I want to drop on my knees ....

...to worship and praise these drawings. They're pure genius, Nicolas is a true master !



Can't tell you how much I pity, that most of their appeal gets lost in CG. What a shame, I want to see these DRAWINGS move. I know what the texture of this little fellow feels like, I can feel his shell, his skin,his weight, his character, his thoughts, I even hear his voice ( His true voice, not that of a celebrity) - IN THE DRAWING! MUCH MORE THAN IN THE CG-VERSION !!!!! Strange Phenomenon, but thats the way it is ....Give me Asterix, give me Bambi 2, don't mind the story, just show me more of the ARTISTRY of the moving DRAWING...at least once in a while !

These crazy Dutch kids ....

are singing the theme song to our TV Series "Alfred J Kwak" ...



Is there a doctor in this blog ?

More Horst Schlämmer

Work in Progress

Preparing a drawing for Unicef, the Ambassador-thing, we talked about it, remember ?
Don't know, when I will find time to do the clean-up, hope to get a chance before Annecy, anyway, in the meantime here are some sketches....

Bayern's Problembär oder Time for a Cartoon

With Edmund Stoiber as "The Ranger".

Caricatures

Uli Meyer's entry made me dig for my own meagre attemps to draw Hitch. I think this is a repost , but anyway....
The other one is Günther Jauch, you can search in vain for any likeness in today's previous entry ( the filmclip)...

Weil ich doch immer so über's Fernsehen schimpfe...

...from yesterday's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"-Celebrity-special.
TV has it's good moments, too, and Horst Schlämmer is one of it's finest.

Alle Achtung...

...vor soviel Körperbeherrschung ! Den Spagat muss man erstmal hinkriegen : Vom Warner zum Werbeträger des ehemaligen Feindbildes, und das mit ein und demselben Spruch. Ich hoffe, mir auf meine alten Tage genausoviel Prinzipientreue erhalten zu können, ich fürchte jedoch, dass ich zu denen gehören werde, die für Geld alles machen.

Enchanted

Half a year ago I did some quick previs-sketches for Kevin Lima's "Enchanted" . This morning I found the first pics on the WWW ( link above), which is a completly new sensation for me, real humans not cartoons, wow !!!!!
I'll show you some of my sketches , as soon as the movie will be shown in your local cineplex.
Until then....

Time Out !

...packing my suitcase this very moment.

Another DW-trailer* Another Burpjoke ...oder Bäuerchenwitze und kein Ende

I had pretty much the same reaction to it.

Special Bulletin*Extrablatt*Laatste Nieuws

Unicef Austria just decided in its wisdom, as Herman puts it, to proclaim Alfred J. Kwak their honorary member and new ambassador for children rights. Can't tell you how proud I am . A drawing will follow soon. I first heard about this from Vivi Eickelberg on monday in Berlin, where we were to celebrate Unicef's 60th birthday with Sabine Christiansen, Vanessa Redgrave, Angelique Kidjo and 1800 other people, and eh....., what's her name again ?....ah, yes, Angela Merkel.Unfortunatly she left early, would have loved to ask her, how she could possibly regret the decrease of births in Germany, when we're dealing at the same time with 500.000 HIV-aids orphans in Malawi alone for example. Strange evening, who would have thunk....





If you wish to know more, please read Herman's weblog under the above link, or check out the photogallery under http://www.unicef.de/3529.html

Studio Aka...

...proving one more time, that you don't need "Dumbo", to tell a story.
Click the link, go to Shortfilms and watch Park Foot Ball, or any other clip for that matter.

Mann aus Alemannia oder rätselhafter Orient ....

Brother Bear : Tenana, mother and misc

When we first started with the design of Tenana, the village's shaman, she looked like .... well, shamans usually look in these kind of movies until we thought , we maybe should try something else and started to make her look less like Pocahontas' grandma willow or even Yoda....











...so I did some drawings in which she was tall, bald and skinny. I liked that appoach very much, but others, like Michael Eisner for example, didn't and so they went back to the original design.







The original skript included a flashback to when Sitka and Kenaii were still kids and we'd have seen their mother , too.
This is what she'd have looked like.









There never was an official designprocess for Denaii. When Chilkoot, the father, was cut from the skript and the third brother was created, the directors just picked one of the Sitka's rejected designs for him.



Misc. characters, the fireman, the mailman, the shopkeeper ....







Just a costume design...remember, those guys made their clothing themselfes, they don't buy their stuff at Urban Outfitters. I wanted to make that visible, by maybe making the right shoe different from the left one , for example, or whatever....

Panel Stuttgart

Some pictures from Stuttgart and the panel on Storytelling in Animation. I am the goodlooking guy. The others are Eberhardt Junkersdorf ( Jester Till), Gerd Hahn ( Werner ), Armin Toerkell ( Little Amadeus) and Ed Hooks ( Acting for Animators). The discussion was conducted by Gabriele Röthemeyer, thanks to Karin Frey of MFG for the pics.

Anadolu University Filmdays or Trükfülm or Auf Kara Ben Nemsis Spuren

I'll be at the Anadolu Filmdays in Eskesehir, Turkey for a couple of days, to give a talk. So don't expect much blogging the upcoming week, wish me luck and I'll let you know everything as soon as I am back.
Meanwhile check out the link above, seeya H.

FMX/Oli's Chance

So, the reason why there hasn't been much blogging from my side is, that I have been to the FMX in Stuttgart. It was a wonderful week, I have been meeting many old friends, made some new ones, saw a lot of presentations , partied and drank a lot and among the things that I brought home is this little gem :



Oli's Chance

It's a little film made by Studio Soi in Ludwigsburg, some very dear friends, who made this little educational film for the German rail, who commissioned it, because every year, 10 - 12 kids die while playing near the rails. SOI applied for a chance to pitch for this project, and eventually succeeded to produce this -I said it before- ablosute gem.
It succeeds not only in terms of animation but also in it's unpretencious, non-patronizing storytelling.
See the whole movie under the above link ( sadly its in German, but since I know youre pretty clever, you'll understand it anyway) and also make sure to check out Soi's website under www.studiosoi.de