“One morning Nayah is playing hide and seek with her big brother Baidi, when suddenly the room is destroyed and Nayah has disappeared. Baidi sets off on a wild quest in a fantasy world.”
Teaser for the animated series created by Charles Lefebvre / Thierry River / Slimane Aniss
We’ve featured Blu before (MUTO), and now, here’s his latest: COMBO, with artist David Ellis.
Milt Kahl (Mowgli) from Victor Ens on Vimeo.
I love pencil tests. If you’re unfamiliar with what pencil tests are, think of early rough sketches you create for a particular job. Then multiply that by tens, hundreds, and set the drawings in motion. That’s a somewhat lame attempt to describe what pencil tests are, but for me, it’s like watching the intricate workings of an animator, a “peek behind the curtain”. Seeing the numbers and arc notes in the corners are like a drug to me. To witness the capturing of the soul of a character, early on, in the embryonic stage of development is intoxicating, especially if you’re watching the work of a master. So, if you dig pencil tests as much as I do, then you’re in for a real treat. Animator Jamaal Bradley has searched the internet far & wide for rough animated sequences from various movies and TV shows and has started to put them all under one roof (blog): Pencil Test Depot. As he says on the blog, “instead of going to various place to find them, I hope to add many tests here from some great animators…” From Glean Keane, Ollie Johnston, to Milt Kahl, the tests he’s posted so far are more of the Disney variety, but that’s fine by me. I’ll definitely be checking back to see what else he’s posted. If you have some uploaded on your site or blog, be sure to contact Jamaal.
Here’s the latest marvelously melodious and rather frightful feline film (tale and/or tail) from The People’s Republic of Animation. Directed by Eddie White and Ari Gibson and narrated by Nick Cave, this wonderful testament to the canorous Katzenklavier makes me wanna round up all the neighborhood cats and put on a concert! Me-wow!
Apparently this was a school assignment made by Swedish animator Tomas Nilsson to reinterpret the old fairytale of Little Red Riding Hood. Nice. (Via Geoff Wagner.)
Viz has released a translation of The Art of Ponyo – the art book for the animated feature film which hit North American theatres this month. As with all the Studio Ghibli art books, the highlights are the watercolours by Hayao Miyazaki himself.
Everyone knows about the Monster Cereals, right? They’ve been a part of the fabric of our childhood (well, at least, for me), along with their classic animated commercials for decades now. The commercials left such an impression on me, I’m surprised General Mills won’t revive the characters for any new spots. This totally perplexes me. Andy Cage sees the potential here and has started up The Monster Cereal Blog for everything and anything related to the iconic sugar frosted characters of Franken Berry, Count Chocula, and Boo Berry. Earlier, he posted fan art featuring the trio (as well as lesser knowns Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy) throughout the entire month of May. (The image above was done by Saxton Moore.) There’s even a Facebook page to support the cause.
Jeu is one of my favourite animated shorts of the last few years. Paint-on-glass animation is a technique for animated films by manipulating slow-drying oil paints on sheets of glass.
This film is a series of nine animated cycles composed of 400 paintings that “destroy and reconstruct” themselves like a set of Russian matryoshka dolls. The director’s son, Louis Schwizgebel-Wang, performs the accompanying piano piece (Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto).
After the jump, you can watch an interview with Georges Schwizgebel where he talks about the techniques employed in his films.
Super talents David OReilly and Jon Klassen teamed up to produce this jewel of a video for U2’s new single, “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight”. Beautiful!
(link via CartoonBrew)
Weird Al’s latest in a string of animated music videos. Be warned: Skipper Dan’s tale may bring a tear to your eye.
Director Divya Srinivasan’s portfolio, however, is sure to lift your spirits.
We just put Leonard Maltin’s Animation Favorites from the National Film Board of Canada online. You can watch it here.
This feature-length film is comprised of a compilation of NFB films presented by Leonard Maltin. Included in the collection are Begone Dull Care, Mindscape, Log Driver’s Waltz, Getting Started and The Street, among others.
Maltin is a big fan of animated films and animation history and in 1994 he and the NFB put together this compilation of animated shorts he loved from the Board’s history.
Malcolm Sutherland has posted a ton of his great animated films to Vimeo. Including the full version of his latest film – The Astronomer’s Dream (previously) – which you can watch above. His stuff is full of beautiful, surreal, hilarious dreamscapes. The man is also ridiculously prolific – it’s kind of annoying.
Check out another one my favourite Sutherland films, The Tourists, after the jump.
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