Hope to see everyone at First Frame!
Wednesday, April 25th, 7:30pm
DGA Theatre Complex, 7920 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046
After the show, feel free to comment on the filmmakers’ work.
Lou – nice work on the titles!

Don’t forget:
The Interactive Media Division has it’s night, “First Move” on Thursday, you’re all welcome to come:
First Move at First Look Festival 2012
Thursday, April 26th, 7:30pm
DGA Theatre Complex, 7920 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046

April 18 – Kathy Altieri – Storytelling With Color – In SCA 112!!

Apr17

Kathy Altieri will give a special presentation entitled, “Storytelling With Color”, discussing the importance of color in feature animated filmmaking as it applies to production design, lighting, and storytelling.

Kathy Altieri has worked in the animation industry for 25+ years as a production designer, art director, and painter. Kathy was the first artist to be hired at the then, newly formed DreamWorks Animation back in 1996. Recently, she served as a production designer on the DWA Academy Award nominated film, “How to Train Your Dragon”.

Altieri was Production Designer on Over the Hedge and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. She also worked as an Art Director on the critically acclaimed film The Prince of Egypt. In fact, Kathy was the very first artist to be hired at the then, newly formed DreamWorks Animation back in 1996.

Before joining DreamWorks Animation, Altieri worked as a Background Painter and Supervisor on the Disney Feature Animation films The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Lion King, Aladdin, and The Little Mermaid. Kathy has taught or been a guest lecturer at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the American Film Institute, USC, Art Center College of Design, the School of Visual Arts (NY), Ringling College of Art and Design, Sheridan College, Rhode Island School of Design, San Jose State, De Anza College, AGIDEAS conference in Australia, Creative Talent Network Expo, and ICON (Illustration Conference). She also is part of various studio initiatives (internal Artistic Enrichment programs and external Outreach Programs) that draw on her solid instruction, teaching and presentation abilities..

Little Known Tidbit: Kathy is a fifth degree black belt and certified instructor in Aikido.

April 11 – Christine Panushka – Artist, Filmmaker, Animator

Apr8

Christine Panushka is an internationally known award winning artist, filmmaker/animator and educator. Her work explores the female psyche and uses stillness and small gestures to describe internal emotional and spiritual states.

Named an Absolut Visionary in 1996, she conceptualized, directed and curated “Absolut Panushka,” the second issue in a series of content based Websites sponsored by Absolut Vodka, which was honored with an “Award of Excellence” from Communication Arts Magazine, as well as first prize for Animation on the Internet by both the World Animation Celebration in Los Angeles and the Holland International Animation Film Festival in Utrecht.

Panushka’s films have garnered numerous awards including the Grand Prize at the Aspen Filmfest and a Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

April 4 – Animating Character Performance – 3 animators from Dreamworks Animation THIS CLASS WILL BE HELD IN SCA 112

Apr1

Dreamworks character animators Jacob Gardner, Tyler Phillips, and Luke Randall will discuss character performance from the point of view of the character animator. Each artist will screen a sequence that they’ve animated and discuss in detail their strategy for bringing the characters to life and telling the story. In addition, they will all bring a clip of animation from their most inspirational film.

JACOB GARDENER was on the winning team of the FJORG Iron Animator competition at Siggraph 2007, which got him noticed by DreamWorks Animation. He has been working at the studio ever since on films such as Shrek Forever After, Megamind, Puss in Boots, and Rise of the Guardians. Jacob is also an instructor at iAnimate.net, and is the cofounder of the animation podcast website SpeakingOfAnimation.com.

TYLER PHILLIPS is an animator who studied at Platt College and Animation Mentor. Tyler got his start in Prague working as a 3D generalist. As an animator, Tyler has worked on such films as, Ice Age 3 (Blue Sky), God of War 3 (sony Games), and How to Train Your Dragon, Megamind, and Puss in Boots with DreamWorks Animation.

LUKE RANDALL is an animator originally from Australia. Luke studied at Animation Mentor and got his start in TV and games before moving into features where he has completed work on Open Season 2, Shrek Forever After, Megamind, Puss in Boots, and Rocky and Bullwinkle.

March 28 – QUAYOLA

Mar26

Born in Italy and currently living in London, Quayola is considered to be at the forefront of digital media. His practice was born out of his long-standing interest in audio and visual music, but he has since expanded his practice into the realm of photography, CGI and performance. For his first solo show on the West Coast he has created a large-scale, fully-immersive environment that will feature three distinct bodies of work: Typologies, Strata and Nature (which are comprised of 12 videos in total). At the center of his practice is a deep interest in the inherent structures found within Classical traditions ie, Renaissance architecture, well-known Rococo paintings and nature itself, and how those forms relate to digital mediums. By using a combination of original photography and software programs, he is able to identify and animate those inherent structures, which become the real protagonists of his extraordinary short films. The result is not only a celebration of the outright beauty of classical aesthetics but how they relate to digital artists through the use of mathematics.

Drawing his influence from painters Wassily Kandinsky and Oscar Fischinger, Quayola creates composed and real‐time generative sound visualizations resulting in huge and dynamic animated projections with impactful original sound.

Quayola’s work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the Victoria & Albert Museum (London), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Barcelona), the Royal Albert Hall (London), Gaite Lyrique (Paris), the Palais des Beaux Arts (Lille), the Yota Space (St. Petersburg), MIS (Sao Paulo) Casa Franca (Rio de Janeiro), MISZ (Moscow) and many more.

Davide Quayola is here from London this week to open a solo show at YoungProjects – a contemporary gallery for the moving image.
http://www.youngprojectsgallery.com/#!project-space

Olympic Project – Motionographer article:

Quayola and Memo Akten for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad

Quayola’s work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; British Film Institute, London; Royal Albert Hall, London; Gaite Lyrique, Paris; Church of Saint Eustache, Paris; Forum des Image, Paris; Grand Theatre, Bordeaux; Palais des Beaux Arts, Lille; Empac Centre, New York; Yota Space, St. Petersburg; MIS, Sao Paulo; Casa Franca, Rio de Janeiro; BAC, Geneva; Sonar Festival, Barcelona; Elekra Festival, Montreal and Clermont Ferrand Film Festival.

Quayola and Jarrett Smith (Touch Designer)

March 21 – Graduates of DADA

Mar19

A panel of 6 of our alums will discuss topics around their art and careers after graduation.

Please bring good questions to spark a lively discussion!

I’m very excited to have these wonderful artists on our panel!:

Debra Issac-Downing

Cosku Turhan

Alessandro Ceglia

Andrew Huang

Cecilia Fletcher

Andy Lyon

March 7th – Dennis Tupicoff, animator and filmmaker

Mar1

Graduating from Queensland University, Dennis later completed the Swinburne Film and TV School animation course in 1977. After working as writer/director/producer of his own films as well as TV commercials and other commercial and sponsored work, he was appointed Lecturer in Animation at the VCA School of Television (1992-4). Since then he has continued making independent films as writer, director, producer, and (often) designer/animator. These have been both fictional and documentary, animated and live-action, comedy and drama – and sometimes inventive combinations of various categories.

Dennis’ work has been shown at film festivals around the world, and he has won numerous awards. His 2007 film Chainsaw has won many Grands Prix in animation festivals such as Ottawa, Animadrid, Anifest etc as well as in competition with live-action films at Oberhausen, Huesca, Mecal (Barcelona) etc. His films are often shown in retrospectives, and are discussed in Judith Kriger’s book “Animated Realism” (2012). His Mother’s Voice (1998) has been included in many programmes of documentary animation (eg: IDFA 2007, Zagreb 2008, Leipzig 2008) and is discussed at length in several recent books: “Introduction to Documentary” (Nichols), “The Animation Bible” (Furniss), and “Australian Documentary” (Fitzsimons, Laughren, Williamson). Dennis was also featured in Chris Robinson’s book as one of the “Unsung Heroes of Animation”. He has spoken at international conferences, and taught, presented his work and run workshops at many universities and film schools around the world.
Since 2000, Dennis and Fiona Cochrane have worked together on various projects as Jungle Pictures Pty Ltd.

FILMOGRAPHY (select)

*THE FIRST INTERVIEW (writer/director/co-producer)
15 minute documentary 2011

*SILLY & SERIOUS – William Robinson and Self Portraits (writer/director/co-producer)
25 minute documentary 2009

*CHAINSAW (writer/director/co-producer)
24 minute animation 2007

*TARINGA 4068 – OUR PLACE AND TIME (writer/director/co-producer)
30 minute documentary 2002

* INTO THE DARK (writer/director/animator/co-producer)
6 minute animation 2001

* THE HEAT, THE HUMIDITY (writer/director/producer/animator)
4 minute animation 1999

* HIS MOTHER’S VOICE (writer/director/producer/animator)
15 minute animation 1997

* THE DARRA DOGS (writer/director/producer/animator)
10 minute animation 1993

* DANCE OF DEATH (writer/director/producer/animator)
8 minute animation 1983

Feb 29th – Jarrett Smith and Greg Hermanovic / Touch Designer artists

Feb24

Founding members of Derivative, Greg Hermanovic and Jarrett Smith will present the latest generation of TouchDesigner.

Jarrett Smith is the Product Architect of TouchDesigner, and also leads Derivative on its involvement in productions for Walt Disney Imagineering, Prada, Plastikman, and support for local production companies Obscura Digital, V2 ( Amon Tobin), Leviathan etc.
Greg Hermanovic has been meddling in 3D animation since 1974. He is co-founder of Derivative, the creators of TouchDesigner and Side Effects Software, makers of Houdini, where he received two Scientific and Engineering Awards from the Academy of Motion Pictures Sciences and Arts for the advancement of procedural visual effects tools in the film industry.

TouchDesigner 077 is a visual development platform that equips you with the tools you need to create stunning realtime projects and rich user experiences. Whether you’re creating interactive media systems, architectural projections, live music visuals, or simply rapid-prototyping your latest creative impulse, TouchDesigner provides you with an exploratory, visual, and fun way to work.

TouchDesigner 077 is the most complete realtime visualization software available on the market today equipping users with the tools needed to create stunning realtime projects and rich user experiences. Whether you’re creating interactive media systems, architectural or environmental projections, live music visuals, or simply experimenting with video and film, TouchDesigner provides you with an exploratory, visual, and fun way to work.

This talk will illustrate how TouchDesigner’s procedural visual programming environment facilitates the prototyping and creation of interactive systems from DIY to large-scale deployments sighting examples including Walt Disney Imagineering, Herzog & de Meuron, Prada, MIT Media Lab, the Guggenheim, Plastikman 2010 (Richie Hawtin), Amon Tobin’s ISAM, Raster Noton, Rush, the Rockheim museum and many more