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Venice, California-based animation and digital media studio JibJab has delivered another winning year-in-review short.

A collection of animation work by Terry Gilliam on the occasion of his 74th birthday.

An MTV Animation studio alum who worked on the television shows Beavis & Butt-head and Daria,

“The genesis for the film happened organically, growing out of the thousands of sketches I’ve done of New Yorkers over the past several years. Drawings of urban life as seen in subways, parks, cafes, bars, basically anywhere people will sit still long enough to capture with my quick contour line. Places where the dynamism of the city is evident and part of the concrete jungle that is the visceral pulse of a thriving city.”

The finished film will incorporate Cinema 4D, Flash and cut-out animation. With four minutes of the film already in the can, Hartland is asking for $17,500 to finish animation with an animation assistant, post-production, and to hire a sound designer and music composer. The campaign is currently at $7,896 with 26 days left to go. Rewards include signed DVDs of the completed film, original artwork, and the opportunity to appear as an animated extra.

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

Our little rhino friend has just found a watering hole, what luck!

Kangmin Kim impressed in 2010 with his student short Visit. He has continued to evolve his labor-intensive mixed-media approach with his thesis film, 38-39°C, and confirmed that he is a major talent to watch.

The father-son relationship that is at the center of the film doesn’t lend itself to easy explanations, but the idea is conveyed eloquently through layered imagery and sound that achieves a fever-dream intensity. There is fantastic attention to detail throughout, and seamless compositing of visual elements. The quirky animation of the hinged paper cut-out figures provides the welcome human touch that is absent from many slickly produced stop motion shorts nowadays. Watch the making of video for a literal behind-the-scenes look at Kim’s process.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: CalArts, cut-out, Kangmin Kim

If not for the cutting and pacing of the film, it would be easy to imagine Walerian Borowczyk’s Les Astronautes had been made today—and not in 1959. The tinted collage cut-out style ages more gracefully than many other styles, and especially so when placed in the hands of a graphic master like Borowczyk.

Borowczyk was born in Poland, but made this film after emigrating to France. Noted French filmmaker Chris Marker (La Jetée) is credited as a collaborator on the film, but he wasn’t involved in its production. Marker added his name as a favor to Borowczyk, who did not have a French work permit at the time.

Your mileage may vary in regard to the film’s message. Les Astronautes tells the story of an inventor who builds a homemade spacecraft, and uses it to have various adventures, including peeping at women, visiting ‘human’ planets, and becoming involved in intergalatic warfare. There’s a bit of a twist ending, too.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Collage, cut-out, Polish, Walerian Borowczyk

This two-minute Chevrolet spot is a pretty epic bit of advertising, but you may be even more surprised to learn who made it. It’s this guy:

The artist responsible for this:

Around 1960, Eyvind Earle, the production designer of the Disney classic Sleeping Beauty, formed his own company Eyvind Earle Productions. The first spot he produced was this Chevrolet piece, which he made in two weeks. According to his autobiography Horizon Bound on a Bicycle, he was paid $16,000, which in today’s dollars would be around $122,000. That’s not bad for a one-man cut-out production, most of which was animated under camera.

(Eyvind Earle photo via Daveland)

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Chevrolet, cut-out, Eyvind Earle

Eric Power’s music video for Wiretree’s song “The Shore” is a colorful lo-fi piece made with underlit tissue paper and black cardstock.

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: cut-out, Cutout, Eric Power

Wow, here’s something I’d never seen before: Monty Python animator Terry Gilliam discussing his animation techniques on Bob Godfrey’s Do-It-Yourself Animation Show in 1974. Godfrey’s show, which made animation accessible to the masses by taking the mystery out of the production process, was vastly influential and inspired an entire generation of kids in England, including Nick Park, who created Wallace & Gromit, Jan Pinkava, who directed the Pixar short Geri’s Game, and Richard Bazley, an animator on Pocahontas, Hercules, and The Iron Giant.

In a day and age when more kids are interested in animating than ever before, it’s a shame that TV shows (or Web series) that are fun and informative like this don’t exist. The DIY advice that Gilliam gives in this episode is not only brilliant, but still as relevant today as back then:

“The whole point of animation to me is to tell a story, make a joke, express an idea. The technique itself doesn’t really matter. Whatever works is the thing to use.”

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Bob Godfrey, cut-out, Cutout, Do-It-Yourself, Terry Gilliam

London’s grey landscape has never looked so alluring as in Daniela Negrin Ochoa’s trailer for the upcoming London International Animation Festival. Ochoa is a recent grad of the National Film & Television School.

She provided these notes about the trailer:

The London International Animation Festival wanted a trailer to celebrate their upcoming animation festival and their new home, the Barbican. This year’s festival theme is cut-out animation, which inspired the look of this trailer. I directed, designed, and animated it myself using ink on acetate and tracing paper under camera on a 3 layer multiplane set-up. The music is by composer Jon Wygens.

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | 2 comments | Post tags: cut-out, Cutout, Daniela Negrin Ochoa, London International Animation Festival, UK

For my money, cut-out animation is still one of the most charming animation techniques when done well. Take for instance The Red Heels (Les Talons Rouges) by Olesya Shchukina. The Russian-born animator produced the cut-out piece at the French animation school La Poudriere for an assignment to make a one-minute film from a child’s point of view. Watch The Red Heels on her website.

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: cut-out, Cutout, Olesya Shchukina, Russia

Viliam is Veronika Obertová’s graduation short from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Slovakia. The handmade papercraft technique fits nicely with the theme of obsessive artistic creation at all costs. I was also impressed by Obertová’s satiric styling and how she subverted the crisp and safe paper sculpture shapes with quasi-grotesque character designs comprised of dangling noses, freakish mouth shapes, spoked-wheel eyes and heavy black outlines.

Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: cut-out, Papercraft, Slovakia, Veronika Obertová