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Posts Tagged ‘short takes’

Upcoming Animation – Song of the Sea

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

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.

Tags: coming soon, hand-drawn animation, movies, short takes
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Short Takes – Back to Neverland

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010

Perhaps you’re wondering why there wasn’t a new post yesterday. I’ve got two excuses that should add up to one perfectly legitimate excuse. One, I have a nasty cold that’s draining most of the physical and mental energy I need to write. Two, I just got back from a trip to Walt Disney World, where I got some sun, some souvenirs, and the aforementioned cold. I don’t want to leave you without any new content all week, so I’m going to share something with you, something tied in to my vacation.

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

Tags: disney, hand-drawn animation, lost animation, short takes
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Short Takes – Pixels

Friday, April 9th, 2010

PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN. by onemoreprod

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.

Tags: computer animation, short takes
Posted in short takes | 7 Comments »

A Short, Of Sorts – Pixar’s “George and A.J.”

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

The week of Thanksgiving, with its feasts, visits from friends and relatives, and vacation time for my husband, has left me behind in my writing. I have a film review and a book review in the works, but for now, please enjoy my short comments on this short piece of animation.

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.

Tags: disney, pixar, short takes, shorts
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Short Takes – Simon’s Cat

Monday, October 19th, 2009

I’m running behind on the latest article and feeling a bit under the weather to boot. (It’s nothing serious and nothing related to the flu or pigs.) So while I rest up until I’m feeling well enough to finish the latest article, please enjoy the latest Simon’s Cat cartoon, or the whole lot of them if you’ve never seen them before. These entertaining shorts go beyond just “the cute/funny/annoying things cats do” with appealingly simple drawings and excellent comic timing.

Tags: hand-drawn animation, short takes, web animation
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Short Takes – The Beatles: Rock Band

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

Okay, so you’ve all seen that amazing trailer for The Beatles: Rock Band by now, right? The one made by Passion Pictures, the studio that also did a bunch of work on Gorillaz? That stylish, beautifully animated trailer (though they seem to be calling it an “intro” now, so I guess it’s the beginning of the game) that managed to capture everything that was great and cool and fun about the Beatles in the space of less than three minutes? The piece of animation that was just so great that, had the entire game looked like that, I would have bought it, regardless of the fact that a Rock Band setup in my living room would leave no space for my furniture?

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