D23, the official Disney fan club, has announced their members-only events happening in 2014. Of particular interest to our loyal readers and animation fans are the screenings of classic Disney animated films in the historic Studios Theater located on the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California.
In this special episode, Stanford and Marc interview visual effects artist Farhan Qureshi. He’s worked on everything from the Harry Potter films, to Batman Begins, and of course Aardman’s The Pirates: Band of Misfits.
Also Discussed: Farhan’s short films Digitopia: Discover Me, NitroDust and his book VFX and CG Survival Guide for Producers and Filmmakers, as well as the Oscar nominations for animation.
(Recorded on 01/19/14)
Although a major storm is affecting the eastern U.S. tonight, it’s not enough to withstand the Justice League! The premiere scheduled for this evening (Tuesday, January 21st) of Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment’s new animated film Justice League: War is still happening as scheduled. If you’re lucky enough to have received a ticket for the premiere at The Paley Center for Media in New York City, make sure to give yourself some extra time and to dress warmly.
Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment have been cranking out some compelling animated films for the home entertainment market. Coming in spring 2014 is the latest DC Universe Animated Original Movie entitled Son of Batman.
The Producers Guild of America (PGA) held their annual awards ceremony last weekend honoring the best producing work of the year.
DreamWorks Animation has a new character poster for their upcoming film How to Train Your Dragon 2. The poster features a more grown up Astrid (the sequel takes place five years after the original film ended), who in the film is voiced again by actress America Ferrera. The poster also features Astrid’s dragon Stormfly.
Pixar fans rejoice! It looks like the 2014 animation slate will not be Pixar-free after all. Pixar Animation Studios and ABC have released details on another Toy Story holiday TV special currently in production that will be broadcast in late 2014. This time, Pixar is putting the beloved Toy Story characters in a Christmas story entitled Toy Story That Time Forgot.
The 2014 Critics’ Choice Awards ceremony took place this week in Los Angeles. Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Frozen took home the award for Best Animated Film at the ceremony. “Let It Go” from Frozen took home the award for Best Song.
Craig McCracken’s Powerpuff Girls turn 15 this year and Cartoon Network is celebrating by premiering an all-new CG rendition of the butt-kicking trio. The popular cartoon, which ran for 78 episodes from 1998 until 2005, won many awards and surpassed corporate expectations for popularity and merchandise sales, is becoming a cult classic and the revamping should definitely suffice to add to the intrigue among tweens and youngsters.
The nominees were announced today for the 2014 Academy Awards. In the animation categories, five feature films and five short films were nominated (see below). Also, two songs from animated films have been nominated in the Original Song category: “Happy” from Despicable Me 2 and “Let It Go” from Frozen. And Pixar Animation Studios was snubbed again by not receiving any nominations for the great Monsters University and their beautiful short film The Blue Umbrella. Here are the animation nominees…
