Tag: animation

leaving for burning man and I’m not afraid. i have binoculars and my cape and my fangs.

500 people in 100 seconds.

And with that, I leave for the desert. Jordan’s due here any minute and all of my things are packed. We’re hoping to stop in Tacoma on the way down, so Andrew and I can finally meet, but as I haven’t heard from him yet, it may be something we’ll do on the way back. Our only other stop is Reno, to shoot some cards and try a slot machine, just because we can and never have. It feels strange to be going this alone, like I should be waiting for Tony to get home before taking off, but he left yesterday, it’s only the echo of our past relationship that’s reverberating through the walls. Nicholas stayed over last night, kidnapped from a party room at PAX, and said he’s not sure he could do such a thing, sleep comfortably in a place he used to live with a partner. “Too many ghosts”, he said. Maybe that’s it. At any rate, I’m leaving, and I won’t be on-line for awhile.

I love you all. I wish you all well. Be happy. Be safe. I’ll try to see you soon.

required watching: perfect for late night

The Backwater Gospel, an unmissable Bachelor film project (2011) from The Animation Workshop.


Some other stunning shorts from the same school: Out of the Forest, (a long held personal favourite), The Lumberjack, (a very NFB tinted short), The Saga of Biorn, (funny even before the nuns), Mighty Antlers, (intense), Last Fall, (elegant steampunk horror), Pig Me, (fairly cute), and Dharma Dreameater, (entirely adorbz).

PLATYPUS BEAR FOR PRESIDENT

Aside from all the other amazing things that life consists of, this evening I am made happy by passionfruit gelato, chickie nobs, and the line, “Someone’s being attacked by a platypus bear!”, upon which, indeed, a platypus bear appeared onscreen, truly one of nature’s more creative miracles.

Also, the incredible people and technology involved in the Chilean miner rescue. That too.

one of my favourite directors just died

Anime director Satoshi Kon dies, aged 46.

Kon passed away passed yesterday after losing a battle with pancreatic cancer.

The filmmaker’s work includes Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress and Paprika.

Kon was working on fantasy-adventure animation, “Yumemiru Kikai (Dream Machine)”, due for release in 2011, at the time of his death. Featuring a futuristic adventure starring a robot, it would have been his first work aimed at children after he produced a series of what he called “animations which adults can enjoy”.

a tiny bit simplified, but still pretty cool

A magnet won’t work on plastic, bananas or girls.:

In 2001, Marc Bertrand was tasked by the National Film Board of Canada with creating 26 one-minute films about science. The only constraints were that he had to use both archival footage and animation. The result was Science Please!

And because the NFB is awesome, you can watch all 26 of them online: Part 1 | Part 2 | Or, in French

The films are fast and frenetic, utilizing a wide range of animation styles as Bertrand drew from every corner of the NFB’s talented stable of animators. In a recent interview (translated from the French) Bertrand looked back fondly on his time working on “Science Please!” and announced that, after a nearly ten year delay, he is working on another series of science films for kids.

link via Scott