John Carter Trailer

Here's the latest trailer for Disney's "John Carter" directed by Andrew Stanton.

Address is Approximate

Heartwarming, touching, all that good stuff. "Address is Approximate" directed by Tom Jenkins




Enjoy :)

Next Chapter...

The last few months have been pretty crazy busy. We've said goodbye (for now) to London and have relocated back home to Sydney, Australia.

London was in all a great experience, first time living and working overseas and I had the opportunity to work at two of the biggest VFX houses in the world and on some big projects, Alfonso Cuaron's upcoming "Gravity" and Andrew Stanton's "John Carter". Most importantly I met some amazingly talented and unique artists and made some close friends who I will miss and look forward to working with again soon!

Looking forward to what the next couple months bring!

Gotye - Bronte

Music video clip with meaningful short film/animation. Perfect for this blog!

Australian artist Gotye's new song "Bronte" is the 2nd video posted on this website directed and animated by Ari Gibson and with background art by Jason Pamment.



If I ever need a film clip for my music I'm hiring these guys

Iloura VFX - Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Fwaah, scary little monster. Congrats to my friends who worked on the Guillermo Del Toro produced horror movie "Don't be Afraid of the Dark" down at Iloura in Melbourne, Australia. Here's a cool article that contains a few vfx breakdowns.

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/iloura-vfx-isnt-afraid-of-the-dark/

Monologues

I've always enjoyed seeing an awesomely well acted monologue in a movie. It's usually the time when the actor/actress is allowed to run with the dialogue and make it their own. It usually consists of longer takes then usual, and very few cuts to make the audience emotionally invested, understand, relate or feel empathy towards the character. And even though acting can be subjective, after seeing these sort of scenes, I have no idea how they could have been acted any other way.

I can think of quite a few amazing scenes, like Kevin Spacey's tear jerking retelling of how he came by his scars in "Pay it Forward" and the example I've chosen for this post. "I am Sam" is a brilliantly acted movie, and even though Sean Penn acts his pants off, and Dakota Fanning is amazing (as usual), Michelle Pfeiffer has a very memorable scene that stuck out when remembering afterwards. Here it is!



Enjoy!

Charles Santoso Solo Show in Sydney!

My good friend Charles Santoso, who I had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know during my time at Animal Logic on "Legend of the Guardians" is an amazing concept artist and all round awesomely nice guy.

He's doing a solo show in Sydney at the Kinokuniya Bookstore from dates 30th August - 12th September 2011!

If you live in Sydney definitely go check out his work, and say hi from us!

If you head over to his blogspot at http://minitreehouse.blogspot.com/ he has info about how you can win an autographed copy of his art book!!!

Omgaaah!

Frame by Frame

Awesome collection of frame by frame analysis of scenes from animated movies

http://framexframe.tumblr.com/

Pablo Navarro Quote!

"in art and animation, the quest for excellence takes you unquestionably through the roughest and most difficult paths, not the shortest"

so very true

http://pablonavarro.wordpress.com/

Kaeloo - Prince charming

This is awesome!

A Bear for Punishment (1951)

"A Bear for Punishment", directed by the late and great Chuck Jones. This cartoon reminds me of when I was a little kid rushing home after school to watch Looney Toons and Merry Melodies cartoons on tv. The most memorable and my personal favourites, came from Chuck Jones and his team of animators. Like "What's Opera, Doc?" "Feed the Kitty" (with Marc Anthony the bulldog!) and the Three Bears series which this one is the 3rd of. Just to name a few!



Enjoy!

John Carter

Here's the first teaser trailer for the movie that I'm currently working on "John Carter" directed by Andrew Stanton.



Very much a teaser!

Video Reference - Gianluca Fratellini

Here's an awesome video by Gianluca Fratellini, who I currently work with at Double Negative on "John Carter". Here are his reference videos that ended up being shots for the movies "Paul" and "Planet 51".



And Stein makes an appearance in it! Everybody say hi to Stein.

HI STEIN!!!

Animation Progression Reels

I love looking at how a shot evolves, changes throughout the different stages of animation. And here's an amazing collection of progression reels on the awesome blog "Animation Progression Reels" located here ---->

http://animationprogression.blogspot.com/

check it out!

Opposites Attract

A Paula Abdul music video? Damn straight, because it's from the 80's and the 80's were awesome. Why? Because they had music videos like this. Some really nice choreographed animated dancing.



Animated by members of the Disney Animation team, led under the direction of Chris Bailey (who animated on The Lion King, Hercules, The Little Mermaid)

The Saga of Biorn

Great short film from The Animation Workshop entitled "The Saga of Biorn". Great style and anything that has vikings in it is cool in my books.



http://www.animwork.dk/en/

Gobelins 2011 - Jazzin'

The insane amount of talent that comes out of the french animation school "Gobelins, l'école de l'image" every year is amazing to watch. This years selection of shorts for the Annecy Animation Festival, once again showcases why Gobelins is one of the best animation schools in the world. If I had to pick my favourite of the shorts, it would be "Jazzin".  





Hope you enjoy!

Sometimes the Stars

Music video time! "Sometimes the Stars" by Adelaide band "The Audreys" and directed by Ari Gibson and Jason Pamment. I really enjoy the visual style of this music video, fits perfectly with the style and mood of the music. It's being shown at the Annecy Animation festival in France!


http://www.annecy.org/home





Directed by Ari Gibson & Jason Pamment

Three Olive Vodka - Cowboys

A cool little short for Three Olives Vodka

Apache by Danger Beach

I was sent this music video this morning to an instrumental by the band "Danger Beach". The song reminds me of "The Shadows" who funnily enough also have a famous song called Apache. The style and animation is great, really fun.



And nothing beats an abominable snowman playing the guitar!


Directed by Ned Wenlock

Character animation by Rodney Selby

Enjoy!

Ben Walker Siggraph Talk

Quick post!

If you're in Sydney, Australia on the 1st of June and into matte painting go check out this siggraph talk being conducted by my friend Ben Walker! He's awesome AND talented! Say hi from us!

http://sydney.siggraph.org.au/event/2011/matte-painter


And check out his website!
http://surfacedetail.com/

Sergio Pablos - Doppler

This is amazing to watch, study and just be dumbfounded by the insane amount of drawing skill and talent. I enjoyed Treasure Planet when I saw it, and the character of Doppler is great to watch! This is rough animation? O_o




Thanks to Living Lines Library, check out this amazing blog!
http://livlily.blogspot.com/

Crater Face

Going with another 2d animation for this post. Amazingly heartfelt and moving short by Skyler Page entitled "Crater Face". This is one of the best examples of an animation without the need of dialogue. The music lends itself perfectly to the style and direction. Oddly enough reminds me of John K's work of "Ren & Stimpy".



Hope you enjoy, I sure did!

Emancipator

The music that features in my showreel is entitled "First Snow" by the band Emancipator. Their 2009 album "Soon it will be Cold Enough" is amazing, combining my favourite elements of music to create instrumental soundscapes that get me through the day of animating. This song "Lionheart" was the first song that I heard and it blew me away.



It inspires me to become a better musician, and opened up my eyes (and ears) to different possibilities in my music writing. More music by this amazing band here > http://emancipator.bandcamp.com/

Hope you enjoy!

"Work" by Michael Rianda

I thought long about what I would post first, and the first one that popped into my head was the fantastic short film by Michael Rianda entitled "Work". The voice talent is perfect and to me definitely sums up a lot. The film speaks for itself. And also, I really want a pair of moon shoes. Enjoy :D



more of his drawings here: Michael Rianda

D

The Next Forever

Hi again!

Back in 08 I had about 3-4 months off between jobs and decided to write and record an instrumental album. That eventually became the album "Day Dreams" which was music inspired by day dreaming, travelling and space. It was a fun project and proved to myself I could produce an album entirely by myself.

Last year during my time at Animal Logic I decided to do it again, this time with a new style and theme and try different ways of writing and recording. 1 year later "The Next Forever" was released, and I had the opportunity to put something I was proud of on iTunes and digitally distribute it!

Here it is on bandcamp and also most of my other music on soundcloud. Both awesome music sharing websites

The Next Forever

Music on Soundcloud

I promise next post will be non self promotional.....maybe :P

Dan

Animation Reel 2011

Here is my current animation reel on vimeo:



It consists of shots that I animated on Zack Snyder's "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole" during my year at Animal Logic in Sydney, Australia.  And also some of my favourite "pose to pose" shots I animated for the tv series "Erky Perky" at Ambience Entertainment, also in Sydney Australia.

Guardians was definitely the best project so far that I've worked on, with an awesome crew of amazing artists. Also made some really close friends from my time there.