The Movieum

Opening in County Hall, London on Feb 22nd is the Movieum. A potential replacement for the sadly demised Momi. This new Film Museum takes many of the ideas from Momi and other Movie Museums and brings them bang upto date with Animatronics, Sets, Models and a unique look at the British Film industry.



For the animator there should be plenty to see, there promises to be a section of British Animation including origional artwork, limited editions, Beatrix Potter, Dangermouse, Bagpuss, Mr Benn and Peppa Pig. Chapman Entertainment provide details of how they use Stop Motion Animation to produce Fifi and the Flowertots.



The museum has been produced by the same people who put together the Starwars Exhibition last year in Country Hall, Wierd and Wonderful

Animation Bafta Winners 2008

The Bafta winner of the Best Animated Film was as predicted, Ratatouille. I'm glad but not surprised that this film was recognised for it's brilliance. The Golden Compass beat it to the post for Visual Effects.

Aardman's "The Pearce Sisters" recieved Best Short Animation award, I'm not sure that I could have predicted that one as Crumble Giant was also excellent. I thought Osbert Parker's Head over Heels was disapointing but I suspected he had some good contacts in the industry to lobby for him. So overall I would not have been able to choose between the three but again I'm glad Aardman was recognised for its new animation techniques used in this film.

The Making of Nightmare before Christmas

Although Tim Burton has been on the TV a lot for his Sweeny Todd claiming that it's his first musical, I'll always think of his classic stop motion animation Nightmare before Christmas as being his first.

I've recently discovered that there is a 3 part series of the making of available on Anima8.com



Part 1 Introduction by Tim Burton, Script, Music, Characters, Storyboards, Design
Part 2 Set Making, Lighting, Motion Control, Model Making, Acting / Animating
Part 3 Facial animation by head replacement, Lipsync, Special Effects, Compositing

Oscars 2008 for Animation

Following my note on the Bafta's here's the same for the Oscars.

Best animated feature film
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf's Up

Ratatouille has got some stiff competition here going up against the serious Persepolis (shown at the London Film Festival this year) and the light weight documentary stylings of Surf's Up.

Best animated short film
I Met the Walrus
Madame Tutli-Putli
Meme Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)
My Love (Moya Lyubov)
Peter & the Wolf

I'm afraid to say that I don't know much about these films other than Peter and the Wolf, an excellent stop motion film from with Prokofiev's music. The film was shown on UK TV last month and has been popular in the UK animation festivals. For there rest there are some details of these on the Oscars site until I've had time to find out more.

Ratatouille is also in the running for five more awards; Origional Screenplay, Music Score, Writing, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.

Update: 24/1/2008
Thanks to Darkmatters, I've discovered that you can watch the Oscar Nominated Short Animated films online.

Baftas for Animation

The list of Bafta nominees for 2008 is now up, the animated films are:

ANIMATED FILM
RATATOUILLE – Brad Bird
SHREK THE THIRD – Chris Miller
THE SIMPSONS MOVIE – Matt Groening/James L Brooks

Although the Simpson's Movie is very funny I don't think it should win given that it's not outstanding animation just mediocre. Shrek the Third does not really deserve to be listed as it lacked plot, the animation although technically better was less in detail and I thought the lead characters looked more human than ogre. Of course I think Ratatouille should win for the reason's I've outlined in my blog.

SHORT ANIMATION
THE PEARCE SISTERS – Jo Allen/Luis Cook
The Pearce Sisters is from Aardman and has already won some awards and was shown at last years LIAF. It's production is something quite new for Aardman in that it's combined 3D and 2D.

HEAD OVER HEELS – Osbert Parker/Fiona Pitkin/Ian Gouldstone
Osbert's piece is mixed media with found film clips animated over stop motion.

THE CRUMBLEGIANT – Pearse Moore/John McCloskey (clip)
This was funded as part of Frameworks scheme from Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board and premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh in 2007.

VISUAL EFFECTS
Ratatouille and Beowulf also were short listed for the visual effects category but did not make it to the nominations stage.