Willy @ Beast

Since a few weeks we have a very very very special guest at our studios: Willy. He’s the leading actor in a new short film Beast Animation is producing. The film is written and directed by Emma De Swaef and Marc James Roels and the title is… “Oh Willy”.

Our co production partners are Vivement Lundi (F), Polaris (F) and Il Luster (NL).

The universe of Willy is very rich and completely made out of wool (and some other fabrics). Emma and Marc are doing an exceptionally good job supported by a very enthusiast team. Andreas De Ridder and Steven De Beul have been animating the first part of the shoot. Steven will move on to other projects and is replaced by Alice Tambellini. The sets where mainly constructed in France by Vivement Lundi, the remaining sets are build at Beast by Joeri Bollaert with some assistance of Dimitri Vandermeulen. Puppets are finished and maintained by Emma, assisted by Babs Raedschelders and Dorien Schetz. Who are also building al lot and a lot of beautiful props. Besides directing, Marc is also doing a great job as DOP. And the whole shoot is controlled and planned by Marianne Chazelas.

Small team. Great results!   Enjoy these making of "Oh Willy" pictures.

 Willy acting one of his first scenes

 Steven animating Willy's mother.

 Emma, Marc and Steven discussing animation and rigging.

Willy at the puppet hospital.

Emma preparing the Yeti for shooting.

The small set where we shoot the interior scenes.

Andreas animating little Willy.

Andreas animating little Willy. 

The film will be finished by end of this year. Without any doubt more news later on!

New frontiers

After almost seven years of stopmotion fun and craziness in our studios in Brussels, we decided it was time to move on. And move out! 

So Beast has moved to a brand new studio in Mechelen (between Brussels and Antwerp). 

We didn’t have the time really for champagne and oysters, nor a housewarming party. Yet ;-) We’ve moved at the end of April and started up our new short film production “Oh Willy” at the same time. The film is written and directed by Emma De Swaef and Marc Roels and produced by Beast Animation in co-production with Vivement Lundi (F), Polaris (F) and Il Luster (NL). We’ll show you more very soon. In the meantime you can have a look at Emma and Marc’s previous stop motion film: http://youtu.be/IqOObTphuPQ

Two weeks ago our new studio was the location for a evening session about “social responsibility at IKEA” organised by the Expert Group Internal & Employer Branding of the Foundation Marketing  So we prepared our new meeting /lunch room...

Apparently our visitors had a good time at Beast as well ;-)

And well, let’s give you a sneak peek anyway. We’ve build 3 shooting studios for “Oh Willy” and for one of them we’ve installed this cyclo of about 5 m by 14 m…

As we said: new frontiers. And moving on! 

Full House

Last week our studios have been fully crowded. Eve Martin & Nico Bueno are shooting their short “Terre Vague”, a rather experimental film, combining live-action and stopmotion.  The quite large crew (ca 25 people) was shooting on location for a while and than landed at the Beast studios for 10 days of green key shoot. 

At the end of March the stopmotion part will be shot in our studios.

You can see some pictures from the location shoot on: http://www.flickr.com/photos/neverneverlight/sets/72157626218763566/

The film is produced by La Parti Production and Beast Animation.

In the meantime we’ve been doing a live shoot for a new Paranix commercial: models, styling, agency, technical crew, etc invading the rest of our studios.

Beast is producing and directing the film. We’ll post some pics when it’s on air.

And while all this is going on we’re working on our super short series: Bazas!

Keep you posted ;-)

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!