Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Hand-Drawn Animated Film "Klaus"

Klaus teaser ©2015 Sergio Pablos Animation Studios, S.L. & ANTENA 3 FILMS, S.L.U. All rights reserved
(Link to Vimeo video) Sergio Pablos Animation Studios created a teaser for “Klaus,” their latest animated feature film, which is now in financing stage.

The teaser introduces a hapless mailman assigned to a mountain village where no one wants a postal service.

The look of the hand-drawn animation is quite different from the current crop of Hollywood CG animation.

Because it begins with 2D drawing, it's unlike Disney's Paperman and Feast, which were 3D CG models rendered to look like they were hand-drawn. 

Beyond the animation technique, the teaser showcases some gorgeous shot design and color schemes.

Both in terms of color moods and visual pacing, the trailer has wonderful variety...

Note how the color gradates from cool at the base of the shot toward warm in the upper area of all the silhouettes.

The use of lighting to heighten mystery is remarkable and inspired. 


11 comments:

Susan Krzywicki said...

Intriguing. And will it be shown here in the states?

James Gurney said...

Susan, let's hope so. The release plans are probably a long way off, since it's just in production, and in the process of securing financing.

Lindsay Gravina said...

Thought you should know, you accidentally linked to the car video in this post.

Jacob A Stevens said...

Amazing. I understand that the original outlines were drawn by hand, but do you think the cells were also colored by hand, or digitally?

James Gurney said...

Jacob, as far as I can guess, it's 2D and hand-drawn in the sense that the animators are drawing flat characters with lines on a digital tablet. The frames are colored and given some volumetric shading also on computer, plus there's some camera movement on environments, which must be conceived in 3D, at least as layers in virtual space. But we're not talking about pencil and paper and animation cels and cel-vinyl paint. So it's not a nostalgic throwback technique, yet it has the touch of the hand in every frame.

The Disney shorts Paperman and Feast have kind of a 2D look in the way they were rendered, but as I understand it, they were created as virtual 3D puppets, and rigged and animated more along the lines of a mainstream CG animated film.

jeffkunze said...

This looks fantastic!

Juan Carlos Barquet said...

Love the shapes and lighting in these screenshots.

I attended a lecture at SCAD by an artist who worked on Paperman (I can´t remember his name off the top of my head) and he talked about an innovative software they developed in order to be able to have hand-drawn 2D animation driving the 3D CG models, which would 'stick' to the drawings.

Lester Yocum said...

THAT is fabulous animation. Character, environment, style, pacing, GORGEOUS color -- a feast. Thank you for sharing.

Unknown said...

I loved it it have been along time I didn't see such a great work, I want to watch it, I think it's a real taste of artistic work.

Benny7770 said...

I cant wait til they reveal their software techniques!!

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