animation

The Tale of How

Posted by hil

How

The Tale of How is a beautiful and intreguing animation, a labour of love by three friends calling themselves the Blackheart Gang, who hail from Cape Town, South Africa. It’s the second part of a larger story they envisage, A Dodo Trilogy. Their ‘making of’ video introduces the makers and explains how they went about it.

(via She Dreams in Digital)

Update: Siouxfire has a cool Concise Overview of “The Household”, a series of interviews, production
images, and information on the two follow-ups completing the Dodo
trilogy as well as the following trilogy (the Bear Histories) at Siouxwire. Thanks, Siouxfire!

Puppetry and dancing at altitude

Posted by hil

Nati

(photo credit: David Fletcher)

Radio National’s Bush Telegraph has audio of their April 23rd interview with Jillian Pearce (fast forward to the 36 minute mark). Jillian is a performance artist living in Natimuk, the small town at the foot of rock-climbing mecca, Mt Arapiles, in rural Victoria. Jillian and her performing arts company, Y Space, have for some years been doing exciting work with rock-climbers, dancers, animation and puppetry in ‘unusual and high places’, such as the Natimuk wheat silos, exploring images, stories and relationships with the space and land. Check out their past and present projects, and some of their video.

Where the Wild Things Are: link dump

Posted by hil

Sendak

(Photo credit: wellingtonany)

Mentioning the Spike Jonze film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are a few days ago reminded me that I had a bunch of WWTA/Sendak links that I collected when I was trying to scrounge information about the film. (As it happens they are keeping things very well under wraps, which is understandable.)

Take a Swim on the Wild Side: article about the filming taking place in Nov 2006 on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. There are two pictures of one of the monsters on the beach,and wading out in the water, but don’t get too excited – they are so tiny you can’t really make anything out! It describes the puppets (made by Henson) as follows:

The seven creatures stand up to 275 centimetres tall. Although made of foam, they are heavy and hot for the actors and stunt doubles operating them. Word is they wear them with the head on for no more than 30 minutes at a time, with 10 and 15-minute breaks in front of an air-conditioner… Heavy boots inside the suit and massive clawed hands make it difficult to move.

Loungelistener’s photoset of the performance of Where the Wild Things Are at Detroit Opera House, performed by the Grand Rapids Ballet. Some very cool picture of huge puppets on stage and behind the scenes.

Hand puppets and soft toys, and here
Action figures 1,2,3,4,5,6
Graffiti/stencil in Melbourne
Stencil art
Jack-o-lantern
Leg tattoo
Max tattoo
Mural in LA
Mural at the Philadelphia Flower Show, 2006
Costumes at DragonCon
Float in Mardi Gras, New Orleans, 2006
Pavement chalk art
6 part home videos of WWTA Interactive Metreon theme park – glimpses of one of the big puppets.
The Rosenbach Museum has Sendak Gallery (holding original drawings), shop, and is hosting a Spring Festival this coming week
Mommy a video about Sendak’s new pop-up book.
WWTA animation, I think the 1988 one.

There now, I can delete my Wild Things bookmark folder!

Heart Made Of Sound

Posted by hil

Were

I came across a lovely stop motion animation yesterday, the Softlightes Heart Made of Sound. It’s directed and made by an Australian animator, Kris Moyes, who has done some other cool videos, including (Wolfmother’s White Unicorn (defaced), and the The Presets’ Are You the One?.

Presets

This caused me to revisit Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer, which I just loved at the time. It was made in 1986, but it still stands up pretty well; not too surprising considering Aardman’s successes since then.

Sledgehammer

It’s one of those classics you assume everyone knows, but I’ve been realizing the older you get the less likely that is to be true! The other day I posted Jan Lewis’s Execution Row (postcards of the hanging), a current and clever borrowing of Dylan’s Desolation Row, at my local discussion forum, and the only response was someone young saying they hadn’t heard the song before but I liked it…

Laura Neuvonen’s The Last Knit

Posted by hil

knit

This lovely animation about knitting obsession, is written directed and animated by the Finnish animator, Laura Neuvonen.

(via CRAFT Magazine)

David Tench Tonight

Posted by hil

Davidtench

I caught a little of the second episode of David Tench Tonight last night, and I’m quite intrigued. My impression on googling is that people disliked the first episode, but I wonder if it doesn’t have the same kind of sophistication and potential as Norman Gunston, and will take a bit of time to really get to appreciate.

David Tench is a larger-than-life cartoon talk show host, animated in real time using a sensor suit motion capture and digital enhancement technologies (like Peter Jackson’s Gollum). The character was conceived by Andrew Denton and technically designed by Australian visual effects company Animal Logic, whose Executive Producer Zareh Nalbandian says:

“Tench can break the rules of television at the same time as creating ones of his own. He is totally irreverent because he can be. This is a character and format that can surprise, challenge convention and constantly evolve. It’s the big advantage of the virtual character. Nothing is real, reality is what you make it and you can bend reality to any shape you want.”

Is it classed as puppetry? I don’t know, but my feeling is its so close it doesn’t matter, and animation and puppetry overlap in so many ways.

Of course you can already see Tench on YouTube. (don’t judge it only on the promo clip – the recording there has messed up the lip sync)
You can read more about David Tench at Wikipedia. Apparently the Wikipedia entry was part of the pre-show viral marketing. I haven’t decided if that was underhand or savvy – or maybe both.
The Herald Sun has an interview with Tench.
This behind the scenes article doesn’t spill much, but maybe it’s better than nothing!

National Puppetry Summit: Ward 13

Posted by hil

ward13

(photo by Glenn Watson)

I really laughed my way through Peter Cornwall’s Ward 13, one of a number of terrific Australian animations screened at the summit. It’s a stop-motion animation – action/horror/comedy – about a guy who has a road accident and wakes up in the hospital from hell, complete with bizarre medicines, a green tentacled blob, experimental puppy surgery, and a doctor and nurse who menace with huge dirty knives, cleavers, shears and sticks. You can download the trailer to get a taste of it, and check out how it was made.

Links updated 2015

Tyger

Posted by hil

Tyger from Guilherme Marcondes on Vimeo.

Tyger is a terrific short film directed by Guilherme Marcondes. While William Blake’s poem, The Tyger, was the starting point, it ‘doesn’t attempt to illustrate or pay homage to the original text’. Marcondes interprets the tiger as symbolizing ‘a hint of wonder along with a fear of progress. The tiger is as much dangerous as it is marvellous, and this ambiguity makes us avoid the pure romantic vision of society’.

The story is about relating city to jungle and people to animals, and it is achieved with a wonderful mixture of imagery – a great bunraku-style puppet tiger, used with black light technique; Sao Paulo’s urban landscape as a photographic setting; drawings with a lino-cut quality that morph people into animals, and order into chaos; and animated glowing lines that sprout and twine like jungle vegetation. The music is cool, too.

Joao Grembecki and Cia.Stomboli in Sao Paulo, Brazil, made the tiger, and the puppeteers are Joao Grembecki, Cassiano Reis and Fabio Oliveiro. The full credits are here.

Updated links 2015

Mechanized animal structures

Posted by hil

Fish3Vladimir Gvozdariki is a Russian artist who makes whimsical figures, animations and images. Some are pleasing in their simplicity, but I particularly like his complicated drawings of mechanized animal structures. They are in numerous places in his galleries, like here, here and here and here. I also like how some, like this fish, have made the transition from drawing to sculpture. I could imagine them being used theatrically, and some aspects -the whimsy and the technical details – remind me of some of Shaun Tan‘s creatures in The Lost Thing.

I also like Gvozdariki’s interest in snails and miniature worlds. How would you like to live here?

(via the wonderful BibliOdessy)