Tarzan Animation tests

I love how this animation looks so fluid and free. It shows how different animators tested the anatomy of Tarzan befor the animation was confirmed

The day after tomorrow

The Day after tomorrow is a film based on the next possible Ice Age. It shows what New York would look like if this possible apocalyptic event ever happened.

The 3d rendering of the whole city in water, then in snow, as well as the large amount of ice, is very realistic and fits nicely into this live action film.

The title of this film is ridiculous; what were they thinking when they thought it up. A more fitting title would be "The Cold Tomorrow" or "The Day After the Age", but not "the day after tomorrow"; It just sounds too simple.

Nerdfilms website

http://www.nerdfilms.tv/
This is the official website for the nerd show ie nerd films. The website is animated all the time, which can be a problem if your computer cannot cope with it.
The actions are used more or les with help of filming and photography, except the lego iphone, in which that is made by stop motion.
When you move your mouse over an object, it animates. However, when you scrool over the lego brick Ipod, you will hear a disturbing 'Meow', it's only when you click the ipod and watch the following video will you understand what the meow was about.

Mini Ninjas official website

http://www.minininjas.com/us/
This is the official website for the Mini Ninjas video game.
The web site's theme fits neatly with the theme of the video game. The textures used for the grass and bamboo has a very realistic-cartoon cross feel to it.
the site's interactivity is simple and efficient as well, the links for screenshots and trailer are easy to spot and click to. Everything is animated in this website, when you scroll your mouse over, when you click on something or even when your not doing anything, a ninja will appear and animate.

Red Bull Project- The secret half-pipe

This is the webpage for the lesser known Red Bull project. The website is very interactive. When you scroll your mouse over to any of the small icons displayed, it will animate to a 'view video/photo' link, and as you click it, the link will transform into a window containing the depending video or photo.

The images and videos are taken first at the set of the location with a high-quality camera. The developers then go through a series of techniques, not only enhancing the source materails taken but, after developing ideas for the layout and coming up with a conclusion, add all the interactive behaviours, including the animation, digitally.

Codemasters loading banner

The loading screen on the banner takes only a split second, yet if you do manage to revise it, you'll notice that they took good time to work on the animation, and the detail, of this copyrighted banner.

Xbox games- Left4dead

The banner for the current Xbox website is very effective, and fits the theme nicely. The animation makes the banner scratchy and old, which can be linked to this dreary, undead feel to the game this website is promoting.

Mario Bros. Wii website

This is the official webpage for the new Super mario bros. game.

The website includes a vast collection of trailers, including a help guide (left) and are placed nicely depending on the type of page that is currently active.

The loading screen (right), even though is only on for a split second, is also animated well.

Ice Age, the survival guide

here are a few tips to survive the next Ice age (if any)

Food

Farmers will need to switch to more resilient animals, such as rabbits and fish.

Plants will grow faster in warmer areas.

Farmers will have more greenhouses.

Shelter

Smaller homes with more people inside each one.

More sources of heat.

More insulated with lesser windows

Cities will become biospheres

Water

Boil snow and ice

In populated tropics, current technology allows to safely desalinate salt water.

Fire

Burn almost anything, including trash

Renewable sources of energy, such as solar, wind, hydro, and fusion, in the future

Clothing

Thick socks and woolly underwear.

Thick boots for travelling in the thick snow

Thick coat with a thick hood

Cover nose and mouth if necessary

Cover extensively during dark nights

the Ice Age in Popular culture

When one mentions the Ice Age, most will refer to the animated movie released in 2002 created by Blue Sky productions.

In fact, this movie (and the sequels to follow) takes place in the Pliocene epoch. This era contained many animals that were included in the film, but have long been died out, Including:

Wooly Mammoth

Ground Sloth

Sabre-tooth cats

Giant Rhinos and Armadillos

and so on

Lee's Apocalyptic lesson- The Ice Age

Wikipedia result
I don't yet know if this is an actual apocalyptic event. I will have to see to him about that.

outsider art- Adolf wolfli

Adolf Wolfli was an artist from Switzerland who first introduced Outsider art, the art of the insane. Adolf had a very rough childhood, he was abused in many ways. And even after his childhood he had been convicted and sentenced time and time again, until he sent to a psychiatric hospital ( mad house). But between these corrupt times, he found a way to show what he sees in his mind by developing it on a canvas.

One of his examples shown, The General view of the island Neveranger 1911, shows his mental image, and that his corrupt life is the influence of his views to the world.

Michael Foucault- Madness and Civilization

Michael Foucault was a french philosopher who is well known for his critical studies of social institutions. His most noted work is Madness and Civilization.

"Foucault begins his history in the Middle Ages, noting the social and physical exclusion of lepers. He argues that with the gradual disappearance of leprosy, madness came to occupy this excluded position. Theship of fools in the 15th century is a literary version of one such exclusionary practice, the practice of sending mad people away in ships. However, during the Renaissance, madness was regarded as an all-abundant phenomenon because humans could not come close to the Reason of God. As Cervantes' Don Quixote, all humans are weak to desires and dissimulation. Therefore, the insane, understood as those who had come too close to God's Reason, were accepted in the middle of society. It is not before the 17th century, in a movement which Foucault famously describes as the Great Confinement, that "unreasonable" members of the population systematically were locked away and institutionalized. In the 18th century, madness came to be seen as the obverse of Reason, that is, as having lost what made them human and become animal-like and therefore treated as such. It is not before 19th century that madness was regarded as a mental illness that should be cured, e.g. Philippe Pinel, Freud. A few professional historians have argued that the large increase in confinement did not happen in 17th but in the 19th century.^[2] Critics argue that this undermines the central argument of Foucault, notably the link between the Age of Enlightenment and the suppression of the insane.

However, Foucault scholars have shown that Foucault was not talking about medical institutions designed specifically for the insane but about the creation of houses of confinement for social outsiders, including not only the insane but also vagrants, unemployed, impoverished, and orphaned, and what effect those general houses of confinement had on the insane and perceptions of Madness in western society. Furthermore, Foucault goes to great lengths to demonstrate that while this "confinement" of social outcastes was a generally European phenomenon, it had a unique development in France and distinct developments in the other countries that the confinement took place in, such as Germany and England, disproving complaints that Foucault takes French events to generalize the history of madness in the West. A few of the historians critical of its historiography, such as Roy Porter, also began to concur with these refutations and discarded their own past criticisms to acknowledge the revolutionary nature of Foucault's book.^[3]

Foucault also argues that madness during the Renaissance had the power to signify the limits of social order and to point to a deeper truth. This was silenced by the Reason of the Enlightenment. He also examines the rise of modern scientific and "humanitarian" treatments of the insane, notably at the hands of Philippe Pinel and Samuel Tuke. He claims that these modern treatments were in fact no less controlling than previous methods. Tuke's country retreat for the mad consisted of punishing them until they gave up their commitment to madness. Similarly, Pinel's treatment of the mad amounted to an extended aversion therapy, including such treatments as freezing showers and the use of straitjackets. In Foucault's view, this treatment amounted to repeated brutality until the pattern of judgment and punishment was internalized by the patient."

Beginning of the end of sanity- Batman

Batman is DC's longest running superhero story. The begging of Batman's story starts when he is a very young child. Both his mother and father were taking from him, and it was a flock of bats that found him. This led to his deep insanity (yes, that's right, the caped crusader IS insane)

Batman: Asylum takes place in the memorable mental facility from the Batman universe. As the 'Caped Crusader', you have to stop The Joker and his new 'possies' from taking over the institute, and Gotham with it. The environment is very dark and metallic, portraying the insanity within the stroyline.

Begging of the end of Sanity- I'm a cyborg but that's OK

This korean movie takes place in a mental institution, or Asylum, and is about a girl who believes she is a cyborg. Although there is no physical signs or symptoms of insanity (eye twitching, hysteric laugh etc) you can tell by the main characters personality and determination that she's not in the best of mental conditions. The film also includes a boy who claims to steal souls, who soon befriends the young cyborg-girl.

sound art- John Cage

John cage is a popular sound artist. Sound art is an unique genre of art that considers wide notions of sound, listening and hearing as its predominant focus.
John cage's most renound work is a peice called 4′33″. The title is reffering to the time of silence between acts.

Brian's lesson- different character styles

Greg the Lion- The many faces by ~GregTheLion on deviantART

During our new animation project, we were assigned to experiment with character design, so I took one of my ideas and generated it into six different styles with official copyright.

Illustrators of said styles taken (top left-bottom right)

Yuji Uekawa (Sonic The hedgehog)

I remeber it being Yuji's style of cartooning that got me into drawing in the first place. It looked fun and exciting. Of course I'm very fond of this style, and always will be. I made a note on the comparison to the head, hands and torso.

Takaya Imamura (Star Fox)

keeping with the human-animal anatomy, or Furry (Anthro) style, I looked up this design because the comparison looks more realistic, and the style was slightly more lifelike. I'm happy with this designs clothing, however the facial design is difficult to pick up and so could be a but tedious when animating.

Walt Disney (Mickey Mouse)

This design's alright, but it's not what I would want to stick with. othing really seems to fit with it and it's just not the style i'm looking for. It doesn't look alive, it doesn't look like it's gonna jump out of the screen and do a hand stand.

Masaki Kajishima (Tenchi muyo!)

Ever since it first aired in the UK, I fell in love with this show. It was funny, exciting, and at times pretty cheeky. The Style itself is also pretty fun to experiment with. This has to be the second favourite style I used. The only thing im not happy with are the arms and legs. The feet are a good design though.

Preston Blair (Disney, MGM, Hanna-Barbera)

This style of animation was aided by an animation book, written by Preston. In a sense, his tyle is somewhat Disney, with a hint of Tex Avery. Unfortunatly, it doesnt exactly fit with the design I needed, It just seems too child friendly. the head is especialy the let down.

Matt Groening (The Simpsons)

Matt's style of design is all about circles. Almost every character created in The Simpsons and Futurama has started as a circle, or a similarly round object, and always have corcular eyes, and round teeth. Much like Preston Blair's style, this is just too child-freindly for the design im looking for.

With all these pros and cons in mind, I am now ready to mix and match different parts of these styles and come up with a final charcter style I am happy with.

animated music video-

"Mary" by Scissor sisters

this music is mostly animated in the last half by Don Bluth. The sequence and landscapes of tis animation really links with the soothing music playing alongside.

This is the Music video for Mika's lollipop. The direction of the animation is based on the little red riding hood and the style of animation is somewhat based on the style only familar to the Beatles' Yellow submarine. I like the animation of the big wolf most of, because of how active and liquid the animation, the structure looks more traditional, whereas the other characters just felt 'stiff' and lifeless, like wooden mannequins.

This is the 'somewhat' original video of lion sleeps tonight, as if it were sung by pat (hippo) and stanley (dog). The song was written and played by The Tokens in 1961. This video however, was animated by Pierre Coffin in 2003.

Brian's lesson- Animatic

First half

Second half

These two scans are part of an animatic I had to put together in order to link the storyboard with the final outcome. I was falling behind on this step because I apparently was over-detailing my animatic frames. Brian looked over while i was still sketching a new one, and he told me that he much prefer the sketchy look to my animatic. This helped me speed up the process drawing out all the animatic frames.

Beginning of the end of sanity

Wikipedia result

Insanity is a mental breakdown in which you lose all self-conscience and, as a result, lead to a berserk state of depression or madness. Results of insanity may and will including uncontrollable screaming, flailing, laughing, and could lead to homicide or even suicide. The results may differ depending on the cause of the insanity.

Function of traditional storytelling

Storytelling traditions vary all over the world, yet have many things in common. This section is an attempt to gather information on customs of the oral tradition world-wide. Many people today are rediscovering the pleasures of telling stories, after their culture has lost most of its traditional storytelling, yet cannot easily find out much about the countless millennia of oral traditions with all their wisdom and techniques. I hope this site will help you discover and appreciate something of the central role which traditional storytelling has played in most cultures, and in some places still does.

Your help will be welcome if you know or come across any facts or resources to add, current or historical. To begin with I'll be adding bits and pieces as I can, mainly from the perspective of musical commentators. Later on we'll have overviews and this page will split into various areas - this is a big subject!

One thing to bear in mind is that in many old traditions storytelling is synonymous with song, chant, music, or epic poetry, especially in the bardic traditions. Stories may be chanted or sung, along with musical accompaniment on a certain instrument. Therefore some who would be called folk musicians by foreign music enthusiasts are just as accurately called storytellers - their true roles are more profound, as their names reflect: bards, ashiks, jyrau, griots amongst many more. Their roles in fact are often as much spiritual teachers and exemplars, or healers, for which the stories and music are vehicles, as well as historians and tradition-bearers. For instance bakhshi, the term for bard used in central Asia, means a shaman / healer who uses music as a conduit to the world of the Spirit. You can see photos of some of the above people in the Gallery and hear some of them on world music recordings. Also see the Musical Instruments for Storytelling page, for descriptions and discussion.

For genuine initiates of these bardic disciplines, they draw directly on the conscious creative power of the Divine and transmit it through the words they speak and sing. This is not the same as merely 'being creative' or 'feeling inspired', and involves considerable spiritual training. Different cultures and religions have different ways of describing this, though in general the practice is highly secret. For example, for the West African culture of the Manding, who call this power nyama,

“It controls nature, the stars and the motions of the sea. Nyama is truly the sculptor of the universe. While nyama molds nature into its many forms, the nyamakalaw (handlers of nyama) can shape nyama into art. The nyamakalaw spend their entire lives perfecting special secret skills that are passed down from generation to generation. The nyamakalaw are the only people in Mande that can use magic and are often skilled as sorcerers, blacksmiths, leather workers or bards.”

The World of the Mande: History, Art and Ritual in the Mande Culture, and Caste Systems in Mande Society, Anthropology/Africana Studies 269 and Anthropology/Africana Studies 267, Prof. Mandy Bastian (Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA) 1997-1999

But this section isn't only for the bardic traditions of storytelling - all other less formal traditions are part of the picture too, from hearthside informal telling or street tellers engaging passers-by, to traditional dramatic presentations, so if you can offer any details at all send them to me, Tim Sheppard.

Many traditions have spread across neighbouring countries because of old patterns of migration, empires, or religion, so this site is organised by geography. An alphabetical list of countries covered so far is also provided, but for the full picture do read the regional introduction on each page.

Family storytelling

Family story-telling is what it says on the paper; a story of an event from a family relative, or it could even mean the reverse, a story from one of YOUR events told from a family relation.
stories told by other family members are always very interesting to hear becuase even one who's story is being told does not exactly know what the teller will say, even if one knows the teller so much.

what is personal mythology?

A personal myth is a fictional, or even factual, story based on events of one's pasttime. Many say that one will not live on one myth alone, and that one small event could create many different myths.
One way to create a personal myth is to look back a past event; did anything unusual happen in your childhood? have your relatives and/or relations been vanished without any word?
stories like these can be turned around and turned to dramatic and exciting stories, when including magical extracts and monstrous landscapes.

Shane meadows

Shane meadows is a british film makerfrom the midlands.

One of shane's work is a film titled Once upon a time in the Midlands. The plot that takes place in the movie reflects the hard life of the typical average brit living in such areas.

Adam Elliot

Adam Elliot is a film maker, who is known for his stop-motion features, but his media is more well known for the stories that is tells.

Adam was born in 1972, in the outback of Australia with his family. When Adam's father moved the family to melbourne when adam was 12, he became interested in art during school. His most noted work would have to be Harvie Krumpett, and his latest release, sam and max.

Harvie Krumpett is a story about a child who was born in a strange world, and as he grew, his life was going to be even stranger.

chris marker

Chris marker is a french film director, born in 1921, and started his filming career in the 1950s with Olympia 52. His most noted work is a flick entitled La jetee (1962).

There has been a rather large debate wether La jetee is of an animated genre or not. I belief is that it is an animation, in which still photos are placed in sync with the narration, while another belief states that it couldn't possibly be an animation, as there is not enough stills, as do the stills stay on for too long. Following this belief would state this movie more as a slideshow, rather than an animation.

Louise Weir

This is the oficial website for Louise Weir. Louise is an illustrator that works mainly on ads and self-portraits. She usued the old traditional method of painting on canvas. Here paintings always seem very realistic. When you look at it closely, the technique is in how many different storkes of darker colour have been used.

Darren hopes

This is the official website for the illustrator Darren hopes. Darren uses a mix of traditional and digital techniques to create his own unique style of work. He starts by painting out and using inks traditonaly, then scanning them in, he combines them on computer and alters them so that it all fits together.

celia calle

Celia calle is an american illustartor and comic-book designer. her style is very cartoony, the choice of anatomy is fairly thin and flexible, and her facial expression are fairly large in perspective. Her most noted work is that for Vertigo's American virgin and ESPN magazine.

Rebecca horn

Rebecca Horn is a german artist who works on very peculiar media for her art. She is an instalation artist,, which works on large, three dimensional works in interiors of museums and other gallery buldings.

Her most popular work is called the Einhorn (Unicorn)

This is a very unusual peice. I could only assume it reflects the mythology and secrecy of the light in the human spirit.

Mona Hatoum

Mona Hatoum is a performance artist from lebanon, who now lives in London. Many of her work can be found all over many museums and galleries, and includes work that has been displayed all over london.

Franko B?

Franko B is a london-based Performance artist, born in italy. A performance art is basicly a work of acting displayed so it is portrayed as art. In this case, Franko used his own body as a canvas, and his own blood to shape emotions of the human condition.

I think this is absoultely disgusting. Not only is he naked and very pale, which itself is a horendous sight for some, but he's bleeding! There's no other subject about it, it's a naked guy bleeding! Fine if it's on a canvas painted or digitised, but this is a performance art, it's done live! You can say all you want, but that is my opinion.