Neil Gaiman’s The Price

This is something of a treat if you love animation and the works of Neil Gaiman.  It is the animatic of The Price, lovingly created by Christopher Salmon of Silver Fish Productions.  Salmon created this animatic to convince Gaiman to give him the rights to create a 3D CG animated film of his extraordinary short story. It worked.

For those of you not in the know, an animatic is a simplified mock-up which gives a better idea of how scenes will look and feel with motion and timing. It is also really useful in editing – animation is very time consuming and expensive so if things can be edited out at the animatic stage then it saves both time and money.

If you are interested in learning more about this amazing and very cool project, then get over to Christopher Salmon’s website, The Price Movie to find out how the venture is progressing.  There is a real community feel at the website – it is obvious that so many people want this movie to be made!

Dog With Electric Collar

Do you know the type of dog that just keeps on barking and barking and, well, barking? The small but very noisy hero of this story is just one of those dogs. So, his owner invests in a collar which will dispense an electric shock if he barks.

Unfortunate, then, for the poor dog that this new gift coincided with some really momentous world events going on outside his little window.

This was one of those (very appropriately named) animations that had me smiling throughout – as much because it tells a simple yet funny story as for the wonderfully unnecessary violence which goes on throughout, very much in the tradition of a lot of great animation.

Little wonder then, that its creator Steve Baker of Head Pictures won the Australian Film Institute prize for best animation in 2008 with this.