The Adventures of Tintin

Animator lands Spielberg job with homemade clip

By Orlando Parfitt, Yahoo! UK Movies News, Yahoo!

A UK-based animator who made an unofficial title sequence for the new ‘Tintin’ movie got more than he hoped for when his work went viral: a job offer from the film’s director, Steven Spielberg.

James Curran, of SlimJim animation, worked in his spare time on the superb animated title sequence, then posted it online a few weeks before ‘The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn’ came out (it was released on Wednesday).

It got a great response on video hosting-site Vimeo and various blogs, but when people who worked on the film began to circulate the footage, it really took off.

He told Yahoo! Movies: “I got emails from someone who knew the assistant to Peter Jackson, someone who knew Kathleen Kennedy, the producer.

“Then it was passed on to Spielberg, because I got an email from his assistant the other week saying he loved the video.

“He said it was ‘touched by genius’!”

Besides the compliment, the email also had a job offer from the legendary director. James was cagey about what it was, saying it was “early days”, but he’s hopeful it will be one of Steven’s future film projects.

When he got the email, James also got invited to the film’s premiere this week.

“Actually they didn’t invite me, I invited myself! I replied back saying ‘take me to the premiere!’ I thought I might ask.”

Afterwards Edgar Wright, the director of ‘Hot Fuzz’ who also co-wrote ‘Tintin’, tweeted about the job offer and the video went mainstream.

‘So @slimjimstudios does unofficial #Tintin titles http://vimeo.com/30402976, Spielberg sees 'em, gives him invite to prem & job on next movie...’

James said the inspiration for the video was his love for the source material – super-fans will notice references to 23 of the 24 books in the clip.

His animation style, with flat colours and minimalist designs, was also similar to the extravagant CG animation used in the real film, though apparently some who worked on the film told James his version was superior.

“Sometimes simple is better. Mine is more faithful to the source material as well.”

James’ day job is creating animation for TV adverts, but he also makes music videos in his spare time. He hopes this attention-grabbing calling card will get him a lot more work in the movies.

“With the film coming out I saw it as a great chance to do something to help get me noticed and a get a bit of promotion.”

It worked.

To check out more of James’ work, check out his site and Twitter page.

source: Yahoo!

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Steve Jobs and the 7 Rules of Success

By Carmine Gallo | Entrepreneur

Steve Jobs' impact on your life cannot be underestimated. His innovations have likely touched nearly every aspect -- computers, movies, music and mobile. As a communications coach, I learned from Jobs that a presentation can, indeed, inspire. For entrepreneurs, Jobs' greatest legacy is the set of principles that drove his success.

Over the years, I've become a student of sorts of Jobs' career and life. Here's my take on the rules and values underpinning his success. Any of us can adopt them to unleash our "inner Steve Jobs."

1. Do what you love. Jobs once said, "People with passion can change the world for the better." Asked about the advice he would offer would-be entrepreneurs, he said, "I'd get a job as a busboy or something until I figured out what I was really passionate about." That's how much it meant to him. Passion is everything.

2. Put a dent in the universe. Jobs believed in the power of vision. He once asked then-Pepsi President, John Sculley, "Do you want to spend your life selling sugar water or do you want to change the world?" Don't lose sight of the big vision.

3. Make connections. Jobs once said creativity is connecting things. He meant that people with a broad set of life experiences can often see things that others miss. He took calligraphy classes that didn't have any practical use in his life -- until he built the Macintosh. Jobs traveled to India and Asia. He studied design and hospitality. Don't live in a bubble. Connect ideas from different fields.

4. Say no to 1,000 things. Jobs was as proud of what Apple chose not to do as he was of what Apple did. When he returned in Apple in 1997, he took a company with 350 products and reduced them to 10 products in a two-year period. Why? So he could put the "A-Team" on each product. What are you saying "no" to?  

5. Create insanely different experiences. Jobs also sought innovation in the customer-service experience. When he first came up with the concept for the Apple Stores, he said they would be different because instead of just moving boxes, the stores would enrich lives. Everything about the experience you have when you walk into an Apple store is intended to enrich your life and to create an emotional connection between you and the Apple brand. What are you doing to enrich the lives of your customers?

6. Master the message. You can have the greatest idea in the world, but if you can't communicate your ideas, it doesn't matter. Jobs was the world's greatest corporate storyteller. Instead of simply delivering a presentation like most people do, he informed, he educated, he inspired and he entertained, all in one presentation.

7. Sell dreams, not products. Jobs captured our imagination because he really understood his customer. He knew that tablets would not capture our imaginations if they were too complicated. The result? One button on the front of an iPad. It's so simple, a 2-year-old can use it. Your customers don't care about your product. They care about themselves, their hopes, their ambitions. Jobs taught us that if you help your customers reach their dreams, you'll win them over.

There's one story that I think sums up Jobs' career at Apple. An executive who had the job of reinventing the Disney Store once called up Jobs and asked for advice. His counsel? Dream bigger. I think that's the best advice he could leave us with. See genius in your craziness, believe in yourself, believe in your vision, and be constantly prepared to defend those ideas.

Carmine Gallo is a communications coach, a popular keynote speaker and author of several books including The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs and The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs. His latest is The Power of Foursquare (McGraw-Hill, 2011)

source: Entrepreneur

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Matt Groening

Matthew Abram "Matt" Groening [ɡreɪnɪŋ/ gray-ning; born February 15, 1954]is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is the creator of the comic strip Life in Hell as well as two successful television series, The Simpsons and Futurama.

Groening made his first professional cartoon sale of Life in Hell to the avant-garde Wet magazine in 1978. The cartoon is still carried in 250 weekly newspapers. Life in Hell caught the attention of James L. Brooks. In 1985, Brooks contacted Groening with the proposition of working in animation for the Fox variety show The Tracey Ullman Show. Originally, Brooks wanted Groening to adapt his Life in Hell characters for the show. Fearing the loss of ownership rights, Groening decided to create something new and came up with a cartoon family, The Simpsons, and named the members after his own parents and sisters — while Bart was an anagram of the word brat. The shorts would be spun off into their own series: The Simpsons, which has since aired over 486 episodes. In 1997, Groening, along with former Simpsons writer David X. Cohen, developed Futurama, an animated series about life in the year 3000, which premiered in 1999. After four years on the air, the show was canceled by Fox in 2003, but Comedy Central commissioned 16 new episodes from four direct-to-DVD movies in 2008. Then, in June 2009, Comedy Central ordered 26 new episodes of Futurama, to be aired over two seasons.

Groening has won 12 Primetime Emmy Awards, ten for The Simpsons and two for Futurama as well as a British Comedy Award for "outstanding contribution to comedy" in 2004. In 2002, he won the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for his work on Life in Hell. He will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012.

Groening was born on February 15, 1954 in Portland, Oregon, the middle of five children. His Norwegian American mother, Margaret Ruth [née Wiggum], was once a teacher, and his German American father, Homer Philip Groening [December 30, 1919 – March 15, 1996], was a filmmaker, advertiser, writer and cartoonist. Homer, born in Main Centre, Saskatchewan, Canada, grew up in a Mennonite, Plautdietsch-speaking family. He has Dutch Mennonite ancestors.

Matt's grandfather Abram Groening was a professor at Tabor College, a Mennonite Brethren liberal arts college in Hillsboro, Kansas before moving to Albany College [now known as Lewis and Clark College] in Oregon in 1930.

Groening grew up in Portland, and attended Ainsworth Elementary School and Lincoln High School. From 1972  to 1977, Groening attended The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, a liberal arts school that he described as "a hippie college, with no grades or required classes, that drew every weirdo in the Northwest." He served as the editor of the campus newspaper, The Cooper Point Journal, for which he also wrote articles and drew cartoons. He befriended fellow cartoonist Lynda Barry after discovering that she had written a fan letter to Joseph Heller, one of Groening's favorite authors, and had received a reply. Groening has credited Barry with being "probably [his] biggest inspiration."He has also cited the Disney animated film One Hundred and One Dalmatians as what got him interested in cartoons, as well as Peanuts and its creator Charles M. Schulz as inspirations.

source: wikipedia

Sergio Aragonés

Sergio Aragonés Domenech [born September 6, 1937, Sant Mateu, Castellón, Spain] is a cartoonist and writer best known for his contributions to Mad Magazine and creator of the comic book Groo the Wanderer.

Among his peers and fans, Aragonés is widely regarded as "the world's fastest cartoonist."The Comics Journal has described Aragonés as "one of the most prolific and brilliant cartoonists of his generation."Mad editor Al Feldstein said, "He could have drawn the whole magazine if we'd let him."

Born in Spain, Aragonés emigrated with his family to France, due to the Spanish Civil War, before settling in Mexico at age 6. Aragonés had a passion for art since early childhood. As one anecdote goes, Aragonés was once left alone in a room by his parents with a box of crayons. His parents returned sometime later to find that he had covered the wall in hundreds upon hundreds of drawings. Aragonés recalled his early difficulties in Mexico, saying, "I didn't have too many friends because I had just arrived. You're the new kid, and you have an accent. I've always had an accent... When the other kids make fun of you, you don't want to get out of the house. So you stay at home, and what do you do? You take pencils and start drawing."

Aragonés used his drawing skill to assimilate. "The earliest money I ever made was with drawings," he remembered. "The teacher would give us homework, which would consist of copying Chapter Eleven, including the illustrations... a beetle or a plant, the pistil of a flower, or soldiers-- that type of thing. All the kids who couldn't draw would leave a square where the drawing was, and I would charge them to draw that. The equivalent of a few pennies... That's probably why I draw so fast, because I drew so many of them."

He made his first professional sale in 1954 when a high school classmate submitted his work to a magazine without telling Aragonés. He continued to sell gag cartoons to magazines while studying architecture at the University of Mexico, where he also learned pantomime under the direction of Alejandro Jodorowsky. “I joined the class,” Aragonés recalled, “not to become a mime but to apply its physical aspects of movement to my comics.” In 1962, Aragonés moved to the United States. He currently resides and works in Ojai, California.

source: wikipedia

Jamie Hewlett - Gorillaz

Jamie Hewlett created the concept of the Gorillaz with Damon Albarn when they were living together in a flat in London in 1997. Although it has never been confirmed, it is supposed that these two comprise the 'Gorillaz Partnership', the company that owns the Gorillaz intellectual property and the Gorillaz songwriting royalty stream. Jamie is the visual director of Gorillaz; he created the characters that make up the band (though with some input from Damon, for example Damon asked him to 'tone down' Murdoc, and Paula, originally part of the line-up, was ditched in favour of Noodle after Damon worked with Miho Hatori on the debut album), and it is his drawings and sketches that all the Gorillaz art is based on. The musical side of the project impacts the visuals Jamie creates not only in the example of Noodle above, but also because Jamie visits Damon in the music studio to listen to works in progress and gain inspiration for ideas about the band based on the songs. Jamie has his own design and animation company Zombie Flesh Eaters who realise a lot of his visual ideas; for example, setting up and running the official Gorillaz website in the way he envisaged, designing record sleeves, possibly even some of the Gorillaz official artwork. He also created the basic story idea behing Gorillaz, although members of Zombie Flesh Eaters and Damon Albarn have also contributed to this, and the evolution of the characters. He co-directed the Gorilla Bites and the Gorillaz music videos.

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