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Animation

  • The Best Toonami Promos, Voiced by Peter Cullen

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    2 min read

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    Peter Cullen is a legendary voice actor. Notably, he’s voiced Optimus Prime of The Transformers since 1986. Some of his other voice acting credits include Gremlins, Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers, Winnie the Pooh and literally hundreds of others. My personal favorite are his epic narrations from the fabled Toonami Promos of the early 2000s. These promos would be used as bumpers between regular programming and often would promote special films to be featured during the Toonami programming block on Cartoon Network.

    The Big O promo easily sits at the top of my list. Not only is Big O one of the best animated series ever created, but this Toonami Promo is slammin’. The duet of Peter Cullen’s deep but stoic concentrated voiceover and the electronic flat beat-esque house background track gets me amped every time. These kinds of bumpers just don’t get cut like they used to. It’s an absolute banger of a promo:

    I would never advocate for piracy but if you’re curious what Toonami programming was like back then, visit here to get a sense for the nostalgic vibe of Toonami.

    I’m fairly sure Peter Cullen even voiced other Adult Swim promos as well. Surely there’s some Cullen VO just sitting in the Williams Street video archives. If you have access to these or know someone who does, please email me. Until then, here’s some other Cullen Toonami Promo gems I have saved:

    Gundam 0080 Toonami Promo

    Gundam Wing Endless Waltz Toonami Promo

    Outlaw Star Toonami Promo

    Rurouni Kenshin Toonami Promo

    Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone Toonami Promo

    Gundam Wing Epic Promo (Long Version) Toonami Promo

  • The Boy and the Heron – Official Trailer

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    1 min read

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    The trailer’s description on YouTube reads:

    A young boy named Mahito yearning for his mother ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead. There, death comes to an end, and life finds a new beginning. A semi-autobiographical fantasy about life, death, and creation, in tribute to friendship, from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki.

    Seemingly ominous! It seems to have all the trappings and flow of a classic Miyazaki films. I’m excited for this one to drop. This couldn’t come any sooner. Looks like the US will see a theatrical release in December 8th.

  • Mitski : A Pearl

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    1 min read

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    From the video description:

    This music video was initially created on the computer using several pieces of 3D animation software. After the digital version was finalized, all 1,480 frames of the video were then individually printed using ink jet printers. Once an image was printed, it was then painted, drawn, and illustrated on top of using traditional animation techniques. Lastly, the newly illustrated frames were scanned back into the computer and sequenced into the final film.

    This animation film is another work of art from the Brooklyn studio, Art Camp. Ravishing, delicious and ambitious — just a few words to describe just how amazing this animation is. The style, the process, and the music pairing are a match made in heaven.

    It’s just so fucking good.

  • Stems

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    2 min read

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    Sam Morrill, Director of Curation at Vimeo:

    Sentimentality is a tricky thing. For those of us who possess it, experiencing “all the feels” can provide a deep well of emotion to draw from, enhancing our response to — or remembrance of — any given person, place or thing. However, like any well, it’s deep, dark and you can fall down it if you’re not careful. When it comes to our physical creations and possessions, sentimentality means the difference between tossing something in the waste bin and keeping it on a bookshelf for time eternal. Take an inanimate object that has been imbued with a life and identity of its own, like a stuffed animal, and you can begin to understand how one starts down the path of becoming a hoarder. Ainslie Henderson is to sentimentalists what Willy Wonka is to chocoholics. Since releasing his BAFTA-nominated directorial debut, “I Am Tom Moody” in 2012, Henderson has established himself as one of today’s preeminent stop-motion animators, lauded for his uncanny ability to breathe life into any manner of puppet, anthropomorphic or not. Henderson’s newest film, “Stems,” is an empathic ode to the artist’s puppets and today’s Staff Pick Premiere.

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    Despite the final film’s modest runtime, production took the better part of six months, a testament to the painstaking work inherent to stop-motion and central to Henderson’s ability to bring his characters to life. “I take my time,” says Henderson, who is then quick to point out that the design of the puppets is every bit as important as the way in which they’re ultimately animated. “They should have a kind of ‘aliveness’ even before they move, that way you don’t have to do terribly much in the animating to bring them to life.” When asked if he ever gets attached to his creations, Henderson’s response is perhaps unsurprising: “I cherish them. Even the ugly, or half-finished ones get a place on the shelf in my studio. They’re like this weird, constantly growing little family who stare out at me from the windowsill as I’m working.”

    Wonderful camerawork, stop-motion and sound design.