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.