Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Toons

Oct 16th, 2010
by admin.
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Donald Markstein has created a wonderful resource for those interested in cartoons and animation with Toonopedia™ – “the world’s first hypertext encyclopedia of toons”. For the purposes of the encyclopedia, he defines toons to be:

‘A toon is a cartoon or cartoon character — “cartoon” referring not just to the animated kind, but also to such “still cartoons” as comic books, newspaper strips, magazine cartoons, etc.’

Given that many comic book, newspaper, and magazine toons are later turned into animated works, the fact that “still cartoons” are included may not detract from the usefulness of this resource to visitors of Cartoon and Animation.

LINK: Toonopedia™ http://www.toonopedia.com

QUESTION: What’s your favorite toon or article on Don Markstein’s Toonopedia™ and why? Please share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.

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Das Rad (“Rocks – English Subtitles) Academy Award Nominated Film by Chris Stenner, Arvid Uibel and Heidi Wittlinger

Dec 26th, 2009
by admin.
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Das Rad (“Rocks”), written and directed by Chris Stenner, Arvid Uibel and Heidi Wittlinger, was nominated for the 2003 Academy Award for Animated Short Film. Here is the synopsis of the film from Wikipedia:

“The film tracks a hillside from ancient times through the present and into the future, usually moving through time at high speed, representing geologic time (so that buildings appear and disappear in an instant), but occasionally switching to real time and showing the inhabitants and objects in motion in their day-to-day existence.”1

The following YouTube video provides English subtitles to the German original.

The film was produced by Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Germany and has receieved various distinctions beyond the Academy Award nomination including2:

  • the Special First Animation Award and Special Jury Award at the 2002 Anima Mundi Animation Festival
  • the Silver Poznan Goat at the 2003 Ale Kino! – International Young Audience Film Festival
  • the Student Category – Best Student or Graduation Film at the 2002 Annecy International Animated Film Festival
  • the Audience Award at the 2003 Fantoche – International Animation Film Festival
  • the Audience Award at the 2002 Sweden Fantastic Film Festival
  • the Best Short Film – Animation award at the 2004 Málaga International Week of Fantastic Cinema
  • the Audience Award – Student Competition at the 2002 Wiesbaden goEast

I think Chris Stenner, Arvid Uibel and Heidi Wittlinger’s depiction of geologic time as “real-time” is simply brilliant. What do you think about the film? Please share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.

References
  1. Das Rad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Rad Accessed December 26, 2009.
  2. Das Rad (2003/I) – Awards http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330801/awards Accessed December 26, 2009.
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Posted in: Acadamy Award Nominated, animated short, stop-motion animation, student film.
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Monkey News: The Space Monkey animated by Joost Reijmers

Dec 13th, 2009
by admin.
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I thought I’d post this in case you’re in need of a little comedy :) The video also gives a nice demonstration of flash animation by animator Joost Reijmers. Here is the YouTube description of the video (I’ve added the hyperlinks):

“Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington of Monkey News take you on a grand tour through space in this hilarious Monkey News episode animated by Joost Reijmers“

Please be forewarned that the video contains some adult language and is probably not appropriate for young children.

QUESTION: What’s your favorite episode of Monkey News?

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Posted in: animated short, comedy, Flash Animation.
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Fireworks Short Animated Stop Motion Film by PES

Nov 25th, 2009
by admin.
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In an earlier post I wrote about the award winning animated stop-motion short film Western Spaghetti by PES. Here’s another offering from PES, entitled Fireworks – enjoy! :)

Fireworks was written, directed, and animated by PES; and produced by PES & Sarah Phelps.1

PES now has a page dedicated to him on Wikipedia! Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about PES (aka Adam Pesapane):

‘Receiving a B.A. in English Literature at the University of Virginia, PES migrated to film as a storytelling medium. His use of everyday objects and stop-motion animation to create original material is instantly recognizable. [...] An early influence on PES’s animation style is the work of Czech surrealist Jan Švankmajer.’2

I plan on highlighting more of PES’ short films here on CartoonAndAnimation.com in the future – they really are fantastic and worth sharing & discussing. So please conisder subscribing to the Cartoon And Animation RSS feed to get notified of the latest posts and updates :)

References
  1. Fireworks on EatPES – Home of the Twisted Films of PES http://www.eatpes.com/fireworks.html Accessed November 25, 2009.
  2. PES (Director) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PES_%28director%29 Accessed November 25, 2009.
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Posted in: animated short, PES, short, stop-motion animation.
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“Cinema’s first entirely computer-generated sequence” – Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – a commentary on the making of the Genesis Effect

Nov 21st, 2009
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Last night I was discussing early computer generated graphic/animation sequences in movies. According to Wikipedia, Star Trek II -

“The Wrath of Khan was one of the first films to extensively use electronic images and computer graphics to speed production of shots. Graphics company Evan and Sutherland produced the vector graphics displays aboard the Enterprise and the fields of stars used in the opening credits. Among ILM’s technical achievements was cinema’s first entirely computer-generated sequence: the demonstration of the effects of the Genesis Device on a barren planet. The first concept for the shot took the form of a laboratory demonstration, where a rock would be placed in a chamber and turned into a flower. Veilleux suggested the sequence’s scope be expanded to show the Genesis effect taking over a planet. While Paramount appreciated the more dramatic presentation, they also wanted the simulation to be more impressive than traditional animation. Having seen research done by Lucasfilm’s Computer Graphics group, Veilleux offered them the task. The graphics team paid attention to detail for the sixty-second sequence; one artist ensured that the stars visible in the background matched those visible from a real star light-years from Earth. The animators hoped it would serve as a ‘commercial’ for the studio’s talents.”1

Here is a YouTube video giving a behind-the-scene commentary on the making of this famous computer generate movie sequence:

Here is a slightly better YouTube video of the Genesis Effect wave computer animated sequence:

Pretty impressive! :)

While on the topic of Start Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, it’s worth noting that the evil super villain Armando Guitierrez from the Freakazoid! animated cartoon TV series is voiced by Ricardo Montalban – the actor who played Khan Noonien Singh in the movie. Armando Guitierrez often behaves/talks similarly to Khan2 :)

References
  1. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrath_of_khan#Effects Accessed November 21, 2009.
  2. Freakazoid! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakazoid#Enemies Accessed November 21, 2009.
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