Intermission

Yesterday, we went with a friend of mine on a vernissage of a big exhibition at Canadian Centre of Architecture, in Montreal. I was very surprised to see that Drux Flux was currated and played on it. Together with films of Lazslo Moholy Naggi, Robert Breer, McLaren, Viking Eggeling...
Well, it is my style - never know where my works are or playing at. The evening was great, a lot of people, the party after that was smashing (and the VJ had a lot of matterial to play with, haha - I enjoyed Drux Flux images, mixed with some Ultravox style footages, and "Coeur de pirrate" remixes.
The exhibition "Intermission:Films from a Heroic Future" is open at CCA, Montreal, untill 28 February 2010.
For detailed schedule, see here

David Gilmour promos

Last Years were so hectic, that I usually forget what I did, not to mention that I absolutely have no time to promote myself, and post everything that I do on my site. But sometimes and somehow, this work comes out again. In 2007 I worked with the famous UK design agency "Stylo Rouge" on a series of animations, promos, spots for David Gilmour album "On an Island".
Here are some of the ads that came from this collaboration:
UK TV commercial

There where 7 or 8 like this. But I like the Czech spot:)



More of the animations are on the DVD "Remember That Night - Live at the Royal Allbert Hall", and his site.

2010 manifesto of animation - first comes first!

Exactly 10 Years ago, a group of designers wrote the First Comes First design manifesto.
So, a little bit later, there is the FCF manifesto of the animation.
1. Draw at least one drawing a day.
2. Read at least 10 pages of a fiction book per day.
3. Have sex at least once a day.
4. Run or exercise at least 30 min. per day.
5. Don't touch anything ugly. It destroys Your sense of aesthetic.
6. Don't do stupid jobs only for money.
7. Don't drink cheap wine. Don't eat in cheap restaurants, no fast food! Don't think about Your rent. Meprise Your Landlord, Your Boss, Your Depute, Your President, Your King and Queen.
8. If You buy a car - nothing less than a new and expensive one. Better ecological hybrid. Everything less is a garbage.
9. Don't watch Cartoon Network, or any other Cartoons, don't watch Disney films - it is dangerous for Your brain.
10. Always remember - a "G-Star" jacket or "7..." jeans is allways more valuable than Your film, no mater how many Years, months, or seconds You've spent on it.
and the additional, the most important:
11. Don't take seriously this manifesto. You have to be insane to do all those things...

20 Years ago

At this day. The communism just got down. Like this - click. It was a happy day - didn't believe it first. It seemed that it is there forever. No signs of falling and freedom. Some ecological demonstrations, after that out teacher of perspective named us fachists...
I was with my teachers at the academy, when they told me at the lunch - it seems that the dictator is down. We got drunk. It marked the beginning of 2 Years, that I've spent on the barricades, drawing posters, organizing strikes, meetings, occupations, and even participating in a really violent act of attacking a governmental building, fire on it, excited in an anarchistic drunkenness from the sudden freedom. Who needed art in those days - instead of painting models of old women and naked models, I was painting posters, and slogans for demonstrations, and spending my year on the streets with the lumpen proletariat of the marginals and all time losers. The beautiful times of the holly freedom, when You can see a cop, or Your boss, or Your teacher, or any authorities on the street, and to pee on his shoes and tell him that You just fucked his sister, and he would say - thank You. Henry David Thoreau was my writer, and everything was pure excitement. 20 Years ago. All the important happenings in my life happens in November. The fall of the communism, my daughter was born in November, I first met my wife in November. My film is going to be finished in November... I love Novembers!

Bad state of mind

Recently I posted some postings, that I don't find relevant anymore. It is not a comment blog - it is portfolio blog. Mistake - I admit! So, no more shits - only art! Shits are for the real life!

The font

My favorite font:
Akzidenz Grotesk

Akzidenz-Grotesk is a realist sans-serif typeface originally released by the H. Berthold AG type foundry in 1896 under the title Accidenz-Grotesk.^[1] It was the first sans serif typeface to be widely used and influenced many later neo-grotesque typefaces. Max Miedinger at the Haas Foundry used it as a model for the typeface Neue Haas Grotesk released in 1957, and renamed Helvetica in 1960. Miedinger sought to refine the typeface making it more even and unified. Two other releases from 1957, Adrian Frutiger's Univers and Bauer and Baum's Folio, take inspiration from Akzidenz-Grotesk.

Akzidenz Grotesk, totally by chance was used as title and credit font in all of Artur Lipsett films...

NFB iPhone application

The new National Film Board application for iTouch and iPhone is ready for download.
Today it was 6th most downloaded application on iTune!
So - Go to iTunes, download it, it is free. And You can watch all NFB films on it, wherever You go. Including mine;) Including the stereo 3d version of Drux Flux, using Colorcode glasses (the Colorcode glasses You can order there for free!)

Ottawa animation festival

I was out from my film to Ottawa animation festival. Needless to say how I enjoyed it. 3 days made me completely alienated from the work. Meeting people, chating, watching films.
The workshop organised by NFB on stereoscopy was packed. So were the screenings on NFB stereofilms, including "Tower Bawher" stereo remix and "Drux Flux".
This Year, as I work on a film, was quite a difficult for me to watch more films - but at least I was making 2 screenings a day. My jewels this year - Frederick Tremblay's "The Drawer and the Craw" (the male equivalent of Nathalie Djurberg, but more melancholical, and deep, quite surprisingly.). Bruce Alcock "Vive la rose". David O'Reilly "Please say something".Eric Dyer "The Bellows March". And, of course, my favourite feature animation film, $9.99. Some of the films won, the others - no. But this is not important. It is a fest! And the festivals is to make people happy, and make them think. It seems this is the only way to be better humans, and not to loose our basic communication skills somewhere on the wire. A kiss is still better in the real life, than on the net. So it will be.

65 Years animated logo

Here is the animated version of the logo, that I created for the 65th anniversary of NFB's animation studio.

The origin

In the origin, is the Father. Here are 2 of his paintings.
I don't know the titles of the works. They are from 80's.

Asen Ushev

The Hedgehog

Watching

Breathing

A Year ago, a very close friend of mine, a beautiful person and an incredible and clever woman - Neva Micheva, translated 2 short children stories from the russian writer Sergei Kozlov. This is exactly the same stories, which the famous Youri Norstain' film "Hedgehog in a fog" was created after. The novels blew up my mind - absurd, gimmick and full with sarcasm, definitely not a children literature...
So, I did illustrations for them. The illustrations were published in a big weekly bulgarian (business!?!) and lifestyle newspaper... Here they are.
Happy Birthday, Neva! Thank You! Waiting for the rest of the translated stories!

Drux Flux

Drux Flux got the third prize at AniMadrid festival in Spain.
I don't care about the awards, it doesn't make the film better or worse. But it comes in time when I'm in a serious doubts. So, nothing is better than a little support in hard times. A little clap-clap, when You feel that You only get boo-boo is not a bad thing - something like an ice-cream, when You have flu:)

Tzaritza

In 2006 I finished my first official NFB film (the first in time of starting, not in the finishing it, cause during making this film I completed also "Tower Bawher" and "The Man Who Waited").
A small children fairy tale about...Well, You'll see what is about if You click here - now available at NFB screening room online. Whit this all my films except "The Man Who Waited" are online.
And just for the records - "The Man Who Waited" is my best ( for my humble opinion.)
You can see it only as a bonus if You buy "Drux Flux" DVD.

A random sketch

And there is a random sketch from my hard drive. A new film? Haha, may be yes, may be not...

Japanese animation cover

Yep, this is the cover that I've designed for the upcoming Chris Robinson book. The illustration is from Koji Yamamura's "Franz Kafka's country doctor". Just for the record - I didn't read the book yet, but it sounds very promissing (yeah, there is even Haruki Murakami in it, and no Godzilas! What about the falling sprouts though...

Lipsett diaries

I thought it was clear, but this is the place to say it again. Lipsett diaries site is not a personal blog. It is a fictional blog. It is written by 3 persons. Two are clear, the third doesn't want to be revealed. It is an IMAGINATIVE portrait of Arthur Lipsett. The postings there have to be seen only as fictional and invented stories. There is no link to actual and real events or personages. It will be ceased at the time when the film is done.

Swiss graphic design

And to continue with the Swiss delights: One of my favorite graphic designers - Bruno Monguzzi will have a conference at Dawson college at 22 of September, 18 h. Be there or ...Just for the record - his designs, and other Swiss designers as Josef Müller-Brockmann and Wolfgang Weingart influenced me enormously especially for creating Drux Flux! Also, he is a follower of Gestalt philosophy principles.

More about Bruno Monguzi

Drux Flux in Fantoche

Drux Flux wins Best Sound film in Fantoche International Animation Festival at Baden, Swiss. Big thanks to Olivier Calver, who helped me with this. And mostly, thanks to Alexander Mossolov about the music. The music was written in 1927. Here, I have to publish some short information about this genius, who is simply forgotten (just for the record, last night I watched on one of the channels for N-time one of Die Hard films -2 , I think. And there, it was a music score, 100 % like Mossolov "Iron Foundry" He was not credited at the end.

Alexander Vasilievich Mosolov (Russian: Александр Васильевич Мосолов, 29 July/11 August 1900, Kiev — 11 July 1973, Moscow), was a significant Russian avant-garde composer of the early Soviet era. The son of a lawyer (who died when he was five) and a singer at the Bolshoi Theatre, during the Revolutionary period in 1917-18 he worked in the office of the People's Commissioner for State Control, where he had fleeting personal contact with Lenin. He then served with the Red Army on the Polish and Ukrainian fronts and was wounded and shell-shocked. From 1920 he worked as a pianist for silent films, and in 1922 entered the Moscow Conservatory to study under Reinhold Glière and Nikolai Miaskovsky, graduating in 1925. The same year as his graduation, he joined the Moscow branch of the Association of Contemporary Music. He became director of chamber music for the Association of Contemporary Music, and then worked as a radio music editor.

His works were often taken to embody the new brutalism and worship of the machine, and his most famous composition is the orchestral piece Iron Foundry (Zavod), a movement from a ballet entitled Steel (1927), which was performed all over the world. Later Mosolov fell foul of the musical politics of the USSR and after violent attacks on his reputation by Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians his works were pulled from publication and performance. In 1936 Mosolov was expelled from the Union of Soviet Composers for 'public drunkenness'. Thanks to archival research, we now know that in 1932 he had written to Stalin complaining that through no fault of his own he had 'become a kind of musical outlaw' even though he was 'a loyal Soviet man'. He was sent to Armenia, Kirghizia, Turkmenia and Daghestan to document folksong (and also to 'compose a Turkmen Song about Stalin') before being arrested in 1937 for 'anti-Soviet propaganda' and condemned to eight years in the labour camps. Owing to the intervention of his former teachers he was released in a matter of months and lived on in poor health, still composing and working with folk music but largely denied a hearing by the authorities. Shortly after his death his music began to be revived.

Lipsett voice

Now I can reveal it. Xavier Dolan plays Lipsett in the English and the French version of the film "Lipsett diaries".
Actually, I even don't know if I have to talk about Lipsett anymore, since the person that we (Chris, me, Xavier, Marc, Olivier) are trying to create is almost fictional, and it is based more on Psychological deconstruction, and Analise of his films. Needless to say, Xavier is simply an enfant-prodige...
But why Dolan? I didn't look for documentary authenticity with Lipsett. I looked for the feeling, not for a simple voice. When Lipsett created his ground-breaking film "Very nice, very nice", he was 20 - the same age as Xavier, when he created his film. He knows what an early lionization means...
He knows, and he feels what the film is about. We had conversations about the art, about Karel Appel subconscious paintings, about everything that a Young, successful artist has in mind, about Bergmann references (loosing studio time, haha). The recording was just in the meantime. Improvisations, and feelings.
Xavier didn't play it....He was himself...
But mostly, the most important thing was that this recording made me feel good, after those turbulence weeks.... It was an inspiring day.
He also wrote the french version of Chris Robinson text - quite surprising translation, actually it will be a different film in French. But this is not a news.

The last

Last drawings for the last scenes for "Lipsett diaries". It is becoming more and more difficult at the end. At the same time - I kind of don't want to finish it. I never felt so happy, as doing this film. It was a pure exaltation, in every moment - of joy, or grief. A lot of personal things happened during this film. May be even it is not the end with the "happenings".

May be it will be my last animated film. Turbulence...

It seems I'm disillusioned about the nature of animation. I always thought it was another form of art. May be it is, may be not, don't know. And this is not a reaction to the last events. I even stopped reading about what is going on. The criticism, as well as the praise is part of the art and the game. If there is not critics, an artist (how pompous this word sounds - hate it!) have really to be in a serious doubt with what he does...
I thought about ending with animation a lot in the last Year... It was punching me in my nose every time when I was going out of my studio, that what I do, is not in the right place, is not where it belongs.
So, that's it. No harsh feelings. Let Ani the homemaker (remember, who makes homes for animators since 1907), smile.

Move on

Yes, move on...

Lipsett. 6 scenes left...

Ottawa poster

I didn't know that such an usual drawing and poster can make such a noise...Incredible... I had much more daring posters in my life. But it seems that the animation community is a little special. And this conversation happens in 2009?!!! Not in 1909...First it was fun. Now it is becoming a little bit ...painful. I think I don't have to explain what I meant with this poster, and why... It looks like an aesthetic war now...
Up to now the poster was compared to Rauschenberg, Kleine, Basquiat, Miro, Picasso, etc...All artist from the modern art, different in style and approach. I only wished I was able to make art as all of them.
Here are the links:
Amid Amidi
Animation Pimp
Michael Sporn
Cartoon cave
Chris Robinson
Asterisk
My friend Marco De Blois, animation curator at Cimémathèque Quebecoise started a very interesting blog with Animation festivals posters, inspired by this dispute:
http://marcodeblois.wordpress.com/

Ottawa animation festival poster

And here is my poster for Ottawa international animation festival.

Greencry poster

Greencry is an initiative for the graphic designers around the world to support the Iran Green Movement.
This is my contribution! Go green, go!

Tower Bawher

It seems that there are several "illegal" postings of Tower Bawher on the net. I don't mind that my films are posted - the only thing that I care is that they are seen by people, and make them angry, or happy, or evoke emotions. NFB just put the film legally on their web site, in better quality.


I know that a special site for the "XX century" trilogy (which Tower Bawher and Drux Flux are part of) is being prepared, with additional materials, interviews, and information.
But I'm quit happy that there people are copying it and make it visible on their own will.
Well, the quality is not excellent, but it is ok for me. I quit like the compression artefacts on my films. It adds something quite unique on every post...
So there are links to some of the postings, I don't know for how long they will be available.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zap6AlCQsQk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbC4GTtcYfM

An old CD

Just found in a very, very old CD those old posters. I was already in Montreal (or just before I arrived ) when I did them, but still working for some theater companies in Sofia. 1998-2001.
I absolutely forgot even that I did those posters. I even don't think that I have printed copies of them ( except the posters for Trainspotting) The others are lost somewhere, I guess... Memories... At this time of my life I was doing between 15 and 30 posters annually. Which is more than the posters that I did in Canada for 10 Years...This is exactly the difference between hectic Bulgaria, and the slow motion Canada. I'm still not sure what I prefer though...

The Dove

Hamlet in a piquant dressing
A poster for French institut in Sofia for the XXI century.

Trainspotting theater play

Posters from 2008

Here are some posters from last year.

Anilogue festival, Budapest, Vienna


Rio Loco music festival, Toulouse.





The Man Who Waited poster

Plus des images!

Et voici, qulques images du film "Champlain retracé" Plus d'info sur le film:
Champlain NFB web site

All those images are stereoscopical Real 3D in original.
All images are copyright of National Film Board of Canada.

Champlain sketches

In 2008 I was appointed as an art director, painter and a lead animator, as well as After Effects 3d artist for the 3d stereoscopic film "Tracing Champlain" commemorating 400th anniversary of Quebec. It was a 7 months intense day &night work. I did a 4 min. fully animated piece in the film, but also painted the 2 paintings for the film, 1 of them is still exposed at the Quebec Museum of Civilization. Here are some of the preparatory sketches, and research work for the paintings, and the film.

Melissa destroys the initial painting. Scene from the film.




Melissa destroys the commissioned painting. Photo from the film.




The priest sketch.




David Kirke portrait and calligraphy.




Melissa works on her painting.




Sketch - Grave du Pont.



Color esquise for the painting.


Initial sketch, 1 painting - Champlain arrives in Quebec.

Some poster illustration from year 2008

British Animation Awards posters - 2008

Drux Flux in 3D

So, there is the 3d version of Drux Flux for web.
Take Your Colorcode glasses, and go to:
http://www.onf.ca/film/Drux_Flux_3D/

Lipsett diaries

I started this film at the end of 2006. It is supposed to be done at the beginning of 2010. My most ambitious project up to now. And there is a blog for the struggle, happiness and the pure excitement of making this film.
Lipsett diaries.

Illustration for "24 images"

The cover for 30th anniversary special edition of the cinema magazine "24images"

Blog

Illustrations for the 30th anniversary of "24 images" magazine


I know, I'm neglecting my blog, making no posts. But how I could do it, when I work? I don't need a publicity, thank God. And I don't care if someone likes my works, or not. So, it is just a funny place to share my emotions. And they are - I had a great time with wonderful friends, listening to a great music, in a benefice of a person that I didn't know, and I felt well.

A real artist may create his picture in a lonely desert... gods look over his shoulder; he creates in their company. What does he care whether or not anybody admires his picture?

“The basis of artistic creation is not what is, but what might be; not the real, but the possible. Artists create according to the same principles as nature, but they apply them to individual entities, while nature, to use a Goethean expression, thinks nothing of individual things. She is always building and destroying, because she wants to achieve perfection, not in the individual thing, but in the whole.”
The Aesthetics of Goethe’s Worldview
Rudolf Steiner

Me and Irji Menzel

First time, I met Irji at the Cafe at the Sofia Theater of satire and humor. It was 2004. I was in a short vacation back to Sofia, when my frends from the theatre proposed me - Do You want to do some posters for Irji Menzel plays. I said - what? Of course! Irji Menzel, the Oscar winner director, one of the most prominent directors of Czech New Wave of the 60's... ( Actualy, the only one whe stayed in Prague, and who continued the battle with the "mighty" censure.
After that I did 6 or 7 posters for his plays at the Theater of Humor and Satire. It was simply great experience...

DRUX FLUX on YouTube

Here it is. Watch DRUX FLUX on NFB YouTube site.

The Canadian cinema magazine Playback asked me:

To hear economists tell it, the world has been ending since September. And though many in the industry have, no doubt, been stung by the world's money woes, others have not yet had to line up outside a soup kitchen, or move into a cardboard box. So we ask:

"Have you personally been affected by the global financial crisis?"

My answer was:

I'm from a former communist country. There was nothing to eat, no electricity, no heating. You might think it was pure despair. But no, it was actually fun. It was one of my most creative periods. A little shaking up always does some good to the mind and the creative spirit.

What they cut was - in a time of an economy crisis - go and by the most expensive wine, and some caviar and nice cheese, some nice clothes, find a beautiful woman, make a film, and the crisis disappear. If there is not bread - there is always some cake!

Another nomination for Drux Flux

Drux Flux is nominated for Jutra for Best Short animated film( Quebec annual film awards ). The Gala will be on 29th of March, on Radio Canada TV. Some of the screening until then:
28.o2 13:00 - as part of RVCQ - ONF cinema.
There will be a special program of all nominated documentary and animated films in ONF cinema, 3-6march.
It is part of Canadian Top Ten films, touring the country - check the local Repertoire cinema.
And, soon - as part of You Tube screening room iniciative - stay tuned for information.
International screenings:
Tampere Film Festival, Mellbourne Film Festival, Hong Kong Film festival - for more info, go to NFB web site.

Drux Flux - the official trailer

Drux Flux - nominated for Genie awards

The Canadian academy of Cinema and television announced this Year nominations. Drux Flux was nominated for Best animated short. It doesn't have even theoretical chance to win, but an experimental film to be even nominated, I admitt, I was surprised.

Shigeo Fukuda

Exactly 10 Years ago, at my studio in Sofia came a small, strange man from Japan. HE was curating an exhibition of contemporary graphic design in Ginza Graphic Gallery, Tokyo. I was trembling. It was the Master, one of the best graphic designers of our time, Mr. Shigeo Fukuda. He choose 6 of my posters. And left me one of his. A masterpiece, but this can be said about every single work that this genious created. I was hardly influenced by his works for years, needless to say. Today, I got the news, that Shigeo Fukuda died. Nothing to say. The world became less beatifull without may be the best inventor and aestet of the last century. Here is the poster that he left me.



Here is one of my posters that he liked most.


There is just one word - I feel empty.
Here are som of his Master of decpetion works and films.
http://illusionworks.com/mod/fukuda.htm#

Paintings

In a time of grief, and sadness. Of death, and memories... Some of my last paintings:

Drux Flux in Top Ten Canadian film of 2008

http://www.topten.ca/shortfilms/druxflux/default.aspx
Drux Flux was selected Top Ten Canadian films of 2008 by Toronto Internationa Film Festival Group.

At the end of the Year, there a lost of classifications for films. There are 2 of them, who mentioned Drux Flux:

Chris Robinson:

Best short animation of 08.
#1 –by a mile
I am So Proud of you, Don Hertzfeldt

like watching the world through the eyes of a fly. Absurd, tragic, hilarious, poignant depiction of identity, family, life.
No particular order for the rest of the mortal lot:
Chainsaw, Dennis Tupicoff, Australia
Letter to Colleen, Andy/Carolyn London, USA
Drux Flux, Theodore Ushev, Canada
Skhizein, Jeremy clapin, France
Seemannstreue, Anna Kalis, Germany
Cattle Call, Mike Maryniuk and Matt Rankin, Canada
Presto, Doug Sweetland, USA
Muto, Blu, Italy
The Comic that Frenches the Mind, Bruce Bickford, USA
KFJG No 5, Alexei Alexiev, Hungary

Amid Amidi (Cartoonbrew):

There were plenty of fine animated shorts in ‘08 including, but not limited to, Chainsaw by Dennis Tupicoff, I Am So Proud of You by Don Hertzfeldt, The Tale of Little Puppetboy by Johannes Nyholm, My Grandmother Beijing by Mats Grorud, Cattle Call by Matt Rankin and Mike Maryniuk and Drux Flux by Theo Ushev. One film stood out above all. It is a remarkable grand-scale animation experiment that turns the entire world into an animation canvas. Pencil or digital—who cares? All you need is a wall and housepaint. No doubt about it, my favorite animated short of 2008 is Muto by Blu.

It is good to be in a company with the best. Even that it was intended to be a small insignificant film. I guess it will have more mentions in the category - The worst animated shorts of the Year. But I'm proud with this too. One day I will find all the bad things about my films, illustrations and posters. Actually I enjoy them more, than the good ones. They always prove that the things that I do are (may be) right. There is nothing more discouraging that the first place, and the prizes. Those are for the sportive. I'm just a modest long distance runner in the Cote-des-Neiges cemetery. 45 min. Slow. 5 km. 3 times a week.

No matter the best, or worst, important is not to be in the middle...

Chris Robinson Drivin'.

Here is the cover for Chris Robinson drivin'. I love working with him, and doing the covers for his books. Especially for this one. I've spit the cover in an instance...
I think that this book will be Chris masterpiece...

Ballad of a thin man exposition

And some picts from the exposition. Most of the illustrations were sold. Photos courtesy of Maral Mohamedijan. I was too nervous to make photos...

Drux Flux

Drux Flux won Best canadian Film in Ottawa animation festival, and Honorable mention in Experimental/abstract category. Here is the poster.

illustration exposition

And for everyone, being in Ottawa this fall - here is an opportunity to hear, and see what we arrived with...

covers

Here are 2 covers, that I designed for Chris Robinson books. Both of them will be launched at Ottawa Animation Festival, 17 september. If You are not there, You buy them from Amazon. They are nice written, personal books. And I really enjoyed working, and making drawings for them.

Back

It has been a long time. I hated internet, and web. Or was too lazy to maintain my own website. Or pissed off designing other peoples web sites, so I decided to quit even maintaining my own one.
Whatever, here are some news. On stupid blogs, oh, how I hate them...
Some news for what I do, where and why! Sometimes, even the artists have to show some of their works. Not necessary, but it helps.