"Marvel's Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors" Season 3 Clip.


Season three of "Marvel's Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors" is almost here! It begins its third season on Sunday, August 31st at 9:00 a.m., ET/PT on Disney XD.

There will be new heroes and villains from the Marvel Universe, including:

• Agent Venom;
• Amadeus Cho;
• Cloak & Dagger; and
• Ka-Zar.

There will also be a new multi-episode story-arc format.

Donald Glover of "Community" voices the character Miles Morales in an episode airing in 2015.

The new season begins with Spider-Man accepting an invitation to become an Avenger, joining forces with:

• Iron Man; 
• Captain America; 
• Thor;
• Hulk; 
• Hawkeye;
• Black Widow; and 
• Falcon.

Come on, who did you expect - Superman?

There are sure to be tons of adventures for the Avengers this season.

2020

Solar flare animation.

Solar flare animation. Mark Townley over at Brierley Hill Solar captured this solar flare that took place on 28 August 2014.

The animation is pretty impressive, considering this is the real deal and not some kind of "re-creation" or "representation" or anything like that. This is what happens to the Sun all the time. It wasn't as impressive as some solar eruptions, perhaps, but it's pretty darn cool anyway.

Imagine what that would do to the earth if some volcano here erupted like that, throwing stuff all the way out into space? That is just a massive event, and of course, the Sun is massively larger than the Earth, so while this eruption appears relatively small - it's not small at all.

this is a really good angle to capture the flare. It would not have looked nearly as impressive head-on. If you look closely, you can see some other unrelated activity on the sun's surface as well.


From Mark Townley's page, which also has many other interesting astronomical animations:

AR12146 was very nearly on the limb of the sun, and had a beta-gamma-delta magnetic field that had potential for eruptions, in fact NASA gave a 40% chance of an M-class flare and a 5% chance of an X-class flare.  The clouds finally broke on thursday afternoon, and so I decided to train my telescope on this region, and using the autorun feature in firecapture image acquisition software and the Hutech solar guider to lock onto our star I set about recording a timelapse of our star.  Now while the larger flares didn't happen, there was a small C1 class eruption that was still the largest explosion for several light years that hurled out a large blob of plasma out into inter planetary space several times larger than Earth.  This animation shows you don't need a large or overly expensive solar scope to view these events on our sun, and was taken with a 40mm Coronado scope and Imaging Source DMK31 camera.

2020

"Shaun the Sheep the Movie."

New "Shaun the Sheep the Movie" Trailer from Aardman.


A new trailer for "Shaun the Sheep the Movie," the new animated feature film from Britain's Aardman Animation. You may watch it above.

"Shaun the Sheep" is written and directed by new directors Mark Burton (writer of Madagascar, Gnomeo & Juliet) and Richard Starzack. The voice cast has not been announced.

As shown in the trailer, Shaun and a bunch of his sheep friends end up stuck in the big city, leaving them with no choice but to find their own way home.

StudioCanal sends the film to theaters in the United Kingdom on February 6th, 2015. Whether or not the film gets a release in the United States is not known, they are probably still negotiating for a distributor.

Aardman is not nearly as popular in the States as it is in the UK. That's just a fact, not a slam. It is distinctly British humor, which you may not realize if you are, well, British. If you asked 1000 people in the States who Aardman or Shaun the Sheep were, you'd probably get 1000 different answers, none of them correct. The film may only get a limited release in major cities in the US for awards consideration.


We posted the original trailer back in April when Ardman gave us a first peek. Here it is for convenience.


From the youtube page:

Published on Aug 29, 2014
From Aardman, the creators of Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run, SHAUN THE SHEEP THE MOVIE is coming to cinemas worldwide from Spring 2015! Watch the new teaser trailer to see Shaun and The Flock on their hilarious adventure in the Big City!

When SHAUN decides to take the day off and have some fun, he gets a little more action than he bargained for! SHAUN’s mischief inadvertently leads to The Farmer being taken away from the farm, to the Big City…

Join SHAUN, Bitzer and The Flock on their hilarious, action-packed, big-screen adventure as they make plans to rescue the missing Farmer. A story about how we sometimes forget to appreciate the things we have in life, and the people who love us. SHAUN THE SHEEP THE MOVIE introduces us to two new Aardman characters; TRUMPER, the animal warden who rules the city’s animal shelter with a rod of iron and SLIP, an inner-city orphan dog who helps SHAUN save the day.

SHAUN THE SHEEP was first seen in Nick Park’s Academy-Award winning Wallace and Gromit film A CLOSE SHAVE and SHAUN, the world’s most famous sheep continues to enthral television audiences in over 170 countries. SHAUN THE SHEEP THE MOVIE is currently in Production at Aardman Studios in Bristol and will open in UK Cinemas on 6 February 2015.
2020

Shifting Geometric Shapes Set to Music.

Geometric from Al Boardman on Vimeo.
A short film by Al Boardman, with music in the video by Andrea Baroni. It is just a bunch of animated geometric shapes set to music. Very simple, but very effective.



These gifs are taken from the video. They are quite enjoyable by themselves, but much better with the music.


From the page:

A short animation exploring shapes, colors, and transitions.
Creative and animation: Al Boardman
Music: Andrea Baroni
Some more gifs from the video: alboardman.tumblr.com

2020

Freaky Physics Animations. These are a few random animations that are kind of mesmerizing if you start to focus on them. The first four are from a physics student who posts them to his Tumblr account here, and the last four are from the Tumblr page here. You can see the physics influence in these animations, but they are simply fun to look at without reference to their origin.

These kinds of animations are like the lava lamps of the modern age. Instead of sitting in the dark with your black light on looking at fluorescent geometric posters on the wall as you do your thing, now you can sit in the dark with your monitor on looking at the geometric animations on your computer. Who says society isn't advancing!


2020

1962 Comedy Routine Animation "Sale of Manhattan."


This is a trip back into the past, the early '60s, when kitsch was in fashion and humor was pure corn. The most amazing thing about these old animations is that it shows what people thought was amusing back in the day, it is an education in how completely humor changes in just a few decades.

Saul Bass

In brief, this is an animated segment directed by Fred Crippen and designed by Saul Bass & Art Goodman from Stan Freberg Presents The Chun King Chow Mein Hour: Salute to the Chinese New Year (February 4, 1962). The soundtrack is from Freberg's album "Stan Freberg Presents The United States Of America". Saul Bass was the genius of title sequences who did, among many other animations, "North By Northwest" and "Psycho." The famous "James Bond" title sequences were derivative of his inspiration. While Freberg was the "name" attached to this project, Bass was the true talent.

2020

"In the Sea and Near a Girl"

"In the Sea and Near a Girl" Beautiful Animation.

in the sea and near a girl. from masanobu hiraoka on Vimeo.
"In the Sea and Near a Girl" is a kaleidoscopic computer animation directed and animated by Masanobu Hiraoka. It features gloriously evolving shapes and forms that evoke the ocean and figures beside it. The music and sound were designed by Aimar Molero. A very peaceful New Age type of animation

Directed by Masanobu Hiraoka
Music & Sound design: Aimar Molero

2020

Phobos Transit Animations as Taken By Curiosity. These are two separate videos taken by the Curiosity lander on Mars. They show one of the two moons of Mars, Phobos, transiting the sun.

Curiosity sees a Phobos transit, sol 713.

Above, Curiosity watched on sol 713 as jagged Phobos passed across the face of the Sun. There are 84 images in this animation, which runs faster than natural speed. A couple of sunspots are faintly visible. The animation is composed of raw JPEG images, so there are artifacts, particularly at the high-contrast areas at the edges of the Sun and Phobos.

Curiosity sees a Phobos transit, sol 369.

Curiosity watched Phobos pass across the Sun on sol 369, shooting one photo per second. This animation runs about 10 times natural speed.

Phobos is an itty bitty little thing, but it orbits very close to Mars, much closer than our Moon does to earth. Due to that, the apparent size of Phobos changes depending upon how close to the horizon, or how directly overhead, it is. It is the same phenomenon as a Harvest Moon. Thus, it appears larger in the second animation, which must have been taken close to the horizon.

2020

I'm sure you know this one - but some of the others aren't so easy!

Disney Scenes Paused Just Right. Here we have a bit of fun with ol' Disney animated feature films. These are scenes from the classics, all stopped at just the right moment.

If you can name all of these films off of the top of your head, you are an official Disney Genius. Many of them are easy, but a few are tricky!

If you think you know them all - without peeking anywhere! - post the answers below to let us know - 'cause even we aren't sure about one or two!


2020

"A Letter to Momo."

"A Letter to Momo" Trailer.


"A Letter to Momo" has been out in Japan and on the film festival circuit since 2011, so it may seem odd to be talking about it and its trailer.

Well, that's because the film was released in Japan in 2011, but it has had sporadic releases internationally. Right now, it is playing in some large U.S. cities. So, just like a used, um, "pre-owned" car, well, it's new to you!

The story is very family-friendly. A girl, Momo, whose father has just passed away is visited by funny spirits from the Great Beyond. Only she can see them (of course), so they become her "special friends." In turn, they are really there to watch out for her. They are kind of like bumbling spies because Momo isn't even supposed to know they are there for her, but they were too clumsy to hide.

The title comes from an unfinished letter left to Momo by her dad.

Naturally, this is all about coming of age and how kids can deal with grief and all that. The girl's experience is not cartoonish, but rather quite true-to-life, so it is not all fun and games. But a lot of it is. The director is very sensitive and respectful of the young girl's feelings, so this may actually be a good film for some kids to see to help them deal with their own issues, whatever they are.


Director Hiroyuki Okiura reportedly spent years putting this together. It is quite watchable. I will be a spoil-sport and point out that anyone who is expecting the vivid colors and fancy animation of Studio Ghibli is bound to be disappointed. It is good for what it is, after that stop the comparisons or you'll just be disappointed. Looking at the production companies -  Bandai Visual Company, Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting Company (CBC), Chugoku Broadcasting (RCC) - this may have been at least intended to be a Japanese television movie. Hey, you go where the money is, but that would explain the dull look to the animation, with a decidedly tv-style of drawing.

The promotional advertising touts that this is "from the creators of 'Ghost in the Shell,'" but believe me when I tell you that this has absolutely nothing in common with that classic except the fact that they both are animation.

Amanda Pace and Stephanie Sheh do the English dubs of the leads.

2020

"Santolo," Animation in a Cemetery.


Panteon de Dolores / Santolo / Llamarada from Ciudad Intervenida on Vimeo.
Llama Rada is a group of animators in Mexico City who are working to turn many of the beautiful and historically significant public spaces there into showcases for their art. They are directed, at least in this video, by Alejandro Garcia Cabbalero.

Here, the animators are doing their thing in a cemetery, Panteon Dolores.

Anybody who has been to Mexico knows all about their laser light shows for the pyramids and other ruins from the Mayans and so forth. This animation takes that one step beyond in an alternately fun and morbid animation, "Santolo."


Probably the weirdest thing about the animation is that is less creepy than just plain weird. Very vibrant and kind of violent. Which is fun. And creepy. But fun. And creepy.

Anyway, what I can say about it definitively is that it is Mexican. And very creepy, I mean good. Very good.

I like it. Maybe you will, too.


This may be the first Mexican animation on here, and if so, well, they deserve it. Great job.

From the page:

Colorido Mapping y animacion de personajes en el cementerio, realizado por los chicos de Llamarada
Colorful Mapping and character animation in the cemetery, done by the guys from Llamarada
part of the project: ciudadintervenida.com

ciudadintervenida.com

2020

"Abiogenesis."

Abiogenesis (Short Film) by Richard Mans.

Abiogenesis (Short Film) from Richard Mans on Vimeo.
"Abiogenesis" from Richard Mans is quite polished for a non-studio animation. This is an entire science fiction tale told in four minutes - not easy to do, try it some time.

It also has superior animation effects. This is professional-level quality animation, and that's what we're interested in - animation. This is of higher quality than anything you would have seen on television a few years ago, I can tell you that for sure. Marvelous designs and detail.

"Abiogenesis" has a video game look. I don't know anything at all about Mr. Mans or his shop, but I am guessing that his experience lies in that direction. And I am fully aware that I may be wrong about that, but that's my reaction to this marvelous animation.

You may wind up wanting more after you see this, and that's a credit to any filmmaker. In any event, any fan of animation should be able to savor this without regard to the fact that it does not have any campy saber duels between heroic and ominous aliens.


From the site:

In this breathtaking science fiction spectacle, a strange mechanical device lands on a desolate world and uses the planet to undergo a startling transformation, that has profound implications for an entire galaxy.
abiogenesisfilm.com
facebook.com/abiogenesisfilm

Sound design by Justin Doyle, Michelle Child, and Dave Whitehead.

Music by Rhian Sheehan.

2020