Animation, puppetry, and wonder worlds Pot

BurnetRhoades

@maxr I totally love the original Macross, both the TV show and the 1984 film, and Macross Plus. I love the design work in these films and the way they use music. I love how they hired Koji Morimoto especially to do the Sharon Apple concert imagery in Macross Plus.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes is on my list of shows to see. The writing is supposed to be pretty phenomenal and it's in a style that's very nostalgic for me now.

Here's one, one of my favorite characters of all time fitting into this theme, Captain Harlock. I love how they went back to a more comic style for the characters in this, one of several not-too-long-ago series set in the Leiji Matsumoto universe. The ship animation isn't very good in the opening for Harlock Saga but it's got the perfect tone, in no small part because of the epic Wagner:

maxr

Very nice intro =) ... with the wagner ST and all it seems a bit comedic or ironic which adds to it, as it would a kungfu-samurai-9volt intergallactic fugitive secretly gay hero eating salad before a war between civilizations; hey, I'm not saying this is Capt Harlock :P
Man, there's so many things to watch, so nice, competent, passionate work accumulated and getting forgotten (getting forgotten, I need to sleep now). Cheers Sean, glad Macross tickles

MrZz

Hey long time off-time for me but there's something I wanted to post:

This guy actually now programs a game... LOL

http://explore-frontiers.com/

maxr

Cheers @MrZz tecnique used reminded me a shorter and goreish version of
Linklater's (such a fun surname) A Scanner Darkly which was also exhibiting in 2006... and before that, 2001, Waking Life

When one grows up nurturing the imaginarium with bidimentional motionless characters from a comic strip It is not easy to confront their computer animated graphics' version years later. In this case, I am quite happy their succeeded to keep the spirit, the humour and the subtelties from the "original" Goscinny/Uderzo couple. They also did a good job with the soundtrack and specially with FRENCH (original) character's voices. Lot's of fun =)

Astérix: Le domaine des dieux • 2014

Full credits - http://goo.gl/FO8G8b

BurnetRhoades

We had a producer of Cat Shit One come in a few weeks ago. I was disappointed to hear of all their troubles getting funding for a series...

Though he's an American, he's been working with anime production houses and directors mostly. I forget now if it was that project or another that they were pitching, perhaps for a feature, and the director attached was Koji Morimoto. Even though he's one of the most gifted animation directors in Japan, and has one of the most prestigious studios in Japan, the Western money people just didn't think he was bankable...my heart sank.

jleo

Edvard Munch The Scream, music The Great Gig In The Sky - Pink Floyd

“I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.”

Edvard Munch, 1893

maxr

@BurnetRhoades a couple of weeks or so ago I saw the bunnies animation; I thought I was in for a treat, cute, fluffy rabbit-warriors, oh yeah... man I was so disappointed. First of all - trying to avoid the misunderstandings you and me already had - I am not saying it's a bad animation on the contrary I think technically is superior work.
But the content is so far away of being funny or interesting (to me). I kind of like animation 'cause it makes me fly away from the ever going present "reality"... and if it's going to take me to a mirror of this, it must be good or at least funny, or the very least carry some light in its guts... this one didn't check any of those boxes. Please, it is just my opinion... surely many people will love it +)

BUT, the second one... uuuuhhhh, ooohhhh, ii hihh that's just made mi nose cleaner, mi eyes brighter, mi ears pop ti clock and sing the song, cause I'm a babbbbyyyyy with a kniife and gonna kill my own wife... gonna chop chop, split tiklik ticlick the meat from the boooonnne and let free the rainbow caramel of bloooooddd, out and about form the clouds, play piano on waify teethss, pop her eyes with spoon for ice-creaaaaam, pull her tongue till is so funny nobody gonna gorilla go gog go to be able to stop the labels and cry lauuuughhiiinnng... Very nice Mr Grey Ant!! =)

@jleo I wonder what the electronical version of opium (first I wrote heroine, but then I thought people
don't like even to think of needles) would be/look/taste like?

@eyefi dear sir, by any chance do you have some heroine you could share?

From guys at CineFix

L' Homme aux Bras Ballants • 1997

Credits:

Director: Laurent Gorgiard
Writer: Laurent Gorgiard, after the illustrated Novel by Gilles Gozzer
Animation: Jean-Mark Ogier
Photography: Olivier Gillon
Camera Assistant: Pierre Bouchon
Editor: Anne Rennesson
Art Director: Jean-Marc Ogier/ Bruno Collet
Assistant Art Director: Emmanuelle Gorgiard
Music: Yann Tiersen
Foley & Sound Editor: Patrick Le Golf
Production company: Lazennec Bretagne

BurnetRhoades

The thing with Cat Shit One is I don't think it was supposed to be funny at all, not in a way any different than what you find in an action movie with colorful banter meant to lighten an otherwise tense situation, but I think the poor choice of voicing talent and marketing in the West hurt its potential. It's based on a comic that is, I dunno, perhaps more ironic than "funny hah-hah" in its use of anthropomorphized animals. The bad English voices I think sent mixed messages on tone. Here is where some of the more obscure Japanese comic ideas will be a niche within a niche with Western audiences. I always liked just how weird it was more than anything.

I did like the explanation for why the Americans are depicted as rabbits. It's a play on the Japanese word for rabbit: usagi. Hence, USA GI.

maxr

{porn actress} yeah {off} those voices...

Marek Skrobecki's Danny Boy • 2010

Credits:

Director: Marek Skrobecki
Writer: Marek Skrobecki
Producer: Luc Toutounghi / Zbigniew Zmudzki
Executive Producer: Adam Ptka
Cinematography: Bogdan Malicki / Jolanta Malicka
Editing: Janusz Czuback
Sound Editing: Florian Pittet
Sound Design: Florian Pittet
Rerecording Sound Mix: Florian Pittet
Original music: Stefan Aebi / Florian Pittet
Music: Florian Pittet, Stefan Aebi, Yvan Bralard, Frederic Chauvigne, Gisele Rime
Animation: Adam Wyrvas / Krzysztof Brzozowski / Yves Gutjahr / Krzysztof Kierzkowski / Piotr Fikner / Claudia Roethlin / Katarzyna Okoniewska / Hoda Esna Aswari
3D Animation: Jean Deppierraz, David Bauer, Vincent Frei, Felix Helfer
Compositing: Aurore Hercher, François Jaquier, Leo Marthaler, Hervé Spycher, Ludovic Piquerez
Characters: Marusz Wilczynski
Art Direction: Olivier Barbeau
Costumes: Silwia Nowak, Anna Szczesniak, Beata Jarmuz, Agata Szczerbka, Margorzata Stepien
Production: Archangel Film Group, Se-ma-for Studios, RSI Radiotelevisione svizzera, SRG SSR

jleo

Although anime is very popular in China, the govt don't take too kindly to stories that have sex, violence, dystopia & civil disobedience. If that sounds too draconian, Canadian film funding bodies usually have a no gratuitous sex or violence clause in application forms. Although Uwe Boll seems to get Canadian funding. Oh wait, gratuitous stupidity is OK! Although the landscape of China is futuristic with mega factories, sci-fi architecture etc., movies like traditional literature use historical stories to comment on the present & future. Besides their last 100 years of history has already been a dystopia; occupation by multiple countries, Unit 731 and comfort women camps, civil wars, Big Brother Mao and reeducation camps.... It's a golden age of production funding in China with Alibaba, Dalian Wanda ( owners of AMC Theatres) and others pouring billions into new productions. But I guess artistic differences with Japan are just too great to see any anime coproductions! But then again, Shaw Bros. co-produced Blade Runner, so anything is possible.

BurnetRhoades

Shaw Bros did that from Hong Kong though, no? They weren't under the big red thumb back then, they were part of the UK. That's why all of the films coming from that market had to have English subtitles and why you didn't have to wait for a Western video distributor to pick up a film, you could just import the HK release.

jleo

Yes, Shaw was HK based, but if Blade Runner wasn't a box office flop, there might have been more HK financed Sci-fi. HK films seem deflated after the mind meld with the mainland. Just remembered Looper with Bruce Willis was financed in China. Time travel is another discouraged theme in Chinese film.

http://io9.com/5952347/did-chinas-ban-on-time-travel-make-looper-a-bigger-hit-there

*the rain drenched streets with Asian neon signs in Blade Runner were based in part from Philip K. Dick's experience living near Vancouver's Chinatown filled with people lingering in the streets in the rain.

BurnetRhoades

Time travel is another discouraged theme in Chinese film.

As it should be, lol.

maxr

Frédéric Back's L'homme qui plantait des arbres • 1987

English version, voice of Christopher Plummer (much richer in nuances ,-)

Original french version, voice of Philippe Noiret

Credits:

Direction
Frédéric Back

Based on Jean Giono's story

Production
Frédéric Back

Executive producer
Hubert Tison

Music
Normand Roger

Film Editing
Norbert Pickering

Art Department
designer
Frédéric Back

Sound
sound re-recording mixer
Michel Descombes
André Gagnon

Camera and Electrical Department
animation camera operators
Claude Lapierre
Jean Robillard

Animation Department
animator Frédéric Back
assistant animator Lina Gagnon

Music Department
music recordist (as Hervé J. Bibeau)
Hervé Bibeau

music assistant
Denis L. Chartrand

Quality control
Léo Faucher

English version
Jean Roberts

jleo

The OceanMaker

After the seas have disappeared, a courageous female pilot fights against vicious sky pirates for control of the last remaining source of water: the clouds.

The bulk of the film was made using nothing but laptops during a 7-week artist retreat on a small caribbean island.

BurnetRhoades

That seven week artist retreat was mostly for getting the animation done and everything blocked in. It was about a two year period I believe, all-in. Rendering was anything but fast since it was Mental Ray final gathering. One fellow built just about every asset you see in the film as well.

I didn't have anything to do with this film but I'm now senior VFX fellow and resident Houdini driver at Mighty Coconut. It's been my full time gig since about the first of the year and then a few projects before that.

Among other projects, Lucas has been working on what it would take to expand this to feature length. What you see here basically represents the pre-title sequence for what would be the feature, but, unlike a lot of other shorts put out online with feature aspirations, this one can exist on its own merits, with a beginning, middle and end.

jleo

@BurnetRhoades

thanks for the background info, congrats on joining the Mighty Coconut team!

The OceanMaker is well done. Refreshing to see a quiet, almost silent movie with an epic feel to it.

I can imagine if it went through the Hollywood animation studio conveyor belt...They’d probably crank up the noise factor. The main character...talking to herself, to the airplane. Add a few stowaway characters high on bath salts, like a mini Jar Jar Binks with a pack of crunchy Doritos for product placement. The Sky Pirates... led by a James Spader/Raymond Reddington type waxing nostalgic of a time when he just grabbed a Nestles water bottle out of the fridge whenever he was thirsty, more product placement. " Ah, the convenience of water in a small bottle..." "You don't want our notes ? We're just trying to help you make it better!"

BurnetRhoades

Though it's a game, I think this belongs here...

...my animation history prof. loved the period they so meticulously studied and recreated for this game. I get creeped out by this era. The combination of character designs, the music, how the lines were always wiggly and alive. But I like that. I just don't understand how the people who made this style of animation back then weren't put in jail or hounded by religious folks because it's so....creepy. I could just see them hunting down the animators and giving them the whole, "boy, you got the Devil in you," speech.

Seeing this it's the first time the notion of buying an XBox ever entered my head.

jleo

Cuphead looks like Mickey Mouse without the ears, maybe to avoid a lawsuit with Disney i.e. Deadmaus?

The 1920's-30's were the age of surrealism. Everything started to get creepy! Hitler planned to rid the world of surrealism. He and Goebbels studied Busby Berkley movies to get the choreography right in Triumph of Will...... so maybe Uncle Walt spiked the water cooler with something or animators were smoking broccoli. That style has some similarities with 60's animation, Monty Python animation, which I thought was creepy, Beatles music videos, Ralph Bakshi, Robert Crumb, etc. Animation can get away with murder, things you couldn't do in a drama or even a sitcom. The things Quagmire does in the latest Family Guy are so shocking, I'm surprised no one has called in an airstrike on Fox!

Hitler's infatuation with Snow White

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/50025

Minnie The Moocher (B+W, 1932) All time classic featuring Cab Calloway and his Orchestra (seen live briefly at the beginning), Betty Boop and Bimbo. A happening song with thinly veiled sex and drug references: Minnie she meets up with a pimp, the king of Sweden, who gives her “somethin she was needin'”…then gets caught up with a pot headed coke-sniffing junkie who teaches her how to "kick the gong" (mainline heroin).

maxr

@jleo nice one on the Ocean Maker =)
You nailed with the references... one can only be wondered by the strange fresh ideas (oh the candor, je je), the added silly voices, the time it took for a joke to get integrated... Watching from today's perspective only, it's like they were done by a factory of skillful retarded people... and what a heck of work did these guys do. Love it

@BurnetRhoades sure it does ,-) Absolutelly brillant idea and implementation - those characters with slightly colour offset, the high on cotton candy movements and the acid palette when hit, just fantastisch. If you want Sean, we buy Xbox together, you can play... I'll be just spiffing medicinal and watching cartooooons, je je
It mildly reminded the programmer guys in Indie Game

jpbturbo

tonalt

Actually tried puppetry by myself. Intention was to participate to My Rode Reel competition with "real" short film, but it was over the 3 minute time limit, had other schedule problems, was not happy with something and so on...

So just to participate, made this over weekend. It was fun to do and made me think how hard it is to do quality muppet show.

jleo

Universal Studios/ Illumination Entertainment The Secret Life of Pets

NATURE BY NUMBERS

Short movie inspired on numbers, geometry and nature — 3D animation by Cristóbal Vila ·
— Music by Wim Mertens - “Often a bird” from the album “Jardin Clos”

http://www.etereaestudios.com/docs_html/nbyn_htm/about_index.htm

BurnetRhoades

NATURE BY NUMBERS

Reminds me of a lot of early CGI by Car Sims and Yoichiro Kawaguchi. Not the look, but the inspiration. A lot of it was based on the mathematical structure of nature, order out of chaos, etc.

I can't look at Fibonacci based visualization without thinking of Tool's "Lateralus"

jleo

Original short film made in 2013 for Tomorrowland (2015) by PIXAR , deleted from the feature film. Narrated by Maurice LaMarche channelling Orson Welles.

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