Animation Nation

Look at this fantastic new animation technology on the way. It's called Qumarion and it's a fully articulated hand held mannequin that you can manipulate into poses that are directly connected to a rigged CG character. Qumarion is produced by Celsys, a Japanese company, along with SoftEther and ViVienne. Imagine what this technology will mean for digital animation programs such as Maya or for motion capture technology. Why learn Maya when you can start animating immediately with Qumarion. The possibilities are fascinating as we head into the future of the art. Thanks to longtime ANer and fight for what's right Snakebite Cortez of Petra Gallerie in Beverly Hills for bringing this to our attention via the Forum topic, where you can find more information about Qumarion as well as more video.

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There's a service available for companies, groups or individuals who are looking to get their creative content produced without having to staff up. The operation is called Agents of Value and involves accessing their own artists in the Philippines who do the production.

Here's a video that explains how the system works. The subject is Web design and also shows how Agents of Value artists can also create animated videos.

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Something inspirational and motivating posted by ANer pkotvi at this Forum topic. It's renowned science fiction and fantasy author Neil Gaiman giving a commencement address at the 2012 graduation ceremonies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Words good for the creative soul in us all.

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Here's a unique look at life in animation production from LeSean Thomas.

He's recently returned to America after living in Seoul, South Korean for 3 years producing several projects independently. LeSean recorded his time and experience there working with Korean animation studios and directors that the major networks outsource to in producing their action shows, primetime and Saturday morning cartoons for TV.

LeSean recently partnered up with online television network Creative Control TV and put together a series of video journals covering his adventures. The series is called "Seoul Sessions."

Episode 1 of "Seoul Sessions" gives us a peek into the life of LeSean, a South Bronx, NYC native and TV Animation Producer/Director. He's worked on The Boondocks, The Legend of Korra, and the upcoming Black Dynamite: The Animated TV Series. We follow him through the animation studios of Seoul, getting a behind the scenes and intimate look at society and how the animation production process in Korea works.

Find out more at the Forum topic. Here's the first episode of Seoul Sessions...

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An animated film directed by Latina filmmaker Bernadine Santistevan will have its world premiere on June 4, 2012, at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival. "Wolf Dog Tales" is one of only four films from the United States selected to screen in the Official Selection of shorts at this prestigious festival, which is known as a launch pad for many Oscar-nominated and winning animated films. Wolf Dog Tales will be having its US premiere on June 5, 2012, at the Brooklyn Film Festival.

The film's story borrows from Bernadine's own experience as part of a community of Hispanics in Northern New Mexico that continues to practice ancient traditions. For more info about Wolf Dog Tales follow this link. Congratulations and good luck to all involved with the film.

A stop motion animator that specializes in knitted sets and characters, Charlotte Blacker recently won a Royal Television Society Award in 2011 for her graduate film 'The Little Red Plane'. She also recently finished another knitted animation, this one a music video for pre-schoolers for singer/ songwriter Chris Ballew aka Caspar Babypants, who is also of the band Presidents of The United States of America. For the later, Charlotte and her team were given just 2 months to knit, build and film eight bears. You can see the video here. Meanwhile, enjoy Charlotte Blacker's charming film The Little Red Plane'...

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There's a new Web project emerging. It's called 'The World of Snowboy & Crow' and is a series of animated shorts created in 2012 by director Ken Turner and animated by Freak Show Studios. The characters Snowboy & Crow appear in the mini-comic The World of Snowboy & Crow, also created and illustrated by Ken Turner, from which the Web series is based.

In the series, you enter the world of Snowboy, a boy made from snow, and his friend a Crow. These two misunderstood child-like characters live in a snowy landscape full of vampires, ufos, monsters, death and love.

Who could ask for more!

Take a look at the teaser trailer below. You can see Episode #1 of Snowboy and Crow at this link here and also here. For production credits and more links head on over to the Forum topic.

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Watch more on Film Annex

Yesterday Amazon Studios announced they are looking for an animation character designer or comic book artist to create original character designs for "For Sale By Superhero", a family comedy project currently in active development at Amazon Studios. These character designs will be made available for use by directors and storyboard artists applying for an upcoming For Sale By Superhero animatic test movie Open Directing Assignment. There's a $3000 budget for character designs. For more info follow this link. Deadline for submissions is June 18, 2012. From one character designer to the rest of my fellow character design comrades, wishing you good luck!

I discovered an animation group I wasn't aware of until now, thanks to the TraditionalAnimation blog. There's a studio in Provo, Utah in the USA by the name of Golden Street Animation. It looks to be closely associated with the animation community in the Philippines. The creative force behind it is Scott T. Petersen, an animator with many years of experience working in traditional, hand drawn animation. Scott is marketing educational DVDs for emerging as well as professional animators. The DVDs focus on developing basic skills essential to the art of animation. One of the promotional videos associated with Golden Street showcases just how good this studio is, and is featured below.

This topic is developing further in the Education section of the AN Forums with more videos related to the studio and its program. In the meantime, have a look at Scott Petersen's AnimationExcellence blog for more information about the DVDs and Golden Street.

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