Nomination Nominees
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – the folks behind the Oscars – have just released their shortlist picks for 2018’s best animated short film. There are ten films, five of which will be nominated for the award. The films explore a variety of styles and themes and include Fox And The Whale, which we discussed earlier in the semester. Check them out below!
https://youtu.be/6RQ9LOBw0vg
https://vimeo.com/244591451
Cartoons Deconstructed
Video essayist kaptainkristian dives into the finer points of all kinds of media (music, comics, children’s books, movies, and more), but I find his pieces on cartoons particularly insightful. Check out his analyses of four very different animated series – Futurama, South Park, Batman: The Animated Series, and FLCL – and be sure to explore the other videos on his YouTube page if you like them.
Crafting Stories and Myths
Courtesy of TED-Ed, here are a few animated videos that examine world building and the heroes – or anti-heroes – that inhabit those worlds.
Aerobatic
Here’s a very short, but very effective, animated film by Léo Brunel. The excellent character animation and physical comedy are highlighted by the minimalist setting and lack of music and dialogue.
Still Loading…
High tech meets low tech in this stop-motion short film from Raphael Vangelis. Vangelis combined computer modeling, 3D printing, and hand-crafted creations to show these omnipresent markers of frustration in a fun new way.
Animating with Light at Night
Here’s one last Halloween treat – an animated short by Darren Pearson (also known as Darius Twin), created using long-exposure light painting. Pearson “drew” thousands of individual frames in the air using small flashlights to create this fun, energetic night out for a skateboarding skeleton.
Want to learn more about this kind of photography? Here’s another video by Pearson, describing his process for creating a single skeleton.
Animating the Dark Side
One of the most distinct voices in animation during the 1970s and 1980s was Ralph Bakshi. Bakshi’s subjects ranged from petty gangsters and street life to wizards locked in mystical combat. He brought a unique – and decidedly adult – perspective to animation and his unconventional style (along with his frequent use of rotoscoping) makes his work immediately recognizable. Check out a fun video essay and some trailers for his work below.
https://youtu.be/qnIhJwhBeqY
Out of the Uncanny Valley
Motion capture technology has been around for a while, but it was Andy Serkis’s performance as Gollum in Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings films that really cemented its place as a viable cinematic tool. In the following video, Serkis discusses the history of the technique – and just how far it has evolved in the last several years.
The Animated Man of Steel
Before any live-action adaptations were created, the Superman character was adapted into a ground-breaking animation by Max Fleischer and his studio. Fleischer’s Superman was meticulously – and brilliantly – animated with a level of precision that we rarely see in hand-drawn animation. In addition to being an artistic achievement in its own right, Fleischer’s Superman cartoons also helped shape the iconic hero’s mythology – notably, Superman’s ability to fly. Check out this video essay by kaptainkristian as well as some of the original episodes below.
https://youtu.be/sjdnCC6n4xk
https://youtu.be/DadH3KjHZws
https://youtu.be/J5M1A_OQaaM
16-Bit Goodness
Back to Bits is a collaborative animation project inspired by classic video games. They recently unveiled “Level 2,” based on games from the Super Nintendo. Check out the montage and some of the individual animated GIFs below.
A Lovely Forest Fable
Here’s a really beautiful short film, written and directed by Robin Joseph. It features 3D animation, but it has a hand-painted look. The music, visuals, and pacing all combine to make a meditative, relaxing piece. The character animation is excellent as well – you might notice that the fox character moves more like a human than the rest of the animals, which helps the audience to identify with him/her.
Painting Frame By Frame
If you think animating using keyframes is tedious, imagine creating an oil painting for every single frame. Loving Vincent is an animated feature about Vincent Van Gogh, created entirely using oil painting. Around 65,000 paintings were created by 125 artists to make the film. The film is currently in limited release in the US.
The work that was done for Loving Vincent is stunning, but it’s not the first time this kind of technique has been attempted. In 1999, the Academy Award winner for Best Animated Short Film was an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, directed by Aleksandr Petrov and animated by Petrov and his son, who hand-painted roughly 29,000 frames using pastels on glass.
This Piece Speaks To Me
Animation doesn’t have to be used for narrative films – there is a long tradition of animation being used to create fascinating pieces of abstract art. Here are a few relatively recent examples, courtesy of Cartoon Brew: koukou by Takashi Ohashi, Elements by Maxim Zhestkov, and Divisional Articulations by Max Hattler. In addition to the fascinating visuals, pay close attention to how each filmmaker uses sound in their work.
Does Technique Influence Theme?
Here’s a really interesting look at the evolving themes in animated films from the Just Write YouTube channel. Beyond the obvious technical differences that computer-based animation brought, this video looks at the ways those technical changes influenced the thematic elements of the films, moving from conservative fairy tales to progressive allegories.
The Future of Animation?
In 2016, The Simpsons used animation software from Adobe to incorporate a live segment into an episode. During the segment, fans of the show called in and asked unscripted questions to Homer, who answered – while animated – in real-time.
This was done using a piece of still-in-development software called Adobe Character Animator. Character Animator is included with current versions of After Effects, but launches as a standalone program. It uses web-cam point tracking to map facial movements in real-time. Mouth movements are translated to pre-built shapes, that change and move with the action of the actor. Other gestures, such as blinking or body movements can either be tracked live or mapped to buttons. When a button is pressed, the corresponding gesture is made.
For the segment on The Simpsons, Homer’s voice actor (Dan Castellaneta) responded to questions will being tracked by a camera monitoring his facial movements. Other gestures were controlled by the episode director using a keyboard.
You can read more about the Simpsons live animation segment over at Cartoon Brew.
…and the Masters of the Universe
Here’s a fascinating look at one of the most iconic cartoons of the 1980s. Check out this behind-the-scenes video about the creation of a single shot from the classic action cartoon He-Man.
If you’re a fan, check out some of the other videos on the Official He-Man YouTube page.
Roll Credits
We don’t necessarily think of the design of a film’s title and credits as a crucial part of the production process, but it can completely set the tone for a film. Many films have become inextricably linked to the design of their titles; think about Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or The Godfather and you immediately think about their iconic title design.
Here are a handful of videos from the excellent blog Art of the Title, where you can find essays, interviews, and videos about hundreds of television, movie, and game title sequences.
What’s Old Is New Again
Pixel art has had a sort of resurgence over the last several years, fueled by a combination of advancing technology and growing nostalgia. Most often associated with video games, pixel art can also be used in short films for a unique aesthetic. Here are a few videos that celebrate pixel art, including a tutorial on creating pixel artwork in Photoshop and the highly acclaimed short film Pixels (which inspired the critically reviled feature film Pixels.)
Cheese, Gromit!
British animation studio Aardman Animations is one of the reasons stop-motion is still a valid cinematic technique today. Their new film, Early Man is due out next year and is being directed by stop-motion auteur Nick Park. Park directed all four Wallace and Gromit short films and Creature Comforts, as well as the features Chicken Run and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
Sadly, Peter Sallis – the voice actor who gave the character Wallace such personality and life – passed away this year. Here’s a look back at some of Aardman’s early work, the trailer for the upcoming feature, and a behind-the-scenes chat with some of the studio’s model makers.
Digging Deeper
Hidden meanings and conspiracy theories abound in these videos that delve into cartoon mysteries.