Coraline artist panel at Nucleus.

Gallery Nucleus has recently hosted a Coraline Production Artist Panel.  Steve Lambe has posted most of the event which Sean Szeles recored during the talk. The talks are also viewable on YouTube.

MEET some of the PRODUCTION ARTISTS that worked on the movie as they drop by to discuss their contributions to the film, along with the production and artistic process for this highly anticipated visual masterpiece.

Nucleus, located in California, hosts many emerging artists, illustrators, animators and interactive work.

Coraline was done in stop frame animation, all of the finish work and pre-production that went into it though are enormous contributions and art in their own right. The original story was created by a favorite of mine, Neil Gaiman, directed by Henry Selik renound for many films such as the “Nightmare Before Christmas.”

Gmunk’s website.

Gmunk is off the charts creative with the web site possibilities! His demo reel is plugged into the time code to reveal who worked on the piece showing and at what capacity. He is the new design director at Buck.

Dreamy the dormouse.

He didn’t even awaken from his hibernated slumber for the photoshoot. Read the full article here.

A canvas of ice.

Dr. Peter Wasilewski, a NASA scientist, paints with frizion crystals. His images show that joy present in the natural world. The shapes arise from water crystals that form on earth and are unlike the many other forms of ice known of in the Milky Way and beyond.

Thin layers of water are frozen, manipulated, and viewed through polarized light.  Light has wave-like properties, one of which is vibration.  A polarizing filter is placed on a light table to polarize the light passing through. A petri dish with a thin layer of water in the process of freezing is placed over the filter. As the polarized light passes through the forming ice crystals, it is bent in two slightly different directions and forms two different rays of light. The color palette in the images is created by rotating a second polarizing filter placed over the ice to intercept and resolve these emerging light rays.

Thanks to Bioephemera for bringing these beautiful images to my attention.

Social media for disease control.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has taken the social media model and in doing so has made it so much easier to find current information on product recalls to infection outbrakes.  The recent peanut butter recall is highlighted here. The blogs that keep outbreak news updated, the webinars to allow bloggers to stay up to date on outbreaks and recalls and to ask questions of FDA and CDC subject matter experts, the searchable databases where information on products can be found and much more are available to anyone with access to a computer.

This kind of information is pertinent in our fast paced, multifarious world.

Super Bowl Ad.

Ahhh, the beautiful and plentiful broadcast time put aside for advertising during the Super Bowl.  This year my absolute fave was the ‘Heist‘ done by Psyop and Weiden + Kennedy Portland. The little tricksters are brilliant in the use of illusion and subtlety! Full list of Credits. The sweet crane shot at the beginning is just perfect for setting up the scene to be somewhere between dream and reality.

A fine touch.

Shepard Fairey has been getting a lot of press these days. Armed with modern design techniques (some timeless techniques) and walking with philosophy books in his back pocket he brings attention to what’s going down with a fine touch. He’s been busy on the freezing cold streets of Boston pulling back the layers and making art.