Tom Hapgood

Buffalo Flows wins two EMMY awards

Congrats to James Greeson and Larry Foley for each winning a Mid-America EMMY award for their work on the Buffalo Flows. Greeson’s category award was Musical Composition/Arrangement and Foley’s was Writer/Program. Don’t forget that the film is on national PBS Tuesday night, at 9:00 p.m. CST.

The Cost of an Animation Final

Oh, the irony of “bringing life” to something through animation, and appearing to lose your own through the process. This poor student worked so hard in all of his courses at the end of this semester that it (seemingly) nearly finished him off. He eventually fell off in a dramatic way, but didn’t seem to bounce or kick up a puff of dust, nor did we see any little birds or stars circling around his head.

Film Festival Screenings Friday, Saturday

Buffalo Flows will be shown Friday, November 14th, at 7:00 p.m. in Theatre 1, or JBHT 216
‘Free, If Only,’ my motion short film, will show just before Buffalo Flows on Saturday, November 15th, at 1:50 p.m. in Theatre 2, or JBHT 266
Details here

‘Elements of Animation’ course’s stop-motions posted

Take a look at the Elements of Animation course’s stop-motion projects, such as this one by Jacob Bain.

Animation Class 5-Frame story

The Elements of Animation class’ first assignment was to create a 5-frame photographic story and post it into the Flickr “Tell a story in 5 frames (Visual story telling)” group, and then see what comments and feedback they get from the crowd at large. Here they are:

Fat Little Piggy
The Lonely Drunk
Directions??
Analog
Organic Architecture
Ready to Ride
Unfortunate Life of a Beet
Unexpected
Can Attack
Birth of a Bubble
Loss Prevention
The Life of a Chick Magnet

24-Hour Film Festival through Art Amiss

Ready. Set. Shoot….

Prepare for the ultimate test of your creative abilities, not to mention your plain old endurance and will: The first annual Art Amiss 24 Hour Film Festival will take place in conjunction with Art Amiss VIII. An unlimited number of teams will race to complete a short film in the course of a single day. The likely-to-be uneven results will be screened at Art Amiss VIII.

More details here.

The Passing of the Last of Disney’s Nine Old Men

Knowing the advanced years of Ollie Johnston, the last living member of Walt Disney’s “Nine Old Men” team of animators, I set up an automatic Google Alert that would let me know when his name passed through the major news outlets. I knew that it would probably be news of his death, as he was in his mid 90s. Surely enough, the Alerts started coming in today and it turns out that Ollie Johnston, one of the main animators on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Bambi and Pinocchio, has passed on. I just told my animation class earlier this semester about Ollie Johnston and his presence on the Disney Team for all those years, and last semester we watched “Frank and Ollie.” I just checked Wikipedia and it has already been updated. Long live Ollie Johnston!

Web 2 Projects Posted

Check out the first Flash-animated logo project by the Visual Design: Web 2 class and pick out your favorite “andidate,” or first android/robot candidate for President of the United States in the 2048 election. View the “andidates” here.

Elements of Animation 3D Projects

Finally posted a few of the final projects from the Elements of Animation class of Fall 2007. These projects use the Carrara 3D Basics 2 and iMovie software and some use GarageBand for the audio. They’re very impressive pieces of animation for the very short amount of time (~3 weeks) and this being a beginner class. Congratulations on some great work!
PS – Click the little book icon below, then click Episodes to see the others

Pet Shop Boys Stop-Motion video

Check out this bitmapped, polaroid-on-video footage steroids by the Pet Shop Boys.