Animation makes it into the mainstream

Animation is more than a century old and yet it is only in the last decade or so that is has made it into the mainstream.

“Now it has become an industry in its own right,” says Craig Wessels, of Wicked Pixels, a Cape Town-based production company that specialises in producing high-impact commercials for leading advertising agencies around the world. The company also produces on-air imaging for leading broadcasters. Clients include HBO, MTV, DSTV, SABC and e.tv.

“Whatever work we do, it's almost always for broadcast,” says Wessels.

TV here in SA works on 25 frames per second, and he likened a single frame to a poster, but of equal importance to the frames before, and those after.

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DreamWorks Animation profit drops 45% in fourth quarter

Revenue from the DVD release of 'Kung Fu Panda' fails to match that of 'Shrek the Third' a year earlier.

DreamWorks Animation Studios reported a 45% drop in net income during the fourth quarter of 2008 as DVD revenue from "Kung Fu Panda" failed to match that of "Shrek the Third" a year earlier.

Results were below analysts' estimates.

The Glendale studio reported that net income declined to $51.6 million, or 58 cents a share, from $94.1 million, or 98 cents, a year earlier. Revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 31 fell 31% to $199.8 million.

DVD sales from "Kung Fu Panda" generated $102 million in revenue during the quarter, compared with $179 million pulled in by "Shrek the Third" after its release in the fourth quarter of 2007.

"Kung Fu Panda," which grossed more than $630 million in worldwide ticket sales, was released on DVD in November, in time for holiday shopping season.

Home video sales in general, which Hollywood has relied upon for years to bolster the movie business, have slowed considerably as the recession has cut into consumer spending.

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Animated documentaries come into their own as an accepted genre

TORONTO — Animated historical films like the Oscar-nominated "Waltz With Bashir," the narrative-driven "Persepolis" and innovative hybrid "Chicago 10" are redefining the concept of documentary films, with fans heralding the features as part of a powerful new genre that can be just as effective, if not more so, as docs that rely solely on traditional footage.

"Waltz With Bashir" in particular has launched a new breed of filmmaking into the spotlight by melding evocative, sometimes dreamlike illustrations of an Israeli army mission to Lebanon in the '80s with real interviews with former soldiers.

It may sound like a contradiction in terms, but there can be such a thing as an "animated documentary," says Sean Farnel of the Toronto-based Hot Docs, billed as North America's largest documentary film festival.

"All documentaries are constructed in one way or another - filmmakers have to make decisions about what they shoot for instance, they have to make decisions about what they edit. It is storytelling. It's all in the service of getting to some kind of deeper truth about something," says Farnel, Hot Doc's director of programming.

"In a film like 'Waltz With Bashir,' even though the film is animated and the visuals are still highly constructed, the story itself has a very direct connection to real events and real emotions and I think that's what gives that film its power and that's what gives documentary its power, this direct connection to real events."

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Kung Fu Panda' vs. 'WALL-E" for animation Oscar

Art versus commerce, critical taste versus popular opinion - not the issues usually associated with animated cartoons. But these are the undercurrents of this year's Oscar race for best animated feature, making the category a bit more exciting than usual.

In June, Disney/Pixar released "WALL-E," about a droopy-eyed, trash-compacting robot who saves the Earth from a polluting mega-corporation. It became a massive favorite among critics, who compared it to Charlie Chaplin's silent masterpieces (its first 40 minutes are nearly wordless) and crowned it the year's best film in the Village Voice's recent critics' poll. Until recently, "WALL-E" seemed the clear front-runner for the animation Oscar, to be announced Sunday.

But then came last month's Annie Awards for animation, a low-profile but important honor. And the top prize went to - "Kung Fu Panda"?

That DreamWorks Animation product, about a chubby panda (voiced by Jack Black) who becomes an unlikely martial-arts master, received decent reviews but became a major crowd-pleaser. Worldwide, "Kung Fu Panda" outgrossed "WALL-E" by about $100 million, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com.

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8-year-old computer wizard makes 1,000 animation films

Aman Rehman is merely eight years old but teaches "students" who are thrice his age. Popularly known as the "computerwala bachcha" in Dehra Dun, where he lives, this little genius is a computer animation wizard and has made more than 1,000 animation films till date. Aman, the youngest of four siblings, began showing interest in computers at the age of three.

"We had bought a second-hand computer for our eldest son and Aman would sit watching his elder brother work at it. He would dabble at it whenever his elder brother was away. While his friends would be playing in the fields, he would be sitting at the computer. I would scold him because I thought that he would spoil the machine, but Aman would not listen," says his mother Shabnam.

Aman’s father, M. Rehman, is illiterate and works as a scooter mechanic in Dehra Dun. When some of his friends saw Aman work at the computer, they advised him to take the child to some computer experts.

Aman’s father approached the authorities at the Dehra Dun College of Interactive Arts and after considerable convincing, the authorities agreed to watch the boy work on computers.

So impressed were the college authorities with Aman’s skills that they immediately offered him admission. Within a month, Aman had written his own programme and completed the 15-month animation course in less than three months.

The College of Interactive Arts has now provided him with a scholarship for further studies and the state government has given him a laptop and Rs 1 lakh as incentive.

Aman, with 1,000 animated films to his credit, has now applied for an entry in the Young Achiever’s category of the Guinness World Records.

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36th Annual Annie Award Winners

The Annie Awards for this past year have come and gone, and the many artistic and technical awards that the animation community hands out to its many, deserving recipients have made their way to their respective owners. Taking place at UCLA's Royce Hall, the 36th Annual Annie Awards resumed their critical acknowledgement of key individuals (and teams of individuals) responsible for the development or production of the past year's best animation for film and television.

Taking the ceremony by storm this year was the DreamWorks Animation movie Kung Fu Panda, which registered an astounding 15 combined awards. Most notably drawing applause for Best Animated Feature, Best Directing (in a Feature), and Production Design (in a Feature); Kung Fu Panda, or one of its individual contributors, won every single category for which it was originally nominated. Suddenly, the widespread professional acknowledgement of the artistic merits of feature animation feels within reach.

In front of an audience of a reported 1800 or more last week, the masters of the cartoon world honored their own, regardless of the media type--claymation, traditional animation, or computer animation. Nickelodeon's fantasy-adventure epic Avatar: the Last Airbender, which finished its TV run last fall, took home two high profile awards: Best Directing (for TV) and Best Animated TV Production (for Children)

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Support for CSS animations added to WebKit nightly build

The WebKit team has been working on improving the CSS standard and recently added support for "explicit" keyframe-based animations to the nightly builds of WebKit, giving developers a powerful way to animate styles without having to use other animation tools.

There are always new features being added to WebKit, making it a bit hard at times to keep track of just what it can do. In the case of CSS, the WebKit folks have been working on enhancements to the standard for a while now, and the project recently gained support for a rather nifty enhancement. Called CSS Animations, the feature gives developers the ability to create style-related animations without having to use JavaScript, Flash, or other animation tools.

WebKit already contains some animation functionality in the form of support for CSS transitions, but the addition of "explicit animations" (no, not like that) gives Web developers an even more powerful tool. The new CSS animations use the concept of "keyframes," which, in this case, are styles that will be applied at a particular point in the animation. The CSS animation engine then figures out what should go in between the keyframes, thus creating the animation.

The WebKit developers also provide sample code for "pulse" animations, which are apparently "the new blink," although I wasn't aware we needed a new blink in the first place. So far, the feature is specific to WebKit (and not yet Safari), but if you'd like to try the animations out, support is now included in the WebKit nightly builds. The iPhone 2.0 version of WebKit also supports CSS animations and performance is supposedly quite good, so mobile users can get in on the fun too.

Source : http://arstechnica.com/

Postgraduate Courses in Computer Animation

The UK is a world leader in computer animation courses and companies. Prof John Vince of the National Centre for Computer Animation at Bournemouth University tells you what you need to know.

The growth of computer graphics over the last three decades has been incredible. Today, the world of computer animation has become a sophisticated discipline supported by exotic software and real-time workstations. A world dominated by young, talented computer animators, who are completely at home building virtual worlds and animating impossible scenarios. No one would dare claim that computer animation has settled down as a stable industry; it is still exploding in all directions creating new opportunities for industry and opening up amazing career opportunities. A postgraduate course in computer animation can enhance your employment prospects and further your career opportunities.

It is therefore, no surprise, that more and more students are considering computer animation as a career. The very thought of being involved in Oscar-winning special effects films, 3D computer games and computer-generated films is very tempting. Add to this the prospect of earning a healthy salary and it is no wonder that computer animation courses are in great demand.

Fortunately, this enthusiasm to seek a career in digital media is more than matched by industry's need for educated and knowledgeable people. And the pressure is really on academic to respond to this growing demand.

Companies such as Industrial Light & Magic, Pixar, Dreamworks and Disney are amongst those companies leading the way by creating an incredible market for computer-generated images. However, the film industry is only part of the story: apart from film special effects, there are other important sectors such as computer games, entertainment simulators, advertising, TV, multimedia and the Internet. Collectively, they form a mass global industry that is worth billions of dollars.

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‘Monsters vs. Aliens’ Super Bowl commercial signals a 3-D invasion

Reese Witherspoon voices a friendly giant mutant monster in the upcoming “Monsters vs. Aliens.” Its 3-D technology is “the most revolutionary thing that has happened to film since the evolution of color,” says studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg.

DreamWorks Animation head honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg is having a hard time trying to exactly describe some of the 3-D features of his studio’s upcoming release “Monsters vs. Aliens.”

“There’s that wonderful expression: A picture is worth 1,000 words,” he finally begins. “Well, a 3-D picture is worth 3,000 words. It’s just a whole new unique way to enjoy a movie.”

“Monsters,” which hits theaters March 27, is part of an unprecedented flood of 3-D films being released over the next two months. For anyone who thinks the current resurgence will be a repeat of 1953 — when 3-D exploded onto the scene with “It Came From Outer Space” and “House of Wax,” then quickly faded away — Katzenberg says don’t count on it.

“Digital projection allows for a beautiful, pristine image and eliminates all of the imperfections that were such a presence in old 3-D and very annoying,” he says. “There are also new polarized glasses that are very comfortable to wear — they are cool glasses, not cardboard and cheesy.”

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3-dimensional strategy takes shape for marketers, TV shows

Don your helmets, err … your 3-D glasses. You'll need them for a Super Bowl weekend ad and programming blitz in three dimensions.

Procter & Gamble kicks it off Friday with a 3-D website for Crest Whitestrips Advanced Seal.

P&G joins PepsiCo and DreamWorks Animation in using the proliferating technology for a marketing stunt. During the big game, Pepsi and DreamWorks Animation will air back-to-back 3-D ads for SoBe Lifewater and DreamWorks' upcoming 3-D movie, Monsters vs. Aliens.

PepsiCo has distributed more than 130 million pairs of those goofy 3-D glasses via more than 25,000 grocery, drug and mass retail stores. Intel, a provider of 3-D technology for both the movie and the ads, paid for the production of them, which can cost up to a nickel each.

P&G's promotion is a stealth play. It's counting on site visitors to use the specs Pepsi doled out. The site shows close-ups of whitening-strip wearers kissing at KissMeIn3D.com. The point is to show that the strips can't be seen, and besides, says Heath Rudduck, executive creative director for Crest digital agency Digitas, "No one really enjoys kissing in 2-D."

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Animation films, the real money spinners of B'wood

Mumbai: Yashraj Films' much awaited co-production with Walt Disney Roadside Romeo, a Rs 23-crore animation featuring the voices of Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor released to empty houses in 2008.

And though Akshay Kumar's much hyped animation debut Jumbo failed to make an impact, the franchise is already in sequel mode.

Joining the sequel bandwagon is Shemaroo's Bal Ganesh and a step ahead with a threequel is Baba Arts's My Friend Ganesha.

Figures suggest that animation features recover only 15 per cent of their budgets through ticket sales. So why do producers pump in money for a genre that’s a high risk zone as far as box-office success goes? Simply because they make for great television content and with the growing number of children’s channels, animated features with indigenous content are hot property.

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What can Walt Disney Animation Studios do to save itself? Ditch digital

I’m going to apologize in advance for today's column because I'm sure that it's going to make a lot of people angry. I have a plan that some might call radical. But it’s a plan that I’m afraid we need. Tough times demand tough decisions, and here’s one to consider:

Get rid of digital animation at Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Yep. I said it. I think that WDAS should stop producing CG animated features and should instead concentrate on reviving hand-drawn animation.

Now, lest you think this is some kind of impassioned plea about the “purity” of hand-drawn animation -- think again. This is not some geeky, fan boy rant about which is the better cartoon medium. Far from it. This is pure business stuff. Corporate strategy, some might call it. Tough things that you gotta do when running a business during tough times.

Animation has been going through a fair amount of turmoil over the past few years. Some “business geniuses” had the bright idea that animation was going through a paradigm shift. This was all because a new tool had been invented. A tool that gave us the ability to move objects in a computer. According to these suits, this brilliant new tool was what would move animation moving to the next level. Hand-drawn animation had reached its limit, they said. Digital animation was the new paradigm. Hand-drawn was dead, and rightly so.

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Animated films are banging seriously at the academy’s glass ceiling

The Oscar-nominated “Waltz With Bashir,” about war, guilt and memory as filtered through the experiences of former Israeli soldiers, is violent and deeply disturbing. Like last year’s “Persepolis” — a young woman’s memoir of growing up in revolutionary Iran — it employs animation to tell a dead serious story.

“Serious” cartoons. Feels like a trend.

“It’s a lot more than a trend,” said Joe Beck, author of The Animated Movie Guide and Outlaw Animation. “It’s absolutely here. And it’s growing.”

In 2008 four of the top 10 box office hits were animated. “WALL-E,” “Kung Fu Panda,” “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” and “Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!” earned a combined $778 million.

And even when they’re aimed at small fry and their parents, animators are seizing the opportunity to present dark themes and complex stories and to examine real-world issues.

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