Author Archives: Mike

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Ann Guenther May 22, 1937 – January 24, 2017

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Ann Guenther
May 22, 1937 – January 24, 2017

The Animation Guild is sad to announce that long-time Background Artist, Ann Guenther passed away on January 24, 2017.  Ann started her Union career at Disney in 1957 on ‘Sleeping Beauty’, and worked at most of the major studios including Warner Bros and Filmation.  Aside from being a terrific artist, Annie’s smile could light up a room and she could always be counted upon to wear her go-go boots to the Union holiday party.  She was one-of-a-kind.  We’ll miss you Annie!

Further details on services are not available at this time.

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Mosketch by Moka Studio

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Quick & Easy 3D Character Animation

Mosketchâ„¢ combines advanced sketching techniques and a powerful inverse kinematics solver to easily and quickly create 3D character animation

Unleash your creativity

With Mosketchâ„¢, you don’t need to build and master complex control rigs. You can focus on what really matters: the artistic side of animation

Animate any 3D Character

Thanks to its generic architecture, Mosketchâ„¢ can animate any 3D character using joints only. Complex control rigs are not needed anymore.

Import your 3D character (a humanoid, a dog, a tyrannosaurus, a tree, a septapus, etc) and start animating immediately using sketching, IK and FK.

Download Beta

(Animated Septapus – Courtesy of Mirouille)

Intuitive sketching

Sketch on your 3D character joints to quickly design key poses, block an animation and establish timing.

Sketch lines of action to add more dynamics and life to your 3D character animations.

Download Beta

(Animating Moska on a Wacom Cintiq 24 HD)

Powerful IK Solver

Pose your 3D character by dragging its limbs. With its unique Up- and Down-influence concepts, Mosketchâ„¢ provides quick and full control on any joint, its parent and its descendants.

In Mosketchâ„¢, you can even create, modify and delete IK chains, of any length, for any joints, at run time. This gives you more freedom to use IK, the way you want, when you want it.

Download Beta

(wall-climbing, 3D character animation using 4 IK end-effectors)

Flexibility

Mosketchâ„¢ forward and inverse kinematics work in parallel so you don’t need to worry about FK/IK switching: you can change seamlessly from one to the other.

Sketch the pose you want, refine it with IK, then FK, then sketch again instead of dragging numerous animation controls around.

Download Beta

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Largest Hand Drawn Animation Studio Formed in Canada-Colombia JV

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — ConVRter Technologies Inc. of Vancouver, announced that it is forming Last Studio Standing Inc. (www.laststudiostanding.com) with Conexion Creativa of Colombia in order to make the largest hand drawn studio in the Americas.

The company is focusing on science fiction-based animated film and television productions including science based children’s content.  In addition, they will co-produce adult animation content that does not fall into the manga genre. “We are taking a new path for animated film, but one that is well traveled in graphic novels and popular with audiences, yet not as prevalent in the mainstream media as it should be,” said ConVRter Technologies CEO Jonathan Kitzen.

Conexion Creativa has over two decades of animation experience and has produced nearly 10,000 minutes of on-air programming to date. “With the new JV we will now be entering the North American and European market for the first time,” said Hernan Zajec, president of Conexion Creativa. Until now, Conexion Creativa had been focused on Spanish language programming for Central and South American audiences, but with the new Canadian entity, the company plans on homing in on English language entertainment for the first time.

The formation of Last Studio Standing marries the latest improvements in Computer Generated Imaging (CGI), visual artificial intelligence, convolutional neural networks, sound design, and new Ultra HD workflow with old-school organic drawing. Conexion Creativa is the last large hand drawn animation studio in all of North and South America, and one of only two in the world still using a paper workflow. Conexion Creativa will focus on character design and the core of the animation. The plan is a hybrid of hand drawn and computer generated backgrounds that combines the two systems for a fast and efficient workflow.

“Hand drawn still has its place in a world of CGI. There is still a desire for that organic look, that quality a computer cannot create, however, with this hybrid approach, I think we get the best of both worlds,” said Zajec. “CGI has its place but that doesn’t mean that hand drawn is dead—there is a desire for both according to extensive market research,” added Kitzen.

The first film from Last Studio Standing is Tonya (almost) Saves the Earth, a sci-fi comedy to  be released in the Spring of 2017. In the film, a 13-year-old high school student is abducted at random and asked to mount a defense of humanity against aliens who believe the humans are too violent and aggressive for the safety of the galaxy. As evidence, the aliens rely on intercepted Hollywood films that show human’s triumphantly killing the aliens time and again. “At first we thought it was just a fun film – but after Brexit, Trump, and the rise of anti-religious and anti-immigrant political movements it really became a film about xenophobia and the fear of ‘other’ that is a very human fear,” said Jessica Hendrickson, who is a creative producer on the project. “It is a good film because Last Studio Standing is all about making two competing styles get along so it is metaphorically about story, the real world, and combinations that have new outcomes – it is a good place for a company to start,” said Zajec.

About ConVRter Technologies
ConVRter is a Canadian based corporation founded in 2013 and the recipient of National Research Council funding for experimental vision systems.

About Conexion Creativa
Conexion Creativa is an award winning Colombian animation studio with the largest output of any Latin American company. It is currently the largest hand drawn animation studio in the Western Hemisphere.

 

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Established Studio Embraces Real-Time Animation

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The Adobe blogs have an interesting story on Renegade Animation and my old bosses who are using a new Adobe application called Character Animator.

Renegade Animation started out 25 years ago as a boutique commercial house specializing in 2D animation. Its two founders, Ashley Postlewaite and Darrell Van Citters met while working at Warner Bros. in the Looney Tunes commercial unit. Renegade Animation was an early adopter of digital tools to reduce costs and improve efficiency, and that still holds true today. Using many of the apps in Adobe Creative Cloud, the company created a paperless animation pipeline to support the production of animated episodic television, feature films, interactive games, and web and mobile content.

Recently Co-founder and Executive Producer Postlewaite, along with Production Manager Scott Lowe, and Animator and Storyboard Artist Scott Klass tried out another new technology. The team accepted an offer from Adobe to create some demo assets for Adobe Character Animator, a real-time animation tool that transforms static artwork into dynamic puppets.

Read the entire interview HERE.

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GROUNDBREAKING ANIME “GHOST IN THE SHELL” RETURNS TO THEATERS FOR LIMITED ENGAGEMENT FEBRUARY 7 – 8, 2017

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GROUNDBREAKING ANIME “GHOST IN THE SHELL” RETURNS TO THEATERS FOR LIMITED ENGAGEMENT FEBRUARY 7 – 8, 2017

Mamoru Oshii Classic to Screen in 110 U.S. Theaters

Santa Monica, Calif., – January 9, 2017 —The “Ghost in the Shell” franchise has been entertaining audiences for more than 25 years and this February, Lionsgate and Funimation Films are partnering together to bring the 1995, groundbreaking anime film back to theaters for a two-day limited theatrical engagement.  The original “Ghost in the Shell” movie from acclaimed director Mamoru Oshii, will return to the big screen on February 7 – 8, 2017 in 110 theaters across the United States. Moviegoers will be able to enjoy both the original Japanese version with subtitles as well as the English dub of the film. Each will be available on separate days of the engagement, beginning first with the subtitled version.  Tickets are available beginning today and can be pre-purchased via the official movie website at funimationfilms.com/ghostintheshell.

Viewed as ahead of its time when it premiered in 1995, “Ghost in The Shell” quickly turned into a pop culture phenomenon and the inspiration for future mainstream movies. The movie became the first anime film to rank #1 on Billboard in video sales, which currently total more than 1.5 million copies across the franchise. With the release of “Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie” in 2016 and a new live action version of “Ghost in the Shell” set to release at the end of March, there has been a huge resurgence in fan interest for the franchise worldwide.

“We’re excited to be partnering with Lionsgate to bring the original ‘Ghost in the Shell’ movie back to U.S. theaters,” said Gen Fukunaga, CEO and founder of Funimation. “’Ghost in the Shell’ is truly a seminal work in anime cinema and it helped firmly establish a market for the genre with U.S. movie audiences.”

“’Ghost in the Shell’ is an iconic property and it is great that fans will be able to watch it on the big screen for the first time in 20 years,’ said Kevin Carney, VP Marketing Lionsgate. “Many fans will be seeing the movie in a theater for the first time and Funimation has been a terrific partner to help make this possible.”

Lionsgate will be releasing a new, deluxe collector’s edition of the remastered original on Blu-Ray with Digital HD.  This new edition will feature steelbook packaging and Mondo artwork and will be available in retail outlets beginning March 7, 2017.

Synopsis
2029 – A female cybernetic government agent, Major Motoko Kusanagi, and the Internal Bureau of Investigations are hot on the trail of “The Puppet Master,” a mysterious and threatening computer virus capable of infiltrating human hosts. Together, with her fellow agents from Section 9, they embark on a high-tech race against time to capture the omnipresent entity.

For more information on “Ghost in the Shell” visitfunimationfilms.com/ghostintheshell

About Funimation Films
Funimation Films, the theatrical division of Funimation Entertainment, acquires both anime and live action movies from prominent international filmmakers that appeal to the interests and passion of all types of fans and distributes them throughout North America. The division was launched in December 2014 following the box office success of “Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods” that same year. Funimation Films released “Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F’” a year later and which became #9 highest-grossing anime movie in North America.  Funimation Entertainment is a subsidiary of Group 1200 Media, a fully integrated, next-generation, independent entertainment studio based in Dallas. For more information on Funimation Films, visit funimationfilms.com.
About Lionsgate
Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF.A, LGF.B) is a vertically integrated next generation global content leader with a diversified presence in motion picture production and distribution, television programming and syndication, premium pay television networks, home entertainment, global distribution and sales, interactive ventures and games and location-based entertainment.


With the acquisition of Starz, Lionsgate adds to its portfolio of businesses the flagship STARZ premium pay network serving nearly 25 million subscribers and the STARZ ENCORE platform with over 31 million subscribers.  The combined company will operate five over-the-top (OTT) streaming services and the Starz app delivering content directly to consumers.

The Company’s feature film business spans eight labels and includes the blockbuster Hunger Games franchise, the Now You See Me and John Wickseries, the Golden Globe-nominated La La Land, Hacksaw Ridge and Hell or High Water (in partnership with CBS Films), Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween, Roadside Attractions’ critically-acclaimed Manchester by the Sea, Codeblack Films’concert film Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain and Pantelion Films’ Instructions Not Included, the highest-grossing Spanish-language film ever released in the U.S.

One of the largest independent television businesses in the world, Lionsgate’s slate of premium quality series encompasses nearly 90 shows on more than 40 different networks.  These include the ground-breaking Orange is the New Black, the fan favorite Nashville, the syndication success The Wendy Williams Show, the acclaimed drama The Royals, the acclaimed Casual, the breakout success Greenleaf and hit Starz series including Outlander, Black Sails, Survivor’s Remorse and Power, the second highest-rated premium pay television series of 2016.

Lionsgate’s home entertainment business is an industry leader in box office-to-DVD and box office-to-VOD revenue conversion rates.  Lionsgate handles a prestigious and prolific library of more than 16,000 motion picture and television titles that is an important source of recurring revenue and serves as a foundation for the growth of the Company’s core businesses. The Lionsgate, Summit Entertainment and Starz brands are synonymous with original, daring, quality entertainment in markets around the world.  www.lionsgate.com

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DreamWorks TV – Visual Development Artist

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TV – Visual Development Artist

You can apply HERE.

Job Description
We are looking for an artist with a diverse set of design skills to work in a fast paced, television production environment. The ideal candidate will be able to complete architectural elevation drawings and turnarounds from approved designs, generate rough concepts to explore new designs, as well as explore color palette ideas. They will need to be able to design within the style of the show as well as work digitally on a Cintiq and various software programs, including, but not limited to Photoshop and Illustrator. They should be organized and able to manage a variety of tasks within the given schedule.

ESSENTIAL JOB RESPONSIBILITIES:

  • Resolve design problems with creative supervisors.
  • Ensure all deadlines are met.
  • Communicate progress of work to appropriate production staff.
  • Ensure all artwork is properly backed up and stored appropriately.
  • Ensure all shipping materials are prepared and ready on time.
  • Work with partner studios.
Required Skills
  • Must demonstrate proficiency in style of show.
  • Strong design and construction/mechanical skills.
  • Knowledge of or willingness to learn applicable design software and hardware.
  • Strong time-management skills.
  • Must be organized and able to work within a schedule.
  • Work well under pressure.
  • Ability to multitask required.
  • Must know Photoshop.
  • Able to work digitally on a Cintiq.
Job Location
Glendale, California, United States
Position Type
Full-Time/Regular