New career...?

In a little non-animation news, my modeling career has officially begun. Behold the cover art for the new Thirty Seconds to Mars album:
Disclaimer: I've never heard this band's music.

Celebrate Christmas with some clay penguins and a walrus in my garage studio.

New Christmas animation finished!

Click here to check it out!

The sets and puppets were initially made at American Greetings in Cleveland and shipped here to LA. The sound design and a lot of the post production were done at American Greetings as well. Hence, my credits list for this one is most likely incomplete, but here are the people who I know worked on it:

Director: Kevin Carr
Producers: Kevin Carr, Jenn Branch, Larry Mosca
Animator: Pete Levin
Puppet Fabricator: Theresa Muri
Puppet Doctor: John Sumner
Set Builder: Seth Larson
Prop Builders: Theresa Muri, Will Martin
Lighting: Josh Silfen, Pete Levin
Animation Assistants: Liz Pringle, Will Martin
Visual Effects Artist: Brian Kokoszka (and the American Greetings After Effects dept.)


Bonus: Here's a Flash eCard they made out of some still photos I shot of the walrus.

12/9/09 Update:
We're #1! We're #1!

Spanish Lottery commercial nominated for an Annie Award

Deportes, the first spot shown in the previous post, has been nominated for Best Animated Commercial. Click here for a list of nominees.

Congratulations to my friends at Screen Novelties and Shadow Machine for their respective nominations as well!

2/7/10 Update:
We won!!

Pixilation Downshooter spots

Here are four new pixilated spots that I worked on that premiered on Spanish television (television in Spain, that is) this month. The campaign is called "Si sueñas..." and it's to promote Loterías del Estado. They were directed by Yuval and Merav Nathan, the Israeli husband and wife directors of the music video for Her Morning Elegance. These four were animated by Yuval, Guy Ben Shitrit, and myself. The stop motion puppet is the talented and patient Linn Bjornland and the production company was Acme Filmworks.

You might want to hit the full screen button on these youtube clips so you can see details like the birds made out of socks or the plates exploding into forks.

Deportes
Social Genérico Producto These commercials follow three others I helped Yuval and Guy animate earlier in the year (along with Portland animator Kevin Glick). These three are currently airing on Spanish television (Spanish language television in the United States and Latin America, that is). They're for a campaign called "Dreams" to promote Comcast. They were also directed by Yuval and Merav and produced by Acme Filmworks this time with the help of the Stokes/Kohne studio. Anthem Super H Triple Play Downshooter Pixilation seems to be getting more and more popular. Due to the success of Her Morning Elegance, there's been quite a few people who have tried to duplicate its style. But there's also a huge amount of territory to pioneer with downshooter pixilation (i.e. the amazing Coldplay video below). I hope animators continue to play with this style and push it further and further. Some recent examples of downshooter pixilation are: Sorry I'm Late (short film) Anuncio Telefónica (commercial) Target: Every Color You Can Dream (Australian commercial) Target: Every Color You Can Dream - Kids Version (Australian commercial) Chateau Bonne Entente: Summer (Canadian commercial) Coldplay: Strawberry Swing (brilliant Little Nemo inspired music video) Tunisiana: Sayef Jawak (a shameless Tunisian ripoff of Sorry I'm Late) And here's a bonus video of me and Yuval fighting it out on set:

Sour Skittles: Eyebrows

New spot up today!



This is a spec commercial for Sour Skittles directed by John Sumner. John's not only a director, but he's the talented puppet builder who's built some amazing stuff for my animated spots Heart Attack, Fridge Tales, Candy Box, and PB&J.


As an added bonus, here are John's storyboards in animatic form:


And here's a spontaneous behind-the-scenes video of John and me breaking down the set:



Here are the credits for the spot:

Director: John Sumner
Animator: Pete Levin
Written by: Neil Bruce
Puppet Fabricator: John Sumner
Set Construction: John Sumner, Pete Levin
Storyboard Artist: John Sumner
Director of Photography: John Harvatine IV
Editor: Pete Levin
Interns: Linnea Hoover, Kevin Lee, Kristina Mickahail, Kelsey Stillmaker
Visual Effects Artists: Brent Johnson, Takashi Takeoka
Announcer: Evan McNamara
Sound Recordist: Michael Stellman

Special thanks to Buddy System Studios for the use of their space, equipment, snacks, and general support!

Junko's Shamisen Trailer

Here is the trailer for Junko's Shamisen, a short film where I animated a little girl's spirit animal, a fox. (Not too much of my animation in the trailer, but it's not like they showed the shark in the Jaws trailer either.) The fox puppet was constructed by Greg Sesma from a real fox skin with a wire armature underneath. And yes, it was incredibly creepy to animate something that had once been naturally animated.

Keep an eye out for the eye-catching and innovative Junko's Shamisen at your local film festival! Congratulations to Sol Friedman who's been working on his labor of love for over a year now.

Hello.

Hi and welcome to the News page of PeteLevinFilms.com! Thanks for taking the time to browse through. I've already posted a bunch of my old stuff on this new website. I'm planning on posting more old stuff as well as new work as I finish it.

The plan for this particular page is to mention updates to the site, share behind-the-scenes stories and photos from some of the spots, and post links to stuff I'm not able to share on my own page.

More updates to come...