Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Christmas Shoes by Patton Oswalt
Christmas has come and gone, but Patton Oswalt has something to say about the song "Christmas Shoes," set to animation by John Kuramoto.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Monday, December 24, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
"Holly Jolly Christmas"
Snowman Week concludes with everybody's favorite frozen narrator, Sam, singing the closing number from Rankin/Bass's "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Frosty the Snowman (UPA)
This version of "Frosty the Snowman" was created in 1954 by United Productions of America. Popular mainly throughout the midwest, it's a mainstay of Chicago's WGN-TV.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
The Snowman - Walking In The Air
Here's a snippet from Raymond Briggs' "The Snowman," the 1982 adaptation of his 1978 book.
Watch the full-length special by clicking here.
Watch the full-length special by clicking here.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Frosty The Snowman
This week is Snowman Week on Animation of the Day. And to kick it off, one of the most recognized, beloved snowmen off all time, Frosty!
Produced by Rankin/Bass five years after their holiday mega-hit "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Frosty the Snowman" marks the first time the company used traditional cel animation in a holiday special (rather than stop-motion) in an effort to create a greeting card look. Notice the use of washed out, warm pastels and jagged, overlapping sketch lines in the backgrounds.
Now, everybody sing along...
Produced by Rankin/Bass five years after their holiday mega-hit "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Frosty the Snowman" marks the first time the company used traditional cel animation in a holiday special (rather than stop-motion) in an effort to create a greeting card look. Notice the use of washed out, warm pastels and jagged, overlapping sketch lines in the backgrounds.
Now, everybody sing along...
Saturday, December 15, 2012
BONUS! It's a SpongeBob SquarePants Stop-Motion
A behind-the-scenes look at the SpongeBob stop-motion special, as told by Primetime Love.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Robot Chicken: Gandalf Game Show
The new addition to Peter Jackson's Middle Earth cycle -- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey -- opens in theaters today. To celebrate, here's a "Robot Chicken" sketch featuring Gandalf (as voiced by Bryan Cranston) facing off with a puppet modeled after me!
Thursday, December 13, 2012
The Spirit of Christmas
This is where it all began for Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
As film students in 1992, they created the first "Spirit of Christmas" short using construction paper and an old 8mm camera.
A copy of this short somehow made its way to an executive at Fox, who then commissioned Parker and Stone to make a new "Spirit of Christmas" short which he distributed to some 80 friends as a "video Christmas card" in 1995.
It was so popular amongst its recipients that it became a must-have bootleg throughout the industry. It wasn't long before the TV networks started calling, and in 1997 "South Park" debuted on Comedy Central.
As film students in 1992, they created the first "Spirit of Christmas" short using construction paper and an old 8mm camera.
A copy of this short somehow made its way to an executive at Fox, who then commissioned Parker and Stone to make a new "Spirit of Christmas" short which he distributed to some 80 friends as a "video Christmas card" in 1995.
It was so popular amongst its recipients that it became a must-have bootleg throughout the industry. It wasn't long before the TV networks started calling, and in 1997 "South Park" debuted on Comedy Central.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
"Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer" by The California Raisins
Back in 1987, CBS first aired "A Claymation Christmas Celebration," featuring the titular stop-motion methods pioneered by Will Vinton and made popular by the California Raisins ad campaign (among other works). Here are the California Raisins performing the special's climactic piece, "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer."
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
Christmas Vacation intro
The bright, colorful, squishy, excellently-animated opening credits sequence to the modern classic National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation deserves it's own showcase. So here it is.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Saturday, December 8, 2012
BONUS! Voice actor Rob Paulsen on playing Pinky, Yakko Warner, and two mutant ninja turtles
Voice actor Rob Paulsen on playing Pinky, Yakko Warner, and two mutant ninja turtles
Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about.
The actor: Rob Paulsen began his acting career in front of the camera, yet in spite of (or perhaps because of) featured roles in Body Double and Stewardess School, he took advantage of the opportunity to shift gears and pursued a career in voice acting instead. This decision was fortuitous: Paulsen has become one of the most recognizable and popular figures in his field, voicing characters in some of the most famous cartoons of the past few decades, including Animaniacs, Pinky And The Brain, The Tick, and, perhaps most impressively, two different heroes on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: first Raphael, and now, in Nickelodeon’s new incarnation of the series, Donatello. He also frequently discusses voicework with other ...
Read more
Welcome to Random Roles, wherein we talk to actors about the characters who defined their careers. The catch: They don’t know beforehand what roles we’ll ask them to talk about.
The actor: Rob Paulsen began his acting career in front of the camera, yet in spite of (or perhaps because of) featured roles in Body Double and Stewardess School, he took advantage of the opportunity to shift gears and pursued a career in voice acting instead. This decision was fortuitous: Paulsen has become one of the most recognizable and popular figures in his field, voicing characters in some of the most famous cartoons of the past few decades, including Animaniacs, Pinky And The Brain, The Tick, and, perhaps most impressively, two different heroes on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: first Raphael, and now, in Nickelodeon’s new incarnation of the series, Donatello. He also frequently discusses voicework with other ...
Read more
Friday, December 7, 2012
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Lavatory - Lovestory
This Russian cartoon by Konstantin Bronzit was nominated for a Best Animated Short Oscar in 2009.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Saturday, December 1, 2012
BONUS! Animatic vs. Animation
Our friends at "Robot Chicken" offer this educational look at the decisions that go into changing a final animated shot from what was planned in the storyboard stage. Enjoy!
A Closer Look at Hemlock Gin & Juice
There are a lot of variables that can necessitate changes between animatic and animation, as you’ll see in this post.
Check out these stills from this week’s “wet t-shirt contest” sketch. Here is the opening shot, first as it appears in the animatic, and then as it appeared on TV:
Besides the angle being a little wider, everything looks pretty similar, right? Check out the next shot.
While the board calls for the camera to pan over to the man shouting, we opted to do a digital punch in. The camera angle didn’t change, we just zoomed in a bit. Why? Because in TV production, time rules all. Our show (and all other shows) are on an extremely tight deadline. A physical camera movie takes a lot of time, but a digital punch-in only takes a few seconds.
The original boards cut to a new wall, but we chose to frame our first shot with the wall already in frame. If had done what the boards asked, we would have had to re-frame our camera and put up a new set! Our final angle is also nice because it doesn’t require the characters to move around as much, which saves time and improves the pacing of the sketch.
We have to make decisions like this for every sketch! Spending less time on some sketches allows us to spend more time on others. In the end, the joke is king. We won’t cut corners if it makes the punchline fall flat. It’s a careful balancing act, but after six seasons we’ve gotten pretty good at it!
Click here to read more from the "Robot Chicken" folks.
A Closer Look at Hemlock Gin & Juice
There are a lot of variables that can necessitate changes between animatic and animation, as you’ll see in this post.
Check out these stills from this week’s “wet t-shirt contest” sketch. Here is the opening shot, first as it appears in the animatic, and then as it appeared on TV:
Animatic
Animation
Animatic
Animation
Animatic
Animation
Animatic
Animation
We have to make decisions like this for every sketch! Spending less time on some sketches allows us to spend more time on others. In the end, the joke is king. We won’t cut corners if it makes the punchline fall flat. It’s a careful balancing act, but after six seasons we’ve gotten pretty good at it!
Click here to read more from the "Robot Chicken" folks.
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