Ottawa Animation Fest '08 highlights!

A bunch of us went to Ottawa for the annual Animation Fest, and this year was fab! Of course it had nothing to do with the fact that The Celestial Ox made it into the Teletoon Scholarship Competition and was screening there....naw, that had nothing to do with it :) [BTW we got Voter's Choice, go Penguins!]

This was my second time there, and it was great! Saw many great shorts, and saw some amazing peeps - most fab for moi was Doug Sweetland [Director of Presto from PIXAR], Richard Williams [uber-animator who did Roger Rabbit!], and Eric Goldberg [animator extraordinaire legend from Disney]. See below for a pictorial overview of the fun!

Cliff, Alysia and I in front of some of the awesome buildings in Ottawa, we were walking to another screening.

Eric Goldberg giving a talk about character animation - awesomeness!!

Andy and Brock [fellow Celestial Ox animators!] at our Teletoon screening, yay!

Moi drawring at one of my fav places in Ottawa - Byward Market.

Alysia and I being silly amongst the sculptures.

We always take a pic of this ginormous spider outside the National Gallery of Canada. This one is hilare, from left to right: Alysia, Cliff [pretending to have succumbed to the spider's wrath], moi [doing a sort of praying mantis], Kenny [apparently thinking the spider leg is a vine], and Andy [making grand friends with the 8-legged horror].

Richard Williams at the 20th Anniversary screening of Roger Rabbit - so fab!!

Tams in front of more coolio architecture...it made all the walking much more enjoyable!

Alysia, moi and Tams enjoying a dog of the hot sort. Yummmm.

You can't see me, I have perfectly blended into the skinny peopled sculptures.

Ratatouilleterrificness

This film is so delectable, I barely even know where to start.
It has got it ALL.

Story... clever and meaningful. Well thought out with great pacing.

LOVE the character designs. The short angry chef... awkward hero...adorable rat characters - made the main rats have their own design, yet look like they're from the same family... spindley tall and creaky food critic nemesis.

Animation... amazing. The facial expressions on so many of the scenes... wowza. And the physical animation acting was superb. LOVE the scene where Linguini is sleeping and Remy is controlling him to look like he's awake. Genius.

And WHO doesn't LOVE the fact that they let two animators - Lou Romano and Tony Fucile [Pixar geniuses in their own right] voice both Linguini and the health inspector, respectively. I LOVE that they cast voices for the CHARACTERS... not for the pop culture weight they carry.

Oh and all the palpable textures of the worn out wood... the grimy pots and pans... or the rats mangled hair and Linguini's hair on his chin... not to mention the amazingly beautiful skyline of La Paris... aaahhhh....

The 2D credits at the end were definitely worth staying in the theatre for... if ONLY to read at the end their '100% pure animation, no motion capture' guarantee. Take that, Happy Feet.

Did anyone else notice that the first human character at the beginning - the old lady - was one of Pixar's early characters from the famous short of the man playing chess? Classic.

Genius, 5 huge massive stars and thumbs and all the rest.
And I love, love, LOVE the short at the beginning. Who knew an alien learning how to levitate a human could be so dang entertaining.

Thanks for the huge batch of inspirato, Pixar Peeps!

I still love gouache.

I was going through my paintings from last year.... I really miss the "analog painting", what with all our fancified "digi painting" skillz we are acquiring. I kinda hate becoming so dependent on Cmd-Z [yes, that's right, I said COMMAND not CONTROL!!].... 'sides, there's not many more relaxing things to do than put on some good tunes and paint an eve away.

Oh sweet summer evenings....come hither. I shalt paint til my heart's delight.....

Or at least for a good couple hours, deadline-free.
And really, that's all I'm asking for.

Anyway, this is a layout from Lilo & Stitch. A GREAT 2D film, absolutely boo-tiful; they seemed to return to more of a watercolour-ish style in that film, reminiscent of earlier classics like Pinocchio and the like.

Yeah, the colours in this one just seem to sing. Me loves it. [Kudos to the original artist, wowza.] I was just happy to be able to replicate it in any sort of pleasurable fashion.

Me enjoy it.
So in conclusion....me loves gouache.

Stitch says Meow.

This was from first year...I came across it tonight and thought I'd throw it up on the ol' blog. It was probably one of the only animations I actually ended up feeling satisfied with from last year.

And lemme tell ya, those stinkin' ears of Stitch were NOT easy to turn around!

The film is classic though :)