Hasta La Motion!

Insidious: The Last Key
In Theaters January 5, 2018

https://www.insidiousmovie.com

The creative minds behind the hit Insidious trilogy return for Insidious: The Last Key. In the supernatural thriller, which welcomes back franchise standout Lin Shaye as Dr. Elise Rainier, the brilliant parapsychologist faces her most fearsome and personal haunting yet: in her own family home.

The film is written by co-creator Leigh Whannell (Saw), who wrote the trilogy and directed Chapter 3; produced by Insidious regulars Jason Blum (The Purge series, Get Out), Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity) and co-creator James Wan (The Conjuring, Furious 7); and directed by series newcomer Adam Robitel (The Taking of Deborah Logan).

Steven Schneider, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Charles Layton, Bailey Conway Anglewicz, Couper Samuelson and Whannell serve as executive producers. Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions is financing Insidious: Chapter 4, and domestic distribution will be handled by Universal Pictures. Sony will handle international distribution.

The International Animation Film Festival records 26,300 entries this year, which is an increase in 11 percent compared to the record year 2015.

Talented filmmakers, international guests and animation film fans from all over Switzerland as well as the neighboring countries enriched Baden in the last six days with their presence.

The award for best film in the ‘International Competition’ is awarded to Niki Lindroth von Bahr with The Burden. Negative Space by Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata wins the ‘International Audience Award’. In the Swiss competition, Airport by Michaela Müller is awarded the ‘Best Swiss Film’ and In a Nutshell by Fabio Friedli wins the ‘Swiss audience award’. Joan Zhonga wins the ‘Best Kids’ category and the ‘Young Audience Award’ in the kids film competition with his compelling film Ethnophobia.

The next Fantoche Festival will take place from 4 to 9 September 2018 in Baden.

More than 300 short and feature films, multimedia exhibitions with VR and AR components, industry talks and workshops guaranteed a wide and colourful programme for all generations. Feature films like Loving Vincent, In this Corner of the World and Louise en Hiver have been sold out very quickly. Next to the short film programmes in the three competitions, the country-focus Brexit: Goodbye to All That? and 3 Generations: Cinema, TV, Web, and the exhibitions on ‘Animation goes Multimedia’ met with great public interest.

Side effects of Brexit

The theme ‘Brexit: Goodbye to All That?’ encouraged lively discussions at the festival. Curator Jayne Pilling has chosen films from the last decades, which in one way or another deal with the inner turmoil of Great Britain.

Some films can be understood with a new meaning, depending on the context in which they are viewed. European animation film-maker will move to where the funding continues to flow as he says, “Talents go where they can unfold. I’m not sure if they’ll stay in the UK.”

Pilling is sceptical, but one thing is certain – the festival has connected experts and film-makers from all over Europe in Baden, either to plan future projects or to celebrate fantastic animation films.

Meeting platform for the industry

Many animation experts and filmmakers have been attracted by the Fantoche Industry Day. Table talks provided cooperation possibilities and new collaborations. Interesting insights have been showed at the best practice presentations with experts from Freitag.lab.ag, Blue Zoo Productions and Golden Wolf (both from GB).

A special highlight was the masterclass on Wednesday with Michael Dudok De Wit (threefold nominated and one time winner of the Oscar). He shed light on his use of film language, story writing and landscape with the support of his powerful visual material and also answered questions from the audience.

The Animation Fuckup Night showed all the miserable fails the studios made while producing animations, worst case experiences that would help others to avoid pitfalls. The audience was very pleased and celebrated these experiences with a lot of enthusiasm.

Interactive experiences and generation talks

The two themes ‘3 Generations: Cinema, TV, Web’ and ‘Animation goes Multimedia’ ensured an ideal contrast with diverse events and four exhibitions.

Young and old were fascinated by the technology and their related possibilities. They got inspired by motivated creators. The young ones played the interactive space game ‘Demonz’ in the container at the Theaterplatz.

The generation talk, moderated by the festival director Annette Schindler herself, was followed with great interest. Also the guided tours in the historical museum Baden were successful. In case you missed it, the specialised exhibition Kosmos Kino continues until 25 February 2018.

Conclusion of the festival direction

Festival and artistic director Annette Schindler concludes, “While Loving Vincent is an impressive film about an artist’s genius of a bygone era, fantastic contemporary artists participated at this year’s Fantoche Festival. Michael Dudok de Wit impressed the audience in his masterclass, and our jury members awarded promising talents for a bright animation future.”

Awards “INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION”

Jury – Anete Melece (CH), Fabian Erlinghäuser (IE), Jayne Pilling (GB), Sonja Rohleder (DE), Daniel Sciboz (DE)

Best Film: The Burden, Niki Lindroth von Bahr, SE 2017

High Risk: Vilaine fille, Ayce Kartal, FR 2017

New Talent: Ugly, Nikita Diakur, DE 2017

Best Sound: Impossible Figures and Other Stories II, Marta Pajek, PL 2016

Special Mention: Nachtstück, Anne Breymann, DE 2016

Audience Award: Negative Space, Max Porter, Ru Kuwahata, FR 2017

Awards “SWISS COMPETITION”

Jury – Igor Prassel (SI), Yvonne Van Ulden (NL), Theodore Ushev (CAN)

Jugendjury – Lausanne: Sunshine Burri, Maryam Sunitha Sangaré. Tessin: Alessandra Guastalla, Jie Gabriella Liu, Robin Pellanda, Amaury Szöke. Wettingen: Ursina Bill, Mathilde Dam Hansen.

Best Swiss: Airport, Michaela Müller CH/HR 2017

High Swiss Risk: Living Like Heta, Bianca Caderas, Isabella Luu, Kerstin Zemp, CH 2017

New Swiss Talent: Immersion, Lalita Brunner, CH 2016

Fantastic Swiss: OOZE, Kilian Vilim, CH 2017

Swiss Youth Award: OOZE, Kilian Vilim, CH 2017

Special Mention: La bataille de San Romano, Georges Schwizgebel, CH 2017

Swiss Audience Award: In a Nutshell, Fabio Friedli, CH 2017

Awards “KIDS FILM COMPETITION”

Kids Jury: The films were judged by a jury of seven children aged between six and twelve which awarded the ‘Best Kids’ prize. The kids were supervised by ”Zauberlaterne”.

Best Kids: Ethnophobia, Joan Zhonga, AL/GR 2016

Young Audience Award: Ethnophobia, Joan Zhonga, AL/GR 2016

The post The fifteenth FANTOCHE festival connects Europe and media generations appeared first on AnimationXpress.

A lot of people come up to me today and ask, “Why and how did you get into comics,” and every single time I answer this question, I’m thinking, “What can I possibly tell them that’ll make this choice sound earth-shatteringly different?” And almost always, it is the usual cliche, “You know, this is entirely driven by passion and so I’m in this full time.”

Part of that is true, the rest is upto the person who is into it.

Cartooning, illustration and comics – not many have gone down this path, as career options. For those who have, they’ll tell you how genuinely satisfying it is to do something you have always loved. In fact, that’s what I have lived by and has been inculcated in me right since childhood – do what you love, love what you do.

I always wanted to be a comics illustrator ever since I remember, and a part of this drive in me was due to an early exposure to comics. I remember reading (and collecting) comics from a very young age, maybe as young as four or five. I may not have understood anything that was written, but I was always attracted towards the artworks. I recollect reading Tintin and Asterix back when I was in class one, and then taking up Tinkle comics and Mad magazine when I was in class three or so. This played a very important role in my thinking and ambitions.

Art-wise, I am self-taught. I have never received any formal training in art whatsoever. I did my Bachelor in mass media and right after that I completed a one year diploma in 2D classical animation. I was at a juncture where I could choose advertising or animation as my calling. But I went ahead with both, since I used to work in a company called Personiva, which was into ads as well as animation, and I actually learnt a lot while on job. I used to freelance right from my college days and kept doing that. I later went on my own and focused more on comic projects and animation. My portfolio by now had magazines, newspapers, websites et cetera  for which I had drawn illustrations, but Tinkle was my first big entry into the world of comics, back in 2004.

I started publishing my own comics from 2011, thanks to the Comic Con in India. As an illustrator and publisher, there are various challenges one has to face, but seeing a comic out in tangible form and getting people to read it has a feeling that nothing else can match up to! People talk about cashflow, credibility, outreach and audience. But I strongly feel, if you have it in you, you would know for sure how to tackle all this.

I think eventually it is all about the choices you make. I know of several talented individuals from my school and college days who used to draw very well, but they didn’t follow up on their talents in pursuit of the usual professions or careers, the likes of doctors and engineers. I completely understand their thought process on this, but letting go of talent is quite a sad thing to do. So I do hope everyone and anyone with any talent must keep at it, if not professionally, at least on the side. That way, you’d never lose touch with what’s in you.

So, I would say that if any one of you readers loves drawing comics, or writing them, please keep sketching and creating small sample strips and maintain a sort of a portfolio. You never know what opportunities may come knocking at your door.

(Abhijeet Kini is an illustrator-animator, running a creative service called Plan B and Abhijeet Kini Studios, taking up projects ranging from animation, web and comic publishing. He has been illustrating for newspapers, magazines since 1999, starting with Mid-Day, Timeout India, Timesgroup and then going on to Hindustan Times, DNA, Tinkle and others.)

The post Abhijeet Kini: You never know what opportunities may knock at your door appeared first on AnimationXpress.

With the official release of Dota 2 on Steam in 2013, the numbers in the charts which listed active users and downloads soared in favour of the game. With possibly the largest esports presence and a loyal fanbase, Dota 2 has been enjoying the zenith for a while now.

The tables have however turned now. Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) has taken over Dota 2 on Steam to become the most played game currently. There are more than one million players playing the game right now. The chart is followed by Dota 2, which was the first game to reach the one million mark on Steam, and then by Valve’s Counter Strike: Global Offensive.

A lot of players from FPS (first person shooter) games have joined the ranks of PUBG.

At the time of writing this story, 1,027,754 players were playing PUBG, whereas 670,857 players were playing Dota 2.

With the professional teams already getting on with their squads in the game, the playerbase is only expected to grow. With 10 million copies of the game already sold, it is already making waves throughout the gaming community. Given that the game is in early access still, it might be safe to assume that the community will only grow.

PUBG is a multiplayer online battle game where up to 100 players are dropped on an abandoned island by a parachute where they have to search for weapons and equipment to stay safe. The players must eliminate their foes and avoid being killed. The last man/team standing wins the match.

The post ‘Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds’ takes over ‘Dota 2’ in number of active players on Steam appeared first on AnimationXpress.

For those who like progress, we introduce the new Nissan LEAF. With the latest Nissan Intelligent Mobility technology, Nissan LEAF has been completely reinvented, combining greater range with a dynamic new design, equipped with the evolution of autonomous drive technology such as ProPILOT, ProPILOT Park, and the simple operation of the e-Pedal. You can’t miss trying it out and exploring how it drives.　From the world’s EV leader, the new Nissan LEAF simply amazing. #Nissan #LEAF

Watch more Intelligent Mobility videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLki2k0CDxrPdxe4sP3mR1ofRO1dfD-X18

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