Category Archives: Animation

Animation: Velocity

by Cimaxion

Official selection at CINEME, 2003 Chicago International Animation Film Festival.

This is a short film that I started back in 2001. 9/11 happened and I put the film on hold for almost 2 years. When I returned to it I was able to finish it in several months of hard effort. I was working with Flash and my process was kind of awkward. The drawing is actually very crude. But the film came out decently. It got into a Chicago film festival in 2003 and it has remained in its Flash form on CandlelightStories.com ever since. It was recently shown by NewGrounds.com as part of their ‘Treasure Hunt’ festival of animation.

But getting the film out of the Flash ghetto and into video proved to be more work than I thought. So I’ve made a few little updates and improved some of the film effects a little. So now the film is actually closer to the film I was imagining back in 2001.

Animation: The Black Dog’s Progress

by Cimaxion | 1 Comment

Vimeo user Quirky Pictures pointed me to this strange and dark little film about a dog losing its home and wandering through a rather horrible and tragic life. The film uses multiple flip book frames to tell its story in a series of loops. It was made by Stephen Irwin at small time inc. as an Animate Projects Commission for England’s Channel 4.

Another film from the Candlelight Stories Short Films group on Vimeo.

Animation: Dog Life

by Editor

Who is Tanya Grishko? She made this film and it’s just absolutely magnificent. There’s not a false note anywhere in it. The timing is brilliant, never missing a beat. I love the scene in the bar where she starts lapping her drink and all the customers are just staring at her. Fantastic. Beautiful drawings. If you’re running an animation studio, just meet Ms. Grishko on the corner, walk her through the front door, sit her down at a desk and have her start working.

Another film from the Candlelight Stories Short Films group on Vimeo.

Epic Mickey Wii Game Intro

by Editor

This is the opening cinematic from the upcoming Wii game Epic Mickey. It is fun and has that ever-flowing look of a Disney cartoon. I have one quibble with it. You can’t always do in computer animation what you do in hand-drawn animation. In this case, I think the problem is in Mickey’s hands. They are a little off.

Animation: Call of the Cthulhu In Under 2 Minutes

by Cimaxion

In general, I am deeply suspicious of the web trend for geeks to head toward steampunk, octopuses, and all things Cthulhu.   There’s a vague and creeping racism underneath the cute old-fashioned, brass-fitted surface.  I’ve also held a certain amount of contempt for H.P. Lovecraft. I think the guy was a closeted white supremacist with a knack for telling horrifying tales that are about white supremacists.  I can imagine him as Sarah Palin’s favorite author… if she reads.  The Cthulhu stories are genuinely frightening and his writing does contain a high creep quotient. But I’m just about ready to launch DOS attacks on sites that dig every alien octopus that shows its tentacles.

This, of course, is Lovecraft’s Call of the Cthulhu in under 2 minutes. It’s very well done and I like the use of the newspapers to move the story. Declan Moran made it. He also made Dante’s Inferno in Under 2 Minutes.