On his blog, Didier Ghez points out an interesting-sounding book that was self-published a few days ago: Working for Disney: 1936-1937, The Ingeborg Willy Scrapbook. This is the description of it:

Reproduction of a 1936 scrapbook made during Ingeborg Willy’s first year working as an inker for the Walt Disney Studios. The scrapbook contains numerous photos of other Disney employees, internal memos, production work sheets, and a large number of original pencil sketches from the first feature-length animated film, Snow White, and other early Disney cartoons.

I’m going to wait to hear more before recommending it though. As is often the case with self-published books like this, the quality of image reproduction and presentation could leave a lot to be desired. The amateurish cover design certainly doesn’t do much to inspire confidence. But it could potentially be a very cool book.

Apparently, all the important causes that a corporation could pretend to care about have already been snatched up, so ice cream manufacturer Haagen-Dazs got stuck with saving honeybees. The operatic CG spot that promotes the campaign was created by Psyop:

The television broadcast premiere of Leslie Iwerks documentary, The Pixar Story, will be on the STARZ cable channel tonight at 10pm EST/PST. It will be preceded by the feature presentations of Cars (6pm ET/PT) and Ratatouille (8pm ET/PT). Also visit starz.com for additional show times and two new Leslie Iwerks mini-docs, Emeryville Studio and the Love Lounge and Pixar University.

Charles Shopsin has posted a January 1941 article from Popular Science about Disney’s pioneering sound processes for Fantasia on his Modern Mechanix blog. It features some unique photos of the sound engineers and audio technicians at work on this groundbreaking achievement.

The 12th Marc Davis Celebration of Animation Drawing on the Future: Mentorship In Animation will feature (above L to R) Pete Docter (Monsters Inc), Eric Goldberg (Pocahontas), James Baxter (Enchanted) and Andreas Deja (Aladdin), in a panel moderated by animation critic Charles Solomon. The panelists will spotlight the mentors who fostered their professional development, as well as provide insights into their individual approaches to their art. The lecture will include clips from the animation that inspired each of the panelists, and from their own work reflecting that inspiration.

The Marc Davis Celebration of Animation will be held on Friday May 9th, 7:30pm, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, CA (Samuel Goldwyn Theater, 8949 Wilshire Blvd.). Tickets are $5.00 (Students $3) and available online at Oscars.org.

Thanks to several of our readers, I’ve just caught up with this music video from French music group, Justice. It’s directed by Jonas and François, a directing team at production company 75 in Paris. The art director and designer is So Me of Ed Banger Records. This creative team was also behind Kanye West’s The Good Life. Check that one out too.

(Thanks, Kelly Toon and Brad Constantine)

Folks in Manhattan may want to check out the Animazing Gallery in Soho (461 Broome St.) which has a show of new paintings by Ralph Bakshi. The work will only be on display through this weekend. I saw it a few nights ago and was impressed with Bakshi’s aggressive and loose painting style. His paintings tend to be ‘loud’, much like the man himself, but there’s also a great deal of sophistication in the draftsmanship and composition, and particularly, I felt, in his use of color. I certainly wouldn’t mind having a few of them hanging on my walls. For those who can’t make it, lo-rez versions of the paintings have been posted online.

Also, last week, Bakshi was interviewed on “The Leonard Lopate Show” on WNYC. It’s a delightful 17-minute chat with plenty of intelligent questions from the interviewer. Bakshi discusses his early Terrytoons career and also talks about the importance of honest expression in music and the arts in general. You can listen to a streaming version or download an MP3 on the WNYC website.

(Thanks, Chris Siemasko, for the WNYC link)

One of my favorite non-animation websites is Trailers From Hell. This site archives various genre (mainly sci-fi/fantasy/horror) film trailers with commentary by noted directors (including Joe Dante, John Landis, Allan Arkush, etc.). I’ve been waiting for them to get around to doing an animation trailer and they finally have. Here’s documentary filmmaker (and childhood friend of Disney director, Kirk Wise) George Hickenlooper discussing his love of Yellow Submarine: