Submit to the Monmouth Review!

Deadline December 14 - Submit through eCampus

Trip to the Met

Check out this opportunity to visit the Metropolitan Museum in New York City

Will there be a wave of blue at the Met?

Images generated by Stability Diffusion

MetroCAF 2022: Thursday, November 3!

MetroCAF 2022 will premiere this Thursday at 7:30 PM Eastern. This is an opportunity to see the best student animations created in the NYC Metro Area. The show will be virtual at https://metrocaf.org/metrocaf/2022/show/

The Woods @ MU

I am excited to bring two multi media artists to campus late November, the event has just been posted on the University's website

ArtNOW: The Woods – A mixed-reality, two-player cooperative game

AI: Diffusion Goes 3D

You probably heard about AI image generating tools like Dall-E, which is now available for all (but be carefull of the fine print: they might own everything created with the software) or Midjourney. You may even have played with the free version of Dall-E, Craiyon (formerly Dall-E mini) or the new Stable Diffusion.

Stable Diffusion created this on the prompt "Animation student working themselves into a sweat trying to complete their projects"

Now there is also a similar tool that creates 3D objects: DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusion

But wait, there is more. How about AI generated Human Motion: MDM: Human Motion Diffusion Model

Or AI generated video? Meta has that: Make-A-Video

So what do you think, what will be left for us humans to do, to excell at?

Four images generated from the same prompt

Update

Google also has a video generation tool:Imagen Video

The Red Bank: Rum Runner – Immersive Digital Storytelling

Award Winning local Red Bank filmmaker and Monmouth Alum will present a talk and creative workshop at Monmouth University’s ArtNOW visiting artists series.

Please consider attending this ArtNOW event. Details can be found here

Anime Rock Opera

This one got a pretty good review in The Guarian (four stars): Inu-oh review – medieval anime rock opera rips Noh theatre a new one

Meet the Faculty

Come and meet Art Department faculty on Wednesday Sept. 14 in an event organized by the Art Club

Bill Plymton looking for Interns

Bill Plymton is looking for a few good interns to help us finish the production of "Slide". If you're in college and interested, please give us a shout. See details below.

Via Twitter

Indemnity.exe @ EB Indie

The 2021 group animation Indemnity.exe has been selected for the East Brunswick Independent Film Festival. The festival is slated to take place on August 12 – 13, 2022. Last year’s Drive In Festival can be viewed on YouTube.

Congratulations to the team: Alyssa Cirillo, Mike Gatta, Lauren Haug, Jeremy Kaston, Emily Ronan, and Connor Trapani, and composer Max Adolf.

ASIFA Hollywood Showcase 2022

I just posted this on our Animation site: Student Animation Showcase 2022

Dreamworks Trainee Program

There is only about a week to apply for these paid traineeships

Apply here!

2022 Reel

Monmouth University Animation Reel 2022 from Monmouth University Animation on Vimeo.

Bring Your Own Animation

Posting this rather late, but this evening there will be a BYOA, the event I talked about in class.

All the details are on the NYC ACm SIGGRAPH page. You do not need to present to participate, and it is still virtual (on Zoom)

New NFB Treasures

The National Film Board of Canada has been producing many great animations for decades. This one is part documentary, part animation, maybe visual poetry mixed in?

The Storm, Monica Kidd, provided by the National Film Board of Canada

There is more where that came from: https://www.nfb.ca/animation/

Actual Glass Animation

Through BoingBoing, who incorreectly daated this as from 1984, I came across Inspirace (Inspiration) by Karel Zeman, from 1948. Somehow I had never heard of him, Wikipedia describes him as a Czech film director, artist, production designer and animator, best known for directing fantasy films combining live-action footage with animation.Because of his creative use of special effects and animation in his films, he has often been called the "Czech Méliès".

Watch Glass Animation

The 7th Edition Online of the Glas Animation Festival is still available to wacth on line. It runs through April 30: All Programs

Foxy Printing

It took a total of 18 Hours on my Anet 8 printer, but it finished without (obvious) errors. Clean Up time!

Model by Dárika Lara-Rodriquez

2D Animation for Cinephiles

Gkids distribution, which brough the hit "Belle" to cinemas last year, has released a trailer for their upcoming 2D animated movie "Pompo the Cinephile"

Once again via BoingBoing

Monmouth Review Launch Party

The Monmouth Review is out and will be celebrated Wednesday April 13 5-6:30 Anacon A

Come to the event!

Reality Capture with AI

There has been much development in the field of Machine Learning and 3D scene reconstruction. A recent paper, highlighted in Communications of the ACM, show promise: Technical Perspective: Neural Radiance Fields Explode on the Scene

The application is described and shown in a video on this post on BoingBoing: "NeRF" turns 2D photos into convincing 3D scenes.

#StandWithUkraine

«the hearts of the living will always ache for the thousands of innocent #souls killed»

Volunteer animation artists of #Ukraine conveyed all the pain that they feel over these 42 days of war.

Art and Design Career Day and Networking Event

This Thursday @ 3PM on Zoom, look for the link in your email or on eCampus!

Disney goes to Mars

A bit of Disney tekevision history, an ABC presentation on NBC

While fascinating the whole time, the various marttian creature at seven minutes are, well, out of this world, and there is a kind of animated short included at 13 minutes.

GLAS 2022 Portfolio Reviews & More

Glass Animation festival has some free events you can sign up for:

Looking for your next gig to be a director, starboard artist, character designer or other animation professional and interested in having some of the industry’s top recruiters take a peek at your work? Please take a moment to fill out this form and we’ll get your portfolios in front of their eyes. No matter what stage you are in your career, all portfolio submissions are welcome. Please note that call backs are not guaranteed. LINK TO FILL OUT FORM HERE

You’ve been working hard on your portfolio and you’re dying to work in the animation industry. You want to be a storyboard artist, a background designer, concept artist, animator, layout artist, but don’t know where to start. How do I know what to put in my portfolio? Is it better to be a generalist or a specialist? What are recruiters looking for? This panel with some of the industry’s top recruiters will answer all your questions and provide insights into getting the gig you’ve been dreaming about. Panelists Brooke Keesling (Bento Box Entertainment) Melanie Young (Nickelodeon) Lou Bones (Psyop) Patty Willert (Warner Bros. Animation, Cartoon Network Studios) Moderated by: Terrence Masson (SVA) FREE FOR EVERYONE Click HERE to register!

You’ve been working so hard on this new idea. You can tell that this is the one. You’ve never been more excited. Now, you just have to pitch it. Pitching can often be a confusing process for filmmakers. Who do you pitch to? Is this idea appropriate for TV or would it work better as a short film? Is the network looking for work in this genre? I hear Europe has funding for shorts, can I get in on that? I wish someone could give me a straightforward answer! Have no fear, this panel will elucidate the many facets of putting together the perfect pitch. In this conversation, a range of executives, talent managers, and producers will go in-depth on the ins and outs of pitching across the spectrum: from TV series to independent short films. Panelists Jayro Giron ((Director of Series, Warner Bros. Animation) ) Lou Bones (Creative Talent Director, Psyop) Meghan Bradley (Director of Development at Cartoon Network Studios) Jason McConnell (Vice President of Animation Development for Nickelodeon & Paramount Animation) Moderated by: Jeanette Jeanenne (GLAS) Click HERE to register.

The 49th Annie Awards Ceremony

The awards screening was live and free online, Saturday, March 12, at 7pm PST, but can still be viewed: https://annieawards.org/watch-it-live

The Annie Awards are awarded annually by ASIFA Hollywood

Animation Loop cerated mainly in Krita

Big Guy, Small Fella from Wobbe on Vimeo.

Stop Motion Animators and their Puppets

Very interesting thread on Twitter

VFX Reel

Here are some great visual effects, but is it a good reel?
 

VFX Animation Reel from Mike Dacko on Vimeo.

Invisible VFX breakdown

If you have seen the excellent "The Power of the Dog", you probably do not think of it as a VFX movie. This breakdown shows how well you were fooled by the mastery of AltVFX
 

The Power of the Dog - VFX breakdown from altvfx on Vimeo.

Erin Humiston Reel

 

Animation Reel by Erin Humiston

Posted by: Naeem Green

Assignment: Best demo reel ever

Class: AR-415

While looking for some examples and inspirations for my reel I came across this one. It's nothing out of this world and I doubt it's the best one I can find so I plan on posting more. But it flows pretty well and has some great animation.

RIP Douglas Trumbull

Visual Effects legend Douglas Trumbull passed away. One of the things he if famous for is "Stargate" sequence from Stanley Kurbik's "2001: A Space Odyssey" using slit-scan photography process
 

 
I was alerted to his passing via twitter through this post by Adam Rackoff, and that is how I found out he was a second generation Visual Effectsartist: Douglas Trumbull's father, Donald Trumbull, created visual effects for THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939).

Paint on Walls Animation

And nt just the walls, all srufaces in the room are fair game. I had seen this one before, but enjoyed it again when it was redently posted to Boing Boing
 

 
Now you might think that was a lot of work. There is more where that came from: blublu.org. The above is actually just a small part of this much longer animation: