I want to share with you guys this brilliant short stop-motion animation made by Tim Burton in 1982.
The story is about a little boy named Vincent Malloy who wants to be Vincent Price (an American actor who was well known for his characteristic voice in a series of horror films).
Obviously, the narrator couldn't be anyone other than Vincent Price, who makes an excellent narrative in verse.
Hello bloggers and bloggettes (if that is indeed the correct terminology)
I thought i'd put this on here. It's not got all that much to do with either animation or new media design but it's pretty good nonetheless.
Model, actor, author, film maker, activist and daughter of Ingrid Bergman- Isabella Rossellini has turned her hand to making a series of short educational films about the sex lives of insects. They were shown at the Sundance film festival last year, I think.
They're called Green Porno and here's a few for you to check out.
So, I was sitting on the couch, brew in one hand, sketchbook in the other. Doodling away. I enjoy drawing in this book, in what I call my 'child style' and so I have started creating a diary in this style.
The information may seen irrelevant at the moment, but who knows when it will come in handy friends.
well, folks. the end of the month is upon us again and, once more it's time to publish the league table and see who are the chart-topping groovesters and who are the none-hit wonders.
and what drama this month as the boy in the red top hat plays a blinder and, coming from nowhere, leap-frogs his way to the top of the table! meanwhile, down in the relegation zone, a long hard winter looms ahead for those wishing to avoid the drop.
A new animation relives the moment murdered Sophie Lancaster was beaten to death as she tried to protect her boyfriend in a park in Bacup, Lancashire.( August 2007) . The pair was attacked because there was dressed as Goths.
IF U WANT TO see the Animation click on the link...
Just a heads up for anyone who isn't aware of it, this friday is "Black Friday", The mainly american big high street (one day) sales day for Thanksgiving.
The reason i'm posting though is because Apple are notorious for their sales on this day and they offer the Black Friday sales in their stores around the world....so those of you who have certain purchases in mind might want to log on this friday.
For those of you who have not heard of Studio AKA, they are the animation company behind incredible adverts such as the Lloyds TSB for the journey, and the Bupa cartoon ad. I emailed them several weeks ago about visiting to see how they work. They have replied stating that they can hold visits for students of 10 or more. It would be great experience to see how such a successful company work.
Is this anything anyone would be interested in? Pop on their website, and you will see how awesome their work is:
http://www.studioaka.co.uk/
They are actually in based in London. I know this could be a problem, because of money. I havent got my loan yet!!! So it may be something we could look into doing in January when our installment comes through? Head down to the big smoke for the day.
Let me know if you would be interested, and if I get more than 10, we can maybe talk about it properly.
‘Jack Jack Attack’ is a short Pixar film that was made in 2005, as a follow up from ‘The Incredibles’. It is about a babysitter (Kari) who looks after a baby called Jack Jack. She soon realises he has super powers when he starts moving through walls and turning into fire. It is an excellent short film and very well created.
The initial title sequence follows the generic conventions of the Superhero/horror genre, for e.g. the typography is shaking, is bold and very large. This indicates the type of film you are about to watch.
The opening scene introduces Kari the babysitter, a young teenage girl with braces. She is very stereotypically dressed, in a t-shirt, jeans and converse style shoes. This signifies the type of character she is immediately to the audience. When she starts speaking, her voice and idiosyncrasies are very comical, for e.g. she has a slight lisp and is very over the top with her gestures. The scene is in a kitchen, which is made to look very ‘normal’, but with great detail, for e.g. the HD TV, swings in the garden, all the babies’ toys on the floor. Therefore, it is very believable to the audience. As well as the set being realistic, the clothes are also very well created, for e.g. Kari’s top creases when she moves and also the realism of her hair. Not a lot of people will recognise this because it adds to the realism of what people would expect someone to look like.
Even though, children are a major target audience for Pixar, they always include a huge amount of adult humour. ‘Jack Jack Attack’ is no exception. During the opening, Kari says ‘Who’s ready for some neurological stimulation’. Children wont know what this means, however adults will find this very funny and therefore it broadens the target audience greatly. Also, it makes the parents/aunties etc enjoy watching the film with their children.
The narrative is very interesting and exciting. At the start, the music is Beethoven which Kari put on the CD player. This automatically creates a calm, peaceful atmosphere which makes the audience uneasy as they know something is building up. As the narrative starts to build up, and the baby starts showing his superhero powers, the music gets faster and louder which emphasises the movement and pace. The story soon slows down again, when Kari sits down with the baby to try and calm him down. This up and down narrative structure is very important for a short film as not only does it keep the audience interested, but it makes the short film appear to be a much longer story than it is because the audience has felt so many different emotions.
When Jack Jack turns into fire, the genre turns from Superhero action to horror. This is created by the slow motion, loud music and dark lighting. Even though it is intended to scare, the primary reason for following the generic conventions in this particular short film is for humour.
Another way in which the film creates realism is the reactions of Kari. This is essential because the story line is based around Superhero powers which are unrealistic. Therefore to make the story successful and believable, Kari’s reactions mirror what we as an audience would do, for e.g. shock and panic. Near the end of the film, Kari is sitting down with her hair a mess and her eyes bloodshot as she watches the baby. Even though her tired look is related to the superhero powers she was trying to deal with, an audience can empathise with the situation from having ‘normal’ children and being tired all the time. This makes it very funny because Kari’s body language is exactly how real parents/babysitters feel, for e.g. fed up.
When the replacement babysitter turns up, the audience are in a very voyeuristic position because they know he is a superhero because of his outfit and the big ‘S’ on the front of it. Carrie however doesn’t realise this, and therefore it is very funny to watch and it also makes the audience feel good because they know something the characters don’t.
The ending is very open. She is in a dark room, when Mr Dickers, who you presume is a psychologist, shines a light in her eye and makes her forget the whole thing. It is up the audience to decide what happened to Kari, and also what happened to the baby. This is an effective ending for a short film because it makes the audience want to watch the film again to get a better understanding of what may have happened at the end.
Any film that you can watch over and over again, in my eyes is a huge success.
I was just searching the web, and popped onto the Creative Review Magazine. Not too sure whether you have seen it, but it is very interesting and useful. It has everything from advertising, illustration and photography to digital, film, and music videos etc.
If you get a min, take a look. It may help with inspiration.
Gettin pretty bummed at the peeps that are good at posting on this, I am not. I come on here, see what other people have done, and think 'aaah feck it' and go off again. I'd like to think I was pretty good at this stuff usually but I just seem to come to some reluctance. Dont know why. =/
if, like me, you're usually put off watching BBC's the culture show, because of simon-bloody-mayo and lauren-fuckin-laverne, it's worth gritting your teeth and suffering this week's episode - now available on BBC iplayer...
the show has a '20 years of wallace & gromit' thread running through it, with lots of behind the scenes stuff from aardman studios, as well as interviews with the founders. some interesting stuff there, especially the bits where you get a glimpse of all the other stuff [mainly advertising] that aardman have been responsible for and where nick park talks about his inspirations and influences.
just fast-forward through the obligatory sections featuring the usual 'i'd eat my own shit with a knife and fork, to get my face on the telly' zzz-elebrities, trotted out to say how much they l-u-u-r-v-e wallace & gromit, and you're good to go!
Any typography fans might like this, Fontstruct, a simple freeware font editor.
I've been searching for a piece of software like this for a while to create my own fonts so I thought maybe some other peeps might be in the same boat. So here you go....toot on!
Heidilly-do kiddies, just wondering if anyone has seen the new advertisement on television for Twinnings tea? ....this is it:
Pretty creative eh....I knew it wouldn't be long before someone picked up on this, i'd seen a video a while back of someone doing it as part of their audtion for Russia's Got Talent and it seems to have started a craze. Never thought it would be a tea company that would've picked it up though....
Ah, here's that audition. Amazing.
Speaking of tea....whatever happened to the PG Tips lady?
Just noticed in the TV mag that 'Animate TV' is on tonight on Channel 4 at 12am, if this is the same collective programme that I saw on there about a year or so back then you animators will wanna check it out.
It's basically an hour of short animations and the animators themselves introducting the brief, whether it is the same collection or not....it's definately worth a watch for you animators.
Why the bloody hell did I pick New Media?! *confused*
It is my birthday on the 1st December (I expect cards ;)), and have finally got a Macbook Pro (well my mum has locked it up till my actual Birthday day).
She is called Flo. Flo the Pro. She is beautiful.
So, even though I dont want to slow Flo by a bunch of software I would stil like the design essentials. Photoshop, illustrator, Motion and Final Cut. I have an uncle who is a PC wiz and got me these previously for my PC however he isnt a Mac. Silly man. So he cant get me them for Flo.
Does anyone possibly have copies of this software for Mac, or know where I can get it? I know Chris of the Crawley mentioned he had illustrator.
any of you who have an ipod touch or iphone should check out brushes a fun wee app that gives you the ability to draw on your phone or ipod's screen with yer snotty finger. you can have up to four layers in your artwork and there are photoshop style colour picker, brush size selector and opacity sliders.
brushes costs a measley £2,99 from the itunes app store, which is less than you lot pay for a pint of one of those trendy pissy lagers you student types drink.
there are quite a few painting apps out there for ipod/iphone, but what i thought was cool about brushes is that you can download the .brushes files the app creates onto your mac and, using the free brushes viewer application, play your doodles back and save them as a quicktime movie.
if anyone can get to grips with drawing/painting on their phone or ipod, i reckon the movies would be great for some studio diary entries.
great fun! - here's one [worthy of michaelangelo himself!] that i prepared earlier:
[hmmm... does this count as a review? and if so can i apply to have my PDP marks from when i was a student back in 1837 re-assessed?]
just spotted this one-day promo from dreamhost, if anyone's wanting to rent webspace. $9,24 for a year's hosting plus a free domain name thrown in, if you use the promo code '777'.
dreamhost's servers aren't the fastest in the world, but for about a fiver in yer proper english quids, you cannae really go wrong:
I pop onto this website frequently through the week to get inspiration, however today I noticed the big announcement that the Student Awards are open!! Yeah, you heard right. Now, I am not too sure whether I am pissing on the parade of the tutors who may mention this, but there are a lot of briefs that you may want to look at. Again, I am not sure whether we spend time in College creating a piece to enter, but you can still have a gander at the website to get an insight and get thinking! It would be the greatest achievement for any designer to win one of these awards!!! AMAZING.
For some reason, my computer isnt showing any of the text options in the toolbar, only the upload picture so my apologises for the plain text.
Today, a lot of you went over to Bradford. Unfortunately I couldnt make it as I had a job I needed to finished - designing and branding a new sushi business in the Wirral.
There is a promotional evening for it Thursday, and everything needed to be finished, printed and bounded by tonight. I have only just had time to sit down, so thought I would share the final results with you.
The name of the business is 'Kazoku' which is Japanese for family. The food is Sushi, noodles and other Japanese bits like Dumplings (Gyozas). I was asked to brand the business, including a logo, menu, questionnaire surveys, food labels, business cards with the email and promotional descriptions for people to read on the evening.
It was a difficult but exciting job to do and I am pleased with the overall look of the final products. I have included all of the Design process and the changes the design went through in my PDP folder.
The business will soon be setting up a website, so watch this space.
See you all on the morrow campers!!! Ps The comp also wont let me move the images for some reason - its time to get a new computer I here you say. You are correct.
During last week I came up with the basic story line but the cartoon effect that I thought I wanted wasn't going to fit within my style of working. So talking to Stíobhart about wanting to add collage to the story he recommend looking at the Monty Python titles, which I had and can't get out of my head because it's really good animation for the 70's and I think might work today...
those of you with shiny new macs sitting at home, waiting to be filled with software may be interested in the following [click the image to visit the site]:
macheist is a website which every year runs an online 'treasure hunt' type thingy, wherein geeks with too much time on their hands work out the answers to puzzles, thus unlocking free software licences as rewards. fortunately you can just sign up to the site and grab the freebies as and when they become available, without having to participate in the 'game'.
anyway, this year, they're giving away a bundle of apps up front, with more being made free as the number of folks signing up increases. at the mo' it's 5 out of the 6. the apps are obviously not of the quality of the likes of yer photoshop or illustrator, but one or two of them are not bad.
I saw Karl's ideas for a monkey/chimp theme for his project today and I mentioned 'Pankun and James', I said i'd post something for some bizarre inspiration...so here it is....
Basically Pankun and James are a comedy duo from Japan comprising of a very clever chimp (pankun) and a bulldog (james), they've had numerous TV shows together but Pankun himself is pretty famous and actually presents his own talk show with celebrities.
In their shows together they are usually given a task to do like go on a train journey and buy their own tickets, etc.....and you'd be amazed how intelligient they actually are.
Anyhoos....this clip always makes me laugh so i'll show you this, they're basically doing a sit-ups challenge. The sound effects go along great.
My brother in law is a lecturer at Canterbury College and this is by one of his students. It's all hand drawn and put together in Flash. It's obviously a dead simple style but looks pretty nice. I especially like the pecking/raving pigeon at about 40 secs. Check it out.
I saw this video on that Rude Tube program the other day and liked it. It's a german kid who walked across China in a year and took a photo every day (I think) of just his face and wherever he was in the background. I think i'm going to do something similar for this brief but with my little monkey character who represents me in the foreground and photo backgrounds of different places i've lived, or visited. The monkey will grow from a baby through school and college etc, then onto work stuff and runnin a company and travel and meeting my mrs and getting a house and cats and a BABY! and all that stuff. And some things that've happened to me will happen to the monkey man. I will put on some pics of my monkey man from my sketchbook soon (the scanner don't work).
LOVE theses commercials. there say that it is used in Adobe After Effects. there are going to be my concept area. displaying your interests from the comfort of your Computer.
I quite like messaing around with lettering in a kind of graffiti/ illustrative style. Here's a few I did today for my initials - K.D.D. May use something along these lines for this brief.
The initial reason I chose this TV advert to review was because it made such an impact on me. Every time it airs on TV, I concrete and watch it fully, and I am still majorly impressed by it every time.
The narrative of this advert is about a group of teenagers who have been out and taking drugs. One of them decides to drive. As the police drive past the car, the eyes of the teenagers give them away. After the police siren is alarmed, and the teenagers realise they have been spotted, the audience are left to assume they have been arrested.
As this advert is run by ‘Think’ who are a government run company, they are not advertising to create money. The primary aim for this advert is to warn people who take drugs that driving is extremely dangerous and also that it is very easy to be spotted by the police. Even though the target audience is very wide to any one who uses drugs, the advert stereotypically aims at teenagers. This may be because the biggest number of drug crime come from teenagers, or that teenagers don’t know as much as older people about the subject.
They get there message across extremely well by using hyperbole techniques, for e.g. the extra large eyes of the teenagers. The audience know that they are exaggerated, however it effectively get the message across quickly in the short 30 second space. The ‘silliness’ of how the eyes look, also mirrors the ‘silliness’ of taking drugs and driving. Hoping to make people realise, it’s not as cool as they think.
In the car there are a range of people, for e.g. both young white and black guys, and girls. Having both genders and race allows a large audience to empathise with the characters. It makes the scenario a lot more realistic. The advert also emphasises this by using a small car that teenagers are more likely to have. Within the car, the teenagers are having a normal conversation and laughing about the night’s antics. They seem ‘normal’ and apart from the eyes, they don’t seem phased or affected by the drugs. However, the dark lighting and the low, eerie non-diegtic music in the background lets the audience know there is hidden meaning and the advert is building up to something. Keeping the audience interested and wanting to know what happens.
When the police car drives past, the action goes into slow motion. This illustrates how reactions are slow and impaired by drugs. The camera then focuses on the girl in the back of the car. She looks very strange, scary and her eyes are incredibly emphasised. This explains how the police actually see you, and how clear the affects are.
The narration of this film appears to be in the driver’s point of view. It always goes back to his face, and the jerky, unsure movements of the camera signify how he is feeling. Whereas the other passengers seem carefree and not worried about being caught. This indicates that it is the driver who is responsible, and it is the driver who will be in trouble.
The advert ends openly, with only the noise of the siren in the background and the driver expressing a distressed look. This lets the audience decide how it ends, and therefore more affective as it makes drug users a lot more worried about the consequences. It then ends with a black screen, and the ‘Think’ logo at the bottom right of the screen. Using a simple back screen has connotations of danger and doom and leaves a sense of trouble for the audience.
This advert is extremely effective at getting the message across about drug driving. A lot of adverts are aimed at drink driving which use shock tactics to convey the message, for e.g. people having car crashes. However, ‘Think’ had to use a different approach for drug driving to make sure there was a clear divide between the two. They have successfully created an iconic image of the eyes so the audience will now associate drugs with the ‘involuntary effect’ it has. A follow up from this advert has now been released in poster form. Graphologically, the poster is simply a huge image of an eye with veins either side. The TV advert was so clear and effective that when people see this poster on the sides of buses etc they will know exactly what it is for.
I have been struggling to come up with ideas for my Animation piece but last night i suddenly came up with a concept of me turning the Animation into like a first-person view of me browsing through my computer which of course contains everything that's important to me from Videos of Dance, to Music that i listen .since i spend most of me time on it. i think it will be easy to convey on the screen. it will have that SCI-FI, metal, robotical, mechanical feel to it because
robots are the next level of dance.
Does any1 remember the MTV characters on MTV Base that was 2 years ago. well i got inspired by those characters because i could see myself creating them on Flash and so i made different characters that i made a while back and i might incorporate some of them into my Animation.
Morning all. Hope you all had an enjoyable and productive half term break!!
I'm not sure if this is the correct forum for sharing the most personal details of ones life... but I have exciting news that i would like to share!! Those of you that are my facebook buddies will already know but for those that aren't here it is -
I'M GOING TO HAVE A BABY!!!
Not me personally, my girlfriend will be looking after that side of things (my part being mostly done i think), but nontheless a human being i have helped to create will be arriving on this earth in April next year!
Here's a picture - Don't feel bad if you can't work it out, but i am assured this is a human child.
And it is living inside my girlfriend!!
You can see the BRAIN!!!
( Stiobhart, this is another one that will have to go under miscellaneous I think! )
Well we are all back into College tomorrow!! After reading people's blogs I think people are struggling with getting the idea finalised. During the half term I thought I would create an exact story board and be ready to start the animation, however I have also found it more difficult. I have the ideas, and when I put to paper, I keep changing bits. I have kept all my drafts because it shows my chain of thoughts. I think when we all get back together tomorrow, the creative juices will come flowing right back!!
Over the half term, I watched several animations because I have been with my little nephew H. I am going to do a review on Bolt! Has anyone seen this? Amazing. I havent heard much about it, but I thought it was just brilliant. Too funny. Watch this space for that upcoming review!
Just a few ideas for you, in regards to the youbrief.
1. When you are finding it difficult to think of ideas walk away. Sometimes you want to keep working till you find the idea but most of my ideas come from when I walk away and get a drink or get a shower.
2. I am reading up a book on beating perfectionism. Its both a skill and a flaw. Its a fantastic book. One point of advice I would offer is accept mistakes. It is human to make mistakes. So, dont worry if you are no 100% on the idea yet, it will fall into place. Have faith.
3. Write a to-do list!! Haha, for anyone who sits next to me in class will realise this is a little obsession of mine. Whenever you feel completed snowed under with ideas and work you have to do, simply write a to do list. It will take it all out of your mind, therefore clearing space and allow you to refer back to it making sure everything gets done!
Hope that helps people, or at least gives for some good reading. See you folks on the morrow.
P.s Just to make you laugh, here is my halloween picture. I designed the outfit so it does effectively fit in with this PDP!
In a way i'm glad that it was half-term this week, because i've not been very well for most of it, but because of this I haven't been as active and it has been a very bad week in terms of my brief. A week in which I had hoped to get on and have a clear light at the end of the tunnel. So at this moment in time I am (feeling much better, but) still in the ideas generation phase of my brief, according to my gant chart this puts me well over a week behind schedule. Yet, i'm still determined not to rush myself and I am still taking time to generate the ideas that I want to see in my piece. がんばります。
Today I did, however, receive some random inspirational imagery passed on my brother:
Ball droppings This really relaxed me, it was interesting to watch but being into making music I also tried to create a pattern whereby the sounds would fit together in harmony. Very relaxing.
History of the 'Playstation' logo This really does open your eyes to the design process I think, the amount of different designs that had been created before they eventually went with a final choice. You can kinda see in the last few images just how that final shape emerged into the eventual product logo.
Hob Box When my brother showed me this I was completely gobsmacked, being of a music production background it's relevant to my own interests but what is so brilliant about it is that it's an applet that has been designed and created for the web (for free use) whereas professional software packages that offer a similar experience are priced at a few hundred pounds. But the look and interface of this applet is of a quality to rival the best of them. At the moment it's clearly not a professional music production package, but I wouldn't be surprised if budding artists use this in a live situation. And I would pretty much bet that the designers of this applet with recieve an offer in due course for a pro release version. Great design, and great for the promotion of getting more people into making music.
555 Kubik This is unbelieveable. How does one begin to design or plan something like this? It's a projection on the side of a building, but with the careful planning of shadow effects and sound it gives an amazing 3D look. Brilliant.
My first review I'm so excited ... I really don't know how I got into seeing the film "UP" knowing that the animation company (can I really say it) Disney/ Pixar produce it but after trapping my finger in the door of the cinema I really wasn't in the mood to be bored with a rubbish storyline with graphics that make me sick ...but I didn't leave feeling that way.
First of all there was a short animation, "Partly Clouded" My first thought was "great a cheesy cartoon" but the different elements such as, the story, the characters and perspective of the animation made the short film easy to follow and me want to see it again...
"UP" started off with a lovely tale of a couple growing up together and never really fulfilling their dream together, which really was depressing at the start of the film with the woman dying and the old man about to be put into a retirement home he decides to fulfil hes and his late's wife dream of going to Paradise Falls so he lifts the house off the ground with balloons (did I mention he sold balloons throughout his life...) Well as this goes he realises that its not the past that matters but the here and now and help to save Kevin (who is a mum) from his once hero. This film is a great animation, developed into the unlikely friendships between the old, young and different animals and how in the end they were lonely in their own ways and how they helped each other. The storyline is very well told and captures the imagination of audience, the usage of the colours are used to tell the mood from using somber tones of brown, blues to describe the mood to old mans loneliness. To sum it up I enjoyed so much better than the 5 - 7 year olds in front of me that it must be good ...lol.
I have been struggling to come up with ideas for my Animation piece but last night i suddenly came up with a concept of me turning the Animation into like a first-person view of me browsing through my computer which of course contains everything that's important to me from Videos of Dance, to Music that i listen .since i spend most of me time on it. i think it will be easy to convey on the screen. it will have that SCI-FI, metal, robotical, mechanical feel to it because 
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