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Cloudy and The Oscars

Rob — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:53:20 +0000

We got this awesome email from Chris and Phil this week. It really captures the spirit of working with them:

We made a really ridiculous movie together. We were able to get away with so much gorgeous, glorious, weirdness, and that as a result, we were showered with more success than anyone dared expect. And now, we have earned the most legendary honor a movie can get: an Oscar snub. The imprint of a true original. A rebel.

But if you’re feeling a little disappointed, remember that we didn’t make this film together so it would be nominated for an Academy Award. We made it so that westbound United Airlines passengers would have something with which to temporarily divert themselves. And we succeeded. We also had an unforgettable experience making great art together, art which made a lot of people laugh, think, and not buy needless items from the skymall catalog.

Congratulations and a lifelong thank you to all of you for making a warm, strange, sweet, smart, hilarious funny cartoon film. We are very very very proud.

Love,
Chris and Phil!

Cloudy at the Annie Awards

Rob — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:21:28 +0000

Cloudy was nominated for Best Animated Feature, Best Animated Effects, best Directing and Best Writing in this years Annie Awards.

Yesterday the studio sent out a pretty funny letter from the directors to the ASIFA membership. Usually these “please vote for us” mailers are pretty lame–but when you give Chris and Phil a chance to write you get something awesome.

[full size]

VES Nominations for Cloudy

Rob — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:27:40 +0000

The Hollywood Reporter announced the nominations for the Visual Effects Society awards and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is up for two categories:

Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture

Effects Animation in an Animated Feature Motion Picture

I couldn’t be more proud of the work and the team that put Cloudy on the screen. This is my third VES nomination for effects with this crew. Not only do they do great work, but are a great team to work with.

CES 2010

Rob — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:33:26 +0000

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was well represented in Sony’s CES Booth this year. The directors and I presented a 45 minute behind the scenes look at the making of the film in 3d stereo in the Sony lounge on the show floor.

Sony’s booth was well configured with a giant stereo projection screen leveraging SXRD projectors with Real-D stereo. We brought several different excerpts from the movie to screen and the room was packed to capacity–spilling out into the rest of the booth.

Other parts of the Sony booth had Cloudy playing on multiple screens both in 2d and 3d. Sony announced that Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs will be released on stereo 3d blu-ray later this year…my guess is that it will coincide with the release of the impressive looking new stereo televisions. It was also re-confirmed that PS3′s will be able to playback stereo movies with a free upcoming firmware upgrade.

After the presentation, Phil jumped in the motion capture booth and danced a little Flint jig.

If you’re wondering, no this is not how we made the movie.

The rest of CES had plenty of cool things to see. I particularly liked the swiss army knife with the USB memory stick.

NVIDIA and Cloudy

Rob — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:42:25 +0000

I’m speaking at NVIDIA’s GTC Conference this Friday at 3pm to talk about GPU accelerated rendering on our latest film. You can checkout their press release for a glimpse of how their hardware helped bring Cloudy to life.

Cloudy Opened at #1

Rob — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 03:26:08 +0000

Cloudy with Chance of Meatballs opened in the #1 position this weekend with $30.3 million. This makes it the highest grossing September open for an animated movie, and the 3rd highest September release of any film.

After a long run making the film, it’s tremendously rewarding to see everyone enjoying it so much.

Cloudy at the Arclight Cinema

Rob — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:50:18 +0000

Los Angeles, CA
© 2009 Rob Bredow

CGW Japan covers Cloudy

Rob — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:38:21 +0000

A few weeks ago I got to do an interview with Computer Graphics World in Japan. They were kind enough to send me the final article…I love the layout.

How animated movies are made

Rob — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:24:08 +0000

You can thank Andy Samberg for this awesome behind-the-scenes look at how an animated movie is made.

Cloudy at Siggraph 09

Rob — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 16:20:53 +0000

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is going to be well-represented at Siggraph 2009 in New Orleans this year. In addition, I’m participating in some other panels on behalf of Imageworks. Hope I bump into you in these sessions if you’re going to be at the show:

Keeping a Job in CG for Entertainment

From Pitchvis to Postvis

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Rendering: Practical Uses of a Ray Tracer in Cloudy

Deconstructing Watchmen

Screening Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

It’s going to be a very busy show, but it’s a great opportunity to get to show everyone a taste of Cloudy and our other recent work.