Last year Steven Spielberg spoke at the 6th Annual Visual Effects Society Awards and called for the creation of new category for Best Visual Effects in a Student Project. Well the VES manned-up and this year there are four nominees in this category. They are…

HANGAR NUMBER FIVE -Nathan Matsuda

LA MAIN DES MAITRES -Adrien CaYuS Toupet, Clement Delatre, Vivien Looky Chauvet

OUR WONDERFUL NATURE-Tomer Eshed, Dennis Rettkowski, Tomer Eshed, Dennis Rettkowski

PLASTIC – Transformation Sequence- Sandy Widyanata, Courtney Wise

When you get a chance, check out what the whippersnappers are up to. Congrats to all the nominees!

Steve Hulett has posted a scathing criticism of the new crowd sourced via Facebook animation project Mass Animation. According to an L.A. Times editorial

Through Facebook, Mass Animation invited the public to create scenes for its first short video, “Live Music.” The company supplied the animation software, the story, backgrounds, characters and audio. Animators whose work is chosen will receive $500 per scene. All told, the project will cost about $1 million and take six months to complete, a fraction of the money and time required for a comparable Hollywood project.

Hulett takes the position that this is unfair to the participants and just another case of a Hollywood bigwig out to exploit the animation community. He states

if the editorial reflects reality, (Mass Animation) is keen on owning the content, making the animators low-paid sub-contractors.

This would make a little more sense to me if the project was not an opt-in proposition. People who submit their work are hoping for a break, something young folks would pay for these days. My question to the guild… How are new animators, passionate about the work they do, supposed to get into the industry?

LINK to the post on the Animation Guild’s blog

I’ve posted about Blu’s insane animations shot stop motion on real walls before, but the new piece Muto really take the cake. This is extremely well done and must have taken forever to put together. Thanks again to Azathothx.

LINK to previous Blu post on VFXhack

AWN has posted an article revealing the results of an animation survey filled out by over 300 readers. It’s not surprising that most of the surveyed are guys who have a boner for hand drawn animation. It seems that they are particularly disturbed about the direction the winds of change are blowing in regards regards to mocap. Mark Simon sums up the issue thusly.

Sony Imageworks and Beowulf director Robert Zemeckis spent over $150 million producing a motion-capture CG animation movie. Want to know what scored the lowest in the survey of favorite animation styles? Motion-capture CG animation. Barely 2% of the survey-takers prefer this style of animation. It would seem that this is not a good investment.

I do have to agree that the Citizen Kane of mo-cap movies has yet to be made. And It looks like the movie biz has a long way to go in convincing the animators of the world that scaling the cliffs of the uncanny valley is worthy a pursuit.

LINK to full survey results (via VFXPlanet)

An art student threw together this mash-up “just for fun. Not as a serious artistic endeavor” I don’t know, something like this my have added some interest to the prequels.

thanks to Motiongrapher for the link

Kevin Kouch over at SynchroLux has written a great post about how a lowly animator tasked with forgotten background characters can add that certain something to their work in spit of “shallow storytelling and empty, superficial characters”. It’s a great read and all of Kevin’s advice can be applied to VFX work as well. I love the idea of “doing more than your job”. Heck, if all I get to do on a shot is far-off smoke plumes, by golly I’m gonna make em the best far-off smoke plumes ever!

LINK to the full atricle (via Cartoon Brew)

Those of us blessed enough to have children know what a struggle it is to have to sit through agonizingly long hours of the pure crap that passes for kids entertainment these days. VFX pros also know how hard it can be to describe to young people exactly what it is that Mommy or Daddy do at work every day. To top it all off, a lot of the time the stuff we do work on just isn’t appropriate for the eyes of innocents. To that end, here’s a list of five of my favorite VFX flicks that you can watch with your kids and hopefully get them interested in finding out more abot the craft. By the way, if your children are really interested, I could always use some help with roto.

The Wizard of OZ – 1939 (Unrated)

Why it’s great It’s the one that started it all. Matte Paintings, wire work, make-up, pyro and much more combine to create a fully realized fantasy world.

You might want to skip Parents of male children might want to gloss over some of the more sappy musical numbers for fear of creating an “over-attachment” to Judy Garland. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Prepared to be annoyed by High-pitched little people singing peppy songs. Not quite that bad compared to the insanity inducing Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007) but close.

Mary Poppins – 1964 (G)

Why it’s great Shear volume of innovative VFX techniques. Sure there is quite a bit of piano wire and bungee chord practical type stuff but you can also see some choice matte painting work and compositing on the “Jolly Holiday” sequence still holds up. DVD extras on the 2004 DVD include an informative “deconstructing a scene” section.

You might want to skip The song “Feed the Birds” is a about a homeless woman who tries to sell you groady bird seed to feed diseased pigeons. You should probably teach your kids to steer clear of such folk.

Prepared to be annoyed by… Dick Van Dyke’s “english” accent. In some scenes I swear I can see Julie Andrews wince.

Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back – 1980 (PG)

Why it’s great What’s not to like? Stop Motion, Motion Control, Yoda, Solo in Carbonite, this one is firing on all cylinders. Tons of techniques to explore with interested young ones. 2004 DVD comes with the Ken Burns Directed doc “Empire of Dreams” to get you into the behind the scenes mood.

You might want to skip The Wampa. It freaks out some youngsters, especially in the special edition. Luke’s kiss with Leah might bringup some tough questions.

Prepare to be annoyed by Billy Dee’s ‘stash. It’s almost like you want to slap it right off his face.

Apollo 13 – 1995 (PG)

Why it’s great Incredible example of effects that look real, lots of great CG and compositing to obsess over. 2-Disk Anniversary DVD includes documentary footage of the real space race for comparison. Heck the kiddies might even learn something from this one.

You might want to skip All the scenes of the worried hair-dos back on planet earth. For your convenience, the 2-Disc set has a shorter version of the movie originaly made for IMAX with the back at home cut-aways removed.

Prepared to be annoyed by Repeated use of the phrase “Huston, we have a problem” by your kids to announce everything from potty related accidents to unintentional glass breaking. Wallace & Grommit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit – 2005 (G)

Why it’s great The amount of character that this film squeezes out of a couple of lumps of clay must be seen to be believed. The Rube Goldberg contraptions are great launching pads for discussions of cause and effect and timing in animation. The simple yet extremely effective composition and lighting in this film is also something the deserves a close look.

You might want to skip You should probably skip the movie all togther if you are worried that this film might be a gateway to more British humor. If your kids like this I see lots of Monthy Python and Black Adder in your future.

Prepared to be annoyed by Puns. “Anti-Pesto”, “24-carrot” bullets, “PC Mackintosh” it sends chills up my spine just writing these.

Have a fav of your own? Feel free to leave comment and tell us what is is.

It never fails to amuse me what people will put together for a demo reel. This CG train wreck almost caused me to simultaneously  fall backwards off my chair and spew milk out of my nostrils. There is some kind of perfection in just how awful this animation is.

LINK to more gloriously bad CG at the Jackal’s Forge Gallery Abominate

1. Creepy monkey claw hands
2. Insane parkinsons-like head bobbing
3. High Igor-ish shoulders
4. Seizure inducing background lighting
5. 2 dimensional white bow tie

Way to defile the memory of great artist through the use of bad CGI!LINK (via Cartoon Brew) 

Classic stop-mo from your friends at Rankin/Bass (c. 1967). My only issue, what’s with the question mark?.

LINK (via Laughing Squid)