John Carter Trailer 2

Check out the new Trailer for John Carter, the film I worked on in Dneg until last September.
VFX by Double Negative, MPC and Cinesite London.

Aliens and Martians

During these last couple of years spent in Double Negative I met a lot of talented animators, here are some of the links to their reels and websites, enjoy!

Aldo Gagliardi
Alvise Avati
Amedeo Beretta
Arne Kaupang
Brecht Debaene
Brendan Body
Chiara Antelmi
Craig Bardsley
Dan Fotheringham
Daniele Mieli
Darren Rodriguez
David S. Peng
Gianluca Fratellini
James Wilson
Jason Martinsen
In-Ah Roediger
Michael Brunet
Mike Hull
Nathan Mcconnel
Nicolas Gueroux
Nicolas Prothais
Nicolas Seck
Patrick Giusiano
Paul Davies

I will try to keep adding new links as soon as I'll find them out.

Brendan Body's Animation

I read a lot of animation related blogs, and one of my favorites is Brendan Body's one... so it was a really nice surprise to find my comparison reels posted there!

Brendan is a fellow colleague in Dneg, currently working on John Carter.
Prior to that he was in Animal Logic, where he worked on Legend of the Guardians.
On top of being a great animator he can write and teach really well. Among the others, his bird flight tutorial is excellent: flight is a very complex motion and is not explained in other animation books.
He also created with Julia Goehle the ReelBarrow: an online archive of inspiring animation reels.

And here his Brendan's reel, be sure to head over to his website for many other inspiring works!

Showreel 2011 from Brendan Body on Vimeo.

Demo reel 2011

I put together a new demo reel, with my recent work from Paul, Clash of Titans, Night at the museum and more...

Paul animation reel

Here is my Paul animation reel, with finals first, then the playblasts and the video references I used.

John Carter trailer

John Carter trailer is out. That's the movie I'm working on in Double Negative.
Cinesite and MPC are working on it as well.



And here are some interviews:

Guardian

Slashfilm

Elio italian voice of Paul

Have a look at this clip where Elio, from the milanese band Elio e le storie tese, is voicing Paul.
I animated the first part of that sequence, when Paul is reviving the bird. Jonny Macintosh animated the middle part and Nathan Mcconnel the end.

Animation Gallery

I created a new blog with my recent animation work done in MPC and Double Negative.
It's a sort of history reel divided per show.

Have a look here!

Paul: Double Negative’s alien adventure

The Art of VFX and Fx Guide published two interviews with Paul animation supervisor Anders Beer.
The two interviews are a great in-depth description of what our tasks and challenges were as "Paul animation team".
There is a bit that makes me really proud, when Anders picks a shot that I animated as one of his favorites!

Signature shots

Beer’s favorite shot, in terms of animation, involves Paul apologizing to a woman who decades earlier had seen him arrive in his UFO, subsequently causing her a lifetime of grief as people ridiculed her alien sighting. “Paul’s trying to muster up the guts to talk to her and apologies for what he’s done and make amends,” explains Beer. “There’s not a lot we can do with Paul – he’s basically listening to her. He’s about to talk to her and she interrupts him with a lecture, saying, ‘You screwed up my whole life!’. Paul is sitting there on the couch and we’re putting all this tension in. It’s all in the eyes and very simple gesturing movements. It’s one of those scenes that I’m really proud of because the animators nailed it right out of the gate. You could see it go from animators-did-a-great-job to lighters-did-an-amazing-job to the compositors dialing it in perfectly.”

FX Guide

Art of VFX

Dneg Showreel, March 2011

Dneg March Showreel is online, with some of my shots from Paul: the ones where Paul is reviving the bird (I just did the reviving bit, not when he eats it), and the ones where Graeme strangles him.
Have a look here.

New Paul trailer and poster

A new Paul trailer came out today:



It contains some shots I animated! The ones with Paul healing the bird before eating it, towards the end.

And here is a new poster, this one designed by Greg Mottola, the director.

Paul posters

Two new Paul posters are out!
The first one is a kind of Bruno parody.

Paul Teaser Trailer

The first Paul teaser trailer is out!
Paul is the movie I'm working on in Double Negative since last February.

Paul

Last February I started working on Paul, a film written by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and directed by Greg Mottola. Vfx and animation from Double Negative!
Here is a production diary: whatispaul.com
And this is a description of the movie from the same website:

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) reunite for the comedy adventure Paul as two sci-fi geeks whose pilgrimage takes them to America’s UFO heartland. While there, they accidentally meet an alien who brings them on an insane road trip that alters their universe forever.

For the past 60 years, an alien named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) has been hanging out at a top-secret military base. For reasons unknown, the space-traveling smart ass decides to escape the compound and hop on the first vehicle out of town—a rented RV containing Earthlings Graeme Willy (Pegg) and Clive Collings (Frost).

Chased by federal agents and the fanatical father of a young woman that they accidentally kidnap, Graeme and Clive hatch a fumbling escape plan to return Paul to his mother ship. And as two nerds struggle to help, one little green man might just take his fellow outcasts from misfits to intergalactic heroes.

Paul is directed by Superbad’s Greg Mottola, from a story by Pegg & Frost. Joining the comedy’s cast are Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Blythe Danner, Joe Lo Truglio, John Carroll Lynch, David Koechner and Sigourney Weaver.

ciao!