The much-anticipated Samsung Instinct has hit the market. Packed with all the latest features and mobile phone wizardry this wireless device is Sprint’s biggest handset launch of the year. Scoring high in the reviews, pre-registration for the Instinct surpassed all expectations. The sleek look and touch-screen design is all set to go head to head with Apple cult favorite, iPhone. 

Retailers report that the Instinct, which is cheaper than the iPhone, is flying off the shelves since launching June 20. Six days after the phone’s launch, Sprint called the Samsung Instinct ”the fastest-selling EVDO handset in the company’s history.”

Photo real model and layouts created by Little Fluffy Clouds for Goodby Silverstein and Partners, San Francisco.  Check out the buzz at: http://www.instinctthephone.com/ 

Okay, I confess, when I blog it’s usually in the service of Little Fluffy Clouds animation. We’re not as big a studio as Pixar so we have to maximize every opportunity to blow our own horn. It’s kinda like that when you’re an independent film maker or a first time author. If you’re flogging the new iPhone 35 everyone wants to print your press release verbatum but if you’re Don Gallinger and you’re only on the cusp of fame and fortune and not yet on the Oprah book club list, then you’ve got a hard row to hoe.  So, to this end every friend with a blog or horn must be enlisted towards the effort.

The Master Planets by Donald Gallinger.  Here’s a brief synopsis:

In the summer of 1973, Peter Jameson, a buoyant, handsome, already-idolized rock wunderkind stands poised to take his band, The Master Planets, to the top. Then his mother, a suburban housewife with a flower shop, is found dead after murdering an elderly German man living in Ohio. Suddenly, past collides with present in a sequence of loss and betrayal that ends his dreams and forever changes his life.  …  When everything you wanted is taken away, what is left behind?

Intrigued? Away you go then to Don’s blog to read a longer excerpt and order a real copy via Amazon at:http://www.donaldgallinger.com/ 

PARTY  is the latest in a continuing series of spots for Oscar Meyers, Lunchables, starring the irrepressible Lunchables Brigade of Oscar, Maya and Abel. In this episode the firm friends bring their own brand of explosive fun, mayhem and chaos to the school playground. Follow the action where just opening a pizza box sets off a party to be reckoned with. But young Buck, one of the Lunchables schoolyard regulars, has eyes only for the best tasting pizza ever and even though confetti, balloons, streamers and hi jinx happen all around him his rapture never wanes. Airing nationally on Cartoon Network, this 30-second spot is all animation.

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I am an unabashed Francophile. SO imagine how happy I was to hear that our short film, TODAY, was being featured not only at Festival NEMO in Paris but also at the 9th Elektra International Digital Arts Festival in Montreal. Deux Rêve Français - if I may make make so free with the Franglaise.

The mandate of ACREQ is to forge links between electronic music and other visual media. Here at Elektra you can immerse yourself in “the latest aesthetic currents in artistic practice with new technologies at their core.” The Elektra refuses to be restrained by the boundaries created by many so schools and styles in our field. It’s their mission to promote only the highest quality work. Robotics, digital imagery and music come together. Added to this fertile mix is a genuine desire to attract a wider audience, to democratize and make this culture more accessible - while also satisfying the specialists in attendance with more specific interests.

This high-calibre Montreal-based cultural initiative, presents artists and works of art that align the latest electronic music and visual creations derived from new technologies (animation, installation and robotics). Elektra unites creative media like music, video, cinema, design, gaming and audio or interactive installation with the latest digital technologies. Artists from all disciplines – composition, performance, dance, visual arts et al – all with a common interest in artistic applications of new technologies - uniting visual with sound. Elektra not only welcomes artists from all over the world, the festival also features local talents, helping make Montreal the North American meeting place for digital arts. Our best wishes for a successful festival! We only wish we could be there.

Elektra 9e Édition International Digital Arts Festival Mai 7 – 11, Montreal, Quebec.   Enjoy the blog and the live festival site at: http://www.elektramontreal.ca/

Help save a life. Who could say no? Anyone who knows me will have heard me rave about my animation super hero, Emru Townsend, editor extraordinaire of Frames Per Second Magazine – which IMHO is one of the net’s best animation zine/blogs. You’ve heard me extol his virtues in running FPS, be entertained by his diverse pod casts, swoon at his dulcet tones and revere his skills at holding down a heavy hitting job, keep a young family happy, and in his spare time chair the SIGGRAPH 2008 Computer Animation Festival. I am unashamedly one of his greatest fans. So, it won’t come as any surprise to you if I make this a very personal appeal to your higher selves.

Emru has Leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant - not sometime in the future - but now. His nearest and dearest are sadly not a match so he is relying on outside donors. We are asking you to help us encourage members of the animation community and others to join a bone marrow registry. You - or someone you know - may be the match Emru is hoping for.
Because tissue types are inherited, patients are more likely to match someone from their own race or ethnicity. As an Afro-Caribbean, Emru Townsend will be most likely to match other donors of African or Caribbean decent. So please urge anyone in your circle with this racial background to participate - send them this info in an email.You will be added to the registry and hopefully you will be a match for someone who needs your donation. On any given day, more than 6,000 men, women and children are searching the National Marrow Donor Program Registry for a life-saving donor like you. These patients have leukemia, lymphoma and other life-threatening diseases that can be treated by a bone marrow or cord blood transplant. For many of these patients, a transplant may be the best and only hope of a cure.

It’s easy. It’s just a swab. In the US, registering is as easy as filling out a form, signing your name to make a commitment, and swabbing your mouth 4 times. Go to this URL, sign up on-line and receive a swab kit in the mail, or check the dates and addresses of the swab collections in your area: http://www.marrow.org/HELP/Join_the_Donor_Registry/index.html. Follow along in the adventures of Emru at: http://www.healemru.com/

Could anything make your heart race more than Paris in the spring? Try animation + Paris + spring + being on the same bill of fare with director, Peter Greenaway. And while I’m at it, try being part of a festival that invites controversy by taking a stand against the lowest common denominator and openly stating that they will show only the best of the highest quality. Now add a true egalitarian splash by opening the festival up to all for free. Viva La France! Viva Festival Némo 2008!

Festival NÉMO 2008 takes place in Paris and Issey-les-Moulineaux, France. Here you can see the best of French and International cinema and animation. For this their 10th anniversary year, selections were purposefully chosen to give a lasting memory of what is most precious to cinéastes –beautiful work of extraordinary quality, shown in optimal conditions. Festival Directeur, Gilles Alverez, states that this is NÉMO’s answer to the crumbling values of our art form by social networking sites like Facebook, and the “lo-def” generalization of YouTube. Passionate sentiments indeed!

Némo showcases multimédia presentations and animations along with music videos and documentaries on such luminaries as Scott Walker, Smiths, Sigur Ros, Holy Etienne, Daniel Johnston, John Cage, and Phillip Glass. Catch audio visual performances from Pageantry + Transforma, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Quayola, Adriaan Lokman, Otolab, Mikomikona, Mylicon and Scanner + TeZ as part of the Cinéma Vivant! A feast for the senses - let your passion rule.

TODAY screens as part of the Panorama International. It plays in Paris on Sun. April 12th at Élysées Biarritz Salle de cinéma and in Issey-les-Moulineaux, on Wed. April 18th at Le Cube.

Festival NÉMO 2008- Le Rendez-Vous Multimedia D’Arcadi. Panorama International des Nouvelles Images Expérimentales, Cinema et Animations Innovants. April 10 – April 20, 2008.

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See: http://www.arcadi.fr/rendezvous/rv.php?id=1 for details.

The studio’s short, TODAY, commissioned by Sundance for their Billy Collins Action Poetry series, has won a silver 2007 Creativity Award in the Consumer TV category. With more than 2700 entries from 37 countries, judges declared that the winning entries, “stand out because of their ambition, strong communication, and excellent design.” The 400-page, Creativity Awards Annual, a veritable bible of excellent design, is published by Harper and Collins and will be available in 2008.

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For more info see: www.creativityawards.com

There’s no better on-line animation magazine than Frames Per Second. Edited by the inimitable, Emru Townsend, who somehow manages to produce a superb on-line zine - blog and podcasts, hold down a heavy hitting job at Autodesk, keep a young family happy and amused and in his spare time, chair the Computer Animation Festival for SIGGRAPH 2008. … Am I impressed? You bet your sweet life I am. Am I a fan? Hell, yes! Check out the dulcet tones of Mr. Townsend and hear my partner, Jerry van de Beek and I, rattle on about animation, production and life in a small indie animation studio. It was a lot of inspirational fun being interviewed by this marvel of modern radio. I may just start podcasting myself : )

See :  http://www.fpsmagazine.com/podcast/2007/10/podcast-016-little-fluffy-clouds.php

The San Francisco Film Society describes animation as being, “Currently one of the most fertile, creative and productive forms in cinema and television” stating further that, “animation occupies a unique point between artistic, experimental, commercial and industrial media, ranging from the latest visual FX-based arthouse films to family-friendly cartoons.” Such is the clarion call to join them, and us, in a lively and surprising animation celebration screening at Landmark’s Embarcadero Center Cinema November 8–11.

Little Fluffy Clouds Sundance short, Today, screens on Saturday, November 10th at 4.30pm as part of the festival’s, Makers Dozen. This lively festival runs from Nov. 8 - Nov. 11, 2007 at The Embarcadero Center Cinema in San Francisco. See www.sffs.org for details.

Little Fluffy Clouds Sundance studio short, TODAY, is one of the innovative pieces showing at, The Art of Digital Show, a unique international exhibition featuring all forms of digital art. The public is invited to the Opening Reception Gala and Awards Ceremony on October 6th from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Lyceum Theater Gallery, in San Diego’s historic Gaslamp Quarter. The Art of Digital Show runs from October 6 to November 11, 2007.

Neal Benezra, director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), fielded 104 pieces to be exhibited from 2796 entries submitted by artists representing 40 countries.  Mr. Benezra selected works which embody imagination, original vision, sophistication, message, content, creativity and technical skill. The show includes 83 fine art pieces, 18 video art pieces, a 3D modelled sculpture, a digitally designed textile piece, and an amazing interactive piece — creating a distinctive exhibition environment.

Digital artists are pushing the boundaries and more directly expressing what is in their imagination than in any other art medium. “Our great love of this art form drives us to create a truly excellent presentation of digital art from around the world,” said Steven Churchill, curator and founder of the event. “Our goal is to elevate and promote digital art and to provide substantial benefits to the exhibiting artists.”

An estimated 1500 people, including most of the exhibiting artists, will attend the Opening Gala, and 20,000 people are expected to view The Art of Digital Show during the five-week run. A free 72-page show catalog will be available during the exhibit, featuring all of the selected images.

See: http://www.artofdigitalshow.com for details.