October 28th 1892, Charles-Émile Renaud presented for the first time his Théâtre Optique, the first public projection of moving pictures. In 2002 (110 years after the original event) ASIFA decided to declare that day the International Animation Day.
So I won't lecture you any further. Go and have a drink with your animators buddies. Celebrate. It's an order.
Here at Okam we wish a happy day to everyone that has worked on animation.
And now that I got your attention, "Kill Your Co-Workers" is the name of the psychedelic band, Flying Lotus', latest release. The video was animated by Beeple. But the story doesn't end there: what's nice about this news is that the models are open source, and there is an open invitation for animators to re-use them to make other videos. Here, the whole story from their page:
Flying Lotus and animator Beeple present brand new video ‘Kill Your Co-Workers’ taken from ‘Pattern+Grid World’ (out now). In an open invitation to animators across the world to make new scenes and stories with the parade of fantastical characters that feature, the source 3D models have been made freely available for you to download and use in your own works. Download the source files here – and Upload your creations to this Vimeo group More info at Warp.net
What I want to know if what do you think about this kind of initiatives. Good oportunities, plain fun or soulless marketing strategy?
Sorry about the lack of updates, lately, but we’ve been busy with Max's (our very special covert-ops specialist and businessman extraordinaire) trip to Ottawa’s animation festival. And we take this opportunity to remember our experiences in Annecy, earlier this year.
After working hard on our project, The Undertaker Chronicles, last May we received a little note that confirmed that we were selected for Creative Focus. It was our first time at Annecy, and it served as a sort of rite of passage for us as a studio. Many of the people we know today we met during the trip or because of it. It was an experience that made us grow at personal and professional levels, and it meant a huge victory on the establishment of our brand-name.
But you probably don’t care about those things. What you want to know is how the festival was, who we met, and what was going on in there. So, without further ado, let’s dive into our perceptions of the festival!
OMG!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! It’s as if they made a Godzilla vs. King Kong or Superman vs. Spiderman or… Ok, I should stop trying to make comparisons right now.
So, in reality crossovers tend to suck, and for every Batman and Superman we get tons of Mighty Morphing Power Rangers vs. Teenage Mutants Ninja Turtles. And, let’s face it, the idea of mixing up these two game franchises sounds as awesome as terrifying.
While I try to gather my thoughts upon re-watching Perfect Blue and cope with everyday's life, I'll leave you to this little amateur, Lego, stop-motion version of the Joker's speach from The Killing Joke.
Now, I don't consider myself a big comic book fan. I like them alright, but I wouldn't be able to stand the simplest of trivia tests of comic book knowledge. That being said, The Killing Joke is one of my favorite graphic novels of all time. Alan Moore's script is so tight that the mood of the piece survives even a translation to Lego language. So why can't it survive Hollywood?
But the less I say about the movie adaptations of his works, the less people will be hurt.
Maybe South Park deserves back its crown of the edgiest TV cartoon in town. Not as surprising, but you can judge it for yourselves watching the full-episode here.
BE WARNED: It's South Park. You're bound to be offended.
Ok, this is a hilariously stupidcommercial. Sorry, nothing intellectual, today. Let’s take a minute and play a game to see if you can recognize the song.
In case you haven’t noticed it yet, that’s He-Man’s theme song. I don’t think the original version had any lyrics, but you can check out the latinamerican version here.
Martina here will surely be happy with this. She's a huge Disney buff, and she's looking foward to Tangled.
I find the video intersting because it puts faces on the invisible people behind the product. It was made by Claudio de Oliveira and the story goes as follows:
“I had the great experience of working as an animator on Tangled,” writes Claudio de Oliveira, “and by the end of the production I found some time to put together this homage to keep some memories of the ‘people’ behind this amazing project. It would be great if you could pass it along and put some faces out, not only our work.”
By now, it should be no news that Satoshi Kon, at the age of 46, has passed away. And here, at Okam, we would like to bid our farewells to de deceased artist. We will be going through his works in future posts but, for now, we’ll pay our respect with silence.
I have not yet surrendered my love to Epic Mickey; years of gaming have made a skeptic out of me. But I have to admit that they know how to catch my attention. This video speaks about the inclusion of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in the game and I can sum up the ways this works up my pleasure-spots:
GEEK-TASTIC!: As any other geek, I love obscure characters, trivia facts and most pieces of information that have no real application on everyday’s life. This is no Kingdom Hearts. When they bring back a character that has no other target-audience than people like me, I feel loved.
GAMER CRED!: As a gamer interested specially in in-game narrative, I can’t wait to see how they worked out the relationship between the two characters. It seems that it’ll be determined through gameplay which, I think, is the smart approach for a gaming franchise.
SNOBISH CRITIC FEAST!: Oswald will be a character holding a grudge for being forgotten, resentful for living under the shadow of the replacing mascot. That’s pretty meta of them.
So, kudos to Warren Spector and Junction Point. We have yet to see if they can deliver in their promise, but at least they have me interested in this Mickey game. And believe me, that’s a hard one to sell.
Anyways, in case you haven't heard it yet, it seems that graffiti legend Banksy has created one of the edgiest things to hit TV this year. As a Simpson's intro of all places.
And someone at Fox greenlighted its airing.
Simply amazing.
PS: Am I the only one perplexed to find out that South Corea has unicorns?
Ok, so we’ve made our first video-interviews that are still waiting to be edited. The interviewees are Bill Plympton and Ralph Bakshi, two names that carry a meaningful weight not only for the industry but also have a special space in my heart.
I’d like to talk about Ralph because, well, it’s been more than a decade since his last movie and he might need a bigger introduction. Thus I have decided to talk a little bit about Fritz the Cat. Don’t worry, I won’t be reviewing it, as many and better reviews can be found on the web. Besides, I don’t think I can be objective when it comes to Bakshi.
By now, it should be no surprise that we love that little game called World of Goo. Going around the office and asking our staff about it, I was not very surprised to find out that everyone else shared my opinion. The conversation went something along these lines:
ME: So, what do you think about World of Goo? Like melted gold raining down my face.
MAX: That game is God!
LUCAS: Yeah, it’s the best game of the decade!
And the conversation went on from one hyperbole to another. Martina didn’t share an opinion because, as we all know from TV, girlsdon’t playvideogames.
So, this is Okam’s blog, a site where we can discuss animation freely, share some interviews with people from the industry we like, post some news about our projects and adventures and venture into some blatant self-promotion.
We hope you have as much fun as we do here, get to know us better and engage in the playful vibe that we intend to give to this site.
