ANIMATION IS FILM FESTIVAL returns for its fifth event in Los Angeles, October 21-23 and October 29.
Event includes individual ticketed events for screenings and Q&As for more than a dozen feature films from around the world, with free screenings of animated shorts on Friday and Saturday evenings.
Animation is Film brings world animation to the U.S. with this year’s films from Japan, Ireland, France, China, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Brazil, Luxembourg, Armenia, Germany and Lithuania.
The festival also boasts sneak previews of Dreamwork’s “Puss in Boots The Last Wish” and Disney’s “Strange World.” Additionally, streaming-based films have limited runs at the festival, including Netflix’s “Wendell & Wild” and “My Father’s Dragon,” Apple’s “Luck” and Disney/Pixar’s “Turning Red.”
This year comes with an extra day, with a special “surprise screening” on the festival’s closing night, Oct. 29, instead of just one weekend of animation celebrations. While the special screening will be announced later, the first weekend’s lineup is available now at animationisfilm.com
Indie animation studio Bandit Mill launches Indiegogo campaign for first series, “The Boys of Boxtown”
With a focus on creating independent broadcast-quality adult animation, the Bandit Mill collective’s first goal will be to create a pilot for the above trailer. Funding will also come through their Patreon:
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You can also follow the studio’s launch on indiegogo today.
“Arcane” Led the Winners of the 49th Annie Awards with Nine Wins in TV/Media Categories, while “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” Scored Eight Wins for Feature!
Release Date Set for Spectacular Anime Feature “Pompo the Cinephile”
Nyallywood comes to cinemas on April 27-29, GKIDS announced with a referential teaser. The film, which previewed in the United States in 2021 in New York City and Los Angeles as part of festivals, delivers a tight story of how movies are made, at least when producer Pompo takes the lead!
Let this animated music video help you face 2021 with “enthusiasm and determination!”
Director and animator Régis Raffin (www.regisraffin.com) and 2D character animator Camille Guillot teamed up to welcome us into the new year with this exciting hybrid video, set to “Come on” by The Hives.
We caught up with Raffin to find out more about the process.
Q: What inspired this film? How did you decide on the setting? (We saw influences of podracing or Mad Max, but let us know what your influences were).
Sure, a lot of my inspiration comes from Star Wars, the podrace scene of course, Luke’s landspeeder and Tatooine’s desert.
Design wise I love muscle cars from the 60’s and 70’s, and the yellow vehicle in the film is a direct nod to the car in American Graffiti (did I already mention I’m a fan of George Lucas ? ;) ).
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What program(s) did you use? Was it the same for both 3D and 2D? Have you worked with both in this way before?
I did all the 3D in Blender and Camille did the 2D animation in Tv paint. I never used this exact technique before but a few years back I did something with a similar vibe which was a blend of live action and 2D for the faces :
This movie was made between projects, from our homes on our personal computers, it had to be very simple visually because I didn’t have the usual team of 3D specialists and the render farms. So the main challenge was to create something visually exciting with limited resources and limited time (one month from idea to completion). That’s why I went for a lowpoly look with no textures. I love to emulate what it’s like to play as a kid, so I designed the hover cars as toys I would have love to get as a child.
In most of my films I try to make adults feel like kids and kids feel like badasses !
Editor’s Note: if you have an animated project you’d like to share with Animation Force, please message us or reach out to TheAnimationForce (at) gmail (dot) com.
Let’s Get Dangerous! Teaser brings back the full Darkwing Cast
Premiering Monday, October 19th on Disney XD, this latest episode of DuckTales brings back many of the old favorites from Darkwing Duck’s roster. If you pay close attention you can catch glimpses of Quackerjack, Megavolt, The Liquidator, Bushroot, Taurus Bulba, Gosalyn, and even a few of our old favorites such as Gizmoduck.
It’s unclear what city this episode takes place in, but it looks a lot like Darkwing’s old city, Saint Canard. And it seems that Zan Owlson, the former CEO of Glomgold Industries, is now the mayor.
Get excited to see these new design twists on old favorites, as we get to see more of them in this new installment of Darkwing Duck in DuckTales.
An Interview with the crew of Netflix original “Klaus”
Last week at CTN Expo, we attended several panels with creators and other industry professionals in animation. We’ll share what we learned over the next few weeks, beginning with this Twitter threadlive-tweet from a screening of “Klaus” on Thursday, Nov. 21.
Thursday night after the screening, esteemed animation producer Don Hahn moderated the discussion with some of the film’s crew: director Sergio Pablos, production designers Szymon Biernacki and Marcin Jakubowski, character designer Torsten Schrank, and 2D animators Sergio Martins, Victor Ens and Matt Williames.
How did the story for Klaus come about?
Writer and director Sergio Pablos was inspired to come up with an origin story, filling in a missing chapter of a famous or mythical character. The story began to shine with Santa as a symbol of altruism — after Pablos added a character, Jesper, who needs to learn that himself.
How was the snowy setting a challenge, or an asset, throughout the film?
Production designers Szymon Biernacki and Marcin Jakubowski called Smeerensburg’s snowy setting “like a blank canvas,” giving them so many opportunities to use colors and light to set the film’s unique look.
Check out Netflix original 2D animated film “Klaus” on November 15
Directed by the writer whose stories became Illumination Entertainment’s “Despicable Me” and Warner Animation’s “Smallfoot” — Sergio Pablos, “Klaus” follows a mailman and a toymaker on their journey to spread holiday cheer to their Arctic town.
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