A 1982 mini-doc about how the impressive CG-less HBO intro was made. The entire spot is shown at the end of the film. Apparently it’s all stop-motion and old-school in-camera optical effects. (via)

I’m obviously excited about the release next Tuesday of Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection Vol. 2. It’s an excellent companion to the first volume with 75 restored cartoons including classic Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Andy Panda and Swing Symphonies cartoons, and well as a dozen of those Walter Lantz behind-the-scenes films demonstrating how his studio made cartoons in 1957 — and much much more. Hours of fun. Best Buy will be selling it for $29.99 with an exclusive 4×6 inch limited edition “cel” from Wet Blanket Policy (above). A bargain! (Oldtimers, remember when Castle Films sold only one color Woody Woodpecker cartoon (with magnetic sound) on Super 8 for $22.95 and in 16mm (optical sound) for $49.95?).

Here are a few frame grabs from this set to whet your appetite (click to enlarge).

Blue Sky animator Jeff Gabor recently posted on his website a comparison reel from Horton Hears a Who! that shows his live-action performance alongside the scene blocking, animation and final render passes of his shots. The bad news is that Fox made him take down this wonderful behind-the-scenes look at his work, but the good news is that plenty of people saved the file and have posted it online. Go to this video sharing site for an embedded Flash version, and make sure to download the file located on this site to see it in all its hi-res Quicktime glory. As to whether using this much live-action reference actually helps or inhibits an animator’s performance…well perhaps that’s a discussion for another post.

Just when you think everything that could possibly be done with old-school flipbooks has been done, along comes a refreshing example of the technique’s versatility. The new Kraak & Smack music video, “Squeeze Me”, is directed by Dutch filmmakers André Maat and Superelectric.

Animation historian/author and voice actor Keith Scott, a foremost authority on Jay Ward, old-time radio and cartoon voice actors, has published an article on the origin of Foghorn Leghorn that is a must read. The common story of how Foggy’s characterization was based on Kenny Delmar’s radio character Senator Claghorn is only half true. Keith has finally cleared up the published misinformation which was mainly propagated by the animators themselves, including Bob McKimson, Chuck Jones and, in particular, Mel Blanc. Keith has allowed me to post the article online, and you can read it here.
The article is an excerpt from Keith’s ‘zine, (cleverly titled Eh… confidentially, Doc - I AM A WABBIT!!!), published in the current edition of Apatoons (#150, April-May 2008). Apatoons is a long running amateur press association publication, a private mailing for members only. If you are interested in joining the apa, or buying a sample issue, check its website for more information.

I was getting ready to junk a flyer I’d received for the Hiroshima International Animation Festival when I noticed a tiny image printed on the back of it that I hadn’t seen before: a still from the new Pixar short Presto that will open in front of Wall-E. It marks the first directorial effort by supervising animator Doug Sweetland.

Readers may recall that last year I posted about a group of Brazilian film students who had created a scene-by-scene live-action remake of the Oscar-winning Pixar short Geri’s Game (download from iTunes). Since then, there’s been a mini-online phenomenon in which fans of the film have been creating lots and lots of live-action remakes and parodies of the film.

Some of these films follow the film’s original scenes very closely while others are more parody-oriented taking liberties with the acting and staging. Is there any other example of an animated short being remade into live-action by fans of the film? I find the whole thing fascinating because this is not some contrived top-down corporate effort soliciting fans to do this for a contest or some such. It’s simply a bunch of people who enjoy and identify with the film’s character and want to try their hand at recreating him.

Here’s the original live-action remake from Brazil:

Amos’ Game

Don’s Game

This person remade the film with their grandfather in the title role:

A version made with a kid pretending to be Geri:

Disney’s reuse of past animation is nothing new. But seeing these sequences in motion, one scene followed by its subsequent reuse, is fascinating. Animator Michael J. Ruocco, on his For The Birds blog, has started compiling a series of videos comparing the original animation from Disney features with the later films in which the same animation is reused. He’s just posted Disney’s Gettin’ Lazy Episode #3 showing that Bambi’s Mom didn’t die - she lived on to appear in The Sword In the Stone, The Jungle Book, The Rescuers and Beauty and the Beast. My favorite is Episode #2 (embedded below) comparing a chase scene from Mr. Toad with one in The Jungle Book:

Also check his Episode #1 (which compares a bit from Fantasia with Make Mine Music and The Black Cauldron), and note that Ruocco’s planning many more of these.