News: Metegol teaser trailer

Argentinian director Juan José Campanella is probably best known for shows  like Strangers With Candy, House, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit until in 2009 his film The Secret In Their Eyes, premiered and went on to win a Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Though he’s continued working in television since then, this year he’s actually releasing an animated film called Metegol, which is nothing you’d expect from him considering his other credits. This film actually looks like it could be cool. I hope they make it with subtitles.

Metegol opens in Argentina on June 20th. Releases will follow in Russia and Brazil. At this time, the film has no release date scheduled for the U.S.

News: Neil Gaiman’s “The Price” Animatic

Here’s a fantastic (and creepy) view of an animatic done in 2006 by Christopher Salmon for a 3d film called The Gift written by Neil Gaiman which he did to convince the author to give him the rights to make a film adaptation of The Price. It was apparently a success and was crowd funded through Kickstarter in 2010! There was some beautiful art done for the animatic as it’s all in painted and in color so to say it’s an ‘animatic’ is a bit of an understatement, because it reads sort of like a visual storybook, pretty much working all by itself without being animated.

Neil_Render2_Comp_01

Here’s an example of what the film will eventually look like.

Towards the end there’s a really nice 3d bit with a demon that’s impressive. Especially the colors and I really like the contrast between the blues and oranges. Apparently Christopher has had some trouble of late with rigging the character models which he details in this ‘making of’ video so we know the film is well on it’s way to being made. Anyway, I for one will be looking forward to seeing this film finished and my hats off to Christopher for taking on this Herculean effort.

You can read more here:

http://www.theprice-movie.com/production-blog/

 

News: New Nickelodeon job website

new-Nick-site

Nickelodeon has premiered a brand new Nick Animation Careers website and it’s pretty cool. Straightforward and easy to navigate, this will be I imagine the spot to check what’s going on there as far as new gigs. It’s a lot easier than the old way in my opinion. It also highlights internships and how to go about applying for that, as well as a new Talent Development section where they outline the Artist program and Writing programs which many great industry people have emerged from. All in all I think it’s a great step forward for seeing what Nick has to offer to help you shape your career in animation!

Nick Animation Careers

News: Pixar Animator Dreams Up a New Superhero — For Each Day of the Year

Pixar animator

From Wired: Pixar animator Everett Downing has created 365 superheroes, one for each day. Everett also lent his genius to films such as Ratatouille, WALL-E, and Up, so you know there’s going to be some more interesting designs there. Quite a few of them look like villains to me but they’re all inspiring nonetheless. Check out the link below for more details.

http://www.wired.com/design/2012/12/365-superheroes/