Webster Colcord

2011 Character Animation Reel

2011-04-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

Webster Colcord 2011 Character Animation reel from Webster Colcord on Vimeo.

Animation for VFX reel

2011-03-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

opening title with Nicoderm characters (keyframe)
Iron Man - flying shot breakdown from test (keyframe)
Iron Man - 2 shot breakdowns from test (mocap)
Live Free or Die Hard - freeway collapse breakdown (simulation with keyframe animation)
Superman Returns - bullet and Superman animation (keyframe)
Speed Racer - test (keyframe)
Evolution - cells divide (keyframe)
Evolution - fish (keyframe)
The Host - run cycle (keyframe), digital doubles (keyframe and mocap)
The Host - fall on truck (keyframe)
The Host - death scene (keyframe)
Dungeon Siege - 3 shots - crowds, cycles (keyframe and mocap)
Matrix: Revolutions - A.P.U. firing (keyframe)
Minority Report - 3 shots (keyframe)

2011 Stop-motion Animation reel

2011-02-28T17:59:00.000-08:00

Webster Colcord 2011 Stop-Motion Animation Reel from Webster Colcord on Vimeo.

Brisk Eminem

2011-02-06T16:48:00.000-08:00

I animated the sequence on the rooftop (photo above) and the walk-off at the end, with assistance from Dick Kaneshiro and Matt Manning. Amy Adamy and Misha Klein animated all of the "rotator" sequence.

A Very BRISK Behind the scenes from cinejess on Vimeo.
Behind-the-scenes video by Jessica Fisher

Lipton Brisk Ozzy Normal

2011-01-14T23:36:00.000-08:00

I animated the bit where Ozzy says, "Refer to your privates as naughty bits, believe commercials," the line "But why would you want to be normal?" and the product shot.

Here's a timelapse video of the shooting of the product shot. That's Matt Manning and Ellen Ridgeway helping set up the shot and me animating.

Animating the second half of the shot which begins with Ozzy in the bus, saying, "Refer to your private parts..." The set (designed by Fon Davis and crew) was on a turntable. photo by Dick Kaneshiro

Here's a view from above of the rig that was used to hold Ozzy up for the few frames where he had to be suspended in mid-air.

Here's a view of the rig from under the set.

Lipton Brisk Machete

2010-12-29T12:41:00.000-08:00

This is a production photo from one of the three shots that I animated for the "Machete" Brisk commercial. Photo by Dick Kaneshiro, who assisted with the animation for this shot. This is part of a multi-spot ad campaign, so more to come...

Mars Needs Moms crew screening

2010-12-15T16:26:00.000-08:00

L-R: Guido Muzzarelli, me and Bryon Caldwell outside of the El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Blvd after the crew screening of "Mars Needs Moms".

L-R: Guido Muzzarelli, me, Dan Fogler (who plays Gribble in the movie) and Bryon Caldwell.

Kong-sized billboard on the rooftop across from the Kodak Theatre building on Hollywood Blvd.

stop-motion "Community"

2010-12-04T13:45:00.000-08:00

I just recently returned from Burbank where I worked on a stop-motion Christmas episode of the NBC show "Community". NBC is hosting the episode streaming on their site, and I've embedded it below. It was an incredibly compressed schedule for the amount of work (22 minutes in six weeks) but somehow the team pulled it off. I animated about 12 shots during my two-week stint on the show.

Unfortunately the contract the production company signed with NBC didn't give us individual credits, but they probably would have zipped by too quickly to read anyway. The production company has put up a credit roll on their website.

Here's a clip in which Joel McHale talks about his puppet:

Below are two production photos:

"Straight to Hell" Returns

2010-11-02T20:51:00.000-07:00

Coming to video on December 14th from Microcinema, after a multi-city tour with Director Alex Cox. The film, originally released in in 1986, has been remastered in HD with enhanced gunfire, blood splatters and more from the crew at Collateral Image. There's also some new footage, including three stop-motion animated shots by me.

Production photo of the first of the new stop-motion shots.

The final composite framed as a "trading card" in true 80's aesthetic.

Shooting the wide shot of George's skeleton.

Raw animation against greenscreen.

The final composite in trading card form.

The final close-up of George.

From the Nov. 1 screening at the Rafael Film Center.

2011.11.19 - at The Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, Los Angeles. L-R: Del Zamora, Alex Cox, Dick Rude, the moderator from UCLA who I will identify soon, Miguel Zandoval, James Fearnley, Sy Richardson. In the foreground are the puppets from the three stop-motion shots that I did for the new release.

Miguel Sandoval, Tom Bower and me with the puppet of Miguel's character from "Straight to Hell Returns"

Here's some more "Straight to Hell" links on the web:
LA Weekly
Guardian UK Film Blog article on the re-release
Nardwuar vs. Alex Cox - audio interview
Alienated in Vancouver: Straight to Hell Returns! Alex Cox Interview!
FAQs on Straight to Hell Returns from Alex' website

Bug drawing influenced by JJ Villard

2010-10-07T11:08:00.000-07:00

Doing a little work on a corporate character design project with my friend Damon Bard. Damon also enlisted the help of the brilliant JJ Villard, whose splash page inspired me to draw this version of the character which we could never send to the client.

T-Rex for The Learning Channel

2010-10-05T11:54:00.000-07:00

To finish up this last run of dinosaur postings, here's a stop-motion T-Rex that I was contracted to do in 1996. The late Gairy Bialke did the sculpt over an armature by Jamie Haggerty which was molded and cast by Mark and Melinda Kendrick. I did the finish, which was quite extensive - lots of build-up work on the arms, teeth and tongue, then the paint job.

It was animated against bluescreen and sent to a company in L.A. for use in station I.D. for The Learning Channel. I've actually never seen the finished piece, so if anyone has a link to it please let me know.

You can see this T-Rex animated briefly, as the raw element and then composited into a cityscape by John Barrick, at the end of my old commercial demo reel.

This is the sculpt done by the late Gairy Bialke over the armature, which you can see below.

Jamie Haggerty whipped this out quickly for us, unfortunately we had to cut a few corners - the ankles were wire which was difficult but we didn't have time to redo it.

Dinosaur in pencil

2010-09-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

It's dinosaur week here on the ol' blog. This was sketched between renders at Image Movers Digital...

Lizard with a baseball bat

2010-09-27T15:21:00.000-07:00

I made this for my son Edward's baseball team banner in 2006. They called themselves the "Dragons" but I think this is more of a lizard. Or a Komodo dragon, or maybe an alligator. Notice the posing similarity with my Devil Dinosaur painting.

Devil Dinosaur - esque

2010-09-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

Painted this in acrylic in 2001, just a quickie thing... I kind of like it though. I put the watermark on there just in case someone wants to steal this for package art, which would be awesome - please contact me if you want it, I'll give you a hi-res file for your cheap plastic toy label.

1989-ish poster for Portland event

2010-09-23T09:58:00.000-07:00

Recently dug up some old artwork that Ben Adams and I produced for a Portland, Oregon event in around 1989. Click on it to see it full-size. It was a freebie for an organization that was doing a concert called "Bash on the Bricks" but unfortunately they chose not to do full color for the posters so they didn't use our design, rather just some boring text in two colors.

Folks familiar with Portland may recognize the Pioneer Square fountain in the background, which is where the concert took place. The black negative space in was intended for text, the brick-shaped lines around the edges were meant to be dye-cut on the sides of the posters. It would have been a pretty ambitious print job. Ben helped with ideas, the layout and pencil underdrawing. I did the painting.

McGruff P.S.A. designs from 1998-ish

2010-09-01T17:14:00.000-07:00

One of the lower budget spots that we did at the PDI/Dreamworks Commercial and Effects division (which was closed in 2002) was a PSA for McGruff the Crime Dog on how to deal with bullies. I did some character designs for director Larry Bafia based on the client's concept that the animation should mimic a videogame.

Click on the drawing above to see it at higher resolution, it's sort of a combination of character design and animation posing.

Here's the final spot, which ended up being done almost completely by one artist (I think mostly for budgetary reasons) - I didn't work on it as an animator but I enjoyed working on the design.

Animating Justin Kohn's mechanical creatures

2010-08-16T11:20:00.001-07:00

My old friend Justin Kohn recently invited me to participate in a fun project that he's doing along with some of his students from the Academy of Art. He's been making these bizarre mechanical creatures for awhile and we're finally putting them through their paces, animating them against greenscreen on the stage at the Ex'pressions College in Emeryville.

I shot for a day - it was quite a challenge as these are very heavy contraptions with a lot of moving parts. I only managed to do about 30 frames, but I think the results were pretty good for my first time with this puppet. I'll be posting more pictures and movies when it all gets put together.
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2010-10-07 update
Michael Stevenson just posted the raw footage up on Vimeo. The shot I animated is the third in the sequence and Michael finished out the animation after somewhere about frame 30:

War of the Worlds tests from Michael Stevenson on Vimeo.

new book with interview

2010-07-27T16:13:00.000-07:00

Ken Priebe has just finished his new book, The Advanced Art of Stop Motion Animation and it features an interview with me and Larry Bafia about our work in the Vinton era of clay animation and beyond.

Life Drawing 05

2010-06-16T01:57:00.000-07:00

Life Drawing 04

2010-06-04T11:36:00.001-07:00

The Dandy Warhols, "Welcome to the 3rd World"

2010-05-04T09:39:00.001-07:00

The Dandy Warhols, "Welcome to the Third World" director's cut from Webster Colcord on Vimeo.

After a long wait while little tweaks were made to meet the approval of the band, this music video that I directed is finally being released out into the world. You can view it as streaming video here and it's also available as a download on iTunes.

Seargeant Siren

2010-05-03T15:52:00.000-07:00

In honor of the incident report that my 10-year old son Edward got today at school for misbehaving, I present this drawing that I did for him when he was about 5. Fisher Price marketed these macho toys called "Rescue Heroes" to little kids and they would package an animated movie on DVD along with the toy. This is a little drawing that I made for him on a piece of cardboard, the toy is on the right. The two dust spirals were Ed's contribution.

If you want to see a drawing by Edward, you can find one on a t-shirt in my store.

For all the nice people I've met at Monsterpalooza

2010-04-10T11:14:00.000-07:00

...particularly for those of you who attended my little presentation on Friday, here are links to the three episodes that I've made so far of my stop-motion series "Mad Doctors of Borneo".

Mad Doctors of Borneo 1 from Webster Colcord on Vimeo.

Mad Doctors of Borneo 3 from Webster Colcord on Vimeo.

Mad Doctors of Borneo 24 from Webster Colcord on Vimeo.

California Raisin refurbished

2010-03-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

I just finished cleaning up this old California Raisin for display. Sorry for the poor quality of the photo, I'll try to take a better one and replace it. If memory serves, I built this particular puppet and animated it in the last shot of this PSA for the Public Library: Raisin Rap

That's my hand that comes down and stamps the book in the last shot. All of the Raisins for the PSA were made using existing molds from "Meet the Raisins" - this Raisin is "BeBop." Vince Backeberg fabricated all of the legs for the Raisins, I think. I also animated the shot where "Red" says "Check 'em out." Hal Hickel, Larry Bafia, Brad Johnson and the late Bruce McKean also worked on the PSA. Sir Mix-a-Lot did the music.

Life Drawing 03

2010-03-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

Life Drawing 02

2010-03-09T15:26:00.000-08:00

More lunchtime life drawing.

Life Drawing 01

2010-03-02T15:45:00.000-08:00

One of the great perks of working at giant companies like Dreamworks, EA, and Disney is that they tend to offer free enrichment classes for artists. The downside is that I always have too much work on my plate to attend them. Today, though, I was able to attend a lunchtime life drawing class and produced these sketches, the more finished of which were from longer poses.

Drunken Animals 01

2010-02-18T12:49:00.000-08:00

An animated music video that I've been working on for quite awhile is just about to be officially released and it features lots of drunken animals. Here's a drawing of a bear that is used briefly in a shot. I'm particularly fond of this bear.

Boris Karloff sculpt

2009-11-08T21:22:00.000-08:00

This is an old sculpt that I dug out and photographed today, it's Boris Karloff from "The Black Cat." It was done in Sculpey and very tiny - about 3/4" high.

Extreme Man & Insane Boy in clay

2009-11-08T20:09:00.000-08:00

At one point during the lengthy production of "Extreme Man & Insane Boy" I considered animating them in clay. Here's the sculpts that I came up with. They're pretty old now and they've gotten kind of dusty. Also the irises were never painted.

one of my old cartoons on Vimeo

2009-10-04T15:42:00.000-07:00

Extreme Man & Insane Boy, Episode I from Webster Colcord on Vimeo.

In pursuit of his ambition to become a super hero, Extreme Man sits in his hilltop bunker waiting for word of criminal activity over his stolen police radio. Fueled by comic books and paranoia, the hostile and incompetent ex-actor turned crimefighter has managed to assemble the accessories of a super hero, including a military vehicle which he calls the "Extreme Machine" and his sidekick, Insane Boy, who escaped from a mental institution and spends most of his time in a straight jacket.

The city below is a burned-out and nearly vacant husk of what was once a great metropolis. In this decrepit environment a small group of mutated super-villians have set up a social club in which they scheme their next attack on what remains of civil society. With grim determination our two heroes square off against the loose coalition of villains. Meanwhile the bad guys, led by the Screaming Skull, try to keep an optimistic party-like atmosphere going whenever possible.

Skulls 1

2009-09-03T23:08:00.001-07:00

Haven't posted anything in awhile... sitting in a meeting today, doodled some cartoony skulls.

Underground Robot

2009-06-09T14:06:00.000-07:00

Underground Robot [test] from Webster Colcord on Vimeo

I've been uploading my old work to Vimeo, here's "Underground Robot" which was done in 2002 as a series pitch to Nickelodeon. I also sent it to Cartoon Network, but nothing came of it. The test was very popular on YouTube, though, and I would love to finish it as a short film.

Afraid of Robots 1, pencil

2009-06-03T13:00:00.000-07:00

2002 Director's Reel

2009-05-22T15:12:00.000-07:00

Webster Colcord commercial director's reel from 2002 from Webster Colcord on Vimeo.

I ran my own boutique animation studio -starting in earnest in 1993- animating and directing in a variety of media with a small group of friends in Portland, Oregon. In 1997 I took a job with PDI/ Dreamworks and moved to the San Francisco Bay area, but I continued to do some small pieces on my own, including the Nick Jr. logo at the end of this reel.

New baby! Avery Donald Colcord

2009-05-07T02:00:00.000-07:00

Avery Donald Colcord
Born: 8:14 pm, May 1, 2009
Weight: 9 lbs, 7 oz
Length: 22 inches
Head: 14.5 cm (circumference)

5 hours of pushing by Erin (my hero).
We've noticed that he likes to stretch his body out.

Three animated loops

2009-04-30T08:25:00.000-07:00

Left side - a cel animated dog walk, middle - a CG walk for a commercial directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, right - a CG animated alien walk for an Intel commercial.

Three Animation Loops from Webster Colcord on Vimeo.

fun with animated gifs - dinosaur roar

2009-04-30T01:01:00.000-07:00

title sequence for low budget film

2009-04-29T10:39:00.000-07:00

Two versions of the title for an indie feature film entitled "House of Jazz". I animated this in CG and rendered with Maya's built-in toon render. The film had a psychedelic horror theme and was directed by Jacques Boyreau. Unfortunately he changed the name of the movie after I finished these titles. And the project stalled in the editing phase.

House of Jazz main title sequence, two versions from Webster Colcord on Vimeo.

An amphibious creature emerging from a pond, pencil

2009-04-28T10:11:00.001-07:00

"Valerie Yum" test

2009-04-27T18:23:00.000-07:00

Just started uploading to Vimeo, here's a test for The Dandy Warhols "Valerie Yum" song which I did a month or so ago. The cat animation is a cycle that I roto-mated from footage I shot of our cat, Willa, and placed into a destruction environment from a "big movie" that I worked on. So it's cycle animation and recycled environment. Courtney Taylor-Taylor (their lead singer) liked it but I'm not sure that it will get any farther than this test -

The Dandy Warhols, "Valerie Yum" test from Webster Colcord on Vimeo.

new website under construction

2009-04-25T19:37:00.000-07:00

Working on revamping my old site by turning it into a blog, wish me luck. Here's a frame of a run cycle of The Host from 2005...