Episode 1, with the amazingly unlucky Captain Cannon by Nicola Lemay, an animation filmmaker and storyboard artist from Montreal, Quebec.
Episode 1, with the amazingly unlucky Captain Cannon by Nicola Lemay, an animation filmmaker and storyboard artist from Montreal, Quebec.
Based on the popular Daily Telegraph comic strip of the same name by Charles Peattie and Russell Taylor. BreakThru has worked with Charles and Russell to bring Alex off the page and on to your screens.
Alex has been shot, kidnapped, run over, abducted by aliens and marooned in the Amazon rainforest. He’s endured two weeks as a homeless person on the streets of new York (a team-building exercise), been called to the priesthood by God (he declined) and he’s had vivid nightmares about being a pupil at Hogwarts, of going down with the Titanic and of being employed, ignominiously, as a milkman. For the most part none of these experiences have dented his blinkered complacency or wholly mercenary attitude to life.
Several ‘real’ people have made appearances in the strip: Tony Blair, Prince Charles, Prince William, Nicola Horlic, Martha Lane-Fox, Robbie Williams, and Bill Clinton.
In 2002, creators Charles and Russell were awarded MBEs for services to the newspaper industry. More information about the Alex comic strip is available at the alex cartoon website.
I’ve not long finished two animations about the perils of taking and dealing drugs! The animations were required for the ACPO Drugs Conference but also for use on the Avon and Somerset Constabulary youth website.
Enjoy!
One of my favourite animation directors, Malcolm Sutherland, directed and animated this fun short advert for the non-profit group ParticipAction earlier this year. Studio Pascal Blais was in charge of the production and sound design.
I love the morphing effect between the scenes. Sometimes I find the boiling line a bit too much but here it just suits the style so well you don’t even notice is there, ok I lie you do notice is there but not in an annoying dizzying way. And I always like the colour palette Malcom uses on his projects, there’s a 70’s fiction feel to it that makes me feel right at home, for some reason.
This is the hard work of a first year student at CalArts nicknamed ‘storkeater’ on YouTube. “Who’s Hungry” is a boiling-line black and white story of two kids who get in trouble when a strange man in a van full of ice creams lures them into his trap. Yes, I felt a little tense t begin with but watch all the way through, like any good story it has a twist. If “Tarantino” was a story-telling trend, this could probably qualify.
Zombocalypse is the kind of thing you would love to have handy when a deadly zombie plague is taking over the world. As I was watching these I was really swishing I could get my hands on one of those kits, the lovely animation of Rob Moffett from VDA Studios reminds me a little of Chris Ware’s neat characters but set 50 years ago. I wish all zombies were so likeable. Next on this style of animation should be an advert encouraging you to adopt a zombie. Zombies were people too you know?
