Inspire - Raymonde or the Vertical Escape

Raymonde or the Vertical Escape

Pixflow Admin — Fri, 28 May 2021 10:05:42 +0000

Raymonde is really fed up with peas, aphids, dirty panties and her kitchen garden to dig.

After all, she would prefer sex, and love, and the immensity of the sky.

Short animation film written and directed by Sarah Van Den Boom

Raymonde or the Vertical Escape” is this week’s Staff Pick Premiere. Read more about it here:

Raymonde or the Vertical Escape by Sarah Van Den Boom

Dani

Pixflow Admin — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 10:09:03 +0000

Having cancer isn’t always the hard part. On top of managing your own fears and expectations, you feel obliged to wear a brave face for your loved ones

Delivering bad news with a mixture of dry science and irrational optimism becomes second nature… Dani brings such a conversation to life, as 30-year old Danielle Hernandez delivers her grim breast cancer prognosis to her mother Violeta. A story that’s as unique and personal as it is disturbingly universal. Using stop-motion animation, Dani shows us how a simple phone call can be a study of human courage, faith, and love.

Winner of Jury Award Best Animated Short at Palm Springs ShortFest & Mammoth Lakes Film Festival.

Jury Special Mention Documentary Short at New Orleans Film Festival.

Last week, we had had the chance to chat with Lizzy Hogenson, the talented animation director behind the acclaimed stop-motion short Dani, which centers on a young woman who calls her mother to tell her about her breast cancer diagnosis.

Negative Space

Pixflow Admin — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 09:01:38 +0000

What would you be willing to do for them to love you?
LOVE ME, FEAR ME is a reflection on the roles we play and the shapes we take, the stages we chose, the audience we try to impress and the price of acceptance

Awards and distinctions:
Student Academy Awards Finalist 2019
Student Bafta Shortlisted 2019

Audience Award – Monstra Lisbon
Audience Award – Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Best Student Film – Animator
Diploma of Jury – Insomnia Festival
Best Experimental short – Prime the Animation
Most Popular International – Primanima
Grand Prix du Relief – Courant 3D
Special Mention for a Graduation Film – ReAnimania
Young Talent Award – Animateka
Best of Animation +
Best of the Fest – Living Skies
Special Mention the Jury – BLON
Jury Special Prize – Animakom
Best Stop-Motion Animation – Animex Awards
Best Stop-Motion – Florida Animation Festival
Special Mention of the Jury – Supertoon
Special Mention Animation – Euganea Film Festival
Emerging Talent Award – Stop-Motion Montreal
Technical achievement Award – KROK
Special Mention for Clay Animation – Craft
Best Stop-Motion – Sparks CG Conference
Best Student Film – WLES
Jury special mention – Cutout Fest
Best Student Film – Animation
Audience award – ICONA festival
Special Mention – Animax Skopje

Festival selections – 2018: Monstra International Animation Festival, Filmfest Dresden, Internationales Trickfilmfestival Stuttgart, Sehsüchte International Student Film Festival, 20minMax- Ingolstadt, Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Zsigmond Vilmos International Film Festival, Krakow Film Festival, Animafest Zagreb, International Animation Film Festival Annecy, Animator Film Festival, Anima Mundi, Seoul international Extreme-Short Image & Film Festival, 47. Lubuskie Filmsommer, Insomnia Festival – Moskow, Wiesbaden Int. Festival of Animation, Viborg Animation Festival, Encounters Short Film Festival, Kyoto International Film and Video Festival, Unabhängige FilmFest Osnabrück, Hiroshima, Anim’est International Animation Festival, Interfilm Berlin, Courant 3D, Chicago International Children’s Film Festiva, Tindirindis, Séquence Short Film Festival -Toulouse, Fête de l’anim’ – Lille, Prime the Animation, ReAnimania, Stereopsia, Primanima, Cinanima, London Int Animation Festival, Animateka- Ljubliana

2019 – Bamberger Kurzfilmtage, Film Festival of Larissa, Landshuter Kurzfilmfestival, VOID – International Animation Film Festival, Clermont-Ferrand ISFF, Cine court animé – Roanne, Tricky Women, Animac -Lleida, Stop Motion-Our Fest – Argentina, Changing Perspectives Film Festival, Athens ANIMFEST, Frame Rush Screendance Festival, Living Skies Student Film Festival, Japan Media Arts, CScreen Fest, BLON, VKRATZE!, Animakom Festival, Cortoons Festival, SICAF, Fantasia International Film Festival, MIAF, AIAF, Sydney Film Festival, New Zealand International Film Festival, Animex Awards, Under_the_Radar, Euganea Film Festival, Florida Animation Festival, La Truca Animation Festival, Festival du film d’animation de Savigny, Lago Film Fest, Supertoon International Animation Festival, FAB, Anibar-Kosovo, ICARO, NAFF , Animafest Cyprus, BuSho Festival, In The Palace, Catacumba Underground FF, CRAFT Festival, Klappe Auf-Hamburg, KROK Festival, Stop-Motion Montreal, Filmfestival Münster, Filmzeit Kaufbeuren, Linz ISFF, Taichung IAF, PIAFF, Västeras FF, Tulipoff IFF, POOL Tanzfilm Festival, Stop Trick, Balkanima, Animafilm BAKU, 3D Wire, Eindhoven Film Festival, Bit Bang, Les Nuits Magiques, InShort Film Festival, Sparks CG Conference, Panama Animation Film Festival, Cutout Fest, Animaevka, VGIK, Dance on Screen- Graz, BACKUP Festival, Animax Skopje, PPFAM, Tokyo Anime Award, 2Annas, SHORTS Offenburg, cellu l’art Kurzfilmfestival, Cardiff Animation Festival, FluXus Animation Film Festival, ZEBRA animation friendly festival, Stockholm Experimental and Animation Film Festival, Warsaw Animation Film Festival ,Seven Hills International Film Festival

Graduation work from the Film University Babelsberg. Making Of: vimeo.com/454693987
Music: dascha-dauenhauer.com
Choreography: martha-hincapie-charry.com
dock11-berlin.de/index.php/cat/2_6/id/p66_Gabriel-Galindez-Cruz.html

Tokri (The Basket)

Pixflow Admin — Sat, 24 Apr 2021 11:27:03 +0000

A clumsy accident leads a young girl onto the streets of Mumbai in the hope of making things right. A gentle and touching father/daughter story depicted in exquisite stop-motion from Indian animation mainstay, Studio Eeksauru

The spark for today’s short film came from an everyday experience, simple and mundane. Traversing the crowded streets of Mumbai in his car, animator Suresh Eriyat was approached by a young girl selling baskets.

Eriyat shooed her away—it is assumed by most that the hordes of children who pounce upon motorists at the stoplights of the city are organized by gangs, thus any charity exhibited directly rewards the practice of putting children to work as beggars. Yet, despite the unremarkable nature of this occurrence, Eriyat was struck by guilt. Describing the thoughts that circled his mind, he writes, “What if she was in a precarious situation where she had to sell baskets to bring peace to her home? What if she needed some help from Me? How insensitive of me?” The premise of a story was born, one that would take 8 years to bring to completion. That Tokri should take 8 years to create is in some sense a surprise. One of India’s foremost independent animators, Eriyat is astonishingly prolific, with over 450 completed works in a multitude of styles: stop-motion, 3D, and 2D hand-drawn, among other techniques. Much of this output is commercial work, for which he’s been duly recognized—honors from the Clios and Cannes Lions are on his resumé, as well as the status of being India’s first winner of an Annecy Cristal, but now a decade out from the creation of his own studio alongside his wife, Nilima, Eriyat’s ambition has grown to ever more elaborate personal projects, of which Tokri is the crowning achievement to date.

While a relatively simple story, grounded in the lived experience of India’s destitute, Tokri overflows with detail. The scale of the production is truly remarkable—we adore stop-motion, with over 100 films in our collection, but despite the overwhelming diversity of subjects and styles you’ll encounter while traversing the catalog there are a few commonalities to the majority of them: tight compositions, confined spaces, relatively few characters. These decisions are often right for the story, but they are also a compromise to the pain-staking nature of the craft, an attempt to reduce complexity within scenes. An unusual degree of motion abounds within even simple scenes in Tokri, and Eriyat and his team are unafraid of going wide as well, in shots that seek to depict the cacophony of the Mumbai streetscape and which encompass dozens of moving elements. We always love a good stop-motion timelapse, and the video below gives you a good sense of the undertaking.

Awards & Wins :

– Luchezarny Angel Film Festival
– The 11th Xiamen International Animation Festival
– Filmmakers of the Year Film Festival (FYFF)
– Crossroads Film Festival
– Brroego Springs Film Festival
– 65th National Film Award
– 19th Crossroads Film Festival
– Moscow Shorts April 2018
– Myrtle Beach International Film Festival
– Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF)
– 4th Thessaloniki Animation Film Festival
– 6th Sharjah International Children’s Film Festival ( SICFF )
– International Short Film Festival Kolkata
– Animation Studio Festival
– Palm Springs International Animation Festival, 2018 (PSIAF )
– Short to The Point
– Accolade Global Film Festival
– 19th Digicon 6 Asia Awards
– New Delhi Short Film Festival
– The Smalls Film Festival
– Great Lakes International Film Festival
– Moondance International Film Festival
– Long Island International Film Expo(LIIFE)
– Acharya Tulsi Short Film Festival
– 16 Jaipur International Film Festivals – In Jaipur
– Mexico International Film Festival
– The IndieFest Film Awards
– 60th Cine Golden Eagle Awards for Independent & Emerging Media
– 12th Athens Animfest -2017
– Ficci Baf (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) 2017

Nominations and Official Selections :

– The Ambulante Film festival for the kids section
– Luchezarny Angel
– Indie Meme Film Festival 2019
– New York International Children’s Film Festival (NYICFF )
– Black Movie Film Festival’s
– Kobane International Film Festival
– International animation film festival Tindirindis in Lithuania
– Cinekid Screening Club Invitation
– Filem’On – International Film Festival
– Ojai Film Festival
– Lodz Animation Film Festival
– Banjaluka International Animated Film Festival
– 8th StopTrik IFF (International Stop Motion Competition )
– Krok Film Festival
– Tai Kwun 2018
– Cinema On The Bayou Film Festival
– Tokyo Anime Awards (TAFF) 2018
– Our Fest
– Play Lisbon’s International Kids Film Festival 2018
– 34th Cartoon Club, The INT. Film Festival of Animation Cinema And Comic
– Linoleum Festival
– 8th California International Shorts Festival (Fall)
– Stockholm Experimental Film Festival
– 11th Tehran International Animation Festival
– Académie Des César
– Atlanta Film Festival (ATLFF) – an Academy Award – Aualifying Festival
– 2017 Kaohsiung Film Festival International Short Film Competition
– 42nd Hong Kong International Film Festival
– New Filmmakers NY
– Bucharest Short Film Festival
– Zubroffka (kids contest) International Short Film Festival
– Irvine International Film Festival
– SIFFCY (Smile International Film Festival for Children and Youth)
– Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles IFFLA
– Anilogue International Animation Festival
– 20th International Children’s Film Festival India (ICFFI)
– Paris Courts Devant International Short Film Festival
– Kansas International Film Festival
– Reggio Film Festival
– Kuandu International Animation Festival
– Kaoshing Film Festival International Short Film Competition (KFF)
– Festival Du Film D’Animation Pour la Jeunesse
– KLIk Amsterdam Film Festival
– Route 66 Film Festival
– Hsin-Yi Children’s Animation Awards
– 3D Wire Festival
– Ile Courts International Short Film Festival
– Indie-AniFest
– Fantoche International Animation Film Festival
– Festival International Du Film D’Animation De Paris (PIAFF)
– Woodstock Museum Film Festival
– La Guarimba International Film Festival
– The San Diego International Kids’ Film Festival
– Tandil International Short Film
– Bucheon International Animation Festival
– Anima Mundi 2017
– Supertoon Animation Film Festival 2017
– 9th Edition Montreal stopMotion Animation Film Festival
– 11th River Film Festival (RiFF)
– 57th Zlin Film Festival
– NCCC Film & Animation Festival
– Tokyo Lift-Off Film Festival
– Animation Day in Cannes Accolade
– Cortoons Festival Gandia
– Animakom Fest
– Cartoons on The Bay
– Lucca Film Festival
– Animac International Animation Film Festival of Catalonia
– Festival De Cinema En Famille De
– Arthouse Asia
– London City Film Awards
– North Hollywood Cinefest
– Solo International Film Festival
– Liverpool Film Festival
– Edinburgh Independent Film Awards
– Glasgow International Film Festival
– The Buddha International Film Festival (TBIFF)

Rebooted

Pixflow Admin — Sat, 10 Oct 2020 10:19:48 +0000

It’s not easy for a movie-star to age – especially when you’re a stop motion animated skeleton monster

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A SPECIAL EFFECT GOES OUT-OF-DATE?

I have to admit something. When I started writing about visual effects, I once ignorantly thought that I was one of the only people in the world really, truly obsessed with the industry. I was so wrong. I have, of course, been excited to meet – online and in-person – lots of other people who are just as fanatical.

one of those is filmmaker Michael Shanks, a Melbourne-based director operating out of production company LateNight Films. You might have seen his work on the YouTube channel timtimfed, or in the series The Wizards of Aus. Having always been into visual effects (and a VFX artist himself), Shanks has now written and directed one of the most inspired short films I’ve seen in recent years which just so happens to also tap into visual effects obsessive-ness.

It’s called Rebooted and follows stop-motion animated skeleton Phil as he struggles to find work in his former lucrative Hollywood surrounds. Phil also encounters other ‘out-of-date’ and out-of-work special effects; an animatronic Velociraptor, a rubber suit creature, a 2D piece of animation on cell paper and even a liquid metal CG man.

What’s amazing about Rebooted, which was funded by Screen Australia and YouTube, is that Shanks and his team actually did use several old-school techniques to bring those characters to life, including stop-motion, animatronics, man-in-suit effects, and motion control, as well as motion capture, 3D and 2D compositing.

YOU MIGHT LIKE: GET ANIMATED WITH XSENS

As a self-confessed VFX aficionado, I was just buzzing when I found out this project existed, and I hope you will be, too. Watch the whole film below, and then read my interview with Shanks about how Rebooted was made, with some extra special insights on what effects-related Easter eggs to look out for.

b&a: Tell me about the origin of Rebooted – how did it go from idea to an actually short, and how did you tap into a love of special and visual effects in the idea for the film?

Michael Shanks: I’ve always been obsessed with the ‘How did they do that?!’ of movie-making, and since I started making films I’ve always had a real VFX focus. I spent a lot of time as a kid watching behind-the-scenes stuff (the bonus features on the LOTR extended editions are the best things ever).

I WAS WATCHING SOME CHEESY MADE FOR TV SHOW ABOUT THE SPECIAL EFFECTS OF THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, AND AT THE END MARK HAMILL (WHO IS EARNESTLY HOSTING THE PROGRAM) TURNS TO R2-D2 AND TALKS ABOUT HIM AS THOUGH HE’S A LIVING CO-STAR OF HIS. THAT KIND OF SPARKED THE IDEA OF – WHAT IF SPECIAL EFFECTS CREATURES WERE ACTORS?

That and the fact that one of the main things I want from films is to see things I’ve never seen before – and the idea of featuring the history of Hollywood special/visual effects side-by-side in the same live-action frame struck me as something I needed to see – so I thought I’d try to make it!

b&a: Given that it does hark back to a golden age of effects, what were some of the early discussions you had about how ‘Phil’ and the other characters would be brought to life using old and new techniques?

Michael Shanks: The whole premise behind this project is to celebrate the incredible magic of all sorts of creature creation, and as such I wanted to do it as authentically as possible – but due to financial constraints I was convinced we would have to compromise a lot more than we did. As we largely do all our post in-house (we did all VFX work except the liquid metal man and 2D animation) we can rely on VFX to solve all sorts of ‘we don’t have to pay ourselves’ budget fixes.

We managed to do a lot more practical stuff than I expected, for example, I didn’t know where the hell we were going to find an animatronic Velociraptor, but doing a bit of research it turns out there’s a guy who has a whole collection of them two hours out of Melbourne. He had so many dinosaurs, honestly, you could open a Jurassic Park in Frankston (a suburb of Melbourne).

B&A: IN PARTICULAR, HOW WAS PHIL ANIMATED? CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE APPROACH TO STOP-MOTION USED AND YOUR METHODS FOR COMPOSITING HIM INTO LIVE ACTION SCENES?

Michael Shanks: We actually did a couple of tests as to how we might be able to make a CG Phil that was rendered to look like stop-motion animation (inspired by Animal Logic’s incredible work on the Lego movies) but ultimately we were sent the heavenly gift of Samuel Lewis, our puppet-builder and animator, and Gerald Thompson, our stop-motion cinematographer.