Showing posts with label up. Show all posts
Showing posts with label up. Show all posts
Monday, February 3, 2014
Polar bears instead of dragons at Super Bowl XLVI Siege up for VES Award
Just two more days to the biggest sports television event of the year in the US: The 46th NFL Super Bowl will be played this Sunday, the Championship game of the American National Football League. While most are anxiously awaiting this years already classic rematch between Tom Bradys New England Patriots and Eli Mannings New York giants at the Indiana Colts Lucas Oil Stadium, the final match of the season is also known to have the most expensive, and brilliantly created ad campaigns.
Okay, so normally I would agree that most commercials out there are just scrambling your brain, but there are certainly a few gems that can make your jaw drop and the Super Bowl has made a tradition of it to show some pretty impressing stuff. The huge amount of viewers (100.000.000 world wide) and the extremely high costs of air time during the match, makes the Super Bowl the perfect showcase for exclusive and expensive commercials. The average cost for a 30-second spot this year was $3.5 million to $4 million Dollars. Remember last year, Coca Cola had the brilliantly CG animated Siege, directed by FX&Mat and created by the multi Oscar nominated and winning studio Framestore.
Above and below: 3D models for the dragon from Siege. Framestore won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and the BAFTA in 2008 for their work on The Golden Compass and was nominated in 2007 for Superman Returns, in 2009 for The Dark Knight and in 2010 for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.
The London based CG house also worked on every Potter movie since the first one came out and has worked elaborately on the final one, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 (the last of the eight movie franchise and the second based based on J.K. Rowlings seventh book) which became the third highest grossing film ever (worldwide a total of $1,328,111,219 Billion dollars). Framestore, along with Moving Pictures Company and Double Negative have collectively worked on the VFX for Hallows 2. Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler and John Richardson are nominated for their work and are up for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects this year, but will have to compete with the extremely talented creative team behind Rise of the Planet of the Apes (also nominated are Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Hugo and Real Steel).
above and below: designs and 3D models for Balfour the main character in Coca Colas Siege and the Orc general and his beast.
Siege is nominated for the 10th annual VES Awards, the awards for outstanding visual effects given by the Visual Effects Society. Framestore is among the nominees in the category Oustanding Visual Effects in an Animated Commercial or Video Game Trailer.The ceremony takes place February 7th. The VES is the entertainment industrys only non-profit honorary society dedicated to advancing the arts, sciences and applications of visual effects. It represents the full breadth of visual effects practitioners in all areas of entertainment from film, television and commercial to music videos and games. It currently has 2300 members in 26 countries.
This week Coca Cola announced it would be trading the dragons for their regular Polar bear characters, as they would be part of a much larger campaign (theyre having their own party at CokePolarBowl.com where you can watch the game live and comment on it through facebook, etc). So unfortunately no sequel to Siege. If youve never been able to watch this brilliantly animated commercial, check it out below, (you can toggle 1080p HD) Ive added the polar bears vid behind it (sure, theyre cool too!). You can also head over to Pixologic who have the video up on their site, followed by some behind-the-scenes footage and an interview with the creators. If you want to read what Framestores visual effects supervisor Diarmid Harrison-Murray had to say about it, you can also read his interview at FXGuide. Anyway, gonna have fun watching the game Sunday, so Cheers guys!
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Humorama Pin up Gags
Happy New Year everybody! Hope you are all doing okay and will continue to be so for the next 365 days! So, lets kick off this new year where we left it a couple of days ago, with some snazzy cartoons created for Martin Goodmans Humorama line of girlie magazines from the fifties and sixties!
Heres a little cutie from Dan De Carlo which was last published in Fun House in 1972. De Carlo was very good at drawing attractive ladies and, as you may know, became very famous for drawing the long-running Archie comics, created first by Bob Montana and Vic Bloom for Pep Comics in December 1941. The tagline for this one reads Hes a real gentleman momma -- he gave me a blank check and told me to sign it myself.
Another piece by De Carlo, from 1955. The tagline originally read Why dont you give those guys a ticket, they arent wearing top pieces either, which is crossed out and was later changed to That sign on the pavilion distinctly says that bathers must wear one-piece suits only. This one was last used for Breezy magazine in April 1972.
Heres a piece by Bill Wenzel, who became very well known as a GGA artist as they started calling it in the seventies, (Good Girl Art, meaning drawing attractive ladies), a term coined by David Alexander of The American Comic Book Company and advisor for the Overstreet Comic Book Price guide. It says Hey stupid - How are you gonna learn anything about painting sitting there?
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Heres a little cutie from Dan De Carlo which was last published in Fun House in 1972. De Carlo was very good at drawing attractive ladies and, as you may know, became very famous for drawing the long-running Archie comics, created first by Bob Montana and Vic Bloom for Pep Comics in December 1941. The tagline for this one reads Hes a real gentleman momma -- he gave me a blank check and told me to sign it myself.
Another piece by De Carlo, from 1955. The tagline originally read Why dont you give those guys a ticket, they arent wearing top pieces either, which is crossed out and was later changed to That sign on the pavilion distinctly says that bathers must wear one-piece suits only. This one was last used for Breezy magazine in April 1972.
Heres a piece by Dave Berg from 1961. Like De Carlo, he too worked with Stan Lee, when he was editor-in-chief at Timely Comics (before they changed the company to Marvel Comics in the 1960s) and did comics for Combat Kelly and Ringo Kid. He is best known for his work for Mad Magazine, which he did for 46 years, starting in 1956. This one reads Did you get a good look at that hussy, Charlie?
Heres a piece by Bill Wenzel, who became very well known as a GGA artist as they started calling it in the seventies, (Good Girl Art, meaning drawing attractive ladies), a term coined by David Alexander of The American Comic Book Company and advisor for the Overstreet Comic Book Price guide. It says Hey stupid - How are you gonna learn anything about painting sitting there?
Below art by Frank Beaven, who worked under the alias rekoJ , which is Joker spelled backwards. The punchline read How did you ever get into this department?"
Several gags by Bill Ward, a notoriously famous good girl artist, who started out as an assistant for Jack Binder, who created Daredevil for an issue of Lev Gleason Publications Silverstreak in September 1940. He worked for Fawcett Comics (publisher of Captain Marvel) and started the comic book series with sexy damsel Torchy for Quality Comics in 1946. This first one below from 1966, had a byline that said Of course men make passes at girls who wear glasses - why, are you wearing glasses?"
Below: Oh Lord Molesby... I Was Beginning to Think Youd Never Notice Me!
Below: Before you walk out on me Harold, just remember, Im not named Sue just by chance.
Below, the caption read ...Well in some unusual cases, touch typing isnt a firm requisite!
Below, the caption read Youre Quite Unusual, Harley, Arent You Afraid That All of This Coffee Will Keep You Awake?
And another one by Dave Berg. The original line went Charlie! This is a surprise! and was later changed to Hi Susie, thought Id surprise you tonight!
Okay, to finish up this post, heres another one by De Carlo from 1956 which reads I Dont know why youre so anxious to keep playing - You have nothing to show for it!.
Some pics from Ebay of several Humorama magazines, its all pretty innocent. Well, according to todays standards.
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Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Fantagraphics Mickey Mouse up for Pre Order Now!
Announced by Gary Groth from Fantagraphics Books at last years SDCC (San Diego Comic-Con), the North American comic publisher twittered Tuesday that the first volume of one of the most eagerly awaited projects in comics, their new, exclusive series of Floyd Gottfredson reprints is finally up for pre-order! Make sure to order your copy now!
Fantagraphics Books.
Known for their exclusive selection of multi-nominated (and awarded) compilations of classic comics such as Hal Fosters Prince Valiant and Charles Schultz Peanuts, Fantagraphics has added a vast library of Gottfredsons classic Mickey Mouse newspaper comic strips to their portfolio.
From 1985 to 1987 Amazing Heroes presented The Jack Kirby awards for achievement in comic books. Voted on by comic book professionals and coordinated by Fantagraphics, Alan Moore received awards forSwamp Thing and Watchmen while Frank Miller was awarded for his legendary limited series Batman: The Dark knight Returns. (chosen by Time magazine as one of the 10 best best English language graphic novels ever written). In 1987 the Kirby Awards, as managed by Dave Olbrich, continued as the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award (Eisner Award), while Fantagraphics re-imagined their award, since known as the Harvey Award (after cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman).
Starting out as an animator for the Disney studio at the end of 1929, Gottfredson soon continued Mickeys first gags in the newspaper comic strips, set up by Ub Iwerks,promoting their earliest animated Mickey shorts.
After Iwerks left the studio, initially Win Smith landed the job, but Gottfredson soon took over as a temporary assignment: Gottfredson would write and draw the comic strips for 45 years, turning him from a mere ghost into the ultimate Mickey comic artist and in the end, a legend of his own.
Gottfredson was first identified as Mickeys auctor itellectualis by Malcolm Willits, who also revealed Carl Barks as Disneys main artist on Dell comics Donald Duck. Gottfredson retired in 1975 and died at the age of 81 in 1986.
Fantagraphics stated their Gottfredson library will be remastered straight from Disney proof sheets and prized private collections, and will also contain exclusive supplementary features, edited by David Gerstein and Gary Groth.
Check out a first look through their promotional PDF (preliminary version, cover was changed).
Originally based on Mickeys animated shorts, Gottfredson turned the comic stories into lenghty newspaper strips. The first volume will contain Gottfredsons debut story, the classic Mickey Mouse in Death Valley (149 pages) which he created with Jack King and Hardie Gramatky (with Win Smith).
The second volume (cover left) is to be released in October and will contain the 155 page Mickey Mouse sails for Treasure Island (1932) . A Collectors box set containing the first two volumes will be released the same month.
The first volume will be released July 5, so well have to wait it out for a little bit. Meanwhile, check out some classic shorts beneath. Now thats animation!
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