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Posted by: Marc_Spess on Friday, January 02, 2009 - 02:23 PM |
There's been a ton of new news recently for the Neil Gaiman film Coraline that Focus Features will be releasing on February 6th. Here are some of the latest news pieces I've found:
The Cartoon Art Museum proudly presents original works of art from the feature film CORALINE, produced by LAIKA, the Portland-based animation studio owned by Nike co-founder and Chairman Philip H. Knight, and released by Focus Features on February 6, 2009. The exhibition features drawings, storyboards, puppets, sets, costumes and more from this groundbreaking movie, the first ever stop-motion animated film to be shot in 3D. In stop-motion animation, everything seen on screen actually exists in the real world, as opposed to computer-generated animation. This exhibit includes almost 80 pieces from the extraordinary world of Coraline, created by a team of over 300 artists bringing to life the vision of the worlds foremost stop-motion animation director, Henry Selick.
Read more about the exhibition here.
The official Coraline film web site has had some major upgrading, including new videos to search out here.
The official YouTube channel for Coraline has most of the films on the official site uploaded to it....but not all. So definitely look around the Coraline site, especially for the dancing mice. You'll be blown away! See the YouTube channel here.
There's an early review of Coraline on the Aint it Cool News site by Gaspode here. He had this to say about it "Did I mention that Coraline is also being shown in 3D? Or that this is the first 3D film that didn't give me a headache? Selick knows his way around the 3D arena, but he doesn't beat the audience over the head with it with over-intrusive, objects-sticking-out-of-the-movie-screen crap that one normally has to suffer through in these films. I'm still not convinced that 3D is the wave of the future, but I can now at least see some of the implications of its use."
There are official Coraline toys being made. You can look at them online here. At first I thought those were the real puppets.....are they?
Jeremy Spake listed all of the movie posters that Laika put all over the web here in their attempt at a marketing gimmick. They are sort of like internet easter eggs, where will they show up?
Finally Live Wire Radio will be interviewing Henry Selick about his involvement as the director on January 31st. Visit their site over here.
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Posted by: Marc_Spess on Thursday, January 01, 2009 - 06:31 PM |
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Hey everyone, this past year was very eventful for Animateclay.com, Zombie Pirates, the new Stop Motion Magic site and behind the scenes in my own personal life.
I got married December 2007, had a new born son in November 2008, built Stop Motion Magic this past summer, animated plenty of new shots for Zombie Pirates, expanded our online shop with more products and learned a little more about marketing to help keep our site expanding on the web.
Thanks to Don Carlson and Seamus Jennings - and Animator Tony "who occasionally posts", there a more varied types of news articles for everyone to read. And they couldn't have joined our site at a more important and busy time for me. Thanks guys!
I also got to meet some new people, learn of new stop motion blogs and watch new animations from all over the world thanks to the growth of YouTube and other video sharing sites.
There are also plenty of films being made all over, including some major features for release in 2009! The future looks good for clay and stop motion!
My predictions are that there will be more stop motion in 2009, especially with new and younger people gaining interest after they see it more in theaters and TV. The seeds are being planted that can only keep growing. As technology improves and comes down in cost "thanks to the global economy", I think that with sites like ebay and the depreciating costs of older but perfectly good camera equipment, we'll also be seeing higher quality film productions by younger people. Not to mention the over-saturation of new stop motion capture programs. There seems to be about 5-8 new ones every year.
The video sharing sites are also allowing higher visual quality output for viewers. YouTube just added the new HD format for people to use. This is great since it directly transfers the visuals as film makers want others to see without the blockyness and tinny audio. Now films can be seen as directors want - with the limits of technology on the shoulders of the viewer.
So thanks everyone for getting involved with us and helping to keep stop motion alive and well into the future!
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Posted by: Marc_Spess on Wednesday, December 24, 2008 - 11:04 PM |
Randy Boyum has done it again by completing a new short how-to video using clay animation called How to Survive a Bear Attack. He revealed all his methods in an e-mail to us so I thought it would be nice to share. Thanks a lot Randy for the info, your work is really an inspiration.
"This piece took a total of 564 hours to make, spread out over 7 1/2 months. I built the puppet armatures in my usual way - plastic-coated copper wire with copper tubing for bones. I covered the armatures with cotton batting - just glued on with a hot glue gun - and then covered them in cloth. I have no idea how to sew - so I simply glued the fabric together - both the bear's fur and the man's clothing.
The character's heads are hard-baked Sculpey with replaceable parts - (eyelids, eyebrows, pupils and mouths - all stuck on with wax). The man's hands are also Sculpey. I usually bake one set of hands in a relaxed position, but I also make a couple more sets that I leave soft for animating
The forest set, 8 feet long and 4 feet deep, is on a wood base, with a foam-core structure for the hills. (Actually, the main structure of the background hills is left over from "Rudolph Revisited". I just scraped off the white clay and recovered them in browns and greens.) All the "dirt" is clay. The pine trees were purchased at a craft store. The deciduous trees have trunks made with PVC pipe, covered in clay. I drilled holes in the pipe and glued in real branches, which are covered with some great plastic leaves that I also found at a craft store. They were individual branches that actually had a thin wire running down the stem, each with about 50 leaves on them. I just wrapped the wire around the real branch and had instant leafy trees!! (Well not "instant" - each tree took 6 - 8 hours to build)
All the bushes are various plastic plants I bought - always choosing the smallest leaves I can find. Then I threw in a bunch of small sticks and things I found lying around - and voila! I had a mini forest!"
You can watch the video here.
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Posted by: Nofby on Monday, December 22, 2008 - 11:42 AM |
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Here are a couple of stopmotion greeting cards to get you in the festive cheer!
Made by Mike Gaiss, the first card is a parody of the old maxell commercial and the 2nd is customer support related.
Santa's preparation
South Pole
From all at Animateclay, enjoy your holiday and don't forget to take part in the Christmas puppet contest!
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Posted by: pram on Friday, December 19, 2008 - 05:14 PM |
In the spirit of the holidays, Aardman is broadcasting their newest Wallace and Gromit short, "A Matter Of Loaf and Death" on BBC One, Christmas Day. If you do not live in the UK or can't wait to see the film (or have to work when it airs), it is up in its entirety here.
*the upload on that site is not legal, so it may disappear soon.*
"Loaf and Death" was created digitally, making this the first Wallace and Gromit film to be shot with high resolution digital still cameras instead of 35mm film. Stop Motion Pro was used to assist the animators throughout production of this television special. Yet another reason to buy Stop Motion Pro from our shop!
Interesting to note: In this one, Gromit walks on two legs instead of four.
Watch director Nick Park talk about the new film here.
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