If you’re a long-time reader of this blog you’ll probably already be aware of my respect for illustrator and childrens’ book artist Oliver Jeffers. This, however, managed to totally slip under my radar.

A 25-minute CG-animated adaptation of his second picture book Lost and Found won the TV Special Award at Annecy a couple of days ago. Apparently it was shown over here in the UK over Christmas but this is the first I’d heard of it!

I was rather concerned when I discovered that it was CG and not traditional 2D animation because of Oliver’s incredibly stylised art style but it appears London’s Studio AKA and director Philip Hunt have done a wonderful job of adapting it to 3D.

Here’s the trailer, and it appears that it’s already available on DVD in the UK!

The Annecy International Animated Film Festival is an annual event in Annecy, France and a big part of it are their highly regarded awards.

The Crystal Award winners this year were:
In the short film category, “Slavar”, an animated documentary about child slavery. In the feature film category, “Coraline” and “Mary and Max”. Finally, in the TV production category, “Log Jam” which Aardman have recently secured the distribution rights to.

Here’s a full list of 2009 winners at the Annecy site.

I can’t find any of the shorts online yet, but here’s a interview with stop-motion animator Adam Elliot, whose feature Mary and Max went on to win the Crystal Feature award.

And here’s a charming moment with Adam and Coraline’s Henry Selick.

I’ll update this article as I find more shorts and clips. Drop me a line or leave a comment if you discover any!

In 2005 an architecture student at UCLA by the name of Shane Acker released an 11-minute silent CG animated short film called “9” that had been produced in his spare time over four and a half years. Another four years later and it’s been developed into a Tim Burton-backed feature length film (here, like The Nightmare Before Christmas, Burton is the executive producer, not the director).

In an interview with Shane in Frames Per Second magazine (check out the whole thing, it’s a good read), he names some of his favourite movies as Brazil, The Thing, Aliens and Delicatessen and you can certainly see the influence of those films come across, both in his original short and in the trailer for the new film.

Talking of the short, here it is:

It’s interesting to note that the forthcoming film is a talkie — and an all-star voiced one at that. I’m always a bit wary when I see an animated film with so many A-list actors on-board, as if they’re being used as the pull to see it rather than the merits of the movie itself… we’ll have to wait and see.

Back to the Future fans should check out this fantastic remote controlled DeLorean car built entirely out of LEGO by Legohaulic. Makes me want to have a play with LEGO Technics and Power Functions again — I’m sure the components are way more advanced than when I was a kid!

Here’s a video of it in action and a gallery of photos.

Pixar’s latest feature Up was released to cinemas yesterday and, with it, a teaser trailer for next year’s Toy Story 3.

Toy Story 3 will be released in June 2010.

It’s no secret that Blade Runner is one of my favourite movies so I’ve just been salivating looking through some superb images created using Sandbox 2 and CryENGINE 2, the video game engine used for the first-person shooter Crysis.

The images were created as entries to a movie-themed contest at game-artist.net and winning entries included sets from The X-Men, Aliens and I Am Legend. This Blade Runner set deservedly took winning place and you can view the process behind the construction on this message thread. (via N4G)

Update 10th June: Here’s the Partly Cloudy short in full.
Absolutely superb! Be quick though, I doubt it’ll be around for long.

Here’s a fleeting 30 seconds from Partly Cloudy, the Pixar short that will accompany their next feature, Up. Directed by Peter Sohn, the voice of Emile in the movie Rataouille, it tells the story of Gus, a lonely grey cloud who makes babies for storks to deliver.

From the Pixar wiki:

Everyone knows that the stork delivers babies, but where do the storks get the babies from? The answer lies up in the stratosphere, where cloud people sculpt babies from clouds and bring them to life. Gus, a lonely and insecure grey cloud, is a master at creating ‘dangerous’ babies. Crocodiles, porcupines, rams and more—Gus’s beloved creations are works of art, but more than a handful for his loyal delivery stork partner, Peck. As Gus’s creations become more and more rambunctious, Peck’s job gets harder and harder. How will Peck manage to handle both his hazardous cargo and his friend’s fiery temperament?

There’s a lengthy interview with Peter about the short at Animation World News.

View a higher quality version of the trailer. Partly Cloudy will debut with Up on May 29th.

(via Cartoon Brew)

The long-awaited (for me, certainly) proper glimpse of the Where the Wild Things Are movie. Directed by Spike Jonze and based on the classic children’s book written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak.

Spike Jonze is best known for his work on the films Being John Malkovitch and Adaptation — plus the awesome Beastie Boys promo video to Sabotage.

HD version also available on Apple Trailers. (via Ain’t it Cool News)

The folks at ArcAttack use Tesla coils to “produce an electrical arc similar to a continuous lightning bolt which put out a crisply distorted square wave sound reminiscent of the early days of synthesizers.”

Here’s one, with another guy wearing a “Faraday Suit” to conduct electricity away from the coil, performing the Imperial March theme from Star Wars! Check out more videos on their site.

Update: If you’re looking for the new images, you’ll find them here!

You’ll find the trailer here.

The premier issue of Disney twenty-three magazine includes an article on Tim Burton’s part live action, part CGI-animated Alice in Wonderland movie which is due for release in Spring 2010. The article features the first glimpses of some wonderful looking concept artwork and photography and the Tim Burton Collective blog has some scans of the pages.

If anyone has any better scans of the images, do let us know!

(thanks Jenny!)