UMOVE Online Videodance Festival deadline has been extended to September 9, 2009!!
In order to celebrate the creativity and diversity of kinetic cinema in all its forms, from dance/film to gaming, from animation to mash-ups, we have extended the deadline for submissions for the following categories:
Animation/Gaming – including digital animation, machinima, Second life, Virtual Reality games, motion capture.
Cell phone – videos made using a cell phone, webcam, or Flip cam.
Gone in 60 seconds – videos under one minute long
Please refer to our web site for details and rules for submission.
The First Annual UMove Online Videodance Festival will run from October 1-31, 2009 on the web with a live screening and launch party in New York on October 4th. Additionally we plan to tour a curated selection of videos to national and international venues in 2009-10.
Please send us your media! We look forward to seeing your work!
Movement Media is delighted to have Doug Fox as a guest blogger for this week’s posting. Back in February 2009, Doug presented several movement-based animations as a guest curator for Movement Media’s Kinetic Cinema program. Click here to read our blog posting featuring Doug’s Animation program at the screening.
Doug Fox’s Picks for Dance and Movement Animations
One of the captivating elements of dance and animation is the diverse range of forms it can take. Among the animation techniques that can be employed to represent the body in motion, whether in a more concrete or abstract manner, include:
2D
3D
Stop motion
Live-action and animation hybrids
Real-time animated graphics using motion tracking
Visualization overlays
Special effects
ASCII-based animations
Digital puppetry
Cut-out animation
Motion-capture based
2D/3D lasers
Rotoscoped
Virtual worlds
Pre-cinema era animations
For Doug’s round-up of some of his favorite dance and movement animations he made selections of each of these different types of animations. A few videos chosen by Doug couldn’t be embedded onto our blog for your viewing convenience, but we encourage you to take a minute to check out these great videos, to learn about the many types of dance and movement-based animated videos artists are creating. Enjoy!
Rotoscoped Tango dance scene from “Waking Life”:
Gabrielle Lamb’s “Quizas” mixes 2D animation and live-action footage:
“En Tus Brazos” is a narrative-based 3D animation about a tragic accident that besets a famous Argentinean Tango dancer:
Also enjoy an ASCII-based animation “TextField” by Chirstinn Whyte and Jake Messenger:
The Converse music video “My Drive-Thru” is based on the cut-out animation technique:
Oren Lavie’s “Her Morning Elegance” is a stop-motion music video compiled from thousands of photographs:
The “Prodigy Warrior’s Dance” combines stop-motion animation and puppetry:
The Recoil Performance Group’s “Body Navigation” uses motion tracking and projectors to general real-time, interactive graphics in a performance environment:
“Trash Dance” features 3D animation and motion capture:
Lastly, Doug offers us “Anima Istanbul”, which re-creates the feeling of the pre-cinema era zoetrope effect:
Movement Media appreciates Doug sharing some of his favorite animated videodances with our readers. As you can see, artists are making some extraordinary animations, and there will certainly be more exciting works in the future, as more artists are combine animation with dance and movement.
Doug Fox is the founder of Great Dance, one of the first dance blogs. His blog and speaking programs have primarily addressed how dance-makers can embrace the Internet and digital tools to enhance their marketing and promotional efforts. He is an active member of the dance community and serves on the Dance/NYC Advisory Board.
Doug began to study and research all forms of animation, especially as they relate to dance and movement. This research led to the creation of his dance animation educational program, which he was delighted to introduce at Movement Media’s Kinetic Cinema. Doug is continuing to expand this screening program and workshop and it will be shown on August 16th at the Hong Kong Science Museum presented by the City Contemporary Dance Company.
It’s a really interesting article about Christian Comte, a French artist, who makes animations from still images. Recently he chose Vaslav Nijinsky, the much revered Ballet Russe dancer and choreographer, as his subject, and posted what appeared to be film fragments of the artist on YouTube that were never known to exist before. The appearance of the clips sparked a frenzy of excitement and debate among balletomanes and dance historians.
If you go to his YouTube page you can see all the videos he’s made and all the comments users have left. They have said everything from praise for Compte “finding” these videos, to appreciation of him using his talent to finally bring some idea of Nijinsky’s movements to life, as well as reprimands for him fooling them. He does insist that he is not trying to pass his films off as originals, but the confusion is understandable…sometimes.
Here are couple of Comte’s videos:
I think Comte is a fantastic artist. Although some people have felt disappointed or duped by his work, Comte’s animation techniques reveal a whole new avenue for movement, film, and photography. If people can let go of their hopes of seeing a legendary dancer come back to life, I think they will be able to appreciate Comte’s contribution to the film and dance world, as well as the web community. He has only added to our circle of art, and gotten us to think. Shouldn’t those two things be appreciated and asked for in art?
We’d love to hear your responses to this work and the debate surrounding it.
I’ve been jonesing to write a reflective post on this blog for the past two months. Seems like it’s been all action action action ever since the New Year turned! So let the rest of my to-do list be damned, and here we go…
Illuminated by Kevin Abbott
Last week we had a great Kinetic Cinema program at Chez Bushwick. Doug Fox (blogger and founder of Great Dance and a budding animator himself) went above and beyond the curatorial call of duty to give us a real feast for the eyes with his survey of eighteen (yes 18!) dance and movement-based animations. Some how they all fit into a program that ran just over an hour long, and even more remarkable was the feeling that none of the selections dragged on too long. In fact, when Doug announced that he had one more piece in his cache, and asked us if we’d like to see it, the overwhelming response from the audience was yes! Like candy, we still wanted more, even though we were already stuffed.
Buzz is spreading about our Kinetic Cinema program tonight featuring Dance Animation picks by Doug Fox, founder and blogger of Great Dance. I’ve been lucky enough to get some advance peeks and can attest that each of the seventeen short works being shown tonight is more beautiful and jaw-dropping than the next. It’s a smorgasbord of delights for the visual and kinetically inclined…
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s what some other folks are saying:
Amber Dawn Connors interviews Doug Fox about his program on Dancing on the Edge.
Claudia La Rocco admits she’s actually hopeful and excited about seeing a “dance for the camera” program on WNYC’s ART.CULT blog.
Taylor Gordon, a young, spitfire dance writer recommends you come out tonight on her Off Center blog.
Even the animation industry is taking notice! Check out this post on the ASIFA-East Exposure Sheet blog…
Up-date 2/11 at 12:55pm – Here’s a post by The Urgent Artist’s Sarah A.O. Rosner. I think she really captures the essence of what I’m trying to do with Kinetic Cinema here, which is a great validation!
Last but not least, here are all the details to go:
KINETIC CINEMA
A Survey of Dance and Animation with Doug Fox
DATE: Wed. February 11, 2009
TIME: 7:00pm
LOCATION: Chez Bushwick
304 Boerum Street, Buzzer #11
Brooklyn, NY 11206
DIRECTIONS: L TRAIN to Morgan Avenue
Exit the BACK of the train, Turn LEFT outside the station,
Turn LEFT onto Boerum Street
(Chez Bushwick is roughly 80 steps from the station) Click here for Google map
Kinetic Cinema is a screening series of Pentacle’s Movement Media project that happens on the second Wednesday of each month at Chez Bushwick. Exploring the intersection of dance and the moving image, Anna Brady Nuse, project director of Pentacle’s Movement Media, invites a special guest from the dance and film communities to share films and videos that have inspired them. These could be films that feature dance, are kinetic-based, or have been influential on their work in some way.
I’m really excited to share with you a preview of Doug Fox’s up-coming screening program at Kinetic Cinema. Doug Fox is a blogger and publishes the dance blog, Great Dance (where Move the Frame started!). This past summer he began studying all forms of animation, especially as they relate to dance and movement. For his screening on Wednesday February 11th at Chez Bushwick he’ll be showing over fifteen clips from video and film animations, that show how directors, artists, choreographers and dancers have used different animation and video editing techniques to capture, illustrate and transform human movement.
Below is an excellent multi-media guide to his program that Doug posted onGreat Dance last week. Date, time, location, and ticket info is at the bottom of this post.
Move the Frame is the official blog of Pentacle's Movement Media, a project serving to help dance and media artists make dances for screen and use media to market their dance work more effectively. Move the Frame is a locus for dialogue about the form and a clearing-house of information about all things dance and media related.
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