Rungy Chungy Cheese Bees

So it looks like I’m going to be speaking at SIGGRAPH, which means… I get to go to SIGGRAPH! Woot! I’ll be on a panel about Animal and Creature Animation, alongside Jim Brown of Tippett Studios and Glen McIntosh of ILM, and moderated by my pal Luci Napier of Animation Mentor. I’m still giddy from the experience of animating Toothless and the other dragons in How to Train Your Dragon, and I’m intensely curious about what the other two panelists have to say about their work, so it should be a really fun conversation all around. The whole thing is happening on Wednesday, July 28 from 1:30-3:30pm in Hall K at the Los Angeles Convention Center. See you there!

Update: unfortunately, the SIGGRAPH panel had to be canceled due to a lack of space at the convention center. We may find another venue for this panel in the near future though– the fine folks at AM are working on it, so stay tuned!

“The Music Scene” from Anthony Francisco Schepperd on Vimeo.

I swear I’ve experienced things exactly like this during hypnagogic moments (those naturally occurring dreamlike hallucinations that sometimes happen as you’re falling asleep) as a teenager. But this guy actually spent five months in front of Flash with a tablet and stylus, making it real for the rest of us. This is what animation is all about. (via Cartoon Brew).

If you liked this video, you might also want to go back and watch Mathieu Labaye’s Orgesticulanismus one more time. That link takes you to a high-quality version I just found, with subtitles, which clarifies the intent of the film and makes the slow part just as enjoyable as the fast part… give it a look!

Two more festivals will be screening How to Make a Baby next Saturday night (May 22nd) in two different cities. The Santa Fe Reporter’s 3 Minute Film Festival (at the Lensic Performing Arts Centre, 211 W. San Francisco St., Santa Fe, New Mexico), and a reprise screening of the Santa Barbara Minute Film Festival (at Samy’s Camera, 614 Chapala Street in Santa Barbara, California). Apparently last week’s SBMFF was so popular that they sold out the entire theater, so they’ve scheduled a second screening for everyone who was turned away at the door the first time.

The film has also brought home some accolades: it earned an Honorable Mention from the Disposable Film Fest, and was voted in the Top Five by the jury at the SBMFF. We’ve submitted it to a bunch of other festivals, so stay tuned for updates. If you want to keep track of the all film’s screenings and awards, you can find the whole list on the project’s festival page.

The DFF was such an overwhelmingly fun experience, it got us completely hooked on the film festival buzz. So over the past month I’ve been submitting “How to Make a Baby” to various festivals, and we’re starting to hear back from some of them. One of them, the Santa Barbara Minute Film Festival, is right around the corner! It’s happening on Saturday, May 1st at 8pm at the Faulkner Gallery (40 East Anapamu Street) in Santa Barbara, California. I won’t be able to make it to the event in person, unfortunately, but if you happen to be in the area, stop by the screening and let me know how it goes!

An update on the Disposable Film Festival: apparently tickets for tonight’s 8pm screening at the Roxie are already sold out, so they’ve added a 10pm show! Tickets available here, and other info here.

This is the movie I’ve been working on for the past year or so. I can’t say enough good about this film. By far the best one I’ve ever worked on, I can recommend it without hesitation. Yes, it’s that good!

The trailer is finally up, and it has a bunch of my shots in it! (The freeze frame you see below is one of them.) I have mixed feelings about posting the trailer here: on the one hand, compared to the previous teasers and leaked footage that’s been out there, this does a much better job at representing what the movie’s really like. But on the other hand, it takes a lot of sweet moments and shows them out of context, which could take away some of the surprise and enjoyment when you see it in the theater. So, if you don’t mind spoilers, watch the trailer below. But if you’d rather keep yourself pure and unsullied, just wait ’til March 26th and go see it on the big screen!

And here’s a link to the full-res trailer if you’d like to see it a bit bigger!

Looks like our How to Make a Baby video has gone viral. It’s been on Boing Boing, Neatorama, Geekologie, Cartoon Brew, MSN.com, and about a zillion other blogs. In the mainstream media, it’s been on Canal Plus, Metro (UK), Epoca, Glamour, and ESPN of all places.

As of today, our original video has been watched over 400,000 times. (I’m still trying to figure out how much popcorn that would mean if all those people had to go see it in a movie theater.) Meanwhile, an unofficial copy on YouTube has garnered another quarter of a million views (although for some reason my “official” YouTube copy has a scant 10,000… go figure!) And I guess the lack of dialog gives the short some kind of global appeal, because it’s been blogged in Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, and Turkish. Whew!

Here are some of the best comments I’ve seen so far (in English, anyway…)

“The pope was right – condoms ARE useless. Rubber gloves, however!”

“Excellent! I played it for my 5 year old daughter and her 5 year old cousin before they left for school. I’m sure it’ll make for an interesting day for their teachers :)”

“Scientifically inaccurate – fails to show the crucial contribution made by the stork.”

“Now that is dedication! I’m watching this on the set of a stop-motion film, and it certainly puts our long waiting times between takes into perspective.”

“Adoption is much easier and less stressful on the lungs/stomach.”

“That is exactly how my wife and I did it. By the way, NEVER blow on two fingers at once. Yep … twins!”

“My girlfriend is inflatable, too. God, I’m so lonely.”

Today we went to the “Art of Coraline” exhibit at San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum. It’s a fantastic show, full of gorgeous drawings, maquettes, armatures and full puppets from the making of the movie (which comes out next weekend by the way… we’re gonna try to catch one of the stereo 3D screenings, don’t wanna miss that!)

My personal favorite thing to see was a little black journal, chained to the wall, labeled “Secrets”. It’s a reproduction of the working diary of Jeremy Spake, one of the armature builders. Not only is it a beautiful object, but it shows just how experimental the process really is. Stop motion is still very much an evolving art form, and it’s the thought process of guys like this that keeps it evolving. Rock on!

Here are a few more photos from the show:

But it’s really worth seeing this stuff in person. The armatures and puppets are so detailed that no photo can do them justice. And strangely, a lot of the artwork in the show doesn’t appear in the only available “visual companion” book about the movie. So this may really be your only chance to see it. The exhibit is only up until February 15th, so try to get there while you still can! (And if Coraline ain’t enough for ya, there are two other exhibits at the Museum right now: the Totoro Forest Project, and a retrospective of the work of Gene Colan. Between the three of them it’s well worth the price of admission!)

Having a kid is such a memorable experience, but it’s kind of hard to convey to folks who haven’t been through it. So we made this little educational film to show you how it’s done. (Don’t worry, it’s totally worksafe!)

For a bigger version, and some behind the scenes details, see How to Make a “How to Make a Baby”.