May 15, 2013
The Button Man and the Murder Tree
An all-new Wild Cards story
May 14, 2013
Shall We Gather
When one world brushes another, asking the right question can be magic…
May 8, 2013
Fire Above, Fire Below
The dragon below our city has died. What is to be done?
May 7, 2013
We Have Always Lived On Mars
They've never seen the sky. Or the sun. Or the stars. Or the moons.
This Saturday morning cartoon goes out to the folks who inspired it, among them Elizabeth Bear, Leah Bobbet, and Gemma Files, who, last weekend at Readercon, gave us clear explanations of the subtext evident in their work. Using yoga.
Charade: This Oscar winning short shows that sometimes getting your point across is just not an obvious thing to do. (4:44 minutes)
The Cycle of Art: So you’ve just created your masterpiece. Here’s what’s going to happen to it. (3:09 minutes)
Pipe Dreams: The bouncing ball is the most basic motion animators learn. This short bring them to a whole new level with what is the most fantastic musical instrument you’ve ever seen. (3:33 minutes)
[Find out why there’s just one cartoon this week after the jump]
Crayon Dragon: an encounter with an imaginary creature can bring real life changes. (3:13 minutes)
Dragonboy: if only most school plays were this entertaining. (4:15 minutes)
Blinkity Blank: Norman McLaren often pushed the limits of animation and filmmaking. Here, he explores just how little is needed to give the impression of motion. (5:17 minutes)
Swinging the Lambeth Walk: A film painted directly on celluloid, by the inventor of the technique. (3:27 minutes)
Pencil Test: Long before Galyn Susman starred in The Movie Vanishes, she worked on this short using a Mac computer ad (I imagine) lots of patience and hard work. (3:03 minutes)
Day & Night: One of the reasons for Pixar’s success is that they know they are following a century old tradition of animated cinema. This film probably demonstrates it better than any others, while going somewhere not seen before. (5:51 minutes)
Brave is Pixar’s 13th feature but the studio started by making short films and they are still an important part of the studio. John Lasseter has stated that making shorts was a great way for him to gain experience as a filmmaker and that this is why Pixar continues to make short films: they are at the root of the studio success and I’d like to take a quick look at two early works that were key to making Pixar what it is today.
Sunstone: In the late 70s, Ed Emshwiller walked into the New York Institute of Technology and said he wanted to make a 3 hour computer graphics film. Once the staff stopped laughing, they told him 3 minutes was more realistic. So Emshwiller collaborated with eventual Pixar founder Alvy Ray Smith and produced this short. (2:55 minutes)
The Movie Vanishes: Can you imagine a world without Toy Story 2? The crew a Pixar can, here’s the story of how it almost came to be. (2:26 minutes)
Pixar films are known for being computer animated, but they are loved for the stories they tell and the characters that live in them. To get to where the studio is now, they had to combine technical know how and creativity. And no two people better represent these facets of Pixar than Ed Catmull and John Lasseter.
Volume Visualization on Image Computer: Before they became known for making films, Pixar’s bread and butter was selling high-end 3D computer visualization stations. This is a demo reel used to show the capabilities of the system. (6:01 minutes)
The Beach Chair: An early short done at Pixar while they were still testing the waters of filmmaking. (0:29 minutes)
自主制作アニメーション (Anemone): When the world seems upside down, it’s sometimes a good idea to look back at your life and renew some old ties. (5:10 minutes)
オハヨウ (Ohayo): Some mornings it’s just harder to wake up. A short film by one of the modern masters of anime. (1:00 minutes)
Abigail: A young girl meets with her war council after being sent to her room one too many times. (1:52 minutes)
Alma: A young girl finds the doll she’s always wanted. (5:14 minutes)
Mau: Cats in the land of the Pharaohs didn’t always have it easy, of course some can see opportunities and take advantage of them. (6:09 minutes)
Mytho Logique (Mytho-Logical): A faun argues with his girlfriend about the existence of Pegasus and other legendary beings, little does he know he’s about to start a legend of his own. (6:10 minutes)
Oxygen: The best scientific films are not only accurate, but funny. In this one we get to spend the day at an element-ary school with Oxygen. (2:19 minutes)
The Ph.Diddy is on the scene: LifeTechnologies makes lab equipment and it looks like they are branching out into popular entertainment with music videos depicting life in bio-chem labs. (4:50 minutes)
The Piano: A man reflects on his life while playing of Yann Tiersen’s beautiful compositions on a piano. (2:23 minutes)
Tony de Peltrie: A groundbreaking short, by a bunch of guys that would eventually revolutionize filmmaking. (6:09 minutes)
Before Sunrise: A shade wanders around in the night until it makes a life-changing encounter. (5:26 minutes)
Red: One of the more interesting tellings of a classic tale, featuring the best antagonist ever put on film. (2:33 minutes)
Just As, After a Point, Job Cried Out: A visualization of a poem by K.A. Hays where the ground has a few things to say to the weather. (1:27 minutes)
Advertising Lullaby: George Carlin uses overused soundbites from ads to make us think. (0:58 minutes)
Almost as soon as sound was introduced to film, people have been using animation to visualize what they heard. Here are two recent examples.
Unammed Soundculpture: A high tech approach using footage from a dancer recorded with depth cameras with music by Machinenfabriek. (4:56 minutes)
I Will Never Change: A more basic approach using actual vinyl records to visualize the sound waves created by dubstep producer Benga. (2:00 minutes)
Deadline: What’s worse than working under a tight deadline? Having tons of post-its remind you of it. (1:55 minutes)
Address is Approximate: A robot goes on a virtual trip. (2:43 minutes)
Panspermia: Life is moving in on a brand new world. (2:12 minutes)
Pangea — The Neverending World: It’s a big world out there when you’ve just hatched from an egg, especially when you live on a supercontinent.
(7:40 minutes)
If there’s anything SF readers and watchers, gamers and otakus enjoy more than their particular hobbies, it’s getting together to talk with like-minded people. Doing so on the web is great, as is doing it in person.
What follows is a list of some of the events that will happen over the month of April. It is by no means comprehensive, but I do try for geographical and thematic variety. Feel free to add events near you, large or small, in the comments.
