Achieving the Look of Fantastic Mr. Fox

Even among animated films, Fantastic Mr. Fox looks unique. In a field dominated by computer generated animation, Wes Anderson's new film stands apart even from other stop-motion movies.

Anderson began creating this unique look long before a single set was built, or an anthropomorphic fox was posed in front of a camera. 

"We started by developing a color theory for the film," explains Nelson Lowery, the film's production designer, "It was a limited color palate, quite unusual for an animated film. There was no blue or green. [It was mostly] autumnal colors." 

This posed a slight difficulty for the team. "When you make a palate like that, when you interject grey it would become a new color. While grey would just be grey in any normal movie, once it's against those warm colors it becomes sort of purple, or slightly blue, or cold feeling." Despite this, Lowery is positive about the effect it created: "It was set up at the beginning, and it was very restrictive, so it was quite a challenge at first, but I think it paid off".Read more Here

Animated films may push Oscar category to 5 nominees for second time ever

It's been a highly animated year in the movie world.

So much so the Oscars ceremony in March could be expanding to accommodate more than the usual number of cartoony big-screen vehicles.

The animated feature race may have five contenders vying for the prize for the first time since 2002, according to Variety.

Under the Academy of Motion Arts & Sciences rules, there must be at least 16 eligible films in a year for there to be five nominees.

Twenty films have been submitted for consideration – including "Up," the high-flying balloon adventure, and "The Princess and the Frog," Disney's amphibian-themed musical.Read more:Here

Halo Legends Short Films Coming

Go deeper into the Halo universe than ever before with Halo Legends, an all-new, CG and traditional anime PG-13 experience that presents enthralling new stories from one of the world’s most popular video game franchises.Produced by 343 Industries, a part of Microsoft Game Studios, the exciting tales-beyond-the-gameswill be distributed February 9, 2010 by Warner Home Video as a Special Edition 2-disc version on DVD and Blu-Ray, as well as single disc DVD.Due date for all versions is January 5, 2010. The chapters will also be available On Demand and Digital Download.

Halo Legends is a seven-story anthology – told across eight spectacular episodes – that explores the origin and historical events of the Halo universe and its intriguing characters. Halo Legends has been created in the same breakthrough format as The Animatrix and Batman Gotham Knight with each individual episode imagined by a cutting-edge, renowned Japanese anime director/animator, including Shinji Aramaki, Mamoru Oshii, Hideki Futamura, Tomoki Kyoda and Yasushi Muraki. The stories are inspired and produced by the creative minds of 343 Industries, including Halo franchise development director Frank O’Connor and managing editor Kevin Grace.

The individual episodes fall within Halo’s 26th Century mythology as the battle between humanity and aliens rages on in an attempt to protect Earth and mankind’s expansive number of space colonies. The dramatic, action-packed stories feature characters and locales familiar to Halo fans, and episodes range in length between 10 and 17 minutes – resulting in nearly two hours of animated adventures.

The episodes are animated by some of the world’s most respected studios and directors in anime today. The studios range from Production I.G. (Ghost in the Shell, Batman Gotham Knight), Bones (Cowboy Bebop, Fell Metal Alchemist) and Toei Animation (Dragonball Z, Digimon) to Studio 4oC (The Animatrix, Batman Gotham Knight) and Casio Entertainment. The stellar roster of animation talent on Halo Legends is highlighted by creative supervisors Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed) and Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell); directors Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed), Hideki Futamura (The Animatrix), Daisuke Nishio (Dragonball Z), Hiroshi Yamazaki (Karas), Toshiyuki Kanno (Black Lagoon), Koichi Mashimo (Blade of the Immortal) and Koji Sawai (Patlabor); directors/action designers Tomoki Kyoda (Eureka Seven, Evangelion 1.0) and Yasushi Muraki (Macross Plus, Vampire Hunter D); and writer Dai Sato (Cowboy Bebop).

Halo is a centerpiece in the world of video games, selling more than 27 million units to a devoted legion of fans – including the latest hit Halo 3:ODST. The Halo franchise has driven more than $1 billion in revenue from its award winning Xbox games, New York Times best-selling novels and comics and a wide variety of other merchandise.

Halo Legends – 2 Disc Special Edition version will have several hours of incredible bonus features, including:

* The Making of Halo Legends – An introduction to Halo Legends followed by a making-of segment for each episode.

* Halo: Gaming Evolved – Explaining the Halo phenomenon from its inception as an Xbox video game to a present day entertainment franchise.

* Audio Commentary with directors Frank O’Connor and Joseph Chou

                                                                                                                                                   Source Warner Home Video