'The Dam Keeper' is Getting the Feature Film Treatment

The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the 2014 short film The Dam Keeper will become a feature film; 20th Century Fox Animation and Tonko House are partnering to produce a feature length version of the Academy Award nominated film.

Watch: A Teaser for Tonko House's 'Moom'

The team behind The Dam Keeper (who was nominated for a Best Animated Short Film Academy Award last year) is back with a new short. This time it's Moom, which is based on a Japanese book by Genki Kawamura and Yuki Mashiko. Former Pixar artists Dice Tsutsumi and Robert Kondo developed the film at Tonko House, their own animation studio; and it looks beautiful. Watch the teaser below.

Fantastic New Batch of Monsters University Concept Art

Monsters University Scare School colour exploration -- Dice Tsutsumi
(digital, 2010)

Pixar's fourteenth feature film is fast approaching, but almost as eagerly anticipated - particularly going off how vibrant and beautiful the trailers have been - is the accompanying Art of book, The Art of Monsters University. To help hype both the book and the film, and give us all a peek at how the talented artists at Pixar created the extended monster world for Monsters U, Disney and Pixar have rolled out an array of beautiful new concept art.

Brilliant Monsters University Teaser(s) and Concept Art!

As promised, Pixar have finally released the first fantastic teaser trailer for their Monsters, Inc. prequel, Monsters University - actually make that teaser trailers, there's four! The four teasers are more or less identical, but apparently Billy Crystal (voice of Mike Wazowski) was so funny in his reading of four different possibilities, that they decided to release them all!

The first version (above) arrived on via Pixar's official YouTube channel this morning, and we get three more versions from Yahoo! Movies, iTunes Movie Trailers,  and The Huffington Post, check them all out below:

Yahoo! Movies


iTunes Movie Trailers


Huffington Post

The main thing to note is, as we've been told consistently since CinemaCon, the teaser is hilarious; the younger character models are also fantastic and the university looks great. But most of all, it's great to see Mike and Sulley back on our screens again after 11 years. Monsters U looks phenomenal!

In addition, we've been treated to some fantastic concept art from the film (presumably, although not stated, by the film's art director, Dice Tsutsumi). The two pieces (above and below) are wonderfully reminiscent of the original 2001 film, whilst also adding a new dynamic to the film - The Art of Monsters University will surely be a must-buy!

I'm curious to see how Pixar handles its first prequel and continues from Monsters, Inc. and greatly anticipate hearing more and more about it going forward, now that Brave is almost out. The synopsis reads:

Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan are an inseparable pair, but that wasn’t always the case. From the moment these two mismatched monsters met they couldn’t stand each other. “Monsters University” unlocks the door to how Mike and Sulley overcame their differences and became the best of friends.

Screaming with laughter and fun, “Monsters University” is directed by Dan Scanlon (“Cars,” “Mater and the Ghostlight,” “Tracy”) and produced by Kori Rae (“Up,” “The Incredibles,” “Monsters, Inc.”). The film opens in U.S. theaters on June 21, 2013, and will be shown in Disney Digital 3D™ in select theaters.

Dice Tsutsumi Autographs - Sketchtravel

A few months ago, I had the chance to talk to Daisuke "Dice" Tsutsumi, the Colour and Lighting Art Director on Toy Story 3, via e-mail. Dice is a fantastic artist, responsible  for a large portion of the artwork - namely the colour scripts - in the Art of Toy Story 3 book, and was kind enough to agree to autograph a few of his drawings for me.

Not only was it a pleasure to talk to Dice, but he was kind enough to take some time out of his very hectic and busy schedule to sign them for me and I am insanely grateful!

Dice, who runs Simplestroke.com, is also co-running the very noble and extremely interesting, Sketchtravel project. Sketchtravel is a project where 71 illustrators and artists, including Glen Keane and Hayao Miyazaki, have contributed brilliant and stunning art to a sketch book. The original book will be auctioned on October 17 in Brussels, with proceeds of the book, and royalties from its subsequent publication, going to Room to Read, an international, non-profit, literacy organisation.

Needless to say, this is a fantastic cause and I am fully behind Dice, and the other co-founder, Gerald Guerlais, and encourage you to support them as much as possible and share the facebook page and website, and just help however you can!