Oktapodi

If you haven't seen the new short form the French animation school Gobelins, you really should check it out:




Every bit as good as the short is the making of:
http://www.oktapodi.com/makingof.html

Gobelins, has really turned out some terrific shorts. If you haven't seen Burning Safari you should really check it out. I'd love to talk with someone from this school and find out what it's like to produce these shorts. They're really great stuff.

Look test for "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs"

Thanks Cassidy, yep, it looks like they took it down.

Sony has published a look test for their upcoming feature animated film: Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs. You can find it here:

http://www.imageworks.com/

Click on shows, then click on recent. Then click on the picture on the bottom of the screen. It took a long time for it to load up for me, but it is worth the wait.

Ira Glass on Story

This is the a must see clip:



I really this clip. It's true for story, and I feel like it's true with animation (or any creative endeavor.) I can really relate to it. I've worked on shots where I had a really strong idea what I wanted to do with a shot and it just didn't work. For example I've worked on shots where I had a specific pose that I wanted to hit. And for some reason I'll struggle with it for days trying to keep that pose in there . Eventually I'll remove that pose and then the shot will work much better and I'll spend the rest of the day kicking myself for not seeing it in the first place.

It's important to be flexible when working on a shot. You might have good ideas, but they might be wrong for the shot. If you really believe in an idea it's not bad to stick up for it but it is also important to show your shot to other people to help ground yourself.