Father & Daughter Wins Best Short Animation at Orange British Film Academy Awards
London, England, February 26, 2001 -- Father & Daughter, an eight-and-a-half minute film directed by Michael Dudok De Wit and co-produced by Claire Jennings and Willem Thijssen, won a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award Sunday in the Short Animated Film category.

Tools used for the animation are pencil, charcoal, and digital colouring. Animation is by Michael Dudok de Wit and Arjan Wilschut. Technical direction (scanning, compositing, editing) was done by Spider Eye Ltd, London, with compositing by Alistair Beckett and Nic Gill. The film has no dialog.

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Tuesday, February 27, 2001

Blue Dream Studios Founded by Veteran Character Animator Scott Christian Sava
Thousand Oaks, CA, February 27, 2001 -- The brand new Blue Dream Studios, founded by Scott Christian Sava, will specialize in character animation, and be a full-service studio for such clients as 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Sony, Harvey Entertainment, Marvel Entertainment and Saban.

"With our experience in the entertainment industry, we felt that we could help studios get the most out of their animation budgets by offering 'big company' quality animation at a small studio price," said Sava.

Blue Dream is already working with several clients, and has four original TV series in the works. One client is Marv Wolfman, creator of "Blade," "The New Teen Titans" and other popular comics. Wolfman and his production company Wolfmill Entertainment are collaborating with Blue Dream Studios on a new television series, "Mighty Mites."

"Scott has a great sense of character to his animation," said Wolfman. "Scott brought life to my characters, without that there's nothing."

Kent Butterworth, CGI Producer at Saban International with credits that include "Fat Albert," "Smurfs," "SuperFriends," "The Simpsons," "Tiny Toons," "Batman," "Xyber-9," and "Nascar Racers," states "Scott always delivers more than expected in his character animation. I know he will always take it to the next level, enhancing the shot and bringing the characters to life."

And of his work with Scott on the Casper movies, Kent states, "He added subtlety to the performance of his characters, so that they were as much alive as the 'live action' actors they shared the screen with."

In addition to its animation capabilities, Blue Dream Studios is in development of four original television series that seek to provide a sense of humor with memorable characters for audiences of all ages. To complement in-house talent, the company has a vast resource of animators, modelers, musicians, texture artists and graphic designers from around the world at its disposal.

For more information, go to www.bluedreamstudios.com

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Black Logic Mixes Dancing Candy Bars and Pop Stars in M&M Mars Spot
New York, NY, February 27, 2001 -- A visual mix of singers, dancers and animated candy bars was the challenge for Black Logic's CG department in producing two new spots for M&M Mars.

The effects-driven spots "Remote Control" and "Head Spin" (: 30), directed by Dave Meyers, FM Rocks, for Grey Worldwide, New York, debuted on the Grammy Awards show. Black Logic GC artists were invited to pre-production meetings to collaborate on creative concepts and remained involved through final posting of the elaborately animated spots, according to visual effects director Patrick Ferguson, Black Logic.

"We had numerous conversations with Dave (Meyer), the Grey creatives and with tabletop director Santiago Suarez to decide how best to achieve an entertaining, convincing visual blending of musical groups and dance styles with animated TWIX cookie elements."

"Remote Control" opens like an MTV-style videoclip, titles and all, with teen sensation Dream singing the creamy chocolate part of "It's all in the Mix." Click, channel change to follow the bouncing ball as an oldies polka band (appearing on some local cable access channel (degraded image transmission and all) oompas away to "chewy, chewy caramel." Click once more; there's rapper Lil' Bow Wow talking the lyrics to crunchy cookie on a lost "Soul Train" style set. Flip the point of view to two skateboarder couch potatoes playing the remote control game. Click again; explode into an animated world where caramel, chocolate and musical groups are mixed together. Bow Wow plays accordion while the four Dream girls dance with the polka players.Final click; one dude cancels his friend who is replaced by the four dancing Dream girls.

The challenge was to create a believable world where all the elements blended together.

"Our task was to integrate live action and tabletop footage with our CG elements into a seamless world," said Ferguson. "We wanted to create a place where viewers will notice that the different types of music come together like the ingredients in a TWIX bar."

"Head Spin" continues the theme as CG TWIX ingredients react to different dance styles. The spot opens on dancer Savion Glover, from the hit show "Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk," whose tapping feet kick up splashes of chocolate each time they hit the virtual ground. The camera pulls back to reveal energetic swing dancers, then two cookies appear and mimic their swinging moves. Pull back again and we see a raver girl, whose dancing calls forth pools of caramel around her feet, which burst into dancing fountains.

"Our animators were challenged to create thirty seconds of a completely CG dimension in which cookies fly around mimicking the movements of swing dancers," said Ferguson. "The visuals were enhanced with 2 and 3D warping. CG chocolate spreads from Savion's (Glover) taps, live action fountains twist and wiggle along with a rave dancer in a world that integrates food footage with live action footage, supplemented with our own CGI elements."

To come up with believable moves, choreographer Tina Landon studied food footage to match dance styles that could be easily mimicked with tabletop food direction as Black Logic enhanced them with CGI elements warping. "We wanted to create a visual tie between the dancing of the swing dancers and that of the cookies without it appearing to be an exact replication," added Ferguson.

Work on the two TWIX spots required a month's time from Ferguson, who led the Black Logic visual effects team, which included three inferno artists as well as the entire Black Logic CGI department.

Black Logic is a comprehensive, creative collaboration company offering full-service visual effects, graphic design, high-end compositing, 2D and 3D animation, and complete live-action production. Founded in 1992 and located at 305 East 46 St., in New York City, Black Logic also offers state-of-the-art film-to-tape transfers together with its productions. Black Logic is represented by Ivan Molomut and Alfie Schloss.

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Wednesday, February 28, 2001

David Barrington Holt of Jim Henson's Creature Shop to Discuss The Dark Crystal at Gnomon School

When and Where: The Dark Crystal lecture is being held Tuesday March 27 at 7:00 p.m. at the Gnomon Inc. School of Visual Effects. The address is 1015 N. Cahuenga Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90038. Reservations: Tuition is free, but reservations are required. To make a reservation, either email your name and phone number to duane@gnomon3d.com or call 323/466-6663. Directions: Gnomon is located in the Television Center building 1015 North Cahuenga Blvd, Hollywood, California Parking is available on the street or in the lot just south of the Television Center (enter from Cole Ave.) From the North: 101 South to Cahuenga exit. South (right) on Cahuenga. Gnomon is just south of Santa Monica. From the Southwest and West: 405 to the 10 East. Exit La Brea North. North on La Brea to Melrose. Turn right to Cahuenga. Left to 1000 block. From the South: 110 North to 101 North. Exit Santa Monica B. - left. Head west on Santa Monica to Cahuenga - Left.

Hollywood, CA, February 28, 2001 -- A screening of The Dark Crystal and an opportunity to discuss the film with David Barrington Holt, Creative Supervisor of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop in Los Angeles, will be presented March 27 at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood. The event is one of a series of lectures on ground-breaking films sponsored by the school.

The Dark Crystal, a 1982 release directed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz, was the first fully-animatronic feature film. It is a classic tale of good and evil, with the peaceful "Mystics" on one side and the oppressive "Skeksis" on the other side.

David Barrington Holt was born and educated in London, England. He graduated with honours in Industrial Design, but his subsequent career has included fashion design, graphic art, photography, and engineering modelmaking. He began creating model and miniature effects for television and film commercials in the early 1980’s, and was invited to join the team at the London Creature Shop in 1986 to work on the Jean-Jacques Annaud film The Bear.

A string of Henson projects followed, and he came to the West Coast in 1991 to supervise the Creature Shop’s work on the hit Disney/Henson TV show "Dinosaurs." He later helped to establish the Los Angeles Creature Shop.

Although the Gnomon film lectures are designed primarily to give Gnomon students the option to learn about filmmaking as a craft, they are open to anyone interested in hearing industry professionals present films that they feel are noteworthy in the history of movie production. These lectures include a presentation by the guest instructor, viewing of the movie, with discussion to follow.

Gnomon web site: www.gnomon3d.com

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Credits
Client: Bravo Networks, NYC Project: Independent Film Channel Spirit Awards Airdate: March 25, 2001 Name: "IFC Sweepstakes (:60)" and "Tune-in (:30)" spots.	Production/Design Co.: EyeballNYC Creative Director Limore Shur Senior Designer Tatiana Arocha Jr. Designer Rachel Riggs 3-D Animators Stuart Simms, Sal Midolo Editor Alex Moulton Original Music and Sound Design Alex Moulton Producer Nina Goldberg Executive Producer Michael Eastwood

 

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Thursday, March 1, 2001

Shrek Is on Schedule, with Screening Next Week at ShoWest

Shrek, the animated comedy due from DreamWorks May 18, will be screened in a more complete version than originally planned next week at the ShoWest Convention in Las Vegas.

The film was already scheduled as a "Special Work-In-Progress Screening" on Wednesday at the Paris Hotel's Le Théâtre Des Arts. But the Hollywood Reporter quoted DreamWorks distribution head Jim Tharpe yesterday as saying that a big percentage of the film is now complete and that it would be finished on schedule in April. Tharpe said that some hand-drawn animation remains and that the coloring is not completely finished yet.

ShoWest, which bills itself as "the world's largest motion-picture-industry convention," limits registration to members of the motion picture industry. The convention is being held at Bally's and The Paris Hotel in Las Vegas from March 5-8.

Shrek, based on a children's book by William Steig, features the voices of Mike Myers, John Lithgow, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz. The story centers on an ogre named Shrek, whose solitude is invaded by annoying fairy tale creatures-- blind mice in his food, a big, bad wolf in his bed, and three little homeless pigs. All have been banished from their kingdom by the evil Lord Farquaad.
Determined to save his own home as well as theirs, Shrek cuts a deal with Farquaad and sets out to rescue the beautiful Princess Fiona to be Farquaad's bride. The only problem is that he must wrest the Princess from a fire-breathing dragon, and then deal with a deep dark secret she is concealing.

For previous Shrek coverage on Animation Artist, click here.

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Friday, March 2, 2001

Toy Story Racer Game Announced
Santa Monica, CA, March 2, 2001 -- The toys from Disney's Toy Story animated feature film are pitted against each other in Disney/Pixar's "Toy Story Racer" for the PlayStation game console and Nintendo Game Boy Color from Disney Interactive, Pixar Animation Studios and Activision, Inc. The video games are rated ``E'' by the ESRB and are available for a suggested retail price of $39.99 (PlayStation game console) and $29.99 (Game Boy Color). A remote controlled racing adventure game, "Toy Story Racer" lets players select one of 12 Toy Story characters, including Buzz Lightyear, Woody and Hamm, each with a unique vehicle and signature driving style. Players can revisit some of their favorite environments from the movie with 18 tracks and surprise pick-ups. The game's intuitive artificial intelligence (AI) ``learns'' from each player's performance and adjusts to his or her skill level on the fly. Additionally, unique character-specific challenges open up hidden characters and quests, allowing the game to unfold like a storybook. More than 150 character challenges include racing, chasing and stunt driving.