Update

Hello Dear Readers,

Obviously I haven't posted in a while, for which I apologize. For the last couple of months I've been hard at work on some Cars interstitials for the Disney Channel. I have been co-directing these with story artist Rob Gibbs, and of course we're receiving plenty of good guidance from Mr. Lasseter. The clips are set to premiere in the Fall. More info as I am allowed to relate it. This directing business is extremely time-consuming, as you can well imagine, so I haven't had a lot of time or energy left to post stuff here. It's a lot of fun, though, and I'm really enjoying being involved in all the different parts of production, from story to voice recording to art, modeling, shading, lighting, and of course, animation. Working on a small team is a nice change from working on a behemoth production like WALL-E.

Speaking of which, tomorrow night (June 1st) is the Pixar wrap party for WALL-E! Woohoo! I'm looking forward to getting blitzed and doing "the Robot" on the dance floor.

Animatronic WALL-E spotted in L.A.

Wall-E Spotted in LA! from Blink on Vimeo.

This is about as "on-model" as it gets, folks! A little more info here.

Aardman saves the planet

More brilliant work from my second-favorite animation studio, Aardman. Here are a series of spots for Animal Planet promoting green solutions to help solve our environmental crises. Look for all the hallmarks of Aardman animation: Simple, clear staging? Check. Appealing characters? Check. Charming Brittish accents? Check!

Brad Bird on fostering innovation

An in-depth story on GIGAOM features nine important lessons on fostering innovation in animation from renowned director Brad Bird, who helmed such hits as The Incredibles and Ratatouille. The article focuses on how Bird managed to encourage his crew on his various films to do their best work, and insists that the better the morale of the animators, the better the film will be. He also strongly advocates taking risks when telling a story. “You don’t play it safe—you do something that scares you, that’s at the edge of your capabilities, where you might fail,” Bird explains. “That’s what gets you up in the morning.”