By Kira Formina

We said goodbye to Pixar, then hopped back into the van, stopping at Tippett Studio in Berkeley. Tippett - the people famous for special effects, particularly monsters and creatures, pretty much all the major films from Star Wars to Twilight - is oddly located in a simple residential street, several streets in fact. Two of the buildings are across from each other, and the third is a few blocks away.

We are greeted by Tom “Gibby” Gibbon and a few others. Suddenly the talk turns shop, as Tom and Tim discuss puppet making and stop motion animation (fun fact: Head over Heels puppets were 3D printed with most of the face left soft and malleable for expressions. The head of Madge, the wife, kept falling off as the scenes were filmed upside down, with Tim having to constantly readjust it. He says if you pay attention, you can see it change levels throughout the film.)

Buddy i used to play hockey with sent me this film. It's pretty good. Not sure it's my thing, but for a young squirt, it's well done. Plus, it's about addicts. I love addicts.

ASIFA-P.E.I is holding a Potato Animation Workshop

The artist looks for ways to demonstrate that all people in the world are fundamentally the same. The politician looks for ways to show that one group of people is superior to another.

 

To join all of the walls of the past, a yet another, vast and enormously tall wall, has recently been constructed by Israel to protect itself against terrorist attacks and suicidal bombers. It separates the West Bank from Israel. Israelis say that it has achieved its objectives by dramatically decreasing the intensive of terrorist attacks. At the same time though, the wall's path has also divided certain neighborhoods, people and families who had lived together till its erection. While there are military check points through which people can cross from one side to another, officially the Israeli citizens, especially the Jewish ones, are not permitted to the West Bank, this is supposedly to protect them, for their own personal safety.

While it separates the people and sides, in the most odd of ways it also acts as a form of a dialogue, a conduit of emotions and wishes expressed by those leaving on one side of the wall, but unfortunately not see by those on the other side. When you think about it, at least to me, this Wall has become an unintended symbol of human lunacy and desires.

 

The FMX 2013 program is taking shape. Europe's most renowned conference on digital entertainment, which takes place two weeks earlier than last year, adopts the slogan "lean, smart and agile" and focuses on the ongoing paradigm shift in the animation, effects, games and transmedia industries. It zeroes in on how smart technologies, adaptive approaches and flexible strategies are shaping the business, allowing for integrated storytelling, affordable workflows, accessible budgets, independent initiatives, new players and global success. Highly esteemed industry professionals explore this change in various presentations, workshops, masterclasses, on the Marketplace, the Recruiting Hub and the School Campus. What's more, FMX focuses on VFX highlights such as Life of Pi and Cloud Atlas and animation adventures such as The Croods. In continuing its successful cooperation with the popular International Festival of Animated Film Stuttgart and the business platform Animation Production Day, FMX transforms Stuttgart into a meeting point for professionals, digital artists and decision-makers from all over the world.

 

If you missed Bibo Bergeron’s (The Road to El Dorado, Shark Tale) 2011 animated musical-adventure, you’re not alone.  Unfortunately, the film was never released theatrically in the U.S.  However, you can watch it now, as Shout! Factory has released the film in a two-disc Blu-ray 3D combo pack.  The set includes Blu-ray 3D and 2D, DVD and a digital copy of the movie compatible with PC, MAC, iTunes, iPhone and AppleTV.

By Ellen Besen

I really thought this next piece was going to be about festival programming but fresh from CTN Expo- which wrapped on Sun Nov 18, I feel compelled to shift focus to a more pressing topic: overall spirit. By this I don’t mean so much the mood of the attendees but more the spirit in which the event was conceived and carried out by the organizers. This last factor has a defining impact on every aspect of the event including the attendees’ mood and programming as well, which is precisely why it is the more pressing issue.

This kind of spirit can be an elusive subject- one that doesn’t really show itself directly.  Instead you kind of have to look at an event sideways, to use your detective skills and also keep in mind what other choices could have been made to suss out the organizers intentions.

New streaming and downloads available on the FUNimation website!

 

By TDK

For those of you who skip to the end of a book, I’ll skip to the question most asked about Who Framed Roger Rabbit  – “what’s happening with the sequel?” Currently there is no sequel in the works. Director Robert Zemeckis acknowledged such on Thursday (April 4^th) at the Academy Of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, in Beverly Hills, California on the occasion of a 25^th Anniversary Screening of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.