Animated Inspiration: Simon's Cat 'Hot Spot'

Well, for Tuesday's animation, since I'll be at a stop-motion animation workshop this weekend, I was going to show a Red & Blue clay animation from Misseri Studios. But instead, to celebrate the release of the first "Simon's Cat" book, here's the latest short from British animator Simon Tofield: Hot Spot.

Animated Inspiration: Caua

As it's Tuesday, I've got two animation DVD notices: 1. the latest Wallace and Gromit film "A Matter of Loaf and Death" has been released. 2. "The Battle for Terra" is also out on DVD. If you missed this one in the theatre, you owe it to yourself to watch this independant animated feature film! Oh, and here's a cute short from Brazil for all of you environmentally-conscious swimmers who recycle. :)

Animated Inspiration: Mio Mao - The Kingfisher

Here's one for all of you with pre-schoolers: Italy's Misseri Studio has revived the 1970's series 'Mio Mao' for a second time and are posting these stop-motion shorts online.

Animated Inspiration...

Starting in September, I've started posting links to animations on my Facebook page for all my friends to watch. What I'd like to do here is link to the same animation, but also do a little critique as to why I find that particular film inspiring. Even though we learn more from our mistakes than from our successes, I'd like to keep this critique positive, since it's "our mistakes" that we learn more from. Not that we can't learn from other's mistakes, but there's a fine line between constructive criticism and just bashing someone else's work. There's a lot of animated film that I simply don't like. But even then, having made several animated films myself, I can appreciate all the hard work and determination that it takes to get an animation from initial idea to that final edit where you say "that's it". Even if I don't like the end product, I hope that, when all is said and done, I'm still a big enough person to say: 'you put a lot of work into this film and I respect that you finished it when you could've said "this is too hard, I'm going to go sell insurance instead".'

Food for thought...

And then there's this Animation World Network article discussing the French Animation scene.