Beast @ Anima 2011!

Coming Friday, 5^th of march '11,  the International Animation Film Festival of Brussels kicks off.  They’re celebrating their 30^th edition!!! Find all info on www.anima2011.eu

And (of course ;-) Beast Animation is joining the party! Not only is our leader for the Woestijnvis program “Man Bijt Hond” screened in the “This is Belgium” sessions. There will also be an exhibition of the sets and puppets we made and animated for the leader. The expo will take place in the central bar (where else?) of the festival.

The festival runs from Friday 5^th ‘till Sunday 13^th of march 2011 @ Flagey, Brussels.

Hope to see you there!

Beast (re)animates dead animals

To end 2010 with a bang, Beast Animation is working on a new TV commercial, we’re shooting a new Bazas game and are preparing the production of the Bazas series! About al this there will be more news very soon.

In the second week of December, Beast Animation has been animating on Bertrand Mandico’s new short: “La resurrection des natures mortes”. The film is a mix of live action and stopmotion. 

Our job was to animate dead animals. We had already worked with Bertrand and were familiar with his strange but strong universe. So there we were, giving life to animal corpses. Quit an extraordinary experience ;-)

The first mission was to animate a horse. Please note that no animals where killed for the sake of the film. The horse for example was very old and became blind recently, so his owner decided to end its misery. And gave permission to Bertrand and his crew to use the body for the film.

On the first day we shot 20seconds in 10 hours. The horse was cooperating quit well. He even let us animate his mouth...

Second, was a running dog with flowers growing out of his belly. This dog had been working in several films before dying of age.

Problem was that the dog seemed to be dead way longer than the horse. So the air, although extremely cold, was not that fresh. After 11 hours of shoot the dog is running again. And he can continue infinitely.

After" the dog experience" there was a women waiting to animated. Luckily she was not dead, but she could play for dead quit well ;-)  Little bird heads are holding and pulling up her hair.

During an hour and a half the actress hardly moved, while the bird heads were animated around her. And I can assure you, it was almost freezing inside the “studio”.

And last but not least: the hare. This is the first animal to appear animated in the film. He is laying on a black surface, and every image there are white chalk, handwritten numbers counting the frames.

After a 4 hour shoot the hare is running again!

We are not allowed to show you the animation at this point, but will try to do so when the film comes out. Expected before the summer of 2011.

Director Bertrand Mandico and main actress Elina Lowensohn keeping the freezing animator company, giving some instructions, telling stories AND opening a fresh beer every now and then.

Cheers!

New work coming up!

Sorry for being so silent lately. We’ve been very busy the last months We would love to show you some images but these projects are still “top secret”. So we’ll try you show you something without showing you anything... Capice?

We've been shooting a commercial for big pharma company. Around the beautiful set we’ve build a complete “white box”. Hot animation!

Andreas De Ridder animating our crazy character.

We will be able to show you the result soon!

Only two days ago we finished shooting the new leader for “Man Bijt Hond”. 

Just as last year David Toutevoix was our DOP.

Andreas and Ben animating until 1 in the morning AND dancing afrobeat J

Joeri Bollaert and Carole Pizzaferri preparing the last set for “Man Bijt Hond”.

The show will start on (Flemish) television at the end of august. We’ll show our international friends the result a little after.

And there is more to come!!! 

“Man Bijt Hond” – the spring version.

Spring, blossoms, green grass, flowers and the first warming sun... We’ve just shot a new, and final, version of the leader for the TV show  'Man bijt Hond’. Production company Woestijnvis asked us to make an adaptation of the leader with the change of each season. 

Spring is on TV! Here are some making of pictures.

Lotus Caramelized biscuits commercial

Here are some making of pics of the stop motion commercial we did for Lotus, using real caramelized biscuits and an adapted coffee cup in a set we constructed in our studio. Agency is Duval Guillaume, the commercial is produced, directed and animated by Beast Animation and can be watched here or here.