Watch the Painstaking Craftsmanship Poured Into Anomalisa
When we saw Anomalisa at the Middleburg Film Festival this past October, we were blown away. Written by Oscar-winner Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and directed by Kaufman and Duke Johnson, the stop-motion animation was as gorgeously detailed as any we'd ever seen before, and the bittersweet story (this being Kaufman, after all) ...
The Good Dinosaur Animator Kevin O’Hara on Visual Storytelling
What if the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs missed the earth completely and they never became extinct? That’s the question The Good Dinosaur asks as it explores the relationship between an Apatosaurus named Arlo and his human pet/friend. We chat to Pixar animator Kevin O’Hara about how technology has changed the animation game and ...
The Peanuts Movie’s Animation Supervisor on Getting the Gang’s into 3 Dimensions
This week marks the return of cartoonist Charles M. Schulz’s beloved "Peanuts" crew, with Charlie Brown and the gang making their big screen debut in 3D in The Peanuts Movie. Peanuts purists, of course, might be tempted to thumb their noses at a contemporified, animated version of the classic newspaper strip cartoon, a thought that ...
Hayao Miyazaki’s Brilliant Princess Mononoke Retold as an 8-Bit Videogame
Princess Mononoke is one of Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki’s most beloved films. It’s been hailed as a landmark in the world of animation, an epic anime action historical fantasy written and directed by Miyazaki and animated by Studio Ghibli. Set in the late Muromachi period (roughly 1336-1573), the story follows young Emishi warrior Ashitaka and ...
Meet the Crew That Worked on Both Jurassic Park & Jurassic World
Universal's new Jurassic World is being heralded as a proper folllow-up to Steven Spielberg's 1993 classic Jurassic Park, the film that raised the bar for what CGI could accomplish and blew the minds of kids and adults alike. When director Colin Trevorrow took the helm of Jurassic World, the first film in the franchise in 14-years, both he and executive producer Steven ...
Down the Rabbit Hole: Why Inside Out is Unlike Any Other Pixar Film
Their story creation process at Pixar is notoriously labor intensive and exacting. The men and women behind these films craft their narratives for years (and years), until they are satisfied they are telling the best version of that story possible. Pete Docter, the director of Pixar’s latest, Inside Out, knows better than anyone what it ...
Legendary Disney Animator Glen Keane on Hand Drawing in the Digital Age
Animator Glen Keane has created some of the most timeless Disney characters of the last four decades, and some of the greatest animated heroines of our time. From his hand came Ariel from The Little Mermaid and Pocahontas, and he served as an executive producer on the 2010 hit Tangled. Keane is also credited with bringing Aladdin, the Beast ...
Animation for Adults: Oscar Nominee Bill Plympton’s Gorgeous Cheatin’ World
Cheatin’, directed by Academy Award nominee Bill Plympton, the “King of Indie Animation,” is the animated, adults-only tale of love, jealousy, revenge and murder. It follows the story of Jake and Ella, who meet and become lovers — and then ultimately face problems when an “other” woman comes between them. “The personal inspiration for the film ...
Has it Really Been 20 Years Since Toy Story?
Given the length of the lines (at least 100 people were turned away at the door) for South by Southwest’s, “Infinity & Beyond: Pixar & 20 Years Since Toy Story” panel, many of us have a friend and clearly miss our old Buzz Lightyear and Woody the cowboy toys. But this ‘behind the scenes’ look ...
Short Stuff: Animation and Live Action Oscar Nominees
One of the delicious joys of Oscar season — beyond dissecting the nominations and speculating on who will win, of course — is the opportunity to catch up on the short form nominees all in one sitting. This year marks the tenth anniversary that the shorts in each category — animation, live action, and documentary ...
2014 in Review: Portrait Artists, Sound Designers & More – Part I
As a wild year in film draws to a close, we’re looking back at some of the talented filmmakers we’ve had a chance to speak with, and all the ways they schooled on us how films really get made. Sound designers, construction crew managers, creature supervisors, production designers, a portrait artist (for Wes Anderson, naturally) ...
Spirits & Passion Collide in The Book of Life
Animator, painter, writer and director Jorge R. Gutiérrez has won Annies and Emmys for his animated television series El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera for Nickelodeon. His work caught the eye of another Mexican polymath, writer, director, producer and novelist Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim), who’s producing Gutiérrez ‘s feature debut ...
Creating The Boxtrolls by Hand
The Boxtrolls is a stop-animation fable directed by Anthony Stacchi and Graham Annable about the foul monsters who live beneath the cobblestone streets of Cheesebridge. The deal with this Victorian-era hamlet is that it’s obsessed by money and class, a posh place where the air is redolent with the stench of fine cheese. Chesebridgeians love their ...
Building the Sensational Sets of The Maze Runner
One way to jumpstart your film career is to create your own mini-masterpiece, have it blow up on YouTube, and force Hollywood to come knocking. This was the case for animator/director Wes Ball, whose 2012 short film Ruin grabbed the attention of 20th Century Fox. Ball was called to a meeting where the longtime animator was asked to take the ...
How The Lego Movie Got Its Stop-Motion Look
When the trailer for The Lego Movie came out, the Internet was abuzz. The Lego characters had that signature stop-motion feel to them, moving in a slightly stilted manner. Was the movie filmed in stop-motion or CG animation? “There were a couple arguments that we all found quite humorous when we first put out the ...
Ilan Gabai, FX Technical Director of Rio 2, Talks Digital Wonders
Typically, the job of digital effects animator does not require previous experience working with live explosives. But it certainly looks good on a résumé. Ilan Gabai, an effects technical director (FX TD) with Blue Sky Studios, can claim that experience. The 33-year-old grew up in Israel and served three years in his country’s defense forces ...
A Tale of Two Sisters: Meet the Creators of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Frozen
No two snowflakes are alike. The same could be said about sisters—especially Arendelle’s Anna and Elsa, the stars of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ upcoming comedy adventure Frozen, in theaters November 27. For many families, their story may sound familiar—sisters by chance, estranged by choice. But there’s a magical reason for the sisters’ chilly relationship—Elsa’s enigmatic ...
The Many Moving Parts to The LEGO Movie
The toys and games of our youth have long been fodder for filmmakers. There have been six films (all direct-to-video, it should be noted) made from Mattel’s ‘American Girls’ line. Dungeons & Dragons was made into a feature film in 2000 and starred Oscar winning actor Jeremy Irons. G.I. Joe has been called into duty ...
From Gene Kelly to The Smurfs 2: A Brief History of Live Action & Animation
The Smurfs 2 , out today, is the latest in a long (very long) line of live action/animation films. Sony Picture’s 3D family comedy centers on the evil wizard Gargamel’s (played in live action by Hank Azaria) most grotesque transformation yet—he’s become a celebrity (we jest). The newly famous Gargamel creates a host of Smurf-like ...
500 Strong: The Joint Effort in Making 20th Century Fox’s Epic
How do you oversee the work of more than 500 people over the course of several years on a giant 3D animated film without losing your mind? Producer Jerry Davis of Blue Sky Studios, who helped shepherd the production of Twentieth Century Fox's Epic along with his producing partner Lori Forte, gives us the scoop. Epic, which features characters ...
