Evangeline Than

Some beautiful shots of foxes in a Japanese shrine by my blog friend, Tokyobling.

Who knows, there might be a story in this for someone, someday.

Today was the last official day of our Diploma of Animation course. Naturally, we celebrated by going to the movies.

After much negotiation and minimal bloodshed, we settled on District 9.

Holy cow.

Neill Blomkamp, I salute you, superlative director and screenwriter. Oh, you’re an animator as well? Geez, no wonder the CG in the film is top-notch. And Sharlto Copley, who played Wikus Van de Merwe, ad-libbed most of his lines. Wow.

Love, friendship, loyalty, good vs. evil, parenthood, fishes out of water, racism, ignorance, fear–now that’s some impressive plate-spinning.

I think every would-be or will-be filmmaker should treat themselves to great movies on a regular basis. In the cinema, when possible, so that you can’t run away to grab a snack or check on the laundry. Just sit there and immerse yourself.

Watching amazing movies inspires me to keep going. I want to be part of this magic. I feel like all this hard work, all the sacrifices, they’re leading somewhere.

I just have to hang on to the ride for long enough.

And it is a fantastic read. Engaging, intelligent and not-at-all self-absorbed, Byrne writes like he cares and shares.

I best remember David Byrne as the frontman of Talking Heads, another band I listened to a lot at school (it wasn’t all Depeche Mode and sawing away at wrists, you know). He’s still around, making music, and that makes me very happy.

Byrne’s blog was such a pleasure to discover that I plan to bury myself in the archives soon (he’s been blogging since 2004!) and see what he’s been up to all these years.

He’s on tour with Brian Eno at the moment, so his blog is in travel journal mode and full of vivid photographs.

Check it out: http://journal.davidbyrne.com/

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint Exupéry

This wonderful animated short by Louis Clichy, a Pixar animator and Gobelins graduate (the same school that produced Oktapodi) is pretty close to perfection.

You can view more of Clichy’s work at the Cube Creative Computer Company website.

Sources: embedded video from Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePMK3FeyYxI. I first read about this film at Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog, URL: http://drawn.ca/2009/05/08/a-quoi-ca-sert-l%e2%80%99amour/ (posted May 9th, 2009).

At last! Being swamped by the missives from the DLF mailing list has paid off!

I mean, I love getting my DLF mail, because they do discuss a lot of cool things and I can pretend I’m really, really popular, but a lot of the subject matter goes over my head in these early days. Mental ray velocity passes? Yeah, I’ll just lean back with a faraway look in my eyes, stroke my imaginary goatee, and pretend I know what you’re talking about, dudes

This evening, stib from pureandapplied.com.au posted a link to a 2007 post by Keith Lango, an animator who also runs the Animation Personal Trainer program.

Keith has excellent advice for indie animators working on personal projects, especially people like me who are always trying to be faster! Stronger! Higher!

We can’t produce similar stuff to the big studios because we just don’t have the (wo)man days and resources to do so, but instead of being discouraged, we should use these limitations to open up new possibilities and spark creativity.

Read Keith’s pearls of wisdom here.

Sources: Blog post by Keith Lango, “The Fool’s Errand, Part 1″, URL: http://keithlango.blogspot.com/2007/07/fools-errand-part-1.html (posted July 14th, 2007). I first read about this on the Digital Labourers Federation mailing list, April 21st, 2009.

Wow-wow-wow. Check out illustrator and animator Joel Trussell’s new website out for some very cool retro style. I especially like his music videos.

Joel also has a blog (http://joeltrussell.blogspot.com/) where you can see what he’s been up to and working on. I’ve already subscribed to the feed. The links sidebar in his blog is a treasure trove of new artists to discover–I’ll get through them all one day!

Source: I first read about Joel on the Drawn! blog, URL: http://drawn.ca/2009/04/03/joel-trussells-new-site/ (posted April 3rd, 2009).

Here’s another place where you will find real-life anecdotes to inspire you: (The Customer Is) Not Always Right at http://notalwaysright.com/

I mean, just check out these two gems:

Rip Van Winkle To The Extreme
Pharmacy | Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Customer: “Hi, I have a rather simple question to ask you.”

Me: “Sure thing. What can I help you with?”

Customer: “Hypothetically speaking, if I wanted to make someone sleep for a really long time, what would I use?”

Me: “Um, just how long are you talking?”

Customer: “Well, I was thinking somewhere around forever.”

Me: “…”

Recipe For An Interesting Evening
Retail | California, USA

Female Customer: “Hi there! Where do you keep your ping-pong balls?”

Me: “Right over here.” *walks her over to them*

Customer: “Oh great! Now, where do you sell your Vaseline?”

Oh dear, another book to add to the giant wish list of Animation Books That I Must Have.

I will quote Stanchfield’s Wikipedia blurb here, because it will tell you all you need to know, much better than I could:

Walt Stanchfield (1919-2000) was an American animator.

Stanchfield was born in Los Angeles [1] and began his career in animation in 1937 at the Charles Mintz Studio. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, then worked at the Walter Lantz Studio prior to his lengthy tenure at The Walt Disney Studios. While at Disney, he worked on every full-length animated feature from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) through The Great Mouse Detective (1986).

In the 1970s, Stanchfield focused his efforts on establishing a training program for new animators along with veteran animator and director Eric Larson. Stanchfield held regular weekly drawing classes and lectures for the crew, and among his students were young talent that went on to become prominent figures within the animation industry: Brad Bird, John Lasseter, Don Bluth, Joe Ranft, John Musker, Ron Clements, Glen Keane, Andreas Deja, and Mark Henn, among others.

In the mid-1980s, Stanchfield taught weekly gesture drawing classes for the entire studio. At the end of each class, he grabbed a few drawings that inspired or challenged him, then pasted them up with his typewritten commentary as a handout for everyone in the class. These weekly lecture notes, along with his early writings for the animation training program, are now gathered and published in the two-volume collection entitled Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes which is published by Focal Press and edited by animation producer Don Hahn [2].

Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures can be found here at Amazon.

Sources: Wikipedia article found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Stanchfield on March 29th, 2009. I first read about this book at Cedric Hohnstadt’s blog, URL: http://cedrichohnstadt.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/walt-stanchfields-drawn-to-life/ (posted March 2nd, 2009).

I can’t claim to be an expert in this area, but I’ve seen a lot of animation and read a lot of books, and this appealing short has the following elements of a successful creative work:

• It all starts with a great story.
• Leave in only what’s necessary, nothing more.
• Show, don’t tell.

We also had a life drawing class at Perth Zoo recently, and it gives me a thrill to see the lemurs, penguins and bats again (and in cartoon form to boot)! Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to present Zoologic by Nicole Mitchell:

Sources: embedded video from Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePMK3FeyYxI. I first read about this film at Lost At E Minor, URL: http://www.lostateminor.com/2009/03/27/zoologic/ (posted March 27th, 2009).

If you’re racking your brains for film or illustration ideas, may I introduce you to the site F*** My Life? (Caution: site contains the F-bomb, and quite possibly a few other bombs as well.)

People post short anecdotes about some event in their lives that has gone horribly, or hilariously wrong, and end the story with the tagline, “FML”. If reading through the entries doesn’t make you think, hmm, I could totally steal that for my next film, at least you’ll get a laugh.

Source: I first read about this on Boobs, Injuries and Dr Pepper at http://boobsinjuriesanddrpepper.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-have-i-not-seen-this.html (posted March 18, 2009)