After winning over a dozen film festivals, this film was awarded the Best Animated Short Film at the 84th Academy Awards. An official iPad app based on the film is also available in the Apple App Store. A book adaption is expected to be released in late 2012.

Redefining modern childrens books, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is both an animated short film, and an ipad app, designed to become an interactive story to entertain and teach children. Moonbot studios directors Brandon Oldenburg and Bill Joyce, who has worked on numerous films including Robots and Toy Story, brought in camblock developer Stewart Mayer and fellow camblock operator Jason Hess to film the backgrounds for the film.

.
The majority of the film takes place on artfully crafted minature sets, with animated characters composited into the shots. The entire storyboard was scripted and camblock pan/tilt/dolly/jib/lens control systems were brought in to move through the miniature sets with motion control fluidity and accuracy. The shots were previewed in real time on Canon 7D cameras, and then recorded frame by frame in raw format. Then, a secondary pass was recorded with tracking markers placed in the scenes to help recreate accurate motion paths in post for the animated characters. Because of the mobile and modular nature of the system, the filmmakers were able to configure the system several different ways to place the camera inside the many miniature sets.
.

The film is delightful to watch, and already won several awards including San Jose’s CINEQUEST Festival’s “Best Animated Short Film Award” and Cleveland International Film Festival’s “Best Animated Short Film Award.”
.

See it here: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
.