Hasta La Motion!

Late Night Work Club is Dave Prosser, Charles Huettner, Sean Buckelew, Jake Armstrong & Erin Kilkenny, Caleb Wood, Louise Bagnall, Alex Grigg, Conor Finnegan, Ciaran Duffy, Eamonn O’Neill, and Scott Benson.

Evoking the ghost of art-for-art’s-sake collaborative film-making project PSST! Pass It On, Late Night Work Club brings together many of the most talented indie animators working today and creates a platform their stories. All work was done DIY, between jobs and classes, with no funding, between September ’12 and August ’13.

Weighing in at thirty-eight minutes, LNWC’s first animation anthology, Ghost Stories is now available online and free of charge.

Each of the eleven shorts in the collection are striking, with heavy lifting on both the storytelling and visual fronts by all of the animators. My two favorites are The Jump by Charles Huettner and Phantom Limb by Alex Grigg. Huettner’s film takes a simple idea and executes it beautifully, giving us small windows into varied lives. Grigg’s film exemplifies how animation can convey a story more effectively than other visual mediums – the character’s psychological state and eponymous phantom limb visually distorting the world around it.

Additional props to David Kamp, who created the aural environments to many a ghost story.

Rather than following a Kickstarter model, LNWC created their films first and will offer HD download packs with digital goodies and limited edition Uncanny Mystery Packs as a way to give back to the filmmakers. Follow LNWC’s tumblr and twitter for upcoming film screenings and more info. Those of you in/near London – there’s a screening on Sept. 3 (tonight!)

Update: Nice interviews with LNWC fearless leader Scott Benson over at Cartoon Brew and The Creators Project!

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Harry Frank has given so much to the AE and motion design community. Here’s your chance to give a little something back.

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A group of talented Supinfocom Arles graduates have released their 2012 thesis film, “Contre temps.” Chock full of gorgeous shots, the film is set in a surreally beautiful world besieged by a cycle of flooding that threatens the lives of a father and daughter on a daily basis.

The story feels like a sketch of something much grander, something I’d love to see developed further. It’s worth watching for its lush art direction alone, though.

Official site

Tip of the hat to Ash Thorp.

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The powerhouse duo of Meindbender and Techno Image have come together to create this masterpiece. It pairs director Pedro Conti’s style, voice, and flow with Meinbender’s beautiful technical skills in lighting and shading.  It’s clear how much care was put into the development of the spot from the overall mood and pacing of the piece in addition to the well designed characters and how they fit in. Overall UFCECE feels fresh and is a well executed, great full-CG spot!

You can check out some making of material here on Techno Image’s site and some other details on Pedro’s site about his involvement here.

Production Companies: Techno Image, Meindbender
Executive Producer: Guilherme Proença, Michael Bengtsson
Directors: Pedro Conti, Tiago Hoisel, Derek Henriques

Character and Environment Design: Tiago Hoisel, Lucas Leibholz, Alexandre Assumpção, Saulo Brito
Storyboards: Lucas Leibholz, Tiago Hoisel, Alexandre Assumpção
Animatic: Derek Henriques, Alexandre Assumpção, Tiago Hoisel
Color Key: Tiago Hoisel, Lucas Leibholz
Photography Direction: Pedro Conti, Tiago Hoisel
CG Supervisor: Pedro Conti
Character Modeling/Texturing: Pedro Conti, Victor Hugo, Mariano Steiner, Bruno Melo.

Rigging: Calle Halldin
Animation Supervisor: Olov Burman
Animation Lead: Calle Halldin
Animator: Derek Henriques, Eric Deuel, Ivan Oviedo.
3D Generalist: Grzegorz Dalek Saman Mahmoudi, Stefan Ekstéen
Hair and Dynamics: Emanuele Niri
Environment Modeling/Texturing: Alexandre Assumpção, Pedro Conti, Victor Hugo, Derek Henriques, Hernan Zuniga, André Paixão,l Rafael Ghencev, Mike Verta.
Lighting and Rendering: Pedro Conti, Michael Bengtsson, Mike Verta
Compositing: Pedro Conti, Tiago Hoisel, Victor Hugo Queiroz, Derek Henriques
Audio: Sustain Studio, Lá no Estudio

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“For me, the commercial space is very much about letting go of all of your vision, I guess, and giving people what they want. And not really, like, being precious about it.

Because it’s not cool. Like, whatever you’re doing, it’s not cool. No matter how cool it is, it’s still a commercial, right?”
— David Lewandowski, Wonderland

“Wonderland” looks at the often uncomfortable intersection of art and commerce manifested by commercial production. If you work anywhere near the commercial space, watch this. It’s honest and conflicted and — because of that — powerful.

Credits

Filmmaker: Terry Rayment
Filmmaker: Hunter Richards
Assistant Editor: Scott Hanson
Additional Photography: Mike Berlucchi

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