With an impressive 92% at RottenTomatoes.com, Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo seemed like a sure bet for an Oscar nomination this year, especially with 5 slots available (typically there’s 3). But it wasn’t meant to be this year, and Mihazaki will have to settle for his Annie Award nomination. The lavish 2D feature is now available on DVD, complete with a Behind the Studio featurette and an animatic presentation of the film. Here’s a clip illustrating Miyazaki’s pathway to production:

100% Halal director Rogier van der Zwaag moonlights as a DJ for the group Nobody Beats The Drum (along with Jori Collignon and Sjam Sjamsoedin). So it should be no surprise that he makes his own music videos, like this one below, titled Grindin’. And below that, check out the making of segment, which they shot at their studio in Amsterdam.

the making of:

In the run-up to the March 26th release of How to Train Your Dragon, DreamWorks Animation has released a number of behind-the-scenes interviews. Here’s an interesting one with Production Designer Kathy Altieri, who has worked on The Lion King, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid.

In this clip below, Simon Otto, the head of character animation on the upcoming How to Train Your Dragon feature, discusses how he approached his work on the film. The CG feature from DreamWorks Animation is in theaters on March 26, 2010.

To produce Wes Anderson’s stop-motion feature Fantastic Mr. Fox, a total of 29 film units were going at once at 3 Mills Studio in London. They used Stage C, where much of Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride was filmed. Animators on the film brought with them years of experience on other stop-motion features. Daniel Alderson worked on $9.99, Andy Biddle animated on Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and artists Brian Leif Hansen, Malcolm Lamont, Jens Jonathan Gulliksen, Anthony Farquhar-Smith and Peter Dodd (amongst others) all animated on Corpse Bride. Lastly, animation supervisor Mark Waring worked on Corpse Bride, so the easy answer to “Who Animated Fantastic Mr. Fox?” is – much of the crew from Corpse Bride.

Here’s some behind-the-scenes clips to give you an idea of how it’s pulled together:

Argentinian studio Hookup Animation produced this little behind-the-scenes video illustrating their compositing process. They insert a giant robot into some-live action footage. A complicated process, and the end result really delivers.

Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. is out on Blu-ray this week, and the Disney/Pixar team has released this recollection experience with director Pete Docter and some of his team.