Pixotri Technologies: animation updates

Showing posts with label animation updates. Show all posts

Thursday, May 21, 2015

French Student Sets Internet on Fire with Animation Inspired by Moebius, Syd Mead & Hayao Miyazaki

The internet over in Japan was lit ablaze last month by a student film. Titled “Celles et Ceux des Cimes et Cieux” (“Girls and Guys from the Summits and the Skies”), the short is a gorgeously animated trailer for what looks like an amazing yet-to-be-made feature film. Created by Gwenn Germain, who is studying at the French art school Créapole, the animation is also a love letter to legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. You can watch it above.

“I’ve been told by a friend of mine that all the movies that I’ve made are essentially the same!” That’s what Miyazaki said to me during a roundtable for his children’s movie Ponyo. Though the stories vary from movie to movie, his world is immediately recognizable and remarkably consistent. He creates universes that are wondrous and mystical. He has an almost shamanistic reverence for nature; rocks, trees, rivers, and oceans all seem to be alive and aware.

And he populates his world with shape-shifting creatures like the ravenous masked blob No-Face in Spirited Away; the Great Forest Spirit in Princess Mononoke, which looks like it was yanked straight out of Japanese mythology; and perhaps his most delightful creation, the Cat Bus from My Neighbor Totoro, complete with headlight eyes, a Cheshire grin and a warm, womb-like interior. It was this whimsical creation that reportedly impressed The Emperor himself – Akira Kurosawa.

It’s no wonder why Japanese netizens went crazy for “Celles et Ceux des Cimes et Cieux.” Germain’s short seems sprung from the same world as Miyazaki. The giant bugs look like something out of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. The ambiguously European architecture looks like something from Kiki’s Delivery Service and those purple amorphous worms look like something from Spirited Away. Heck, Miyazaki himself even seems to be in Germain’s short – that bearded old guy at the end of the movie is a spitting image of the famed animator.

Germain credits other influences aside from Miyazaki: Syd Mead, the concept artist who created those flying cars in Blade Runner and the city of the future in the upcoming Tomorrowland, and particularly the boundlessly imaginative French illustrator Moebius. Their influence might not be as obvious as Miyazaki’s, however.

In any case, I am seriously looking forward to seeing a feature length version of “Celles et Ceux des Cimes et Cieux.”

Animation

Contact us for your 2d and 3d animation requirements email - info@pixotritechnologies.com. Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9xSWDsTYC8

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Video: More recycled scenes from different Disney animation movies

Here are more recycled and reused scenes that Disney lifts from previous animation movies and then adds to its others movies. You can see how the same general movement and scene constructions are used but just with different characters across different movies. It’s both very revealing and endlessly interesting to compare how similar they are.

In this video we see how Bambi scenes were used in both Alice in Wonderland and The Fox and the Hound, how The Jungle Book ties in with Winnie the Pooh and The Sword in the Stone, and much more.This is the second in a series showcasing Disney recycled scenes by Movie Munchies. You can see the first video here.

Animation

Our team of experts works with you, take your company message and create a powerful animated marketing video that will engage viewers in the most effective way possible.Pixotri technology is a creative house developing quality web designs, E-Commerce solution. SEO services and Gaming development .Contact us for your 2d and 3d animation requirements info@pixotritechnologies.com. Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9xSWDsTYC8

What Should We Expect from Tim Burton’s ‘Dumbo’?

I’m sure you’ve heard the news by now. Tim Burton is going to direct a live-action remake of the 1941 animated Disney film Dumbo. What did you think when you heard this choice of director? Or of the idea of a remake itself? Disbelief? Fear? Intrigue? I felt all three. This is coming from someone who loves Tim Burton and who loves Disney. But is the prospect of them colliding for this project a good idea? And what should we come to expect from a movie that will henceforth be known as Tim Burton’s Dumbo?

What do we know so far?

We know the film is going to be part live-action and part GGI. I’ll give you one guess as to who is going to be computer animated. This makes me wonder what a CGI Dumbo will look like. Does anyone remember Dumbo in the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? His cameo appearance was pretty much all for the sake of the joke, “He works for peanuts,” but he actually blends fairly well in this movie. There are a few reasons for that. Our suspension of disbelief was already achieved in the set up of the movie where Toons live amongst us. But I believe the main reason was that he was still represented as a two-dimensional drawing. We recognize him from Disney’s animated film because he is the exact same design. But could a CGI Dumbo look as cute and endearing as the drawing?

He will most likely look more like a real elephant as our suspension of disbelief will have to be pushed a little further if we’re to see a big-eared flying elephant in live-action. What about the other characters? In my humble opinion it would be a mistake not to include Dumbo’s supporting pal Timothy Q. Mouse. If featured, he could be similar to the mice character in the latest live-action remake of Cinderella. These little creatures had a realistic design and yet their subtle actions every so often were human-like. Could we expect something like this?

Disney and Live-action

We know there is a new surge of live-action remakes of Disney animated movies recently, but back in the day Walt Disney did love his live-action projects too. All you have to do is look at Treasure Island or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to know the studio was more than capable of delivering spectacular, and yes I’ll say it, masterpieces. A studio has to keep on top of its game somehow. So why not utilize its previous successes like Beauty and the Beast and Dumbo to create something we’re both eager to revisit and curious to rediscover.

When I imagine a live-action Dumbo movie I remember those fantastical Disney movies from the 1970s. Those comedy dramas that usually starred Dean Jones with a talking cat from outer space or a living VW Beetle. There’s also Pete’s Dragon, which had both live-action actors and a giant 2D animated dragon. But there is always something that warms your heart in these live-action Disney movie. So it’s safe to say they’ll be emotional scenes as well as light-hearted moments. Let’s just hope they don’t reuse the ‘Baby Mine’ song from the original movie or I’ll end up using all my tissues. Regardless of the song, can’t you just envision that in live-action? A scene where humans lock away the elephant mother from her baby? This is why I’m sure the remake of Dumbo will still pull at our heartstrings.

Disney and Tim Burton

The collaboration of Tim Burton and Dumbo sounds more shocking than Sam Raimi directing Oz: The Great and Powerful, but it really shouldn’t. Not when you think about the controversial horror movies Raimi has made compared to Burton movies that are simply deemed ‘dark’.

Think about this for a moment: why does Disney keep using Burton? Let us take a look at Burton’s work at Disney to help us out. He worked for Disney in the 1980s on movies such as The Black Cauldron and The Fox and The Hound. Not surprisingly the latter kind of ‘cutesy’ animation was not his forte, so he looked for other projects elsewhere. It was with the success of the live-action movies Edward Scissorhands and Batman that Disney welcomed him back to make his own stop-motion animation project in 1993. Though he did not direct The Nightmare Before Christmas – that can be credited to Henry Selick – his influence and creativity is prominent in the movie. He returned to Disney and stop-motion in 2012 for Frankenweenie, this time as director. I’m sure Disney were after another financial success similar to Nightmare, especially when it came to merchandising. But this wasn’t to be.

Unfortunately, there were more than enough Sparky plushes left in the stockroom. It just didn’t have the unique charm that Nightmare had. However, it did get positive reviews and was nominated for an Oscar so it wasn’t all bad for Burton and Disney. Now Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland in 2009 on the other hand was a huge success. Something about that film maker’s name above that familiar story peaked audience’s interested. The story of Alice in Wonderland, even the Disney animated version from 1951, is whimsical and a little dark at times. So it easily lends itself to Burton’s macabre style. This is why when you think about Dumbo in the hands of Tim Burton you can understand why he was chosen in terms of financing. It’s a very well known name. It’s not much of a gamble to hire him because of the basic fact that people see his movies. But from a creative point, is he the best choice?

The Other Side of Burton

There is a lighter more child-friendly side to Burton that is actually perfect for Disney movies. I know Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a little strange and creepy at times but can you deny that it’s a children’s movie? I’ve never thought of that movie as being too dark or creepy for kids. And it’s proof that he’s no stranger to the magical and surreal. But Burton always seems to know what he’s doing.

He’s not going to push a character or a certain piece of imagery so far that it will enter your nightmares for weeks, particularly when it’s a family movie. And when I think of ‘the other side of Burton’ I go directly to the movie Big Fish. It’s a fairytale pastoral paradise. It’s so bright and colorful at times that it could easily have been a children’s coloring book. His latest movie Big Eyes even strayed away from the grim and Gothic. It’s because of movies like these that actually make me stay positive for the movie’s potential.

Animation

Contact us for your 2d and 3d animation requirements email- info@pixotritechnologies.com. Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9xSWDsTYC8

Monday, May 11, 2015

FMX Wraps 20th Edition; APD, Stuttgart Show Results

The 20th anniversary edition of FMX in Stuttgart, Germany, is in the books as an event worthy of celebrating two decades of spotlighting the best in the art and technology of visual effects and animation.

Capping with a special screening of Avengers: Age of Ultron, the four-day event reports 3,200 attendees from 55 countries flocked to FMX on a daily basis. The percentage of professionals compared to the students amounted to 61 percent, and there were 270 speakers from 22 countries who delivered presentations, workshops and panel discussions.

Meanwhile, the concurrent Animation Production Day reported that a contract for a European co-production was signed at the event — a first for the show. Jan Bonath of Scopas Medien AG, Germany, and Mark Mertens of Grid Animation, Belgium, signed a coproduction agreement for the project Marnie’s World.

APD drew 120 participants from 12 different countries that discussed and negotiated co-operations for the 37 selected animation projects showcased in this year’s APD in Stuttgart’s L-Bank in over 450 one-to-one meetings.

The total production volume of these projects is around 130 million euros, equivalent to $145 million.

The 22nd Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film — another related event — honored the best productions in the field of applied animation at the Animated Com Award.

The main prize was awarded to Arnaud & Jérôme from France for League of Legends: Warriors.

Within the advertising category, Manvsmachine from Great Britain won with their commercial Nike Mercurial Superfly IV.

The Award for technology was awarded to Ghost Peloton by Mark Huskisson, Great Britain.

Smart Ampelmännchen by Marten Persiel from Germany won the award for spatial communication.

Nate Theis of the United States and his production Driving won a special prize called Future Needs Derivation – Mobility in a Digital World, presented by Daimler AG, which includes 2,500 euros.

The Lapp Connected Award — also including at 2,500 euro prize — was given to Pass It On, by Teresa Cruz.

Animation

Contact us for your 2d and 3d animation requirements email- info@pixotritechnologies.com. Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9xSWDsTYC8

Gluckman’s pat for Indian animation

When DreamWorks Studios, the American film production company, first planned on setting shop in other markets, they launched a sort of international location scouting, before zeroing in on Bengaluru , back in 2008. Creative Director Philippe Gluckman says the diverse culture in India was one of the key factors which led them to take that decision.

“I feel the culture here lends itself to creative things. Also, there is a large native talent pool in animation here. The knowledge of English also helps. Cost-effectiveness was a factor, but not the dominant reason,” says Gluckman, who was in the city this weekend to participate in the Animation Masters summit organised by the Toonz Media Group.

In the initial days of the DreamWorks Dedicated Unit in Bangalore, the team was producing animated commercials. TV specials, high-quality material produced exclusively for television, happened later.

Just six years later, in 2014, they produced their first full-length feature Penguins of Madagascar .

“Making major parts of Puss in Boots here was a big deal for us. With Penguins… , we went a step ahead. We worked right from building the characters, the look of the film, to the production phase. Though we planned to produce the entire film here, the last part had to be shifted out owing to scheduling issues,” he says.

Working with a young team of 240, a majority of whom are from India, reminds Gluckman of his earlier days in the industry, of working with small dynamic teams.

Downside

“The only downside here is working so far from the U.S., and the problems of different timelines. But, coming to India changed me, artistically and personally. I am a runner and of late, I have been going into villages and the visual culture there is so fascinating. Also, the people are very welcoming and warm. I am also interested in learning languages. We now speak Hindi at home. We also watch Hindi films occasionally, like the Munnabhai series or 3 Idiots .”

Working on Indian content is something that he looks forward to, although the studios are yet to warm up to it. Plans were there to produce a ‘Bollywood-style’ musical on Ramayana, which did not take off. “I have seen some of the animation films produced here. Some are interesting and some are dated. But I feel we need to continue to give opportunities to people from here. With the kind of talent pool here, it is unfortunate that the artists here think that they have to go outside the country to make it. This scenario should change.”

He feels that some of the animation films being produced internationally follow a stale formula. “In the initial days, we were making very ambitious expensive films. But, we have to move beyond this one model of making animation films. We now have more diverse markets, and we have to make targeted films.”

Animation

Contact us for your 2d and 3d animation requirements email-info@pixotritechnologies.com. Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9xSWDsTYC8

Anti-Aging Measures for Disney’s Animation Cels

The hand-drawn animation cels used to create cartoons before the advent of computers have aged poorly. Their cellulose and polyester backings have buckled, cracked and yellowed, and the watercolor paint is peeling. To determine the best way to prevent further damage, the Disney Animation Research Library, which owns millions of these works, is collaborating with the Getty Conservation Institute.

Michael R. Schilling, a senior scientist at the Getty institute, said researchers are studying which protective materials to wrap around the cels, what temperature are best for storage and how to reattach lost paint.

The original opaque paints were designed to be durable and flexible enough to withstand rough treatment as the cellulose sheets were passed around during filming sessions. Disney animators mixed the paints themselves instead of buying commercial brands that might not have adhered to the plastic. “Too much was at stake when they made these movies to leave anything to chance,” Mr. Schilling said.

Researchers will subject tiny cel samples to lab tests to simulate years of exposure to conditions like extreme temperatures, light, moisture and air. The results will also be useful to conservators working on 20th-century sculptures that contain plastics, Mr. Schilling said.

The Getty’s efforts will help preserve the animation collection not only for historians interested in Disney studies but also for future generations of cinephiles.

In September, a four-hour documentary about Walt Disney will air on public television. Sarah Colt, the director and producer, said the movie will have footage of animators at work. “It just took an army of artists” to make the early films, she said.

Cels from Disney productions have ended up on the market, selling for as little as a few hundred dollars each.

Heritage Auctions in Dallas, which regularly offers them, notes occasional condition problems in its catalogs, such as wrinkles and cracks.

SHAKESPEAREAN OBSESSION

Biographers only recently started poring over the voluminous documentation that Henry Clay Folger and his wife, Emily, made of their purchases of Shakespearean works. “The Millionaire and the Bard: Henry Folger’s Obsessive Hunt for Shakespeare’s First Folio,” due out on Tuesday from Simon & Schuster, by Andrea Mays, explains how the couple divided up responsibilities in their shared mania.

The Folgers built their Shakespeare collection with little input from others. From the 1880s to the 1920s, they invested Mr. Folger’s Standard Oil earnings in hundreds of thousands of publications, manuscripts and paintings. They paid tens of thousands of dollars each for rarities, including editions of plays printed in 1623, known as First Folios. When the Folgers traveled, they took along boxfuls of file cards of their cataloged acquisitions. To ensure everything would stay together, they built the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington.

“Emily read thousands of booksellers’ catalogs, marking them with dog-eared corners and making pencil squiggles in the margins,” Ms. Mays writes in “The Millionaire and the Bard.” Henry Folger negotiated with dealers and tracked what was for sale around the world. “He took meticulous notes on condition, completeness, binding, provenance, and prices paid,” she continues.

One of the couple’s favorite dealers was A. S. W. Rosenbach, whom Stephen H. Grant, the author of “Collecting Shakespeare: The Story of Henry and Emily Folger” (published last year by Johns Hopkins University Press), describes as “the most erudite rascal in the book business.” When Mr. Rosenbach needed quick cash, Mr. Grant writes, he would show an associate “something printed in the Shakespearean period and plead: ‘Can you make this into Shakespeareana? I want to sell it to Folger.’ ” References to Denmark and Falstaff’s basso singing were sometimes enough to persuade Mr. Folger to write checks.

Next year, for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, the Folger library will team up with the Cincinnati Museum Center and the American Library Association on exhibitions of the 1623 First Folios, which will travel to all 50 states.

Daniel De Simone, head librarian at the Folger, said that despite the recent biographies, the Folgers’ innermost thoughts and feelings remain a mystery.

“The nature of their private relationship is even unknown to us,” he said.

Animation

Contact us for your 2d and 3d animation requirements email-info@pixotritechnologies.com. Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9xSWDsTYC8

Middle school student wins prestigious art award for animation

What began as fiddling with his mother’s iPad has turned into a national award for Chickahominy Middle School eighth-grader Pablo McCrimmon.

Pablo, 14, won a gold medal in film and animation from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for “The Thanksgiving Song” and is one of 16 recipients of the award in various categories in the Richmond region.

Winners of the award hail from Canada to Croatia to South Korea, and Pablo is one of five recognized for film and animation, including home-schooled student Abby Goss, 17, of Ashland, who won the silver medal in the category. There were 70 gold and silver medal winners in Virginia for 2015.

Scholastic Art & Writing Awards started in 1923 to recognize artistic talent in addition to traditional athletic achievements in schools and has since become a prestigious honor with alumni such as Andy Warhol and Robert Redford.

Pablo got his start in animation on a simple app when he was in sixth grade and used it for projects his teachers assigned with some creative freedom. He later saved up $200 for an animation tablet to draw with a pen instead of a mouse and took over his family’s spare room for his workspace.

He said he gets illustration inspiration from “Eddsworld,” a YouTube video series, and Matt Groening, the co-creator of “The Simpsons.” Pablo’s creations include music videos, anecdotes inspired by classroom happenings, and “Pablo’s Life,” for which he is on the third installment.

“I really like YouTube because it gives me a platform to get feedback and share with my audience,” Pablo said. He has attended animation workshops held at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, gaining mentors and peers in the craft. He’s working on making his animation more fluid and cleaning up his design, he said.

The song in the award-winning animation was itself inspired by his mother’s prodding when he sat at the Thanksgiving table getting increasingly antsy waiting for the food.

“What should I do?” Pablo recalls asking his mother, Catherine Ingrassia. “There’s not many Thanksgiving carols.”

It was his third animated video ever, and he completed it in a little more than a week. His mother found out about the Scholastic contest and encouraged him to enter it.

“So I guess the moral of the story in animation is to listen to your mother,” he said with a smile. “It’s really exciting because I never thought my animation would be award-winning.”

Pablo and other winners will attend an awards ceremony in New York City in June.

Game development

The employees at Pixotri Game Studio have vast experience in creating games and are always trying to push the boundaries of technology and creativity. The games are created using the most popular game enigine Unity, which provides robust, high performance, platform independent solution to creating games.

Pixotri technology is a creative house developing quality web designs, E-Commerce solution. SEO services and Gaming development .

Contact us for your mobile gaming requirements email-info@pixotritechnologies.com. Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9xSWDsTYC8

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Classic DC Animation Makes The Batman V Superman Trailer So Much Cooler

DC has always been one step ahead of Marvel in the animation department. This may be an unpopular opinion, but the Justice League and Batman animated series, even spin-offs like Young Justice, were top notch, and their straight-to-DVD releases are always highly anticipated events. So, perhaps, that teaser trailer for Batman v Superman could be just a little bit better if it were animated.

For the folks at JST Entertainment, a movie and multimedia production studio based in Oregon, that statement was true. They used the Batman v Superman footage as a template and then sprinkled in moments from the animated versions of Batman and Superman, as well as quotes from characters like Lex Luthor and Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred to spice things up a bit.

Ever since Warner Bros. released this first look at the superhero showdown, tech-savvy fans have been putting their own spins on the trailer. There was that retro trailer featuring footage of Adam West from the original Batman TV series and Christopher Reeve from the older Superman movies, as well as the Honest Trailer, poking fun at the layering of voices, and a LEGO reimagining. All are pretty impressive, considering how much time and effort it takes to put something like that together, and the animated version we see here joins the higher ranks of Internet stardom.

Following the events of Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice will handle the repercussions of Kal-El revealing himself to the world. Some will think him their savior, some a false God and some, like Luthor (played here by Jesse Eisenberg), will see him as a demon. All this chatter, which we hear in the first half of the official trailer, no doubt influence how Wayne see this figure. Seeing him more as a tyrannical space invader than a child of light, he suits up in a Power Suit to face off against the man who seemingly cannot bleed. Watch the original trailer below.

In addition to these two DC deities, Batman v Superman will also feature the likes of Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne, Diane Lane, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, as well as more heroes from the upcoming DC cinematic universe. Gal Gadot will make her first appearance as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman and Jason Momoa will appear as Arthur Curry/Aquaman, while folks like Ezra Miller (Barry Allen/The Flash) and Ray Fisher (Victor Stone/Cyborg) are rumored for the film.

Animation

Contact us for your 2d and 3d animation requirements email- info@pixotritechnologies.com. Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9xSWDsTYC8

Friday, May 1, 2015

DreamWorks Animation Earnings Beat Q1 Projections Narrowly

DreamWorks Animation, reeling from a restructuring and a string of underperforming films, reported earnings that were slightly better than projected, after taking out one-time restructuring costs. The company announced a net loss of 64 cents per-share on Thursday, but after taking out January restructuring costs, that improved to a minus 37 cents a share. Analysts had projected a 45 cents per share negative mark going into the announcement.

The toon maker’s revenues of $166.5 million were just ahead of projections, but the costs attributable to layoffs and the remaking of the Burbank-based company dragged earnings lower. The company reported a net loss of $54.8 million for the quarter that ended March 31.

Chief executive and founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, despite still being in rebuilding mode, said he found hope for the future in the company’s lone 2015 film release, “Home.” The animated feature has logged more than $300 million in worldwide box office since its opening a month ago.

The company reported production costs of about $135 million and P&A expenses of roughly the same, meaning that distributor Fox is being paid off and DreamWorks can expect to log more revenue from the film in the second quarter of 2015.

“While 2015 is a transitional year for us, the worldwide box office performance of ‘Home’ serves as early evidence that the changes we’re making in the core feature animation business are working,” Katzenberg said.

He also cited the company’s “All Hail King Julien,” winner of the Emmy for outstanding children’s animated program, as another bright spot, saying the win showed the company possesses “extraordinary talent” that is still producing high-quality product.

DreamWorks had struggled in recent years as a series of releases – including “Penguins of Madagascar,” “Turbo” and “Rise of the Guardians” – disappointed at the box office, leading to writedowns for the studio.

Katzenberg had promised to retool the company and to return his personal focus to filmmaking, rather than to the studio’s television and merchandising operations.

As part of the makeover, Katzenberg named producers Bonnie Arnold and Mireille Soria as co-chiefs of the feature animation unit, replacing creative boss Bill Damaschke, who left the company in January after 20 years, the last four as chief creative director.

The company also reduced its slate from three to two films a year, with “Home” the lone offering it will put forward in 2015. The film was released March 27, at the end of the first quarter.

Katzenberg had previously expressed high hopes for Arnold and Soria. Arnold was the top producer on the “How to Train Your Dragon” films. The second installment in that series offered some home for DreamWorks last year, making more than $618 million worldwide.

e-commerce

Our successful eCommerce software solutions deliver an optional shopping experience for targeted prospects. Our solution creates fast, easy browsing and simple ordering and checkout process.Pixotri technology is a creative house developing quality web designs, E-Commerce solution. SEO services and Gaming development .

Contact us for your online shopping requirements email-info@pixotritechnologies.com. Visit our website: www.pixotritechnologies.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9xSWDsTYC8