While we were in San Francisco, we contacted a friend of ours who is a wonderful animator at Pixar.
He was super generous enough to give us a 3 hour tour!!!
Storyboards, concept illustrations and clay maquettes were displayed nicely on the 2nd floor. Some of this pre-production work is never displayed in front of the public eye, so it’s exciting to see the development art getting the attention it deserves.
The most amazing part of the studio was “the ghetto” also known as the animation department.
It felt like… disney land / junkyard / backyard all put together in the most creative way possible. Mixed with rooms, there were little playhouses used as cubicles. Each animator decorated her/his house or room in a very unique way that was inspiring. One animator built a roof deck on top of his playhouse, and our friend Don built a treadmill in the floor so he can exercise while he animates. How cool is that!?
That place is magical, and all the talented animators are wizards.
Thank you so much Don for a very intensive, inspiring, educational tour.
Andy is a great friend of ours who is extremely talented. (I bet everybody can agree after watching this movie)
I have a very personal connection to this animation because we all started working on our independent films around the same time and also finished around the same time. It was nice to have a great friend who lives near by who could share work-in-progress and motivate each other. I am so proud of Andy and this movie is going to bring lots of success and happiness to his life!
Max and I went to Rhode Island School of Design in early April for a lecture & one-on-one student meetings.
We were blown away by the quality of work. Go RISD Animation students! I can’t wait to see their animations in festivals!
The set up was extremely inviting to experiment with animation. We were so inspired, and all we want to do now is to purchase more equipment and have fun with materials.
Commercial work requires tightness, slickness, and attention to details. So we’ve been working on those elements for the past few years. But in a way, I need more balance in art. Some of the work we saw at RISD reminded me to experiment more, get lose and try new things. Now that we are done with our independent film, I will have more free time to learn new things.
It’ll be a really exciting and fun spring/summer.
I feel like I got massive amount of inspiration and energy from RISD students. Thank you Amy Kravitz who is the head of the department for inviting us. We really enjoyed!
Drawing performances is so exciting and it’s a great way to learn different movements. So when I got this awesome news, first thing I did was to stuff my sketchbook into my bag. The conductor’s movements were mesmerizing. One move and the entire atmosphere changes. The unison of the violin bows, the energy that was created by the orchestra, and the total beauty really put me into the drawing zen mode. Before I knew, it was over. I wish it lasted 5 more hours.
“You must watch Fantastic Mr. Fox, you’ll LOVE it”
This is the line I heard from many people and for some stupid reasons, it took me a long time to actually go check see the movie.
Well, I finally did last weekend and I LOVE IT!
My friends were right! It is the best film in the past 10 years for sure!
I can’t stop thinking about how fun and inspiring that film is.
The pan of Mr. & Mrs. Fox taking a short cut blew my mind. What a blend of dialogue, music, action and fun. My favorite is Kyle the Possum and how charming he is. (How can you not love him?)
I love how his eyes swirl but he will still give a sign to Mr. Fox.
My favorite moment was at the very end, when the gang is dancing in the super market, Kyle is just sliding left to right. You can only do this in stop motion, if this was done in CG, the audience will take it as a mistake.
I had not seen any animated film that really took advantage of animation so much.
It cheated a lot by not showing their feet in walk cycles! I had not seen that in feature films for so long that it was almost refreshing. The techique was so retro that everything seemed unique and different.
What a genius film…..the writing was extremely funny, animation was beautiful and the sets are AMAZING! Amount of details that went into those sets is hard to imagine but every little effort was worth it.
This is a sequence to the previous post about the Pen World Voices Festival.
From 4:30 was “Revolutionary Writers: Yoshihiro Tatsumi in Conversation with Adrian Tomine”.
It is ironic but I never heard of Mr. Tatsumi when I lived in Japan.
Last year, a friend of mine recommended me “The Push Man” which I fell in love with immediately.
It’s realistic and shows the dark side of human emotions.
He just released his autobiographical comic called “A Drifting Life” which is the thickest comic I’ve ever seen.
I waited over an hour and a half to get my comic signed by Mr. Tatsumi.
I knew the line was quite long but it still was taking a little too long.
When I peaked, I noticed that Mr. Tatsumi was drawing along with his autograph.
PLUS, every drawing was different! No wonder it’s taking forever.
Though, I must say he was the fastest draftsman ever. The way he draws is like chiseling. It almost seems very abstract until he puts some of the final lines. It was like magic.
(In the comic, young Tatsumi thought that how Tezuka draws is like magic.)
I will treasure this book forever!
The Fifth Annual Pen World Voices Festival was held at the Cooper Union lecture hall last weekend.
The event was called “An Afternoon with International graphic Novelists.
The first lecture was by Neil Gaiman who wrote Coraline.
I’ve been a huge fan of his comic books since I was in college, so it was very exciting.
Mr. Gaiman was charismatic. He knew how to talk to the audience and entertain us.
It was so easy to imagine his stories because he describes the little details so well.
An hour of lecture seemed very short and I got lots of great ideas of how to motivate myself and how to get things done! Wonderful lecture.
