The aniBoom Awards 2008 have officially announced the big winner – it’s Joaquin Baldwin for his CGI short Sebastians Voodoo. Baldwin, who originally hails from Paraguay, has been studying at the UCLA Animation Workshop, and had already seen one of his films become a finalist at the Cannes Film Festival. Have a watch:
For their final project at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Alon Boroda and Ron Nadel created this 7-minute CGI film titled Golem. A golem is a fictional character popular in Israeli literature and film (as well as in Czech), and it’s most common form is that of a clay. They are often cast as servants and carry parchment incantations in their mouths. In this dialog-free film, a young girl named Romi awakens a golem and discovers a friend. Nadel has also uploaded sevaral images from the production over at Flickr.
I also really enjoyed Nadel’s film Thin Ice, which he made along with Damon Lavinsky.
Love Bug is a short CGI film about the consequences of cyber love. It was made by 6 students at the Vancouver-based Capilano University Digital Animation – and produced in 3 weeks. The crew included Ran Kim, Kevin Little, Igor Ramade, Hayley Brock, Steve Oh and Zhenwei Huang.
Si Vis Bellum is a 6-minute CGI film directed by Benjamin Basso-Bert, Victor Gornes, Rudy Laplasse and Laurent Tollard – French students at Ecole Supérieure des Métiers Artistiques or ESMA. It’s a curious film, dealing with topics of war, intervention and the trivial nature of our differences. The title is derived from the Latin phrase “Si vis pacem, para bellum” which translates to “If you want peace, prepare for war.”
To go along with the Gobelins theme a few of my fellow contributors have already posted about, have a look at Passion Ski, another film that came out of the French film school this year. Each year I look forward to seeing the Gobelins films, because it is generally, in my opinion, some of the most technically sound student work I have ever seen – in any format; 2D, 3D or stopmotion. And this particular film, about an alpine ski aficionado who dreams of international fame, carries the typical design sense that seems common among a number of Gobelins students year after year. While I admit that I would have much rather seen this done in 2D for a number of reasons, the films creators, Jean-Nicolas Arnoux , Quentin Bailleux, Antonin Herveet , Tom Haugomat and Célia Riviere, certainly don’t disappoint in showing off some of their animation skills.
The entire film can be seen at the Gobelins website, and note that this may not be suitable for work as there is some brief nudity. And here you can see the making of:
Also, if you are unfamiliar with some of the work that comes out of Gobelins, check out some of the past year’s student work by scrolling to the bottom of the animation gallery page.
Après la pluie (After the rain) is a film by Emmanuelle Walker, Manuel Tanon-Tchi, Sébastien Vovau, Charles-André Lefebvre and Louis Tardivier. The short was produced at The Gobelins School of Visual Communication. You can see the full film at the Gobelins website, but don’t miss this great making-of video below:
