Monday, March 1, 2010

Logorama


"Logorama, a stunning film by French collective H5 (filmmakers Francois Alaux, Herve de Crecy and Ludovic Houplain), is a violent, profane, action-packed caper set in a world comprised entirely of well-known corporate logos and mascots."




Friday, February 26, 2010

Devils Angels & Dating


Got permission to take a week off from
Passion Republic to join DAD animation team for a crazy crunch week!

~ Thanks Aik Sern!!!



Devils Angels & Dating Trailer


~ directed by Micheal Cawood

Saturday, February 6, 2010

80's "Western Anime" & Cyber Formula




So... I was day dreaming childhood memories of cartoons I've watched when I was like 5 but never realized what they were about nor what they were called and they were just soooo cool!..... well back then. A pang of nostalgia hit me and I just felt like searching the intro to those "cool" 80's ~ **"Western Anime" cartoons such as Thunder Cats, Ghost Busters, Voltron, Saber Riders & The Star Sheriff, Robotech/Macross, Jem and Mask (the one's with big helmets and changing automobiles, not the green face guy). And the intros are still great to watch because most of the production money went into this 30 -40sec montage thus higher frame rate with cooler effects and opening theme song :)

**I don't really know what to call these cartoons because they weren't Warner Bros, Disney, Hanna Barbara nor anything similar to the limited Saturday cartoons and they do look and feel more like Anime, so I call them "Western Anime", was probably shipped to Japan to be animated anyway....

Getting back to point ~ back when I was like 5, I also remembered a cartoon which had really cool 6 wheeled racing cars which could transform (anything that transformed was automatically cool when you're 5), so went Googling and found the anime. Cyber Formula is an Original Video Anime (OVA) which means it was created originally as an anime TV series, usually Japanese anime series are either based off existing manga or stories.

The anime is about the young drivers, advancing technology in the cars and the racing sport which is similar to F1 except with really advanced technological vehicles installed with AI guidance and not forgetting the ridiculous Jet Boosters propelling the cars up to 600kph. The race cars themselves were cool but sort of strange and really outlandish to have a 4 to 8 wheeled steering/driving chasis and thought that it was just as a design appeal for the anime.... . . . . . . . . .





. . . . . . . . .... then I found these;




Apparently 6 wheeled F1 cars actually existed back in the 70's, they were experimenting on traction and steering control, you can read more about it on Forix as well as the following wiki articles;

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Helpful Hints

A really really really good animation article by Eric Scheur & his friend actor/teacher Chris Murray;

Acting It Out




Enjoy!

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The Last Lecture

I know this is a blog mostly about animation topics, but this is one lecture I'd recommend watching, especially if you're doing some soul searching and planning out your life. There are some related stuff about Virtual reality, Disney and EA though.

Randy Pausch Last Lecture ~ Achieving Your Childhood Dreams



Worse come to worse at least I hope you learned some expression, gestures and body language of a speaker at a forum.

Friday, January 15, 2010

P A P E R

A4 B4 F4

Aaaaaaah, the essential thin dry piece of mashed bleached wood pulp we artist use daily for our sketches, notes and art. So, I was shopping around for animation paper the other day and so far the only 2 places where they sell actual B4 Size punched animation paper are at Vision Art (Sunway) and Venus Art (Petaling Street).

Unfortunately...... Vision Art sells a stack of 450pcs @ RM25, and Venus Art sells an old musty branded stack of 100pcs @ RM80 :|






Soooo, thought to my~self why not go hunt down a paper supplier and see if I can get my hands on a box of un~punched B4 and go punch it my self at TOA (owns an animation paper puncher), and found a place in Klang thanks to my friend Bryant :)




Lian Peng Stationary sells a box(5 x 450pcs) of B4 @ RM75, economically wise I could save half the price for a stack of punched B4 and double my quantity of animation paper if I had bought the paper alone and punched it myself instead of getting it from Vision...

So I did :)



Oh and
I found an odd stack of F4 sized paper..... it's like A4 but wide screen :) I just couldn't resist and bought a stack to punch for experimenting for next time. It's fun prepping your own animation paper, its like prepping a magazine of ammo to be wasted by a machine gun. Helps to discourage me from wasting paper anyway :)

Monday, January 4, 2010

Parkour Real Time 2D

Once in a blue moon I'd come across videos of these interesting and new experimental ways of utilizing the 2D medium. There was another one on a stop motion graffiti which I can't recall the name but it was pretty cool.

Enjoy :)

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Kyle Balda Critic

The other day during the Master Class I asked Kyle Balda if he could give some feed back on my animation for 11 Second Club Nov '09 entry, and being the nice guy he is ~ he said yes, so here it is for your learning pleasure :)






Hi Marcus,

Unfortunately this particular piece of dialog doesn't allow much in the way of subtext or changes. he says what he feels and there are not really any emotional changes. So in terms of acting, its hard to do anything REALLY interesting other then what is obvious. having said that,. the only suggestions I think I can offer on this piece is that the lip-sync feels just a little bit off. It might be a good experiment to make the audio play a frame or two later. I understand the filmic reason for cutting away to the other characters but sometimes when the principle character is NOT talking is the best opportunity for the acting.


I guess the main thing you could ask yourself with this piece or if you are moving forward on another is "what is it the character is NOT saying, but is feeling and thinking" And show THAT! It will be far more interesting. And I think for that you need context, a situation. I think your work is good, there is not much to say technically, just think of the "story" for the next one. and what is the un-obvious and complicated emotion or idea that you as the animator can simply communicate?


Hope that helps!


Kyle



Also check out his tutorial for 3D World;



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If you guys got anything else to critic just post it up in the comments, I'll be refining this entry.


Happy New Year 2010!