"The Little Boat" by Nelson Boles

Found via CartoonBrew (thanks Amid).



Beautiful film by Cal Arts student Nelson Boles. 

It’s become a cliche reaction now, but I still feel compelled to say that when I see work like this (and Nelson’s other student film: “This one time…” http://vimeo.com/4566083) I can’t understand why the major studios are not grabbing these artists and putting them to work on fresh, new hand-drawn films. This sensibility could truly reignite interest in hand-drawn animation.  Films like this, or Ian Worrel’s shorts (http://vimeo.com/user407933/videos), and the various Gobelins shorts, among many other examples which could be named, show that stylistically and thematically there is still so much new ground to be covered with both hand-drawn short films and features which are not merely re-treads of earlier Disney or Warner Bros. styles.

"Le Royaume"

This graduation film is by Gobelins students De Nuno ALVES-RODRIGUES, Oussama BOUACHERIA, Julien CHHENG, Aymeric KEVIN, Sébastien HARY, Franck MONIER, Ulysse MALASSAGNE.



Color Script and other "making of" material about "Le Royaume" -

Making of 'Le Royaume'


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"Death Buy Lemonade" by Kyu-bum Lee

Death Buy Lemonade created by Kyu-bum Lee at Sheridan College.

Death Buy Lemonade from Cartoon Brew TV on Vimeo.

More about Kyu-Bum Lee and the making-of the film posted on Cartoon Brew:

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/brewtv/deathbuylemonade.html


The story reel (animatic) -

The Monkey and the Elephant by Boris Maras

The Monkey and the Elephant by Boris Maras, Sheridan College 2010.

He animated this in 2 months.





From Boris Maras's blog:

"Keeping my film rough was a big decision. Amanda and I were both considering cleaning up and colouring our films, but we would have had to rush the animation so much and we really wanted to learn as much as we could about animation. Keeping them this way, I think we learned a lot about our limits and we have a way better idea for how approach a short film now.
The idea for my film was pretty different up until February, the characters were pretty much the same but the situation they were in was different. It was risky because I had to throw away the animation I had already done and around 25-30 layouts, but I think I made the right decision for what I want to pursue.

I started animating around the middle of February and animated up until our deadline of April 19th. It was the craziest 2 months of my life but I'm really happy with the amount that I learned during the process of making my film and hope I can make another one soon."

New shorts from the Gobelins School for 2010 Annecy festival

http://www.gobelins.fr/galerie/animation/

Another great crop of student films from the Gobelins School in Paris , made for the 2010 Annecy Animation Festival . All are 1:00 minute or less . Shows that you can do a lot in only one minute !

I love the fact that besides the solid animation and design work that these films put a great deal of emphasis on the cinematography . These films are built on a solid foundation of classical animation, but with a modern sensibility in terms of the camera work.

"EAT!" by Jeff Liu

"EAT!" by Jeff Liu, made at Cal Arts. (third year film)

Chris Chua - "The Gift"

"The Gift" , animated by Chris Chua at Cal Arts.

Not a "grad film" , but I thought this was a nice example of a short solo student film that reminds us of how effective a well-drawn "pencil test" format film can be.


Chris's sophomore year film "The Gift" -

"Volgens de vogels" by Linde Faas

"Volgens de vogels" (According to Birds), a 2008 graduation film by Linde Faas at the St. Joost Art Academy in Breda, Netherlands.
Hand-drawn pencil animation.




Here is Linde Faas's showreel: