Animation Insider Interview

Hiya,

I've been asked to do a little interview from those lovely chaps at Animation Insider.
The excellent site boasts numerous interviews with a plethora of extremely talented animation artists... A sure way to lose track of time while you're supposed to be making that deadline instead!

Pop over to the site which is headed by the excellent Mike Milo and follows this simple yet strong credos "Animation Insider’s goal is to focus on the blue collared worker of animation; the back bone of the industry. We want to focus on the people in the trenches who make the award winning stuff we love.  Basically if your job is or ever was associated in some way with animated movement, we want to interview you! Even if you’re a big famous hotshot you weren’t always and I’m sure you’ve got great stories to tell! We think everybody has stories to tell from the trenches of animation!"

Well said that man!

To read the interview in full follow this link
http://www.animationinsider.com/2012/11/christian-de-vita/

Enjoy

Frankenweenie storyboards part II

Here is one shot I was very happy to see in the movie as I originally storyboarded.

 The dead fish scene.

It's almost Zen in it's simplicity but this is what I like about storytelling, at times you don't have to have complicated camera moves, intricate and elaborate cuts and editing, you can go straight to the point and give the exact amount of information needed while keeping the gag as strong as possible.

I opted for a straight on, flat composition that framed the character within the fish tank, dead centre of screen. I imagined this composition to work well in 3D especially when combined with a gentle camera move, a Dolly out, passing several fish in the process, then easeing the camera to a stop when the punchline comes in.


You can see the shot at the head of this clip on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o70Q00K8Pcg

The following scene, with the dead fish experiment was storyboarded by the extremely talented (AND hard working!) Rob Stevenhagen, the head of story.

 Enjoy!

Frankenweenie storyboards

I guess with the film finally out I am able to post a few (very few!) storyboard panels from some of the scenes I worked on.

I have now had the leasure of seeing the completed film 3 times and for me it seems to get better with every viewing. At first I had to let go of my personal baggage I had with the film; my personal and work experiences. Then I had to let go of all the good ideas that were thrown around and storyboarded that never made it into the film (I always find this process hard, yet always keep in mind I work to aid the director in visualizing his story).

Finally I started seeing the film with fresh eyes, and really digging it for the spectacle it is: a beautifully animated, black & white, 3D horror movie for kids!

A proper little gem of a film.

These random panels are specifically from the third act, when all the monsters come to life and mayhem ensues.

It was great fun working on these sections of the film, coming up with ideas on how the experiments and transformations would work, brainstorming with the rest of the team on how we could kill off each monster.

We would discuss the several passages of the script that needed elaborating on then take our scenes and draw like crazy all the different ideas we came up with- sketching all the classical ways of killing vampires and werewolvesa and ghouls: garlic, silver, crosses, holy water. Then putting a comical or quirky spin on it.

It was also a great opportunity to rivisit all those classic horror films I grew up with back in Italy.

There were a few TV channels that would show old Universal horror films all the time (and plenty of westerns and Laurel & Hardy!) as well as other less classic ones: Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein, the Woflman vs. Dracula, Frankenstein meets the Wolfman, etc.

It was cool to learn that Tim's inspiration for this version of Frankenweenie came from the same pool of comedy infused horror films, so I got to revisit some of the films of my childhood, while claiming I was doing 'research'!

I was always lured by the darkness of these black and white films, a darkness so deep any monster could hide in it and suddenly seize you and drag you into it.
I always work in black and white, rarely with colour, and my monochrome palette was totally inspired working on this project.
I tended to work a quick rough pass of a scene in Storyboard Pro, then rework panels in Photoshop (CS3) using a variety of brushes to achieve some airbrush effects, wet paint effects and dry brush effect on particular areas of my drawings. I felt this helped get the moods right of some of the more dramatic and atmospheric scenes, especially with the transformations of the monsters.

A scene I most proud of was the 'scary' moment with the dead rat... It made my 8 year old son jump in his seat when we saw it together.
I won't spoil it by posting the board for it now, you'll just have to go see it at the cinema.
And if you do keep an eye out for one of my most succesfull jokes in any projects I ever work on... All I will say is 'SHELLEY'!

I hope you enjoy the film as much as we did working on it.

SLASH'S BADRAIN from pitch to video

 As promised here is the work progression of the BadRain music video project I directed for Slash's third single from his new album Apocalyptic Love, featuring Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators.

Immediately below is the pitch I sent to the label when approached with the project.Initially I was given as a brief a few elements Slash wanted to include: snakes, a sexy girl, tattoos and of course a top-hat.

I came up with a quick storyline which included these elements and explored a little concept I wanted to develop based on old horror comics such as Tales From The Crypt and Creepshow, in which some hapless character would eventually meet his doom in a twisted and gruesome way.

I tried to give a flavour of the concept in the pitch with some choice wording in the description and some images grabbed from the Internet, just painting the mood and atmosphere of my idea.

 I knew that with a 5 week production time I needed to hit the ground running so I immediately started sketching some ideas for shots in my sketchbook, visualizing the story.

These rough storyboards actually made it in the animatic as there was no time to do a clean version, so I storyboarded as I came up with ideas, feeding the first animators as soon as I could whilst at the same time briefing the designer on the initial character which we simply called 'The Dude'.

                                                                                                                                                                                    The Dude started his life as a quick ten second sketch done on the train on my way home, and immediately emailed to the designer Alban Rodriguez.

http://www.albanrodriguez.com/
        
Alban was akin to a small hurricane during the whole project, churning out design upon design of the many characters that populated the video.


We purposely kept the designs loose to allow the animators the time to start working on the scenes immediately, and also to have a certain freedom to explore their scenes and have fun with the animation.

The video had a total of 103 shots all of which needed hand painted backgrounds. These were done in Photoshop opting for a style which somewhat resembled the comic book look I was aiming for originally.
Lots of black, creating areas of darkness in every shot and reminding one of the dense black ink which permeates every panel of a horror comic.

On the backgrounds I had the help of the very talented and fast Yvan Roche who I worked with at TeamTo in Paris.

I also wanted the backgrounds to have a certain amoutn fo textures so we added layers of splattery, dry brush and inky brushstrokes to the colours and the shading, which seemed to go well with the heavy ink comicbook ink lines we were drawing in.     


You can still see the finished video on Youtube and other rockin' blogs!



ps. A funny sidestory is that in Italy many newspapers and blogs claimed the video was directed by Wes Anderson... Someone really got their facts wrong during the press release!

SLASH is back with awesome new animated video!!!

Hello all,

I wanted to share this with you all... My latest side project-
A fully hand drawn animated effort for Slash, featuring Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators.

Yes, I said Slash... Legendary guitarist of Guns & Roses!

I will post artwork, storyboards and designs of the project in the coming days, with a full list of the great and talented artists that helped me bring this little project for RoadRunner Records to your screens.

In the meantime I hope you enjoy my take on the classic horror comics of the late '70's and early '80's and the great rock tune that is 'Bad Rain'...

Enjoy!

The Art of Frankenweenie Exhibition

Ciao a tutti...

Walt Disney Studios announced that they are launching a touring exhibition featuring the art of Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, prior to the film's release on the 5th of October, 2012.

The Art of Frankenweenie exhibition will premiere in Barcelona, Spain, at CineEurope, June 18-21, and in the U.S. at Comic-Con 2012 in San Diego, California, July 11-15. When the tour is complete it will have visited seven countries, including Spain, France, England, Japan, Mexico, Canada and the U.S.A.

 The Art of Frankenweenie exhibition captures the magic of the filmmaking process, inspired by classic horror movie monsters, and gives audiences an exclusive glimpse into the stop-motion animation process brought to life by Tim.
From original sketches drawn by Burton, to extensive props, sets and puppets, the exhibition showcases the artistic detail and vision that has gone into bringing to the big screen this heartwarming little tale of a boy who, inspired by science and the love of his dog, brings his beloved pet back from the dead.

It was a great pleasure being involved in the creation of such a project. As one of the films' story artists I already witnessed some of the great artistry that has gone into designing and building the props, sets and puppets and can't wait to see this collection.

A clip presented by the lovely Alison Abbate, the film's producer, will give you a glimpse of what the exhibition contains.

Enjoy

clip: The Art Of Frankeweenie

'Moonrise Kingdom': Wes Anderson's animated take on the film's imaginary books -- EXCLUSIVE VIDEO

Ciao-

as promised here is the link to short film we help put together for the release of Moonrise Kingdom.

The film has been released today on Inside Movies online on Entertainment Weekly. 

I'm going to post some work in progress stills from the production of this project soon but in the meantime just enjoy the work of 5 talented animators (Giulia Barbera, Filippo Cigognini, Christian Kuntz, Jon Kristinsson, Klaus Gjoerup) who worked non stop for the meagre 2 weeks we had to pull off this short.

It was a pleasure putting together and supervising this team who tirelessly worked and reworked animation based on the illustrations given to us as design and style choices.

I hope you enjoy the product of these efforts.

Ciao

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/06/07/moonrise-kingdom-animation/

Wes Anderson announces animated short

Interviewed the other day Wes announced the broadcast of an animated short put together as a companion and promotional film for Moonrise Kingdom.

He told CoomingSoon.Net. “[The character of Suzy has] a suitcase full of these young adult fantasy type novels. Sort of sci-fi/fantasy books. We had to invent them and give a little glimpse of each one. Different artists, most of whom very close to the filmmakers, were doing these. In fact, we have now animated them, each little passage, each in the style of the cover of the book. We’ve made a little short film that’s hosted by Bob Balaban, the narrator in our movie. That will come out next week on the internet. It’ll be a little companion piece to the movie.”

It was with great pleasure that OneHandClapping put together a team of talented animators and in only 2 weeks produced the 5 animation shorts for this little project.

I'll post the link to the short film as soon at it is released.

ciao!

Christian DeVita lecture at the Golden Kuker Festival in Sofia...

Christian DeVita lecture at the Golden Kuker Festival in Sofia...

I've been kindly invited to deliver a lecture at this years' issue of the International Animation Film Festival, the Golden Kuker, Bulgaria on the 17th of June.

http://animationfest-bg.eu/en/masterclass

Only in it's 3rd year the event attracts many industry professionals of note and this year I'm excited to see Phil Mulloy on the list of artist giving masterclasses.
From his Cowboys series to his mosr recent series The Christies, Mulloys' satirical, grotesque, dark cartoons never fail to tickle me.
I look forward to seeing his masterclass and to attending this event.

If you happen to pop by and enjoy some quality animation come say hi and share a beer in the sun!

ciao

WES ANDERSON animated ad now ONLINE!

As promised here is the link for Sony Xperia commercial, a charming and wondefully animated stop-motion short featuring some of the talents behind Fantastic Mr Fox, with Wes Anderson at the helm.

And here are some of the boards I did for the project.
This is about a third of the panels produced as the animatic needed several poses per character in order to time the actions and cuts accurately, as Wes usual attention to detail required.
I started the storyboards directly in ToonBooms' Storyboard Pro, as I received a couple of thumbnails from Wes (see image at the very bottom) and several notes on what was required.
I worked remotely from the rest of the team so there was a lot of back and forth by email, skype, phone conversations and texts.
The storyboards were mostly done at night, over a week, as I was working on the Cartoon Network series for TeamTo, with some tweaks and adjustments done over a weekend in order to get a cut of the animatic to the client for a Monday morning delivery.

Hope you enjoy the animation!

WES ANDERSON directs Sony Xperia ad

The 24th of March sees the launch of the new Sony Xperia campaign, and although I have little interest in this brand of mobile phones, I am quite excited by this commercial as it's a return of sorts of Wes to the beautifully handcrafted animation that made Fantastic Mr Fox so unique.

more info on the Xperia Blog

Along with myself (storyboards of course) Wes gathered around himself key members of the Fox team to produce what looks to be a wonderfully charming work.
In Portland, with animators from Laika, Mark Gustafson, animation director, and Nelson Lowry, art director, helped  bring Wes' vision to the small screen, the first from Sony of their new campaign 'Made For The Imagination'.

I'll post the ad once it is on general release along with the storyboards from concept to completion.

In the meantime enjoy this little teaser which has a wonderful track by Icelandic Jonsi from Sigur Ros.

a small tribute to a grand artist

Last week, on the 10 of March 2012, French comic artist and legend Jean Giraud passed away.
He was known to a multitude of fans as Moebius, or Gir, and will always be one of my greatest inspirations.

As a child my first comic book love was Westerns, very popular in Italy from the '50's on, and although I was a fan of Tex Willer I came to read the Blueberry series around this time.
I came to love Moebius' style, which seemed to vary from comic to comic, as he dramatically changed his graphic style as he implemented innovations to his techniques.
I was very taken though by his surreal, sci-fi and fantasy comics, influenced by his experimenting with drugs and New Age philosophies, and his works were amongst the first to inspire me to follow a path into any form of drawn art work.

It is because of great artists such as Moebius that I wanted to draw, to have a career in comics, animation, films, and for this I pay my respects to the man who, through his marvellous creations, gave me so much pleasure in my youth, and still does today.

I raise a glass of vin rouge to the great Jean Giraud and clumsily offer this pastiche of a Moebius inspired sketch to him.

FRANKENWEENIE TRAILER finally out!

Hello all,

the first Frankenweenie trailer is finally out.
A day after Disney posted online the teaser poster with release dates for the movie, the trailer finally hit YouTube and other sites.

Out on the 5th of October Frankeweenie will be Tim Burton's return to stop-motion and I can't wait to see the final cut since it's been a few months now since I done working on its storyboards.

see the trailer here

FRANKENWEENIE

As soon as it's possible (and the Disney big chiefs allow) I shall post some storyboards from the movie.

Enjoy


All images and videos are Copyright © 2012 Walt Disney Pictures, Tim Burton Productions and Tim Burton Animation Co.

... And now the AWARD winning GS Junior 454 campaign!

Just as I come back from another 2 weeks teaching at the wonderful Viborg animation workshop in Denmark I'm informed that the B-Movie style shorts made for TBWA London have now become Award Winning B-Movie shorts made for TBWA London.

Best Digital Campaign 2012

I never knew the pharmaceutical marketing industry had an award ceremony for its advertising, but apparently they do. As do the society for milkmen and cream delivery services, cowbell manufacturers of England and Welcome rugs and matts weavers and makers!


There's an award for everything these days but this one I am most proudest of, and I can honestly say that I say that all the time, so there you have it.

Off to polish my cow-bells.