Thursday 14 June 2012

Tim Burton: The Early Disney Years

#Tim #Burton: The Early Disney Years : #DISNEY #D23 For many young people, being hired to work as an animator at Disney Feature Animation is a dream come true, but for recently graduated Timothy Burton of Burbank, Calif., it was a living nightmare.

He felt out of place with his fellow animators. His unique, quirky approach to subject matter and drawing was eventually considered unmarketable and a drain on the Disney Company’s resources and he was finally let go. However, like most Disney stories, this one also has a “happily ever after” ending where a Burton project became a Disney film classic.

Wednesday 13 June 2012

Animator Travis Knight on the Spooky Stop-Motion Saga of 'ParaNorman' + Exclusive Photos!

Animator Travis Knight on the Spooky Stop-Motion Saga of '#ParaNorman' + Exclusive Photos!: #STOPMOTION #CORALINE #LAIKA As the president and CEO of Laika, the animation studio who wowed audiences with its adaptation (directed by Henry Selick) of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, one might expect to find Travis Knight sitting behind a desk or in power lunch meetings with business partners. While Knight may do some of that, a good chuck of his day is spent alone on a studio set moving and photographing plastic puppets, one grueling frame at a time. For Knight served as lead animator on Coraline, and is doing so again with Laika's follow-up macabre stop-motion epic, ParaNorman. I recently joined a group of journalists in meeting Knight at Laika's Portland headquarters, where he was in the midst of animating one of the film's many labor-intensive scenes. Find out what he had to say about ParaNorman, and check out some exclusive behind-the-scenes images, after the jump.

Tuesday 12 June 2012

The Awesome Storytelling of Disney California Adventure’s New Buena Vista Street

The Awesome Storytelling of #Disney California Adventure’s New Buena Vista Street: #D23 As many of you know, I’m a big theme park fanatic. I’m not a huge fan of Pixar’s Cars, but yet I’ve been eagerly awaiting (for the last few years) the addition of Cars Land to Disneyland’s offerings. And while Cars Land is gearing up to open on June 15th, I’m equally as excited to see the launch of Buena Vista Street, Disney’s new opening to California Adventure. Many people are looking at this combination as a complete relaunch of the theme park, California Adventure 2.0. There were a lot of problems with the initial offering, and Disney has spent $1.1 billion re-construction to right almost all the wrongs, and actually make the park feel like a Disney experience.

Monday 11 June 2012

Watch: Euro history recreated in Lego

Watch: Euro history recreated in #Lego: A tip of the hat goes to Scottish animator Graham Love for his video documenting great moments in European Championship history using Lego.

Wednesday 6 June 2012

The Art of Motion Capture

The Art of Motion Capture: #mocap Our new show where we look at the well known, and not so well known jobs in the video game and film industry.