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DUNCAN STUDIO PROVIDES ANIMATION FOR NEW SEQUENCES FEATURED IN “THE IRON GIANT: SIGNATURE EDITION”

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Iron Giant-signature edition
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DUNCAN STUDIO PROVIDES ANIMATION FOR NEW SEQUENCES FEATURED IN

“THE IRON GIANT: SIGNATURE EDITION”

DIRECTOR BRAD BIRD’S CLASSIC ANIMATED FILM HAS BEEN RE-MASTERED WITH TWO NEW SEQUENCES AND COMES BACK TO THEATERS THIS FALL FROM WARNER BROS. AND FATHOM EVENTS

Pasadena, California, September 15, 2015 – Duncan Studio is proud to announce their collaboration with director Brad Bird and Warner Bros. Pictures on the re- mastered version of the animated action adventure, “The Iron Giant: Signature Edition.”

“Brad had storyboarded two additional sequences during the production of the original film that were never finished due to time and budget constraints,” said Ken Duncan, head of Duncan Studio. “So when Warner Bros. approached us earlier this year about setting up a team to help bring Brad’s vision to fruition, we jumped at the chance to work on this beloved classic. Coincidentally, we already had several key artists and animators who worked on the original film working at our studio, so it seemed like a great fit,” he continued.

Director Brad Bird added, “When the opportunity arose to produce new scenes originally planned for “The Iron Giant,” my first thought was Duncan Studio. Beyond the fact that Ken Duncan himself is a brilliant animator, his staff was blessed with several veterans of the original “Iron Giant” team, which helped immeasurably in our effort to have the new scenes blend in seamlessly with our original footage. Duncan Studio did a wonderful job.”

Among the veterans from the original film, animation supervisors Chris Sauve and Wendy Perdue reprised their roles and animated their characters Dean and Annie, along with the help of animator Sandro Cleuzo; original background department head, Dennis Venizelos, oversaw backgrounds for the new sequences; and effects animation was again supplied by Michel Gagné. Additionally, a crew of approximately 20 artists at the studio animated the CG Giant, created layouts, painted the backgrounds, cleaned up the hand-drawn animation, inked and painted the characters, and composited all elements digitally over the course of four months.

“The Iron Giant: Signature Edition” arrives in theaters for a special event screening on Wednesday, September 30 at 7:00PM local time, with an encore event in select markets on Sunday, October 4 at 12:00PM local time. Tickets are on sale now, through www.FathomEvents.com, with “The Iron Giant: Signature Edition” available on digital platforms, including iTunes later this fall. Click here for a recently released trailer tied to re-mastered version of the film.

When “The Iron Giant” arrived in theaters, it was hailed as an “instant classic” (Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal). “Imagine E.T. as a towering metal man, that’s the appeal of this enchanting animated feature” (the late Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times). And the world soon learned another “giant” had arrived as well: filmmaker Brad Bird, who made his stunning directorial debut with this film and has gone on to win two Oscars®, as well as worldwide acclaim for his work on both animated and live-action features.

Winner of nine Annie Awards, “The Iron Giant” is the tale of an unlikely friendship between a rebellious boy named Hogarth (voiced by Eli Marienthal) and a giant robot, voiced by a then little-known actor named Vin Diesel. The voice cast also includes Jennifer Aniston and Harry Connick Jr.

Directed by Brad Bird, the film was produced by Allison Abbate and Des McAnuff, with the screen story by Bird and the screenplay written by Tim McCanlies and Bird. Adapted from poet Ted Hughes’ book, The Iron Man,“The Iron Giant” was first released in the summer of 1999 by Warner Bros.

http://tiff.net/festivals/festival15/tiffkids/the-iron-giant-signature-edition

ABOUT DUNCAN STUDIO

Duncan Studio has produced a broad range of work for a variety of entertainment mediums, from feature films and theme park entertainment to commercials. Under the supervision of Ken Duncan, the versatile artists and animators at Duncan Studio are able to deliver top-quality work on projects from the earliest stages of development (character and production design, storyboarding, modeling and rigging) through animation (both 2D and CG), lighting, compositing and final rendering.

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3D Animated Short “Runaway”

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Watch this charming CGI animated short film by the talented Susan Yung, Emily Buchanan and Esther Parobek @ Ringling College of Art and Design! “Runaway” is a charming story about a misunderstanding between a man named Stanley and his treasured 1950’s refrigerator, named Chillie. Set in present day, a sad event sends Chillie into a whirlwind of emotional turmoil, and as a result, he runs away. For more information about this film, please visit the links below:

Facebook – Follow the adventures of “Runaway” here : facebook.com/RunawayChillie

Personal Websites/blogs
Susan Yung – http://susanyungart.blogspot.com/
Esther Parobek – http://www.estherparobek.com
Emily Buchanan –http://www.emilyrbuchanan.com/

Wonderful thanks to:
Music composed by: Andy Brick: andybrick.com/
Sound Design by: Mauricio D’Orey : vimeo.com/user2395420
Karl Hadrika for lending is awesome voice!

FESTIVALS:
40th Annual Student Academy Awards – Finalist
Animation Block Party 2013 – Student Film
Enjoy! 🙂
Follow the adventures of “Runaway” here : facebook.com/RunawayChillie

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Tom Beattie

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Tom Beattie – Series Producer

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation? 
I used to work in live action commercial and pop video production starting as a runner. There are too many crazy jobs to mention. A few highlights include pigeon wrangling, trying to lay a red carpet in the sea, dragging a vaulting horse back and forth across ‘the’ Abbey Road pedestrian crossing and sticking 100’s of fake flowers into a garden in winter to make it look like spring.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of? 
Again I’ve worked on so many fantastic projects, including Charlie and Lola, but Mr Bean has to be my favorite. It’s been a pleasure working with Rowan Atkinson having followed his amazing career. It has also been great having the entire crew based in the office in the UK. They are a fabulously talented bunch.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m from the UK and always had an arts background. I went to art college and then onto university to study Visual Communications. I specialized as an advertising art director/copy writer. I moved to London to continue that career but moved across to the other side of the camera to the production of commercials and pop videos. While freelance I worked at Tiger Aspect, who had a children’s department, and I was offered a full time position starting as a production co-ordinator on the first series of the animated Mr Bean.

What’s a typical day like for you with regards to your job? 
This can vary. On the Mr Bean series I could be reading scripts, watching animatics, viewing animation or attending voice records. With a 52 episode series you are looking at different stages of many episodes at any one time. It’s a lot to keep in your head. I also run the animation and kids department at Tiger Aspect so I’m also developing new shows and overseeing the projects that we’ve completed including Charlie and Lola.

What part of your job do you like best? Why? 
As above, it’s the variety. Each day is different. From the people I meet and work with to the different stages of a project. I love working on Mr Bean particularly the voice records and mixing an episode with all the different sound effects.

 What part of your job do you like least? Why? 
Nothing major. There are boring parts of everyone’s job like filing but I can’t complain. I love what I do.

What kind of technology do you work with on a daily basis, how has technology changed in the last few years in your field and how has that impacted you in your job?
The animated Mr Bean is a perfect example. The first series was all hand drawn with 500+ people working on the series. For the second series we didn’t have the time or budget to replicate that. We wanted to produce the series digitally but without a ‘reboot’. We wanted the series to play concurrently with the first without too much difference. We’ve achieved this using a software called Celaction2D along with Adobe Illustrator and a talented team. We now have an in-house crew of 60.

What is the most difficult part for you about being in the business?
It’s the funding. It’s a long slog to get a show fully funded (if) and there is a lot of chasing to get things moving and keep the momentum up.

If you could change the way the business works and is run how would you do it?
Tricky question. The industry is changing anyway with so much content online so we’ll see what happens. I’d also say commission all my new shows and fully fund them. 😉

In your travels, have you had any brushes with animation greatness?
Many great animators/directors. Richard Purdum directed the first series of Mr Bean. He was from a fantastic group of animators producing some beautiful animation.

Describe a tough situation you had in life.
Rejection. While trying to get in to the industry you receive a lot of rejection before you get any interest. Perseverance is the key.

Any side projects you’re working on that you’d like to share details of?
A lot of the projects are in early development so can’t say much but I am excited to be working on Simon’s Cat.

Any unusual talents or hobbies like tying a cherry stem with your tongue or metallurgy?
I collect novelty sunglasses. The wackier the better. I’m not sure why but I do love the character you become when you wear them.

 Is there any advice you can give for an aspiring animation student or artist trying to break into the business?
Keep drawing. Almost all animation is digital but we still look for animators with traditional skills. You need to have a solid base and understanding of how things move and are built.

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Michael K. Foster

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Michael K. Foster, character designer and animator.

 

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
Not sure if they’re crazy, but when I was younger I was a stock boy for a health food store, talk about nut jobs.  I was a professional mover for three years and spent many of those nights sleeping in the back of the moving truck trying to keep warm in those dirty moving blankets because there was no time to go home.  My first art related job was designing yellow page ads.  Ever see those ads?  That’s pretty much the lowest design job there is.

 

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Wow, um…I guess one would be a new product for Anagram Intl. a company I used to work for.  They’re a huge national and international mylar balloon company.  Not what you may think of when talking animation, but I was contacted by them with nothing more then an idea and told to make it work.  It was all based around the QR codes that you see everywhere that can be scanned with a smart phone.  I developed a line of character driven mylar balloons for children with themes such as pirates, skateboarders, princess’s & mermaids.  Each balloon had a scannable QR code printed on it and when scanned, a short fun animation played based on the balloon.  It was a way to “continue” the story from the balloon.  The balloons are being sold throughout the U.S.  It may not be a huge deal, but for me, it was something because it started as a blank idea and it turned into something bigger.  This also helped my approach for new clients because it showed that animation is not just for TV and Film, but many other industries.

 

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I was born in Ann Arbor Michigan and raised in Hillburn NY a small village about an hour north of NYC.  I got into animation some what by chance.  A company I used to work for was in need of some simple character driven animation to help promote a few new products.  My boss came to me and basically said, Continue reading

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Elliot Blake

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What is your name and your current occupation?
Elliot Blake, and I’m an animation producer and sometimes writer. I just wrapped up a lengthy gig with the fine people at Six Point Harness.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
I’ve kind of been lucky in that I haven’t had to do a lot of crazy jobs before getting into the animation business.  Certainly the most unusual job I had was helping to wrangle pigs one day when I was a p.a. on a low budget family feature called “Gordy.” And when I was in high school, I worked at a Cinnabon for two or three weeks. To this day, I can’t eat those things.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
Well, I got to work on the original run of Futurama, all 72 episodes, as the design coordinator; that was fun, and I’m definitely proud to have been a part of it.  Working on that series was really the foundation for my animation production education, and it was great to get to see it all come together, from the initial design phase, all the way through to the final original episode.  I think my favorite projects were two I produced: Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider and Re\Visioned: Activision, both of which were web series
for GameTap, which was originally owned by Turner Broadcasting.  I won an Emmy for the Tomb Raider series back in 2008, which was a thrill, and also got to voice-direct Minnie Driver, who played Lara Croft. For a web series, the Tomb Raider project was obscenely well-funded, but unfortunately, not as widely-seen as we would have liked.  A few episodes are up on my website now , but at the time, the management thought putting the videos on YouTube would mean no one would come to watch them on GameTap.  The videogame company that publishes the Tomb Raider games recently put the episodes on YouTube, so now Continue reading