Gorgeous Animation

Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo

Words really cannot describe how much I love this short. It's very simplistic, almost crude in style, but the overall look and obvious quality in every frame is flawless. Be sure to check out Mr. Woodward's other work as well, but this is easily the best animation I've seen since my recent Gobelins trip.

Daft Deal: Tron Legacy Score

As Tron Legacy nears it's release date, the hype has been all over the place (some of it very negative, some very positive). One thing that appears to be consistently in favor, however, is Daft Punk's score for the film. With that in mind, Amazon if offering an awesome deal: $3.99 for the entire set. It's $9.99 on iTunes at the moment, so take advantage of Amazon's deal while it's available!

A Sea of Animated Sequels

This may be old news to some, but in case you haven't heard, fans of CG animated films are in for an onslaught of sequels. Specifically, both Pixar and Dreamworks have plans for sequels and even entire franchise's in some cases. Toy Story 3 was the latest Pixar sequel, with Cars 2 being the next in line (a dubious choice in my mind as the original was arguably Pixar's weakest film). Monsters Inc. 2, has been confirmed as well (to be released November 2012). That said, Pixar is also producing an original, Brave. So long as they are using these sequels to fuel original films as well, I'm really not too worried.

Dreamworks is proving to be an even bigger "offender," with a huge slate of sequels (read Shrek-level franchises) slated around Kung-Fu Panda 2, Madagascar 3 and How to Train Your Dragon 2. Madagascar 3 will lead to a fourth film and Dragon has the potential to be a huge franchise (there will be at least three movies), as there are eight books the movies could follow. Panda meanwhile has been determined to be a six-movie franchise. What do you all think? Is the franchise/sequel craze from these two studios a good thing or no?

In slightly other news, there are other studios producing original work these days. An example is Arthur Christmas, the first CG film from Aardman Animation (Wallace and Gromit, Flushed Away). I embedded the teaser trailer below, if you're interested. It's a little early to tell, but it looks promising.

A Modern Roadrunner : Still Funny?

This short was recently released in theaters (along with two others by Warner Brothers), which you may have missed. I happened to see it on a plane recently, so I thought I'd share. So what do you think? Is the CG version still funny?

Personally, I think the style works really well and aside from the obvious stereoscopic shots feels really true to the original. Heck, even the in-your-face 3D shots lend themselves well to a lot of the Coyote's antics. Let me know what y'all think.