“In the right hands, even a lackluster story can be told with such charm and verve that everyone in earshot will give it their attention. The ability to captivate and entertain has less to do with the words on a page, or the beats of a story, as with the performance itself..”

AWN – The Secret of Pixar Storytelling

More on storytelling from UpcomingPixar.

Part 1 – Introduction
Part 2 – Bugs Life
Part 3 – Toy Story 2
Part 4 – Monsters
Part 5 – Nemo
Part 6 – Incredibles

>> Part 7 – Cars << Just added

*update* I was just reading through some of the comments made on the above articles and the writer (Tyro) is getting pretty scrutinized for voicing constructive criticism on some of these films. I agree that these are all great films and it does seem like he’s coming down pretty hard on some of them, but grow up people! Nothing gets better from praise, criticism is what can make a difference. Even if you don’t agree with his over all opinion there’s still TONS to take away from these articles.

Upcoming Pixar has a great article on the formula behind the story of the Incredibles. Check it out for some great tips on story telling.

There’s some excellent action in this demo reel by TJ Phan. Great poses, weight, and timing.
http://tjphan.com/assets/multimedia/TJ_GameReel_2006_640.mov 

website:  http://tjphan.com

My coworker. This dudes reel cracks me up

Here is a really nice short directed by Alban Lelievre.

Love the snappy animation.

[youtube]EnlCz1P95WM[/youtube]

I just updated my Demo reel to include rendered shots of Paraworld. Other than that not much is different.  I posted a small 17mb quicktime and a larger 33mb version. Check it out and feel free to leave feedback. Thanks!

Tim Sormin over at Anim-o-holic pointed out this awesome tutorial by Victore Navone. “a 10 frame facial take, broken down frame-by-frame.”

Images from www.navone.org

Pendulum has updated the “recent” section of their website to include Paraworld and Mark Antony, as well as some nice screen shots.

Motion capture is something I generally want to avoid in my career as an animator, but I was excited to be involved in the development of the new Facial mocap software, Stretchmark©, that Michael is developing at Pendulum, in conjunction with House of Moves. In this project I got to use Stretchmark to push and pull points around on the characters face to exaggerate or correct the actors performance. The only things we animated from scratch were the eyes, tongue, shoulder pads, and the characters sword. Congrats to Michael, Brynn, Matt, Gina, Reed, and the rest of the guys who brought this to life.

Watch Mark Antony

“Peeking into Paraworld with the artists of Pendulum, Part 3″ has finally been posted on CG Society so be sure and check it out. The animation section of the artcle includes a behind the scenes video with myself and Emil Bidiuc. You must be a registered member to view them, so for my friend’s or family member’s that aren’t I’ll let you borrow mine (:

This was a huge project to work on, especially for only two animators fresh out of school. It was an amazing learning experience and has made my confidence as an animator even stronger.

Watch the trailer