Love, Death + Robots Vol 2: Ice

"Ice" is Robert Valley's animated vision of the short story written by Rich Larson which was produced by Passion-Pictures. Robs crew consists of a very small tight group of excellent artists and production staff. Just a really great bunch of people overall. Congrats to both Rob and Patricio on their Emmy Wins for this short.

Rob allocated the entire Bunk Sequence for me to animate. He supplies the animators with a tight layout drawing or two on average, and he also gives very clear direction of what he's looking for. This is a real blessing due to the tight scheduling that is happening more and more on these jobs. For the most part we have one pass at getting a shot acceptable, then its onto the next. 

For those of you curious on Roberts workflow pipeline, Check out his "ICE behind the scenes"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBUrCZZ0qgE 

This was the first shot I animated (below) and it was part of the Look Dev to develop an Ice texture. Andy McPherson did the other Look Dev shot. (Fletcher jumping up onto the top of the cleaning machine.) check out his Instagram. andymccollmcpherson

There were a few other shots I animated throughout here and there.

Shout out to Raymond Pang for the hand drawn FX animation and Martial Coulon for the blowing snow and machines. The pair of them are sorcerers. Also, the amazing group of animation assistants that tie down and fix the drawings to make them look beautiful.. Thank you.

Critical Distance

 This was a really great job to be apart of. The concept of utilizing the VR experience to educate people on the troubling situations for many animals living today I think is very proactive and productive. In this case its a visual story involving the difficulties Kiki and her pod or Orcas contend with off the west coast of North America. I've storyboarded 100s of commercials, and contributed boards to feature films here and there, but boarding for VR was a whole new challenging experience. Adam May and the whole Vision3 team who developed the project where an excellent bunch to work for.

Coca Cola: Delivery

This spot was produced years ago by Wild Brain studio with George Evelyn directing.  This was a fun job actually.  The early CGI sets and BGs were supplied from Wild brain. Each frame was printed out, pegged up and this is what we matched our hand drawn images to. This was done at Gammage Animation. The classic retro character design was enjoyable to draw and George E is just a great guy to work for. A couple of my shots: 

Chobani- Eat today, feed tomorrow

 A shot I did for The Line studio.

Ludwig van Beethoven 250 yrs

"There are and always will be thousands of princes, but there is only One Beethoven!" 

Another great quote by the Maestro: 

One clashes with stupidity of all kinds. And then how much money must be spent in advance! The way in which artists are treated is really scandalous. I am compelled to give a third of my receipts to the manager of the theatre and a fifth to the hospitals. Devil take them! As long as these abuses exist, I shall always ask whether music is or is not an art that may be freely exercised. Believe me, there is nothing to be done for artists in times like these.

24th November, 1814

LV Beethoven

Things will never change....

BELUSHI Documentary

Robert Valley strikes again designing and directing the animation for this documentary. I always enjoy working for Robert for numerous reasons,  but this was a particularly special job for me to be a part of. I grew up having a laugh from many of the comedians from this time period. So many of the old SNL and SCTV cast members are special for me. Learning more about John's life and struggles made his passing all the more tragic.

Rob allocated whole character sequences between Andy McPherson and myself. Here are a few of my shots: 

Andy and I split this shot- he animated young John

AMC Theatres Silence is Golden Soar Commercial

This commercial was produced at Yowza animation ages ago and directed by Elliot Bour & Saul Blinkoff. Dan Haskett did some designs I believe.  A couple of my shots.