood chips and 20 boxes of breakfast cereal were used to create the film’s sets. I made a quick visit to Screen Novelties studio a few weeks ago to get a first hand look at some of the props and puppets and talk to the guys. Join me by clicking the video below…

We’re going to start featuring the most interesting, creative and original animated music videos every weekend in a new section we call the Weekend Groove. Submit you vidoes HERE.

“Gangsta Riddim” directed by about:blank (Belgium)

Audio excerpt of “Gangsta Riddim” remix by Roel Funcken. Gangsta Riddim (Original) by SCANONE.

“Over You” directed by Drushba Pankow (Germany)

“Over You” is a music video clip originally made for the song “Nobody’s Fool” by Parov Stelar. The Berlin-based musician Michal Krajczok wrote and produced his song “Over You” especially for this video, featuring the voice of Larissa Blau. The video is directed, designed and animated by Drushba Pankow (Alexandra Kardinar and Volker Schlecht), with additional animation by Maxim Vassiliev.

“A Very Unusual Map” directed by Loup Blaster (France)

A music video for Hibou Blaster

“Teapot” directed by Clem Stamation (Australia)

Cantaloupe are a synth-guitar/bass-drums trio from Nottingham, UK, formed in January 2011. Drawing influences from Afro-pop to Krautrock to the avant garde, who aim to make infectuous and thoroughly pleasing instrumental pop music.

Here’s all the nutritional information about Good & Plenty candies you’ll ever need, spelled out by the candy itself. Animated by New York-based David Amichai with 4 boxes of candy, 3 lights, 2 poster boards, 1 animator, and about 100 hours of work. Shot with the Canon 7D using Dragonframe.

Carlo Vogele who has breathed life into Ikea lighting fixtures and socks and pants has moved on to animating fish. That’s the trailer above for his new short Una furtiva Lagrima, which picked up an award at Annecy last week.

Carlo most recently animated on Pixar’s Brave, but the lo-fi stop motion process he uses for his personal films is decidedly grittier. His how-to guide on animating fish corpses is a must-read:

After purchase of the bass at the fishmarket, I’d stick it in the freezer until I was ready for a full night of animating (stop-motion 101: if you want consistent lighting, daylight is not your friend ;-D). I would take the stinky bastard out a few hours ahead of shooting, while setting up the lights and camera. The fish would thaw from stonehard to kind of rigid in 3 hours, and for a while, its head, fins and mouth would have the right rigidity in order to hold a pose for a while.

So I’d animate as fast as I could, until the fish thawed completely and its jaw went slack… that is when invisible thread was useful : I’d lift the slack jaw with a string which I’d attach to an overhead structure off-screen. Later I could easily mask the thread out of the frames, if it showed too much.

Gross Trivia : somehow the inner stuff of the fish started bloating after a week, and that pressure tended to push its tongue out of its mouth… I had no choice but to ram it back down its throat with my fingers, and was instantly rewarded with a sound that it is too obscene for words. It was easy to forget that this was actually a slowly decaying dead body I was animating. Some orange pus oozing from underneath its gill cover during the shooting was a nice reminder of that.

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This looks insanely cool to me. Coming this winter – a new, unique Spongebob Squarepants Christmas special animated in stop motion. The production was supervised by our pals Mark Caballero and Seamus Walsh of Screen Novelties. Here’s the first look:

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Screen Novelties, SpongeBob Squarepants

A newer trailer with footage we haven’t seen before for Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie. Between ParaNorman, Hotel Transylvania and this, it’s monsters, monsters, monsters… (and I mean that in a good way):

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 2 comments | Post tags: Frankenweenie, Tim Burton

Tor Fruergaard’s graduation film Venus is billed as an “erotic comedy,” but it’s a surprisingly sweet and sensitive portrayal of a couple resorting to extreme measures to reignite the spark in their relationship. Created at the National Film School of Denmark in 2010, Venus won the animation prize at Slamdance last January, and has screened in numerous festivals including Annecy.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Den Danske Filmskole, Denmark, National Film School of Denmark, Tor Fruergaard

This is cute. Dave Carter’s clay animated How to Lose Weight in 60 Seconds won Best Minute Film at last year’s Animation Block Party. Funny and informative… watch and learn:

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This fan-made animated Batman film uses stop motion toys that are just as emotive as the actors in the live-action feature films. Bravo to filmmakers Derek Kowk and Henri Wong.

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Today, as part of Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival, we’re delighted to present Money Bunny Blues by Ellen Coons of Detroit’s College for Creative Studies. As stop motion animation in feature films becomes slicker and increasingly indiscernible from CGI, it’s refreshing to find a stop motion short that embraces the technique’s quirky and whimsical possibilities. The film’s setting is an intricate handmade universe comprised of common household objects—candy, coins, fruit, playing cards. Within this fantasy backdrop and accompanied by a folksy, unadorned song of economic woe, loose-limbed Dolly attempts to connect with the elusive Money Bunny. Whether you’re in need of a few bucks or have more money than you know what to do with, the free-spirited charm of Money Bunny Blues will put a smile on your face.

Click HERE to read an interview with the filmmaker Ellen Coons.

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I’ve been meaning to give this unique DVD a plug for sometime. If you’re a filmmaker looking to make perfect ball and socket armatures for stop motion animation, look no further. Larry Larson is an instructor at The College for Creative Studies in Detroit, teaching armature building, maquette scupture and stop motion animation. He’s worked for over 40 years in special effects animation in both feature films and television spots, on projects ranging from Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead ll, to low budget flicks like Flesh Gordon ll, as well as numerous local commercials (like this), and providing props and puppets for many other shows. Larson taught Ellen Coons how to build the armatures that were used in her CB Student Fest film Money Bunny Blues which we featured here a few days ago. Larson’s new step-by-step armature making video is a labor or of love – and an important reference for all stop motion filmmakers and aspiring puppet builders.

So here’s a shout-out to How to Make Professional Stop Motion Puppet Armatures by Larry Larson. A valuable tool in your filmmaking arsenal.

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Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design students Boaz Balachsan and Dima Tretyakov recorded Israeli children giving their opinions about God and faith and interpreted their thoughts through animation. The idea recalls the Irish animated series Give Up Yer Aul Sins, which was based on 1960s recordings of children telling Bible stories, but Balachsan and Tretyakov add a quirky mixed media style and clever visual/audio transitions. See development art from God is Kidding on the film’s blog.

(Thanks, Elran Ettinger)

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Boaz Balachsan, cut-out, Dima Tretyakov, Israel, Mixed media

Here’s something I’ve never seen before: sculpted smear models. Over the past decade, 3-D printers have transformed the art of stop motion animation, allowing for unprecedented subtlety and nuance in character animation. Laika has been at the forefront of exploring these new possibilities. This article in Variety discusses Laika’s use of rapid prototyping, and reveals that the new printers they used on ParaNorman had the capability to print out models in full-color. Wow!

(via Smears, Multiples and Other Animation Gimmicks)

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | One comment | Post tags: Laika, Paranorman, Smear

From coast to coast, the reviews are coming in and its looking good! Betsy Sharkey in The Los Angeles Times says ParaNorman is “the most fun you’ll have with ghosts and zombies all year”. Manolha Dargis in The New York Times admires “the movie’s meticulously detailed pictorial beauty, which turns each scene into an occasion for discovery and sometimes delight.”

ParaNorman opens today and its a great little film. I highly recommend you check it out – and report to us right here with you opinion in the comments below. Only those who have actually seen the film will be allowed to post below.

Attention those in Southern California: Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra California is hosting a ParaNorman event this Sunday with character and armature designers Vera Brosgol, Jeremy Spake, Heidi Smith, and Alan Cook all flying down for the event. Story boards, models, and lots of designs will be on display. There will also be free posters to the those who attend (while supplies last) and the admission is free! Here is the link.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Laika, Paranorman