Aardman News 4 - Straight from Annecy

We've seen a lot out of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, lots of details on the Pixar short, La Luna, and thanks to Aardman Co-Owener Peter Lord's Twitter, we get an article with some in-depth looks and thoughts on Aardman's upcoming slate, Arthur Christmas and The Pirates. The article tells us that Arthur Christmas is fantastic and a great twist on the rather stale Christmas film niche, it also gives us more insight into the film's plot - seeing Arthur and his granddad (the former Santa Claus) travel around the world in the old fashioned sleigh to deliver one last present that was left behind. It sounds great and Skwigly seem to agree, the animation style (CGI here, rather than the trademark Aardman stop-motion) looks great and distinctly Aardman.

The article also gives us a little more details on Aardman's 2012 stop-motion film, The Pirates, which is said to be even more impressive and visually stunning and massively impressive, as well as hilarious. The article also gives us an insight into the genesis of the film, and apparently it has been on the table since the 1990s, but DreamWorks told them that no one would pay to see a pirate film. Since then and the success of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, the film has been put under full production and is being directed by Peter Lord and is set to be released in 2012.

I can't wait to see either of these films, I love anything out of Aardman and would encourage you all to head over to Skwigly to read the full article, it's incredibly interesting.

La Luna - First Clip and More

La Luna, Pixar's newest short film, has just debuted at the Annecy International Film Festival, but it won't debut to the rest of us non-festival-goers until next year (likely with Brave in cinemas), so to pacify us, Pixar have released the first 30 second clip from the 7 minute short. The clip comes courtesy of Animation World Network, also if you head over there you will see a new still from the film (below) and an interview with director Enrico Casarosa.

The clip looks great, the general feel of the film, the characters, the animation and the score all seem top-notch and I can't wait to see the full thing.

My Second Uploaded Drawing - Wheezy

You may recall that a while back I uploaded my first official A113Animation Drawing, of Rex from Toy Story, drawn on the Brushes for iPod Touch app. I have just recently completed my second one, Wheezy (who is, at the time of writing, currently the blog's logo), from Toy Story 2. The Brushes app is just great to draw with, and I am quite pleased with how this one turned out.

You can also see some of the progress of the drawing (below) in GIF form.

New Cars 2 Clip

As anyone who follows my Twitter will know, I am not posting all of these new Cars 2 clips as I am not watching them, as they seem fairly spoiler heavy and I feel I already now way too much about the plot of Cars 2 (from the track listing and reading the Art of Cars 2 book). However, as anyone who follows the blog will now, I LOVE Francesco Bernoulli, he seems fantastic; charismatic and hilarious, so I couldn't not post this clip (which seems very good).

I can't wait to see how Bernoulli (voiced by John Turturro), plays out in Cars 2 when it hits theatres all over in the coming weeks and months.

La Luna Debuts, Poster Revealed

La Luna, the newest short out of Pixar, the one likely to be attached to Pixar's 13th feature film, Brave, debuted recently at the Annecy International Film Festival. According to the short's director, Enrico Casarosa, and his blog, the short was the finale of the opening night. Enrico also shares with us the short's poster (above), which looks really stunning, Pixar have always been on top form for posters (and everything else for that matter), and this seems to be no exception.

La Luna looks and sounds great and, as it is likely going to be attached to 2012's Brave, it is quickly making Pixar's first fairytale my most anticipated animated film.