Ticktockrobot director and first-time father, Jun Iwakawa draws on his background in print and graphic design for “Handle With Care,” his rough guide to caring for a newborn baby – an off-kilter mix of dry humor, factual information and an early aughts-inspired aesthetic. [Watch]
Hornet’s Yves Geleyn, who established his animated animal-wrangling skills last Christmas co-directing the blow-out success “The Bear & The Hare,” keeps the charm of that multi-award winning John Lewis spot but slides the technique sideways into hand-crafted wooden puppets for Rice Krispies thru Leo Burnett, London.
Watch Geleyn’s previous adventure with woody puppetry here. [Watch]
More smile-inducing 3D character animation work from Supinfocom students complete with the mandatory manic chase sequence and a scene-stealing narcoleptic ninja Granny. “Escarface” was co-directed by Eva Navaux, Burcu Sankur, Vincent Meunier, Lionel Arnold, Dario Sabato, Pierre Plouzeau. [Watch]
Nexus directing duo Smith & Foulkes swept the film festival circuit and collected an Oscar nom for best animated short when they unleashed “This Way Up,” their 10-minute, CG slapstick ode to death, hell and dogged father/son perseverance back in 2008.
Now online for the first time, the film’s charm proves timeless with insightful character work, masterful dark-comic timing, sombre atmospheric design and a delightful/definitive vision of the underworld. [Watch]
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]
