Song Of The Sea – Conceptual Trailer from Cartoon Saloon on Vimeo.

Two snow days in a row have sapped my energy for a longer post. I may get it finished later this week. In the meantime, here’s a short one with a video.

Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon got a lot of attention when their debut feature film The Secret of Kells received an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature Film. Not content to bask in their first movie’s success, the studio is working on a couple of other features, including Song of the Sea, which appears to be furthest along in production, judging by the footage seen above.

The video is identified as a “conceptual trailer,” which I’m guessing means that its only meant to suggest the main ideas of the film and isn’t necessarily footage we’ll be seeing in the final film. The trailer has apparently been kicking around for a year or so, but I only just found out about it (thanks to Charles Kenny of The Animation Anomaly). The comments on Cartoon Saloon’s site suggest that we’re unlikely to see this film in theaters before 2013. For fans of The Secret of Kells, the trailer offers a tempting glimpse of a movie in a similar style focused on the legends of selkies (seals with the power to shed their skins and become human). For those of you haven’t checked out Kells yet, consider this a reminder.

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Whatever you’re celebrating, may the last days of this year and all of the next bring you fun and joy.

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BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Animator Blu has come up with a very unique form of animation. I’ve seen it called “stop-motion wall painting,” “wallimation,” and various other terms. In the case of “Bing Bang Big Boom,” Blu’s latest video, I kind of like the term “urban animation,” since the whole city environment is Blu’s canvas. This is yet another technique where creating a new frame destroys the previous one and a single mistake can ruin hours worth of work. I love how seemingly effortlessly the animation moves between surfaces and dimensions and the basic premise provides enough of a story to keep viewers engaged. The amount of time this must of taken to both plan and create the actual and obtain permission to paint on the various buildings and sidewalks, is staggering.

With so much animation defined as either hand-drawn or computer, it’s always wonderful to see a piece like this that reminds us how much more the medium can be.

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I’ve been a Gorillaz fan since their debut album, as much for their videos as their music. So imagine my delight when I learned that “On Melancholy Hill,” the second video from their latest album Plastic Beach, was available on iTunes today.

Yes, I’ll pay a buck for a video that may well be available for free at a later date. I’m that excited.

I have yet to be disappointed by a Gorillaz video and “On Melancholy Hill” is no exception. This high seas adventure venturns the characters to their hand-drawn roots and sets them in a computer animated environment. If you’ve enjoyed past Gorillaz videos, you’re sure to like this one. If you’ve never checked out the animated band before, now is a good time to start.

Check out all the previous Gorillaz videos and a trailer for “On Melancholy Hill” on their YouTube page.

(Real article coming soon.)

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The Magic of Disney Animation attraction at Disney-MGM Studios – now called Disney’s Hollywood Studios – was long one of my favorite stops when visiting Disney World. for obvious reasons. The attraction kicked off with a short film entitled “Back to Neverland” starring Walter Cronkite and Robin Williams explaining the animation process, and then gave visitors a chance to observe the real, working Disney animation studio in Florida, accompanied by short video clips of Williams and Cronkite explaining what your were looking at. The tour has undergone some changes since I first got to see it. Disney’s Orlando studio closed in 2004 and the attraction was revamped. The studio your was obviously dumped and a new film was created starring Mushu the dragon from Mulan. It’s still a good introduction to the hand-drawn animation process, but to my mind, the original film with Cronkite and Williams is far superior.

The quality of the following video is not great, since it was clearly shot while the film was being shown for an audience. But until Disney decides to release high quality movies of its old park attractions, this is the only way you’re going to see “Back to Neverland.” You may notice that the tourist outfit Robin Williams is wearing at the start of the film is the same one the Genie wears at the end of Aladdin.

Here’s a shorter clip with better video quality. The person who uploaded this video notes that the animation was done by Frans Vischer whose later animation credits include everything from The Princess and The Frog to The Simpsons Movie to The Prince of Egypt, to the criminally overlooked Cats Don’t Dance. The animator pictured in the film isn’t Vischer, but he is a real animator. He is Bruce Smith, most recently the supervising animator on Dr. Facilier in The Princess and the Frog.

So you guys watch these and enjoy while I try to beat this cold and come up with something for next week.

All footage in this article is copyright Disney

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This has been getting quite a lot of attention and reposting, so chance are you’ve seen it already. But just in case you haven’t, here it is. Tributes to the early years of video games are nothing new, but not many are this well put together. A great concept well executed.

Cartoon Brew informs me that Pixels was directed Patrick Jean, who works at Paris-based visual effects studio One More Production.

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Pixar’s George and A.J. was originally available as a special feature for customers who purchased Up through iTunes and has been making the rounds on the internet for about a week now, so perhaps you’ve already seen it. It’s a short cartoon about the two nurses who were supposed to take Up protagonist Carl Fredrickson to the Shady Oaks Retirement Village, only to be thwarted by Carl taking to the skies, house and all. The story shows the impact of Carl’s departure on George, A.J., and the local seniors.

As you may have noticed, this cartoon is pretty different from most of the other Pixar shorts like Partly Cloudy – the short that ran alongside Up in theaters, or Dug’s Special Mission – the short that debuted on the film’s DVD and Blu-ray release. It’s hand-drawn rather than computer animated. There is very little actual animation and no real lip-synch. And the voice cast is different. What’s going on here?

I tell you what's going on…after the cut.

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If you have, skip on ahead. If not, stop reading and watch it right now:

So we’re all on the same page now? Good.

If you’re like me and thought that was fantastic, perhaps you are also wishing there was more.

Well there’s more.

Check out the continued rhinophant action in the game’s outro, set to the tune of – what else? – “The End.”

Thanks to Lineboil, an excellent source for your recommended daily amount of animation, for being the first place I saw this mentioned.

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