Bill Melendez 1916-2008 (1)
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jerry (62)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
3 days, 5 hours
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Bill Melendez, the Mexican-born American character animator, film director, and film producer, best known for his animation for Warner Bros, UPA and the Peanuts specials and feature films, has passed away. In 1938, Melendez was hired by Walt Disney to work on animated short films and feature-length films such as Bambi, Fantasia and Dumbo. Three years later, he joined Leon Schlesinger’s team at Warner Bros. studios, where, as a member of the Bob Clampett and ...
Sullivan (of Sullivan-Bluth) passes away (1)
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French Roast Production Blog (2)
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amid (23)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
6 days, 7 hours
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French animation studio BIBO Films is working on a new CG short called French Roast directed by Fabrice O. Joubert and with character designs by Nico Marlet. The short has a production blog—written in French but with lots of pics. The studio is also wrapping up its first feature—A Monster in Paris—directed by company founder Bibo Bergeron (co-director of Shark Tale and The Road to El Dorado). (Thanks, Matt Jones)
An Ugly Disney Poster (1)
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jerry (62)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
6 days, 17 hours
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I’m still at Cinecon watching movies. Picked up a few nice stills and lobby cards in the dealers room. Here is something I got cheap: an incredibly ugly Spanish movie poster for Beaver Valley and some Disney cartoons, with the strangest drawings of Mickey, Donald and Goofy… err, Pluto, ever seen on studio approved publicity. I both love it and hate it. And that giant realistic beaver hovering above them doesn’t help. Click on thumbnail ...
Cartoon Network Acquires Adventure Time (2)
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amid (23)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
1 week, 1 day
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Here’s news that’s sure to please a lot of folks. Pendleton Ward’s quirky Adventure Time short has been picked up for a full-series commitment by Cartoon Network, according to this Animation Guild story. The cartoon was originally produced for Nickelodeon’s Random! Cartoons, the as-yet-unaired (I think) shorts series produced by Fred Seibert. As a refresher, here’s the original Adventure Time short: (Thanks, Adrian)
Cinecon (2)
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jerry (62)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
1 week, 1 day
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If you are wondering where I am this weekend - I’m hanging out all day and night at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, attending the annual Cinecon convention. Cinecon is essentially a non-stop schedule of screenings of classic Hollywood films - from 1914 through the mid-50s, new restorations of mostly obscure films, projected in 35mm, from 9am to midnight for four days. Highlights include several films with Shemp Howard, the final chapters of The Iron ...
Weekend Inspiration (1)
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amid (23)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
1 week, 1 day
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As we head into the long holiday weekend, I thought it’d be nice to take a moment and share some inspiring images I’ve run across this week. Most of the artists represented below work in animation, though a couple work in consumer products at Disney. Lou Romano offers a sneak peak from a personal animated short he’s currently working on that’s based on the poem “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe. Quick sketches by Will ...
3038 Photos in 3 Days (2)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
1 week, 2 days
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A kid in Boston, Robbie, took just over 3000 digital photos in three days documenting his life in and around the city, and then compiled them into the animated film below. The life he documents is hardly extraordinary (lots and lots of public transport), and yet the film manages to evoke an emotional reaction by offering an intimate glimpse into one guy’s personal life. If not necessarily an original idea, it’s still a well done ...
Mass Animation Project Pays (2)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
1 week, 3 days
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Some happy news to report today. The Mass Animation project that we mentioned here last week released a new set of details today on their Facebook page. Notably among those details is that every artist whose work is used for the short will be compensated financially. Granted that the project is still structured like a contest and there’s a chance that the work you create won’t be used in the film (hence no compensation), but ...
Bolt: Storyboard vs. CG (12)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
1 week, 3 days
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AICN recently posted the above two images as part of a preview of Disney’s Bolt. So, as I understand the animation process at Disney, here is how you translate a board drawing into a final CG film frame: 1. Remove all the funny shapes in the character design and turn the character into a nondescript blob. 2. Take out any asymmetry (like the angles on the arms) and even out the pose. 3. Tone down ...
Procrastination by Johnny Kelly (2)
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Popeye in 3-D?? (1)
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jerry (62)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
1 week, 6 days
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I found this on You Tube. Someone took a public domain Popeye cartoon and created a anaglyph 3D version of it… or tried to. It’s not very good 3D. In fact, I screened it with my red/blue glasses and it looks awful. On second thought, it looks kinda cool without the glasses…
LA Times on Disney’s Mickey Mouse copyright (3)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
1 week, 6 days
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Today’s Los Angeles Times has a terrific page-one article on the quirks of Disney’s copyright of Mickey Mouse and explains how the images of the early Mickey may be available for public domain use. It’s not a news story, but an overview of the company’s 80 years of copyright enforcement, and a profile of several folks (including former Disney archivist Gregory Brown) who have attempted to expose the holes in Disney’s copyright claims. To quote ...
Awesome Animated 3D Illusion on iPhone (3)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
2 weeks
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David O’Reilly has built a very cool animated walk cycle that takes advantage of the iPhone’s motion sensitivity. O’Reilly describes the effect on his blog: “The application works by assuming a constant viewing angle (35-45 degrees), typical for when the device is placed on a tabletop. The 3d scene’s perspective is warped using anamorphosis, the same technique used in Hans Holbein’s painting The Ambassadors. This application does the exact same but updates dynamically.” There’s been ...
Mass Animation or Mass Exploitation? (2)
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amid (23)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
2 weeks, 1 day
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Animators beware! There’s a new collaborative animation project called Mass Animation that is asking animation artists (both pros and amateurs) to come together via a Facebook application to produce a 5-minute CG animated short destined for theatrical release. The project hasn’t launched yet, but the details that are available on the official website and in this Intel press release aren’t encouraging. The program, which doesn’t compensate any of the animators who work on it, is ...
Revisiting the Uncanny Valley (1)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
2 weeks, 2 days
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The UK Times got duped into running an article about one company’s claims that their animation has leapt the Uncanny Valley. The video sample accompanying the piece however fits so comfortably into Uncanny Valley territory that it makes one wonder why the Times felt this was worthy of media attention. The best response about the unconvincing human quality of the animated female comes from this MetaFilter discussion in which one user commented, “Yeah, not getting ...
Advertising Kung Fu Panda (3)
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Mapping Springfield (3)
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amid (23)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
2 weeks, 4 days
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Even for someone like myself who hasn’t seen a new episode of The Simpsons in years, it’s hard not to be impressed by the obsessive fanboyishness of Dan Cameron Jerry Lerma and Terry Hogan who mapped the entire fictional city of the Simpsons’ Springfield. Here’s a link to the full-sized map.
Happy 100th Birthday, Animated Film (3)
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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation (29)
2 weeks, 4 days
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Oops, we forgot to mention that yesterday marked the centennial of animated film. The animated film that started it all: Emile Cohl’s Fantasmagorie, premiered on August 17, 1908. And just to recap, here’s where the art form currently stands after a hundred years of progress. Perhaps the next hundred years will be kinder to the art form. (Thanks, Craig Clark, for reminding us about the anniversary)
