Computer Animation Arts

The CAA Cinema slot continues its theme on the contribution of practical effects to cinema - and their especial qualities in terms of making us believe the impossible.

Film director, Wes Craven, has died, aged just 76 and I'm feeling pretty sad about it.  Craven, director of the original A Nightmare On Elm Street , and Scream series, is a man close to my heart.  I still remember watching A Nightmare On Elm Street on VHS when I was too young (it was released in 1985 and I was 10) and experiencing proper cognitive dissonance - pleasure at being scared and being shit-scared at being scared!  Encountering Freddy Krueger for the first time was a potent moment.  He was genuinely fucking frightening... but I soon had Freddy's poster on my bedroom wall.  Thank you for the nightmares, Wes Craven - you shall be missed.

At time of writing, the new academic year is a sleeping giant. It waits for us - like Smaug. It's tempting to tiptoe around this still-dormant powerhouse so as not to provoke it prematurely, but it's with excitement too we anticipate its resurgence.  Perhaps we've all had enough of these more leisurely times? Perhaps it's time for us to draw our swords and slay more dragons? Mind you, when it does awaken, there'll be no stopping it, and we'll all be running headlong just to keep pace. Yes, Smaug is snoring - for now - but that doesn't mean everyone is dozing. Our newest recruits to the  Computer Animation Arts  community are busy working on their Summer projects, as we seek to make them nice and limber for the creative escapade on which they're about to embark. I've included a tiny fraction of their various 101 thumbnail sketches of 'life-forms, machines and structures', all derived from the same two sheets of largely ordinary hous

Find twenty minutes of your time to watch this fascinating documentary on the various ways in which Jedi villain, Jabba The Hutt, was brought to life for the screen.  Perhaps you've picked up on it already, but there's a backlash against the use of CGI for everything in movies, especially for creatures and characters.  There's a debate getting started here: materiality vs virtuality - it's the stuff of dissertations...