Neal Scanlan studios

Neal scanlan studios specialises in Animatronics, an 'animatronic' is a robotic puppet. Walt Disney was the first to come up with the term 'animatronic' to describe their moving models and figurines on display at Disney Land, although they have always been around in film making, and it was the responsibility of the Special Effects or Art departments to provide mechanical props: 

http://www.nsstudio.co.uk/index.htm

The studios have worked on films such a Babe, 101 dalmatians, the wind in the willows and little pet shop of horrors. Its amazing to see everything that goes into the work, such at the moulding, the engineering, the cosmetics and most of all the performance allowing the animatronic to look real and do its job successfully.  

cuppa coffee studios

Cuppa coffee studios is an animation studio in Toronto, Canada and specialises in stop motion and 2D animation. The studios have produced animations for companies such as the disney channel, nickelodeon and catrtoon network along with many more. Cuppa Coffee Studios has won many awards in animation, such as the Pucinella Award for Best Special in 2006 and the Prix D'honeur at Annecy. It is recognised as the largest Stop Motion Animation Studio in the world specializing in TV production.


It was started by Adam Shaheen in 1992, with a goal in mind to create not only quality animated tv shows, but to help teach creativity and wanted to create an environment that encourages excellence within all areas of the production process.  

Symmetry

Symmetry from Everynone on Vimeo.

This is a strange but beautiful video, showing comparisons.. to an extent and moving from very light hearted comparisons to more deep topics covering things like sexism with a short second clip of 2 things. I guess with this mores o then the story it tells its how i reacted to it and how i imagine others react to the 3 minuet film.

With this its amazing how it can say so much with so little, it goes from comparing salt and pepper to to toy guns and real guns, a greedy man and a cow just little things but makes you think, think why there similar and why there different which is what art should do, get you to really think about things. i find this beautiful and just find a vert simple, yet enjoyable piece of art. Its more something i felt i wanted to mention, on how simple things can be so effective and even though its simple its thought through alot and tells a story.

Mikey Please

M Ward Promo - Rave On from Mikey Please on Vimeo.

One of the first films i saw by Mikey Please was the Eagleman stag which took my breath away, The story its self was complex, like the deep thoughts that may run through our minds about time but the way it was animated, with everything being make in white, using paper or foam and other materials. What is amazing about this technique he uses is how he managed to get the lighting right to show the detail within the white short film.

Lighting isnt always an easy thing to get right especially with stop motion, and how to managed to get his characters to move so fluently or do what they needed to do with the use of the material he decided to stick with, and uses again in later animations is amazing.

He is definitely an inspiring animator who i a constantly keeping an eye on for new work and tips on how he manages to animate the amazing work he does.

Studio Ghibli

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation film studio based in Tokyo, Japan. The studio creates alot of anime feature films, with world wide films such as spirited away, princess mononoke, kikis delivery service and grave of the fireflies which are some of my favourite films by the studio. Studio Ghibli began in June 1985 with the company's logo features the character Totoro from Miyazaki's film My Neighbor Totoro which also became a tv series in japan.. which i may have on dvd.

The studio has produced nineteen feature films up to now, several short films, television commercials and a television film. There films have been within the top grossing films world wide especially with films like Spirited away which is my favourite film by the studio and one of my favourite films of all time along side toy story, it is one of the films that got me fascinated with animation so i feel it deserves alot of credit and love on this blog.

What i love most about there films, especially the earlier ones are the details in the sets, the hand painted sets, and hand drawn animation, the quality and detail is beautiful along with just how it makes the film feel. On a more personal note, 3D animation can be beautiful, amazing and have so much emotion in its own right but hand drawn animations like this are the same, yet so different to me they cant be compared with one being a better technique then the other. you can feel the artists more to me in these pieces of work more so, with its quality anime and characters.

Mackinnon and Saunders

I was lucky enough to meet these guys at the bradford animation festival in 2013, it was amazing to find out there production company had created the puppets and sets for some of my favourite feature length stop motion films. they create work for short films, commercials, television and feature films. 

They have worked with tim burton on the corpse bride and Franken Weeny, making specialised puppets for each of the movies to allow the characters to stay so think and lean like Tim wanted, along with Wes Andersons Fantastic Mr. Fox models. When i was in Prague over easter i went to a time burton exhibition with his past works, drawings he had done, story boards, along with his first book he illustrated and sent to disney for feed back. When i saw the puppets i was able to look closely at them and able to appreciate there work even more, especially how fiddly and complex the joints were. 

http://www.mackinnonandsaunders.com/what-we-do/puppets/

Sara Andreasson

sara Andreasson is a designer and illustrator from Sweden. When i find work like hers, what i like most is how fresh it is, there is always something fast and exciting about fresh illustrators who have just graduated and are producing work after work.

The colours really intrigue me, along with her strange design work, as she graduated in fine art and design i can see the link between the pieces of work.

Alot of her illustrated work is digital, and when i find obviously digital pieces of work that really stand out to me, i want to look into what it is, and i think its the bold colours. Working with a tablet is something i need to work at alot and i think when i get the hang of it i need to look more into the shapes of things and working in block to get the effects i imagine and i find beautiful.

http://saraandreasson.se/

Pixar

Pixar are a fascinating company to look at, as they to an extent where the founders of #D animation, or at least the quality we see today. They started off doing very small projects and creating software to be sold, rather then animate but the founders wanted to do animation passionately, which is when the macintosh king Steve Jobs came in and funded a fair few million dollars into the company to produce there first full length animation. At the start they were creating mostly adverts and little jobs, playing around with software, trying to create something to make the most christ 3D computer models.

Toy story was there first feature film released in 1995, which was funded by disney studios. The movie almost didn't get made due to a disagreement with woodys personality and the original story line as he wasn't a very likeable character and the film was very more adult orientated. But was eventually made and even now the quality of the characters is unbelievable and still one of my favourite animations of all time.




Pixar and disney are now almost seen as one, but pixars films are still made independently with money from disney, because all the merchandise from there films is owned by disney, to keep the company going they need to keep there quality up. There isnt one pixar movie i dont like.. well maybe one or two but just because the story like or target audience isnt me. There quality of film, along with the story along side are always beautiful and unique, improving which each film.

Wes Anderson - fantastic mr. fox

Wes anderson is a writer and director he has been Nominated for 3 Oscars Another 37 wins & 40 nominations at a number of film festivals and award ceremonies including 

the BAFTA Awards and Academy awards. His movies include the stop motion Fantastic Mr Fox and movies such as Moonrise kingdom, The Royal Tenenbaums and the Grand Budapest Hotel which are in my lost of favourite films, this is mostly because along with enjoying the strange story lines and fairytale like characteristics at times with the characters personalities, its the way the film looks, how he frames his shots, how he keeps colour themes throughout. To me rather then just a film his work should be often seen as pieces of art. 

He goes out of his way as an artist to get exactly the effect he wants such as in fantastic mr fox he chose to have the actors record their dialogue outside of a studio and on location to increase the naturalness in places like the forest, in an attic and a stable which just adds to the charm of his work.

Another thing i found really interesting about that movie and being an aspiring animator was the frame rate he used. He shot it 12 frames per minuet, although that is the minimum recomended if movement is want to look at all fluid within animation, most thing are shot no less then 24 frames per second to make the actions seem smooth. this meant that it had a very strange jumping effect with the characters and the movements they made.

Although i find the characters slightly creepy due to my feeling towards foxes, the characters are very charming even there movements. The puppets where created by Mackinnon and Saunders who are two people i would love to one day work for in the future if i was lucky enough to get into such areas of work.

Michael Deforge

Michael Deforge is an illustrator i really love, i have to of his books/comics although one is a collection of his annual comics called lose. His work is something i can look at over and over for hours, although the lose stories are all in black and white, in his other books he uses a lot of colour and i adore the way he uses it and the colours he uses. He often like very crude humour and likes to twist things up making them seem very strange as if hallucinating what must be happening. He has done numerous things on adventure time also, which suits his mind i and the way he sees things i feel.

The fist book of his i got was very casual i love the colours in this book, and the strange explicit stories with in. I guess one thing i like the most are how different all the stories in the comics are, they often have a similar style but even that changes, you can tell its his work but depending on the story and format its always changing and jumping which i guess is what keeps me so intrigued also.

I do like his style of story telling a lot and would like to try a similar style with model making to see if i can capture the strange characters and shapes within his work.

Bradford National Media Museum - Animation festival

We attended the national media museum a few times, the first was to see an animation exhibition, which included original sketches and artwork from animations such as the lost thing, lost and found, fantastic mr fox and work by disney studios along with artwork for children's books. the wide range of material was great and very inspirational showing how simple there story boards where and how informative at the same time.

I especially liked the concept art, and seeing how characters develop from the original sketches.

We then went again to the Bradford National Media Museum for BAF the bradford animation festival which was amazing, i loved it so much i even cried! It really is great to hear real animators talk about there work, there stories and how they got to where they are, along with seeing some amazing shorts that had been produced by people all around Europe using loads of different techniques.

http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/bradfordanimationfestival

I will definitely be attending next year and hopefully meet more animators to aspire to.

 

Julia Pott - Sainsbury's tea advert

Sainsbury's The Mighty Nursery from Julia Pott on Vimeo.

Julia Pott is an animator i have come across before a few times, her work is something that really appeals to me. To me its the way she goes about creating her characters, the way they seem to flow often from one form to another like liquid and her use of layers and colours within her work. This advert for sainsbury's quite different from her independent short films she has created in the past but the character design is still very much her own leaving a very distinct signature with her work.

The advert its self is just very beautiful and sweet, not mentioning the brand till the very end, getting you wrapped up within the story and the journey of the product before you make a judgement about the motives on branding and selling. I myself love this promotional animation explaining the way the the leaves for its own brand tea is grown and produced, giving the leaves themselves there own character and making it very relatable by the way Julia Pott has created her characters. Although it may not be as strange as some of her other work she still keeps the fluidity i love to much and her distinct style true thought and really working to the brief at the same time creating a really effective and sweet animation which would truly push me to buy the tea it is advertising.

They Might be Giants - Im impressed

This is a music video for the band 'They might be Giants', although i hadn't heard of the band before this, i stumbled across the video which i fell in love with, mostly due to its mixture of medias. i especially like at the start how they cut out and fold the army and repeating characters. i like the obvious paper cut out effect even along with the slightly crude yet still well done green screening in the background.

Its the simplicity and expressions i like the most about this, its something i would love to look into animating in a similar style as i like they way they have gone about animating the eyes for example and how easy they would be to change and swap compared to when using clay.

it was produced by bent image lab (http://bentimagelab.com/m/ ) which has produced many videos working with a number of directors and constantly changing. Companies like these i have found are great source of a mixture of commissioned animations and films and again is stationed around the world helping finance and produce such good quality and a wide range of works.

Who am i?

Why you chose to study on this programme?

I chose to study on this program, after completing a foundation at leeds college of art. On that course i was encouraged to explore animation, as my work seemed to include particular elements to do with animation, with story telling, and character design. Once i began to explore animation, i found out it did include alot of elements i liked within art and the course i was on at the time. I decided to stay at LCA as i already new the way the institute worked and liked the way it was run, the city and also the tutors on the course and atmosphere made me want to stay after exploring other options. I really liked the new course that was being opened and felt like it was the right one for me.

What do you want to learn during your time on the programme?

I want to learn new skills and find ways to expand the skills i already possess. I especially want to push my computer skills as they are very poor, which is funny when my father is very IT based but me and computers just arnt friends. I want to learn to be more independent with my work and try and get commissioned for work by the end, or get the confidence to complete external briefs also. 

What skills do you think are your strengths?

Right now making models is probably my strongest point, although even that is not great and needs a lot of work within the 3 years on the course. I think team work is possibly a strong point, although right now i dont feel i have many strengths. Possibly my approach to my work could be a strength as i find new ways of doing things through trying to get out of animating on a computer which although may not seem like a strong point i think it has up to now helped my work stand out that little but more in some cases. 

What things that you want to improve? 

my drawing skills, i need to draw more actively possibly try and do a 'doodle a day' and make sure i am constantly drawing, along with drawing on a tablet. Using computer software to animate is something i really need to push at and improve at as it is a skill i really need to have. Also story telling and my writing skills are both things i could improve a lot at. 

What ways you will evaluate your progress?

through reflection, looking back at work. Through the evaluations i will write and this blog also to help keep a time like, and track of my work and its progress as the year goes on. 

Jen Mann

http://jenmann.com

http://www.emptykingdom.com/featured/jen-manns-return/

I found Jen Mann while browsing through tumblr and just loved her work, the colours in her portraits and especially the series that the last 2 were taken from, down to the colours and the strange expressions on there faces. They are from the exhibition 'strange beauties'.

I then went on to find an interview with her where she went on to explain why she had painted them like this. Jen Mann is also a photographer, and was interested in the unfiltered idea of beauty. She was interested in something being wrong, bad or more so something we see as bad and find the beauty within it. Like in this case those bad photos we delete off our cameras because someone blinked or was mid way changing expression and finding the beauty within that. I like the idea behind that as thats something i love to keep as i feel there is more truth and beauty often in those photographs, those unposed moments i feel more is captured.

She looked for off shots from photo shoots she had taken and tried to find the beauty within them, by messing with colours and exposure to make people look at them in a different light, and painted them. In the interview she spoke about how those 'off shots' that we often take and delete and are taught to see as ugly are often those defining moments and there not exactly ugly just strange, awkward and looking at it as if your a child and find how amazing they could be and the beauty within them making them more playful.

Interview- https://vimeo.com/62258938

Michaela Pavlatova

Michaela is a czech animator who i was lucky enough to meet, and watch the work of at the bradford animation festival. Her main inspiration is found from the world around her, focusing on the relationships between people. she is fascinated by the way they talk, interact and often gets her inspiration from people she watches, meets or sometimes find it from people close to her. 

Throughout her career she has tried a mixture of techniques, starting of with hand drawing all her animations, making them very abstract often with no speech, finding other ways to get the message across through the body language of her characters. Her work uses very bold colours, focusing more on the characters, and less on the foreground of the scene. She has also used many other techniques when animating along with cut outs, in a stop motion form, mixing with live action and more recently through the use of photoshop and other online software. her work is often quite vulgar, especially her more recent work looking more into relationships within love, sex and lust. 

She is an animator who has inspired me a lot this year after hearing her talk and what she feels about animation. She is currently a lecturer at the film university FAMU in Prague, where my friend is lucky enough to be studying for a term, i admit my heart slightly suck when i went and i new she was so close, yet so far to meet properly after my shyness the first time i met her. 

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Although Reci Reci Reci (words, words, words) is one of her very first animations i love the style and more so just how it shows relationships, the use of colour and her own personal feeling about the people she must have been inspired by, watched and the way people interact. Im always fascinated with peices of film, animation that tell a story and keep you interested without needing the use of dialog.

Youth in Revolt- opening sequence

This is an animated opening title sequence done in stop motion for the movie 'Youth in Revolt'. It was created by Peter Sluszka. Peter Sluszka also directed a pixelation sequence within the movie where the main character and his friend go on a road trip, as well as directing a scene with the characters hallucinating some  lovemaking couples as they float off the pages of an instructional book. 

Although most of the movie includes no animation except the things mentioned i quite like the little snippets of it to help illustrate the movies feel, and the characters feelings towards the situations and how he sees the people around him whilst this is going on. I love the ways its animated with a whole small set made for one scene with very crude adult humour going on throughout it. 

http://www.hornetinc.com/site/director.php?id_director=4

Along with this animation, being the first i had seen by the directer he has produced many short animated films and is a Directer within the production company called hornet based in New York, Brooklyn and London. Hornet has produced many award winning animated adverts, along with animations within many other areas of the media working with a large rage of well known animators and directors. 

I decided to write about this as it love to re-watch and look at stop motion pieces to see how each went about animating it, creating the characters and sets especially how some manage to mix up the media used within.  

Mart Aire

Mart Aire is a Spanish street artist who was born in Argentina and started painting the streets from the age of 12 joining the first generation of graffiti artists in Argentina. In 2007 his style started to evolve with his change to approach painting with a more pictorial style and started painting the murals his is know for today.

He has a very nice, free style with his work containing very playful, dream like characters on things bikes and stylise characters covering the walls of Buenos Aires. His work is full of vibrant colours which i find beautiful, creating huge pieces of art work through the city. His work seems to be very positive and happy feeling very free as if showing the liveliness and freeness of the city in his work. 

3 stories in wood - Lara Gallagher

I liked this piece because although it felt almost like it was an animation, it included no movement just a narrative with props focusing on what you imagine is happening with the story which kept me focused throughout the 3 short stories. The artist Lara Gallagher is a writer/director which explains the style in this video. The way props are used to help tell the story is very theatrical in a way leaving you to make up more you own mine with whats happening within the video.

I guess it shows just how effective just hearing a story can be and how important are imagination is in such instances. Writing stories is not my strong point but i feel animating them is probably something i could do alot better even though this contains no movement throughout the readings.

i just really liked this piece along with the story that people can relate to, making visualisation alot easier. It is something i have not really seen before or at least has not really stuck with me in such a way.

Hanna-Barbera Productions

Hanna-Barbera was formed in 1957 by animation directors William Hanna and Joseph Barbera who were the creators of Tom and Jerry and live-action director George Sidney. Hanna-Barbera were very sucessful producing many shows, including The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, The Jetsons, Scooby-Doo and The Smurfsas some of there most sucessful. They earned eight Emmys a Golden Globe Award, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In the mid-80s they produced alot of Saturday morning cartoons. It was then purchased in late 1991 by Turner Broadcasting System, who used much of its material on its new channel, Cartoon Network.

Marina Bychkova - ball jointed dolls

Marina Bychkova creates beautiful ball jointed dolls, along with delicate stunning accessories for them. She is an Russian-Canadian independent figurative artist and founder of Enchanted Doll™. The Enchanted Dolls are elegantly sculpted and articulated works of art. Her dolls are usually nude, engraved or covered in opulent sculptural costumes of precious metals, gemstones, and rare found objects, each doll intricately conveys an aspect of our humanity. Unique and delicate, their forms evoke a strong emotional response, haunting us with their vulnerability. All at once innocent and sexual, Enchanted Dolls depict beautifully stylised images of femininity, while at the same time being very playful.

She creates them first out of Super Sculpey to get the measurements right, then casts them twice to cut down on sanding/cleaning process, which seems like pretty hard work. Then created many, many, many moulds and days of work. The time and patience that goes into each doll is amazing and beautiful and you can really see the love within each one. A few more casts are made before the final firing when they can each be painted and brought to life.

“The reason I love making dolls is because it’s such a multidisciplinary art form. I’m not content working in just one medium such as painting or sculpture, and dolls offer me a very diverse and satisfying tactile experience. To create a doll I get to do it all: sculpture, industrial design, painting, engraving, mold-making, drawing, metalwork, fashion and jewelry design. I want it all, or nothing!” 
- Marina Bychkov

For me these dolls are beautiful and breath taking, it is something i would love to be able to do, the small details within the bodies and there costumes along with the diversity. To learn to make puppets, or at least the costumes like this i could use in stop motion would be beautiful.

Zealous Creative

Zealous Creative is a production company based in Los Angeles, who have been producing ads, corporate videos and short films for just over a decade.
One of my favourite animations by them is The maker, it took 6 months to complete from concept to completion. They had a crew of 30 woking on the film, including 4 animators. The most impressive thing about this short film to me is the character design which was based on the work by the Artist Amanda Louise Spayd. She creates doll like creatures, which Zealous creative liked and decided they wanted to animate her characters, or based on her designs. She came up with a design for them and helped create the puppets which allowed 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHXanDTE9E4&list=TLuXUy5rk76F_Jxd_Mfa3S2ljwca5Gf4jT (would not let me embed)
The director was Christopher Kenz the main guy behind the company, the story collaborator was ziad Jamal, Concept illustrations by Ben Thomas. Almost all the set and props were made using found objects, along with alot of the rigging improvised and designed for the movie to get the right shots in. What i love about Zealous Creative is although they haven't been animating very long, the ones they do have are still to a high standard and they have created videos on how they managed to animate with such a low budget. Showing, and teaching techniques anyone can use which i think is really good when trying to learn animation and tips and tricks in stop motion. 

The Simpsons Fox Broadcasting Company.

The Simpsons is an American adult tv show, which is recognised and watched around the world. It was created for the Fox Broadcasting Company by Matt Groening. the show first premiered on December 17, 1989 meaning the show has been running for around 24 years. I wanted to make a post about it because of the way it has developed, covering almost every issue you can think of during it running, along with very controversial topics, if you can think of it Simpsons has probably done it at some point. 

I found out recently that although originally U.S. studios like USAnimation were hired to produce the animation for the program, because of the amount of material created each week, Fox subcontracted production to several studios in South Korea to studios like AKOM, Anivision and Rough Draft Studios.