Channel Frederator Blog

VFX artist Brandon Riza’s time lapse of the LA fires would be absolutely gorgeous - if it wasn’t so frakkin’ terrifying. The fires are zero percent contained and spreading… well, like wildfire. They can be seen from space.

-Bailee DesRocher

The stop motion fantasy feature Coraline will be released February 6, 2009. Directed by Henry Selick, based upon the Neil Gaiman book, produced by Laika (formerly Will Vinton Studios), this promises to be an oddball animation classic.

It’s got a super solid voice cast that includes Dakota Fanning, John Hodgman, and Jennifer Saunders. And music by They Might Be Giants.

How much talent can you stuff into one animated film?

Anyway, a slew of sneak peek material has recently been released to the net. I thought it would be a good idea to round up the links for you:

Coraline photo gallery from LA Times

Sneak peek videos from Rotten Tomatoes

Oregonian article.

Image Gallery from IGN

Video gallery from IGN

Shock Til You Drop set visit and Selick interview

Original sculpted models for the movie displayed at Comicon here.

And a fun flashback: Selick’s Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions (1990) for MTV:

—Anne D. Bernstein

You have to see this to believe it. It is hard to explain without ruining it. If you are a YouTube user (and who isn’t), then you will want to watch this.

The marketing people at Nintendo knocked this one out of the park.

-Floyd Bishop

Minuscule is a series of buzzworthy animated shorts from France that explore the itty bitty world of insects. The creators describe it as “a cross between Tex Avery and Microcosmos.” Created by Thomas Szabo and Hélène Giraud, Minuscule shorts have aired erratically on Toon Disney in the United States.

Their techinique is a seamless combination of 3-D animation and live action footage. You can view a large selection of Minuscule videos on this YouTube page. Here’s the official website.

Tease yourself with this trailer for the DVD release. (Don’t bug out, but so far, it is only available as a set of Region-2 DVDs, so unless you have a fancy dancy Euro DVD player, you’re out of luck!)

—Anne D. Bernstein

Isn’t this wild?

It’s Emily Gobeille and Theodore Watson’s Funky Forest, an “immersive interactive ecosystem for young children.” Kids can use their bodies to grow trees, water them, and attract creatures to the forest environment.

Funky Forest premiered at the 2007 Cinekid festival in the Netherlands.

More info here. Or watch this video which shows how kids interact with the glowing animated environment.

Gobeille and Waston (along with “polymer artist” Meredith Dittmar) recently had a show at Brooklyn’s Riveria Gallery. The show was called “Biome” and the Flckr set is here. Lovely image on the jump… [Read more…]

Stan Winston, special fx, creature and make-up artist has passed away after a seven-year battle with myeloma. He was 62.

Stan’s work included such movie creatures as the Terminator, the practical dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park series, and special effects in “Iron Man”.

There is no word yet as to what will happen with Stan Winston Studio, which has been hard at work on several upcoming films.

-Floyd Bishop