Match

Well, didn't really mean to post it, but...what the hell.
I want to make a small animation with a candle or a match, so I decided to create a short test of a match burning, here is the pencil test -

And here is the final result, with color, blur, glow, etc. I did not put the match since putting the match without burning it killed the animation, and who has time to burn matches?

More Lightning

I wanted to do an effect based on animation, so I took a few hours to try it, and plan the effect according to the action that was going to produce it.

It took about....5 hour, I guess..

Lightning

Just working on some classic animation effects, as a future reference. 

Animation Professions Union

On Friday,  the 9Th of December, the Union had a few professional meetings at Holon cinemateque, a few lectures under the subject of "the busy animator tutorial"were held.
here they are, in Hebrew.

The first one was Yoni Goodman, the animation director of "Waltz with Bashir", lecturing on how to manage a working project.



The Second Lecturer was Guy Feffer, the Union's accountant.



After that, there was a Panel regarding the future of animation in Israel, which was not filmed.
Then, the Union's Law adviser's talks about contracts.



And the last lecturer that day, was Denis Zilber, a world class illustrator.

Spring Commercial

The challenge here was making the action read and work in 5 seconds. 

It had to include one second that the product can be seen with no action around it, so the viewer will have time to see the product with little disturbance.

This was done for JCS, for its spring commercial that was aired yesterday.

Arrr....Pirates...

Did this short as an opening short for an IPhone game, it was done in about two weeks and a half, using ToonBoom. 

It was my first attempt at doing something from scratch in ToonBoom, indeed a great program to use for classic animation. cant wait for the next time.

Last Day Dream

This is a short that I keep coming back to, so I guess that putting it here will be a good idea.
Its called "last day dream", and an amazing short.



We normally think of flashbacks as something of a reference to the past. Here, these are just eye blinks, but they are accurate enough for us to know all that is needed. memory is accurate. And this is the best "his life flashed before his eyes" movie I have ever seen.

See Nothing Pitch at Copro

On the 27th of may, 2011, at Copro - the Israeli documentary market, we presented our movie SEE NOTHING for the first time. Sitting there is me, Barak Drori, the Director and script writer of the film, and Claudia Levin, the producer of the film.
The one minute "proof of concept" that is presented during the pitch was done in a month time, by me and 6 other people, an amazing crew.
I was the Director of Animation. Uri Inxs acted as Art Director. Ofeer Hassan was the StoryBoard Artist, and also aided Inxs with the art and did some CleanUp. Uri Alonim, Nadav Arbel and myself were the animators.
Yonatan Albalak composed and preformed the music, and Uri Kalian designed the sound.
Good Work, Guys!!!!!!
Here is the pitch as we presented it.




After that, it was followed by another 7.5 minutes of critic from the commissioning editors that we were giving the pitch to. The responses were very good, to the pitching, as a pitching in general and to the idea as a refreshing and original idea.
The whole team worked for free, inspirational by itself, must I add. As I walk the road, I realize, every time as if it is the first, (in the movie, in the Animation Union, and in general) that a strong faith in what you are doing will help you go the distance, that's what we are and what our passion is, storytelling.
The movie is in Pre Production, and we are now raising funds.

"See Nothing" Proof of Concept

This is the "Proof of Concept" that we have made for the film "See Nothing".

And its the tip of the iceberg...

And here is some art from the other characters in the film -
Benni, a 63 year old man, who became blind over a period of 30 years.

And Nili, who is blind from birth.

Special Effects

Well, even though I did not do the sea, I had some classic special effects done. here is a small example.

to be com posited to the shot later.

Sea

I was intending to create everything in the project I'm supposed to finish today, in classic animation. there are two shots where you see the sea. so I did a rough sketch and camera movement to try to understand and explore the effect.

I understood very fast, that under the constraints of time, I could not afford it. but it was fun working on waves. eventually, the sea is digital. I will post the short in about a month.

Another Great Scene. Training Day.

Here is another great scene from a great movie. Just read a script analyses of "Training Day" and searched the net for this amazing scene. what the hell, if the deal is movies, so why not collect a great scene to the blog, once in a while. this a a crucial scene in the movie.

It is an amazing scene because the hero, Ethan Hawke, changes. this marks the real turning point toward the end. In the beginning of the film he was an ethical cop, wanting to please and dreaming of changing the world. as he discovers here, his mentor did the unthinkable. he have sent him to his death. betrayal.  from this experience plus all he have witnessed on this "Training Day", he will emerge different and will march right through the gangsters jungle to look for Denzel Washington. he has become something else. a cop with street toughness and no fear as he has survived the depth of hell. he will realize for the first time of his life, maybe, how naive he was, and will have to think - is this the group that I want to be part of? as the building that he has built all these year crumbles under him.

Pirates....

Just something I'm working on these days....a 35 seconds classic animation short, 

that is to be an opening clip for a game.

Crow-Girl

I am working on a short these days, concerning the adventures of crow girl in the big city. :-)

who knows what will come out of it? it is intended to be finished in two weeks, hopefully, and then we'll see whats next. if possible, I will upload the pencil tests that I will be making to that when the finished short will be uploaded, that puzzle will be all clear.

Inspiration

when I started this blog I did not intend to put anything that is not my work here. but I saw moon struck a few days ago and realized nick cage amazing performance

actors often do bad moves in their careers, ask John travolta. I believe that no actor intends to make bad movies, but I know that all actors have to act. "Moonstruck", a mild 80's romantic comeday, has some unforgettable dramatic scenes. the writing , directing and acting of this very predictable tale, is the thing that differs it from other movies in that genre . and this performance from cage always reminds me, what can be done when your a hungry actor in the beginning of the road. how much can an actor give in a scene that could be dull as hell or... ridicules if it were done by somebody else.

CoPro

when I was preparing for the Pitching event, I was asked to create a small intro that will display in front of every screening.

it was a really nice and fast exercise in text animation.

Maccan Ericson

this is a video I animated and composited for Highlander productions.

it took about 2 weeks and a half. I did the animation with Roy Avni, Eran Mendel designed it. and I composited the final result.

See Nothing

For the last 4 months, I was preparing for the pitching event that occurred on Friday the 27th of may, last Friday that is. the pitching event was sponsored by Copro, the Israeli documentary screen market. actually if started last November, when I have sent Copro my treatment concerning a movie I am passionate to make. an animated documentary about blind people. the idea started forming in my mind years ago. and at the time, I was a student at Bezalel Academy, studying animation. eventually, I made my graduation film concerning the project. here -

the project had not been all I have hoped for, and during that year, as it happens to many projects, it had changed and became something different. I did not have the experience, to understand what went wrong.
now, more experienced, and with broader set of abilities and connections, it seems that the movie will be made correctly. I cannot reveal the plot yet, or the concept. as this is a fragile stage of the production.

but I can say that the pitching went very well. and there is interest. hopefully, in the next year (as these things take forever) we will start preproduction. but I have to say...this production will probably take no less then four years, and thats optimistic. as you enter the world of production deeper, you start to realize that art and money do not mix well, and you must find a way to make it profitable.
profit or not, for that sake of this pitch, and as a proof of concept, we made a small teaser, almost one minute, to show during that 7.5 minutes pitch. I will show it here much later, as hopefully, we start progressing, and I can release more materials to the net. I didn't do the teaser alone of course, animation is a group sport. I made up a small amazing crew, Uri Inx as art director, Ofeer Hassan as storyboard and art (and acually some clean up), Uri Alonim and Nadav Arbel did the animation, Yonatan Albalak did the music and Uri Kalian the sound. amazing crew that worked with no money for the sake of an idea and the future possibility to be a part of this project.
the idea to do that kind of teaser came as an inspiration from Ari Folman and Yoni Goodman's pipeline. they did it for "Waltz With Bashir", a film I was fortunate enough to take a part in.
so the pitching is over. now all thats left is....to do the movie?

The Animation Professions Guild is now officially running!!!!!

well, birth is a long process.
and after a good 5 months of gathering people and information, today, I got the papers that the APG, was listed as a Guild, on the 9th of may 2011. Congrats!!!!!!!!!!!
we (the 10 members of the committee) truly hope to make a change in the industry, create prestige for our profession, and help it flourish. all of us want that the animation industry will be considered as a thing you want to invest in and develop. so much talent here, thats going to waist, because we are not organized. its time to rise by the numbers and see what we can do together. after all, animation is a group sport.
this is the beginning. still a long way to go.

And here they are - the WINNERS

First place - NEWPAPER

Second place - CHAIRS

Third place - NEWPAPER

and even though they did not get to the finish line to be winners, they must be mentioned as good movies, all those were done in basically, 2.5-3 hours

MONSTERS

and UNDERWATER

Telma Yalin Animation Workshop

Last week I gave the high school students on Telma Yalin art school an Animation workshop, due to time constraints, they did stop motion animation, Pixilation to be exact.
I will post the winning movies later on ( I treated the workshop as a competition) but  in the meantime, I will post here the illustrations that wonderful illustrator Nir Golan made for me to give them in the final event, , screening the shorts, that was this morning, as a prize.

MouseTrap

well, this goes a way back. on my third year in Bezalel Academy, we were given a task of making a movie, connected to one of the departments at the Academy. me and my partner, Amir Avdi Tzedek, decided to pay a tribute to the art of photography. the story tell about a young post traumatic photography student.
of course, this is a student short film, rendering and compositing is very low, and lighting is practically, non existent. but the story works. its very simple and effective.

thinking of a logo

had an idea for a logo, so I did a little motion graphics test on it. turned out nice, but gonna save it for later.

Nebula FlyThrough

I was trying  to make a flight through space. this test still needs fine tuning. all in after effects.

First Blog, First Post

well, even though I cannot consider myself an illustrator, I did my share in drawing, and since I have decided to have a new website and not include those works there, this seemed as a nice warm place for them to dwell in. once in a while, and if I will make new ones. I will put them here.

these are from the period after I learned Chinese paintings, practice is everything there. if you want to know how to draw a tiger, you must draw it a 1000 times.

these are watercolor paintings on rice paper.

coming soon...

:)