Heavy metal gutairist Sammi Shredd of Atlanta Georgia, recently tried his hand at rescoring Hanna Barbera’s 1945 MGM cartoon Tee For Two. Shredd writes:

I learned the score to a Tom & Jerry cartoon and then performed it entirely on guitar includng most of the sound effects, including a drum track that does not appear in the original cartoon. It took me six months. I play heavy metal, so without purposefully trying to “metal-ize” the music, it nonetheless took on a slightly more aggressive tone.

I don’t want to give the Cartoon Network any encouragement…but if you’re into heavy metal, this isn’t half bad.

Animator Dustin Black and John Neerland recently completely a cable TV spot, for Northwest sandwich chain Erberts and Gerberts, in a technique they call a human flipbook.

150 T-shirts. 150 animated stills. A lot of ironing. Check the official website for a behind the scenes video.

One of my favorite groups is They Might Be Giants and all their work is worth celebrating. But this cute/subversive new animated video by Rob Shaw of Bent Image Lab is a real treat. All I can say is, I’m Impressed.

(Thanks, Blue Delliquanti)

It seems I can’t escape animation no matter where I go. For example, take last week when I was in San Francisco attending an advertising conference in the beautiful Presidio. During a break from the activities, I decided to take a little walk around the grounds. I noticed there was heavy construction going on around a couple of the buildings so I decided to check out what they were doing. It turns out that it’s the future home of the Walt Disney Family Museum, which is scheduled to open in August 2009.

The idea of situating a museum in a city in which Walt had few connections to may seem like a poor idea, but having seen the location in person, I couldn’t help but notice how perfectly the buildings being used for the museum capture the spirit of Walt Disney. It’s not just that they’re old buildings but their setting in the Presidio creates a sense of good old-fashioned Americana that simply feels right. Such a brilliant decision about where to place the museum leads me to believe that the Disney Family Foundation, run by Disney’s grandson Walter Elias Disney Miller, will be making other intelligent choices about the museum in the future, which offers a reason to look forward to their activities.

Here are a few more pics from my walk. The building below, #104, is a 19th century military barrack that will house the main musuem, cafe, gift shop and 115-seat lecture hall. (Click on the pic for a bigger version.) Some of the items that will be on display in the museum can be viewed at the museum’s website.

This next building, #122, originally a gymnasium built in 1904, is located behind the first building. It will rehabbed to house the Foundation’s research, archive and education functions, and to provide a gallery space for visiting exhibits.

I didn’t see the third building but apparently that will be used mostly for housing mechanical equipment and providing behind-the-scenes support to the two main buildings . Here’s an info sheet posted by one of the buildings. Click on it for a readable version.

This just in! Another candidate for my Comic Con program,Worst Cartoons Ever!…

Talk about motion capture! It takes the Clutch Cargo/Syncho Vox concept to a whole new level. Director Peter Avanzino (Futurama) found this test clip (circa 1962) posted by Something Weird Video on YouTube. Pete thinks this technique might be good for a Beowulf remake.

The clip is credited to Leon H. Maurer, who has quite an impressive resume, and is apparently related to Norman Maurer (comic book artist, film director, Moe Howard’s son-in-law), who used a similar process (called “Cinemagic”) in his 1960 feature film, The Angry Red Planet. In 1955 Leon started Illustrated Films, Inc. (with Norman) and they co-invented Artiscope, a “full animation-by-automation” system (per Leon’s resume, “Realistic character animation without artists - world’s first practical “real-time motion capture” system”). If anyone can shed any further light on this technique, please let us know.

It’s me (above left) - with animators Xeth Feinberg (Queer Duck) and Joey Ahlbum (Sesame Street, etc.) at Patrick Smith’s packed gallery opening on Tuesday night in SoHo. I did so much talking on Monday and Tuesday I completely lost my voice on Wednesday. That was okay, as all I had to do was fly to Ottawa and go to two screenings… (I’ll report on those later). Pat’s art is amazing. If you are in New York this month, check it out at the CVZ Gallery (through Oct. 16th).

These two recent music vid discoveries make me very happy.

• “Umo” is a primarily stop motion video directed by Shoji Goto for the all-female Japanese group OOIOO. The energetic uninhibited filmmaking in this piece is a true delight. Peep it here or download a better quality Quicktime version here (28mb).

• “Frog Dance” is an inspired bit of Flash animation by Jamie Mason (aka Hobo Divine) produced for the Nick Jr. series Yo Gabba Gabba. It’s mighty rare to see anybody today pull off this type of super-limited animation with such charm and vitality. (via)

The 2007 edition of the Ottawa International Animation Festival kicks off today, and as always, Ottawa’s artistic director Chris Robinson has pulled together a solid lineup of programs. Sadly I can’t make it this year, but if I were going, here are some of the things I’d be checking out:

• The opening night feature: Persepolis.

• Masterclasses by Joanna Quinn and Tomasz Baginski

• The International Showcase screening which includes the world premiere of the Goofy short How to Hook Up Your Home Theater, the first film to come out of Disney Animation’s new shorts program.

• Panels about advertising in animation and blogging in animation. The blogging panel includes the other half of Cartoon Brew, Jerry Beck.

• A lot of design-oriented programs this year including a four-part UPA retrospective, a tribute to Zagreb Film director Dušan Vukotić, and a program showing animation influenced by New Yorker cartoonist Saul Steinberg.

• The competition screenings are always one of the strongest parts of Ottawa, and this year’s selections are no exception. All of this year’s major shorts are playing up there including Koji Yamamura’s A Country Doctor, Luis Cook’s Pearce Sisters, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski’s Madame Tutli-Putli and Don Hertzfeldt’s Everything Will Be OK, but there’s always a lot of pleasant unexpected discoveries at Ottawa as well.