Channel Frederator Blog

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