Adam Cloud Ansorge

Animation Block Party is awesomeness again!!!

2010-08-02T09:36:00.012-04:00

Animation Block Party went between Friday 7/31 to Sunday 8/2 with 6 screenings between 3 days. I only went to the opening night @ the outdoor screening in Greenpoint and the following night at BAM Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn.

A really great line up once again of awesomeness in animation! Casey Safron, ABP curator and director, received hundreds of submissions. From these, he really found some gems that are worth seeing if you like animation.

This would be a better writeup if I had appeared for every screening. As is, I was at the evening shows for Friday and Saturday nights and these are my picks:

Friday, July 31st - 9pm show, Automotive High School

Zombie Too
by Jacob Opsa

Hubo
by Erick Oh

Offline
by Tom Gasek

Pinball 12 Reanimated
by Abbey Luck

Saturday, August 1st - 915pm show, BAM
Don't Text and Drive
Adrian J. Garcia

Kidnap
by Sijia Luo

Ledo Goes to Town
Emily Carmichael

Arctic Circle
by Kevin Parry

In the Beginning
by Katie Wendt

Philip the Safety Egg
by Mike Owens

Pinhead
by Matt Lee

Once again, Casey has assembled a kick ass Summer of animation awesomeness. If you haven't been to ABP, and you like animation, you really don't know what you're missing. Don't miss this event. It's animation at its finest hours over several days right here in New York. Thanks Casey! Thanks ABP!!!

You can find the full lineup and hyperlinks to everything HERE:
http://animationblock.com/summerfest2010/filmdescriptions.html

Daily Dry Erase and Tumblr

2010-07-30T17:28:00.007-04:00

Until further notice, future panels will appear on dailydryerase.tumblr.com.

It's a very easy user interface that takes less time for me to update than my own site. I have to admit, I'm considering changing things to Tumblr templates because they are so clean, easy to update, and easy to share with more people. Bookmark: http://dailydryerase.tumblr.com/ .

dailydryerase.com still has pretty much everything else, but I will be updating that site a little less regularly than Tumblr.

Daily Dry Erase: checkpoint

2010-07-04T13:31:00.048-04:00

There will be more humor, abstraction, and hopefully some more animation in the not too distant future. 300 panels and a handful of animations nearly every day since April 2009 is a pretty good checkpoint for a time out.

Thanks for all of the wonderful comments and support all of this time! I'm still investigating new ways to evolve this project in both the creative sense and the viral sense. So far, I've found Daily Dry Erase to be the most engaging creative project that I have ever initiated and I will continue to deliver after some other stuff in between:)

If you have a moment, please take a look at all that has been made to promote this project and please share what you see here if you like what you see:

Homepage
Facebook
Twitter
Deviantart
FriendFeed
Tumblr
Daily Dry Erase MOBILE

which is automatically viewable on an Apple iPhone, or iPod Touch by simply going to dailydryerase.com via the Safari web browser.

North Side Filim Festival ++ This Friday: June 25th 2010

2010-06-22T11:54:00.009-04:00

My 2009 short "That Hand Film" will be playing one last time in NY (I think) at the North Side Film Festival this upincoming Friday. It's playing alongside some awsome stuff by some awesome animators including: Ben Levin, Stieg Retlin, Peter Ahern, Aaron Hughes, Andy and Carolyn London, Dan Meth, Stephen Neary, Lisa Labracio, Emily Hubley, Jeff Scher, Tatia Rosenthal, Chelsea Manifold, Dave Schlafman, AVDJ, Mixtape Club and Odd Todd.

I'll be there. Beer in hand for some good times! I've seen some of the films in this show already but wouldn't mind seeing them again. Join me, why don'tcha?

That Hand Film has been hot lately!

2010-06-17T16:41:00.009-04:00

That Hand Film is all over the internet now and only recently did it get a ton of hits that over a year of my own hosting couldn't do.

Thank you Shira Abel and Aniboom

Thank you Laurence Asseraf and Dimitris Athos; directors of The BeFilm Underground Film Festival
That Hand Film on Babelgum

Thank you Casey Safron; director of the Animation Block Party
Taxi Guy: Jelly Beans & That Hand Film on ABP's MyDamn Channel

To Amber Boardman and the Shirley Gallery's Give Me a Minute exhibition in Williamsburg, NY!

Thank You Signe Baumane for helping me connect with Animayo and to both you and Bill Plympton for the Kodak Screening room for the Animals and Animators screening!

After over a year since I made the film, That Hand Film has been receiving some nice 1ups late in the game. I need to recalibrate a lot of things before I can jump into production of my next animated short film which I have in pre-production phases only. More will happen and sooner rather than later. Before I time out for a bit, I wanted to thank everyone who helped make That Hand Film in particular because it's the first film that's gotten more response than about 10 years of other shorts combined.

A huge thanks to my family and my awesome crew that helped make That Hand Film a real high five!: Daniel Kokoszka - Multimedia Consultant, Gigi Chen- background painter, David Perry-background painter, David Cooper-sound engineer, Tim Sharbaugh-drums, and Elliot Cowan-creative consultant.

Ass kickery one and all:) Thanks so much for all of your support which was supertastical. Till next time around....

BeFilm 2010 winners and thoughts

2010-05-02T14:44:00.000-04:00

This is the list of festival awards for 2010 BeFilm which again in the few days I did go was awessssOME:D

I only had the chance to go Friday 4/30 & Saturday 5/1. Of those two nights I have to pick a couple of favorites:

Friday 4/30:

FOUR: DIR Erin White

HBO "DEAL BREAKER": DIR Kelly Anne Burns
WHATEVER TURNS YOU ON: DIR Delcan Cassidy
LABYRINTH: DIR Patrick Jenkins

Saturday 5/1:
TOSHI: DIR Jon Gilbert
The INCIDENT AT TOWER 37: DIR Chris Perry

WINNERS IN THE NARRATIVE CATEGORY BE FILM 2010

First Place: Transit, Dir. Chris Roche (UK)

Second Place: The Six Dollar Fifty Man, Dir. Louis Sutherland /Mark Albiston (New Zealand)

Third Place: Freud’s Magic Powder, Dir. Edouard Getaz (Switzlerland)
Adelaide, Dir. Lilliana Greenfield-Sanders (USA)

WINNERS IN THE ANIMATION CATEGORY BE FILM 2010

First Place: The Cow That Wanted To Be A Hamburger, Dir. Bill Plympton (USA)

Second Place: The Incident At Tower 37, Dir. Chris Perry (USA)

Third Place: Labyrinth, Dir. Patrick Jenkins (Canada)

Honorable Mention: Variete, Dir. Roelof Van Den Bergh (Netherlands)

WINNERS IN THE SPEC CATEGORY BE FILM 2010

First Place: HBO “Deal Breaker”, Dir. Kelly Anne Burns (USA)
Second Place: Levi’s True Love, Dir. Ezra Stanley (USA)

WINNERS IN THE 3D CATEGORY BE FILM 2010

First Place: Train of Thought, Dir. Jeanne Guillot
Second Place: Plasticity, Dir. Ryan Suits

SPECIAL AUDIENCE AWARDS FOR BEST SEXY FILMS 2010

First Place: Lost Paradise, Dir. Oder Binnun/Mihal Brezi (France/Israel
Second Place: Las Pelotas, Dir.Chris Niemeyer (Argentina/Switzerland)
Four, Dir. Erin White (Australia)

------------------------------
A very special thanks to Laurence Asseraf & Dimitris Athos, the festival curators and programmers, for bringing together another wonderful year of shorts that rock!!
I'll be there next year for sure:D

dry erase inspiration

2009-09-10T14:21:00.001-04:00

I don't have the story to go with it, but I've been playing around with a spec-op project. It's been some time since I animated full-body human beings. I've been deliberately avoiding it because it's difficult for me to justify animation as the medium for behavior that everyday people can do. On that same note, my feeling is that many people still respond the most to the stories of people.

This may all be crazy talk, but I know that the silliness of design is not my goal with this idea. I would like to have something more real this time around. We'll see...

Dry Erase turns 100

2009-06-01T14:33:00.001-04:00

Though I've done more than that many, tomorrow will mark my 98th, 99th, and 100th postings of dry erase comics. This felt like a good time to say that as flexible as making the comics are, coming up with 3 ideas a day / 15 a week is a bit difficult considering nobody is paying me for them yet. I like doing them and it's been so very nice to receive all of the comments on Facebook over the last few months! Thanks everyone!!!

I still plan to make the comics, but I have to slow down on the rate of postings. After tomorrow, on the morning of June 3rd I will be posting one comic per day instead of three. I have to slow down the idea factory a bit and focus on other things. I hope the people that have checked them out understand. Sorry:(

The comic seen above is neither on Facebook or my Dry Erase site. The format of this panel is a bit of a black sheep to the others I've done, so I thought this would be as good a place as any to post it.

word

20 years of the Dusty Animation Festival part 2.5

2009-05-15T07:59:00.000-04:00

On Monday, I posted a short bit about the SVA Dusty Animation screening. Over this week, the animators hooked me up with links to their films, sites, and other stuff.
Check out the following post of this blog. Pictures, filmmaker site/blog links, and (most awesome of all) links to the films they made! Thanks for sharing this stuff! Good luck, God's speed, and all that jazz:)

20 years of the Dusty Animation Festival part 2

2009-05-11T06:36:00.000-04:00

Following up to last Thursday's Dusty animation festival, I reached out to a bunch of the filmmakers to let everyone know what a great job they all did...and they did:) Every one of the 45 deserves EXTREME credit for their films either complete or incomplete as they were. An audience that doesn't know animation won't understand an incomplete production as easily as someone like me; an animator that practically lived in the animation wing of SVA and slept on the radiator next to the computer lab. Believe me when I say that even if your film wasn't complete, don't be too hard on yourself....but for the love of crumb-cake, FINISH YOUR FILMS or I'll find you, cook you, and eat you! The list below is my top 10 by title order in the dusty guide:

The Grape and the Carrot (2:00) by Kee Yeon Lee
Clovered (4:00) by Nicole So
Durian Season (3:30) by Shelley Low
Fantastic Plastic (10:00!) by Lev Polyakov
Juxtaposed (5:30) by Alexander Wager
Metromorphosis (3:00) by Mikhail Shraga
Metal Boot (4:00) by Paul Villeco
The Mouse Reaper (3:00) by Eunkyu Kim
Singles (3:00) by Rebecca Sugar
The Terrible Thing of Alpha-9! (5:00) by Jake Armstrong

Each one of these films had extraordinary offerings that went above and beyond in my opinion. I felt these deserved a little extra congrats not only for having them completed, but also because they had things to offer the larger picture of ANIMATION.
Great stories, design, and execution are examples of the merit, but more importantly they did things in their projects that I feel would potentially get a non-believer interested in the medium, and that's a wonderful thing! Animation needs visionaries and this list of mine is not exclusive to only these 10 though it looks that way.

I wanted to include close friends of mine, but the larger issue with this list (which I considered limiting to 5 people) is that there is more to animation than a 10 minute film (Lev you are a maniac!). I would have been just as happy with a tight 30 second project if the rules of SVA allowed such a short duration. As a whole, these are my top picks and when you see what they did, you may understand why. Hopefully you do and if anyone disagrees, tough titty. I've been rejected plenty of times in many a place, but it doesn't discourage me from continuance. Now that everybody is out of school, I'll be curious to see how many have the time, strength, and ambition to continue with personal work which I know all too well is a challenge that deserves credit. Everybody is going to have different objectives with their education and I hope that every animator uses their skills for the greater good. Good luck animators! You remind me why I love this stuff and that's what I love about you!

Singles by Rebecca Sugar

The Terrible Thing of Alpha-9 by Jake Armstrong

Juxtaposed by Alexander Wager

Metromorphosis by Mikhail Shraga

The Mouse Reaper by Eunkyu Kim

The Carrot and the Purple Ball by Kee Yeon Lee

Fantastic Plastic by Lev Polyakov

Clovered by Nicole So

Durian Season by Shelley Low

Metal Boot by Paul Villeco

20 years of the Dusty Animation Festival

2009-05-08T00:40:00.001-04:00

Since last Wednesday, 4.29, I've seen 63 films from the BeFilm Underground Film Festival, 27 from the ASIFA-East's 40th Awards night, and tonight came back from The School of Visual Arts' 20th Dusty Film & Animation Festival having seen 45 animations. That's 135. I'm a tad blind, but all good times:)

At the NEW SVA Theater located between 8th & 9th Ave on 23rd Street,
Reeves Leehman, Chairman of the SVA Film & Animation department declared that this was the largest number of films for an SVA animation screening ever. I may have misheard that, but I would believe it. 45 animated films in a row with only a 10 minute break after the first 2 hours. The show started around 715pm and went on until around 1045pm. Sooooo many films. So many of them so good! Some of the filmmakers I've known for years and it feels so good to have seen their work on the big screen! I need to see some of these films again and soon, so I hope that I can get some links to post to the world in the next post I do here so you too can see them.

Some of the films were sadly incomplete (animatic boards, uncolored animation, unfinished post production). As a thesis advisor, I can see myself getting a tad miffed if one of my students didn't finish their production on time. It reflects on the advisor and I can understand the frustration that comes with that. That said, because I've been there.....making a film in and of itself is not easy when you've got a world of hell and academics all around you. While I would very much like to see every film 100% complete, I give huge amounts of credit to every animator who had a film tonight. The crack of a deadline with an advisor's whip can be deadly and I know that I had more than a few panic attacks at the zero hour when the Dusty deadline was upon me.

If there's any one lesson I learned from the pressure of the festival deadline is that it's not a terrible idea to get helpers, slaves, interns, and (heaven forbid) pay some people to get the job done if you can afford it. This is a student screening, so I expect lots of different approaches to everything and the class of 2009 delivered big time!

I am genuinely a bit blind from the last week of films in combination with tonight at the Dustys. I'll need the weekend to recover, I will continue with some good highlights if I can. Lots and lots of talent was evident in almost everything I saw tonight. Seeing a show like this makes me feel good that so many people care so much about animation. I hope wherever the animators go, they take that love with them into everything they do:)

See the complete list for Thursday 5.7 at the bottom of the page

BeFilm is Ass-Kickery!! - part 2

2009-05-02T09:25:00.000-04:00

Sorry I'm so late with this. I'm not that late am I? well...
I love the BeFilm Underground Film Festival, and yes, I would marry it if it were possible:) This is how a film festival should be done in my book. Wish I thought of it first. doh! Seriously, the festival curators: Laurence Asseraf & and Dimitris Anthos have been so incredible this entire week. They should get an all expenses paid vacation to someplace good when this is all said and done with.

That Hand Film (my little opus which is in every post of this blog) is premiered Saturday 5/2 among the ranks of some amazing films. It is truly an honor to be a part of the venue of the final night which if last year was any indication, is the most populated night of all of the nights! This was all followed by an open bar for 2 hours at a place called Little Nikki's which wraps up the year of celebration. Most of the filmmakers were there, and I got to shake the hands of some of them that I didn't have a chance to meet on other nights.

Top pick highlights for Friday 5/1:
RED RABBIT(animation)DIR: Egmont Mayer
VANDALEN(narrative)DIR: Simon Steuri
CU@ED's(narrative)DIR: Casey Stangl

Top pick highlights for Saturday 5/2:
DESCENDANTS(animation)DIR: Helko Van Der Scher
GERMANS IN THE WOODS(animation)DIR: The Rauch Brothers
DOWNLOVE 3D(narrative/experimental)DIR: Euripides Laskarides

There was one film that played Friday that deserves a big honorable mention for production:

ANIMATED AMERICAN(animation/narrative)DIR: Joe Haidar

As a production, this film was top notch combining a "roger-rabbit-esque" technique with live action and animation. Very seamlesss and very very well done. This film was a short story about how 2d traditional animated characters are affected by the economic standards of animation today. A very deliberate approach implying that 2d pencil paper animation is gone the way of the dodo in favor of faster and cheaper and theroreticaly better mediums like CG. What I didn't like about this film is that as much as I support the theroy of keeping 2d alive....this film felt like a cry for help. I cannot think of a faster way to make 2d animation look stupid than to joke about how low to the ground it may be. I still believe in pencil and paper animation as do a lot of animators including Bill Plympton, Pat Smith, and Signe Baumane to name a few...and they do pretty well last time I checked for good reason.

Good storytelling will save ANYTHING. Since I'm discussing ANIMATED AMERICAN, I want it said that this film was uber uber well done as a production. Great acting. Great Animation! It's an interesting concept surely, but the approach I feel punches 2d in the stomach and I wish they didn't tell this story. One cannot bully their way into the hearts of an audience through force.....literally, and that's what this film tried to do with it's 2d characters. I love 2d and so do a lot of other people I know who work very hard to make it possible....myself included. What makes it sell is a hybrid of both good craft and acting which was top drawer. Admittedly, 2d animators have to work a little harder and upgrade the tricks that they know so they can be applied to get an audience interested as an art...but if you have a kick-ass story, in my experiences, it doesn't matter if your film is crude animation like a South Park episode. People will love it if it's well conceived, and that is what will get people into things.

That about wraps it up for BeFilm this year. I look forward to the next year and I hope that more of my friends join then. Well done BeFilm! Thanks for everything and I'll see you next year!

BeFilm is Ass-Kickery!!

2009-05-01T10:34:00.000-04:00

While I couldn't attend night #1 of the BeFilm Underground Film Festival, I did attend the last two nights and let me just say...BeFilm is flipping awesome!! The festival curators: Laurence Asseraf and Dimitris Athos are tireless and incredible!!! So far, I've gotten something good out of almost every film I've seen which have time ranges from as little as 1 minute up to 20 (I think that's the max). The 20 minute films don't feel like 20 at all and the small bites of projects are a wonderful spectrum of both live action and the latest animation in the 2nd and 3rd dimension. I even got to see a hush-hush screening that I am unable to comment or describe, but believe me when I say this: BeFilm goes out of their way to put on a good show and you would be a fool not to join us if you love short films and animation.

It's hard to say the highlights because everything is a highlight. No joke!
But, the top ones that really stuck with me were:

WEDNESDAY 4/29:
MOTHER'S DAY (animation)DIR: David Lobser
THIS WAY UP (animation)DIR: Smith & Foulkes
BOHEMIBOT (narrative)DIR: Brendan Bellomo

Thursday 4/30:
BROTHERS IN ARMS (animation)DIR: Elliot Cowan
DIVERS(animation)DIR: Paris Mavroidis
REMEMBER MY NAME (narrative)DIR: Bo Duffy

BeFilm goes on tonight and tomorrow night and I will definitely be there. Check out the schedule. And, if you want to see the festival premiere of That Hand Film, you gotta come to this:)

finding a reason

2009-04-26T06:33:00.000-04:00

The general public acknowledges animation everywhere but can only name: about 5-9 popular shows on television, the Pixar lineup, and anything by Disney off the top of their head. In the meantime, the same people can name 1000 live action films. So, we've got about 7 shows, some nice bags of 3d magic tricks, and Mickey Mouse country against 1000 live action films.......yeah, I don't like these odds.

What's been on my mind lately is what can be done to get the people in the street interested....especially me. Animation as a business has traditionally had lot of ups and downs in all weathers of a good and bad economy. I hope that animation gains momentum always but there are definitely times when things are too slow know what's next. As an animator whether I am working for someone or not, my best idea no matter what is going on in the economy is to keep creating in some way, shape, or form until I find something that works for me and gives me reason to enjoy the work and continue for another day.

That Hand Film: trailer

2009-04-25T01:30:00.001-04:00

That Hand Film: festival premiere in the BeFilm Underground Film Festival

2009-04-24T21:22:00.000-04:00

Thanks BeFilm!

The BeFilm Underground Film Festival is a 5 day event that runs between Tuesday April 28th through Saturday May 2nd. Tuesday the 28th is already sold out, but there are discounted ticket packages for the remaining nights as a block (I think it's $30 for 4 nights). Last year was a total blast and this year should be just as awesome if not more awesome! Local flavor animation champions are in this too including great films by Andy & Carolyn London, Signe Baumane, Bill Plympton, Elliot Cowan, The Rauch Brothers & Willy Hartland.

Check out the BeFilm Website for venues, details, tickets, and all of that good stuff.
Hope to see you there!