Category Archives: News

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Watch these artists 3D print animation into reality

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Engadget is reporting on a group of Dutch 3d animators that literally printed out every frame of a short film in with a 3d printer and made it into an exhibit.

From the site:

Why 3D print a computer animation? ‘Art’ is a good enough reason for us, and that’s exactly what drove Dutch artists to put a hundred frames into a single mind-bending installation. Using an Ultimaker 2 3D printer and liberal amounts of glue and string, artists Job, Joris and Marieke squeezed all the cells from a short animation (below) into a single mise-en-scene. At a glance, you can see the fate of the teal-hued hero as he vaults off a cup and into a vase, with each detail (including a bouncing ball and shattered cup) faithfully reproduced in PVC. If you want to feel like you’re inside a computer where time has lost all meaning, it’ll be exhibited at Amersfoort’s Kunsthal museum on March 29th.

 

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R.I.P. Gordon Kent

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Yesterday we lost another one of our own in the Animation industry in Gordon Kent who’d been in the business since 1977. I met Gordon many years ago at Warner Bros. on my very first job working as a character layout artist on the series Tazmania where he was the Story editor and have bumped into him off and on at studios and parties throughout the years. He was a kind and thoughtful man who had a dry sense of humor and he had a unique style of drawing which I really liked(and you can see above). Incidentally, we interviewed Gordon last year about how he got into the business.

I’ve been doing this since 1977… I worked on a show called CBS Storybreak for two seasons. I was associate producer – but my job entailed hiring character and background designers, storyboard artists and story editing (and some writing). I also was the voice director for most of them and worked with the composers and sound effects people as well as working with the engineers on the final mix. I got to learn and do a lot. That was for Buzz Potamkin at Southern Star. I also worked for him years later at both Disney TV and Hanna-Barbera. At HB I got to be Supervising Producer on a couple of movies for TV – Titles change in animation all the time – today that would be supervising director. The Flintstones’ Christmas Carol was my favorite project there. I’ve been an animation timing director since then and have been lucky enough to work on Kim Possible, Teamo Supremo, Billy and Mandy and Bob’s Burgers among dozens of other shows.

Rest In Peace Gordon Kent… you will be missed by many.

You can read the full interview here if you like.

 

 

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Toon Talks Podcast with Eric Goldberg

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Toon Talks has a nice interview with Eric Goldberg up.

From the site:

To anyone who has met Eric, I’m sure you’ll agree that he embodies everything we love about the characters and craft of animation – he really is a ‘living cartoon character’! What a wonderful honour and pleasure to have him on the show!!
In the mid-1970s Eric broke into the industry working on Raggedy Ann and Andy at the Richard Williams studio where he quickly raised through the ranks from Assistant to Director! For a time in the 80’s Eric ran his own studio, Pizazz Pictures before returning to the States to work at Walt Disney’s as a lead animator on the Genie in Aladdin and later co director for Pocahontas, and the lead animator on Phil in Hercules. While at Disney’s Eric began his own short which was set to the George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. His short later became part of Disney’s Fantasia 2000 after he was allowed to use Disney’s staff which were on down time from The Emperor’s New Groove, to help complete it. He was also director for Fantasia 2000’s “The Carnival of the Animals” segment.
Eric also developed Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are as a CG animated feature film and was an animation director on Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes: Back in Action, as well as providing the voices for Speedy Gonzales, Tweety, and Marvin the Martian.
Eric also directed a short cartoon for a Buddhist cultural centre in Hong Kong, A Monkey’s Tale. A fun lesson about greed. He animated the title sequence of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s 2006 remake of The Pink Panther, with Bob Kurtz of Kurtz and Friends. Later returning to Disney, where he directed four minutes of animation for the Epcot attraction Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros and contributed to animated short How to Hook Up Your Home Theater. He was the supervising animator for Louis, the Alligator in The Princess and the Frog and Rabbit in Winnie the Pooh and head of animation on Get A Horse!

But all this, is still just a drop in the sea of contribution Eric has added to our industry.

Check it out at this link.

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SunTrust buys DreamWorks Animation property

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The L.A. Times is reporting that an investment arm of SunTrust Banks Inc. has acquired DreamWorks Animation’s plush, Tuscany-style campus in Glendale.

In a regulatory filing on Thursday, DreamWorks Animation disclosed that SunTrust Equity Funding had signed an agreement earlier this week to purchase the DreamWorks campus for $185 million.

The sale includes 10 buildings on about 15 acres of land, which was developed two decades ago and is dotted with olive trees, oaks and a koi pond.

DreamWorks isn’t exiting the property, however. Instead, the studio behind the “Shrek” movies will lease the property from SunTrust Equity Funding, a subsidiary of the bank holding company based in Atlanta.

You can read the full story at LA times.com.

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Animation Credits Demystified

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The Artiface has an interesting article by Lauren Carr, about the credits of an animated film (thanks Lisa!) and interviews some animators in the process.  As one of those lingerers who watches the entire credits of a film,  I feel it’s important to respect the hard work of others if only to see if I know anyone who worked on the film (I always do). Besides they usually have entertaining bits of animation throughout and sometimes they even have a little button at the end which is always a great finisher.

From the site:

The movie ends; the crowd wants out as if tear gas was released. Nevertheless, there are a few lingerers sitting through the credits keeping extreme focus on the screen, not willing to risk looking down while grasping for a piece of popcorn. How do they still have popcorn? Regardless, those last few keep a profound stare at tiny names racing down the screen. Perhaps the majority who glimpse at the credits might wonder how those names became crew members on an animated film. Some envision the crew thoroughly savor their employment. What in the name of all that’s holy can be cooler than working on a feature?

 

Check it out the entire article on their site The Artiface.

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Cartoon Network’s ‘Adventure Time’ Heads To Big Screen At Warner Bros.

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Deadline.com is reporting that Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time is heading to the big screen as it goes into development at Warner Bros. to produce a feature film which will be helmed by the winning combo of Chris McKay and Roy Lee.

"The Lego Movie" Los Angeles PremiereMcKay (one of the exec producers of The Lego Movie) was recently hired to direct The Lego Batman Movie at Warner Bros. and also was the genius behind Robot Chicken. Lee is producing The Lego Batman Movie and also produced Warner Bros.’ groundbreaking animated The Lego Movie along with Dan Lin. That film broke box office records when it bowed last year to $69M for the studio; it has since grossed a whopping $468.7M Pendleton_Wardworldwide. Cartoon Networks Studios will be involved in the production as will Pendleton Ward, the show’s creator who will have some involvement in writing and producing the feature version.

 

You can read the entire article by clicking this link.