Halifax character designer/director/animator Joel Mackenzie fires up a full-on barrage of his skills for indie-rocker (and fellow Haligonian) Rich Aucoin’s new track “Yelling in Sleep.”
Mackenzie sums up the plot like this: “A reformed lumberjack must harness the power of nature in order to fight an 8-bit mutant wasp monster that is destroying his friends and his home.” [Watch]
Ringling College students Michael Bidinger and Michelle Kwon hit every beat perfectly in their graduation film, a four-minute romantic comedy called “Jinxy Jenkins, Lucky Lou.”
The refined character design, animation subtleties and clever story arc (combined with the breezy original core by Mason Self and sound design by Nick Ainsworth) make it easy to forget you’re watching a student film and not the trailer for a new Disney feature. [Watch]
The four members of new French directing collective Brutus (Thibaud Clergue, Aurélien Duhayon, Sébastien Iglesias and Camille Perrin) all graduated from the animation program at the Arles campus of Supinfocom in 2012 and just dropped us their first short film: a grindhouse-flavored concoction of speed and death called “Horde.”
“We tried to find an original look for this film so we mixed different kinds of renders. We also mixed different kinds of animation like a pose to pose in 12 fps for the characters, and a more fluid animation for clothes and props. We mainly used 3ds Max with V-Ray, Mari, Flash, Photoshop and After Effects.” [Watch]
LOL and NSFW, The Onion nails it with this behind the scenes “Sneak Peek At Ninja Turtles’ Hyper-Realistic CGI Genitals.” Laugh (and cry) here. [Watch]
French directing duo Quentin Baillieux and Raphaëlle Tinland (aka Parallel) strike an artful and atmospheric balance of 2D and 3D techniques in this online brand film animated by Ann lou Erambert for Italian watch makers Anonimo who carve (rather than cast) the cases for their timepieces out of solid brass. [Watch]
Paris directing collective PLANKTOON (aka Sun, Alban, Fabrice, Alexandre and Sebastien) step outside their usual realm of fun/colorful 3D character work for this powerful monochrome fundraising appeal created for French AIDS charity Sidaction thru Passion Paris and Leo Burnett. If you have kids of any age, it’s hard not to get caught up in the drama of the vignettes. [Watch]
