Animation filmmaker draws out a different vision for the future

A LEADING Japanese animation filmmaker, Makoto Shinkai, presented his work to the students of the Qatar University (QU) and showed those interested, how to make an animation yesterday.
Shinkai, is on a visit to Qatar that has been organised by the Japan Foundation, Embassy of Japan, QU’s Japanese Club and the Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMUQ).

He presented his first-ever project to the students of the QU, ‘The Voices of a Distant Star’ and said: “This is the first time any one in Qatar is going to be watching this movie and I hope you all like the 25-minute movie that took me eight months to finish on my personal computer.”

His second project, which was produced in collaboration with a production company, CoMix Wave Films, had 30 staffers and “the outcome felt much more professional.”

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Animation festival helps local businesses to grow

AN annual international Teesside animation festival, which has grown to become a meeting place for some of the best known names in the industry, is helping grow local businesses.

Niel Bushnell, managing director of Hartlepool-based Qurios Entertainment, a visual effects company which provided animated backdrops for BBC1's Omid Djalilili show the BBC2 series Hyperdrive, said the Festival was a unique opportunity to network with global players on their doorstep.

"You meet a lot of people from around the country and the world, and it’s an opportunity to get together with local contacts as well and strengthen those links. It really puts us on the map and helps to say to the rest of the world that this is a place where a lot of good work is happening, but we also appreciate the work that is going on in animation internationally - and this is the place we can celebrate the achievements being made.

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Download the Latest Acrobat Edition of Animation World Magazine Today!

With a theme of television, it's time to download the latest Acrobat edition of Animation World Magazine. How a new crop of international co-productions is changing the Italian animation industry. Russell Bekins lays down the rules for success. As HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL has shown, tweens can be loyal fans, avid viewers and significant purchasers of merchandise. J. Paul Peszko looks at how companies create CG series on a TV budget. Additionally, Craig J. Clark talks with co-creator Bryan Konietzko about the immensely popular action-adventure show. Joe Strike investigates the behind-the-scenes mysteries that go into the creation of THE SECRET SHOW.

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Silverlight Animation

Silverlight animation lets create truly dynamic user interfaces

Animation is a capability of Silverlight 1.1. Animation allows you to create truly dynamic user interfaces. It's often used to apply effects -- for example, icons that grow when you move over them, logos that spin, text that scrolls into view, and so on. Animations are a core part of the Silverlight model. That means you don't need to use timers and event-handling code to put them into action. Instead, you can create them declaratively, configure them using one of a handful of classes, and put them into action without writing a single line of C# code.

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Takahashi: IBM's ambitions in 3-D

Would you like to shop on Web sites such as Amazon.com and eBay with your own 3-D animated character who cruises through a virtual shopping mall rendered with high-quality 3-D animation?

Mark Dean, director of IBM's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, has dedicated a lot of research firepower to make that happen as 3-D animation moves beyond virtual worlds and video games.

He expects realistic 3-D will go mainstream as a primary user interface for a computer. Combined with technologies such as touch screens, it will be the way we interact with computers or visit Web sites, much like Tom Cruise in the "Minority Report" when he sifts through data by moving his arms around and grabbing things on a transparent computer screen.

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Animation used in clinical trial

U.S. visual content researchers have created a 3D animation video to inform patients about complex scientific information for a phase 1 clinical trial.

Arkitek Studios of Seattle said animation was used, for the first time, to help patients understand the scientific rationale behind a gene silencing therapy for hepatitis B being developed by Nucleonics Inc.

A review board at one trial site suggested Nucleonics use computer animation to explain the product and its method of action to patients, rather than relying on physicians to explain the complex science underlying the treatment.

The review board's members said use of computer animation would help to ensure the technology was presented to each patient in a consistent manner throughout the trial.

"Informed consent has evolved of necessity in recent years -- patients expect targeted information and feel they deserve to understand the technology surrounding the particular therapy they're being asked to test." said Beth Anderson, Arkitek's chief executive officer. "Most physicians haven't been exposed to this information either, therefore the burden of explanation falls on the company. With time and resources at a premium, this method offers the best way to address questions or concerns patients may have."

Source : http://www.upi.com/

Comics, animation industry gets boost

Local authorities are planning to spend up to 180 million yuan ($24.9 million) a year over the next four years to aid the development of the comics and animation industry, officials have said.

"There is a promising market for the comics and animation industry as the city has introduced a series of preferential policies to support and develop the industry," Fan Xu, director of the Guangzhou press, publication, and radio and television (copyright) bureau, said earlier this week.

Guangzhou is home to more than 120 comics and animation companies, which generate combined annual revenues of more than 10 billion yuan, about a fifth of the nation's total, Fan said.

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Animation, Rajni Style

Once again, a cinematic innovation has come from what north Indians call "the south". This Pongal, theatres in Chennai saw a two-minute teaser of Sultan--The Warrior with 58-year-old Rajnikant in a 3D animation avatar. The period film of no confirmed era will feature the superstar as a 25-year-old warrior who, of course, does somersaults in the air and delivers punch lines that guarantee Tamil applause. There was a technical difficulty in recreating him as a 25-year-old because there are no good pictures of him when he was of that age. He was still a struggler then and some time away from being excessively photographed.

When Rajnikant first saw the trailer in which he appears boots first, as he has appeared in scores of films, an insider says he clapped and whistled like a boy, asking for an encore. The film is expected to be released in 2009 to mark the 60th year of the actor. "It is a daughter's gift to her father," says director Soundarya Rajinikant, the younger of the superstar's two daughters.

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Bollywood goes high on animation

Animation seems to have made its presence felt in tinsel town. After the success of Hanuman Returns, Percept Picture Company (PPC) will present its third film, tentatively titled -- Ravana Returns. And the list doesn't end there.

Yash Raj Films has tied up with Walt Disney Pictures for Roadside Romeo, while Ravi Chopra is making Paanch Panday. Then there is 3D animation film, Icy N Spicy, which is produced and directed by Delhibased Anil Goyal. UTV too will come up with five animation films, out of which Arjun, Alibaba and Dream Blanket will be the first to hit the screens.

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DreamWorks to set up animation studio in Bangalore

BANGALORE: DreamWorks, the producers of the blockbuster animation movies like Shrek, Madagascar, will for the first time source some of its work from outside of US in India. The US-listed animation major has already formed an alliance with France-headquartered media major Thomson to have its dedicated studio in Bangalore.

“We are not looking at outsourcing but we hope that the Bangalore centre would contribute to our existing process,” said, Joe Agulae of DreamWorks. The DreamWorks studio will be set up at Paprikaas, the Bangalore based animation company which was acquired by Thomson’s business division, Technicolor.

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Expo: CrystlaMaker adds animation features in version 8

Scientists, educators, and students looking to better understand the structure of crystals and molecules: prepare to don your 3-D glasses. The latest version of CrystalMaker, released this week at Macworld Expo, moves beyond 3-D, though essentially static pictures by adding some animation features.

A crystal built with the CrystalMaker visualization software.

CrystalMaker is a tool for visualizing crystalline and molecular structures, developed by U.K.-based CrystalMaker Software.

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Animation course offers students a fun end to week

WAYLAND - On dark, wintry Friday afternoons, 3 o’clock signals the end of the school week for most Claypit Hill School students. However, for a dozen young artists, it means it’s time to head to art teacher Dale Bentley’s art room for 90 more minutes of "school."

For the past several weeks, the students have been participating in Multimedia Animation, a 90-minute art workshop in which they create a portfolio of work for a multimedia presentation. The group’s final project was showcased at the annual Winter Concerts held in December. As chorus members sang "The Little Snowflake," the art students’ final project was shown on a large screen, adding a visual dimension to the concert.

For Bentley, the Friday afternoon sessions tacked on to an already full week are anything but a chore.

"As tired as I might be at the end of a week, I find this very relaxing," she said.

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Animation festival debuts in Jakarta

Animation enthusiasts will have something to smile about from Jan. 14 to 20 with a series of screenings, seminars and workshops dedicated to the art being held daily at Taman Ismail in Central Jakarta as part of the Urbanimation festival.

Urbanimation, which was organized by several of Indonesia's animation communities and the Jakarta Arts Council, is being held this year for the first time.

Hendra, who attended a seminar on productive animation making Tuesday, said he was pleased with the session as it gave him a new perspective on the animation world.

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How to Download Anime Movies

Ever wondered how to download anime movies? If you are a great fan of Japanese culture and for that matter, a fanatic of cartoons like Naruto, Genesis Evangelion, Sailor Moon and Bleach, you would love to be able to download anime movies without paying much.
Where can you find cheap movies to download and watch?

We are able to source and find 3 ways to do so. So be prepared to feast your eyes on endless hours of good animation. You can do so on your PC or on your TV as we show you how.

1. Free P2P Networks
   
   Peer to peer networks do host some of these cartoon series. You would be able to download anime movies and videos for free here. Trouble is, there are some problems you got to deal with like threats from adware, spyware and viruses. Downloading can be horribly slow and the picture quality can be rather poor.
   
   
2. Fansubs
   
   Fansubs are actually subtitled versions of original Japanese cartoons. These are as the name explains dubbed by fans. They are normally hosted on their private sites. While you may download anime movies and find some of the latest releases, the trouble is quite a number of them are illegal. These are also privately run which means that they can be low on server resources and bandwidth. So you can expect slow downloading speeds.
   
   
3. Paid Anime Download Services
   
   Recently, there have been a few new sites that were created offering you a chance to download anime movies, both new and old. For less than $30 to $40, you get a lifetime membership offer to transfer as many cartoons as you wish onto your computer. You get videos as well and there are no restrictions if you want to copy them onto CDs or DVDs to watch on your TV.
   
   The choice is pretty clear. These days, many are going to paid download sites to download anime movies as well as videos. Find out how you too can do so at my cartoon blog!
   

About the Author
Join thousands of Anime fans as they download anime videos at the most popular anime downloading site. Also, read another popular article on where to download anime videos instantly for pennies.

Animation contest attracts youths as young as 10 years old

SINGAPORE : A recent animation contest organised by IT company Brother International and the Media Development Authority of Singapore has produced winners as young as 10 years old.

The winning clip that clinched the top spot in the Primary and Secondary School Category was the work of one 10-year-old and two 11-year-olds.

"I feel very surprised and happy because we are only Primary school (students) but yet we are able to beat the secondary school students with our work in this competition," said 11-year-old Jowell Tan from Ai Tong School, winner in the Primary and Secondary School Category

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New 'Disney Treasures' reward animation fans

DISCS GO FROM MICKEY TO DONALD TO DISNEYLAND

Last year at this time Walt Disney Studios announced it would be discontinuing the limited-edition "Walt Disney Treasures" series, but thanks to a grass-roots write-in campaign, fans have been rewarded with a seventh group of three releases ($32.99 each, not rated).

It's a good crop. "The Chronological Donald, Volume 3" continues where the 2005 Volume 2 left off, with 30 Donald Duck shorts produced from 1947 to 1950, by which point this excitable bird had decisively surpassed the increasingly bland, corporate Mickey as the most popular character in the Disney stable.

Though Disney himself had largely lost interest in his studio's short productions, the Donald cartoons continued to be a reliable source of revenue. Mostly directed by Jack Hannah, these latter-day Donalds seem meant to compete with the manic energy of the Warner Bros. cartoons, though they seldom ascend to the same heights of anarchic humor. They remain essentially mild character comedies, related to the naturalistic situation-comedy style that, during this same period, was migrating from radio to early television.

Source : http://www.mercurynews.com/

BBC children's series confirms India is centre of animation

India has long been known as an outsourcing hub for call centres and computer support. Now a new BBC children's series airing this week will cement its position as a global centre for animators.

With a £10m budget, India-animated Freefonix is one of the BBC's biggest ever animation projects. The futuristic tale of mismatched musicians was two years in the making across three continents and involved more than 200 people.

The Bollywood-BBC tie-up on Freefonix is the first of many, according to the series' UK-based producers Cinnamon Entertainment. Managing director Anthony Bouchier says more readily available funding and skilled animation teams are drawing TV show-makers to India.

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Online animation school has designs on teaching

FAST-GROWING does not always come to mind when applied to educational outlets. But an East Bay school for character animation fits that description nicely.

Animation Mentor, founded in Berkeley by veterans of Pixar Animation Studios and Industrial Light & Magic, teaches students how to create animated characters. The school offers an 18-month Web-based course in drawing characters from the basic to the complex.

Unlike other animation schools, Animation Mentor's teachers don't worry about training students how to use the latest in digital technology, such as the software Pixar uses to create movies entirely on networks of computers.

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Animation Uses Old Physics to New Effect

Ever wonder how animated films such as The Incredibles get hair, clothing, water, plants, and other details to look so realistic? Or how, like the lion in The Chronicles of Narnia, animated characters are worked into live-action films? If not, the animators would be pleased, since they don't want special effects to distract from the story. Behind the scenes, though, is a sophisticated combination of artistry, computation, and physics.

Traditionally, animation was hand drawn by artists who needed"some of the same magical eye that the Renaissance painters had, to give the impression that it's realistically illuminated," says Paul Debevec, a computer graphics researcher at the University of Southern California. Over the past decade or so, the hand-painted animation has faded as physically-based simulations have increasingly been used to achieve more realistic lighting and motion. Despite this movement toward reality in animated films, the physics of the real world remains a slave to expediency and art: Simplifications and shortcuts make the simulations faster and cheaper, and what the director wants trumps physical accuracy.

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Growing animation industry opens up new opportunities

The Indian animation industry is rapidly growing as a major outsourcing hub with a growth rate of 30 per cent, according to a recent study.

Joining the bandwagon, the northern region has taken the lead by having one of the fastest growing companies in southern Asia, Compact Disc India Ltd (CDIL), an integrated media and entertainment company.

Further, the region has also attracted animation training institutes to cash in on the burgeoning demand of animators.

Speaking to Business Standard, CDIL Managing Director Gautam Seengal said: “According to Nasscom, the Indian animation industry, which is now pegged at $550 million, is expected to grow over 30 per cent annually in the next couple of years and reach a level of $15 billion by 2008. India has the world’s largest entertainment industry, a robust software industry and also skilled manpower, all essential ingredients for the growth of the animation industry.”

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Animation companies to release 25 movies in 2 years

NEW DELHI: It's going to rain animation movies on Indian celluloid, with all major studios and animation companies lining up a slew of releases to keep one entertained till 2009. According to industry estimates, more than 25 movies are up for release in 2008 and 2009. According to Nasscom estimates, the animation industry is likely to become a $950-million business in the country by 2010.

While international major Disney Studios will foray into the Indian animation space with co-production tie-ups with Yash Raj Films and Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions, ADAG’s Adlabs Films, Pritish Nandy Communications, Percept and Shemaroo are others big companies that are producing animation movies for release within the next two years. The Indian Film Company has also firmed up plans in collaboration with Richard Branson & Shekhar Kapoor’s Virgin Comics to make three horror animation movies.

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Animation companies to release 25 movies in 2 years

NEW DELHI: It's going to rain animation movies on Indian celluloid, with all major studios and animation companies lining up a slew of releases to keep one entertained till 2009. According to industry estimates, more than 25 movies are up for release in 2008 and 2009. According to Nasscom estimates, the animation industry is likely to become a $950-million business in the country by 2010.

While international major Disney Studios will foray into the Indian animation space with co-production tie-ups with Yash Raj Films and Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions, ADAG’s Adlabs Films, Pritish Nandy Communications, Percept and Shemaroo are others big companies that are producing animation movies for release within the next two years. The Indian Film Company has also firmed up plans in collaboration with Richard Branson & Shekhar Kapoor’s Virgin Comics to make three horror animation movies.

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BREAKING NEWS ANIMATION: IOWA STUNNER

Election nights are tough for print journalists, especially for political cartoonists. In the past, depending on deadlines and what time of night the election was called, I might have been forced to settle for running a generic cartoon about a given election, sans any reference to the eventual outcome.

But later press deadlines mean that my paper can run much more specific cartoons, often pegged to the final outcome of a given election. And the Internet means that my paper's web folks can post my cartoons online without regard to print deadlines.

Of course, all this takes a lot of extra effort. For Thursday's night's caucuses in Iowa, I prepared three print versions of my cartoon for Thursday's paper, and animated each of the three. The first version was the "safe bet" for use in the first print edition. Anyone who followed the polls coming out of Iowa knew that neither Fred Thompson, nor Rudy Giuliani would emerge victorious.

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SIGGRAPH 2008 Announces Return of FJORG! Animation Contest

FJORG!, the International Animation Contest, will return at the upcoming SIGGRAPH conference in 2008. FJORG! is an "iron animator" event in which 16 competing teams from around the world have 32 hours to create the most impressive character-driven animation of at least 15 seconds in length adhering to at least one of two themes and using at least one of 16 sound bites.

"Given the resounding success of FJORG! at SIGGRAPH 2007, it was an easy decision to host it again this year," stated Patricia Beckmann-Wells, SIGGRAPH 2008 FJORG! chair from Walt Disney Animation Studios. "This year we are expanding the submission process to welcome all animators -- professionals and students, with teams or without, in order to showcase the brightest and best the world has to offer."

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2008 will be the year of animation

Bollywood is known to follow trends. However original the filmmakers claim to be or deny of following the bandwagon, the success story of one film does click a trend of sorts. In 2006, it was the sequel that took over filmmaker’s frenzy. There were Krrish, Lagey Raho Munnabhai and Dhoom 2 galore. 2007 saw as many remakes being made from Sholay to Victoria No 203.

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Animation encourages witnesses to testify in court

AN INTERACTIVE, multilingual animated DVD is to be launched in the area to help witnesses and victims understand their crucial role in the court process.

The initiative has been launched in Cambridgeshore in a bid to empower court witnesses and slash the number of cases that stall because witnesses refuse to testify.

The DVD from Her Majesty’s Courts Service (HMCS), called “Going to Court”, is a step-by-step guide to being a witness. It is an easy-to-follow animation, seen through the eyes of a witness, which explains why victims and witnesses are so important in the court process and what they will do while in court.

It has separate routes for prosecution and defence witnesses to follow at their own pace, and witnesses can also tour a magistrates’, crown, and youth court.

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