Regular readers of this blog might remember my gushing over Disney’s Tangled a few months ago. It wasn’t gushing on the level of my Mary and Max review (which was in serious danger of embarrassing Niagra at one point) but I certainly made it clear that I felt Disney was back on track.
So imagine my delight when we found that there was to be a special ‘Making Of’ session with some of the creators in London Town!
(Probably I should’ve mentioned this before the event, but it was a bit of a last minute thing and frankly I could do without the competition for tickets).
Here’s the blurb:
Join Clay Kaytis (Animation Supervisor) and Mohit Kallianpur (Look and Lighting Director) as they share an insider's look at the challenges and triumphs faced from character creation through final composite. Starting with the establishment of ambitious and hopeful objectives, the story continues with hair-raising tales of experimentation, trial and error, and breakthroughs during the course of bringing ‘Tangled,’ the Studio’s 50th full-length animated feature, to the big screen.
This panel will provide an inside look at the challenges and triumphs faced from character creation through final composite.
And it was great. Clay Kaytis isn’t actually an animator that I’m familiar with, but he spoke with passion and clearly knows his stuff (although a large percentage of the talk revolved around how great my favourite animator Glen Keane is and how many times he saved the day). Tangled’s animation has more character than any of their recent films, so it was fascinating to watch that come to life through trial after trial.
Mohit Kallianpur was funny and managed to find the exact level of geekiness for the room (high). Despite spending my life animating (I actually honestly found myself animating in my sleep once) it still staggers me how much work goes in to a production like this, and the incredible detail that they go in to for everything. To maintain such high quality over the 4 years of a production and still be smiling at the end takes a very special type of person!
Truly awesome artwork for Pixar
5 May 2011
In decorating our new studio (did we mention we had a new studio? – oh, we did? Sorry.) we have been desperately trying to source some original Disney film posters. Not poster designed recently to promote a new edition of the original films, but replicas of the posters that were created in the 30s, 40s and 50s.
Turns out they pretty much don’t exist. Which sucks.
This is really just a long winded way of getting to today’s point, which is to show you some awesome artwork that we discovered for some of the Pixar films during our search for these posters, as well as the original ride posters in Disneyland California which were the inspiration for them.
(And also to put it out there on the world wide web that should anyone know where we can get the posters we want, we’ll either:
• Bake you some cookies
• Sing you a song
• Draw you a caricature that may or may not look anything like you )
Turns out they pretty much don’t exist. Which sucks.
This is really just a long winded way of getting to today’s point, which is to show you some awesome artwork that we discovered for some of the Pixar films during our search for these posters, as well as the original ride posters in Disneyland California which were the inspiration for them.
(And also to put it out there on the world wide web that should anyone know where we can get the posters we want, we’ll either:
• Bake you some cookies
• Sing you a song
• Draw you a caricature that may or may not look anything like you )
UP
WALL-E
The Incredibles
RATATOUILLE
They're by hugely talented Pixar artist Eric Tan, and are inspired by the styles of the 50s, and by these posters for the original rides at Disneyland California.
They're by hugely talented Pixar artist Eric Tan, and are inspired by the styles of the 50s, and by these posters for the original rides at Disneyland California.
Barking Heads - comic strips
2 May 2011
We've been doing some work for organic pet food Barking Heads recently. The company uses a family of pets to represent their product, and they asked us to bring these characters to life through animation and a series of comic strips for their website and magazine adverts.
This project is a lot of fun to work on - although coming up with ideas for the strip has probably lost me a couple of fingernails! I thought I'd show a couple of the strips here, while we're working our little socks off on the animation for youtube.
Split Personality
18 Apr 2011
We’re currently trying to decorate our studio in a way that befits our split focuses of Animation and Web Design. Mostly this has involved multiple trips to Ikea.
One half (my half) represents our funky and creative natures – we have a mood wall for inspiration, paintbrushes that we’ll almost certainly never use, storyboards proudly displayed and of course, that staple of student bedrooms everywhere, a wooden mannequin.
Aaron’s side (or as I like to refer to it, the boring side) represents our technical natures. It has files and calculators, diagrams and charts, aspect ratios and financial projections. Bleurgh!
But it is at least all red and white, so it might be boring, but it is at least Slurpy branded boring.
One half (my half) represents our funky and creative natures – we have a mood wall for inspiration, paintbrushes that we’ll almost certainly never use, storyboards proudly displayed and of course, that staple of student bedrooms everywhere, a wooden mannequin.
Aaron’s side (or as I like to refer to it, the boring side) represents our technical natures. It has files and calculators, diagrams and charts, aspect ratios and financial projections. Bleurgh!
But it is at least all red and white, so it might be boring, but it is at least Slurpy branded boring.
New Studio!!!
12 Apr 2011
We are pleased and proud to invite you to a sneak peek at our new studio, in London Colney.
We’d been looking for a place considerably larger than our old studio in Harpenden, with better transport links and (all important) nice places to go during the rare moments when we lift our heads from our computers and feel like going outside for a few minutes.
The new studio fulfils all of those criteria. It’s big enough for the new animators and web designers that we’re looking to employ (and to do cartwheels, should the desire overtake us), it’s about as close to the M25 as you can get without being run over, and it’s situated on a beautiful river with willow trees and the all important ice cream van.
It’s also within short walking distance of the biggest Marks and Spencers I’ve ever seen!
This is a big step for our small studio, and we’re very excited about the future. Come visit us soon at Berkeley House, Barnet Road, London Colney, AL2 1BG.
We have cookies…
We’d been looking for a place considerably larger than our old studio in Harpenden, with better transport links and (all important) nice places to go during the rare moments when we lift our heads from our computers and feel like going outside for a few minutes.
The new studio fulfils all of those criteria. It’s big enough for the new animators and web designers that we’re looking to employ (and to do cartwheels, should the desire overtake us), it’s about as close to the M25 as you can get without being run over, and it’s situated on a beautiful river with willow trees and the all important ice cream van.
It’s also within short walking distance of the biggest Marks and Spencers I’ve ever seen!
This is a big step for our small studio, and we’re very excited about the future. Come visit us soon at Berkeley House, Barnet Road, London Colney, AL2 1BG.
We have cookies…
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