Film and Animation

Above the Clouds Postman

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​From the Film and Animation Division

This is some pre-production art for this rad little short about a couple girls who deliver mail by air.

It's just a 3 minute animation test for a possible anime series. There's not a lot of information online about who made this. It just kind of popped up one day. I really hope they get the funding or whatever they need to flesh this world out some more.

Watch the short here: LINK​

(via @Catsuka)

-Jake

"Left" by Shinji Kawamura

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From the Film and Animation Division

What if there was a stop-motion carved wood film about a legendary sculptor who made a mechanical arm that he could use to fight bad dudes. That's the vision of director Shinji Kawamura who wants to bring his film "Left" to life.

From the animation tests posted so far this thing looks AMAZING.

Animation test here: LINK​

Hidari gets a flying chainsaw hand: LINK​

Lots more info on the project here: LINK​

-Jake

Airborn

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From the Film and Animation Division

These are screen grabs from a demo video made by Berlin-based Airborn Studios. Oh man this really got me excited. This is what I wish I could do with SkyHeart.

For more details, a bit of project background and credits check out their comprehensive blog post on Artstation: LINK​

Watch the 2+minute video here: LINK

-Jake

ZvP

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From the Short Film Division

This fan-made samurai short film, titled ZVP (abbreviated from Zatoichi vs Predator, which I assume wasn't used for copyright reasons) clashes together the samurai and sci-fi genre.

In feudal Japan, blind Swordsman Zatoichi comes to the aid of a noblewoman carrying a secret treasure, and must fight cyborg ninjas and a powerful and mysterious Samurai.

From Junya Okabe the creator: "This is a fictitious sci-fi film trailer produced as a nonprofit fan movie, based on a Japanese historical film, or jidaigeki, which does not actually exist. Please enjoy watching it."

According to the date on the youtube video this was posted five years ago. FIVE. YEARS. How come I'm only NOW seeing this sublime masterwork of camp meets cool? I feel like some friend somewhere let me down, by seeing this and not telling me about it.

Watch the short film here: LINK​

Some behind the scenes stuff here: LINK and LINK​

-Jake

The unexpected life of a throwaway sketch

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From the Film and Animation Division

483 weeks ago I posted a little drawing of a robot on instagram. That's almost 10 years ago! It got 747 likes. I didn't think much of it, and moved on.

Five years ago, CG animator and modeler Kiel Figgins ask for permission to make a rigged model of it and sells it in his shop. (I get a fair kickback of every sale)

This year, Lead Animator at The Mill, James Brown made an adorable PRO LEVEL animated short with the robot called "Love is a Dangerous Game."​

The internet really is a tool for connection and collaboration. I love that this happened, and it's a testament to just throwing stuff out there and being willing to let people roll with it.

-Jake

Scavengers

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From the Film and Animation Division

I'm not sure how this fantastic short escaped my attention for over 5 years! Made in 2017, Scavengers is an 8 minute peek in an alien world of bizarre extraterrestrial creatures and mysterious rituals. The short, created by Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner, was created for Adult Swim’s Toonami branch.

The short follows a couple of colonists on a strange planet as they work their way through a series of specially choreographed customs in order to achieve...something. You need to watch it to find out.

Insanely inventive, this makes me want to add a little more weird to my own sci-fi work.

The short is making the rounds again because HBO greenlit an animated series based on the short called "Scavengers Reign."

Watch the full short here: LINK​

Watch the trailer for Scavengers Reign here: LINK​

-Jake

The Art of the Smear

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From the Art Department's Craft Mastery Special Unit

Smear frames in animation is a creative solution to making animated characters move with more fluidity in a short amount of frames. This webpage does an EXCELLENT job at explaining it with interactive examples.

THE ART OF THE SMEAR: BREAKING DOWN A SECRET ANIMATION TRICK LINK

I share this because someone recently posted screen grabs of all the smears from the recent 3D animated Spongebob film. Each of these frames is like a Dali painting. Brilliant work by the artists at Mikros, who animated the film.

Tons more here: LINK

(via @PunzieSfw)

-Jake

Edo Era Giant Mech Battle

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From the Film and Animation Division

This is fun. You know I love robots right? I think I can trace some of that love back to this 80's anime anthology of robot stories called "Robot Carnival." I didn't see this until it somehow made it's way to my friend's house in the form of a bootleg vhs when I was in highschool. I was blown away at the inginuity and creativity of all the stories.

One that stuck out the most to me was "A Tale of Two Robots." It features a giant steampunk japanese robot battle inthe middle of a Edo period city. So fun!

You can watch the short here on YouTube: LINK​

Or if you have Prime you can watch the entire anthology here: LINK

-Jake

On Your Mark

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From the Film and Animation Division

Studio Ghibli Cyber Punk. Four words you wouldn't think would go together...but oh they do so well. This is an animated music video created by Studio Ghibli for the song "On Your Mark" for a Japanese rock band. Made waaaay back in 1995 at peak animated cyber punk. I assume they did this for a quick cash infusion between films and to stay sharp...maybe even to explore a different style? Anyway, it's cool.

There's an indulgently long Wikipedia entry on it here: LINK

WATCH IT HERE: LINK

-Jake

The Rise of Skywalker - A Design Case Study

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From the Department of Creative Bank Accounting, Film and Animation Division

Say what you will about the film, but the art department at ILM always brings their A game to projects. They just dropped a bunch of new concept art that wasn't in the "Art of" book. It's a nice addendum to the book. When I read the book I noticed it was missing a ton of Exegol stuff that should've made up the back portion of the book. I assume they didn't want it leaked out before the film came out since the book was probably going to print well before the film was released.

Really glad they posted it here, and there's a ton of new art to see. Of special interest for me are some of the new ship designs. Check it out here: LINK

-Jake