David Schonauer
Vimeo Monday June 6, 2016
Filmmaker Michael Wiehart was one of the winners of the first International Motion Art Awards, for a short film inspired by science experiments done
at the C.E.R.N. particle collider in Switzerland. That film combined live action and 3D animation. Wiehart, founder of the the production company Visual Comforts, recently completed another project — a minute-and-a-half piece of 3D animation that he calls a “ visual amuse bouche.” Called
The Odyssey, it explores dangerous dark depths — and a child’s adventurous spirit. “It was interesting to see how far I could push this without the help of a big team and
render farm,” he says. Read the full Story >>
It’s Nice That Wednesday April 27, 2016
Designer Stefan Sagmeister, a past winner of the International Motion
Art Awards, recently debuted his new documentary The Happy Film at the Tribeca festival in New York, and you can watch the trailer at Vimeo. Funded via Kickstarter, the doc follows Sagmeister as he conducts a series of experiments on himself to find out if it’s possible for a person to
impact his or her own happiness trying three different approaches: meditation, therapy and drugs, notes It’s Nice That. But, weirdly, it all started as a graphic design project. Read the full Story >>
Red Nose Studio Thursday March 3, 2016
Illustrator Chris Sickels and writer Shana Corey have teamed to create a children’s book telling the true story of New York City’s first subway, which began giving rides to astonished
throngs on February 26, 1870. The book, called The Secret Subway, is set for release this month, and Sickels has produced a stop-motion trailer as publicity, which you can see at the website
of his Red Nose Studio. Sickels, whose 2D illustration work involves photographing 3D puppets, found the move to motion to be a natural one: He is also a past winner of the International Motion Art
Awards. Go here to read our story about him. Read the full Story >>
Vimeo Thursday August 20, 2015
Brooklyn-based illustrator and animator Richard Borge, who is a past winner of the International Motion Art Awards (see this close-up, as well as this one), has created a new music video with electronic hip-hop band Honey Claws that
is stirring things up on online. The video is for the song “Digital Animal,” which was used in an episode of the AMC series Breaking Bad. As Borge explains at altpik, he was experimenting with Aftereffects one night when he heard the song and decided to incorporate
it into his video. He later made contact with the band through Instagram and began working on a full music vid for the song. “It's looking insane,” Borge tells us. Read the full Story >>
YouTube Tuesday August 4, 2015
North Carolina-based photographer and filmmaker Andrew Kornylak was in Atlanta in late May to shoot a wedding, and, as he notes,
“Whenever I'm back in Atlanta, it seems like the stars align to shoot something with Little Tybee.” Kornylak, who was named a winner of the first International Motion Art Awards for a music video he shot with the band, soon
found himself at work on a new project for Little Tybee’s single “Tuck My Tail.” Lead singer Brock Scott wanted to feature band members appearing and disappearing in different rooms
in an abandoned Atlanta middle school. The video was shot with a Sony FS700 And Odyssey 7Q in 4K RAW, mounted to a DJI Ronin gimbal. Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Friday June 19, 2015
Brooklyn, NY-based illustrator, graphic designer, and animator Andr da Loba says that his stop-motion pieces, or "these guys," as he calls them, take a long time to make. His short "On Thoughts,"
which was a winner of the International Motion Art Awards 1 competition, took three years to make. He was a winner again in IMAA 3 with his two-and-a-half-minute "Tuttodupezzo," which he describes … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Friday June 5, 2015
"As a longtime fan of both professional wrestling and stop-motion animation, it only made sense that this is what I would spend my final project of school working on," says Rosemary Travale of her
thesis project for the B.A. Animation program at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario. Titled "The Champ," the short features a lead character who, like Travale, is slightly obsessed by the … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Friday May 22, 2015
"In the past few years the revolution in digital-filmmaking platforms has made it effortless to move back into my first love of storytelling," says New York City-based photograph Eric Ogden, who grew
up in Flint, MI, making Super 8 films. Last year, Ogden got an assignment from Fast Company to shoot actress Anna Kendrick for the cover of the magazine's "100 Most Creative People … Read the full Story >>
Vimeo Monday May 18, 2015
Anyone who’s ever visited the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn has marveled at the beauty of the institution’s 19th-century steam power plant, whose shining pipes and and exotic gauges are
showcased on tours of the art school. Filmmaker Dustin Cohen, an MAP reader and International Motion Art Awards winner, now takes you on a behind-the-scenes tour of the
plant with the man who’s been keeping it running since 1965, Pratt Chief Engineer Conrad Milster. “He is a character and a half, to put it lightly—sweet, endearing, quirky,
curmudgeon-y at times, and pretty much always interesting,” says Cohen, who has created a series of shorts showcasing Brooklyn artisans and craftspeople. Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Thursday April 30, 2015
You can often find a worthy subject for a story close to home. Photographer Scott McDermott did when he lived near the corner of Broadway and White Street in New York City, not far from Let There Be
Neon, a business that makes custom neon signs. "I always thought it was cool and somewhat unexpected that there was a store on my block that … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Friday April 17, 2015
The final season of AMC's "Mad Men" series is now underway, and its fans will be waiting to see the fate of Don Draper, the complex '60s-era ad man who wants everything and finds anguish because he
gets it. One avid viewer of the show is Max Friedman, a senior at Kean University in Union, NJ. Friedman, a graphic design major, was inspired to … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Thursday March 19, 2015
As an illustrator, Toronto-based Balvis Rubess has vivid way of explaining things. Among his most memorable works are three masterpieces created for Melcher Media publishing in New York--"The Pop-up
Book of Phobias," "The Pop-up Book of Nightmares" and "The Pop-up Book of Sex." (Open that last one and see what pops up under headings like "Missionary Position" and "Mile-High Club.") As an
animator, he … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Thursday March 5, 2015
Illustrator Mai Ly Degnan's International Motion Art Awards-winning piece "Hopelessly Devoted: A Ghost Story" is in fact not a ghost story, but a story about love -- the kind of love that hurts, the
kind that is lonely rather than rapturous. The three-minute stop-motion animation focuses, in Degnan's words, "on blind love, unhealthy, one-sided relationships, breakups and moving on." The story
follows a ghost … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Thursday February 5, 2015
Last spring, New York-based photographer and filmmaker Baldomero Fernandez was tapped by Temple University to create a short promotional film about the school's underrated football program. "It's not
one of the premiere programs in the country, but the team is very good. The players and coaches all have a bit of a chip on their shoulder," says Fernandez. "They wanted to show the grittiness … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Thursday November 20, 2014
Those who were on hand at the annual AI-AP Big Talk symposium this month to see the winners of the third annual International Motion Art Awards also heard an interesting panel discussion about
transitioning to motion work from still photography and illustration. One of the panelists was Brooklyn-based motion-design artist Richard Borge, a past IMAA winner and a winner of IMAA 3 for two … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Thursday August 21, 2014
Launched in 2000, the New York City-based Vilcek Foundation raises public awareness of the contributions of immigrants to science, art, and culture in the United States through grants and other
programs. In 2013, the foundation decided to create a branding identity for a series of films it produces, and it turned to the Thornberg & Forester production company. The result was 30 seconds of … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Thursday August 14, 2014
In 2012, the Thornberg & Forester production company teamed with ad agency DDB Chicago to create a fundraising video for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. The one-minute piece is powered by a true
story about a car accident that changed one family's life forever--a narrative that, in turn, is sent into motion by a simple animated device: a red ribbon symbolizing the charity organization. … Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Thursday July 17, 2014
Ampersands are everywhere, but have you ever thought about how important they are? They bind together names and ideas with graphic sturdiness and style. And throughout history they have relieved
mankind from the tiresome task of writing the word "and." When the New Republic asked New York City design duo Sagmeister & Walsh to create an ampersand illustration for the opening page of the … Read the full Story >>
PDNPULSE Tuesday June 10, 2014
Another International Motion Art Awards winner, Dustin Cohen, is
nearing completion of a unique project—a 26-minute documentary for Stella Artois. Cohen’s IMAA-winning video series Brooklyn Stories, which looks at the borough’s unheralded
artisans, helped land him the new gig, notes PDN Pulse. The doc, called The Chalice Symphony, focuses on the design and construction of four one-of a-kind instruments that use Stella Artois
chalices to make musical sounds in different ways. Brilliant! Read the full Story >>
By David Schonauer Thursday June 5, 2014
Olimpia Zagnoli, an illustrator based in Milan, notes at her website that she rides a tiny red bike, wears stripes, hates blue ink pens and sends postcards. The band Green Like July also hails from
Italy, though it has been described as having a classic American-folk sound. In 2011, Zagnoli directed her first music video, for the band's song "A Better Man," which featured … Read the full Story >>
