Animated Short Film : Burning Safari

Burning Safari, once again, is made by Gobelins’ student- Aurélien Predal. It’s a simple animation about a war between robots and a monkey.



This film doesn’t have too much to say. It’s a typical “Gobelins-style” animation. Excellent art design, outstanding animations and short story. The real thing I want to introduce from this film is actually the creator- Aurélien Predal.

If you have ever visited his blog, you might be quite amazing about his works and animations. It’s just too good to believe that all of them are made by a young student. In his old stuff blog, you can see a lot of sketches and paper settings of characters or scenes. His sketch ability is real solid. It’s maybe the most stable power for him to do all kinds of creations. His paintings by hands or computers are both awesome. His hand drawings present a kind of mid-tone between watercolor and advertisement pigments. On the other side, computer drawings use a lot of fluorescent colors to make the visual effects more special.

In his new stuff blog, there are works he made after he graduated from Gobelins. His art design seems to promote to a higher place. It becomes more mature and classic. Some of his new creations uses a big area with the same color but contains elaborate details. This kind of art style is really special and makes people have great esteem to him.





Sometimes I would wonder how could that be possible a young guy performs like a senior art master. However, the guy really exists. Aurélien Predal, is such a terrible talented artist.

Aurélien Predal old stuff blog
http://mr-teckel.blogspot.com/
Aurélien Predal new stuff blog
http://aurelien-predal.blogspot.com/

Animated Short Film : Cubic Tragedy

Cubic Tragedy is a short animation film made by a NTUST student Ming-Yuan Chuan. The film was selected in Siggraph Electronic Theater and got People's Choice Award in 2005.



As to Siggraph, few people know about it or heard about it. In Taiwan, even students who major in animations or multimedia may not know what Siggraph really is. Siggraph, actually, is a special interest group on graphics and interactive techniques. It held conference and animation festival every year from 36 years ago and now its awards in animation are some of the most important ones in this field. The winner of Siggraph Best in Show Award, as I mentioned in Animated Shotr Film : Oktapodi, can be directly nominated by Academy Awards Best Animated Short.

Since Siggraph animation awards are so important, there are always a lot of creators from every countries send their films to attend Siggraph every year. Cubic Tragedy is the first Taiwan student animation selected in animation festival and even in Electronic Theater. Moreover, people who attended this Electronic Theater voted Cubic Tragedy as their favorite film. Finally Cubic Tragedy got People's Choice Award.

What causes this film so successful is maybe the theme. Cubic Tragedy, in fact, is not that kind of animation for ordinary people to see. It’s about some jokes in 3D computer software and technique. A woman who lives in 3D world tries to make herself pretty, but she uses these 3D tools badly and doesn’t know how to undo it. Seeing this story, audiences in Electronic Theater – mostly were animators, would felt funny and just like seeing themselves because they may met the same embarrassing situation in front of the computers before.

Regardless of the theme, the animation in this film is quite good too. I like its opening of one cube to drag another cube into the same shape. They look so cute and elastic. It can also show that the creator of this film is very good at character animations.

Animated Short Film : Voodoo

It’s still an excellent animated short made by Gobelins’ students – Voodoo.



In fact, this film wasn’t very hot or popular at all. Maybe the reason is that the year which this film was completed is also the year another two Gobelins’ great films were completed – Oktapodi and Blind Spot. The above two films got as many awards as you can image in festivals and competitions. Anyhow, Voodoo is still a very good animation film and has something better than them indeed.

I like their character settings and performances very much. It’s just remarkable. The creators used only ten seconds to describe three treasure-hunters’ personalities clearly. The first man with a hat is the vanguard of their team, and with his action details we can easily know that he is a sissy guy. The second one is a middle age man who has a big beer belly and a treasure map in his hand. His looking is so greedy and arrogant that means he is the leader. Then the third one is a strong and tall white man. However, he looks so timid and fearful with all the baggage on his back.

These three absolutely different guys to be a team is a quite interesting setting. It will make audiences can’t stop image what kind of things they will meet afterward. With a successful character setting like this, we can even exchange whole the story of this film but still fascinating. For instances, these three guys can change to rob a bank, catch a bus to office or go fishing together and so on. Audiences will also wonder what funny things would happen between them. As to me, the character setting in this film is a fine example for we animators to learn.





Besides, I like their humor very much. They will use little shots to present something interesting, like the man inserting the bomb into the wall with his little finger lifted or the man’ two legs running fast with his upper body trying hard to stop. I feel a little sorry for this film indeed. It’s good enough in quality to get some big awards, but there is none. Maybe the problem is the story, the topic or just a little lack of good luck.

Draft of A Comparison of Two Pictures

Here we got two posters of Star Wars Episode II : Attack of the Clones. At first sight you might think that they are very similar, but actually they are different in details and have their own meanings.

When it comes to similarity, these two pictures have absolutely the same layout. The title of the movie, the subtitle of the movie, the formation of background characters and the pose of the main character are all the same. Even the directions of two main characters’ lightsabers are very near. The left one Mace Windu seems serious and ready for a big fight, and the right one Count Dooku does too.

On the other hand, these two main roles and their background guys stand for totally different sides. Mace Windu is a jedi master who belongs to justice troops in the movie. Behind his back are a group of jedi knights coming to help this war. Count Dooku, however, is a sith who wants to conquer the world by using clones army after him. Another difference is the hues of these two pictures. It uses warm color tunes to good ones yet cold color tunes to evil ones. Most comparatively, Count Dooku was a jedi master, too. He betrayed jedi army and brought some secrets to sith army many years ago. After all, it is not only a war between light and dark but between honesty and disloyalty.

Nowadays, using this similar layout and hiding some different messages in details is a common way for producers to advertise their movie. Although for people who are not interested in it they are just a series of same pictures, people who are fascinated with it like them very much and can always find trifles and hidden fun from them.

Animated Short Film : フミコの告白

フミコの告白 (Fumiko's Confession) is a short film made by a Japanese student Ishida Hiroyasu. It’s a genuine Japanese style animation.



The story is simple, cute and just like its title. One day Fumiko confess to a boy who she loves. ” Uh..I..I…want to be your girlfriend! ” “ Sorry! I just want to concentrate on baseball now! ” With a broken heart, Fumiko runs and cries but knocks against something and flies to the sky. After a series of adventures, she collides that boy accidently and finally stop. Fumiko confess to him again. ”I..I will cook miso soup every morning for you! ” “Sorry! I just want to concentrate on baseball now!”

In this film we can feel a completely different art style from Europe or American animation. Japanese animators are good at drawings and can always make their films like fine paintings. Beside that, their 2D animation skill is usually very mature, and they’ll use it to make some fantastic character performances and morphing.





If you are interested about how can a student make this short film or who the creator is, visit his blog. There are a lot of 2D and 3D creations and other little animations. By the way, he is just 21 years old now.

Ishida Hiroyasu (Tete) blog
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Tete/

Animated Short Film : The Soliloquist

The Soliloquist is a remarkable piece which is made by a TNUA student Ma Kuang-Pei.



The art style of this film is very fascinating. Ma Kuang-Pei uses a lot of paper texture and hand-drawing sketches to form a kind of old times feeling. Also, he joins a lot of details to every shots to make it looking like still paintings. By doing these things, the whole animation is just like a magical moving-picture book, presenting a thick feeling of loneliness and sadness.

Its motion graphics and camera works impress me so much, too. Because of the film shooting in only one take without cut, it brings audience a continuous visual effect by unceasingly pictures' moving and changing. This kind of animation skill will make people always amazing about how a scene or an object transform to another, and Ma Kuang-Pei does it very well.





The story is about a heart broken man’s life and imagination. It’s from Ma Kuang-Pei’s own experience of felling out of love. Then he uses these grieved emotions as materials and motive power to make this animation. During the process, he was trying to cast his hurt soul to the character in the film.

As a result, this film not only heals some part of his broken heart but also brings something wonderful to him. The Soliloquist won Annecy 2009 Graduation Films Special Distinction Award. That’s the first time Taiwan animation got award in this national festival.

Animated Short Film : Après la pluie

Après la pluie is a cute and short animation. Once more – it was made by Gobelins’ students.



Seeing this film is my first time to know how incredible Gobelins is. In animation field, we used to take those highly completed and high quality animations as “commercial animations” because these animations are good enough to sell. Sometimes to be said commercial animations is just a kind of praise. However, it seemed absolutely meaningless to say this to Gobelins’ animations. Their creations have been already beyond those commercial ones. They are just in another higher level.

Although this short film has no real story – just run and chase, it’s still charming. I like their art style. It mixes a kind of 2D painting with a 3D space feeling. Their solid art design can easily drags audience into the fantasy world. The characters design are also great, too. Big monster looks quite cute and elastic.

It’s usually fun to see a film's making-of because the process of a good animation is another kind of art. Here we got two. One is the official The Making of Après la pluie. Other one is made separately by Tanon-Tchi - a creator of this film - as a personal demoreel.

Animated Short Film : Woodman animation series

Woodman animation series now includes 3 woodman animations made by a NTUA graduated student Hero. This animation series is well-known in Taiwan’s cyberspace – especially in BBS.I recommend you to see Woodman 2 and Woodman 3.









Woodman 2 is about a popular BBS site Bahamut. In this film, Woodman and his partner have to defeat a lot of boring guys who attack their favorite board KUSO. If you are not a BBS user or familiar with young people’s internet culture, you might be quite confused after seeing this animation. However, using these unique BBS culture as an animation element is the most attractive point to now youngsters, and that is exactly what Hero wants to do.

In fact, his goal is to present an interesting BBS culture they called “KUSO” which means a kind of wacky humor. For instance, there are some articles and jokes associating our Founding Father Sun Yat-sen with kung fu. They said Sun Yat-sen is actually a powerful kung fu master and always beat down his opponents with his fists. All his theories actually are some books about his mighty kung fu. Using these funny stories as sources, Hero created woodman’s partner The Invincible Iron-fist Sun Yat-sen. Its model is composed by a famous robot Mazinger Z and a ten dollar coin which has a head embossment of Sun Yat-sen.



On the other side, Woodman 3 absolutely has nothing to do with BBS culture. This time woodman’ mission is to fight with the computer bugs caused by rendering error. It has a very cool visual effect by compositing virtual animation characters with real backgrounds, and this time its story is more easily to understand by audiences – includes juries of animation competitions. As a result, Woodman 3 has won over 10 awards and nominated almost every competition participated in Taiwan.

Now Hero is making his new film Woodman 4. He gathers a group of animation experts like KD and Sheep Wu to help him accomplish this animation .In his anticipation, Woodman 4 will be raised to a movie level, and he hope it can be a milestone in Taiwan’s animation field. Without any unexpected problems, we’ll able to see this film within a month. Let’s expect it!



Woodman animation Official Site
http://woodman.kusos.com/
KD's blog
http://hellokd.blogspot.com/
Sheep Wu's blog
http://www.wretch.cc/blog/fooffoof