Here's the latest poster for "TMNT."
It's almost like they're staring at you and saying, "Our voice acting will probably annoy the hell out of you." Either that or, "Please don't scratch your name into our shells, you jerkhole."
I was never good at reading turtles facial expressions.
Softimage has interviews now up with some of the key figures behind Blur's latest short, "Gentlemen's Duel."
Featured in the interviews are Tim Miller, Jason Taylor, JD Fievet, and Remi McGill. In case you've forgotten, Mr. Taylor did a 10 Quick interview right here on Bleeding Pixels not so long ago.
As for these interviews, they're really more infomercials for how amazing Softimage is, according to the Blur crew. This stands to reason, as the "interviews" are housed on the Softimage website. So don't get your hopes up that you'll see any clips from the short, but some plot details are revealed and you can finally see some of the faces behind Blur Studio's amazing work.
Now if only I could find a place to see the short...
Softimage's Interviews with Blur
10 Quick with Jason Taylor
The RE-Animation Blog has posted a really nice short film called, "Bungle In the Jungle."
The film has an obvious Roadrunner and Coyote feel to it, and the models and textures are very well done. The only thing that tarnished it a bit for me was the fact that the 4 minute short uses roughly 30,000 cliche sound effects for bonks, bumps, and biffs. Just watch it and you'll see what I mean.
Bungle in the Jungle Short
RE-Animation Blog
Ain't It Cool News has a handful of screenshots from the upcoming "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" film.
The jury is still out for me on this one, as the art looks superb, but the voice acting seems like it might get really annoying.
Be warned that AICN mentions how the last shot in the series could be a spoiler that you may want to save until you watch the film in theaters. I looked at the last shot and personally had no idea how seeing it spoiled anything for me, but I also was the guy who had no idea that knowing that the Titanic sank would spoil the end of that movie for me as well.
AICN's TMNT FTW BYOB!
Dreamworks found a shiny black nugget in their stocking this year, in the form of Variety's article, which lists "Flushed Away" as one of the biggest flops of the year.
The article mentions that the film, which received very good reviews, only managed to make around $61 million at the box office, despite its budget of $150 million.
Maybe they should have stuck to making clay models out of clay, rather than investing millions of dollars in high-end computers to try to get the same result. It would be like my niece hiring a New York advertising firm to help her create the construction paper bookmarks she gives us every year for Christmas.
Variety's Article on the Box Office Flops of 2006
At the risk of offending anyone I have chosen to wish you all a very joyous and wonderful Festivus.
So this blog is about 3D animated films, and I guess technically the new "Transformers" film falls somewhere into that category, so here is the new trailer:
Two more shorts from the TV show "Minuscule" are now online at YouTube.
MSNBC has an article posted about Jerry Seinfeld that reveals some plot details for his upcoming CG film, "Bee Movie."
The movie, actually, is animated and stars Seinfeld's distinctly New York voice as Barry B. Benson, a bee who leaves the hive and discovers, to his horror, that humans have been stealing their honey. While out in the wide world, Barry falls for Vanessa, a New York City florist (voiced by Renée Zellweger). "Somehow you buy that these two hit it off," Seinfeld explains. "It's sweet, it's sweet—but I don't really go for sweet. It happened, and I didn't resist. But I just go for funny."
In my best Seinfeld voice, "What's the deal with the humans stealing our honey?!?!"
More on Jerry and "Bee Movie" at MSNBC
Pixar's little rat has a new home on the web... or at least an updated one.
My hope is that the next animal that everyone in Hollywood chooses to make movies about after the rats, bugs and penguins, is the water bison. For one I think that they are a species that has been totally neglected by computer animation and for another I just think their frames lend themselves very well to comedy.
Disney's Updated "Ratatouille" Website
If you've got 5 years to kill, the new "Shrek the Third" teaser is up over at Moviefone.
I say 5 years, because that's roughly how long it took for the movie to load for me. I became a grandfather by the time it was done loading and I wasn't even a father before it began.
Thanks. I'll be here all week.
"Shrek the Third" Teaser at Moviefone
Last night we here in the Seattle area (and surrounding states) were hit with a horrible storm that brought with it flooding and wind gusts as high as 90mph on the coast (60mph inland). Power finally came back on at around 9:30am this morning, after being out since around midnight.
My wife and I were very lucky in that we are safe and suffered no real damage to our property. However, people lost their lives, homes were destroyed by massive trees that couldn't stand up to the abnormal wind, and thousands are still without power. It's a horrible mess to say the least.
Needless to say, I won't be updating the blog until late this afternoon, if at all. I'll try to get something up over the weekend, but you should expect normal updates to return on Monday. I apologize for two delays in posting in one week, but I hope you can understand.
Thank you.
CNN's Coverage of the Storm
A nice little "Christmas Card" of sorts from the folks at Sherbet.
Reminding us all not to over-eat this Holiday season!
Sherbet Seasons Greetings Spot
The RE-Animation Blog
Coming Soon has a new clip up from the upcoming "Happily N'Ever After."
For me, the jury is still very much out on this film. I actually like the art style, but the animation (and the gags) feels somewhat stiff to me. The film also gets high marks for not having voices by Whoopi Goldberg or the Olson twins.
Coming Soon's "Happily N'Ever After" Clip
EDIT #2: The link to my progress reel has now been fixed. Thank you to all none of you that let me know about that.
EDIT: As promised, here is my completed progress reel for my very first class at Animation Mentor.+of+titlecard.jpg)
Dave's Animation Mentor Class 1 Progress Reel
Original Post:
Sorry for the lack of update(s) today. I'm currently hammering on my final animation for my very first quarter at Animation Mentor.
Having just completed my first quarter (or at least I will have by Friday), I can safely say that, at least so far, Animation Mentor is worth every penny. To take a step back for a moment and think about all of the things I've learned in one short quarter makes me quite excited about what's to come at "The Ment."
If you, or anyone you know, is considering a career in animation, I can't recommend AM enough to you. In my class there are people currently working in animation (film as well as games), and others attending very well known schools such as the Academy of Art University. Everyone seems to agree that AM matches, and in most cases exceeds, any training they've received so far.
So if you've got the desire to be an animator... make sure you give AM a look.
I'll post my progress reel for you sometime this week, as well as the normal crappy blog updates you've come to expect here on Bleeding Pixels.
The Animation Mentor Website
The Website of My Class 1 Mentor, Ray Chase
Yahoo has a "trailer" for "Meet the Robinsons" posted showing three frogs from the film singing about idiots in movie theaters who ruin the experience for everyone else.
There are also some production stills and a bit of info on the site, but I'd like to focus more on the inbred, half-wit, morons who commit the acts mentioned in the video. Just once I'd like to go to a film where the jackhole behind me isn't kicking my seat, there are no teenage kids screaming out bad words because they think it's cool, and nobody vomits. The last one only happened once, but man did it stink, and I think I can safely add it to the list of things I don't want to happen again.
Meet the Robinsons Info on Yahoo!
The penguin that started it all, Opus, was supposed to star in his own 3D animated film, but now it looks as though the project may be dead (again).
According to The Business of Animation Blog:
The rumor is that planned "Opus" has died once again. The comic strip based CG film has seen its share of ups and downs, and if you believe the rumor, it is down once again.
I'm not sure that this is such a bad thing, as the film had been picked up by the Weinstein Company, and I frankly wouldn't want them to destroy one of the most beloved characters in comic strip history with a 2nd rate animated film.
The Blog goes on to state that this is just a rumor, so it's very possible the film will still get made. I guess it just depends on if the Weinstein Company can find a crew to make it for less that $100 dollars in McDonald's gift certificates.
More Info at The Business of Animation Blog
If you're willing to sit through the crap-filled advertisements over on MTV's website, they've got a new trailer up for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles flick.
You can choose to expand the size of the trailer, thus decreasing the overall resolution/quality, but at the same time covering up at least some of the ads for "The Real World 42: Flint, MI" and various other quality programs from MTV, or you can choose to watch it at it's standard tiny resolution.
I chose the former.
"TMNT" Trailer on MTV
I was browsing the RE-Animation blog this morning, as I often do, and I stumbled upon a posting for Aja Bogdanoff's demo reel and blog.
Aja has made quite a name for herself, even in my brief time at Animation Mentor. She's done this not just by having top notch work (which she does), but by helping others in any way she can. She hosts live Q&A sessions to discuss her experinece at AM, helps out on the forum by posting tutorials, and generally provides support to the students as much as possible, even though she's already graduated. I've learned a great deal from Aja, without ever communicating with her directly.
So swing on over and check out her reel and blog... you may just learn something.
Aja's Demo Reel
Aja's Blog
The RE-Animation Blog
Animation Mentor
CGSociety has a nice article on the pig commercials that were mentioned last week on Bleeding Pixels.
There were three scenarios ordered that were stand-alone, simple stories of comical intrigue. One of them was an asian style massage parlour, another, remake of the ‘shower scene from Psycho,’ and there was also one depicting a gondola ride on the city of Venice. “This turned out to be the biggest challenge,” adds Debaene, “since it's hard to portray the city of Venice, with all it's rustic details etc, in the same style as we did the spot in the massage parlor.”
More via the link below.
CGSociety's Certus/Hoaxland Certus Pork Commercials Article
Hoaxland Website
Bleeding Pixels Previous Coverage of the Certus Pork Commercials
In case you haven't seen the video for Gnarls Barkley's "Gone Daddy Gone," here it is:
I always knew they could.
Taken from an upcoming storybook and viewer comes the first shots of the Ratatouille human characters. Also shown are a couple of other human characters and the real humans who voice them.
I'll try to get you more information on the film if they happen to release a paint by numbers set or a View-Finder disc or something.
Pixar's Official Website
What do we do here at Bleeding Pixels on a slow news day? We let you know that "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" is out on DVD today!
While it doesn't have any of the type of 3D Animation that we normally cover here on Bleeding Pixels, "DMC" is packed full of CG to make your head swim as you try to figure out whether the scene you just saw was real or made entirely with a computer (or two).
I remember the scene where the guy with a seashell for a head gets it cut off and his seashell head is lying in the grass and his body comes and picks it up and runs off through the jungle. I looked at my wife in the theater and said, "Do you think that really happened, or do you think they did that with computers?" My wife then moved three seats to her left and sat with a big dumb jock, later telling me that if she was going to sit next to an idiot he might as well at least have big muscles.
Swing over to DVDActive to get the info on what extras will be included on "DMC," and make sure you head out to your local shop today to pick it up!
DVDActive's "Dead Man's Chest" DVD Info
In case you haven't seen yet, the nominees for this years round of Annie Awards have been released.
Best Animated Feature
Cars – Pixar Animation Studios
Happy Feet – Warner Bros.
Monster House – Columbia Pictures/ImageMovers/Amblin Production
Open Season – Sony Pictures Animation/Columbia Pictures
Over The Hedge – DreamWorks Animation
Having seen 4 of the 5 films on the list (haven't had a chance to see "Happy Feet" yet), I feel like they are all deserving in one form or another. Let's just give them each an award and then share some chocolate cake or something. Wouldn't that make the world just a bit brighter?
I think it would.
The Annie Awards
From Mark Shirra, Vancouver Film School grad, and current Pixar animator, comes "A Great Big Giant Robot from Outer Space Ate My Homework."
I love that you totally understand that story and what the kid is saying, without any word of intelligible language actually being spoken.
Oh... and I love the fart.
