MicMacs

Released in France this week is Jean-Pierre Jeunet's latest visual feast 'Micmacs a Tire-Larigot'. Typically it's an eccentric French comedy choc-full of inventive set-pieces with sublime photography by D.P. Tetsuo Nagata. France's favourite funny-man, Dany Boon, stars as Basil, a video store clerk whose father was killed by a land-mine & is himself inadvertently the victim of a drive by shooting. He survives a bullet lodged in his brain & despite falling homeless and jobless as a result of his injury sets out on a mission to ruin those who manufactered the weapons.

The picture features several animated sequences & wonderful 'live' automatons made from objects found in the junk-yard where Basil finds himself adopted by the eccentric 'family' living underneath. Within Jeunet's ouvre I'd say Micmacs lies somewhere between Delicatessan and Amelie. It's good to see him back with a new film after several years struggling to realise the film version of Yann Martel's Life of Pi.

Bohemia

Last weekend I visited a part of Europe that I'd never thought I'd see- Slovakia! It was all down to my Canadian colleague, Mr. Kris Pearn, and his insatiable desire to drink beer in every European capital before he moves back to the U.S. Of course I needed little convincing to tag along on the expedition into the lower Carpathian region!



We visited the impressive Devin Castle, outside Bratislava. Twice unsuccessfully beseiged by the Turks but blown apart by Napoleon's soldiers-it's still an imposing fortress. We dropped water down the central well & listened until 5 seconds later it plopped into the Danube hundreds of feet below.




Bratislava is right on the border with Austria so we hopped on a train for a day out in Vienna. Majestic city-we tried to see as many of the great galleries as possible and had our fill of Klimt and Schiele at the Belvedere and Leopold museums.

The highlight for me was visiting the Secession building to finally view Klimt's Beethoven Frieze which I'd admired since art school days.
Love that monkey!

Term 2 Week 4

Rapid drawing here-poses between 5 and 10 mins. Relatively short poses like this forces one to simplify the forms and avoid extraneous detail.

1

2

3

4

5

6

Life Class Term 2

In Life Class I've been trying out some different media for a change. I struggled like hell with pastels-talk about being outside my comfort zone-there's nothing like using blunt chalk to expose your weaknesses!


Conte crayons were a bit more manageable but the drawings are still inept!

I went back to pencil for some fancy anatomical studies.










Class-mate warm ups.

The art of film editing

Back in July I attended a special BAFTA lecture by film editor Pietro Scalia. He's worked with Oliver Stone, Gus Van Sant, Ridley Scott amongst others and spoke very eloquently of his collaboration with these film-makers. It was a real masterclass in cinematic form & Scalia had us all fascinated with his dissection of key scenes from projects that he's worked on; the opening of JFK, the 'resurrection' of Oliver Reed in Gladiator and a key scene in Good Will Hunting.

This is Scalia's diagram analysing the symmetry of VanSant's camera set-ups to which he matched his approach to editing the sequence. Watch the clip below and it will all make sense!

The lecture was filmed and can now be viewed on the BAFTA website. Follow the YouTube links to see the other parts.

Life Class-new term!

It's surprising how rusty one gets at life drawing even with a short break over the summer. I passed almost the entire first session warming up drawing my class-mates. People have great un-selfconscious expressions when they're focused & concentrating.

Cloudy

Last week we saw CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS in 3-D!! After those ugly early screenshots & near ZERO publicity my expectations of this picture were pretty low. But it's got a lot going for it. The design is pretty eccentric for mainstream Hollywood animation but refreshingly different. In 3-D the characters have an appealing, vinyl-toy aesthetic, especially the policeman (hilariously voiced by Mr T.)

There's a lot of fine animation too-particularly memorable is the posing & facial expressions on the greedy Mayor (a perfectly cast Bruce Campbell) and the nimble little moves of the monkey.

In general it seems a lot of artistic decisions that may have been watered down at other studios survived the process. There are story points towards the end that are just plain surreal but funny as hell. Congrats to my Aardman colleague Kris Pearn who was head of story on the movie. Check out some of his boards over on his blog.

Avast!

Last week I joined the story crew of the other feature being produced at Aardman - 'PIRATES!'. On my first day Pete Docter & family came in to visit & posed for a photo with us briny rogues in story.


We have Captain Lord & Midshipman Rej Bourdages either side of Pete Docter. That's me with thumb in air next to able-bodied seaman Ash Boddy. On the right are Andy, Dave, Mike & Victoria.

Later that day Docter did a Q&A at the studio with Nick Park after screening UP.

Aix

While in France recently I visited the charming city of Aix-en-Provence. It's right in the heart of Provence with good access to all the nearby places of interest-Les Baux, Rousillon, Gordes etc. Marseille, Nimes & Arles are not far either. I drew the land mark fountain from the Cours Mirabeau and a nearby manège.




I was in town to hit the Picasso trail. I checked out the Cezanne Picasso exhibition at the Musee Granet. There were some excellent examples on show-including Picasso's own collection of Cezanne paintings. The Spanish artist often cited Cezanne as his artistic master- Cubism was hugely influenced by Cezanne's work. I got to scrutinize works that I had only seen previously seen in print-including Cezanne's academic life drawings.


Next stop was a visit to the second to last home of Picasso. Towards the end of his life he purchased the imposing Chateau de Vauvenargues, in the foothills of the Mont St Victoire-the famous mountain that dominates the Provencal skyline & which featured so often in Cezanne's work.

This summer, for the first time, it has been opened to the public. I woke at the crack of dawn to queue for a ticket & later that day got to join a small tour around the whole building. We saw the living quarters, the studio & the large dining room where Picasso & Jacqueline entertained guests.
They are both buried there too, beneath a grassy mound outside the front door, the monumental bronze Woman with a Vase serving as a headstone.



The last house Picasso lived in was a villa close to the Notre Dame de Vie chapel in the hills above Mougins and Cannes. It took me forever to find the place. The artist must have enjoyed the privacy this location afforded him in old age. The villa is privately owned & inaccessible so I could only draw the ramshackle old chapel now in a state of disrepair. Picasso died here & after the Mougins authorities refused permission for a burial in the village his body was taken back to Vauvenargues instead.


There's one address Picasso lived at on the Cote d'Azur that I'm yet to see-the villa La Galloise at Vallauris. It holds special interest for me as the name translates as the Welsh house! Next time I'll find it . . .

La Haut

I finally saw UP-it still hasn't been released in the UK but I caught it last weekend while in France. It's one of Pixar's best-had me crying with sadness & joy. The (beautifully) stylized design of Carl & Russell must have proved awkward to pose but the animators worked wonders wringing emotion from their stumpy limbs! As others have noted the flights of fancy give the film a Miyazaki quality. To enjoy the picture you do have to buy into the conceits of the floating house, canine thought vocalizers, giant birds & dogs piloting aircraft!

On a side note did anyone notice the similarity between Muntz and the Kirk Douglas inspired character from the BIG STORY? I' m not implying any plagiarism but it was great to see the Douglas physiognomy applied to a CG design too.


As usual with Pixar movies the French dub is excellent. Charles Aznavour voices Carl in the version Francais.
I can't wait to see the film again in English & in 3-D!



At the cinema I learnt there's a live action Lucky Luke movie coming soon starring Jean Dujardin. Watch the trailer here. It's only been a couple of years since the last animated version.

Life Drawing pt.11

Final session of life drawing until the new term begins in September.

Warm up sketches of the other artists, students and colleagues.




1 min. gesture sketches.

Bristol environ

Bristol is an interesting city to live in with lots to sketch. I had the pleasure of sketch-crawling with my talented French colleague Monsieur Zebe. We passed a couple of lazy Saturday afternoons sketching people & buildings around town.



The Llandoger Trow pub is apparently where Stevenson was inspired to write Treasure Island & Defoe came up with Robinson Crusoe.


Check out Zebe's version.


Now the summer is (sometimes) here the riversides are full of people relaxing & drinking in the sun.



Around the harbour close to Aardman there are lots of stationed train wagons, cranes & crusty old boats to sketch.


See Zebe's sketch of the same crane here.





The Bristol Mod-Squad often bring their customised Lambrettas down to the harbourside to show off. One of them has the Godfather theme as a horn tune.


You can't beat some good old traditional Morris dancing!




On a day trip out of Bristol I visited Wells and drew the famous Cathedral. Later that afternoon I climbed up to Glastonbury Tor.


Bath and Wells are very close to Bristol & both towns offer great architecture to sketch.