Rad Sechrist's "How To" blog

This is a great blog which ought to be on every animation student's blog roll -

Rad's How To

Rad Sechrist is a storyboard artist , currently working at Dreamworks Animation. His blog has some terrific tips on drawing for animation.

Rad also has combined his talents with several other animation artists on another how-to blog :

The Art Center - Sharing Ideas & Tips from Artist to Artist

He gives Tips on basic Storyboarding:

(click images to see larger)

How to Get Good FLOW into your rough drawings:

And many other fine tips for animation artists.

Check it out.

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Waking Sleeping Beauty trailer

(watch it full screen)



Even better , go watch the high-quality Quicktime version of the trailer here:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/wakingsleepingbeauty/

"Waking Sleeping Beauty is no fairytale. It is a story of clashing egos, out of control budgets, escalating tensions… and one of the most extraordinary creative periods in animation history. Director Don Hahn and producer Peter Schneider, key players at Walt Disney Studios Feature Animation department during the mid1980s, offer a behind-the-magic glimpse of the turbulent times the Animation Studio was going through and the staggering output of hits that followed over the next ten years. Artists polarized between the hungry young innovators and the old guard who refused to relinquish control, mounting tensions due to a string of box office flops, and warring studio heads create the backdrop for this fascinating story told with a unique and candid perspective from those that were there. Through interviews, internal memos, home movies, and a cast of characters featuring Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Roy Disney, alongside an amazing array of talented artists that includes Don Bluth, John Lasseter, and Tim Burton, Waking Sleeping Beauty shines a light on Disney Animation’s darkest hours, greatest joys and its improbable renaissance."

Lip Sync - Gesture and Body Language speaks louder than words

Good clip via the Speaking of Animation site :

http://www.speakingofanimation.com/2010/01/gesture-vs-lip-sync/

"Here’s evidence that proper acting and gestures are more important than lip-sync.
(It’s a clip Pete Docter showed in a lecture a couple years ago.) It works really well and makes me laugh every time.
So make sure your character’s body sells the line before you go crazy trying to get the lip-sync right."

Pups of Liberty - a new animated film by Bert & Jennifer Klein

Directed by Bert and Jennifer Klein, copyright Picnic Productions 2009.

This new animated film looks absolutely charming. "Pups of Liberty" is a 15 min. animated film directed by Bert and Jennifer Klein. The story of the 'Boston Teabone Party' told with cats and dogs. Beautiful 2D hand drawn animation.


(and check out the full crew list : http://www.pupsofliberty.com/FullCrewCredits.html . Quite the impressive pedigree this film has !)

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*UPDATE: There is now an interview about the making-of "Pups of Liberty" with the directors Jennifer & Bert Klein on Michael Sporn's blog. Check it out :

http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/?p=2018

Many nice stills from the film are posted and Michael mentioned that in his next blog post tomorrow he will be posting some pre-production artwork from the film that the Klein's sent to him for the interview.

Thoughts from Brad Bird

I came across this quote from Brad Bird on CartoonBrew recently:

"It’s also worth noting that (Wall Street) analysts are always bullish about any studios whose production slates are loaded with sequels, remakes, and “re-boots”.

This particular poverty of imagination is absolutely mainstream thinking when it comes to businessmen, who are all about recognizing patterns of success that they assume are repeatable… no matter how often that very approach fails.

They always try to copy the original THING rather than the CONDITIONS that allowed the original thing to come into being."

– Brad Bird

He totally nails it. They try to copy the original thing rather than the conditions that allowed the original thing to come into being. Exactly.

"Hey, make me something like Bugs Bunny... yeah, that's it , give me the New Bugs Bunny" , they say , instead of considering "What were the conditions operating at the time of the Leon Schlesinger Studio that caused the artists working there to create characters like Bugs Bunny?" Why not try to replicate those creative conditions that gave rise to those classic cartoons and then see what happens ?

Also for more thoughts along those lines from Brad Bird, read this article from the McKinsey Quarterly on Fostering Innovation , which has been around for a couple of years, but is worth reading again if you've seen it before, or if you missed it the first time around take a look:

Pixar’s Brad Bird on Fostering Innovation

This link is to an excerpt from the full article. To read the full article you'll need to subscribe to The McKinsey Quarterly.

Among the gems from this interview with Brad Bird are :

Lesson Five: High Morale Makes Creativity Cheap

The Quarterly: It sounds like you spend a fair amount of time thinking about the morale of your teams.

Brad Bird: In my experience, the thing that has the most significant impact on a movie’s budget—but never shows up in a budget—is morale.

If you have low morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about 25 cents of value. If you have high morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about $3 of value. Companies should pay much more attention to morale.

Again, he's talking about creating the conditions under which creativity can flourish.

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In a similar vein these thoughts from Frank Zappa about the demise of the music industry which can be applied directly to most of the animation industry today (in the first 2:10 of this interview) :

Frank Zappa Explains Why Cartoons Today Suck

(from CartoonBrew.com)

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"Second Wind" by Ian Worrel

Ian Worrel's student film, "Second Wind" (Cal Arts, 2008).



Click HD to watch in high-def. Or go to YouTube to watch it larger.

(via Alan Cook's blog)

Dr. Lasseter tells it like it is

John Lasseter Q&A Any advice for aspiring animation student?

Frank Thomas "Hook" pencil test

Animation by Frank Thomas.

This post has been updated. The original version of this pencil test that I uploaded had some of the drawings missing .

I've rescanned this from the xerox copies I had . I located the missing drawings and I think I've got the timing and lip-sync pretty close to the original. (although I'm still not 100% happy with the lip-sync ... it's off, although sometimes it looks right on , so I wonder if it's the Flash player showing it at differing frame rates, depending on bandwidth at the time ? I should try to post this as a Quicktime so it'd be more accurate. )

There were no peg holes or numbers on the xerox copies I have of these drawings so I had to do a lot of guess work and "nudging" to get the drawings to register correctly, but I finally got it to look pretty solid. The parts of the drawings to the right of the screen where the image gets lighter and drops out are artifacts from the photocopies I have. Unfortunately it will just have to stay that way for now because I don't have the time to go in to touch-up the lines which dropped out.

Abe Levitow Notes on Animating

Animation drawing by Abe Levitow :

Mark Mayerson has posted a set of Notes on Animating by the master Warner Bros. animator Abe Levitow.

Click through the link to read the notes:

Notes on Animating by Abe Levitow

The last paragraph of Levitow's notes resonates now more than ever given the current precarious position of hand-drawn animation:

"Even though the Disney animator Marc Davis has said:  'Animation is an anachronism; it is that rarity, a handmade product in a mechanized age', the satisfaction gained from doing it well is the kind of satisfaction that can only be gotten by creating something with your own hands that no one has ever done before.  It's a sublime feeling ... you'll see !!"

Abe Levitow animation drawing :

(these great drawings are from the Abe Levitow webpage. Go there to see more of Abe's drawings.)

The Art of Storyboarding

With your host, Eric Goldberg :

"Anniversary" by Ghostbot Studio

The Ghostbot Studio (you've seen their ads for E-surance) has released a short film called "Anniversary" . Only 1 minute , but shows what you can do to economically tell a short story in a minute.

Embedded player should work ok in Firefox. Doesn't seem to be working in Safari for some reason. If the embedded player below does not work , try this direct link:

http://www.cartoonmojo.com/view_video.php?viewkey=20d2abefe558796b9958

R.O. Blechman's "Simple Gifts" - Prologue

Prologue to R.O. Blechman's animated television special "Simple Gifts" . This prologue piece is designed by Maurice Sendak, animated by Ed Smith , with watercolor by Sara Calogero. Music by Arnold Black. The entire special was directed by R.O. Blechman. The quality on this clip is not the greatest since it is from an old VHS tape recording of the show. As far as I know PBS has not aired this again in recent times. It's a beautiful Christmas special that really should be released on DVD.

Richard O'Connor has posted an original drawing from this sequence on his blog :

Original Art from "Simple Gifts" click HERE

O'Connor relates this about animator Ed Smith:

Once I asked Ed Smith (who animates in ink) what he does when he makes a mistake.

His response: "I'll let you know when that happens."

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Another Academy of Art animation blog - Spungella

My fellow teacher at The Academy of Art ,  Jean-Denis Haas, reminds me that he also has a blog for animation students at the Academy : 

Spungella - Soak Up the Animation

Head over there for more animation art and inspiration.