Category: Animation

A pencil test is a step in the process of creating traditional (hand-drawn) animation in which the artist draws a sequence in pencil, which is then photographed and run as an animation. This allows animators to see, assess and, if necessary, adjust the crucial elements of motion and timing prior to creating the more elaborate…

Jeu (French for “game”) is an award-winning short (4 minute) animated film by Swiss filmmaker Georges Schwizgebel, by way of the National Film Board of Canada (top two frames above). In the tradition of Disney’s Fantasia, it’s visual interpretation of a piece of music, in this case fairly free-form and constantly changing and morphing. It…

I love the immediacy and visual charm of location sketching, in which quickly realized sketches can often carry more feeling of place and time than elaborate drawings. Canadian illustrator and animator Malcolm Sutherland has managed to capture, and animate, some that feeling of informal charm and casual rendering, along with a strong sense of “being…

The golden ratio, alternately known as the golden mean or the golden section, and often represented by the greek letter φ (phi); along with its relatives the golden rectangle, the golden spiral (a special type of logarithmic spiral) and the Fibonnacci sequence of numbers; are all associated with that shimmering twilight zone where mathematics, geometry,…

Wei Te – Mu di, or The Cowherd’s Flute, is a beautiful short animated film by Te Wei (Sheng Tewei) a master Chinese animator who died this month at the age of 95. Te Wei was a print cartoonist who was asked by the Chinese Ministry of Culture to establish an animation studio in 1949.…