Our Monday Video this week is "Maybe Sparrow" by Neko Case, with animation by Julie and Paul Morstad. The song comes from Case's Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, an album recorded at the Wave Lab Studio in Tucson. You can hear more of her music on her website.
Julie Morstad is a Vancouver artist whose work I just love. Go to her website to see more of her art -- and also check out her terrific new artbook, Milk Teeth, from the Canadian art & comics press Drawn & Quarterly.
I am always attracted to experimental flash animation in combination with fiction. I think it is one of the most interesting new art forms -- allowing for a richly textured and interactive experiment with fiction. Dreaming Methods is a website that offers quite a few of these experiments -- combining art, flash animation, and narrative together in complex and adventurous ways. There are many ongoing projects -- so it's a terrific site to come back and visit regularly to see what's new. You will need flash and a fast connection to view and participate fully in these projects. And do subscribe (it's free) as it will give you access to more projects and an interesting look at resource materials associated with each project.
One of the projects I found really amazing was the The Sketch Book of Annie Sykes, a fascinating collage of text, imagery, sound (which is best turned up), and video. "Turning" each page presents a kind of "living" journal.
I also find this work really interesting because I think it is perfectly tuned to mythic fiction and art despite its technical demands. It creates a version of oral story telling, allows for a mythic interpretation of the tale through art, music, and flash animation, and also allows the audience to connect to the tale though interactive play. I am looking forward myself to having an opportunity to do a project in flash. For another great example of this new frontier in mythic arts, have a look at the recent work of Connie Toebe and Lisa Stock (Through The Cobweb Forest). And for poetry, have a look a Born Magazine.
Zune Arts is a terrific website that features collaborations between musicians and artists in short animated films. There are many wonderful little films here -- and a host of talented musicians and artists to get to know. Below is "Swap Meet," a collaboration between againstallodds studio, founded by Derek Picken and Josh Thorne, and the L.A. band, Deadly Syndrome. (thanks to Laura Sweet of If it's Hip, It's Here)
Over the last two years I have been following the work of a very talented pair, Michael Samyn and Aurie Harvey, of Tale of Tales, a Belgian studio producing interactive online computer games based on fairy tales. Currently they have three projects in various stages of development: "8," "The Endless Forest," and more recently a new game called The Path, a spooky (and very punk-looking) version of Little Red Riding Hood.
Their first experiment, 8, is an exploration of different versions of Sleeping Beauty which takes the player through some beautifully designed locations. Here's a description of the plot: "A young girl gets trapped in a luxurious palace surrounded by a thick forest. Everyone in the palace is asleep. They should have woken up by now. The Prince should have come by now. But the Princess is in no condition to meet him. Assisted by a Wicked Fairy out for revenge, eight unworthy princes have penetrated the forest and disrupted the magic that once protected the sleeping court. The power of the spell is fading. The forest branches are growing. The palace walls are crumbling." The project is still in its developmental stages, but the website lets one wander through the fascinating landscapes and have a peek at the conceptual art created by Lina Kusaite, Martin Michl and Gorik Lindemans.
In The Endless Forest, a multi-player online game, one enters the game in the form of deer (the various avatars are wonderful!) to explore an enchanted landscape and interact with other deer and with this magical world. From the description: "Although not goal-oriented, there are several activities that you can engage in. Nothing very demanding or violent. Just fun things to do in a nice environment. Once every so often, the forest deities will appear, either in person or through their divine powers. Beware of falling rocks and sudden showers!" There's lots of fun to be had here -- one can change other players' horns or pelts, or even shapeshift them into squirrels, bats, frogs, or birds through spells collected from eating mushrooms, from pinecones, or from mushroom "fairy circles." (With more fabulous concept art from Lina Kusaite.)
The most recent project is The Path, the team's first commercial single player game (available 2009), based on a very dark interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood. Here's the introduction: "There is something wrong with the forest. No matter how bright the sun shines, it remains dark and foggy. It smells like something died. Strange noises fill the rusty air. Squeaks and screeches. The dull thump of someone chopping trees. The wind playing eerie melodies on ghostlike flutes. Shivers run down her spine. She just left the city. Cars can't drive here anymore. Mother told her to go visit grandmother. The old lady lives all alone at the other side of the forest. Quite a walk from here. It's probably best if she stays on the path." As before, there is no set goal for this game, rather an invitation to journey through the dark forest and decide whether to adhere to the path, or to wander....
(*Thanks to Carisa Swenson for reminding me about this wonderful studio.)
A while back, I posted a link to comic book artist Nina Paley's website, where she was turning her art into animation with a wonderful, off-beat film of The Ramayana, India's mythic tale of the goddess Sita and her turbulent relationship with the god Rama. All through her troubles and woes, the curvaceous Sita sings in the soulful voice of 1920's jazz singer Annette Hanshaw such classic songs as "Mean to Me" which seem perfectly at home (and wildly funny) in the ancient setting.
Nina Paley continued work on the shorter, episodic films and has now completed what looks to be a visually gorgeous, multilayered full length feature. Here's a press release description of the new 82 minute film, due out in Spring of 2008: "Sita is a goddess separated from her beloved Lord and husband Rama. Nina is an animator whose husband moves to India, then dumps her by email. Three hilarious shadow puppets narrate both ancient tragedy and modern comedy in this beautifully animated interpretation of the Indian epic Ramayana. Set to the 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, Sita Sings the Blues earns its tagline as "The Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told."
You can check out the trailer of the new film below, purchase prints made from the still (these are terrific!), or see a sneak preview at Oddball Films in San Francisco Dec. 1, 2007.
It's becoming something of a habit to post a video on Monday mornings to kick off the week. This time it's "Cat Man Do," a charming little piece by Simon Tofield from the London-based animation company Tandem Films. It was recommended to us by Canadian artist/musician/editor MaryAnn Harris. (Thanks, MaryAnn!)
Read It:
Day Two of the Winter Blog Blast Tour of interviews continues and it promises to be another fabulous round of interviews. There are just so many great writers talking with knowledgeable interviewers who ask great questions. Even if you don't know the author on the list -- stop by and have a look. I guarantee you will be intrigued.
Tuesday:
Lisa Ann Sandell at Chasing Ray
Perry Moore at Interactive Reader
Christopher Barzak at Shaken & Stirred
Autumn Cornwell at The Ya Ya Yas
Jon Scieszka at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Gabrielle Zevin at Jen Robinson's Book Page
Judy Blume at Not Your Mother's Book Club
Erik P. Kraft at Bookshelves of Doom
Clare Dunkle at Miss Erin
Watch It:
Connie Toebe and Lisa Stock have completed the tenth and final episode of their gorgeous flash animated story, Through the Cobweb Forest (on its one year anniversary). Following a call, Helena disembarks from her ship in a strange harbor and enters a mysterious forest in search of her lost husband. Told in letters and journal entries, the story records Helena's adventures (and dangers) of the forest. Now that the tale is complete, Connie mentioned to me they have decided to create a stop animation version of the story as well -- and perhaps, more stories of the adventurous Helena.
Hear It:
Catherynne Valente has two kicking interviews on the net as well: one at Fantasy Magazine and another even more comprehensive interview at Fantasy Book Critic. But fans of the Orphan's Tales books will want to hear the mp3 of S. J. Tucker reading (and singing) an excerpt from the new novel. What a great voice.
Midori has been valiantly covering this blog solo while I've been down with a truly nasty flu -- and as I'm still shaking the last of a rattling cough out of my lungs, my posting may be a bit sporadic over the next week or so.
This post is to let y'all know that there is now an "Endicott Studio Channel" on YouTube, where we'll be putting videos that we think will be of interest to fans of mythic arts -- such as the Mythic Journeys documentary from the good folks at the Mythic Imaginations Institute, Ben Okri discussing his approach to writing, an A&E biography of J.K. Rowling, a little film on artist Paula Rego, the great June Tabor singing Child Ballad #191: "Hughie Graeme," and more. (f you come across other good videos on YouTube, send us a note and let us know.)
The video above is of Neil Gaiman reading his fairy tale poem "Instructions" at Cody's Books in Berkeley, California. Considering his voluminous output of work over the last several years, Ellen Datlow and I will forgive him for forgetting that he actually wrote the poem at our request for our children's fairy tale anthology A Wolf at the Door, where it was first published in 2000. It's my favorite of all his poems, and a real treat to hear him read it.
(While you're on YouTube, if you're a martial arts fan, check out this little video that Howard Gayton made of a tournament/demonstration of our Kung Fu teacher's school, The Dragon Temple, in our village hall in rural Devon.)
There are elements of the Rapunzel fairy tale in the magical Japanese shampoo commercial above. (With thanks to writer and Goblin Fruit editor Jessica Wick for the link.)
Collaborators Connie Toebe and Lisa Stock have just posted Chapter Nine of "Through the Cobweb Forest," their flash animated narrative of a woman searching for her missing husband through a mysterious forest. For those of you who might be new to the series, this is a wondrous journey through a Victorian-inspired tale, complete with haunted houses, ghosts, and forests of surreal beauty, all accompanied by plinth's eerie and lovely soundscapes.
For those of us who have been following the series: This is the second to last chapter, and we find Helena making the most daring choice of her time spent in the forest. The ghost and the women in the lake have spoken, but now it is Helena's turn. What will she say to her beloved and what will she decide to do?"
Here's a sweet little video to start your week with a smile. The animation is produced and directed by Joseph Gaffney; the song is "The World Spins Madly On" by The Weepies.
Here's a sweet little animation by Matthew Simkins for Seth Lakeman's magical song "The White Hare." I'm a big Seth Lakeman fan, not least because he's a Devon lad, writing songs that are often based on the myths, legends, and history of Dartmoor (where I also live). You'll find another good Lakeman video posted on Endicott's MySpace page.
More information on the "three hares" symbol that you see on the medallion in the video can be found here. More information on hare mythology and folklore is here. For wonderful mythic fiction involving rabbits and hares read The Limits of Enchantment by Graham Joyce, Hannah's Garden by Midori Snyder, and Medicine Road by Charles de Lint, illustrated by Charles Vess.
Speaking of good videos, don't miss the Ojos de Brujo peformance on Midori's MySpace page. It's a killer. Have a good weekend!
Madame Tutli-Putli is a "metaphysical adventure" by the Montreal-based film-makers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski. This gorgeous work of stop-motion animation picked up two prizes at the recent Cannes film festival. Go here to see a short trailer for Madame Tutli-Putli, and interviews with the film-making team. (With thanks, once again, to Alan Lee for the link.)
Chapter Eight of Through the Cobweb Forest by Connie Toebe and Lisa Stock is now online. Oh Helena! She has traveled far to find her missing husband, but once finding him sleeping amidst the trees, she wonders if her journey has not changed her too much. What should she do? Wake him and be rescued and returned to her old life? Or seek a different sort of rescue following the haunting song of the Fallen Woman?
Once again Connie's Victorian flash animation (totally steampunk in my estimation...as though the layered images were plucked from a stereoscope) is lovely and spooky with fog, glimmering forests, and lightning. Lisa has captured the elegant longing of Helena's voice in her journal, and plinth has added a lovely and moody ambiance in the new soundscapes.
This is certainly making the rounds but oh, it is so amazing to watch that I couldn't resist posting it here. (Special thanks to Gregory Frost, who knew we'd appreciate it.) The director is eggman913 and more of his films can be found on You Tube.
Are you hooked like me on Through the Cobweb Forest, my favorite flash animated story of a woman on a journey through a mysterious forest? Artist Connie Toebe and author Lisa Stock now have chapter seven up and it's gorgeous. What's more, this dynamic duo is joined by British musician plinth, who has created unique soundscapes that perfectly match Connie's surreal-Victorian landscapes. His work will be featured on the next few chapters, so be sure to have your speakers turned up as it is really special.
Lisa Stock of "Into the Cobweb Forest" has begun producing The Film Odysseys Series of short, dreamy fairy tale films. You can watch her film "Scheherade" either here in Quick Time which will give you a higher resolution, or a lower resolution on YouTube. I am looking forward to the whole series! Don't forget to turn the sound up. (I totally love the Sirens by the way!)
The London-based artist Rima Staines has created an enchanting animation for Polly Paulusma's song "The Woods," a single off the forthcoming album Fingers and Thumbs. If you have a fast Internet connection, you can see the animation in full here. A smaller version is available on Polly Paulusma's MySpace page. To see more of Rima's work (paintings, drawings, prints, etc.), visit The Hermitage website.
Rima also sends news that the London Gypsy Orchestra will be performing this Friday night, April 27, at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. The concert starts at 7:30 pm and admission is free. See the Events section of the LGO's website for more information.
Connie Toebe and Lisa Stock have just posted the sixth chapter in their ongoing Gothic mystery, Through the Cobweb Forest. Still searching for her missing husband, Helena continues her journey through the eerie forests and haunted lakes. She encounters fish swimming in trees, ghosts in abandoned houses, and sirens beneath the surface of green lakes. This is a really amazing and delightful collaboration. Connie's interactive flash animation is gorgeous and Lisa's narrative, told in Helena's letters and journal entries, is wonderfully Victorian, ala Wilkie Collins.
And here's a bit of Cobweb Forest behind the scenes from Connie: "Now more than half way through the adventure, Connie and Lisa have been on the journey in more ways than one. For those who may not know us by face -- that is Connie in the green dress appearing as Helena, and Lisa in the red dress appearing as the ghost, throughout!"
Connie Toebe will be at WisCon this year. She says to be sure to stop by the art gallery (where you can see and purchase her evocative boxes) and say Hello, or check out the panels where she'll be discussing her work. Connie is also creating the artwork for the recipients of the Tiptree Awards, Shelley Jackson and Cartherynne Valente. Visit Connie's website to see more of her art.
Chapter Five of The Cobweb Forest is now online and what a spooky, haunted little chapter it is. Helena hears the ghost's sad tale and warnings about what dangers lie ahead in the mysterious forest. The animation is wonderful -- Connie Toebe has worked tiny, jewel-like films into her beautiful collaged backgrounds. Lisa Stock's story continues to intrigue, with gothic letters and slowing evolving secrets.
Here is a pleasant find this morning, a Ukiyo-e flash animation site. Ukiyo-e (meaning "pictures of the floating world") is the art of Japanese woodblock prints which became popular in the growing metropolis of Edo (Old Tokyo) between the 17th and 20th century. The art drew its inspiration from all aspects of Japanese life: landscapes, seasons, mythology, the lives of rural and urban workers, the theater and actors, the brothels and famous courtesans. Kuniyoshi and Yoshitoshi are famous for their prints of mythic monsters, heroic samurai, and ghosts. Hiroshige and Hokusai created some of the best known images of 18th century Japanese countryside: luminous views of Mt. Fuji, famous bridges, the crest of an ocean wave, and the mysterious lives of the fox shape-shifters, the kitsuné.
The animator (I think the name is T. Yukawa -- I had trouble finding it on this Japanese site) has taken many popular Ukiyo-e prints of Japanese life, seasons, ghost stories and myths and produced charming flash animated versions. Farmers twirl in a sparrow dance, a drowning ghost drifts up from a well, and elegantly dressed women lean out over a river to catch fireflies. My favorites are Hiroshige's stately procession of a kitsuné wedding (featured above) and his image of burning firelight rising above a gathering of kitsuné in the woods. (For those who don't read Japanese, click number two and number five from the top to find them.)
To view more Ukiyo-e on the web, start with Hans Johansson's round up of excellent Ukiyo-e sites, from which I can recommend this comprehensive site on Hiroshige, The Twenty Four Views of Mount Fuji by Hokusai (a number of which are animated on the Flash site), and this fabulous collection of Kuniyoshi's comic print series, which are hilarious.
And I can't resist...because of all the recent hoopla about the word "scrotum" appearing in the opening page of the recent Newberry award winning YA novel, The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, I recommend having a look at William Pearl's Kuniyoshi Project which features Kuniyoshi's outrageous prints of Tanuki -- a little raccoon-dog-like trickster known to shape-shift into temple teapots. (And here is a follow-up page of more outrageous prints.) Tanuki is also known for his enormous scrotum and Japanese artists have had great fun depicting his practical application of this body part -- as a blanket, an umbrella, etc..
Be still my heart!! What a fabulous blog! Stop by and pay a visit to the ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archive Project. Here's a brief description of the purpose of this amazing site: "The International Animated Film Society: ASIFA-Hollywood has embarked on an ambitious project to create an animation archive, museum, and library for the benefit of the animation community, students and general public. The first phase of this project involves the creation of an ANIMATION DATABASE which will house images, movie clips and sound files pertaining to the art of animation."
In the meantime, the blog delights with found treasures. Check here to see fabulous fairy tale illustrations from Gustaf Tenggren, like the one above from a rare 1923 edition of Grimms Fairy Tales, or here to see the splendid illustrations of Kay Nielsen's East of the Sun, West of the Moon and here for his Twelve Dancing Princesses. In fact, read The Top Ten Reasons to Contribute and scroll down to Reason number 6: Golden Age Illustration. Gorgeous, gorgeous!
Gary Morris at Bright Lights Film Journal has a spectacular article on Tex Avery and his wonderfully wild and raucous versions of well known fairy tales. While Disney was producing sweet versions of "The Three Little Pigs" and "Snow White and The Seven Dwarves," Tex Avery was at M-G-M and Warner making hilarious and very modern versions of fairy tales with titles like "Swing Shift Cinderella" and "Red Hot Riding Hood." Avery had a much more down-to-earth take on fairy tales than Disney. Morris states: "Avery's fairy tales jettison the whole idea of morality, along with other troublesome concepts like logic, sense, and sexual repression. He brings the 'big bad wolves' and 'red riding hoods' out of the sanctity of the linear narrative and into the service of the gag, creating in the process a unique world of self-conscious 'cartoon actors' who know they're in a cartoon and freely comment on their status as fictional creations, undercutting the story at every turn."
Stop by Bright Lights and have a glance at the whole article. Now, if I could just find a way to see these cartoons. Anybody know if they've been re-mastered on some DVD somewhere?
Those of you following Helena's journeys through the fantastic Cobweb forest will be pleased that Chapter Four is now on line. Helena enters a house, its walls weeping, vines growing through the soaked wallpaper, and ghosts haunting the hallways. Here Helena will see visions of her long lost husband, photographs of her wedding in a parlor, and follow the voice of a ghost into a garden.
As always the production is an astonishing collaboration between author Lisa Stock creating the tale in Helena's letters and artist Connie Toebe combining art and flash animation to make a wonderful Gothic tale of mystery and love.
There are just a few weeks left now to see Kiki Smith: A Gathering: 1980 - 2005 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. This show (which has been traveling around the U.S.) is the first full-scale American museum survey of the career of one of our most innovative artists -- and one whose work often falls into the realm of the mythic and fantastic.
Kiki Smith, the daughter of the post-war artist Tony Smith, was born in Germany in 1954 and raised in New Jersey in a household where Jackson Pollack, Mark Rothko, and other artists were frequent visitors. Settling in New York after one year of art school, a three month course of Emergency Medical Technician 
training focused her attention on the human body as a major source of inspiration for her art. Her interest in depicting the female form led, in turn, to an exploration of feminine figures in myth, folklore, and Biblical stories -- an exploration that ranged across many media, including sculpture, printmaking, and installation art.
The curators of the Whitney show have noted that the natural world also played a significant role in the development of Smith's art, "with may works based on landscape, the cosmos, and the historical and spiritual connections between humans and animals. Smith has incorporated birds extensively in her work, and has also turned her attention to a wide array of other creatures, frequently depicting wolves, deer, cats, owls, bats, mice and other animals drawn from the contexts of religion, literature, and folklore.
"More recently, Smith has explored storytelling as a subject matter, separating characters from their traditional narratives, as she weaves together elements from fairy tales, folklore and myths to create evocative pieces that invite multiple interpretations."
Visit the Whitney Museum website for more information on the artist and on the exhibition, which runs until February 11, 2007. You can also see a Flash Slide Show of the exhibition (and listen to commentary about it) on the Minneapolis Public Radio website, which profiled Smith's work when A Gathering was exhibited at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
I also recommend Kiki Smith: Prints, Books, & Things, a Flash Slide Show on the MoMA website, created for a previous exhibition of Smith's work. The slides are divided by subject: Early Screenprints, Anatomy, Self-portraits, Nature, and Feminine Contexts. About the latter topic, the curators write: "Smith's feminine subjects have ranged from Egyptian goddesses and classical Greek nymphs to Biblical figures and heroines in fairy tales, reflecting her voracious study of art and culture across continents and epics."
This description could also easily be applied to Marina Warner's work, which we profiled on this blog yesterday. So it should come as no surprise that Warner, along with Siri Engberg and Linda Noclin, wrote the text for the book that accompanies the Whitney exhibition: Kiki Smith: A Gathering (1980-2005). Also available is Kiki Smith: Prints, Books, & Things, with text by Wendy Weitman. Both books are handsomely designed and presented.
Born in Russia in 1963, Andrei Dorokhin trained as an architect and is now a well-known artist and designer in Minsk, Belarus. As a young artist, Dorokhin was part of the Soviet Union's "New Romantic" movement in the 1980s. The New Romantics favored colorful imagery imbued with fabulism and personal symbolism, reacting against the strictures, dogma, and dominance of Socialist Realist art. Although initially a rebellious, underground movement, by the late 1980s New Romantic artists had achieved such mainstream success that people queued for hours to get into their exhibitions. To a younger generation born when the old Soviet way of life was crumbling, this art represented freedom, hope, and a new dialog with artists in the West. In the 1990s, as borders relaxed, Dorokhin and other New Romantic painters began to exhibit their art in other parts of the world. Today, Dorohkin's work is exhibited and collected in the US, UK, Germany, France, Holland, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, and Israel, in addition to Minsk and Moscow.
Dorokhin uses an intensive multi-layering technique to create his paintings and collages, many of which are inspired by mystical and mythological themes. His AndieArtworks website features artworks from 1993 to the present, a charming flash animation, and special projects such as La Pensee de la Mort and OneGirlDiary. You can also view fourteen of Dorokhin's paintings on the MyArtPlot site.
Connie Toebe and Lisa Stock have put up Chapter Two of Through A Cobweb Forest, their wonderful flash animation tale of a woman's journey through a surreal and tangled forest to find her husband. Chapter Two continues the story (told in Helena's letters) as Helena explores the mysterious port where her ship has docked, and is lured by the song calling to her from the forest..."
And do have a look at the conclusion of the roundtable discussion with James Morrow, Jeffery Ford, John Crowley, and Tim Powers, moderated by Diana Gill, on the Eos Books blog. Fascinating, provocative, and just really, really interesting. Now that all three parts are out, read them all at once to get the full effect of all these great observations and ideas about writing.
My special thanks to artist Connie Toebe for introducing me to a wonderful collection of flash animated versions of Croatian Tales of Long Ago online. The stories are from the literary folktales of Croatian author Ivana Brlic Mazuranic. Helena Bulaja, co-ordinator of the project, has gathered international teams of artists, flash animators, actors and musicians to produce these amazing and unique award-winning pieces. Although intended for a younger audience (a couple of the tales are interactive), they are compelling enough for a discerning adult audience as well. There is also an opportunity to purchase a CD-rom of the stories here.
Don't miss Part Two of the roundtable discussion with Jeff Ford, Tim Powers, John Crowley, and James Morrow over on the Eos Books website (moderated by Diana Gill). And just like the first installment, this one is fascinating and full of bite. Here's James Morrow:
"It seems to me that a Martian reading our symposium so far might conclude that a novelist is a kind of data-gathering device with no axes to grind or agendas to nurture, merrily stitching together eccentric bits of history--quirkiness for its own sake--until the tapestry assumes a pleasing shape. Come, gentlemen, we all know there's more to the game than that."
And here's a little something from the inventive notebooks of the great Leonardo. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London (easily one of my all-time favorite museums just for the cool stuff they do) has a flash animation website that takes Leonardo's drawing and scientific notes and makes them move. (The war machines are amazing...so strangely modern in their design.) Utterly fascinating and not to be missed. Also included in the web exhibit is a chance to peruse Leonardo's notebooks, read commentary, and follow an animated timeline of his achievements.
If you are interested in the world of digital animation and design, consider enrolling in the Gnomon Workshop of Hollywood, Dec 2-3, for a weekend of "Entertainment Design and Visual Effects Techniques." The weekend promises to be a rewarding experience with a "stellar line up of instructors, featuring speakers in and out of the Gnomon Workshop library. These artists will present on subjects including character and concept design, storyboarding, comic book penciling, modeling, game production pipeline, and texturing. In addition, you'll also get a chance to meet some highly accomplished artists who will take you inside their own personal projects and processes."
For more details on how to register, the full schedule, and what to bring (your portfolio is a must!) check here. (In fact, if this is an area of interest for you, check out the whole site. Gnomon offers an amazing array of instructional DVD's for purchase as well as free video tutorials online for those already acquainted with the basics of computer animation and design.)
Among those slated to instruct is long-time Endicott contributor Iain McCaig, who was a principal designer for Star Wars: Episode One, Two, and Three, designing characters, creatures, and costumes in his bustling studio at Skywalker Ranch. His other principal design credits include Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Peter Pan, Charlotte's Web (coming out Christmas 06), and Outlander (coming out 2007), as well as Edgar Rice Burrough's John Carter of Mars, which Iain tells me, "film studios have been trying to bring to the screen for almost eighty years, and which I and my team have now designed--twice." Iain also directed an award-winning short film, The Face, currently distributed theough Spiritual Cinema Circle.
Iain currently has four instructional DVD's on Gnomon that explain some of the principle techniques of visual storytelling. His gorgeous fairy drawings from his sketchbooks can be seen in the Journal of Mythic Arts, Summer/Autumn Issue, and you'll find an archived gallery of his illustrations in Telling Stories: the Art of Iain McCaig.
We welcome to the Internet a wonderful new collaboration between artist and flash animator Connie Toebe and author Lisa Stock in Through the Cobweb Forest. This project is a myth and Victorian-inspired romantic drama, told in the journal letters of a woman named Helena as she searches through a mysterious, fantastical forest in search of her husband, and, ultimately, her own independence. The narrative unfolds in a combination of interactive flash animation, audio clips, text and evocative collages.
Here is a brief synopsis of the story to whet your appetite:
"Helena lives in a world indicative of the Victorian era with a surrealist twist. On a ship bound for a new home in a new land, the monotony of the trip, and her life, begin to wear on her. When the ship docks at an uncharted port for repairs she takes the opportunity to venture ashore, only to be mistakenly left behind. Now Helena must find her way to a port on the other side of the mountain to board another ship home -- with the only route begin Through the Cobweb Forest. On her way, she is drawn deeper intho the landscape by the siren song of mysterious chimes, the clues given to her by a prince, and the love of another man..."
The first installment is currently live, and there will be new journal entries on Helena's journey posted every four to six weeks. In between journal entries, you can visit the discussion forum to discuss the creative aspects of the project with Connie and Lisa. And while you're at it, consider supporting the project by getting an awesome Through the Cobeweb Forest t-shirt.
The mask remains one of the most fertile and ambiguous icons of the mythic world. Ancient Greeks depended on the masked performance to create a ritual space in which humans and gods could communicate. The Italian Commedia dell' Arte combined human characters (the Lovers) with masked characters in a wild romp that included improvisation, slapstick, political satire, and bawdy love triangles. To the Venetians the mask gave license during Carnevale, when any serving man in a mask could woo a duchess in the street or verbally trounce his superiors without fear of reprisals. It was also a time of secret assignations -- when masked lovers dared walk out together in the throngs of Carnevale goers.
The Sunday poem -- two poems actually -- celebrate the mask's ability to both conceal and reveal the true identity of its wearer. Muriel Rukeyser wrote " The Poem As Mask" as a criticism of the mask's power to conceal and hide the true identity of the wearer. Writing as a feminist, she saw the mask in the women's Orphic dances not as a hymn to liberation, but as a form of self-forgetting, a blunting of self awareness. "No more masks! No more mythologies!" cries the poet, a cry that was echoed in the early 70s feminist movement. Yet, the poem is more than an act of rejection; it's a call for a more authentic female mythic voice. Out of the Orphic cult of ecstasy and death, women would recreate a genuine mask of birth and joy.
