Forget animation - Puppets are the next big thing

And by "big" I mean BIG. I wish I could have seen this in person - it's mind-blowing. The perfect confluence of art and engineering. More info here, and some more photos here.

Glen Keane

So if you're into animation like me you likely know who Glen Keane is. And if you know who he is you've probably already seen the Art Of Glen Keane blog, as it's been linked in plenty of other places. This is a fan site, mind you, not his personal site. Anyhow, his art has always blown me away (see above image) and he's a great animator to boot. I referenced some of his animation of Ratigan for my work on Syndrome in The Incredibles. And he seemed really nice the one time I met him, but I digress.

Recently I had to drive from San Diego to Oakland alone, which is about 500 miles, and thank Jobs for the iPod and, by result, podcasts. Listening to podcasts made the trip a lot easier, especially the wonderful Animation Podcasts by Clay Kaytis, in which he interviews working animators and directors. My favorite so far is the Glen Keane interview (back on topic!) where he talks very frankly about his animation experience and process. He's very inspiring to listen to. One of the things he said that I really latched onto was that when you come across an animation problem that you can't solve, it's not because you're not good enough, it's because you've reached the limit of your knowledge. The solution, therefore, is to seek that knowledge outside of yourself. For him this meant going to art museums and being inspired by classical works. It's reassuring to hear that even someone of his stature hits the wall once in a while and has to work through it and keep learning.

So that's my post about Glen Keane. I hope I don't come off like a fan-boy, but... He rules!

TMNT trailer online

You gotta admit, this looks pretty cool! Well, except for the guy in the dumpster.

NFB Animated Shorts online

The National Film Board of Canada has posted a bunch of animated short films to their web site. Among them are such Academy Award nominated films as George and Rosemary, The Big Snit, The Cat Came Back and Flux. The films span from 1942 to 2002. This ought to keep you busy for a while!

The Pixar Zoetrope

Looking through my files I stumbled upon this movie of the 3D Zoetrope from Pixar's exhibition at the NYC MoMA earlier this year, and I realized that it probably hasn't been posted anywhere. So here it is! It's a 4.2 MB mp4 movie, and of course it doesn't approximate in the least how cool this contraption looks in person. This is real 3D animation. There's plenty more information on the Zoetrope and the rest of the exhibit (which I believe is in London now) at the Luxo Blog.


You can see more of my personal photos from the exhibit here.

SIGGRAPH 2006 Computer Animation Festival

Trailer now online (19.6 MB). Some cool stuff in there; too bad I'm not going! Here's a link to the site.

What Recruiters Are Looking For

A good article on VFXWorld featuring interviews with recruiters from major animation and effects studios:

What Recruiters Are Looking For

9 Old Men Videos

"Disney Family Album" postings on YouTube. Delicious Old-School Flavor!

"Arthur et les Minimoys"

Luc Besson throws his hat into the animation ring:


Discuss amongst yourselves.

More French Student Animation

These kids at Gobelins have got it going on. Their film Pyrats has great physical animation, nice staging, it's entertaining and it's got a healthy dose of GBO*. And it's it 2D!

*Gratuitous Breast Overlap

Nemo

No, not THAT Nemo. This is Studio Ghibli's version of Little Nemo in Slumberland from a 1984 pilot. This clip is amazing:



Here is some information on the production and how it died.

Good article about Ed Catmull

Here's a good story in the LA Times about Ed and Pixar's reinvigoration of Disney Animation.

Q&A on StrutYourReel.com

I'm doing a Q&A on the forums at StrutYourReel.com right now. Feel free to drop by and ask a question. I'm way behind on answering email, so this may be a better venue for answers.

My shots on "Cars" - UPDATED

I've had some requests to list the shots I worked on in Cars, so I'll try to remember and describe them below. Of course I can't actually include the clips here, but when the DVD comes out I'll put together a reel. Anyway, here are some highlights:

Winner's Circle - I did two long shots of McQueen talking to Cori Vetta about how "there's a lot more to racing than just winning". I also did his pit crew team to the point where they storm out and say "we quit Mr. One-Man-Show!" These were really hard to choreograph because of all the characters and the changing tires (lots of constraint switching). I like how the pitties turned out, but I'm not so sure McQueen is pushed far enough.

Traffic Court - I did some McQueen shots where he's talking to Sally ("I'm sorry, did I scare you?" and "Do what you gotta do baby. Oh but listen - be careful. Folks 'round here are not firing on all cylinders..." I also did some Mater stuff in this sequence, like when he's playing with his side mirror and blinds himself, and when he's blowing the spit bubble. McQueen was really fun to animate here because he was being sleazy. I had a really hard time animating the Mater mirror shot. I think I started over twice, and I still can't tell if it's funny or not.

Racing Doc - Some shots of Guido and Luigi just before the race - "My friend Guido he dream of giving a real race car a pit stop" and the little happy pee-pee dance that Guido does while McQueen explains he doesn't need a pit stop. I also did the shots at the end of this sequence where Mater flings his tow hook into the canyon, hooks McQueen and hauls him up. "I'm startin' to think he know'd you was gonna crash!" "Thank you, Mater, thank you." Lasseter wanted Mater to use his tow hook like a fly-fisherman, which meant the I ended up sculpting the shape of the rope on every frame for about 48 frames. I actually had to do some posing between frames, too, to get the motion blur right. Ugh.

Doc instructs McQueen - a couple shots of Doc Hudson ("I'll put it simple... You'll find yourself turning right"). These were pretty straight-forward, but it can be difficult to get good mouth shapes on Doc because of his long bumper. We tried not to make it look too rubbery or curly.

Best Friends - the first 6 shots of Mater driving backwards through the Cozy Cone Motel, starting with the shot shown in my Disney interview in the previous post. These were the first shots I did on Cars.

Doc is a famous race car - I did Mater's spit-take ("He did WHAT in his cup?") and the reactions of the other cars at Flo's (Sheriff "Well you are looking a little peekid"). I also did Doc Hudson watching from his window as the other cars doubt his racing past. A lot of characters to handle but still fun. It's always nice to have a great punchline to work with, too.

New Tires - I did some shots of Guido and Luigi ("Gratsi, Mr. Lightning, gratsi!" and Luigi raising McQueen up on the lift). Guido and Luigi are always fun to animate. I came up with the idea of Luigi sort of hugging McQueen with his front tires, and I wasn't sure if Lasseter would buy it (he did).

Goodbye - I did a few shots of Sally talking to McQueen just before he leaves ("No, it was much more than that"). It was nice to do some serious acting for a change.


That's all I can remember right now. I also did some shots for promotional material (including my commercial) and some other stuff that I can't talk about yet (you'll see it on the DVD).

The Infamous Interview

Alright, here's my interview from the Disney Channel. It is what it is:


A few notes:

• No, this is not really my office
• My eyes look all droopy because we shot this early in the morning
• In real life I don't begin every sentence with "Well..."
  
• Well, you may recognize the smaller kid, Moises, from his role in "Nacho Libre". I didn't recognize him at the time, but I wish I had. Na-CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
• Most of the rendered shots of Mater are done by Carlos Baena or other animators. They only show one of mine, which is on the monitor.
• That's "menv", Pixar's proprietary animation software on my workstation. Dig my rainbow-colored spreadsheet interface! Luckily my real workstation has a much larger monitor. Note the second monitor on the left which has its own computer (called a "xenon") dedicated to playing back Quicktime movies.
  
• I improvised the line about "The eyes are the windshield to the soul". Oh yeah, I'm that good.

My new favorite kids' show

Pocoyo! I've only seen one episode (on YouTube, of course) but it's really cool. Super simple characters and surprisingly good animation. Not something you expect to see in a kids' show. The duck character absolutely rules! Unfortunately it's only showing in UK, Canada and Japan right now. I found out about it from Angus Maclane who saw it at Annecy. Hopefully they'll start playing them in the US soon, or at least make them available on NTSC DVD. Here's a sample episode:

Some more vintage animation

This time: student films from John Lasseter and Jim Reardon (ex-Simpsons story guy, now working for Pixar). Here's John's "Lady and the Lamp":




And here's Jim's "Bring Me The Head of Charlie Brown" - warning: contains graphic cartoon violence!

I'm back

Just got back from vacation today. So why am I blogging already? Because I am a pathetic geek. And because I don't feel like unpacking or going to bed. Anyway, I don't have time to talk about my work on Cars right now (hope you saw it!) but here's a link to some of the fluffy documentary stuff on the Disney Channel:

YouTube clips

I'll post my interview too, when I get a chance.

Ratatouille trailer online!

Wow, big day for animation, or at least for my blog.


Here's the teaser trailer for Ratatouille, the film after Cars, due next summer. I'm not working on it (I'm working on the film after Rat) but I've been watching their progress and the animation is crazy good. So is the lighting. So is... Everything! This movie is going to blow your mind. But you'll have to wait another year!

I'm going on vacation for a week and half, so these posts will have to hold you for a while.

Amazing student animation from Annecy festival

I just found this amazing student film called "Burning Safari". Wow. I'm glad I already have job. Those french schools like Gobelins and Supinfocom sure churn out some awesome students. You can see more of their stuff here.

P.S. Go see Cars!