Jason Schleifer talk

TEDx Youth talk with Head of Animation on PDIIDreamworks' new film "Peabody and Sherman" Jason Schleifer. He talks about the importance of individual moments in the character's story arc.



Great talk! Check out his website here:

jasonschleifer.com

"My Family and the Wolf"

A great teaser for animated film "My Family and the Wolf" from Headless Productions. I love their visual style and hope they keep doing more films!

Hotel Transylvania Trailer

The trailer for "Hotel Transylvania" is out!




:D

The Sweatbox

An interesting insight into the making of the Disney movie "Kingdom of the Sun" which ended up becoming "Emperor's New Groove". Definitely shows a realistic view of what goes on behind the scenes, and the emotional attachment of the artists involved.

Watch it before it gets taken down!



Now on Vimeo:

Balto

I was introduced to Balto (directed by Simon Wells) by Nouche only in the last 5 years, even though it was released back in 1995. Greatly underrated movie, with some amazingly animated scenes.

Ron Doucet over at Flooby Nooby (love the name) posted an amazing collection of model sheets, line tests, story boards, you name it. It's a huge post that I can spend hours staring at.

Check out the extensive post here:

http://floobynooby.blogspot.ca/2012/03/balto.html

It's awesome!

Shekhar Kapur TED talk

Great TED talk from director Shekhar Kapur ("Elizabeth" and it's sequel "The Golden Age") where he talks about "getting rid of your mind" in creative situations.




For more great director TED talks, including James Cameron and JJ Abrams, check out Empire Magazine's Best Film makers list:

http://www.empireonline.com/features/best-film-ted-talks/p1

Bringing "The Pirates!" Characters to Life

Here's a behind the scenes look at the upcoming stop-motion feature "The Pirates!" from Aardman and Sony.

Looks like a lot of fun!

The Legend of Korra

"Avatar: The Last Airbender" was arguably the best animated TV series I've ever seen. Come this April, the new series based on the next Avatar "Korra" is coming to TV and I'm super excited to see it!

Check out the two preview videos in the link below!

Thanks to OnAnimation for posting it!

http://www.onanimation.com/2012/03/14/legend-of-korra/

Hotel Transylvania sneak peek

Posted on the USA Today website, a sneak peek and some new pics for "Hotel Transylvania". Director Genndy Tartakovsky talks a bit about the story in this article:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/story/2012-03-12/sneak-peek-hotel-transylvania/53500968/1 

:D

Hotel Transylvania Tumblr

Sony have released a Tumblr Page promoting their up and coming feature animation "Hotel Transylvania" that I am currently working on at SPI Vancouver. There's not much there at the moment, but I'll be putting up any updates I see to promote it :D

Click the pic or go here:

http://sonyanimation.tumblr.com/

Frequently Used Trailer Cues

After the crazy huge success of "Inception" and it's "brrrrrr....brrrrrrr!!!" trailer soundtrack (entitled Mind Heist by Zack Hemsey), everytime someone at work loads up a trailer for the "up and coming blockbuster hollywood movie", it's usually edited to similar "brrrrr.........brrrrrrrr!!!" thematic cues. And someone usually mentions "oh they're using the BRRR BRRR Inception song!"

Trailers in the past went through phases of popular cues as well. For instance, Clint Mansell's "Requiem for a Dream" theme and James Horners "Bishop's Countdown" from "Aliens".

So after some quick googling, I came across many links about "frequently used trailer cues" like this one >

http://www.filmdetail.com/2011/04/03/frequently-used-trailer-cues-aliens-horner-immediate-music/

Here are a few of my favourite scores that have ended up on trailers, or just amazing pieces of music compositions:

James Horner's "Bishop's Countdown" from "Aliens"


Clint Mansell's "Death is the Road to Awe" from "The Fountain"


John Murphy's "Kaneda's Death (Part 2)" from "Sunshine"


Mark Mancina's "Speed" theme


And check out this link to see all of the used soundtrack cues for trailers >

http://www.soundtrack.net/trailers/frequent/

Andreas Deja's "The Lion King" Scar animation

Who doesn't love "The Lion King"? The peak of 2d Disney's movies in my opinion, not to mention the amount of amazingly talented well known animators that worked on it. Andreas Deja, who was supervising Animator for the character "Scar", is one of many.




Check out his blog here:
http://andreasdeja.blogspot.com/

Thanks again to Jamaal Bradley for posting this on Vimeo.

Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story

Interesting and informative talk about Story telling from the director of "Wall-E", "Finding Nemo" and "John Carter".

Ice Age 4 - Continental Drift Trailer

I love all the Ice Age movies. In my opinion, one of the few animation sequels that get progressively better and more fun. Can't wait to see this!

Mass Effect 3

Don't know about you, but I'm extremely excited for this. Big fan of the series. Only wish it was made into a tv show along the lines and style of the re imaged "Battlestar Galactica" series.



Fwah! EPIC

ParaNorman Trailer

I love stop-motion animation, and I love monster/ghost movies for kids (yay zombies!). "ParaNorman" directed by Chris Butler & Sam Fell, ticks all those boxes. I'm all for animations having more of darker undertones and looks to them and still being fun. It makes me nostalgic for the movies from the 80's and early 90's.

Looking forward to this one!


Some behind the scenes stills:

More behind the scenes pictures here :

http://ink361.com/#/users/10623400/photos

Dedicated to Parents of Two Kids

Awesomely animated 2D short entitled "Dedicated to Parents of Two Kids". I love the comedic timing of it all. Like when the dad sits down on the see-saw and the girl hangs in the air for several frames before tumbling down. With so much going on in parts, it warrants multiple viewings.

Enjoy!