Jamie Caliri isn’t an illustrator, animator or graphic artist, he’s the director of two of my favorite recent short animations.
If you haven’t seen Dragon, the wonderful, essentially wordless, animated ad for United Airlines in which a father tucks his son in bed and flies off on the back of a bird to meet with knights at a round table, defeat a fire-breathing dragon and bring home the rewards, you’ve missed the most beautiful 64 seconds of animated television in recent memory.
You can see the ad here on the United Airlines site, along with a fascinating “making of” video that shows how Caliri and his talented crew of artists, animators and artisans created animated magic out of stage sets and puppets that were essentially paper cut-outs.
There is a larger format version of the ad (worth it) here on Caliri’s site, as well as a comprehensive list of the creative team and some large production stills.
Caliri is also responsible for the end titles for Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, which was certainly the best part of that movie and one of the best short pieces of animation in several years.
I didn’t care that much for the movie (although the production design is nice), but I’ll pick up that DVD just for Caliri & company’s beautiful end titles.
Link via Drawn!
