First off, let me just say, there is a TON of animation showing at the Children’s Film Festival (Jan 26-Feb 5 at the NW Film Forum). There are 11 shorts programs, organized by themes (click here for the full schedule). I’ve gone through and sorted out which programs have the most stop-frame animation (whether dawn or puppets) rather than live-action or computer animation:
If you’re really into drawn animation, there are two shorts programs that seems to be pretty much comprised of this:
Fire and Ice: New Animation from Russia (Jan 28 at 3pm, Feb 4 at 3:30pm, 51 minutes): This is a program of 9 shorts, none older than 2002. All seem to be drawn, except for this one which is told with buttons (!):
and Fright Delight (Jan 29 at 1:30pm, Feb 1 at 7pm, Feb 4 at 5:30pm, 67 minutes): Scary films for ages 9 and up.
If you’re more into stop-motion with objects and puppets rather than drawn, there is a program for little little kids called Touch My Heart: Gentle Films on the Big Screen (Jan 27 at 11am, Feb 5 at 11am) that has a knitted film, one made with cardboard, and a few other stop-motion.
Birds of a Feather (Jan 29 at 1pm, Feb. 4 at 11am) also has many stop-motion and drawn shorts.
These are the ones with the MOST stop-motion, but truth be told, every single shorts program (11 altogether!) has a least one or two stop-motion animations. So go out and catch them!
The other big animation is the opening night feature, and here is my rant about that:
I’m torn. I absolutely loved Micel Ocelot‘s ‘Princes et Princesses‘ when I first stumbled upon it in my university library seven or eight years ago. It was a fun film, a short film, but a long one, if I recall correctly, composed of vignettes of a girl and a boy play-acting different fairy tales. It was made in a Lotte Reiniger style of back-lit cut-outs, and they were ingenious, and moved beautifully. Then Ocelot made ‘Azur et Asmar‘ a computer animated feature that echoed his two dimensional cut-out style.
It was ok. Not great. There were some fun moments, but overall I found the story went downhill two thirds of the way through and I was disappointed with the animation. What a waste, I thought! Surely he has now learned that he should not have strayed from the simplicity and grace of his stop-motion technique! Alas, that was not to be. His latest film is called ‘Tales of the Night‘ (Les Contes de la Nuit) and it will open the Children’s Film Festival at the Northwest Film Forum tomorrow (Jan 26th) at 7PM.
From what I can tell, it seems to be very much inspired by his short Princes et Princesses, except it focuses on one fairy tale and is longer. He is using computer animation to closely imitate his stop-motion technique, and maybe the restriction of the having the figures silhouetted will reign in the temptation to go CG-crazy. But you decide! I’ve included below clips or trailers from all three films.
Princes et Princesses
Azur et Asmar
Tales of the Night
The screening of the Inter-Action program of animated shorts tonight at Naked City Brewery has been postponed until Wednesday, Feb 1st due to snow. Here is the Facebook event with the new date and all the info: http://www.facebook.com/events/160042350771166/
Related show
Above is a short sand test I made. In an effort to teach myself the finer points of sand animation, I referenced two videos of Caroline Leaf demonstrating her technique, and copied her frame by frame. I learned so much through this exercise! So far I’m finding sand fun and direct, though challenging. I’m hoping to use this technique in a new film that will screen at a special animation event on March 1st (more info on this soon). Below are the two videos I referenced:
Still from Plain Face (2011)
Starting February 2nd you’ll be able to see Plain Face, my animated short that premiered at SIFF in May, on the big beautiful monitors of 4Culture’s media gallery, e4C. A reception at 4Culture will mark the launch on February 2nd, and is part of Pioneer Square’s First Thursday Art Walk. Stay tuned for more details about this event, but in the meantime, mark your calendars! Plain Face will be screening on the monitors (on rotation with others artists’ work) for a full year! Check out this video about e4C where I talk about one of my previous pieces, A Moment’s Reverie, that was on there from 2009 to 2010:
Did you miss the Inter-Action program when it screened at the NW Film Forum on June 16th 2011? Now’s your chance to see all 12 locally-made animated short films for free (!) at the Naked City Brewery in their monthly film night, Third Wednesday with Northwest Film Forum. Here is the Facebook event.
And here are the deets:
Naked City Brewery
8564 Greenwood Ave N
Seattle, WA 98103
Wednesday January 18th, 8:00PM
FREE
Program is 75 minutes and includes Tess Martin‘s short Plain Face, Stefan Gruber‘s Both Worlds, Drew Christie’s The Man Who Shot the Man Who Lincoln, and Bruce Bickford‘s The Comic That Frenches Your Mind!
This last one WILL blow your mind, guaranteed (wait, I didn’t mean it like that….)
Not to mention shorts by the talented Britta Johnson, Amanda Moore, Salise Hughes, Davis Limbach, Aaron Wendel, Sarah Jane Lapp, Clyde Petersen and Webster Crowell!
Keep up to date with SEAT stuff through the SEAT FB page:
http://www.facebook.com/experimentalanimation
My animated short Plain Face is screening at the Victoria Film Festival on February 11th as part of the Animation Alive! shorts program. I will be attending! I’ve never been to Vancouver Island before, so this should be fun.
Check out these snapshots of my animation stand today – the waves are part of the credits for the film I’m working on, The Whale Story. It’s almost finished and I’ll be screening what I have at the Capitol Hill Art Walk on January 12th. More on that soon. The bulk of this film was shot with the help of SEAT in Cal Anderson Park as part of the Wallrus project.
Still from Plain Face (2011)
My animated short Plain Face will be screening at 4Culture’s media gallery, e4C, starting February 2nd.
It will be showing for a full year on the gallery’s four large screens that face the sidewalk.
You can see and hear it just by walking past on Prefontaine Pl S.
There will be a private view on February 2nd, the First Thursday Pioneer Square Art Walk. For info on that soon.
Check out this video about e4C to see what it’s all about:
Still from A Moment's Reverie (2007)
I’m happy to announce that one of my films has made it onto my vimeo channel – in full! It’s 10 minutes long, enjoy!
Tess Martin freeing the whale, one frame at a time
Thanks to DK Pan for taking these shots!
Work continues on the SEAT wall as animator Tess Martin shoots some close-ups scenes for her project the Whale Story.
Actor (performer/curator/free man) DK Pan took these shots in between posing for close-ups. In this scene the fisherman is cutting the line that will unravel the tangle of nets.
