Imaginary forces creates a whimsical paper cutout style open sequence for Nim's Island.

Labels: 2D, Film Short, Movie Trailer

The Wishing Well is a short experimental one-man film by artist and actor Rod Maxwell. He shot the entire film by himself in his livingroom in a small 4'x4' homemade greenscreen. He did EVERYTHING including the script, directing acting, makeup, prosthetics, efffects. The video below is a trailer for the film and a 'Behind the scenes' video. The film has one several awards, too.... just check out the bottom of his website! It's really damn impressive. I was impressed.



Thanks to Diannah Morgan for posting it to the AE List.

Labels: 3D, Documentary, Film Short, Movie Trailer

In honor of Earth Day, I bring you The Culmination of Consumptionism. Natsuki Kato is my former student and created this clever animation about plastic bags. I did bring my own bag to the grocery store this morning, as well as my own mug to snatch a free cup of coffee (no foam!).

Okay, back to the video... The V.O is by AJ Hamilton. Music: Lucas Schurkamp. Natsuki says "I got this idea from what my little sister Jenelle told me in a grocery store: 'I won't take any plastic bags so that I can save polar bears.' I am excited to see how far the message of the green organization at a high school in Bay City will go. My friend, A.J. did such a great job with the voice over by adding his humor based on a lot of info that I gave from my research."

Check out Natsuki's other work at her web site.

Labels: Documentary, Film Short, Student Work

After nine months of hard work, Björk's new video, "Wanderlust" was released to the public on March 31st... and is no less than spectacular. The 3-D version of the video will be released as a DVD single package on April 14, complete with 3-D glasses. You can view the high quality version (highly recommended, as the more compressed version doesn't do it justice!) at www.encyclopediapictura.com.



This is the "making of" video montage:

Labels: 3D, Character Animation, Film Short, Music Video

The Red Giant/MyToolfarm NAB Contest submission was officially over earlier this week and we had several terrific entries. Because of a problem we had with our uploader, the entries were also collected via another method, so this is not every entry unfortunately. This will give you a good cross-section of what was entered and if the winning entry is not in this bunch, we will put it online. There were about 24 entries in total. There are some super talented designers and motion graphics artists out there. I was blown away by some of the entries.

For a video to qualify, they must use Trapcode Form or Magic Bullet Looks. The first place winner will receive a trip to NAB and present their project at the Red Giant Booth. The first and second runners up will receive software.

The official winners will be announced next week. The list below is in the order they were submitted from newest to oldest and is no indication of the winners.

I should also note that the star ratings are not accurate if you view at MyToolfarm, so please ignore them. I think they work fine, but I wonder if someone has come through and given them all low marks just to be funny. All of these videos deserve higher ratings than they've received. I'm going to look into this.

Symantec NetBackup Product Launch

Submitted by Mark Jeschke

Veritas Backup Exec 10 Event Opener

Submitted by Mark Jeschke

Tori Amos Greenscreen Contest Submission 2007

Submitted by Mark Jeschke

Freedom Fall (Clip)

Submitted by Erik Candiani

Ryan Wheat Motion Graphics Demo

Submitted by Ryan Wheat

Penny and Ashtray

Submitted by Axel Roessler

The Field Scene

Submitted by Pericles Lewnes

Mumbai Central

Submitted by Alexander Snelling

Besuch der Holztiere

Submitted by Axel Roessler

Labels: 2D, 3D, Demo Reel, Experimental, Film Short, Music Video, MyToolfarm, Student Work

Check out "Myriad Harbour" by Directors Johanne St-Marie and Mark Lomond of Fluorescent Hill. Here's an excerpt from an interview at FEED's site:

"Because we had so little time in that shoot, we couldn’t afford the time to have them act out anything. So I shot Jo as the body double for Neko and Kathryn in the band, and shot my friend Richard as the body double for all six guys.

Then I redrew all the bodies in different sizes and clothes, and attached all of the heads I drew. The mouths are stop motion photographs of my mouth and Jo’s, then drawn and in-betweened and composited into the mix. We went completely paperless for the whole process, and drew everything in Photoshop.

I kept the colour to a minimum and played with three or four combination. I had gone further with the colour combos, but it made the faces unreadable in the really short scenes."

You can view more of Fluorescent Hill's portfolio at: www.fluorescenthill.com

Labels: 2D, Experimental, Film Short, Music Video

The first, Web 2.0 - The Machine is Us/ing Us, really makes me want to redo Toolfarm in XML. Boy that would save time!



Here is the response to the video: Health 2.0 Version 2 response to The Machine is Us/ing Us. They're similar in style but different in content (obviously), so is it really a response? I don't think so. Its an interesting video none the less.

Labels: Documentary, Film Short

This is "Animated Documentary-Mockumentary about Evil in western civilization from Ancient Greece to present day." It was animated frame by frame in Flash and composited and textured in After Effects. It was designed and animated by Ole-Magnus Saxegard as a student project. It is lots of fun. I really thought it would end with Dick Cheney ;-)

Labels: 2D, Documentary, Film Short, Humor, Student Work

Family Not Included Plot summary: A toy robot attempts to escape on a mission to reunite with his family.

TristanS posted his video to the Toolfarm Expert Forums. His film short is currently in a competition run by BAFTA (British Academy Film Awards).

Here's what he said about Family Not Included: "I worked on this over the Christmas period, I knew it would be hard to get any help so I came up with something I could make on my own, for free, within the confines of my flat and could be done within a week. The theme of the competition was unite so I decide to make the film about a toy robot trying to reunite with his kids, I guess the idea was kinda influenced by Toy Story with a SciFi twist."

"The main problem I had was the lack of a bluescreen to film against, which became a problem when keying out the background in certain shots. I just about managed to overcome this by keying out as much as possible, then adding layers of fog and giving the robots a slight glow round the edges. I quite like the look so I guess it worked out okay, although it would have saved a lot of time using some sort of bluescreen so I'll definitely be using one next time. The exterior backgrounds came from a free stock image website and were edited in photoshop to add in elements such as the signs."

"I used some of the Toolfarm tutorials (thanks) such as the Custom Shatter Maps, Earth Zoom and used some of the plugins such as shine, fog and looks suite to create most of the effects. I also used Particle Illusion to create some of the graphics from the robots POV."

"Due to time constraints a few shots were left out or unfinished, for example I had originally intended the final shot to resemble the Raiders of the Lost Ark Warehouse shot. It was then edited in Premiere Pro and uploaded for the competition. And hopefully if I win in my region I get to go to the BAFTAs."

If you're feeling it, give the video a bump!

Labels: Film Short

In case you missed it, here's a few of the highlights from "Best of Stash 2007" at MGFest08.




Microsoft Zune Ad by Fulltank.



Music Video: Faithless-Music Matters by Micros Image.



Coca-Cola Happiness Factory- The Movie by Psyop.

Labels: Character Animation, Commercial, Experimental, Film Short, MGFest, Music Video, Television

It's original, funny and creative. JibJab is genius.

Labels: Bizarre, Character Animation, Film Short, Flash, Humor

This French language short film has lots of cool effects, even if you don't understand a word of Francais.

Labels: Film Short

Natsuki Kato was in my class this semester and her work is incredible. This is Thumbelina, her final project. She went far beyond what I expected for the project. She literally had about a thousand layers. She made the children's clothes herself and shot the green screen herself (first time). She uses some really interesting techniques here that she developed herself. The voice over and music work really well with the imagery. She did a great job of setting the mood, which I think is one of the toughest parts of making a video.

No, the video is not perfect, but man, this girl is very talented and she is going to make it big some day. She plans to revise it and make it exactly as she wants it in the future, so I may possibly have a revised version posted to Inspirations.

Labels: Film Short, Student Work

The History of Americawas mainly shot over greenscreen by Kansas City's MK12. Its a very stylized film about the history of the United States. From the HistoryOfAmerica.tv website:

Centuries of campfire stories have spun America's history into a fanciful tale filled with myths and half truths. MK12's History of America is here to set the record straight. Set against the warm sin of Las Vegas and the cold vacuum of space, this is the true story behind the story -- one which the epic struggle between the Astronauts and the cowboys as they fight for life, liberty and justice for all.

Watch a Trailer and teaser here.

Labels: Film Short, Movie Trailer

Charlie had posted a comment about the Vitamin Water commercial looking very much like Don Hertzfeld's work. Yes, definitely, I see some similarities but I prefer Hertzfeldt's. Something about cute little bunnies. I love bunnies. This combines hand drawn animation and stop motion. It's very clever. Don Hertzfeld's Genre is really awesome. He's seriously talented.

It also reminds me a bit of the scenes in Better Off Dead where John Cusack's character is drawing the cheerleader and other characters and they come to life. Better Off Dead is one of my all-time favorite flicks. I've seen it about 50 times.

Labels: Character Animation, Film Short

Here's an interesting site, with some of the more freakish films that messed me up in my college art history and film courses- all in one convenient location!

The List Universe- Top 10 Most Bizarre Videos

Some of the "classics" from the likes of David Lynch and Jorodowsky are here!

One case in point:



Thanks to Kevin Lang for the link.

Labels: 2D, Bizarre, Experimental, Film Short

Learn how to construct your own beats. A puppet and some instrument animation. Sounds pretty cool.

Labels: Film Short

Harry Frank sent me the link to this beautiful piece from Wow, a Japanese agency and collective. This was presented during Tokyo Design Week. This beautiful clip combines typography with organic ikebana, the art of traditional Japanese floral arrangement. Harry and I both believe that After Effects and Cinema 4D are the tools used on this piece.

Labels: 3D, Film Short

I never thought maggots could be so cute! This 3D animated piece shows the life of a maggot who becomes a fly and has to fight for the last little pea. It's really adorible and clever and so well done. That little fly went all Macauley Caulkin on those other flies.

Labels: 3D, Film Short

Simple, yet complex. Really interesting... the kind you want to watch a few times. It was done by Paxson Woelber in his senior year at Middlebury College in Vermont. Very well done. And deep. Very deep. I hope he got an A.

Labels: Film Short, Student Work

This is an old Russian stop motion film from 1913. It's really amazing and also creepy! Those dancing bugs are something out of a nightmare.

Labels: Film Short, Stop Motion

This is kind of funny. I admit, I've never played Halo. I'm not a gamer. I used to kick major ass at Q*Bert and Tetris on Nintendo. I'm a bit old school when it comes to gaming.

This faux documentary of Halo taking over the world uses a lot of bad video effects. I was hoping in the future, we would no longer have bad video. Hehe.

Labels: Documentary, Film Short

My friend Dru sent me this gorgeous short film by EB Hu.

View Josie's Lalaland

Labels: 3D, Film Short

Beautiful.

Labels: 2D, Experimental, Film Short

Toolfarm Forum Expert Jim Geduldick worked on a video about the Red camera. That's the back of Jim's head at 1:11.

When I was 18 I worked at Chi-Chi's as a hostess. I'd have to check IDs in the evening to let people in the bar. The jukebox played Kickstart My Heart non-stop. I can't hear Motley Crue without thinking of Chajitas.

Labels: Commercial, Film Short

Dave Vieira, Toolfarm's Sales Manager, sent me the link to Jaime's Taco Shop, the new cartoon from Kleeman and Mike. Dave sez, "I really think this is cool and the body mechanics of the characters is so realistic. Face to Face is still marketing that song... wow!"

Well, the song, Disconnected, is like 15 years old. It's retro. It happens to be our forum expert Jim G.'s favorite band. The video also contains some of Jim's friends at the end.

The animation is pretty great. Nice Flash work. Fun script too. I give it 2 thumbs up. "Did you get me a fish, servant?" I really need to teach my cat to talk.

Labels: Film Short, Flash

Stash Media Stash 33 trailer came out earlier this month. Man, this is some seriously cool work. I'm too lazy to re-write the description:

Fun, in all its shades and guises, is the operative word for Stash 33.

For instance: we open the main program with complete bunny-mad chaos from Pleix and MacGuff for Groove Armada, and then trample on through Psyop’s hip-rebel-comedy for Fanta, HSI’s deadpan take on Reyka Vodka, manic pirate/bovine/bicyclist stop motion for Cravendale from Nexus, crazed MTV Asia work from JL Design in Taiwan, Wilfrid Brimo going berserk for V Energy drink, Han Huggebrooge’s unhinged vignettes for Dutch TV, Make’s extremely flammable chipmunks, very curious characters from Curious Pictures for Crunch and we cap it all with a surreal and utterly original bit of action-lunacy about courage, show business and inter-media love created at Supinfocom by Corentin Laplatte, Samuel Deroubaix and Jerome Dernoncourt,,, you get the idea – check below for the full list of contributors.

Labels: 2D, 3D, Bizarre, Demo Reel, Experimental, Film Short, Stop Motion

They did a a terrific job giving the piece a vintage look. I'm very curious about their technique for getting this effect... the blown out whites really help, the fuzzy font style, as well as the announcers voice (who sounds a little like Mr. Garrison).

This is so funny. Porcelain deer and Jaws are comedy gold. There are lots of cameos by famous people (Shawn Cassidy! C'mon everybody get down, get with it). They subtitle Sylvester Stalone! Hilarious. It's Ucs for Me! (via Tumblr)

Labels: Film Short

This is a really cool animation style and a moving piece with a narrative by U.S. Army Specialist Colby Buzzel. It was featured on "America at a Crossroads". I love the subtle color and use of 2D in 3D space. Amazing work.

Labels: 2D, 3D, Film Short

Floris: Metalosis Maligna, which came out last year, is a scary documentary slash short film about medical implants gone crazy. There's lots of cool 3D and some stellar compositing and tracking work. The man with the metalosis maligna, with his body being replaced by "metal tissue" and the stop motion portions are really impressive. Wow. I'm blown away.

The Dutch duo called Microbia, Floris Kaayk and Sil van der Woerd, produced this amazing piece.

Labels: 3D, Documentary, Experimental, Film Short, Stop Motion

HellHoles was posted to the AE-List this morning and was done in Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Photoshop and Maya. This is the first episode of the AtomFilms series. It's very funny and clever, which you wouldn't know by the image to the left, but it's about a guy who buys a trailer for a buck only to find that it is a portal into another dimension.

Labels: Bizarre, Film Short

This link was in the Red Giant newsletter and reminded me of a film that I was an extra in many years ago called LAM, a film by Justin Woiwode. They both take place in mental institutions where the staff is nuttier than the patients. I'm digging the shaky cam effects in Broken.

The best stuff is here:

Magic Bullet Editors helped Alex Ferrari create three signature looks for the indie short, Broken, an action suspense movie that has been accepted at over 90 film festivals around the world. The DVD includes over three hours of helpful tips on production design, costume design, lighting, color correction and props. Magic Bullet is covered in the section called How to Make Video Look Like Film.

• Read the Broken user story
• Watch the Broken trailer

Labels: Documentary, Film Short

Tyger, a film short by Brazillian Cuilherme Marcondes, is based on William Blake's poem, Tyger. It is one of the most amazing pieces I've ever seen. The tyger is a puppet that maneuvers through Sao Paolo, Brazil, with the puppeteers in black still visable. It's a mix of live action, photographs and 2D and 3D. Gorgeous.

It has the feel of Circque du Soliel for me, beautiful, etherial and with a rockin' soundtrack.

Labels: 2D, 3D, Experimental, Film Short

We're looking for a few good animators, editors, students or even just fans of visual effects to contribute to this blog. Not HTML skills necessary, but a good eye for the most ground-breaking and rule-breaking techniques and styles out there. We want eye candy! Yes, we do.

Interested? Drop me an email and tell me why you should be considered. You would be expected to make one post per week, but you can post more, as long as they're quality videos. You're welcome to add your thoughts and opinions about the video, too.

Labels: 2D, 3D, Bizarre, Commercial, Demo Reel, Documentary, Experimental, Film Short, Interview, Movie Trailer, Music Video, Podcast, Stop Motion, Student Work, Television, Titles

The Animation Show is a travelling animation festival that features some unbelievably cool animations from traditional cell to computer animated. The one pictured to the left is Rabbit by Run Wrake. It's creative, although very violent. Collision by Max Hattler is kalidescopic and trippy Islamic patterns and American quilts mix with the colors and geometry of flags. Collision is an abstract field of reflection. City Paradise by Gaëlle Denis is a breathtaking mix of live action and 2D/3D. (Tomoko arrives to London from Japan and accidentally discovers a mysterious, secret city underground, inhabited by friendly little aliens and a beautiful blossom. After she's found it, everything changes… )

Clip from City Paradise:

Labels: 2D, 3D, Bizarre, Experimental, Film Short, Student Work

Why does Bill Gates sound like Kermit the Frog? This is cute.

No flame wars please.

Labels: 2D, Film Short

The Master Plan is a political commentary on the power of Google. The graphics are a mix of 2D and 3D and is inspired by What Barry Says.

Its a terrific video and interesting concept, but I do think they're a bit paranoid. Just because your paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you, right?

Thanks to Dru for sending this link to me.

Labels: 2D, 3D, Film Short, Student Work

RoadRace


A short video made with hotwheels cars.

Labels: Film Short, Stop Motion

This is a great animated film that seems to have remained under the radar for some time.

"Potapych" is a great mix of toon shaded 3d, illustration and motion graphics that are seamlessly blended together to tell a great story.

Click here to watch the movie

Labels: 2D, 3D, Film Short