Mar 15, 2010

The Lady and the Reaper

Those of us who saw the Oscars (or at least know the results) can’t help but know the astonishing animated short that that won the academy was a movie based on Corporate Identity… Sort of anyway. Have a look for it, it is worth watching. As a Graphic and Branding designer I love that this particular movie won.

But one of the other nominees, which I personally felt was as good, was the Spanish short called “La Dama y La Muerte” (the lady and the reaper). It’s a stunning animation combining Sexy Nurses, Handsome Doctors, a loveable old dear and most strangely, a cute reaper.

The emotion that the first couple of minutes generates is great and this gives way to a pharsical series of events as the reaper tries to win over the hospital… the chase scene through the huge filing cabinets is pure Pixar, which is probably as high a compliment as you can give any animated movie. Nods towards other animated greats are evident too, such as Looney Tunes and the Tom and Jerry, so why not spend 10 minutes watching one of the best animated short movies in recent years.

The Writer/Director is a Spaniard by the name of Javier Reco Gracia obviously has a bright future ahead of him and with producers such as Antonio Banderas speaking up for him, Everybody can’t want to see what he comes up with next. Great work Javier, we hope to see more soon!

c

Mar 11, 2010

Graffiti To Go

Let us introduce to you: COMBO, a collaboration between Blu and David Ellis. These artists have made a mind blowing wall-painting animation at the FAME festival in the South of Italy in late September last year. This may therefore be classified as ‘old news’, but it’s so cool that we decided to share it with you anyway.

It all looks so effortless; imagine painting your house with this (deceiving) ease. If you know what it takes, making a stop motion animation then you know how much time and effort is in fact involved. What of course amazes the most, is their use of the environment. Window sills become eyes, hanging lamps serve as their irises, no corner is safe. The artists’ recognisable individual styles combine beautifully. Have a look, it’s an absolute joy to watch. Oh, and if we may give you a piece of advice: don’t try this in your own neighbourhood…

http://vimeo.com/6555161

Jun 04, 2008

Brilliant cartoon

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE7VzlLtp-4]

As we’ve mentioned previously, inspiration is all around us and can be found in all forms of art and design. One of the more inspirational forms of art for me is the cartoon. We have all seen Finding Nemo and Cars, which were produced by the incredibly talented people at Pixar. What, for me, makes them so special is the manner in which the animators build into the faces a real sense of expression. Since the early days of Warner Bros. cartoons, the expressions which would adorn the faces of Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote, were the deal makers for me, the humanisation of the characters helped you associate with them and the emotions they showed.

This is something that is played on by the modern animators at modern studios. The ability to melt your heart and feel real emotion with something as simple as a wry smile is a great one, and especially if the character only really exists as a bunch of 1s and 0s in a digital world. The blender software has been going for a good few years now, and has the aim of utilising open source code to produce awesome 3d rendered images and movies, comparable with the Hollywood studio level.

The latest release comes in the form of Big Buck Bunny, a 9 minute long animation produced by numerous artists from around the world. Produced by Ton Rosendaal from the Netherlands it is one of those things you can watch over and over again, I know as I have seen it at least 6 times since I downloaded it yesterday, each time seeing something else I didn’t spot before.

To see the movie you can click the youtube link above, but you can also download a much higher resolution version from the Blender website itself (by higher resolution, I mean full 1080i high def.)

Click here to go to the downloads page of the bug buck bunny website. This really is a download worth waiting for, and possibly the best 9 minutes viewing you will spend this week.