Just like Buzz and Woody – this new trailer for Toy Story 3 is short but full of excitement. It’s the 2nd teaser for the upcoming film (June 18th), and we get an eyeful of dozens (hundreds?) of new characters debuting in this installment. The purple octopus seems like a prominent newcomer, and the green grasshopper (I think) also appears in a number of shots. At the end, they note that a full trailer arrives on February 11th (tomorrow).
One of the producers of 300, Bernie Goldmann, is behind a new CG feature effort helmed by Ben Hibon. It’s a zombie story, titled simply A.D.
You may recall Hibon’s Codehunters short, and below you can see a teaser for this project, which isn’t set-up as a feature… yet. More about the project over at Zombieinfo.com.
LAIKA animator Kyle Bell has assembled a second trailer for his CG short The Mouse That Soared, which was an official selection at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in 2009. Hopefully Bell will get the full 6-minute film up online here soon.
Director DC Turner has produced a 9-minute short film based on a beat poem by comedian Tim Minchin. Storm will be released soon, and the trailer is below. Fraser Davidson acted as the lead animator, and while some work was produced in Flash, it was primarily an After Effects production.
It appears as though the ad blitz for DreamWorks Animation’s upcoming CG feature, How to Train Your Dragon, has begun. We’re still 3 months out, but ass-loads of people are in the theaters now, so why not throw some trailers at ‘em, right? We get to see more character detail in this one, and I’m starting to think I’m going to really dislike the vocal performance of Jay Baruchel. He was great in Almost Famous, but his take on Hiccup (the lead character) feels downright dull.
This third trailer for Despicable Me, which is brought to you by Universal’s Illumination Entertainment, takes a far different approach from the first two. It’s a character highlight of the Minions that apparently uses animation produced just for this promotion. I like physical humor, and I think this might actually standout in theaters simply because of the spartan approach. The CG feature is due in theaters on July 3rd, 2010.
The year of the animated feature just keeps kicking ass. With 20 films competing for the animated Oscar prize, it bodes well for the future of the medium. And as the year comes to a close, yet another animated feature bows on the big screen. Panique Au Village (A Town Called Panic), which was an official selection at the Cannes Film Festival, opened in NYC on Wednesday, and if the 82% rating at RottenTomatoes.com is any indication, it will perform quite well in a wider release. The stop-motion Belgian film was the creation of Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar.
