A special week of BEN 10 shows will air on Cartoon Network, leading up to the premiere of BEN 10: Alien Force on Friday, April 18 at 8 p.m.
April 13 – BEN 10 marathon
April 14 at 8 p.m. – Ben 10 special featuring the results of the ultimate BEN 10 fan challenge
April 15 at 8 p.m. – A previously unseen episode of BEN 10
April 16 at 8 p.m. – Enhanced version of the animated movie BEN 10: The Secret of the Omnitrix
April 17 at 8 p.m. – BEN 10: Race Against Time movie
At last night’s 2008 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, Pixar’s Ratatouille won the award for Favorite Animated Movie while Alvin and the Chipmunks won Favorite Movie. Topping off the animation awards was Eddie Murphy winning the award for Favorite Voice in an Animated Movie for Shrek the Third.
Check out this cool Speed Racer poster. Drag your mouse over it to see a cool 3D effect.
Cartoon Network’s Robot Chicken: Star Wars DVD has been delayed from May 20 to July 22, 2008 in order to capitalize on Comic Con and the theatrical release of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
The Robot Chicken: Star Wars episode first aired on Cartoon Network in July. Bonus features include behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes and commentary.
The fine folks over at the wonderful CGSociety have a great in-depth, behind-the-scenes feature of the hit animated movie, Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who, by Blue Sky Studios.
Here’s a small excerpt:
Another explanation was the need to master “squash-and-stretch†techniques that transcended the boundaries of animation physics and character performance and believability in order to capture the wonder and imagination of a Dr. Seuss story. The aim was to produce extreme looks and movements, including an effect to make their legs move so quickly that they smear on screen.
Head over to CGSociety to read the entire two page feature.
In what could be the best news all week, and its barely Monday, every South Park episode is now available online for free! The official South Park site: www.southparkstudios.com has all 12 seasons available for viewing and the quality is really good too, compared to other internet video sites.
The new beta site also includes a new avatar creator, where you can create your very own South Park characters.
The only catch to the free episodes is that there are short ads embedded into the episodes which cannot be skipped. No big deal though. Toyota is currently sponsoring the episodes.
The launch is a joint venture between co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker and Comedy Central; the two will split ad revenue 50/50.
I’m really surprised that more TV networks, movie studios, etc don’t use the power of the internet and animation to their advantage. A good animation can go viral on the internet quite easily. Get it on youtube and have a few sites pick up on it and the hits start rolling in. The people who see the animation will then pass the word along via IM or social sites like Myspace and Facebook… pretty soon the hype train is rolling at 100mph and people don’t even notice that the animation they just watched was an advertisement.
Then, once the viewer sees the show on TV they’ll say “Oh, that’s that show that was mentioned in that cool animation. Hmm… I wonder what this show is about.” And if the show is good, a new audience member has just been gained — all through the power of the internet, animation and viral marketing.
Here is an example of a Showtime animation for the second season of their hit show The Tudors, premiering Sunday, March 30, at 9PM ET/PT.
I personally haven’t seen The Tudors but am now interested to see exactly what the show is about… hey, Showtime, how about you send over a copy of Season 1 on DVD.
Persepolis, the Oscar-nominated animated feature, will return to 100 theaters in an English-language version on April 11. Co-written and co-directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, it’s based on Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel.
The English version of Persepolis features the voices of Chiara Mastroianni and her mother, Catherine Deneuve, as Marjane and Marjane’s mother. Sean Penn provides the voice of Marjane’s father; Gena Rowlands plays Marjane’s grandmother; Iggy Pop is Uncle Anouche; and Amethyste Frezignac plays young Marjane.
Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who, distributed by 20th Century Fox and animated by Blue Sky Studios, remained the top movie for a second straight weekend with $25.1 million, bringing its 10-day total to $85.5 million.
Route 66 ends this year at Fairfax and Wilshire with the launch of a special exhibition “The Art of Cars,†the first-ever creative collaboration between Pixar Animation Studios and the Petersen Automotive Museum. “The Art of Cars†showcases the artistic process behind the creation of the animated feature film Cars. The exhibit will run from March 29 through November 2, 2008.
“The Art of Cars†exhibit includes more than 60 watercolor and pastel drawings, pencil and marker sketches, and a variety of three-dimensional pieces.
Since I live within driving distance, I may just go check this out. I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures to share with all of you.
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