MAYDAY!

It's that time again, animators!

Save the date! Gather your supplies! (Pencil, Paper, Cintiq, Chipotle, etc.) More details to follow!

MAYDAY!
Friday, April 26 - Sunday, April 28

Below are some photos of last year's MAYDAY!

Animation Capstone Voice Actor Session

Students from the Animation Capstone worked with some amazing voice actors to provide voices for their films. Some incredible voices were coming out of that booth, and these characters really came to life!


Iain Collins at the mixing board.


Actor Tom Taylorson in the booth.


Megan Hanson gives direction to her actor.

Self-portrait Films

Here are some great examples of self-portrait films made in my Production I class this winter, from Michelle Verceles and Taylor Harrington.

Gravity! Gravity! Gravity! Oh, and Entropy! by Molly McCandless

Molly McCandless (BA '12) just posted her stop-motion animation "Gravity! Gravity! Gravity! Oh, and Entropy!" online. If you saw this at the Capstone screening last year, you'll remember that it's a totally unique film that deserves to be seen more than once. If you didn't see it, please watch immediately! Bravo to Molly for such an ambitious, fun, inspiring, and wonderfully weird animation.

Two-Week Projects - Fall 2012

The Animation Production II class had the assignment to make an entire short piece in two weeks. We started by pulling scenarios from a hat, and hit the ground running. A few pieces are below, and you can see more pieces on our class Vimeo page.

Strike by Jonathan Karavas:
A Thief in the Night by Ben Conrad:
Mine-Eee-Ay-Tour by Marc Walls:

And the winner is...

Last week's Senior Capstone screening was a big success, with friends and family cheering on the accomplished filmmakers in a full CDM theater. The faculty wanted to recognize the outstanding capstone projects so we handed out a number of awards, as well as polled the audience about their favorite film. Here are the results and a few pics of the proud filmmakers! 


Faculty Award: Doublington's Disorder by Michael Tran


Below: Michael with his award, a half-lumberjack/half-werewolf stuffed doll! 





Audience Choice: (tie) Doublington's Disorder by Michael Tran and Gravity! Gravity! Gravity! Oh, and Entropy! by Molly McCandless


Audience Choice, 2nd place: The Golfer and the Goose by Andrez Aguayo and David Johnson


The "Up All Night" award (recognizing the most hours spent on a film): Gravity! Gravity! Gravity! Oh, and Entropy! by Molly McCandless


Below: Molly with her prize, a token for a free cup of coffee! 




The "Most Punk" award (recognizing the most raw animation): The Hour of the Wolf by Frank Shuford 


Below: Frank with his award, a yo-yo! 




The "Future Blockbuster" award (recognizing great production values): The Golfer and the Goose by Andrez Aguayo and David Johnson


"Best film from and Engaged Couple" (recognizing exemplary team-work): The Axius Trials by Alex Keller and AJ Klingelhoffer

"Best Poop Joke in a Film" (recognizing great character design!): Hometree Nursing by Alex Dejak & Alex Bull

Below: Alex and Alex and their trophy, a giant pencil! 

The "Wiggly Belly" award (recognizing great exaggerated animation): A Miniature Matter by Sarah Feldman

The "Cute Overload" award (recognizing  a too-cute film!): Teddy by Margaret Orr

The "Miniature Epic" award (recognizing the shortest saga): Shattered World by Trevor Kettelkamp 

Below: Trevor with his award, a light-up bouncy ball! 

Dystopia Project by Cara Jones

This Spring in Storyboarding and Narrative Development, the students were asked to set their final projects in either a dystopic or utopic society. Below is Cara Jones' vision of a treetop civilization trying to survive -- against a flood of zombies!


This is a fitting project to share today, as we all learned of the death of famed science fiction writer, Ray Bradbury. More on Bradbury's contributions to the field of animation here, in this Cartoon Brew post.

Fatal Vittles

The Animation program is proud to announce the completion of Assistant Professor Devin Bell's Fatal Vittles, which was produced with the help of a student crew as a Project Bluelight. 

Below are some stills from the film, which premiered to an audience of faculty, staff, students, family, and friends just last week at the CDM Theater on Jackson Street! 

Congratulations Devin! We are all very proud of you and your students! Bravo! 

Be sure to look for Fatal Vittles at a film festival near you! 

Premiere 7 at the Music Box Theater

We'd like to invite you to Premiere 7, this Friday, June 1st, at 7.00pm at the Music Box Theatre in Lakeview! This year we received over 100 amazing submissions, and we have chosen a 90 minute line-up of our students' best work in live action, animation, documentary, and music video. There will be an intermission between the two acts, as well as a short awards ceremony following the show.  Celebrity judges include Irvine Welsh, John McNaughton, Jon Shestack, Pam Thomas, Michael McCarthy, Steve Jones, and Tommy O'Haver. After the event, Mystic Celt is hosting a party for all guests 21 and older. Just bring your program for drink specials in a private area reserved just for DePaul. Tickets are available either at the cage on the 9th floor of CDM, or there is a stack at the 4th floor reception desk (please take only what you need.) We really hope to see you at this celebration of our students' work!

MAYDAY! 2012

Here it is folks! The MAYDAY! 2012 reel of films -- made in one crazy weekend! First, our students offered themes, and then we all voted on the suggestions. "Casual Doomsday" was the clear winner, and with that -- we were off! Animating our brains out for the next two days! There was pizza, there were energy drinks, there was a fog that settled in the computer lab... And when it was over, there were these glorious animations!

 

The MAYDAY! 2012 participants, including our cohorts in Mexico, on screen via Skype!

Here are some pics of the students at work:

Even faculty member Lisa Barcy stayed up all night animating a psychedelic puppet disco! 

MAYDAY!

It's that time of year again, birds are singing, flowers are blooming...and animators will soon be sleep-deprived! 

That's right -- time for DePaul Animation's 2nd Annual MAYDAY! event.

In conjunction with our student group, the Animation Lodge, we’re again hosting an all-weekend long group animation project. MAYDAY! is a fun, educational, and exhausting endurance test that also gives everyone a chance to hang out and get to know each other.

Students, alumni and faculty will join together for 44 hours, working from 6pm Friday night through 2pm Sunday afternoon (but you don’t have to stay at school the entire time -- and you can work from home as well).  Remember, MAYDAY! is NOT a contest but a creative social event, so don't miss out! 

The schedule for MAYDAY! 2012:

6pm Friday, April 27: KICK-OFF!  We’ll meet in room 924 to introduce ourselves and choose a THEME.  Then we’ll animate. You can work on projects as groups or as individuals, in whatever medium you choose.

9am Saturday, April 28: breakfast

6pm Saturday, April 28: dinner

9am Sunday, April 29: breakfast

2pm Sunday, April 29: wrap-up

In order to participate, you need to RSVP Meghann Artes, at martes@cdm.depaul.edu  In order to plan for food and building security, let us know when you plan to be around (which night(s) you’ll stay over* and which meals you’ll be here for). *A word of advice: If you want to take naps, remember to bring a sleeping bag! 

The Gift

As a final project in the Animation Graduate Seminar, everyone was asked to pick one thing that resonated with them from the material covered and make an animation based on it. I was extremely pleased to see such a great variety of influences and approaches, so I will be posting several projects throughout the month of December. Enjoy!

Lisa

1. Christal Charlery's "The Gift" (This is all your fault, Devin.)

Esthesia

Esthesia by Kyle Sullivan (Animation BA, 2010)

Experimental Animation: Found Object Project

There's some insanity going on in ANI356, the Experimental Animation class, this quarter. Here's a couple of pieces from the Found Object project, where we all collected fifty objects and animated them using replacement animation.

Ben Austin:

Katie Kapuza:

it's not about breakfast

it's not about breakfast by Dan Wilson (Animation BS, 2010)

Neat Meat

Neat Meat by Kevin Eskew (Animation BA, 2011)