Sketchbook Club!

Animators! There is a new opportunity this Winter quarter -- Sketchbook Club! Grab your sketchbook and your favorite drawing supplies and join us every Wednesday afternoon at 5pm, in room 803 (the Solid Objects Lab on the 8th floor). We will draw from life and our imaginations, and I will give you challenges that you can work on throughout the week. 

Hang out with fellow animators and faculty, practice drawing, generate project ideas, and get into the best habit you can have besides brushing your teeth -- keeping a sketchbook! 

First meeting is January 9th, and every Wednesday following for Winter quarter. 

2012 Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation, Oct. 27-28

The 2012 Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation will be held Oct. 27-28. The opening program is at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington St., at 2 PM on Saturday Oct. 27. Festival guest Nancy Andrews will present her films at the 7 PM program on Saturday at DePaul in the Daley Building theater, 247 S. State St, and there will be two programs on Sunday at 1 PM and 4 PM at DePaul.

Eyeworks is a festival focusing on abstract animation and unconventional character animation. Festival programs showcase outstanding experimental animation of all sorts: classic films, new works and rare masterpieces. We have collected some really amazing short films this year, including some classic abstract films, some rarely-seen treasures, and some of the best new experimental work being made by animators today. We're especially excited about our festival guest, Nancy Andrews, who will be showing three of her beautiful puppet films on Saturday evening. And, DePaul's very own Jo Dery will have a piece showing on loop in the theater lobby throughout the weekend.

The full details on the festival, including showtimes, lineup of work, and tickets, are on the festival website: www.eyeworksfestival.com.

We would be thrilled if you would join us for the festival! No matter what kind of animation you like, I guarantee that you will see something unexpected, inspiring, hilarious, and amazing at Eyeworks.

Double Fine Art Director Scott Campbell visits Oct. 19

The CIM Visiting Artists Series is proud to present:

Scott Campbell

Painter, illustrator, comic artist, and Art Director at Double Fine Games

The DePaul School of Cinema & Interactive Media Visiting Artist Series is excited to announce our second guest for the Fall 2012 quarter, Scott Campbell. On Friday, October 19th, Campbell will present a program of his work, followed by a moderated conversation and question and answer session.  During the day he will conduct a participatory workshop in character design, so bring your sketchbooks.

Scott Campbell (Scott C)  is a maker of paintings, illustrations, comics, kid’s books and video games. He studied illustration at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, focusing on comic and children’s book illustration.  Soon after graduating, he began at Lucas Learning as concept artist on children’s video games.  Four years later, he joined Double Fine productions as Art Director on such games as the critically acclaimed Psychonauts and Brutal Legend.  Alongside this career in games, he has published numerous comics and created paintings that have appeared in galleries and publications around the world. Some of his most notable projects include theGREAT SHOWDOWNS series, “Igloo Head and Tree Head” series, Double Fine Action Comics, Hickee Comics, the children’s book’s Zombie In Love and East Dragon, West Dragon, and Psychonauts and Brutal Legend with Double Fine Productions. The book Amazing Everything: The Art of Scott Ccollects many of his paintings over the past few years. Scott lives in New York City.

You can find out more about Scott Campbell’s work on his website http://www.pyramidcar.com/

RSVP and invite your friends to the facebook event!: https://www.facebook.com/events/239646352827951/

Like the CIM Visiting Artist Series!  https://www.facebook.com/pages/DePaul-School-of-Cinema-Interactive-Media-Visiting-Artists-Series/169010999782858

Visiting Artist Talk

6pm Friday, Oct. 19th

DePaul CDM Theatre

14 E. Jackson - LL105

Open to the public

Character Design Workshop

2pm Friday, Oct. 19th - 243 S. Wabash - CDM 924

DePaul students and faculty only

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.

"Make It A Great Day" screening, Friday, September 28th

Join us this Friday, September 28, at 5:30pm in the CDM Theater, 14 East Jackson, for a very special screening of Assistant Professor Josh Jones' new film, Make It A Great Day. The film was written by fellow faculty member, Dan Klein, and worked on by a Project Bluelight team. Hooray for Josh! 

Animation Lodge, September 28, 4:30pm

The first meeting of the Animation Lodge will happen this Friday, September 28, at 4:30pm in room 708! Hope to run into you there!

Assistant Professor Alexander Stewart goes to Croatia

DePaul Animation would like to wish Alexander good luck as he heads to the 25FPS festival in Croatia this week! His short film, Crusts, is in competition. You can watch the trailer for the film here.

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:

Thanks Amy!

It was a full house for Amy Lockhart's screening and artist talk last week! She shared about 30 minutes of her animated films, as well as brought in some of the cut-out puppets used in production (pictured above).

You can watch Amy's film The Collagist below, a short piece based on the collages of artist Marc Bell.


The Collagist from Amy Lockhart on Vimeo.

Amy Lockhart visits DePaul Animation

Canadian artist and animator Amy Lockhart will screen works and give an artist talk today, Thursday, September 13, at 6:30pm in room 708 of the CDM building. Join us!

From Amy's film "Walk for Walk"

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.