dijous, 13 d’agost del 2009

Ken Ishii - Extra

Title: EXTRA

Artist: Ken Ishii

Director: Koji Morimoto




I put this video that shocked me when I was a child, around the mid 90s.
Japanese steampunk raw aesthetic.

Hiyao Miyazaki

Footage with the following scenes of Japanese animated films:

-Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
-My neighbor Totoro
-Laputa: The Castle in the Sky
-Princess Mononoke
-Spirited Away
-The Howling walking Castle

Los Reyes Magos

Spain 2003

Spanish animated film that takes the typical starting point of American films of Christmas and then leads to a story similar to The Prince of Egypt

The Triplets

Video sponsored by Danon and broadcasted by Antena 3 for begining the adult broadcast.

Interview to Francisco Antonio Peinado

Francisco Antonio Peinado, Spain 2008



El Principe de las basuras (The Prince of garbage) is the story of a child living in a parallel to the real world, your world, where everything is ruins and rubble.
Between decay and garbage it flows freely a light throught the dark and polluted sky.

In his search, he will found cruel and evil people in whom never would have thought, man, no rest until catch.



Francisco Antonio Peinado worked both in film and television, and during this period he has worked as a cartoonist animator, storyman, background drawer, artistic director and director of animation.
After many years, he decides to make the leap with "El Principe de las Basuras."



1. Hi Francisco, you are the first interviewee in our young blog. So first of all I would ask: How do you see the treatment of the media to the world of animation in our country?


The media tend to devote much space to animation in general, mainly because it gives little to speak in our country.
Increasingly more productions are performed but the number is small compared to the actual image movies , so I find logical this lack of interest from the media.
However we have internet. Fortunately, many specialized websites and blogs keep us informed.



2. This interview has come after the success of your short film "El Principe de las Basuras," and what a success! many awards, including best short 3D film at ArtFutura 2008 and the prize for best short film at Madrid's festival. Is this what you had expected?



Well, the truth is that when we finished the film we got to work with other projects, so we could not enjoy the success of this in a proper way. Once the work is created a strange sense of relief and disorientation get us, so what you should do is to find new goals and you see the performered movies as something distant. We did not expect so many prizes because we had not even pondered the matter. It's our first piece, so we're a little novice. I am very grateful for all the awards and nominations, I understand that film is difficult and risky, but many people bet on him and I can only be eternally grateful.






3. This time you became Screenwriter, Director, Producer and Drawer, Did you got any problem of identity performing so many functions?


Fortunately, the creative processes were always separated from the administrative and seeking funding, so we never had problems. It is an organizational issue, nothing more, and when you are in animation, you must be moderately organized in order to get a project forward.




4.Whence came the idea of "El Principe de las Basuras?



The idea has been for many years in my head and finally, as always, the result has nothing to do with the original idea. It is a mix of ideas and stories created at the time. I like thinking that the film is the scene of a self-interpretated idea .





5. At "El Príncipe de las Basuras", there is a struggle between life and death, nature and artificial, light and darkness and a parallel between the artistic production of 3D and 2D, between manga and the european illustration's esthetics. It was your intention to reflect the duality in the art or did you simply use the means of production that you had considered most appropriate?


The aesthetic was important, when we started making the film, after 2 minutes and a half, whe had to throw all away to the trash and start again. We tried a "Disney" stile and, some environments with skyscrapers and everything. When we saw the result, it totally was devoid of identity. It lacked character and above all, it didn't fit well with the story. Everything had to be easier, so we referenced the city where we live and let both the aesthetics and the animation going freely, even if jumps in quality, but to remove many checks outs in order not to lose freshness at the frames. Combining 2D with 3D was fun and I think that worked more or less well.

About the duality of aesthetics and ideas, oneself is always influenced by everything around and of course, influenced by what i like. In my case, I am a lover of Japanese animation and European comics, so it was inevitable that miscegenation.





6. Some anecdotes about the production?



Well, 3 months before completing the production I got a sprained left ankle and I had to stand in front of the drawing table with the leg up! It was crazy.
Also, when I still had 18 months to finish the film, I got money from a grant that was totally necessary to shoot the film, but they forced us to deliver the work before 6 months. So we had to change the Planing and what we were going to do in 18 months was made in 6.





7. Tell us something about the soundtrack of the short.



The music was composed and performed by my great friend Marcos Busatori using synthesizer and computer. We made many tests and trials until we were happy. I wanted a dynamic music to accompany the image and also some pieces for some very dramatic moments. Marcos composed 12 or 14 complete compositions, some of which were not used in the process of final assembly. It was very hard and it was made in a record time.



8. But you work in the world of animation for 15 years, in which remarkable works have you worked?


Well I worked on many television productions such as The Triplets and some other features like "El Embrujo del Sur" or "Los Tres Reyes Magos". I also have work in the animatios of Jorge Daya's shorts, nominated for the Goya so in that way, I have set myself on shorts.






9. What works or authors of animation do you feel they have influenced you most?



My favorite authors are Hayao Miyazaki and Koji Morimoto, I admire the first one because his artistic and imaginative works, and the second one by the organic nature on his works. I love anything that smells like Europe, but Japanese animation seems from another planet, especially these two authors. Today, the French school seems to me the most interesting and the closest to what I will do in the future.




10. What can you tell us about "La Sombra del Bambú" (The shadow of Bamboo)? When will it see the light?



It will be completed by the end of the year and I hope that in January 2010 it can be seen.
With this second film I turn 180 degrees. While the former was baroque, dynamic, only with sound and music, without dialogue, dramatic and full of camera movements in 3D, this second film has nothing of that. it will have dialogue and any music or camera movements, it is a very minimalist style and it takes 15 minutes. I think the aesthetics are going to be at least strange, because we have encouraged all the parts in 3D, but the lights and shadows are drawn by hand, the mix is very laborious but it gives a very very special touch.







11. Do you have a third short film in preparation?


Yeeeeeah, it will begin in October and I'm going to do it in 2D.
It will be entitled "La Flor y la Lluvia" (The flower and the rain), and it's going to be a tragic story. The story begins when a child who is placed in a railway waiting for the next train to be overwhelmed. It will be a story that speaks about life and death from the viewpoint of a 10 year old girl who attempts suicide.




12. Do you want to say something to our blog readers who want to go into animation productions?

Working in animation is terribly hard but rewarding. Today there are a lot of information and with few resources we can tell great stories. I was late to realize this and with my 36 years I can only say that my intention is to continue this for many years.

Thank you a lot


Thank you very much for the interview and good luck with your blog.



Handmade Animation, 2009 August




EL PRINCIPE DE LAS BASURAS'S OFICIAL WEBSITE

dimarts, 11 d’agost del 2009

Ident

Aardman Studios 1989 UK

diumenge, 2 d’agost del 2009

Aardman

Aardman Animation or Aardman Studios Inc. is the most successful company of British animation, Founded at Bristol in 1976 when its creators Peter Lord and David Sproxton wanted to realize their dream of making an animated film. They started as a small studio creating Morph, a simple plasticine character for the children's TV show Vision On.



Aardman's name comes from a super-hero goblin of cel-animation created for this program.

At this same time, Lord and Sproxton worked outside Aardman for BBC making adult entertainment like the Animated Conversations series, where they made animations to represent real taped conversations, like Down & Out and Confessions of a Foyer Girl.

Later, on Channel 4 they did a series of short films, which 5 were short Conversation Pieces, few shorts on the same idea but more sophisticated than Animated Conversations.




After these works, Lord and Sproxton hired 3 more animators, including Nick Park and created the Lip Synch series.



At that time, Aardman was a hotbed of shorts, with productions such as Ident or Adam.

Nick Park, who had directed some Lip Synch shorts, was the creator of Creature comforts in 1989, with that short Aardman won its first Oscar for best animated short.



Nick Park created Wallace and Groomit, the duo staged 3 Christmas special fpr the BBC that were full success: A Grand Day Out (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995), last two shorts won each an Oscar. And later, A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008).




And in 2000 they made the first feature: Chicken Run, which was a hit of box office and awards.



After such success, Dreamworks signed a contract to co-produce over 3 animated feature films , the first was Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Wererabbit that won another Oscar for best animated feature film.



In 2005, due to an electrical fault a fire was caused in the warehouse of Aardman destroying the material of old movies and awards saved, fortunately completed films ready for sale and the material of production was stored under way elsewhere, so the fire did not affect production.

However, Aardman and Dreamworks had a number of differences as producers that they could not be fixed, and in 2006 they broke the contract without producing the next 2 films. But in 2007 they signed a contract with Sony Pictures, Peter Lord was excited by the possibilities of making films that were opened.

And despite being a stop motion animation studio, they went into the CGI animation productions as Owzat, Al Dante, The Deadline, Planet Sketch and Flushed Away




Aardman is also dedicated to supporting young animators, such as the creation of The Award in the UK Aardman Award, in Teesside's Animex Festival, which prize is to offer help for the next film.

Last year, Channel 4 set up the animation website 4mations :


http://www.4mations.tv/


They also opened a channel on youtube where you can see the TV series of creature comforts, the Morph, Cracking Contraptions, and clips from the Wallace and Gromit films.


http://www.youtube.com/user/aardman?blend=1&ob=4


His latest production is Timmy Time (2009), a spin-off for pre-school public ofShawn the Sheep.



They have movies in production as Burglers The Cat (2010), Arthur Christmas (2011) and The Pirates! - In An Adventure With Scientist (2012).

Currently, in collaboration with Cosgrove Hall Films they are developing a feature film version of the British TV series Count Duckula.



Resume of the history of Aardman: Grow! Grow! and Growing! This success is mainly due to Nick Park, as it is the filmmaker who created the most emblematic works of Aardman. However there is something that never made me thank them very much, they always had made stop motion apology saying that the CGI was cold and soulless, so the surprise when I saw Flushed Away, it is everything well done, but I think they had sold the plasticine soul of their characters . I still prefer Shaun the Sheep.

dissabte, 1 d’agost del 2009

James & the Giant Peach

Henry Selick UK - USA 1996

This film is an adaptation of the 1961 musical based on the story by Roald Dahl. Produced by Tim Burton and Disney, combining real images with stop motion.

They wanted to combine the star in real image with the rest of the film in stop motion, but the budget went too far, sothey pretended doing everything in stop motion, but as they had already begun to prepare the scenes in real image, they made the beginning in real image and the fantasy scenes in stop motion.

Roald Dahl never accepted to do a film adaptation of his book, was his widow, Liccy Dahl who sold the rights.

The film was nominated for an Oscar for best original music, and received the award for best animated film at the Annecy International Animation Festival.