Pixar Animation Studio has announced its schedule for releasing movies through 2012 and it includes sequals to Toy Story and Cars. Take a look here for more information.

Technorati Tags: Animation, Film, Movies, Pixar

Aardman Animation is perhaps best know for its brilliant Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit movies, but here’s a little nugget that’s just as amazing, but very, very different. The Pearce Sisters short film, with its mix of 2D and 3D animation, is perhaps somewhat disturbing, but also stunning both in story, visuals and sound.

It should be noted that the movie is not suitable to children.

Technorati Tags: Animation, Cartoons, Movies, Short Film

Found this note via Mike Lynch’s blog. Apparently, a documetary film about the creative genius Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes cartoonist, is in the works. Visit the website of Dear Mr. Watterson.

Technorati Tags: Comic Strips, Film, Movies

Here’s an article from Variety about the new boom in French animation. I hope we get to see a lot of these movies in the US in the years to come.

Technorati Tags: Animation, Film, Movies, Cartoons

I’m filled with fear.

One of the best comic book characters ever created by arguably the best cartoonist ever to walk the earth is being turned into a big-budget live action green screen movie extravaganza.

In this interview from MTV, Frank Miller talks about how he’s bringing The Spirit, by the genius Will Eisner, to the screen.

I’m a little perturbed by the preliminary movie poster, to say the least. That’s clearly a Frank Miller interpretation of The Spirit and bares little or no resemblance to the actual character created by Eisner.

Let’s hope I’m wrong, but I’m a bit worried about this movie…

Technorati Tags: Art, Comics, Film, Movies

Kung Fu Panda from Dreamworks, starring Jack Black, among others, looks like it could be a very entertaining movie. There’s a new teaser trailer out with some comments (and general wackiness) from Jack Black thrown it. Take a look!

Technorati Tags: Film, Movies, Animation

The strip has only been around for a little over a year, and already Lio by Mark Tatulli has been noticed by Hollywood, according to Editor & Publisher. From the article:

“Producer David Kirschner has made a deal with Universal Press Syndicate for the film, reported Variety magazine.”

It’s so well-deserved and if the movie turns out to be half as good as the strip, it going to be fantastic.

Technorati Tags: Cartoons, Comic Strips, Film, Movies

I always like seeing the process behind different kinds of creative work. Here’s an interesting video showing how Disney created Snow White back in 1937. (It’s a nice documentary, but some of the comments about the women working on the coloring is a bit… well, wrong and hard to believe in this day and age).

Technorati Tags: Art, Cartoons, Disney

One thing I find is rarely mentioned or paid attention to, is script formatting for comics. Even during my two-year stay at The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art (so fairly specialized, as you might be able to tell) was this even mentioned.

So as I started writing my first script for a graphic novel, I had to figure out how I wanted to format it. I chose Final Draft, and never regretted it! It’s the standard screenwriting software and works extremely well for comics, as well. Click on the image to the left to see one of my sample pages. (It’s in Norwegian, but since we’re talking formatting here, I hope you don’t mind).

Final Draft is extremely intuitive and handles dialogue very well. It leaves the pages easy to read and, more importantly, easy to work with as the drawing process starts.

I find that I don’t really need the panel numbering, though, since I seem to break up panels and pages independently of those numbers, anyway. So for the next script that I’m working on now, I’ve left those out. That means my script looks even more like a movie script.

I’m completely sold on Final Draft!

Technorati Tags: Comics, Film, Graphic Novel, Movies, Screenwriting, Scripts, TV, Writing