Win! Two Frog Feet animations win Platinum Empixx Awards!

In the tooting our own horn category...( because otherwise who willl?) Two projects we've worked on and helped create have won Empixx Awards!!

•  Firstly: Stan (the man) Olthuis at Sharpshooter Inc. hired us to design, direct and animate this piece for "4carfinder.com" titled "Where's my Car?". It won Platinum Empixx Awards for Animation and in the category: Advertising- Consumer. 

 Written/Directed by: Bryce Hallett
Animation by Bryce Hallett and Jett Atwood
Additional assistance by Anna Oster.
Music & Sound by Matthew Reid 
It was produced by Stan Olthuis of Sharphooter Inc. for 4Carfinder.com.

•  Secondly we won platinum awards for animation and in the category "Direct Marketing" for this spot for Foodbank Canada produced by FlashFrame Digital. The fine folks of FlashFrame Digital had the original concept and hired us to execute the animation and style. It was produced for Foodbank Canada as a special holiday greeting. 

 Animation, design and storyboards by Bryce Hallett, (Frog Feet Productions)
 Sound by Lee Delang, (FlashFrame Digital)
Produced by Mike Welker (FlashFrame Digital)

 So many congrats to all involved on these very fun projects and here's to more fun and exciting things ahead!

  

Foodbank Canada: Happy Hollidays
 

 4Carfinder :"Where's my #$@ Car!"
 

Need a date? Here's an Animated Commercial!

Hey there folks. I wish i could come up with a better title or a witty pun but that's never been my strong suit. Animation is though!

Here's a commercial i designed and animated recently for a dating website.

It was a lot of fun to do some more classical cartoon style full colour animation.

This was a really fun project to work on, despite a really short turn around time, and the people who hired me were great to work with. I have to give credit to Marc Morgenstern, their creative director who did some additional editing on the final piece. I don't know who did the music or wrote the lyrics to the funny song or i'd give them a shout out as well.

There's lots i like about how this turned out and there are plenty of things i would have like to have added or altered had there been more time. That's always the case though. Really fun job.

Anyway. Enjoy!

-Bryce

BunnyJam Jury Award winner! TAIS Showcase 2011

Hurray us!
During the TAIS Animation Showcase 2011 we were awarded the BunnyJam Jury Award.

Every year as part of the TAIS Showcase they hold an "Anijam" where animators can submit a 10 sec animated piece, using any style or technique, based on that year's theme. This year it was "bunnies". Previous years have had monsters, robots, chickens..etc etc all the entries are then strung together into one big mega animation and shown in the theatre before the main Showcase begins.

The Jury, which selects the best film for the Showcase, also has an award for the BunnyJam and there is an Audience Award for both categories as well. ( Jamie Metzger 's film "Pasa Doble" won the Jury Award for best in Showcase, Aaron Long won the audience award for his film "Fester Goes Fishing" as well as an honourable mention from the Jury and Nick Cross won the Audience Award for his BunnyJam entry. So congrats to all of them and really to everyone who had animation screened at the showcase it was a very good year with some really great pieces.)

Here's the link to our little BunnyJam submission and as soon as their is a link for the complete TAIS entries we'll post it as well.



Emma Lander suggested we animate something using rice or beans so we went to the bulk foods store and got a few things to try out and rice worked the best. It's shot stop motion style under the camera on a piece of glass and a cardboard background using a Nikon D5000 slr and Dragon Stop Motion.

If anyone is interested i can give more specific details of what we did. In all it 6 or 7 hours from initial set up to shooting the final frame.

Emily Shapiro created the music for us on clarinet. Thanks Emily!

TAIS ANIMATION SHOWCASE AND BUNNY JAM THIS THURSDAY!!!

I'm excited for this thursday and want it to come along sooner.
Why?
Because it's the TAIS animation showcase!
it's happening this thursday and i'm looking forward to a bunch of great animation on the big screen form local talent and animators around the world
and also the TAIS ANiJAm.
basically every year TAIS holds an Anijam and then screens it as part of the showcase.
every year its on a different theme. This year it's BUnnies!
basically animators create a 10 sec animation based on the theme , any style or technique and then all the submissions get strung together into a MEGA ANIMATION!

and i submitted one . I made it with rice and beans
come check it out!

TAIS Showcase 2011 on June 23 at the Innis Town Hall
2 Sussex Avenue, Toronto. 7:30pm
$10

cheers!
-Bryce

Some inspiration for other cartoonists out there.

Here's a link to a blog by cartoonist Phil McAndrew. CLICK HERE FOR THE LINK.

It's a nice simple insightful post about being a freelance cartoonist "Super Obvious Secrets That I Wish They’d Teach In Art School"
It's a great little piece of inspiration and insight into a fellow cartoonist's working philosophy.

Go read that then get your sketch book out and get drawing!

(also credit to Mike Valiquette for linking it as well where i saw it in the first place. heh)

cheers!
-Bryce

Cool TAIS event tonight special guests John Porcellino and Matt den Boer

If you are in Toronto tonight, Wed May 4th, i highly recommend checking out this month's TAIS INCUBATOR. Illustrator John Porcellino and animator Matt den Boer will be there to give a short presentation on their new project "the Next Day". It's a graphic novel and online interactive animated documentary "constructed from intimate interviews with survivors of near-fatal suicide attempts."

They'll be talking about their collaborative process and the challenges of animating Procellino's illustrations and creating the interactive animations. It will be a very interesting incubator this month indeed.
(TAIS holds an animation incubator the first wed of each month if you are interested in attending.)

So check it out!
-Bryce

DotRights

A little thing I animated last year for the ACLU.

( Produced by Tracepictures. )

It's actual a good and interesting explanation of the trail of information you leave behind when you surf online and what happens to it.

TAIS ANIMATION SHOWCASE! TONIGHT

TONIGHT!
THURSDAY THURSDAY THURSDAAAY!

IF you're in Toronto , near Toronto or have teleportation technology come out to the TRANZAC club at 292 Brunswick avenue for the TAIS ANIMATION SHOWCASE!

a whole whack of interesting films in a variety of styles by a plethora of people.
also as a bonus screening the 2010 Tais Anijam.. Aquajam!

Come out see some great short films have a beverage !

cheers!
FrogFeet

Check out the Canadian Animation Resources website

f you're a Canadian animator I'd highly recommend checking out the Canadian Animation Resources website.
It's run by volunteers and is an invaluable resource for jobs, articles and other tidbits of Canadian Animation goodness.

LINK.



( Sure this link features a clip of me but really i'm not biased in anyway. Also go to their main page for more articles and animation job news.)

Seriously if you are someone working or hoping to work in this business or even just an animation enthusiast this site is well worth checking out. They're also doing a funding drive at the moment to raise a little cash to keep it going. So if you have a couple bucks to spare why not send 'em their way and we can all continue to enjoy this site.

Cheers!
-Bryce

Official trailer for "At Home By Myself...with You"

Here's the Official Trailer for the movie directed by Kris Booth. I'm very proud to have been a part of and had fun creating animation for. If you're in the Toronto area it's Playing at the ROYAL Cinema (College St and Clinton) from March 5th to March 11th! (longer if lots of people go see it) Go check it out and Support independent film!