Animation test for Jeff Raglus
Here is a looped piece that I animated in flash for Jeff Raglus, a Victorian based artist and musician. Jeff has exhibited his art all over Australia for many years, and he was one of the original kooky artists that helped bring the popular surf brand “Mambo” to fame.
This animated piece has been achieved using flash’s “tweening” morph-like animation techniques. I’m afraid to say that I found these methods very unintuitive to use, often difficult to edit and results can be unpredictable. I’m still getting used to how flash works so maybe I’ll get used to these techniques more and find it easier next time!
I have been a fan of Jeff Raglus’s art for sometime now. We have talked about the idea of animating his work quite a few times, often in the surf, where our high powered meetings take place. He showed me a couple of his paintings from a recent exhibition he had at Qdos Art Gallery in Lorne. Here are Jeff’s paintings that this piece is based off:
Jeff and I are potentially developing his character “Schnorky the Wave Puncher” into a small animated series. We are still discussing which techniques of animation are preferable, and will continue various tests. It’s still very early days, so we’ll just have to see what transpires!
The Lost Thing wins best short at the 2010 AEAF Awards.
I just heard that The Lost Thing won the Short Film category at this years ‘Australian Effects and Animation Festival’ Awards, held in Sydney. There were 12 films in contention for this award, most of which I unfortunately haven’t yet seen. I look forward to checking them all them out in time. It’s important to support Australian work, and it is certainly exciting to win this award here in Australia. Here is the press release to read further about the winners and nominees of all other categories.
The Lost Thing wins the Grand Prix for Best Short Film at the Melbourne International Film Festival
Last Sunday the awards night was held for the short films of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF). It was at the end of a weekend of shorts programs, that showed almost 100 films in total. There were films from all over the world in many different styles, including documentary, fictional, experimental and animation. Melbourne is my home town, and where The Lost Thing film was created, in a room above a laundromat. I have been to the MIFF many times in years past, and it was exciting to have a film that I had animated screening in the festival.
I finally saw the film Angry Man, which I liked very much. I have quite a deep appreciation for the traditional methods of stop-motion animation that Anita Killi used so beautifully in this film. During the awards announcements I was a little crest-fallen at first when we missed out on the award for best animation, although I understood why Angry Man had won. It is indeed worthy of the award. Thinking that our award window was then closed, it was an incredible surprise when the last award was announced – The Grand Prix for Best Short Film, awarded to The Lost Thing. I’m not sure exactly, but it must be one of the first times (if not the actual first) that an animated film has won overall against all other shorts, including live action. It is a great honour, and needless to say we, the small Lost Thing team, are pretty chuffed.
Leo Baker (animator and editor), Sophie Byrne (Producer) and Shaun Tan (Creator and Director)
Here you can read the press release of all the short film winners.
The Sneaky Rafter returns in “Nelson-land”
A while back I did a little test piece of animation of the “Sneaky Rafter” of Nelson Beer for The Taboo Group. They asked me to do another conceptual piece incorporating the 4 different iconic designs of the beer labels. The main icon being the “Sneaky Rafter” spider-monkey type creature (designed by Sonny Day and Biddy Maroney), as well as the “Rinzen Eye”, the “Trimapee” fashion label design, and “The Temper Trap” (band) head icon.
The characterization and animation of these 4 designs was created in 2 weeks. It’s not as well presented as I would have liked, but I’m glad I managed to output the concept of ‘Nelson-land’. I hope you can appreciate it for a piece completed in such tight time constraints.
Nelson Land from shredFest on Vimeo.
The Lost Thing is runner up at Palm Springs
Just got news that The Lost Thing was runner up to the winning film Angry Man under the category of best animated short, at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. I haven’t seen Angry Man yet, but am looking forward to catching it at a festival somewhere -It looks very intriguing indeed. It’s great to have the continued exposure for The Lost Thing! Congratulations to both films!
The Lost Thing wins the Yoram Gross Animation Award
The Lost Thing recently screened at the Sydney International Film Festival, which I attended for the first screening. It was great to see the film on the big screen amongst a public audience and hear their reactions.
At the end of the festival the awards were announced and The Lost Thing received the Yoram Gross Animation Award! It means a lot to win such an accolade in my own country. Here is a press release through Inside Film of the Award announcements for the 57th Sydney Film Festival.
Now I’m looking forward to the Melbourne International Film Festival!
The Lost Thing wins the Annecy Cristal!
Well, we were thrilled that The Lost Thing was accepted into The 34th Annecy International Animation Festival. But when it won the Cristal Award for best short film, we were completely over the moon!
Annecy is the worlds largest animation film festival, held in Annecy, France. To win this is a huge milestone for me, and the very small team at Passion Pictures Australia who worked to make this film. Congratulations to the LT gang, and a big thanks from me.
Here is a a youtube snippet of the Annecy festival, and of the Cristal awards announcement. Its all in French, but persevere till 2:20 where the winning short film is announced, The Lost Thing!
Here is wikipedia’s link about the animation festival, and previous winners of the Annecy Cristal.
“The Lost Thing” completed!
After over two and a half years of full time work, the animation project “The Lost Thing” is finally complete! Until now I haven’t been able to post any information about it, but now the Lost Thing website is up and running. Here you can see the trailer, stills and conceptual development of the film that I, and a small team adapted from Shaun Tan’s picture story book. I was responsible for all the animation and editing, as well as pre-visualisation, character rigging and contributions to everything else. Check it out!!
The film will now trickle through film festivals around the world, before an eventual dvd and blu-ray release.
So far (that I know of) it has been confirmed for the Annecy Animation Festival in France, the Sydney Film Festival and the Melbourne Film Festival, but I’m probably not meant to talk announce that just yet….
Its been a long project and a large amount of work for me, but I am most proud of the work and feel very privileged to have been given the opportunity to help bring such a fantastic project to life. I hope you can see it at a festival somewhere around the world!
skipping girl -2d animation in photoshop
Back to the world of drawing and 2d animation. I started animating this one in flash, and also tried pencil which is a free open source 2d animation program. I had intended to then paint each frame afterwards in photoshop, but i remembered that photoshop can do video layers, basically allowing you to load in image sequences, or animated frame by frame. So i did the final animation outline and then colour layers in photoshop. The result isn’t vector like flash produces, but you get access to all of the photoshop tools. Most of the time i would never need to work vector anyway. The playback was great, because its only 10 frames at 300 x 300 pixels, but I can’t see photoshop being able to handle stuff that was too higher resolution, or playing back long sequences. So, photoshop is great for doing small 2d animation tests, and shading stuff mapped out in other programs. I will definitely use it again for colouring / shading other 2d animation pieces.
Oh and I also figured out how to display pieces like this as a looping swf flash file, with transparent alpha! …check the edges. More stuff like this to come I think!
She skips all day, and never gets tired…
first go at flash animation
flash animation test -skater from shredFest on Vimeo.
This is my first attempt at animation in flash.
It’s all drawn frame by frame drawn at 25 fps. It is from reference, but isn’t rotoscoped. I then warped it in shake, adding a simulated camera move in 2d, as if a video person was following the action.
Its a little short and sweet, because its incomplete. The computer I was doing it on died with the flash project on it. Fortunately i had emailed a work in progress quicktime of it to my friend John -who did the accompanying sound. He then emailed me back this -which is all i have left of the project!
Next time i may just do 12 fps! Less frames to draw…
Also, here are some drawings I did of some skaters to get some of the posing figured out.
bringing the sneaky rafter to life -nelson beer
My good friends at the taboo group asked me to animate the character named “Sneaky Rafter” who is the original logo/icon for the new beer ‘Nelson’.
nelsonBeer
This is the first time he has been brought to life, so I guess we’re still figuring out his personality through the animation. I think he may be seen around Melbourne again, so keep your eyes peeled.
The lil rafter was projected at the Trimapee party for the end of Melbourne’s fashion week, raa raah daaahling!
Here is the animation of what was projected.