Pixar back on form with Inside Out

Pixar have released a brand new trailer for their upcoming film Inside Out and what a treat to the eyeballs it is too.

All we knew at first was that the film was set inside a girls head and we follow the lives of the little, dare I say it, 'brain trust' that control her emotions. Now from this trailer we are thrown completely! with the inclusion of multiple 'brain trusts' in multiple heads. The emotions are all linked to their specific characters personalities but fall back on their standard emotions of Anger, Sadness, Fear, Joy and Disgust, also their names.

I'll be honest and say that I haven't laughed this hard a trailer in years and it promises some more sharp humour and clever set ups that we were used to previous Pixar films, pre-Brave. Pixar seemed to have finally realised what their winning formula is and are back on form with Inside Out. One can only imagine how the rest of the plot will pan out. Mum's Anger meeting Dad's Anger, a switch of personalities, the introduction of animal emotions? Who knows but we all wait with not so much baited breath but joyful intrigue.

Pixars 'Numbskulls meets the Seven Dwarves' or Inside Out is set for a UK release in July so stand by for more teasers!

Song of the Sea - New trailer

At last another glimpse into the fascinating animated tale of Song of the Sea. The much anticipated new animated film from Irish studio Cartoon Saloon.

In the new Song of the Sea, US trailer, director Tomm Moore gives us more intriguing glimpses into the world of the Selkies. Based on an Irish legend about the existence of seal children, it follows a brother and sisters journey around this folklore steeped country to find their way back to the sea. The style and animation is just mesmerising. You can see through every nuance that the people behind this are truly passionate about what they are trying to achieve as Tomm Moore explains.

“This film has been a labor of love for so many of our crew for the past few years, I think their passion and commitment can be seen even in this short clip.” (source animationmagazine.net)

Like the success of Moore's and Cartoon Saloon's previous film The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea is also Oscar nominated and has won major awards throughout the festival season. I haven't been able to catch it yet but oh boy am I excited.

New Animation: The Fox and the Owl

So, over the last few months I've been finishing up on directing and animating a little film for Entrepreneur Impet called 'The Fox and the Owl'. It's a little Aesop's fable-esq film to explain all about their coaching method and what exactly coaching is.

I jumped at the chance to create this as the story was so interesting and my mind was flooded with inspiration and thoughts on the design. A few brainstorming sessions later we came up with a few rough sketches of the fox and the owl and it was full steam ahead. In terms of the overall style I thought back to cartoons such as Winnie The Pooh and Animals of Farthing Wood to get inspiration. They created such warm, cosy worlds to inhabit their characters and thats what I wanted to achieve here.

I love the result of the fox and the owl and how it all came together with the help of a great team. When the voiceover came through at the beginning of the project I was chomping at the bit to get started. The voiceover artist, Matt Simandl, did an amazing job and really bought the characters to life before I'd even put pencil to paper. With any luck we should all be working on the follow up next year so fingers crossed.

Pixar announce Toy Story 4

To infinity and beyond! looks to be a very apt phrase for the Toy Story franchise as John Lasseter dons his directors cap once more to take on Toy Story 4.

After a break from directing in Toy Story 3, handing the reigns over to Lee Unkrick, John Lasseter has decided to jump back into the saddle to direct the next adventure for Woody, Buzz and the gang. In an idea that came from Lasseters 'story trust' Pete Doctor, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrick he was said to have not stopped thinking about it and felt that it was the right the treatment and the right time to bring the gang back to together.

Speaking about the Toy Story 4 Lasseter expresses "We don’t want to do anything with them unless it lives up to or surpasses what’s gone before", but then he also said that about Cars 2 and that wasn't exactly overwhelming. After calling the Cars sequel a deliberate money spinner it kind of put me off him but I can't argue with the fact that every Toy Story film so far has been an outstanding success in terms of story, characters and box office sales.

Toy Story 3 ended Andy's story well and left the audience feeling complete, so what is in store for this next chapter. In an interview with The LA Times Lasseter explains that it will be a love story and pick up where 3 left off, all the toys now in the charge of pre-shooler Bonnie. With the hiring of screenwriters Rashida Jones and Will McCormack (Celeste and Jesse Forever), Lasseter revealed that he’d like “a strong female voice in the writing” hinting that Bonnie could be taking the lead role.

With Toy Story 4 not expected until 16th June 2017, I'll keep an open mind and pray for another successful chapter in the Toy Story saga and not a Cars 2 car crash.

John Lewis Christmas Advert 2014

It's the 6th November and looks like Christmas has arrived early (as it does every year!). John Lewis have unveiled their new Christmas Advert for 2014 and as soppy and cliched as it is, it's actually quite heart warming.

The John Lewis Christmas Advert has become a bit of a mainstay in UK Christmas culture now especially since the success of last years Bear and the Hare doing SO well. Animation is back this year with a CG Penguin taking on the role of the cute and cuddly. Stereotypical and cliched but hey thats Christmas for you...and no ones arguing with that. 

Oscar Best Animated Feature contenders are here

Its that time of year again when Oscar announce the contenders for this years Best Animated Feature. With no Pixar this year it looks like it could be the time for other studios to shine and that even goes for Disney! We await the shortlist.

Worthy contenders for the shortlist this year, in my opinion, go to Lego Movie, Song of the Sea, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Cheatin' and Boxtrolls. Lego Movie, even though studio Animal Logic is a bit outside the normal shortlisters, deserves it's place due to its overwhelming success and script originality. As soon as it burst onto the screen the reviews were nothing but great. It closed the gap between adult and children films, something where a lot of animated films fall down. How to Train your Dragon 2 really impressed again this year especially when it came to character acting. Dreamworlds are far ahead of Disney in this department and produced a film that really immersed you and made you at times forget you were watching an animated film, in a good way of course.

For pure technical brilliance alone Bill Plimpton's Cheatin', Boxtrolls and Song of the Sea all deserve a place. With some films not even out yet and therefore not qualified it could all change. Big Hero 6 and Penguins of Madagascar could all make a huge splash in the coming months. Take a look below at the full list of contenders for the Oscar Best Animated Feature and let us know who you think should win.

Big Hero 6 (Disney/Marvel), The Book of Life (Reel FX/Fox), The Boxtrolls (LAIKA/Focus), Cheatin’(Bill Plympton), Giovanni’s Island (Production I.G, Japan), Henry and Me (Reveal Animation Studios), The Hero of Color City (Exodus Film Group), How to Train Your Dragon 2 (DreamWorks/Fox), Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart (EuropaCorp, France), Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return(Summertime Ent.), The LEGO Movie (Animal Logic/WB), Minuscule – Valley of the Lost Ants(Futurikon/Entre Chien et Loup/Nozon, France), Mr. Peabody and Sherman (DreamWorks/Fox),Penguins of Madagascar (DreamWorks/Fox), The Pirate Fairy (Disney), Planes: Fire and Rescue(Disney), Rio 2 (Blue Sky/Fox), Rocks in My Pockets (Signe Baumane, Canada), Song of the Sea(Cartoon Saloon, Ireland) and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (Studio Ghibli, Japan).
(Source: animationmagazine.net) 

Sausage - The Animated Film is now online!

It's a film I've been wanting to see for a looooong time but now it's here, and during the start of Sausage Week too, I present to you... Sausage - The Animated Film.

After an amazing run on the festival circuit, collecting no less than 8 awards and being in contention for an Oscar, Robert Grieves Sausage is finally online for us all to take a gander at. I missed it at the few festivals I've attended over the last year so today couldn't have come sooner. Sausage is a tale of two food stall holders, a man who sells sausages and a woman who sells bread and cakes. Business is going well until a rival stall holder sets up, selling everything they sell but cheap and nasty versions. As the competition starts to spiral out of control our quick thinking duo come up with the perfect recipe for success.

As a big fan of the classic Cartoon Modern myself it's great to see this technique on show and in a abundance within Sausage. In an interview with Skwigly, director and animator  Robert Grieves explains that it all started when "the book ‘Cartoon Modern’ came out, and everything came together in a rush of inspiration". Tired of constantly doing his day job of motion graphic films for commercial and corporates he wanted a new challenge, something to drive his creativity and demonstrate his directorial instincts.

The films story is a classic tale redefined with modern ideals. Not sure how much of a political point Robert is trying to make (about capitalism) but none the less it s something we can all relate too. The animation is well conceived and there a lot of flourishes and quick comedic moments interspersed within the film that are reminiscent of the Hanna-Barbara cartoons of old. Perhaps a few more would have really helped to push this film further but overall it has to be up there with one of the best animated films this year. A deserved Oscar contender. We all wait with bated 'sausage fuelled' breath for the short list.

Time for a Halloween Animation

It's that time of year again when everything gets a bit spooky and we await the arrival of the dreaded trick or treaters. Obviously it wouldn't be right not to share a Halloween animation with you all.

A year or so ago now I had the pleasure of coming up with a promo for River Film's excellent competition Four4. Make a film on a given subject that has four shots at equally four seconds. Thats only 16 seconds in total, a very very short film competition. That years theme was horror so I was briefed to create a horror themed animation, or for the sake of this post a Halloween animation, to promote the competition. We tried to come up with a scenario that included some of the best known horror characters and we fit quite a few in. See if you can spot Frankenstein, Freddie Krueger, Chucky, the girl from the Exorcist and many more. Check it out below for a chilling surprise.

If you've got a Halloween animation then let me know in the comments below. Would be great to see them.

Fred Blunt the Illustrator

Twitter seems to be my portal into the illustration world and this week I uncovered this little diamond in the form of Fred Blunt.

I'm a sucker for children's illustrations. There is always so much life, appeal and the more they border upon the strange and surreal the better. I think it goes back to my childhood and reading a ton of Roald Dahl and looking at all the crazy Quentin Blake illustrations. Revolting Rhymes being one of my favourite books!

Fred Blunt certainly captures the essence of illustrators like Quentin Blake in his work, with his quirky nature and love of the strange. It's the freehand lines and sort of untamed line quality that really appeals. You can see the thought process behind each work and how organically its gone from his imagination right onto the paper. As an animator myself Fred really hooks you in and you can start to imagine how these characters would move and interact. I'll certainly be keeping an eye for more work so keep it up Fred Blunt!

It took me aaaages to find my favourite images so I hope everyone enjoys them. If you want to, and you should, head over to Fred's website to see all his work www.fredbluntillustration.com

Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas - Announce cast

Possibly the greatest Christmas film EVER! (apart from It's A Wonderful Life of course) Elf is back this year with an all new cast and all new medium. 

In an hour long feature set to broadcast on the smaller screen this Christmas comes Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas starring none other than Big Bang Theory's Jim Parsons as the over grown elf Buddy. The cast announced a few days ago also includes Mark Hamill, Jay Leno, Gilbert Gottfried (Iago-Aladdin) and Kate Micucci. From this line up it looks as though the film is aimed at a typically American audience which may not bode too well for a UK release, DVD only I think guys.

The most exciting bit about it all is that it will be based on "classic stop-motion Christmas specials with a modern-day holiday film sensibility". This is great news for all the older generations and animation geeks. Everyone loves the magic of stop-motion and what better time to relish in its craft than Christmas, wrapped up warm stuffing yourselves with mince pies. Also with 9 musical numbers throughout we could have some new Christmas tunes to set the holiday season to.

For all those stateside Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas will be aired December 16th over on NBC at 8pm. UK, well we'll just have to wait and see.

Kevin Pearce - Bedlam - Our new short film

We've released our new short film to accompany singer/songwriter Kevin Pearce's new song Bedlam. It's a chilly encounter set in a vast icy cavern. An insurmountable wall of ice separates a man and a woman. They must find a way to reach each other before it's too late....

I once again collaborated with co-director William Long for the first time since The Robin, so it was great to get back so soon and create another film. We started off with Kevin's thoughts of a man stuck in an icy palace. Our brains started ticking over and once Will's brother sparked us with the fact that comets are icy we were off. It went quickly from small story to epic short in a matter or hours and we're so glad it did.

We're so pleased with how it has gone so far, having been out in the world for a month now. We've already received showmetheanimation.com's Pick of Day and Film Shortage's prestigious Daily Pick and we couldn't be prouder. Please give the film a watch below, it would be great to hear your thoughts.

3D Futurama?

Is this the future???

New Uli Meyer Animation

Something special arises from Uli Meyer's Vimeo page every so often and here is his latest treat. Its a superb shapeshifting animation using some of Meyer's unique character creations. The flow is unsurpassed and the way there seems to be extra little characters in the shifts adds more intrigue. The eye is the point from where the shift is based and it elegantly pops from one side of a face to the other intrinsically holding it all together.  A great little animation piece from one of the UK's greatest talents.