Contemporary Animators

For the first session of our Professional Practice we had to find 3 contemporary practitioners that are working in our area of interest to discuss with the group. Below are my chosen 3: I wanted to find examples of work that I hadn't seen before, but work that still appealed to me.

Go-N Productions - Eric Garnet & Anne de Galard (Producers and co-founders)



Born/working: (Paris) France
Medium: Digital 2D/ traditional animation
Subject of work: Comedy
Audience: International market for all ages (pre-school - teenagers)

Synopsis:
"Meet Washington the wild fox. Raised in the California redwoods he’s been roughing it all his life. And he’s totally over it. That’s right: he’s had quite enough of the mud, the rain, the boring berries and the dumb jock bears, thank you very much. He dreams of a comfy bed (maybe even monogrammed!), cable TV and a pantry full of processed snacks. But the sweet life indoors seems out of reach until one day Washington gets a genius idea! Just outside the forest is San Francisco, a town full of bleeding-heart animal lovers ready and willing to adopt adorable orphaned pets into their cozy homes. Recruiting his best buddy Sam (a wild boar) and Sam’s kid sister Eugenie for this daring con, Washington manages to get his paws on some convincing costumes.And with a zip zip, this wild bunch is instantly transformed into a cuddly mutt, kitty and bunny desperately in need of (air-conditioned) shelter ASAP!
Getting adopted by the good-hearted yuppie Livingstones is the easy part. It’s keeping up the ruse and maintaining this luxury life—and dealing with Victoria the spoiled household cat who’s onto them—that’s way harder than Washington and his friends ever expected! How long can they really pull it off as domesticated pets?"

Information from: 2013. Animation Magazine, 27(4/229). Go-N Productions, 2013. Zip Zip. [online] Available at: http://www.go-n.fr/gb/zipzip.php# [Accessed 26 September 2013].

I really like the style of drawing with it's strong clean lines, it just looks bold. The off beat look of the characters, best shown by the wonky eyes, gives it a charm that I think will help it to appeal to it's targeted wide audience The characters are instantly engaging due to their obvious expressions and the concept, which could be quite a standard set up, sounds interesting with it's mix of environmental and society setting.


François Narboux 

Born/ Working: France
Medium: 2D flash
Subjects: Childhood, adventure
Audience: Pre-school

Currently working on Mouk (produced by Millimages)






Information from: 2013. Animation Magazine, 27(4/229). Millimages, 2013, Mouk. [online] Available at: http://www.millimages.com/va/fiche.cfm?fiche=49 [Accessed 26 September 2013].

I love the use of block colour and the lack of lines - every detail is either a (nearly) geometric shape or a brush mark, which adds a bit of texture onto the flat colours. It creates a lovely soft style that seems ideally suited to it's pre-school audience and even with a limited colour scheme the colours don't merge and lose their definition.There's so much charm in the exaggerated heads and with minimal detail the expressions are clear. 

 Valerio Veneras (& Lili Cabrera) - El Recreo Studios

 

Born: Santander, Spain
Working: Madrid
Medium: Digital 2D
Subject: Comedy, everyday modern life
Audience: Teenagers/ adults

Synopsis:
"Mr. Trance is an animated comedy series which pokes fun at those daily and universal situations we currently find ourselves in, from using social networks to following strict airport procedures or staying in shape at the hippest gym.

Mr. Trance is not an ordinary citizen. He wears a purple suit and looks like a stylish porcupine. Despite this, and like everyone else, he has to pay taxes, go grocery shopping or suffers from stress. But he has a secret weapon to escape from these situations: his amazing imagination."

Information from: 2013. Animation Magazine, 27(4/229).El Recreo Studio, 2013. Mr Trance. [online] Available at: http://mrtrance.com/origenes/?lang=en [Accessed 26 September 2013].

I like the bold, stylised look of the character, as he looks really modern. His design is simple with only key minimal details, but again there's a lot in his broad expression. His general design fits the concept perfectly, which seems quite refreshing - actual everyday problems. It seems like the formula for children's shows has been re-used but for adults. I'm a fan of when animation/ a concept is original, so the idea behind the show as well as the appearance of it appealed to me. Like the other practitioners' work that I chose, any animation with a strong style or concept is likely to engage me.

W1: Critical Perspectives

This blog records my Critical Perspectives/ Visual Culture module that I'm completing as part of my animation course. Notes from lectures and additional work will be posted to help to document the module.


We began in the first session with a general introduction to CP, which basically looks at cultural items and the meaning, whether this be historical, political, psychological etc, that they carry around with them. Our course is largely Euro-centric when it comes to the actual cultural items. Every viewer also has their own position and perception of a cultural item and this will be explored further in later sessions. The end outcome is this blog and an essay.