To My Friends

Hello, so if you are a follower of this blog and/or website I would like to inform you that I've done some site modifications, mostly internal. But if you were subscribing to this blog via the rss or atom feed then the changes I've made will affect you. So if you still wish to subscribe to this feed, go directly to torlandomileshakes.com and click on the subscription buttons or click on this link if you sub with bloglines.
Thank you and I hope you continue to enjoy my bloggin.

Bowerbirds - In Our Talons

Bowerbirds "In Our Talons" from Alan Poon on Vimeo.

Animation directed by Alan Poon. Mmmmm...nature

Vegeterrible

Vegeterrible from Henrik Sønniksen on Vimeo.

Yar-e Dabestani-e Man

This is an animation made by an artist named Simon Ampel who is one of the cofounders of Aquifer Films, based in Brooklyn. Their website is one of the coolest, cleanest flash sites I've ever seen. Its pretty awesome. Check out the show reel.

The above animation is pretty cool too. Its based on the growing student movement in Iran against authoritarian regime. I thought it was real pretty and somewhat hopeful considering Iran's new "nuclear statehood".

From what I understand the animation was done in a program called TVpaint which may be a paperless studio and then it was colored in Animo. I've heard of Animo being pretty cool but this is the first I've heard of Tvpaint. Ok strike that, TVpaint is sort of a sister program to Mirage which is a french made program that I hear is really good about imitating a paper system. For example they have a series of papers that you can choose from and when you use a wacom tablet the pen strokes will react to the grain of the paper template you've chosen. So, pretty cool.

Happy Valentimes!

Te Wei (1915-2010)

So this is a repost from Cartoon Brew:

"The master of Chinese animation, Te Wei (Sheng Tewei), has passed away at age 95.

Te Wei, a pioneering animator and cartoonist, was one of the founding fathers of the Shanghai Animation Studio. His most significant film of the 1950s was The Conceited General, which I’ve embed below:

In the 1960s his animation style was influenced by the painter Qi Baishi. His 1963 mastepiece, The Cowboy’s Flute (Part 1 below), is one of the most beautiful films from China - or anywhere."

Get Out

Get Out
by Esma-Movie

This is a cute little number from Charlotte Boisson, Julien Fourvel, Pascal Han-Kwan, Tristan Reinarz and Fanny Roche, with a score by Guilhem Rosa, students at the Ecole Supérieure des Métiers Artistiques in Montpellier and Toulouse. What a beautiful world they've created that we all get to enter through the door and explore.

2D 3D aaaannnnnd puppets

Pssst...The End from Buck on Vimeo.

Jingles

Some of you may remember that jingle just fine, but I didn't exactly have the pleasure of being born yet, but I did have a calendar which in the 7th month of the year had the words to this jingle, which I STILL have memorized.

The Middle East - Blood

The Road Painting by DUSTIN NGUYEN

Movie was so good.

Here's me and scott's spoof.

SCOTT AND TORLANDO - "Let's Sleep On It" movie challenge from Cob Job on Vimeo.

In a world much like our own. Two humans must find rest from those out to get them.

Ryan

Ryan This Oscar®-winning animated short from Chris Landreth is based on the life of Ryan Larkin, a Canadian animator who, 30 years ago, produced some of the most influential animated films of his time. Ryan is living every artist's worst nightmare - having lost his ability to create and succumbing to addiction, he panhandles on the streets to make ends meet. Through the use of computer-generated characters, Landreth interviews his friend and colleague in an effort to shed light on his downward spiral. Some strong language. Viewer discretion is advised. http://www.nfb.ca/film/ryan

Fot with Rhys Darby

FOT part 2 from alex dron on Vimeo.

A cool little web diddy with Rhys Darby. I found this one not laugh out loud funny but lol funny if that makes sense. If you want to see all for you can go to the site but they are all pretty consistently dry.

The Dot and the Line

old school animation from the last century joe.

The Stormy Petrel (2004) by Alexei Turkus

I was talking to my roommate this morning about other languages and he and I both speak multiple languages which, without boasting of myself, is somewhat uncommon in America. This, I think, is a well known criticism of our country, which is fine. To be quite honest, I love my second language, but I don't have a pressing need to use it, which is a shame because, Spanish, my second language, is a beautiful language. It's much more intelligent than we give credit for.

Anyways, in our discussion I said that Japanese is a really fun language to learn. (I should note that Japanese is his second language.) And we talked about how epic it is to hear "ski des" which roughly means "I love you" in a movie and how hilariously moving a moment like that is in japanese movies. Then he said something sort of interesting, he said "Japanese is like legos the way that it works" Meaning that while some of the romance languages may be more like painting or something like that, Japanese is like legos, one not being superior to the other, just different mediums and different interests.

Then I watched the above short film and started thinking about why this is so fascinating to me when I should be frustrated that I have to pay attention to the subtitles and miss some of the cleverness of the animation. And it dawned on me that even though I don't know russian, for me as an American, there is a weight that the language carries. I don't know if its the sort of weight or brand that is inherent in the culture or my own past experiences or just the cultural projections that America has produced through its media. What can I say? Its an intense language. The last russian house I was in, and this is true, the last russian house I was in the whole family could not speak to each other without yelling! The only english between the family was when the teenage son would say out of exasperation: "whatever". So I'm not generalizing and saying that all russian house hold are this way, it just happens to be the American perspective.

With other languages there are varying generalizations and perceptions that we as Americans project on to the entire people of a certain language and some languages are more versatile than others. I think most people associate french with being romantic and all that. Spanish has can be very seductive but on the other hand there are clint eastwood movies that make it sound really despicable. And Japanese sounds like legos, this all is very intuitive according to the American perspective. English from what I hear is a very "cool" sounding language. I've heard people who speak English as a second language say they feel "cool" when speaking it. This may be when thinking of american english, where as UK english we find very elegant and proper for the most part.

So I wonder about using language, under the American perspective as a tool for animations and films. What do we use them for? If we do use them, what does it seem like the purpose is to someone who has the language as their first language? They must have a different experience. I know that when I watch a movie like Vicky Christine Barcelona, I have a different view of the movie because I understood. When Penelope Cruz is trying to get the gun back and says "Dame la pistola, dame la pistola, que me des la pistola!" she says "Give me the gun, give me the gun, give me the gun!" But you see the third time, in spanish its different, but in English its the same because the spanish is using a tense that we don't really use in english. When she says, the third time "que me des la pistola" she is putting the phrase in subjunctive form, which makes the phrasing very strong, to the point of a beg but still being a command. With her language she is pushing her will onto his.

I have no real point here. But I think its interesting that for someone who doesn't understand the language they are viewing, words become even more abstract than they already are. A word is the most abstract descriptor that some how is the most concrete. If I say the word "tree" you know what I'm talking about. I don't need to show you a picture or paint you a picture unless you are severely autistic. Not only do you know what I am talking about, you also know everything that I am not talking about. I cannot assign the word "tree" to an object that is actually a dog, unless its his name. I say "tree" and you understand, I say "albero" you might not. You may be able to deduce that it is the spanish word for tree, but that is because I've told you I speak spanish and you trust me. Now if you also know spanish you may be thinking, he means arbol is the spanish word for tree, I don't know where he got albero. I got it from italian. Abstract things these words are. There is meaning in them, the form is a matter of subcontext.

Best thing I've seen all year. 1000 Voices

Ctrl.Alt.Shift Film Competition Winner: 1000 Voices from Ctrl.Alt.Shift on Vimeo.

Ctrl.Alt.Shift is a movement for a new generation fighting social and global injustice. These films were made by members of the community to raise awareness of issues they care about.

Writer and Director: Tim Travers Hawkins
Mentor: Chris Harding (Shynola)
Music: Jesca Hoop
Voice of Bureaucrat: Adam Buxton

A verbose and politically correct bureaucrat gives a lecture to a group of teenagers on the merits of the UK's efficient and humane asylum system, whilst meanwhile, in the same building, detainees, imprisoned indefinitely in different 'Removal Centres' across the UK, leave messages in vain on an abandoned telephone answering machine in the ministry basement. Their messages detail the horror of the life that they have escaped due to conflict.

Check out the Ctrl.Alt.Shift website here: www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk

Light Forms - Malcolm Sutherland

Light Forms from Malcolm Sutherland on Vimeo.

A short experimental floaty & aimless animation by Malcolm Sutherland in 2010.
Soundtrack is also made by Malcolm Sutherland.
Looks best in fullscreen HD

Moon Boy

Moonboy from MoreFrames on Vimeo.

A short film about a boy who wishes for better things.

Michael Lierly

This dude, Michael Lierly, is a cool dude. He lives in the same town as I do, Bloomington, and is a really awesome artist. I first met him as a freshman at IU. To clarify I was a freshman and he was a grad student. And I was taking one of the fundamental classes and my instructor couldn't make the class so he asked mike if he would fill in for him. And I used to have this thing where I wanted to know if the instructor teaching me was sweet or not so I asked him: what do you do? and he said, I draw. and I said are you sweet and he humbly replied, 'yes'. That's sort of when I knew. So the other day I was in the art supply store picking up a drawrin' book and we did a website swap and I was sort of blown away by the images on his site, so people should check him out for sure. Link

Tomer Hanuka

tomer hanuka is an illustrator and cartoonist based in new york. I recognized his work from the movie Waltz with Bashir which blew me away. I can always vibe with an illustrator where you can tell the clients are going to him for what he does and not just looking for someone who can design the clients vision. Not sure if that is really special or uncommon, but I can vibe with it.

My lastest work called Play Things.

Play Things from Torlando Hakes on Vimeo.