Channel Frederator Blog

So you’re staring at a timelapse of decaying food, like you do, when suddenly BAM! Fuzzy old raspberries turn into a fuzzy little person… and then things go bonkers from there. That’s how “Homunculus” a short film by Humble TV’s Sam Stephens and Chris Mauch starts out. Here they tell us how the film was made, and how to get rid of that bloated pheasant carcass smell.

Channel Frederator: Where did you study animation?

Sam Stephens: NYU. Tisch.

Chris Mauch: Went to School of Visual Arts, and Came out of their Excellent Computer Art Dept. One of my most crucial teachers/Advisors was Animator Jefferey Lerer.

CF: Who are your favorite artists?

SS: Brunuel, Svankmeyer, Chris Cunningham, Gondry, Doug Aitken, Bill Viola, Odd Nerdrum.

CM: Oh, boy haha, Frank Frazetta, Stanley Kubrick, Simon Bisley, Yoshitaka Amano, Moebius, Brad Bird, Mike Mignola, Frank Miller, Peter Chung, N.C.Wyeth. That’s pretty fun putting ‘em all in a row like that.

CF: Ha! Right? [Read more…]

Animation enthusiast, voice actor, comedian and handsome naturalist Mike Funt celebrated his birthday last weekend with a cartoon themed birthday party - everyone came dressed as their favorite cartoon character…

Birthday boy wearing Goofy’s clothes…

[Read more…]

This weeks Channel Frederator film,”The Machine”, comes to us from Bent Image Lab’s Rob Shaw. Find out why robots are both evil and radical and what Rob is working on next…

Channel Frederator: Where did you study animation?

Rob Shaw: I went to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia (where I grew up) for film and animation.

CF: Who are your favorite artists?

RS: I’m drawn towards a lot of eastern European animators like Jan Lenica, Jan Svankmajer, Jiri Barta and Jiri Norstein. They have organic textural styles that I love. Adam Elliot is a current hero because of the heart he gets into his films.

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Aussie animator and director Darcy Prendergast’s film, “Ron the Zookeeper”, is featured this week on Cartoon Hangover. Finally, a quality stop-motion about panda masturbation.

Cartoon Hangover: Where did you study animation?

Darcy Prendergast: RMIT, Melbourne. That said, there was no clay animation class there at the time, so I was largely self taught. The ol’ trial and error… Errors-plural would be more fitting.

CH: Who are your favorite artists?

DP: Jim Henson, Jean Pierre Jeunet, Jeff Soto, Joe Sorren. I didn’t intentionally choose artists that all start with J. It just happened that way.

CH: I saw in another interview that Ron is based on your father who was a zookeeper. What does he think of your film?

DP: He absolutely loves it. I was shooting this film in my uncles Garage, and no one was more supportive than my old man. He’d bring down changes of clothes, meals… Everything. Mum hardly ever ventured down, and as such, [Read more…]

Channel Frederator fans are in love with this weeks episode featuring “Moonboy” by Adam Calfee. Calfee, along with Gus Trauth, Jordan Held, and Ron Levellie have established MoreFrames Animation, a collective offering various creative services within the realm of animation, illustration, and design.

Channel Frederator: Where did you study animation?

Adam Calfee: I (and the rest of the fellows at MoreFrames Animation) studied at and graduated from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, which is where “Moonboy” was completed during the final semester of my senior undergrad year.

CF: Who are your favorite artists?

AC: MoreFrames is inspired by too many artists to name. But we are big fans of (in no particular order) James Jean, Katsuhiro Otomo, Ashley Wood, Jamie Hewlett, Frank and Ollie, Sylvain Chomet, P.T. Anderson, Hayao Miyazaki, everyone involved with the absolutely beautiful little shorts produced by Les Gobelins, Bobby Chiu…

CF: For such a short piece, the content in “Moonboy” is pretty epic. [Read more…]

Sorry for the late post friends - if you haven’t seen this week’s episode yet, grab a box of tissues and affix your peepers to one very touching hand drawn film. What’s your favorite hand drawn flick? Let us know on the CF homepage.

“Moonboy” by Adam Calfee and the good people at MoreFrames - A young boy, weary of a superficial and dangerous world, finds solace in space.

*Follow CF on Twitter!

*New episode of Cartoon Hangover this Friday! “Ron the Zookeeper”! Follow CH on Twitter! Be our friend on Facebook! WOO!

*Want to submit? Then go for it! Click here!

WARNING: Channel Frederator is rated EXPLICIT. Man, the moon is so *bleepin’* round! Oops. Sorry. Some content on CF is pretty grown up. If you’re under 18, get a parent’s permission prior to viewing.

-Bailee DesRocher

“Meatwaffle” is a strange, mixed media animation that has polarized audiences everywhere - from the CF YouTube page to Sundance. Take a look at what the the film’s director, Leah Shore, has to say about her work… plus the heartwarming adjective she invented.

Cartoon Hangover: Where did you study animation?

Leah Shore: I went to RISD for my undergrad and majored in Film, Animation and Video.

CH: Who are your favorite artists?

LS: SOOOO many artists… from off the top of my head - Ralph Steadman, Eric Fishl. Jan Svankmajer, My Mom, Dali,Tom Waits, Matthew Barney, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe. and many many mooore..

CH: What gave you the idea for “Meatwaffle”?

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Jaromír Plachý’s film “The Clod” is short, sweet and comes to us aaaaaall the way from the Czech Republic.

Channel Frederator: Where did you study animation?

Jaromír Plachý: I still study at Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, Czech Republic.

CF: Who are your favorite artists?

JP: Because I also deal with making comics, I have to name two contemporary authors of comics, who have worked in the animation field too - Max Andersson and Lewis Trondheim. Otherwise, there are some old masters of course, from Hieronymus Bosch to M. C. Escher.

CF: What gave you the idea for “The Clod”?

JP: At the beginning, there was a little drawing which came into being during my leisure time. There was a big creature against a tiny being. Then came the idea to animate it and find out how the situation will work out. And that’s all.

CF: Who does the voice of the little screaming dot?

JP: Me, personally.

CF: Yeah! [Read more…]

Whaddya say to the Academy’s picks for Best Animated Feature? We say there’s a lot of them this year, and that’s radical! This week you get to watch a fun little film, plus Carl gets your take on the animated Oscar noms. Cartoon Hangover features a festival flick from Sundance! Animation that is both Hangover worthy and Sundance worthy? You bet.

“The Clod” (”Hrouda”) by Jaromír Plachý: A giant becomes a big nuisance as it slowly approaches a tiny home.

*Follow CF on Twitter!

*New episode of Cartoon Hangover this Friday! “Meatwaffle”! Follow CH on Twitter! Be our friend on Facebook! WOO!

*Want to submit? Then go for it! Click here!

WARNING: Channel Frederator is rated EXPLICIT. Man, awards season is so *bleepin’* excellent! Oops. Sorry. Some content on CF is pretty grown up. If you’re under 18, get a parent’s permission prior to viewing.

-Bailee DesRocher

Daisy Edwards, a New York animator by way of Australia, brought us this weeks film, “Without Thunder”. Below she discusses heartbreak, romance, and why NYC sucks in the rain.

Channel Frederator: Where did you study animation?

Daisy Edwards: I went to the Queensland College of Arts, Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.

CF: Who are your favorite artists?

DE: I am one of those people who easily falls in love with art and artists all the time…so I have a lot of favourites! But a few to name would be Pascal Campion (I met him at Comic Con, very much a fangirl moment), Mary Blair, Lauren Child, Van Gogh, Monet, Degas…and as for animation artists I cant go past Tim Burton (his MOMA retrospective is awe inspiring), Henry Selick (another ridiculous fangirl moment) and pretty much all the designers for Nick cartoons in the 90s (Aah! Real Monsters, Rocko’s Modern Life, etc)

CF: What gave you the idea [Read more…]