A horrifyingly cute alternate version of the Red Riding hood fairytale. It’s just so bloody cute! (Literally..)
Red (2010) | 2D Animation – Cute / Thriller
Produced at CalArts | California Institute of the Arts (http://www.calarts.edu)
CREDITS: Created, Directed and Animated by Hyunjoo Song
(http://hyunjoosong.blogspot.com). Music by Steve Mahpar (http://mopsmusic.com).
Today’s 2d Wednesday from David Tart actually teaches as well!
The Story
The film follows the journey of “You” (the main character), a 3rd-tier technical writer who dreams of one day being a product designer. Working after hours, he creates a fantastic new product. When he presents his product to his employers, they inform him that it’s up to him to create an advertising campaign for the product – an advertising campaign that must be animated. This poses a problem for “you” – he knows very little about animation, and is instantly filled with doubts, and thus his future hangs in the balance. This is where our friendly narrator steps in, to guide “you” through the process of making an animated film. Step by step, our hero’s anxiety and doubts are put to rest, and in the end, he is triumphant!
The Production
The Story of Animation came about as a solution to a problem: The Animation Workshop, an animation school in Viborg, Denmark, had been graduating a great number of incredibly qualified animators, animation producers, and CG artists over the past 10 years. These artists had been forming small companies and beginning to produce fantastic work. The problem was not with the studios, or the quality of work they were producing, but rather with the clients: Most of them seemed to believe that animation was a simple, uncomplicated process, and were often disappointed to learn that there were very specific stages in the animation process that required their participation (and finances). It’s almost as if they believed that creating animation was as simple as pitching an idea, and then sitting back while a couple of animators with pencil and paper goofed off, told jokes, and drank copious amounts of coffee until “wallah”! the animation was finished! Furthermore, they seemed to think that there would be no difference in cost between an animated film created in flash, 2D, stop motion, cut-out, motion graphics, or fully rendered Pixar-style 3D animation! At the time Morten Thorning, Director of the Animation Workshop approached me with the idea for the film, I was experiencing similar problems with a client in Copenhagen. In fact, I’d just spent several days creating a presentation about the benefits of using animation for an environmental messaging campaign. I was tasked with convincing a panel of scientists, sociologists, environmental activists, and architects how animation could be used to create positive, engaging, and entertaining content for environmental action messaging – no small feat!
The Team
After talking things over with Morten, it was decided that I would write and direct the project, which would be produced by Claus Toksvig of The Animation Hub, and animated at Tumblehead Studios. Tumblehead, led by Magnus Moller, did an amazing job on the film, assembling a team of character designers, animators, storyboard artists, and background artists (all graduates or current students of the Animation Workshop). Tumblehead saw the entire process through, from concept to post-production. The narrator was voiced by the awesome Richard Spiegel, and the sound design and score created by Mark Menza, whose many credits include sound designer and composer for “The Jimmy Neutron Show”. Additional support was provided by Thomas Ahlmark (a veteran of many Animation Workshop productions).
For today’s 2D Wednesday, we have a playful mashup piece combining Star Wars and a subway with some really nice animation from animator Sean Soong! Where do people get the TIME to DO these things?!?!?
From Vimeo:
An old man on the subway,but nobody can Offer one ‘s seat to him……At the same time，the old man ……
I want talk about some problems in society,and Morality. ahaha ~just a Tribute for .Thanks Animetaste.net(animetaste.net)!
director :SeanSoong(seansoong.diandian.com)
Original music: 〃å›ã€ƒ[Ayo_Chen](china-wave.cn)
As a 2D Wednesday bonus, I had to post this cool, little pencil test directed by the talented Brad Bird back in 1980 or so. In general, the animation is nice if a little ‘soft’. I think our general sense of timing and pacing has greatly increased since this was made but it still looks like something that would have been fun to see!
From Youtube:
In 2008 as Frank Miller’s live action feature film based on Will Eisner’s “The Spirit” was being released I wrote a piece for the Los Angeles Times on the time, back in 1980, when I became involved with Brad Bird and Gary Kurtz (producer of the first two “Star Wars” movies) in trying to get into production an animated feature based on “The Spirit” In that piece, which you can read here:http://herocomplex.latimes.com/uncate… I spoke of a pencil test “trailer” for the  proposed film that was made by Bird along with several classmates from Cal Arts, most of whom were working at Disney at the time. Quite a few people who read the article contacted me about seeing the film. I did have it on an old VHS, but it was deep in storage at the time plus as I did not really own the film, I told them they would have to look elsewhere to find a copy. Later, I found the VHS and put it aside. Recently Andrea Fiamma, an Italian journalist writing on the subject, asked again if the film could be seen. As it is a small piece of animation history, I’ve decided to post it here.
Steven Paul Leiva
This week’s 2D Wednesday comes form the brilliant designer, writer and animator Sylvain Chomet who warns us about the hazards of being online and to actually look up at what’s around us! (Unless you’re reading Animationinsider.com, of course!)
You can read more about this week’s 2D Wednesday here on Buzzfeed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RnyPlRce64
For this week’s 2D Wednesday, we have a truly beautiful piece and it was even done as a personal project. Imagine THAT! I can’t even put into words how much I love this piece by Vivienne Medrano called Die Young set to Kesha’s song of the same name. It’s colorful, playful, well animated and well designed. If any of you know her we’d LOVE to do an interview with her!
