16.06.10

What ever happened to Ultra-Man?

Filed under: Watch — Tags: , , , , , — John Walsh @ 9:53 pm

Hey, here’s a film about a retired super hero liv­ing in Ire­land, hope you enjoy!

Ani­mated and coloured in flash using a Wacom, then com­posted in After Effects. The back­ground was shot with a Sony Z1.


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01.06.10

We Are Detectives!

Filed under: Watch — Tags: , , , , , , , — Alex Amelines @ 10:49 pm

Here’s a won­der­ful ani­ma­tion, clev­erly writ­ten and ani­mated by 21 year old Irish ani­ma­tor Bryan Joseph O’Sullivan. He stud­ied ani­ma­tion at IADT Dun Laoghaire, Dublin.

The short is about two young detec­tives named Rian and Pogo who set out to inves­ti­gate and explore the depths of their home­town Oakridge. Along the way they encounter odd crea­tures, a haunted house and even more odd creatures.

This is his grad­u­a­tion project which is dou­bling up as a pilot for a TV series. His aim is to cre­ate a car­toon for 7–12 year olds. Best of luck to him, this is very a pro­fes­sional look­ing piece and I do hope some­one has the good sense to pick it up.


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25.02.10

The Secret of Kells

Filed under: Watch — Tags: , , , , — Alex Amelines @ 9:33 pm

This is an Irish ani­mated film by Car­toon Saloon, the mak­ers of Skunk Fu, Old Fangs and CúIlín Dúalach. It screened at the Berlin Inter­na­tional Film Fes­ti­val in Feb­ru­ary this year. Soon after it was nom­i­nated for an Acad­emy Award for Best Ani­mated Film.

The story takes place in the XIX cen­tury. Abbot Cel­lach is rais­ing with firm hand his nephew Bren­dan. After Bren­dan meets brother Aidan, the monastery’s illus­tra­tor, he dis­cover the beauty of art and cre­ativ­ity. Hav­ing dis­cov­ered fan­tasy, Bren­dan decides that instead of fol­low­ing his uncle’s steps, he will fol­low his on dream, he decides to com­plete the book of Kells, which takes him on a mag­i­cal adventure.

Direc­tor Tomm Moore said “The nom­i­na­tion for The Secret of Kells in the ani­mated fea­ture cat­e­gory of the Acad­emy Awards is a huge sur­prise and hon­our. It’s a trib­ute to the hard work and ded­i­ca­tion of the entire crew and all our part­ners in the pro­duc­tion”.

I have only seen the trail­ers and can not wait to get the DVD. The char­ac­ter design is aston­ish­ing and the whole look of the film seems to be promis­ing tex­tures and spaces only pos­si­ble in 2D, it has a je-ne-sais-quoi that comes as refresh­ing and nec­es­sary in these times of CG surplus.

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10.02.10

On The Air

Filed under: Watch — Tags: , , , , , — Alex Amelines @ 8:12 pm

Some­times real­ity is harder to believe than fic­tion, and when that hap­pens, what bet­ter medium to cap­ture its mad­ness than ani­ma­tion? When the BBC Ire­land realised that, they cre­ated On the Air bring­ing to life some of the most idio­syn­cratic phone-ins from BBC Radio Ulster’s Gerry Ander­son show to the screen by ani­mat­ing the real-life dia­logue with col­or­ful char­ac­ters and re-interpreted settings.

Gerry Ander­son said he was con­cerned with how the ani­ma­tors are rep­re­sent­ing him: “I am still upset about hav­ing only three fin­gers on each hand and no nose. I’m tak­ing this to the high­est court in the land. And then to Stras­bourg.”

In this episode (The third one of the series) Gerry’s intrigued by Karen’s call who’s hav­ing trou­ble with a psy­chotic crow attack­ing her house. The series was pro­duced by Flick­er­pix around 2006.

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26.12.09

CúIlín Dúalach

Filed under: Watch — Tags: , , — Alex Amelines @ 9:00 am

What would your life like be if your head was fac­ing the other way? Sure it’d be handy in some instances, like see­ing if some­one is fol­low­ing you or talk­ing behind your back (also, see below), but it would cer­tainly make your life pretty event­ful.

Cúilín Dualach is a 12 minute ani­mated short film, pro­duced in 2004 by Car­toon Saloon and Léirithe Sónta.. It was based on a short story by Jackie Mac Don­n­cha .

Car­toon Saloon began as an infor­mal part­ner­ship between a group of ani­ma­tors brought together by Paul Young and Tomm Moore in 1999. Since then it has grown into an award win­ning ani­ma­tion and illus­tra­tion stu­dio. Here’s the trailer and if you’re hooked, as I’m sure you will be, you can see the whole short film here.


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