Tag Archives: 2D Animator

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Freak Kitchen- “Freak of the Week” music video

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Ever wonder what it would like like if Disney made a heavy metal music video? Well wonder no more! Granted this wasn’t actually made by Disney as it actually began as a Kickstarter campaign, but it’s every bit as well animated as anything I’ve seen in a VERY long time!

I present for you a music video called Freak of the Week from the Swedish rock band Freak Kitchen directed by Juanjo Guarnido. who was among others lead animator for Sabor on Disney’s Tarzan. Enjoy!

Also here’s the Making of Video about how the music video was created…

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Deva

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What is your name and your current occupation?
I am Deva, born and brought up in Chennai.India. I completed my art graduation at Chennai Government Collage of Arts and Crafts.

I got married and I have beautiful princes named Prathusha. Having 15 years of experience in animation industry as creative and animation director with both 2D and 3D animation across Asian countries (Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, etc.)

How did you become interested in animation?
It was accident. Well a very interesting accident. When I was a student in Chennai collage of arts and crafts I got a chance to see the movie “Lion king”. In that movie there was a scene where Simbha the cub will cry in front of his father’s dead body “Help me… Anybody… Somebody…” I was moved in to tears, it’s so amazing that an Animator can make audience laugh and cry. Yes art has that capability to bring emotions in to the people mindset and let them go vivid with their imagination. Animation is a structured way for making the audience think what you are thinking or what you want him to think, that’s the power of animation and that has been keeping me moving on all these years.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I am from Chennai, southern part of India, Animation was not a well heard name those days; it was Mr. Chandrasekhar, Managing Director of Pentafour software & Exports Limited (Pentamedia Graphics) who introduced us to this industry. After graduation I took up my career in Animation with Pentafour.

What is the most difficult part for you about being in the business?
In animation business, most difficult part is you have to deliver the project in Continue reading

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Microsoft aims to actually make the “Animate Button”

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There are always companies trying to edge out the animator.  Not sure why exactly but it’s clearly something they strive for. Maybe it’s the Lamborghini’s we all drive and the overflowing money stuffed wallets we have ;living large as animators. Oh wait, that’s the CEOs of the companies not us.

From the Polar Express to Tin Tin to the ever increasing use of Mocap, studios see a brighter future free from the chains of us animators. Of course any animator will tell you Mocap only goes so far but that’s another story. Until recently traditional 2d animation has been pretty much impossible to auto complete simply because computers weren’t smart enough to predict what needs to be inbetweened. Anyone who has ever tried Flash’s Shape Tween tool has a clear idea of how well that goes. Well now Wired.com is reporting that Microsoft Research, along with the University of Hong Kong and the University of Tokyo, just unveiled a proof-of-concept technology that could bring back the charm of older, hand-drawn cartoons, with the speed and fluidity of today’s animation software.

From the site:

“Autocomplete hand-drawn animations” debuted at the Siggraph Asia conference, and it’s an interactive system that watches what the artist draws and then predicts what frame or line might come next. It can also smartly connect the dots between two different drawings, and propagate the motion that should occur between the two sketches. This works for color too: fill in the first frame with certain hues, and the system will replicate them.

You can read the entire article here.

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Chris Cookson

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What is your name and your current occupation?
I’m Chris Cookson and I am currently a freelance animator, I work in Flash mostly but sometimes I get some AfterEffects and Photoshop work.  I’ve been lucky enough where everything I’ve done before animation has been some kind of visual based work. The first job I did out of high school was making animated assets for the LED sign demo room at Trans-Lux (yes, that Trans-Lux of the 1959 Felix the Cat cartoon). It was a uniquely fun experience, they had this old LaserDisc system that would trigger all kinds of signs to light up in cue to music and audio, the audio was very much a product of the ’80s but they wanted me to modernize the visuals and make some colorful stuff for their new centerpiece display.  Apart from that, I’ve done a good amount of web design work in my formative years. One of my clients was a Cuban percussionist who was really into anime and kung-fu movies. He even offered to pay me for making his site with a samurai sword, which to 15-year-old me, was the coolest thing ever. Though, if I were to ever come home with a samurai sword, my parents would probably kill me, likely with that very same samurai sword.

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
In terms of cool projects, a psychedelic TV ad for Linda McCartney’s line of frozen vegan foods has been really satisfying. What I loved was the ad had a different style than the usual aesthetic I get but had a lot of understated weirdness and quite a few distinct shots to work on. I got to meet Paul McCartney’s son-in-law and Rick Astley’s wife while on the project too which made me geek out pretty hard. A couple of months after I finished work on the spot, I started to see posts about it show up on sites like Motionographer, The Huffington Post and was linked by a lot of the sites I follow on Twitter, which made me feel real warm and fuzzy on the inside.  I’m also really proud of a lot of the smaller commercial projects I have worked on at Shoulderhill Creative. For those, it’s great to work with a couple of my classmates from art school and since it’s not a part of a giant team, I feel a lot more creative ownership over what I’m making. It’s absolutely wonderful to have a chance to work more within my own style and have more room to experiment with the colors and see what kind of little visual jokes I can put in to the advertisement.  Other projects like William Caballero’s documentary short film “How You Doin’ Boy? Voicemails from Gran’pa” were really great to be a part of. For that, he wanted me to make a squiggly text treatment based off of his grandfather’s handwriting to go up on screen in sync with actual answering machine messages left from his grandfather. Having the freedom to design the word treatment, as well as play around with text sizes was really fulfilling, the tone of some of the messages allowed me to really go crazy in some spots too, pushing the graphic element of it, trying to get it to match his grandfather’s own personal tone.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m from Stamford, CT and I’ve always wanted to either be a cartoonist or animator for pretty much my entire life. I taught myself how to use Flash when I was 12-years-old and would constantly look for an excuse to use it any chance I had, whether it be for making buttons or logos on the aforementioned web design projects I got or making short films whenever the opportunity arose. After making more and more stuff, over the years, my skills started to Continue reading

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Never-Before-Seen Robin Williams ‘Aladdin’ Outtakes Revealed in New Blu-ray Edition

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“He was the genie. He was bigger than life.”

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that there will be some never before seen outtakes in the new Blueray edition of Aladdin.

In 1992, Disney’s animated classic Aladdin became a hit with adults and children alike, with much credit due to the performance of Robin Williams as the unforgettable genie.

Now, almost 25 years later, Disney is releasing the Aladdin Diamond Edition Blu-ray Combo Pack with never-before seen outtakes of Williams in the recording studio — all of his unstoppable talent on full display. To celebrate the launch of the new edition, the directors, composer and voices behind the film appeared on Good Morning America to pay tribute to the late actor and all that he contributed to the film.

“It was amazing working with Robin, absolutely incredible,” said composer Alan Menken.

“We wrote the part with Robin in mind,” added co-director John Musker mused. “We didn’t know if he would do it. We were totally walking down the plank; if he didn’t want to do it, we were in big trouble because the whole concept was built around Robin — fortunately, he agreed to do it.”

“Nobody else could be the genie,” co-director Ron Clemens mused. “We recorded him in four-hour sessions and he would be going for four-hours straight. By the end, he was just drenched in sweat. He had so much energy and so much passion.”

“He was the genie,” added Musker. “He was bigger than life,”

Watch the full clip below.

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Jason Carpenter

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What is your name?
Jason Carpenter; Animator for the new film He Named Me Malala based on the life of life of Malala Yousafzai, directed by Davis Guggenheim.

What are some of the crazier jobs you had before getting into animation?
In High School, I worked at a gasoline pump factory with a good friend of mine. I stood in a line and hung different parts on moving hooks before they went into a spray booth. It was repetitive and pretty grueling. I was only there for a few summers, but I learned a lot. Mostly about doing a hard days work and what that’s worth. Honestly, it was a valuable experience and one I remember fondly. Each day we had to find a way to make the work fun because it was so repetitive. Hey, animation can be pretty repetitive. Maybe it helped!

What are some of your favorite projects you’re proud to have been a part of?
I co-directed the animation for Spaceship Earth at EPCOT center a few years back with my brother. That was a fun project to be a part of. There’s nothing quite like being backstage in Disney World in the middle of the night when the animatronics are still on. It gets pretty surreal. There’s definitely a different ind of magic than during the day.

Where are you from and how did you get into the animation business?
I’m originally from North Carolina. Growing up, I didn’t know that animation was something you could do as a job. So, I guess I’m a bit of a late bloomer. It wasn’t until my senior year of college that I made a very short film and got a sense of what animation was about. After graduating, I moved to NY where I did some early Flash animation music videos. They were fun projects and I was left a lot of room to be creative, but we had to do them quickly. It was a great learning experience. After a few years in NY, I applied to CalArts, got accepted and moved out to LA.

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?
I mostly work in 2D, so I’m in Adobe stuff most of the time. Lucky for me, drawing is still drawing and story is still story, so I find that technology helps most in speeding up the workflow, which is always a good thing. New tricks are always good. It’s funny, I remember working in Photoshop 3.0. It was pretty terrible compared to today, but conceptualizing a project is still the same. I think it’s all about the process, which I’m always trying to improve on.

Any side projects you’re working on that you’d like to share details of ?
I just finished working on the animated sequences for He Named Me Malala. It’s a feature documentary about the life of Malala Yousafzai, directed by Davis Guggenheim. The animation plays a big role in the film, which I’m very proud of. Animation is such a powerful art form. It’s easy to forget what it’s capable of and how expressive it can be. I hope that the animated sequences in the film connect with people and give them a better sense of Malala’s story and message. I’m so lucky to have worked with a great team of people and to have spent 18 months focusing on a project with such a great message. That’s a rare and special thing.

Any unusual talents or hobbies like tying a cherry stem with your tongue or metallurgy?
That’s something I need to work on. A crazy hobby could be rewarding.  I’ve given some though to lion taming. I had a cat growing up. I’m sure that would help me quite a bit.

Is there any advice you can give for an aspiring animation student or artist trying to break into the business?Making a film, TV spot, show, etc. is always a shared process, and that’s a good thing. Working with other people well is what makes everything work. Find the part of the process and the place that speaks to you, and focus on that. I’m big on collaboration. It’s impossible for one person to be good at everything, but a team can be. Sharing the creative process across a team and be eye opening. You’ll get creative solutions and ideas you never would have found on your own.