Samurai by RealtimeUK

Short, Simple, Samurai by RealtimeUK

Dear Sesame St.

Dear Sesame Street, 

We, the undersigned, would like to register our concern over the contest you are now conducting with Aniboom. We are concerned that your contest includes a solicitation of original design concepts, characters and content to be produced on a speculative basis by cartoonists, artists, motion designers and animators.

This approach, requesting new and original work to be created in competition, is one that we believe seriously compromises the quality of work that is entered into “competition” and is questionable, at best, for a reputable organization to request.

Sesame Street has long been a highly esteemed provider of educational programming for children. From its inception, it has shown respect and support for the independent animation, film, and design communities. Artists have responded by creating lasting work – that is as valuable for children and adults today as when it was first created. We applaud that work, and hope that Sesame Street will continue to push the fields of animation and film-making. As such, we also think that Sesame Street should uphold the ethics and professional behavior we’d like our own children to grow up with. Is the education we want to pass on to them that artists’ and animators’ work is not valuable? That the only way to ‘make it’ is through winning a contest?
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Vinicius Costa Updates

Vinicius Costa, director and art director at 1st Ave Machine, just finished a complete overhaul of his website, including a brand new look and a pile of fresh new work. Normally I would post this as a quickie, but inside this new site is a link to “follow” Vinicius. No, not quite in the stalker sort of sense (although he does link to his facebook page…), but rather he is giving everyone a glance into the creative process behind many of his projects. In this flickr page you will find styleframes (win or lose) as well as production images that reveal the inner workings of his projects.

Follow Vinicius on his flickr page as well as his blog

Seatbelt PSA: Embrace Life

Simple but touching PSA for the Sussex Safer Road Partnership encouraging everyone to buckle up. (Thanks, Dom!)

MTVN HD: Speaker

As a follow up to their previous ident, Korb and Echolab teamed up again for MTVN HD “Speaker.”

Check out Google Voice by JR Canest and Kasey Lum in the Student section

Check out Google Voice by JR Canest and Kasey Lum in the Student section

Google Voice by JR Canest and Kasey Lum

This is a new spot by JR Canest and Kasey Lum, two recent graduates of VFS. JR’s student projects have been quickied a few times here and we were excited to see new professional work from him and Kasey. And this is a great example of both of their talents combining to make a simple and effective spot for Google Voice, transforming a pretty long list of features into something engaging and witty. We caught up with them to find out more about the spot and see what they’ve been up to.

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