Mune Trailer

Here's a trailer of an animated film called Mune which I worked on last year in Montreal. We didn't have the biggest budget so I'm really impressed with how the final film looks. I think one of the most successful things is the lighting and colour schemes. The art director, Rémi Salmon, who has a wonderful unique style, created the concept art at the start of the project, as well as overseeing the lighting at the end - a rare thing in animated features and I think this has given Mune a very strong and interesting look. This was also helped by Nico Marlet having a hand in the character design.







Mune concept art

I'm not sure when the film is coming out but hopefully soon. Enjoy.

Showreel 2012

Here's my latest animation showreel.

Featuring some of my most recent work from John Carter and The Amazing Spider-Man.

JOHN CARTER

John Carter is released this week, the film I spent almost a year working on. This gives me an excuse to share this great picture of the animators from Double Negative's room 402 created by Graham Gallagher.


Our costumes relate to what we were working on at the time Dan Pozo, Chris Page, Graham and Francesco Canonico are dressed as Tharks. Craig Rutherford is wrestling with some Thark hatchlings, Stafford Lawrence dons a Thoat costume while Brecht Debaene and I are sharing a White Ape costume ... for some reason I'm the back end!

More of Graham's work can be found HERE.

There's been a surprising amount of footage released from the film and the following section shows some of the shots I animated -



Rather than trying to describe them all, I've made the following pictorial montage.



The film looks pretty good I reckon, and I hope those of you planning to see it enjoy it.

Me by Marlo Meekins

A little while ago Marlo Meekins was offering to do caricatures in return for donations to help her get to a Caricature Convention in Japan. I took her up on the offer and this is result.



I'm a big fan of her work and find her style both mercilessly unique and very funny. If you're not aware of her blog you can visit it here.

Emanuele's shots

Fellow Double Negative animator Emanuele Pavarotti has some great comparison reels on vimeo. Amazingly, I haven't seen them posted anywhere else so I'd thought I'd give them a plug here.

They show cycles and playblasts of his animation followed by the fully rendered shots from VFX projects. They give a very interesting insight to how some shots were put together, also the quality of the animation is brilliant.

Night at the Museum 2



The Wolfman



The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian



And the bizzarre 'Pigmy Puff' from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince



More of his work can be found on his website here.

New Showreel

The same old stuff in a slightly different order!




There is also a higher quality quicktime version here.

Anim Dailies

This was posted on the On Animation Blog but I thought I'd also mention it.



Anim Dailies is an online animation review site created by Alfonso Sicilia, Suart Ellis, Andrea Castognoli, Brad Silby and Nathan McConnel. You can submit your reel or piece of animation and receive constructive feedback on your work from friendly professional animators.

I'm fortunate enough to know and have worked with these guys and would heartily recommend utilizing this site. They are exceedingly talented and experienced animators so if you're looking to further you animation skills, I wouldn't pass up this great opportunity to receive a free critique from a top animator.

Find them here.

John Carter Trailer

Here's the first trailer for John Carter, the film I'm currently working on. There isn't any of my work in it, in fact they seem to be keeping almost all of the great work being done here at Double Negative under wraps for now ... I guess that's why it's called a teaser.

BYOA

If you're an animator around Soho this Monday night you might want to stop by the Jewel Bar for the Bring Your Own Animation event being organised by Double Negative Animator Samy Fecih.



It promises to be a pretty spectacular, there will be recruiters from Double Negative to take reels and chat with people who have questions about the company, Senior Animators (such as Oskar Urretabizkaia, Rob Bekuhrs, Paul A. Davies, Stephane Mangin and myself) available to offer advice and review work, and even a lightbox for anyone brave enough to attempt some public traditional animation. You can just stop by for a bit of networking and a beer, or bring your work along on a usb stick and get feedback on it.

More information can be found on the website or facebook page.

It starts at 6.30 and costs £1, hope to see you there.

New Legend of The Guardians Trailer

Here's the latest trailer for the film I'm currently working on, Legend of The Guardians : The Owls of Ga'Hoole



I was lucky enough to have some of my work featured in it.



My shot from the previous trailer of an ominous group of owls makes a re-appearance ... but now the main character shouts "Get Them", and remarkably she does this without moving her lips!

My other shots appear near the end when the cutting gets faster.


I animated a large portion of a chase sequence for the film which you get a glimpse of here, in the first shot we see two owls bearing down on a blue bird.



My next shot has been cut into two, in the first part we see the two owls from the previous shot collide. Then after the cut, one of the owls reaches forward about to grasp the bird.



Look out for the trailer in cinemas. It will be playing in 2D and 3D in front of Toy Story 3 which will be released in the US on June 18, and in Australia on June 24.

My Showreel

My Showreel is now available to view on Vimeo.

Showreel from Brendan Body on Vimeo.

Unfortunately it doesn't feature any of my latest work from Legends of the Guardians, however I'll be showing some exciting stuff from the film later this year.

Eric Guaglione's Roger Rabbit 2 Test

Animal Logic's Head of Animation, Eric Guaglione, has had a long and varied career in the film and animation industry. He started out in traditional drawn animation and miniature work, from there he moved over to computers and worked at the forefront of 3D animation. Before Eric came to Animal Logic he worked at Disney Animation Studios where he was involved in project development and animation supervision.

He has been a part of many interesting projects but one thing he showed me that really blew me away was a test for Roger Rabbit 2 he helped create in 1998 while at Disney. I'd never seen the exaggeration and fluidity of drawn animation mixed with the solidity of 3D animation work so well before. Here's a low-res preview -

Eric Guaglione's Roger Rabbit Test from Brendan Body on Vimeo.

Roger Rabbit Test: property of Disney Animation Studios

For a better look, head over to Eric's website where there is a high quality Quicktime to step through, as well as more of his work.

Recently I was inspired by the work of Clay Kaytis over at Animation Podcast and decided to conduct a few interviews of my own. I was fortunate enough to record one with Eric which I've been hoping to turn into a series of animation related podcasts ... or bodcasts if you will, but haven't yet found the time. However, I thought it would be interesting to post the part where Eric talks about this test - why it was created, the problems encountered and what eventually happened to the project.

Powered by Podbean.com

Hopefully I'll get time to post the rest of this 'Animation Bodcast' as well as others soon (I've added an extra link to the topics).

Huge thanks to Eric for agreeing to the interview and a big thanks to the subscribers of this blog. 25 now! I am seriously amazed.

Legend of the Guardians Trailer

Yay! I finally get to show something from the film I'm currently working on - The Legend of the Guardians, directed by Zack Snyder of Watchmen and 300 fame. It's based on the book series The Guardians Of Ga'Hoole by Kathryn Lasky.


I was fortunate enough to animate two shots for the trailer, one where an ominous group of owls adopt an attacking formation.


And the shot at the end were a heroic owl rises, carrying a burning lantern. I've been animating a lot of shots in slow motion on this film, something I've never done before. It poses quite an interesting challenge, I'll have to write a post about it soon.

There's a lengthy article about the film here for anyone who wishes to find out more.

Enjoy.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Well it's Christmas here in Sydney which is a little odd to someone from Scotland, where the temperature's only a couple of degrees at this time of year, but I'm enjoying it all the same.



Sorry my posting has slowed down recently. Unfortunately I've been rather busy over the festive period with one thing and another but I should have some exciting things to share with you in the new year. A big thanks for all the support everyone has shown me for this blog, it's very much appreciated.

The above picture of me was taken by local Sydney photographer Eugene "Uge" Tan. Check out the amazing water photography at his website aquabumps.com.

All the best,

Brendan

The Animator's Buffet

Animal Logic colleague and friend David Williams, has a great blog called The Animator's Buffet, David has an immense knowledge of animation history and has dug up some fascinating and varied examples to show, as well as including his insightful observations about them.

Check it out.

Also, I've recently added a 'Followers' gadget to the sidebar of this blog. If you find my online ramblings interesting you can now click "follow" there to be notified when I've posted something new. Many thanks to those who already have.

Kramer Enters ...

I found this video of every Kramer entrance, in chronological order, on Spungella, where Jean-Denis has also kindly posted a link to my bouncing ball lecture. Thank you!

As a big Seinfeld fan I've gone back and watched many of the earlier episodes in which Kramer's character was not as defined. It's really interesting to see how the actor, Michael Richards, slowly evolved the character, something that's apparent in his entrance - it gradually becomes more defined and consistent although he also does variations on it depending what the scene requires. At the start the characters are also getting more acquainted too - he knocks in the first one! and holds back, asking permission to enter, in the second one he looks a little unsure as he crosses the threshold but then quickly becomes almost overly comfortable crossing the boundary into Jerry's apartment.

It also follows on from from what I was talking about before - finding gestures and idiosyncrasies that are specific to the character you're animating, Kramer is very unique - he's both laid back and very intense, and his sliding entrance fits him perfectly.



I've watched a documentary where Michael Richards talked about this (and if I remember correctly), he said one day he found some shoes in the wardrobe department and tried them on, they were the wrong size but they had smooth sole which enabled him to perform this sliding entrance, he felt that the shoes were one of the defining keys to performing Kramer, someone who slid through life.

It's also very comical, Michael Richards is an amazing physical comedian, a quality which perfectly counters Jerry's verbal wit, not many people could get a big laugh from just entering a room. No wonder it became his trademark.

Big Blog Sort Out

I've decided to order my blog so that anyone visiting might find things they're interested in more easily. I've added labels to all the posts, which you can find in the sidebar, and also put every post under 6 main topics.

Tutorials
Animation lectures, workshops and animation methods - aimed at anyone new to the industry wishing to learn more about the techniques of the animation process.

Critiques
Animators who have bravely sent me their work asking for my opinion on it. I believe viewing critiques of other people's work is a good way to learn how you might improve your own animation.

Behind the Scenes
Any posts which may give you an insight into some aspect of working in the industry - how a specific shot was done, early animation tests for films etc.

Links
Links to film trailers, other animator's websites, or things of interest.

Personal Work
Posts regarding my personal work and employment, as well as website updates and anything else.

Random Thoughts
Theories and thoughts, usually animation or film related.


There is also a labels list, so for example, you can sort posts by the title of the film worked on - Hellboy 2, The Dark Knight, The Tale of Despereaux etc.

If you'd like to read more posts under any of these topics, please let me know.

Some Sweet Showreels

A couple of my good, and very talented friends have their Showreels online, they aren't easy to find so I thought I'd post them here.

This first one is from an old friend, Craig Bardsley. I met Craig at Duncan of Jordanstone in Dundee on the animation course, after which we were both employed by Framestore. Craig quickly established himself there with his superhuman ability to animate creatures. His are some of the most memorable shots from The Golden Compass, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the Harry Potter films, not to mention the 'birthing shot' from The Children of Men, which I still rate as one of the most breath taking pieces of animation ever.



watch it here


The next one is from James Cunliffe whom I met on Happy Feet, then worked with again on The Tale of Despereaux, and he's currently my Lead on The Guardians of Ga'Hoole. James is great at physical animation but his real strength is his acting, his ability to give a film's quiet moments an intensity and honesty is second to none.



watch it here

Very inspiring stuff.

Dundee Degree Show

The animation course I taught at last year has just had their Degree Show, a website with all the students' films is available here.

Watch out for animator Chris Seed, his film 3hirty Six (pictured above) is well worth a look.

Well done everyone. For those of you that gave me a mention in your credits, thank you, I'm very flattered.

The Tale of Despereaux (2008) - Trailer #2

The latest trailer for The Tale of Despereaux.

I'm chuffed that one of my shots made the cut. It's very short, but just about readable - The shot of three mice looking shocked, when Despereaux says "The rats have taken the princess".