20 minutes of hand-drawn and CGI teasers and trailers from Headless Prod

March 23, 2013 2:00 PM

Strange Oaks is the latest teaser trailer from the Barcelona-based Headless Productions (and friends), this time about a retirement community for witches. The Headless Productions Vimeo account has 13 more teasers and trailers, mostly featuring hand-drawn animation, some of which has since made its way into full movies.

• My family and the wolf, "a love letter to childhood summers trying to evoke certain lights and smells and above all that, claim memories as the most valuable treasure." And there's a big wolf in there, somewhere. They're looking for partners, distributors, and others necessary to develop the film.
• PLOK is a little animation test/character study
• IdN Magazine, an opening title clip for a DVD from the design magazine
• Two test clips for Mr Collieu, the mechanical pig, set in a war between the north and the west. Supposedly slated for 2014, but not a lot is online about the project.
• Paititi and Max Mordon, clips that apparently made their way into the Spanish feature film Tadeo Jones (which seems to have started as a 9 minute long CG short film
• English trailer for Nocturna, an animated film that was released in 2007 (see more: Headless Productions blog on character design; Nocturna on TVTropes)
• No Pets Allowed, a teaser trailer for Headless' first foray into 3D; a bit more information and some images in an interview with Headless Productions team, and even more character sketches from the Headless Prod. blog
• I'm a monster is another teaser trailer for something that didn't get too far; there is some art on Headless' blog
• The Strange Case of Dad's Missing Head, a teaser trailer, Headless Production's first piece as Headless (thus the name), dusted off and presented for all to see

posted by filthy light thief (8 comments total)

Great stuff! Love the No Pets Allowed.
posted by Glinn at 4:50 PM on March 23, 2013

Wow really good stuff. Love the style. Thanks for the post.
posted by meta87 at 4:51 PM on March 23, 2013

These are fantastic.
posted by starvingartist at 5:04 PM on March 23, 2013

I had seen a couple of these before but somehow hadn't connected them together as being from the same people.
posted by RobotHero at 9:46 AM on March 24, 2013

These are all amazing. The animation is some of the best I've seen. None of it looks quite like traditional animation, though: is it flash, or some kind of animation software along those lines? Looking forward to Dad's Missing Head, which looks reminiscent of the Triplets of Belleville.
posted by Green Winnebago at 9:49 AM on March 24, 2013

Very little animation is done with painted cels these days, so yes, I expect they use some animation software, for inking and colouring at least, though it doesn't look like they rely on automated tweening and symbol libraries to the extent you see in cheaper animation.

They are from Spain, so it makes sense they would have a European style more in common with Triplets than with the Cal Arts style you get with most Hollywood animation.
posted by RobotHero at 10:33 AM on March 24, 2013

Also there's a mistake in the post. The link for I'm a Monster should maybe be this instead.
posted by RobotHero at 10:35 AM on March 24, 2013

Mod note: Subbed in the corrected link.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 12:38 PM on March 24, 2013