I've only just discovered this in an announcement of a second season of this collection of shorts. The new season comprises 13 two-minute episodes from writer/director Wataru Arakawa with music from Usui Yoshiyuki and animation from Jinni's Animation Studios.
The story centres around a female robot duchess named Drosel von Flügel and her guardian servant robot Gedächtnis.
The videos below contain the trailer for the upcoming season as well as a compilation of the freshman outing. Unfortunately, it's dialogue heavy and in original Japanese without translation. That said, the Chris Cunningham-influenced designs are fun and I like Usui Yoshiyuki's music.
"Sixes Last" for musician Alias' track from his album Muted was created by 1st Avenue Machine in 2005. Directed my Arvind Palep and produced by Serge Patzak, it's beautifully strange.
"It is about how artificiality is creeping into the modern day world," said director Arvind Palep. "We were looking at a merge between synthetic biology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and what could spawn from them."
This beautiful, unbelievably fully CG film from Alex Roman takes a sometimes surreal journey through the art of architecture. Wonderful. Check it out HERE to see it in its intended full-screen glory.
Credits:
CG -Modelling - Texturing - Illumination - Rendering| Alex Roman
POST -Postproduction & Editing| Alex Roman
MUSIC Sequenced, Orchestrated & Mixed by Alex Roman (Sonar & EWQLSO Gold Pro XP)
Sound Design by Alex Roman
Based on original scores by:
-Michael Laurence Edward Nyman. (The Departure) -Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns. (Le Carnaval des animaux)
Directed by Alex Roman
Done with 3dsmax, Vray, AfterEffects and Premiere.
This ink-in-water effort from Paris-based Troublemakers.tv and director Niko Tziopanos for Chinese broadcaster CCTV is inspiring. See it HERE along with a brief making-of video further down the page.
Have a browse of the work of the CG enthusiasts at the CG Society. The technical aspect tends to be more breathtaking than the subject matter, but there is a definite sense that the medium is slowly maturing.
Visible Body is a human anatomy software tool with detailed models of the various systems of the human body. Those of you working on figurative modelling should find the muscle diagrams quite useful. It's a fascinating and compelling way to learn and it's free.
In line with the ethos that SiouxWIRE advocates, Michel Lemieux's creations merge media and span class. Founding Lemieux.Pilon 4D Art in 1983, directors Michel Lemiux and Victor Pilon combine performing arts with new media to create a hybrid show merging performance, scenography, cinema, video, dance, poetry, visual arts, lighting design, music and sound. The results are striking and coherent.
Here is an example from their latest performance. Note that this clip has no post production. The visuals were filmed as they were on stage.
Presenting more than 300 performances since its creation, Lemiux.Pilon 4D Art has worked internationally and in collaboration with Cirque du Soleil. Their latest project, Norman is a tribute to Norman McLaren and the history of art animation.
Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon are currently working on the opera version of Starmania by Luc Plamondon and Michel Berger that will be presented during the festivities of the 400th anniversary of Quebec City with performances on the 17, 19, 20, 22, 24, and 26 of May 2008.
As well as introducing their work to South America in Bogota, Columbia, Lemieux.Pilon 4D Art will also be taking Norman on tour this year.
Michel very kindly agreed to be interviewed in Fall 2007, but due to some technical difficulties it has taken some time to release this interview. Enjoy.
What was the inspiration and purpose of your establishment of 4d Art in 1983? The inspiration was to merge different forms of expression, such as visual arts, dance, theater, cinema, music, in the context of performing arts. One can say that Opera is doing so for centuries, I think in fact ancient Greek theater was quite multi-disciplinarian. Specialisation came later and confined the different mediums to a highly specialized form. All mediums of representation represent in fact a possible way to approach creativity. In our times, I think we are ready to put things in relation, in interpenetration with each other. And how did your collaboration with Victor Pilon begin? And how do you feel the two of you compliment each other? Victor has been in visual fine arts for a while when we met. I have studied in theater, so our interest and competences were so compatible that we started to work together in a very natural way. We could say that this more than 20 years collaboration is a based on a very strong friendship that helped us to become what we are as humans and artists.
In general, we do all concepts and direction together, Vic would more specialised in space elements such as artistic direction, visual arts, and I would be more focused on «time» elements, such as music , editing, timing but in fact we share all the aspects of the creation in consensual way.
Tokyo Plastic will soon be premiering their new short, The Electric Koi soon. If you haven't seen their work or recently explored their site, I highly recommend that you do so. The studio was founded by Sam Lanyon Jones and Drew Cope and excels in the innovative and odd.
Despite many of their animations being available on YouTube, the interactive element involved is so vital to the effect that I've simply left them out of this post with the exception of what you see below. Click on any of the pictures or the link below to visit and explore their site.
The Voyeur Project from BBDO New York forHBO looks to be an interesting proposition employing the real time techniques of Mike Figgis Timecode with transparent walls. Each floor was filmed separately with its own clock for timing the interaction between each set and the entire collection was then composited by VFX house Asylum. This promotion was directed by Jake Scott of RSA.
Here is the trailer in Flash format. The Quicktime version is available HERE.
Here is Michel Gondry's video for Massive Attack's Protection which makes use of transparent walls though in this case, it was all created in-camera:
Then there's Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window which didn't employ open walls but did make use of a massive, real time set:
Yannick Puig has created this surreal and soothing video for Kwoon's "I lived on the moon" from the album Tales & Dreams. A nice diversion for a Sunday morning.
And here's another video from Yannick, Krapooya...
The following is from the TED(technology-entertainment-design) Talks series of lectures and features a Photosynth and its various applications for handling, arranging, and compositing imagery. Whether you work in tech or not, this is absolutely fascinating.
As well as posting on art-specific subjects, I also like to keep everyone up-to-date on technologies that I feel have strong potential in creative expression.
This is an incredible video from director Lasse Gjertsen for the italian cellist Giovanni Sollima, on two of his compositions; "Terra Aria" and "Concerto Rotondo". The cello is one of my favourite instruments and the effects and imagery really work well.
Sometimes the restrictions of an advertising mandate produces some great results. The following advertisement from Santo Buenos Aires is an unusual piece which without the requisite logo at the end, could stand on its own. See it below.
And should any of you be wondering about the numerous posts, I'm having something of a clear out of bits and pieces that have accumulated over the past week. Even advertising.
This short from director Måns Swanberg with animation and effects by Pistachios has been doing the rounds since last year and has been featured on Stash 21. Pistachios has recently posted it in Flash format at Dailymotion(see below) with the synopsis, "A journey through the Kosmos, witnessing the implosion of the universe and the birth of a god."
His recent work Curare received quite a lot of attention and I was deliberating whether to post, but as much as I enjoyed the visual style and the illustrations of Tomas Nilsson, I was left wondering why they opted for CG.
See GE-996 below or alternatively visit No Fat Clips! HERE where Dek has posted several downloadable sources. Curare and other works from Måns are available via Pistachios or BlacklistTV.
Sil van der Woerd is an independent filmmaker and graduate of the Academy of Arts and Design in Arnhem, Netherlands and attended the Gnomon School of Visual Effects. In 2004, he created Duet and recently released his follow-up Swim. Both works combine live action, effects, and music to carry their narratives and create
Do you see yourself as an artist, craftsman, or combination of the two? And why?
As an artist. I make films because I want to share a story with an audience, to show them worlds that are inside my head. I don't make films to show that I am able to make them. The precise work of reaching a certain level of detail in the images (to make the imaginative worlds appear convincing) could be called craftsmanship though.
Soundtracks are a dominant feature of your work. Would you explain your choices of music for both Duet and Swim, and how they relate to the shorts as a whole? I pick the soundtracks to underline the films atmosphere. For Duet, I wanted a combination of classical and modern music, since that was the theme of the film. I chose heavy beats because I wanted every contradictory and energetic element opposite the sweet girl and dragonfly.
For Swim, I wanted a pulsing soundtrack, subtle in it's changes. Cold, almost like the sound of the ramming of piles underwater.
You have created some imaginative work in CG winning a lot of recognition; has this been a blessing or burden? Words blessing and burden are a little too strong !
When you're awarded or front-paged by (by example) cg society, you've got a lot of work propositions, you obtain a very important and free advertising, and software developers give you licenses for free! But of course, you've got a lot of solicitations: newbie who needs help, cgi editors or publishers asking for (free) tutorial and articles, Star wars fans looking for free cgi artists for their own movie or mod, etc. Of course, I will not complain with this.
Another short out of the archives. This is a another good example of CG animation with a unique style that doesn't fall over the edge in the attempt to be photo-realistic. Ying created this for his master's degree in animation at the Beijing Film Academy where he is now an instructor.
From director Vincent Viriot and FX Pourre with music from Polychrom, this cg short from the collective, The Holograms, has some interesting effects and is a nice change from more static computer animations. See more of their work on their website.
