Saturday, January 15, 2011

The Illusionist and Mr. O


It's always interesting to me where fellow animators draw their inspiration from. After talking to a colleague of mine, I found out that he became interested in animation after being enthralled by the clay animation video game, 'The Neverhood Chronicles'. Another colleague saw "The Rescuers" at the age of six and wanted to do animation from that point on.

Cats Don't Dance had a pretty big impact on me. Seeing Sylvain Chomet's 'Triplets of Belleville' partly convince me to finish my film. 'The Monk and the Fish' and 'Father and Daughter' also shaped the way I think about animation. After seeing 'The Illusionist' today, I'm almost positive this will be added to the list as another landmark. I admit I loved the movie even before I saw it, but the leap in the sophistication of the character animation is palpable and is something to be experienced. Even when the trailers came out, a friend remarked that it looked like a film full of new Milt Kahl animation. I agree.



Here's some commercial work I did awhile back. I worked with the director Aaron Sorenson (he did the original layout drawings), to help complete this campaign for Honda. I learned a lot working with him on this animation. You can really grow a lot as an artist by animating and drawing in styles that aren't naturally your own.

I will swap out this pencil test with a non-commercial character animation when I carve out some free time to do it. After seeing the Illusionist, I can really say that I'm inspired to do just that.

10 comments:

Lady Garland said...

Nice! It's always nice to see artists try out in different styles. It really shows your versatility!

Andrea said...

The Illusionist was such an inspiring film to watch as an animator. The limited dialogue is a testament alone to how well it was animated. The fact that you can fully understand the story and know the characters motivations just by how they walk or act or their facial expressions. Just a beautiful film all around.

Andrea said...

For some reason pencil tests are always the most magical to me. Awesome work!

"TORI CAT" said...

Hey BJ!!

Sorry i haven't been in touch lately!!
Been pretty busy, as i guess you are since starting work at Blue Sky. How is going there? Im sure you are enjoying yourself.
I loved every minute of my time there when i worked for them... Hey, now the word is out and we can speak its name... can i ask, have you worked on Rio at all? That was the project i worked on all those years back, and am now getting very excited to see it finished!!

Im soooo glad you have finally got round to watching the illusionist!
It is a beautiful film and was an honor to work on.
I hope it does just as well in the states as it has done in europe. It would be amazing if it is actually chosen for the shortlist for the Oscar's.

Hope you are keeping well?
Im going planning on working at ComicCon and CTN this year, so if your going to be there, it would be great to finally meet you!!
Keep up the great work and speak to you soon,

Tori,xxx

Unknown said...

Loved the Illusionist. I took Nick - this was his first non-disneyfied film. I felt a bit empty after watching it. I agree on the Milt Kahl feel

Matt Shepherd said...

cool stuff. Rio looks super cartoony, looked like it would have been a blast to work on.

how goes it?

Trent Correy said...

Hey Bj
why I haven't seen this film yet, I have no idea...
Hope you're well man, the opening of Rio..as I'm sure you've heard a million times was breathtaking.
goodjob to you and your team.
talk soon

Fowl Ideas said...

The snow is finally melting...

Xavier Yabut said...

Awesome animations on your blog!

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