Endangered Species

I'm not sure how I feel about this film. On the one hand it is well made and got a chuckle or two from me, but on the other I can't help but wonder if the original pioneers who are glorified so much in this film would have achieved what they did if they had spent their time sitting around longing for yester year. I think Walt Disney could be a bit of a corporate monster himself at times, and much of the technology the animators used back in the early years must have seemed strange and unruly to them. This film must have taken some time to make, a long time to be dwelling on how good things used to be. Not that I'm a stranger to making films as therapy, about 6 years ago I made a piece that was all about my frustration at being on the other side of the world to where all the animation action was. At the time I told myself it was for my showreel, but I look back now and realise I was just working things out. The piece didn't do me any good on the reel. There is so much to be said for a positive frame of mind and a constructive attitude. If animation is going to leap further forward it will be the proactive people who achieve it, not those looking wistfully out the rear vision mirror.

Found at: Cartoon Brew

Animation Employment and Showreels

I found an interesting, top secret document online that I thought I would share with just the readers of this blog. Only you. If you want to stay in your current employment hell, then don't read this.
There's stuff in it that starts off by saying, "You've just finished the course, you're all fired up and want to unleash your brilliance on the whole world..."

For the second years in the SBIT animation course the final semester looms. Some thoughts are turned to what we want to do in 2009. The first years have already built up quite a remarkable store of animation related work in just one semester. Well done. Will some of it appear on your showreel?

Design your showreel using the wealth of knowledge hidden in the ARC.

Time to Think

This is a great article from Spanish born Pixar animator Carlos Baena about using timing to imply that a character is thinking. Its one of a selection of Tricks and Tips to be found on his web site. Check out his Personal Work section too, where you will find some awesome showreel examples.

Sweet and Sour

I'm sure there was some guy in class the other day saying that there was no traditional animation being made in Australia any more. I wonder who that could have been?

Obviously I hadn't counted on the Peoples Republic of Animation from Adelaide, who have been plotting up this very original and mostly traditionally animated film. Before you get too excited and book yourself a bus ticket for Adelaide, it is a co-production with a Chinese studio, and you can guess where it would have been cheapest to do the bulk of the animation.

Still in this day and age of slim 2D pickings you have to look on the up side, an Australian studio was involved. Its an improvement on where I thought we were. The PRA have a showreel up on youtube as well.

Blur doing Iron Man

One of my favourite 3D animation Studios Blur (check out their showreel) are making some shorts for the Marvel Kids web site. Considering that it seems to be made just for web distribution and its free the production quality is very high.

Found at: Motionographer

Voodoo

There is a new bunch of Gobelins films on the way. For now most of them are just listed with some pictures, they probably can't put them online until they have made their festival appearances and such. But I did manage to find this one, and its awesome.

While searching I found this article about Gobelins, its in french but there are some interesting pictures. I also found this showreel and blog from a Gobelins students named Sébastien Wojda.

Toshiyuki Kuwabara

Check out the super slick web site, showreel and films of Toshiyuki Kuwabara. This guy really knows how to present his work in a professional way.

Pet Punk

Check out this cool showreel from European freelance design group Pet Punk.

Click the pic to play-->

More?

Oh what the heck, here is another. Click here to see the blog of Andre Barnwell. And here is his showreel.