Taylor Jessen points out THIS PIECE that he wrote for the 20th anniversary of the animated feature TWICE UPON A TIME. His much longer piece about the production of the film will appear in the upcoming ANIMATION BLAST #9. The best part of this on-line article is the series of insightful quotes from the production principals - among them Henry Selick, Harley Jessup, John Korty, David Fincher and Chuck Swenson - in which they discuss the lessons they learned from working on the film.

Interesting SLATE article that discusses why realistic CG humans often look creepy in video games. What the author is saying could also be applied to a lot of computer animated movies and TV shows being produced nowadays.

What did Dominique Monfery, the French director of the short film DESTINO, do after Disney shuttered its French animation studio (Disney de Montreuil) in fall 2003? Monfery and fellow ex-Disney artists opened up their own animation studio outside of Paris called Welldone. The goal of the studio is to produce feature-length animated features. There’s a couple tantalizing images of one of their in-development projects in this AnimeLand article. The artwork seems to be a fresh combination of hand drawn and CG techniques. For those that speak French, there’s also an interview with Monfery about his plans for the studio. Welldone however isn’t the only studio that formed in the aftermath of Disney’s French animation collapse. Néomis is another outfit now up and running which is composed of nearly two dozen ex-Disney de Montreuil staffers. There’s also an article (in French again) about this studio HERE. Both of these studios are brimming with talent and potential, and now that the artists don’t have to work on tripe like THE EMPEROR’S NEW GROOVE and TARZAN, the sky is truly the limit. (Thanks to Gérald for the links).

This morning we held a trivia contest in which the first five winners (Marc Crisafulli, Joe Queen, Chad Erekson and Jay Smith and Josh Cooley) got a copy of Shout Factory’s new dvd compilation SPIKE & MIKE’S CUTTING EDGE CLASSICS. The question:

What was the name of the first CGI short film from Pixar, directed by John Lasseter?

However, the answer I was looking for, THE ADVENTURES OF ANDRE AND WALLY B (1984), was wrong.Brew reader Patrick Toifl pointed out to me that ANDRE AND WALLY B. was actually directed by Alvy Ray Smith. John Lasseter did character design and animation. You’d think I’d know that. Patrick will get a special prize for correcting me…And I’ll make it up to you all with another contest real soon.

Turner Classic Movies is without contest my favorite cable channel so it’s a pity that I rarely have reason to plug them here on Cartoon Brew. During the next few days though they’re running a couple of films that may be of interest to readers of this site. First they’ll be screening Ernie Pintoff’s extremely rare live-action short THE SHOES (1960) starring Buddy Hackett. At the time Pintoff produced this film, he was still heavily involved in animation, running his own TV commercial studio in New York City and producing independent shorts like THE VIOLINIST and THE INTERVIEW. THE SHOES marks the beginning of Pintoff’s transition from animation to live-action. He once explained in an interview his reason for switching to live-action: “At that time I was losing interest in animation and was captivated by the prospects of communicating to a broader audience of people through live-action…Cartooning and animation was mostly humor and I had become more interested in drama and serious subjects dealing with adults.” These are curious comments considering how Pintoff was one of animation’s most distinctive and promising talents in the late-’50s and early-’60s (FLEBUS anybody?) and how his later live-action work never seemed to quite live up to the singular personal voice he brought to his animated films. The other film of interest that TCM is showing is an actual animated feature: THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED. The silent sihouette film, directed by Lotte Reiniger, was released in 1926. The Turner website has some interesting background details on PRINCE ACHMED, including the nugget that Reiniger was only 23 years old when she began working on the feature.