Jan 10, 2012

Hope for Hand Drawn Animation: Minkyu Lee's "Adam and Dog" trailer

Traditional character/hand-drawn animator (and current Disney visdev artist) Minkyu Lee has been working on a personal film over the past two years, a short that from the looks of the footage I've seen proves it's possible for beautiful and polished work to be achieved by a very small number of individuals, if the people involved--and especially the person in charge--has the chops to pull it off.

Obviously Minkyu Lee does. This has the look of what we tend to call "classical animation". By the way, Minkyu painted all the backgrounds himself. There are only 6 key animators listed in his credits, all are friends and fellow CalArts grads with the notable exception of James Baxter(I think his work is immediately apparent in the short trailer). In additon, a dozen more artists not listed below, all of an obviously high caliber, helped finish it on their own time and in addition to their day jobs.

This is really something else.

Adam and dog Trailer from Minkyu on Vimeo.


Here are the credits as listed on the trailer's page:

Written and directed by Minkyu Lee

Animation by:
Minkyu Lee
Jennifer Hager
James Baxter
Mario Furmanczyk
Austin Madison
Matt Williames

Associate Producer:
Heidi Jo Gilbert

Technical Direction:
Ethan Metzger

Score:
Joey Newman

Film consultants:
Glen Keane
Thomas Ethan Harris


A complete list of everyone who contributed is on the film's Tumblr page, which is also where I got the accompanying artwork I've posted.

9 comments:

Chris Sobieniak said...

Have to follow on this one!

Andrea Pucci said...

Wow, so beautiful atmosphere and animation...very magic!

David Bowers said...

There's always hope for hand drawn animation. Take a look at the website, trailer and FASCINATING blog for my friend Neil's new film The Last Belle. It is inspiring.

http://www.thelastbelle.com/

David said...

This is intriguing ! I can hardly wait to see the whole film.

I hope eventually someone can pull off a similar sort of project of feature-length, if they can get enough financing up front to keep a small group like this employed for a few years and get the all important distribution deal inked before commencing on the production. The talent and the want-to is there. We all know that good quality hand-drawn feature could be made by a dedicated group like this for way less than is typically spent by the big studios. The tough nut to crack remains securing good distribution so that the finished film will be seen by a wide audience once the film is completed. It seems like a lot of independent animated films sink quickly at the box-office because the marketing and distribution muscle isn't behind them.

Anonymous said...

Interesting. Characterless, but as a moving postcard, interesting. Pretty pictures only go so far. I hope there's a story.

shiyoon said...

To Anonymous:

I wonder what you think of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2hDR_e1o1M

"Characterless, a moving postcard.. pretty pictures only go so far.. I hope there's a story".. probably the same type of b.s. this trailer from Jean Luc Goddard got from nameless critics like yourself

obviously someone needs to watch more films outside of animation..

Dave V. said...

Hey Anonymous loser,

1.Go watch Ratatouille.
2.Skip ahead to the part about the life of a critic.
3.Hold a mirror up to your fat face.
4.Go cry when you realize you have no purpose in the world compared to people who actually create art.

Thank you that is all.

Maƫl Gourmelen said...

Agree...

Tanvir K said...

Awesome!