The latest issue of the quarterly Objects - Journal of Applied Arts just got released. It’s a bilingual publication in German and English, you should be able to pick it up in Berlin and various art related bookshops around the world. You know, the one’s where everything is so expensive you end up just getting a postcard.
I contributed an extended article on the aesthetics of Please Say Something for it. It’s mainly adapted from my larger essay on animation aesthetics which I’ve given talks about over the last year or so, which for the moment will probably stay unreleased. Right now I’d rather practice than preach… anyway this might be of interest if you’d like to know more about the theory side of my work.
Remember that model of Walt Disney’s head I released in January? It was kind of a joke… Anyway, roboticist Zach Hoeken just made it REAL with a 3d printer. How cool is that?
Some more images of the artificially conceived masterpiece can be seen on this Flickr. I love the inexact texture of it… it’s beautiful.
Don’t miss the 2 equally strange videos made with it here and here.
Please Say Something just won the Special Distinction award at Annecy! Thanks to the Jury members who voted and for the audience who exploded before the name of the film was even announced. You rock. (does anyone have any pictures from the ceremony?)
I’m currently in London working on a top secret project with design genius Jon Klassen, should be ready next month. Here is a sneak preview of a polygon which will appear in the actual video.
Thank you all for sending in your showreels after my post a couple weeks ago, I couldn’t answer everyone but there were so many talented people out there I will be sure to keep them all on file for next thing. I know it’s tough for freelancers right now so I hope you’re all holding it down until the industry picks up again.
Please Say Something just won best German film at Oberhausen! It’s really encouraging, I’ve never won a monetary prize before. It seems that in animation we’re so used to thinking that we have to do work we don’t like in order to do work we like doing, I guess it’s not always true after all.
I’m also happy to announce that after years of working in the corner of various bedrooms I finally have an office! The nice people at Partizan had some extra space in their new Berlin HQ and I’m currently renting it out. A big thank you to Moritz & Jordan for setting this up.
In other news you can now stalk my every move on Twitter, I’ve revamped various parts of the site and uploaded some of my work on Son of Rambow. I will be doing a general talk about my work at the DCA in Scotland on Saturday, then a screening/Q&A at Bafta on Tuesday (tickets here). Hope to see you there!
Here are some stage visuals I recently did for M.I.A. The deadline for this was extremely tight, everything was done in a few days in preparation for her Coachella gig last weekend.
Here was the first test I did before any brief, it wasn’t used in the end but it’s my personal favourite. You can view this with red/cyan glasses, the gun’s distortion is in true 3d space.
This is a composite of some of the other ones I did, more in line with M.I.A’s aesthetic. (unfortunately compression kind of kills the flat colors/strobe effects). Since these were rendered in extreme widescreen I compressed them both into one video. The left audio channel is for the song “World Town” and the right the final version of “Bang”. Listen to them separately with headphones.
