pasithea

Yesterday evening was fun. Marty has returned from his annual tour with new goodies, including Korean-born Australian animator Sejong Park, who showed his first film, "Birthday Boy" This was his first 3D animation and he taught himself Maya from a book. there's a whole lot of 2D layering over the 3D and, except for the character animation sometimes being a little poppy, you can almost forget you're watching animation at all. The visuals are fantastic. There's a more detailed review here with one screenshot. http://www.realtimearts.net/rt62/edwards_animation.html

Following that was "Barcode" by Adriaan Lokman. If you're at all into abstract art and electronica, this is just an incredible film. The start is a little slow but when it gets going, it's just amazing. it's entirely black and white done with nothing more than planes, cylinders, and lights, but it's stunning when you think about the rendering that went into it. Check http://www.barcodemovie.com for more details on it.

Next up was "Bid 'Em In" by Neal Sopata (which I can find puzzlingly little about even on the animator's own website) This was a very very wellmade film. Simple pastel colors given a 'chalk pastels' filter and charcoal lines treatment in After Effects but the animation is as smooth and flowing as the dialog is cold and poigniant. This is a very stunningly powerful film. The best link I can find for this film is http://www.wbff.org/films/detail.asp?cid=5&fid=338 (there's a link to his home page from there, which has several other animations I've not yet looked at)

To change pace after the first three, we watched a couple of cute-yet-forgettable pirate films, then 'A korean death film' which was animated so bad as to be reminiscent of the original Thunderbirds series. (One wonders if they shouldn't have just hired these guys to make the movie. Probably would have made more money) Also Aardman's new 'Creature Comforts: Cats and Dogs'. It was alright but sort of a yawner, having seen previous creature comforts. Nothing new here and a lot more american (read: potty) humour. Thumbs down.

Next up was "Signe de vie" by Arnaud Demuynck. I'll be honest. This isn't one that will appeal to a lot of hardcore enthusiasts. There's a lot of rotoscoping and it's very typically first-film angsty, and the artstyle flows between sort of bad CGI rotoscoping, silouhette, and sumi-style brush strokes. It does however have some beautiful moments and the animation that's free-hand drawn is really beautiful. I also mention it because the character design and some of the motion seems very much like something

peganthyrus would like. Link to an article here, but english-only readers will fuss because it's in french. http://www.objectifmag.be/publication/200405/signe_de_vie.xml

And finally... Actually, stunningly maddeningly is Fast Film. This movie is totally unf***ing believable! No computers, this was all done by HAND with a copy. Check out the 'Making Of' clip just to get a HINT of the kind of work that went into the TEN MINUTE LONG film. It's _SO_ incredible. It's surreal, abstract, bizarre, and I really can't say enough about it. I could work for the rest of my life and never come up with a film half this good, let alone excute it. I'm so totally buying this on DVD. (Oh lookie! It has a buy DVD button on the page. Hmmm... :) Anyhow, if you like 'Song of the Century', this is absolutely the movie for you. Two thumbs and a bit I don't have up for this one! ^_^ URL: http://www.widrichfilm.com/fastfilm/