The Noordbrabants Museum, one of the main modern art museums in southern Netherlands, opened recently an exhibit “Fantasy Factory”, where BBB has a permanent display. This morning, the Dutch national news paper Volkskrant posted a positive review on this exhibit, ending with some words about BBB. Freely translated:

“From paper cutting to fast 3D-film”

“Radically different than for example the model-handicraft from van Kaayk, is Big Buck Bunny from the Netherlands computer graphics teacher Sacha Goedegebure, a comedy about a fat rabbit taking revenge on three irritating rodents. The film – in the fastest imaginable 3D computer animation – almost seems like being produced by Blue Sky studios, the producer of Ice Age 1-2-3, so natural and precise as the rabbit hairs wave in the wind.
Gosh, that we can do this too, you then think a while. And understandable that the eyes of the kids hanging in the beanbags of the theatre are glued on this Dutch rabbit humour.”

Ain’t this a fun review! :) Kudos to all who made BBB of course, it’s certainly not just a Dutch film… but we knew that!

-Ton-

Big Buck Bunny is the winner of two awards:

– The MovieSquad Audience Award (kids of 8-12 voted in the HAFF school program)
– The HAFF Audience Award (festival visitors voted, with over 40 nominations)

Festival news page

Congrats to the entire team, and of course to everyone who has supported BBB!

-Ton-

Here’s a list of events that will happen the next 2 months in the Netherlands around Blender and BBB. Most of this is a result of our successful BBB launch in the Netherlands, which resulted in a cumulation of invitations… I’ve stopped accepting any more now! :)

To start with the most prestigious one:

Netherlands Film Festival, official selection in main program

Utrecht, sept 24 – oct 3, 2008
http://www.filmfestival.nl

• Three theatre screenings of BBB
• Sept 30: nominations for awards announced (we can become nominated in short film category)
• Oct 1: BBB screening + speaking as part of the “Re-vision, the new media effect” program
• Private screenings in international program for distributors, TV stations and studios.
• Oct 3: The grand Gala evening. Well, I’ll be going there anyway for fun!

(more…)

Friday August 8th: Disney visit

Thanks to our good friend & animation consultant & trainer Arno Kroner we had a great afternoon at the Disney Animation studios; the original place were animation got about invented (well, perfected :)!
There was a screening arranged in the main viewing room, and quickly after 12 PM the room quickly filled with about 70-80 people. After showing BBB (people laughed!) we did a 40 minute making-of presentation, especially showing Blender animation & compositing and the cool fact a single .blend file could manage and collect all the data for an entire movie shot.
After the presentation we went for lunch and a tour around the premises. Unfortunately the studios were forbidden for us… would have loved to pick the brains of developers about Bolt’s forest rendering methods. But, I did see the office of John Lassiter!

(more…)

It’s SIGGRAPH week (10-15 august)!
We’ve managed to get BBB screenings + peach team presentations in the theatres of three exciting Hollywood studios:

• Disney Feature Animation (friday)
• Dreamworks Animation (tuesday)
• Rhythm & Hues studios (wednesday)

This on top of our schedule already:

• Sunday: Siggraph Sandbox demos, 6-8 PM
• Monday, three BOFs 2-6 PM
• Tuesday-Thursday: demos on HP booth
• Wednesday 8.30 PM: BBB screening and ‘making of’ Panel

Four of the Peach crew artists will help me out for these 7 days, so here’s you chance to meet with Sacha, Nathan, William and Andy. It’s going to be great! Expect lots of pictures and a report here in a week

-Ton-

(Late news: BBB is in official selection for the prestigious Netherlands Film Festival. Whee!)

How 1 week in Singapore can change one’s ideas, goals and direction in life…

It was June 15 I took a 12 hour flight to Singapore, to attend CGOverdrive 2008 as keynote speaker and representer of BBB and Blender. And I can say that my first trip to Asia is one that will be hard to forget. (more…)

The Making of “Big Buck Bunny”: An Open-Source Evolution
Wednesday, 13 August, 8:30 – 10:15 am
Petree Hall C

In May 2008, the Blender Foundation released their second open-movie project: “Big Buck Bunny,” a funny and furry 3D short about a giant rabbit who gets even with bullying rodents. This session brings together the key people who created the movie and presents all the aspects of an open-source and open-content-based animation studio, and how this affects the creative process. The panelists showcase project files from the studio, and even recreate parts of the film on demand! This 90 minute session starts with a screening the 10-minute film and ends with a 15-minute Q&A with the audience.

http://www.siggraph.org/s2008/attendees/caf/caftalks/index.php

An article about Blender and the making of BBB of 8 pages has been printed in the June issue of Linux Pro Italian magazine, with short (boxes) interviews with Enrico, Sacha and Andy.

(more…)

Big Buck Bunny has been awarded for a ‘special mention’ from the jury of Cyborg FilmFestival within the section animation.

BIG BUCK BUNNY of SACHA GOEDEGEBURE
The Netherlands 2008
“Such mention, intends to underline the great ability with which has been completed the creation of characters animate of the work and their character animation able to absolutely return an expressiveness worthy of products commercial high-level, and such mention, wants besides, to be the occasion to underline the important value of a software 3D as Blender, with which the work has entirely been realized, and that it opens a ‘important reflection on the value of the open source and of the free software in the professional and commercial world.” thus Luisella Chiribini

http://www.cyborgproduzioni.org/

We’ve collected several mirrors worldwide for a stable and – hopefully fast – hosting of the BBB movies. You can download the files in four different flavours, which will nicely work for all common video players and OSes.
The download section also has Vimeo and Youtube links for streaming video.
Lastly, mirrors with the DVD ROM studio files are also being added now!

Have fun watching! And, thanks again for the great feedback and ongoing support. It has been a great ride for everyone here, and I definitely look forward to the next open movie… which – as promised – will not start before the Blender 2.5 project is in usable state. Most likely that’s end of 2008, early 2009.

Lastly: don’t stop buying the DVD! Revenues will be used as startup financing for the next Open Movie, and hopefully I can afford to send the full Peach team to Siggraph…

-Ton-