/ Mechwest indie animation

So quality in animation shorts is becoming better and better. Here another “indie” anim series. For free.

/ Wayward Gods

Amazing art direction on this short. Another Blender surprise. Also there is a shot breakdown in creator’s channel.

/ Lackadaisy pilote release

Surfing internet I’ve found this interesting crowdfunding project. Amazing stuff, and they also use Blender.

Here you can watch the full pilote.

You can find art design at the blog.

The Lackadaisy Animation Dev Log

/ Shin Kamen Rider (2023)

Evangelion was to me best anime ever. Stunning design, top level script and incredible editorial cut. It blows up my head on that VHS days, and still is the best anime series I’ve seen. I’m not too much into robots, but this series catch my heart 100%.

Looks Hideaki Anno was behind different Evangelion animes and now is releasing this real life B Series Movie which looks very interesting to me. No idea about the script, but vfx has catch my eye.

/ All at once in vfx

First time I saw this videoclip I thought: wow, this people need to do a long feature. To me is the funniest videoclip I´ve ever seen. And vfx are incredible good.

Now, it has happen that they have become very famous.

Regarding the Vfx on “All at once…” it is an interesting aproach.

Of course the magic always comes not by the vfx, it comes because of story. It is a storm to say that just five people did the vfx. To me is not a surprise at all, as indie filmakers use to do all the time, but can be a precedent in industry. Real problem is not how many people are working on vfx as staf, real problem is who is managing that people, in other words: is there a brain behind manangmen or just a monkey with money in hands?

Here you can find some talk about the vfx.

And down the line, a very nice documentary behind the cams. This film is 99% coreography, as we watch in “Last Night in Soho”. All belongs to a complete dance including script, vfx and direction. Another strong influence of course is “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”.

/ Madrid Film Location Map

You can find an Interesting project here: FICMATUR, a website which shows Madrid based film locations map, which adds interesting info about geography and influences.

It pins up mainly spanish movies, but also other directors as Milos Forman, David Lean, Orson Welles, etc. when they shoot some features here.

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Same idea here, but focused on Underground Stations. This is an another promotional campain.

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And here there is another “funny” map, for curious people. It contains slag indications about different areas worldwide.

/ Last Night in Soho, the right Vfx way

This amazing movie is what Vfx should be:

1. effective (feel as real)

2. invisible (you don’t know they are)

3. and creative (looks brand new).

As the movie is: a very creative and immersive experience. Actors are absolute great (unmissable Thomasin as scaried girl), photography is wonderful (“Old Boy” cinematographer), music, camera movements, choreography,… wooow.

Edgar Wright is a very creative director. The best is the way he plays with film genres and how he turns them into something new. I really enjoy all his films. Soho is a mix of Nightmare on Elm Street + Lynch + Back to the Future + Zombies + The Frighteners, and probably much more references than I know, but the great thing is that looks like something new, probably because his choreography and musical editing (as he demostrates on “Baby Driver”).

Here is a great link explaining DNG Vfx.

And here Edgar Wright breakdowns some sequences.

Great job people.

Thanks so much for create this.

/ Blender 2.82a & Grease Pencil

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/ Awesome all in one Open Source

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Grease Pencil tool development by Daniel Lara and collaborators within Blender, the not-so-known free 3d software, has impacted me.

This interaction is based on the creation of scenes hosted within the interface, which makes them immediately accessible and exportable.

That is: you can draw a character as it was done in the past on a light table, including keyframes, inbetweens and fill or texturize areas, which is combined with lighting, making non-destructive variations in the style, helping you with resources such as rotoscopes, cameras or any other 3d element that you want to incorporate. Being included in a 3d environment, it also affects the optics that you use, so you can control focus or lens distorsion.

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Screenshots from Cloud Render archives, just for information purposes.

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These features are not brand new. Softwares like Toon Boom have kind of 3d environment (a nightmare really), and even Flash allowed a more advanced 2.5 d thanks to plugins, capabilities squeezed out in the feature film Waltz with Bashir, 2008 and other projects. Likewise, the 3d softwares themselves have long included tools for painting, creating vectors or having a 2d look (my favorite short Salesman Pete). However, in Grease Pencil we find a much more advanced, interactive interface than Flash and the fusion of an entire digital studio in a single application.

Not only we can create, model, animate and illuminate objects (in real time), environments or characters, but it is also possible sculpt, draw and texturize, also composition, tracking and editing which would correspond to another payment software.

In summary, is a revolution for independent artists and an excellent complement for production companies, pointing to VR and storyboarding.

Grease Pencil is like transform Flash into a 3d environment, allowing to draw in a depth canvas, animate strokes and real interaction with 3d elements or simulations.

The application opens instantly and once you are familiar with the layout you can work much faster, eliminating import-export headaches of material, formats and other compatibilities.

I recommend the subscription to Cloud Render, which is a digital cloud sharing all the resources used in the artistic and technical development of Blender. Incredible work samples of excellent short films and a fully commercial animated film project (Agent 327).

Now that Netfilx has bought the Chinese-Canadian movie Robot 7723 made with Blender (with the exception of complex simulations) it is time to consider the validity of this Open Source as a competitor to other software packages. I have attached some screenshots of the new Blender interface with the Tears of Steel and Hero projects, accessible from Cloud Render.

From here, many thanks to those who make these tools possible and make them available to us.

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/ Fund Aid to Literary Creation

I have received the help of the Community of Madrid 2018 for the development of literary projects, Graphic Novel category (City of lefties)

I can say that God does not, but "the helps" exist.

I always wanted to be a cartoonist. And this has been an opportunity to focus on a project that had been in a drawer for years.

Thanks.

/ The Spa Animation Studios //

Tengo la teoría firme de que la mayor creatividad se desarrolla en los estudios de animación.

Es cierto que hay creatividad en otros medios, pero la animación exige el mayor de los esfuerzos. Los dibujos no puedes filmarlos, no surgen de la nada. Hay que hacerlos uno a uno. Y el punto de partida es un fóleo en blanco.

“Klaus”, producida por Netflix, es la última película de animación clásica de la historia. Con eso me refiero al estilo Disney, a la tradición de los siete ancianos, al “Full Animation” que podría decirse terminó su punto mas alto con Tarzán. Hemos entrado en una era dominada por la animación Cg, mas económica que la dibujada, pero que no puede ser ni tan brillante, ni tan difícil, ni tan humana como la animación en tabla de luz.

Esperemos que la tradición continúe.

Gracias a todos aquellos que han contribuido a hacer posible esta película.

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One of my teorys is that greatest creativity is developed in animation studios.

It is true that there are creativity in other places, but animation requires the greatest effort. You can't shoot the characthers on the road, drawings don't come out from nowhere. You need to create them one by one.

“Klaus”, produced by Netflix, is something like the latest classic animated film in history. By that I mean the Disney style, the tradition of the seven elders, the "full animation" before cg gets the main atention.

Hopefully the tradition will keep being.

Thank you to all those who have contributed making this film possible.