Stopmo History On Display.

One of the great perks of living in Hollywood is that we are surrounded by film history and there are often fun opportunities to see some artifacts from the past. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a great exhibit up right now that features animatronic and stop-motion characters. The highlights for me were a nice selection of Harryhausen's puppets and also the "Kane" robot from Robocop 2. If you live in the Los Angeles area I highly recommend you check out this free exhibit before it leaves on September 10th.

Go to the "It's Alive!" website for more info.

METALOCALYPSE!!!!

My new favorite show! You have to check this out on Adult Swim!!!

Go to the Metalocalypse web site on Adult Swim!

Animal Instincts

My friend and fellow Robot Chicken/Moral Orel animator Sihanouk Mariona is directing a collaborative stop-motion film that is anchored around gritty interviews with real NYC residents. He has invited several animators to build puppets and animate segments of the film. This past weekend Sihanouk brought over the set that he built for my squirrel puppet to live in. I've got 45 seconds of animation to do for him which I will start this weekend. Stay tuned for more about Sihanouk's film, I can guarantee it will be a treat!

Levi Strauss Signature Job

A little over a month ago, my animation directing partner Misha Klein and I landed a small contract to create three short stop-motion spots for the Levi Strauss Signature website. The little movies were to feature the bobblehead sidekick of NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson. Misha and I oversaw all steps of the animation process thru to the delivery of final shots. We had a lot of amazing help from super-talented character designers, puppet builders, set builders and animators- without whom we wouldn't have been able to create a minute of animation from storyboard to final in about six weeks.

The website launched today- so go check it out! The third (and best) installment will be released next month. Click on the section marked "Lil JJ Videos" to see our work (Download the movies to your desktop to get the least-compressed video):

Lil' JJ Website


Here are some behind the scenes pictures:


Director/Animator Misha Klein.


A setup for the second spot in the series with motorized shadow maker to fake car movement.


It's me, Director/Animator Ethan Marak


Animator Chris Calvi.


Animator Richard Zimmerman on set with Misha.


Animator Sihanouk Mariona, lookin' bugged as we got him started at 1am.


Animator Josh Jennings.


Shot on the Panasonic Lumix FZ-30.