Walking dead comic online

Today, the VFX team of ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) uploaded a new video showing more of their work on their recent movie Battleship and the creation of a completely new fluid simulation system, which had to be re-engineered completely from the ground up for this film. It includes interviews with Grady Cofer, Pablo Helman, Willi Geiger and Nick Rasmussen of ILM. As always, make sure to check it out in full HD below.

In 2007, Nick Rasmussen, Ron Fedkiw and Frank Losasso Petterson already received a Sci-Tech Award from the Academy for the development of the original ILM fluid simulation system. Simultaneously, Duncan Brinsmead, Jos Stam, Julia Pakalns and Martin Werner were awarded that year with a Sci-Tech award for the design and implementation of the Maya Fluid Effects system.

For this years Sci-Tech Awards, seven achievements have been selected from various companies for award consideration. Among them, Lucasfilm for Zviz, a previsualisation system, WETA Digital for Tissue, a Physically-Based Character Simulation Framework and PDI Dreamworks for their new Lighting tool. The 2012 Scientific and Technical Awards will be presented at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills on February 9, 2013. The event will be hosted by actress Zoe Saldana and actor Chris Pine (from the upcoming Star Trek: Into Darkness).

Beside all the spectacular CGI animations that are coming our way on Blu-Ray just in time for the Christmas holidays (Cars 2, Kung Fu Panda 2, The Smurfs and Dreamworks Dragons compilation (Gift of the Night Fury and Book of Dragons) there will also be some great traditionally animated classic cartoons available in high def for the first time, as Warner will be releasing the first volume of their Tom & Jerry Golden collection on October 25th on Blu-ray. All the classic cartoons have been digitally restored and are presented in 1080p full HD for the very first time!

Gene Deitch and Chuck Jones.

In October 2004, exactly seven years ago, Warner started published their Spotlight collection on DVD, containing all the theatrical shorts of their complete Tom & Jerry library from the 1940-1958 MGM era,which were directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera themselves.

In Europe, The Gene Deitch era shorts (thirteen cartoons produced between 1961-1962) and the Chuck Jones cartoons (34 theatrical shorts directed by the famous Chuck Jones between 1963-1967) were part of the 12 disc single-layer collection, while the US edition only collected the first 114 Hanna-Barbera shorts. In 2009 Warner published the Chuck Jones collection for the US seperately with some extra documentaries, not part of the earlier European release.



The first volume of the Golden collection will collect the first 37 cartoons, created between 1940 and 1948 and include the Academy Award nominated Puss gets the boot (1940), The Night before Christmas (1941) and Dr Jekyll and Mr. Mouse (1947). It also includes the Academy Award winning shorts Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943), Mouse Trouble (1944), Quiet, please (1945) and The Cat Concerto (1947), which received the Award for Best Animated Short.
Critisism.

The Classic collection contained 159 of the 161, while the Spotlight collection had 112 of the 114 cartoons created by Hanna-Barbera. In the US, Mouse Cleaning (1948) and Casanova Cat (1951) are on the banned cartoon list and were excluded for stereotype racism: An African-American maid called Mammy Two shoes often appears in the cartoons (althought you never see her face), based on the Mammy character from Gone with the wind (portrayed by the actress Hattie McDaniel). Strangely enough, the two banned cartoons were part of the European collection, which had two different cartoons omitted without any given reason: The Million Dollar Cat (1944) and Busy Buddies (1956).


Above: original cel drawing of Mammy for one of the Tom & Jerry cartoons.
Originally voiced by African-American actress Lillian Randolph, a lot of the scenes starring Mammy Two Shoes had a redubbed track, done by voice actress June Foray (known for her work on Cinderella, Rocky & Bullwinkle. The original voice was altered because of the stereotypical African-American dialect. (The soundtrack was later redubbed again by comedian Thea Vidale after Turner Broadcasting had acquired the entire HB cartoon library and studio while planning to launch the Cartoon Network 24-hour tv channel). There was a lot of critisism on the editing of the cartoons in the original collections, where Mammy Two shoes was sometimes cut altogether and other characters were taken out by zooming/panning on the original footage (like in His Mouse Friday where an African savage was cropped out). The Golden Collection will be newly restored from the CRI negatives and sometimes even from newly discovered prints. All cartoons will be included uncensored, even the banned cartoons, which are restored from their original nitrate negatives.

Below: original model sheets from Jasper & Jinx aka Tom & Jerry, dated August 8, 1939 (MGM/Cartoon Network archive).


Joe Barbera was originally a banker, who had studied accounting at the New York University. But he had always dreamt of becoming a cartoonist and was good at drawing. After he succeeded in selling several of his drawings to magazines he decided to make a living out of it and joined the Van Beuren animation studios in New York in 1932, where he worked as an in-betweener and later became animator and story man on their Tom & Jerry series. No, not the colorfull cat and mouse chases Hanna & Barbera would be producing, but early black & white sound cartoons starring two guys (their names would later change to Dick & Larry in 1950 when Van Beuren sold all their cartoons to Official Films for distribution on TV.

A little addition to my last post, although it doesnt have anything to do with Buster Keatons Steamboat Bill, Jr.. Heres another look at the scene where Black Pete kicks Mickey down the stairs to scrub the decks. The stretch and squash animation of Mickeys rubbery physique goes into extremes here, as Pete grabs poor old Mickey and mangles his little body pretty good.

This gag is actually a reworked joke from another cartoon short created in 1928. That cartoon was titled Tall Timber and starred Oswald The Lucky Rabbit. It actually says so on the original storyboards from Steamboat Willie. Have a look at them below, click to enlarge any of them. But first, heres the scene as it plays out in Willie.


Here are the original storyboards for scene #4 from Steamboat Willlie clearly mentioning their previous short Tall Timber (click to enlarge, it reads much better).



When Walt Disney started in the animation business, even before Mickey was born, his small studio created a successful series of cartoon shorts starring Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit. Because of its succes, distributor Charles Mintz, who owned the copyrights to the character, decided it would be more profitable for him to set up his own animation studio. Mintz not only took away the character from Disney, but also persuaded his entire team of animators to come and work for him. Ub Iwerks was the only artist that stayed with Walt. They both decided they wouldnt take it lying down, and started a new series of shorts with a new character of their own. Ub drew the first cartoon entirely by himself, drawing an amazing 700 frames each day. Their new character was Mickey (the) Mouse and their first short was called Plain Crazy.

From the scene below, taken from Oswalds Tall Timber, you can clearly see that Mickey was actually already there in the drawings back then. The similarity with the bear cub is simply amazing. Although Mintz and even Walter Lantz later on(who would became famous for his Woody Woodpecker cartoons) continued to create Oswald shorts for some time, a lot of cartoons from the Disney era are today still considered lost films. But theres hope for Oswald, in November 2011 one of his lost films, titled Hungry Hobos, was found in the vault of the British Huntley Film Archives in Herefordshire.

Below is a compilation of some frames from the related Bears sequence. Oswald wasnt so lucky in this scene. After almost drowning during a wild river trip in a canoe, and landing on the head of a Moose that hurls him into a canyon, Oswald manages to land safely, but is still chased by a huge rock. He slams into a tree and gets hit by the rock, which stretches and flattens him like a pancake.

A huge bear and two cubs are then introduced, who are hungry for some sugar sap from the maple trees. A gag plays out as the cubs feed from the tree, which has a tap on each side. The cubs then get into a fight over who gets to play with Oswald and jerk him around until he is back into his old proportions. Of course hes angry and chases the cubs, until he meets Mama bear and is chased himself.

For people who dont know Oswald, hes the guy on the ground with the huge ears! The funny thing is, although it isnt there in the storyboards, the bear cub sticking out his tongue at Oswald, was also incorporated into the scene with Black Pete in Steamboat Willie!

Johnny Minkley of EG was rushed away by Sony to meet the team of Naughty Dog in Santa Monica and talk about their next title The Last Of Us. Exclusive interview with Creative Director Neil Druckmann and Game Director Bruce Straley with some nice concept art from Maciej Kuciara. Check it out below. Cool!