Today is Joe Grant’s 100th birthday (or the 100th anniversary of his birth). Howard Green sent us these pix with a note, “He passed away in 2005, just one week shy of his 97th but his spirit lives on in the many folks he mentored and influenced. Attached is a nice pic of him at the DVD reissue event for Dumbo (below), and a studio portrait from 1938 (above).”

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, but unfortunately, none of those words are appropriate for printing on this blog. Even when I dismiss all prior knowledge of what Chris Sanders’ original vision for this film was, these designs for Disney’s next feature, Bolt, look downright embarrassing. They veer disturbingly close to this, but we’re not talking about some cheap startup animation studio here. This is Disney dammit…the friggin standard-bearer of this art form for much of the past hundred years. What could possibly be the defense for such witless homely unimaginative designs? Somebody at Disney please fill me in…publicly or privately. Because I’m seriously having difficulty believing that some of the most highly skilled animation artists in the world could come up with something that looks only slightly better than your average student film.

(image via Character Design blog)

I saw a lot of films that I enjoyed last week at the SVA student animation show. One of my favorites was Rob Bohn’s Orderly Confusion, a series of nutty animated interludes that defy description. Check out the film over here. (Thanks, Tim Rauch)

This Variety article explains how 20th Century Fox TV and Fox Broadcasting Co. are launching Fox Inkubator, a new inititative designed to find and develop animated projects. The program will give animators the opportunity to make two-to-three minute shorts, and the successful ones will later be developed into pilots and series. Inkubator, headed by Jennifer Howell, a former supervising producer on South Park, could eventually turn out up to 25 shorts a year. Most notable, unlike development programs at other networks, the Inkubator shorts will be distributed online and available to the public.

In addition to Inkubator, 20th Century Fox has established an in-house animation department for the first time in its history. It is also headed by Howell. The Variety article makes it sound as if Fox is dedicating its future to animation in a big way. Various Fox execs are quoted in the piece saying that animated series “have done so much for us financially and building the brand of this studio. We felt we needed to shine a bigger and brighter light on the future of animation production at this studio,” and “Animation is the perfect product for the world we live in, where DVD sales are so critical, appealing to young men is so critical, and there’s growing digital distribution of shortform content.”

Read between the lines though and things look less rosy. For example, take this quote from one of the suits about the production costs of the Inkubator shorts: “It will be cost effective given the way technology has developed…This isn’t about paying big premiums or big fees to writers. It’s intended to be done on a less-expensive scale.” In other words, they’re likely planning to hire a bunch of young artists and have them produce a crapload of cheapo Flash cartoons with the hope that audiences latch onto one of them. That’s too bad. I’ve long felt that development programs today are shortsighted by focusing on the creation of one-hit wonders and trendy properties, instead of pouring their resources into the long-term development and nurturing of talented artists, who in turn could develop many successful properties. Perhaps if any good comes out of the Inkubator, Fox will finally realize that there are plenty of talented animation creators out there whose names don’t begin with “Seth” and end with “MacFarlane.” I’m not holding my breath though.

Nick Uff’s new videos for Portishead songs “The Rip” and “We Carry On” are two of my favorite pieces of animation so far this year. This article from the Bournemouth Echo says that the 44-year-old Uff makes his living as a gardener, which helps to explain why I’ve never heard of him or seen his beautiful hand-drawn animation before. The lo-fi look is authentic; Uff shoots all his work on 16mm. He says about his work, “I don’t storyboard my ideas, but let the films go where they take themselves. There’s all sorts of ideas in there - things that have happened, a bit of social comment - like a stream of consciousness you could say. Each frame has to be different, animated films cannot stand still. That means they can be quite difficult on the eye, especially in the style I use, it’s very busy, a bit scratchy.”

“The Rip”

“We Carry On”

“Bugs Bunny, Greatest Banned Player Ever”, a ridiculously long and deadpan examination of Friz Freleng’s Baseball Bugs (1946), is a treat for any baseball fan like myself. The piece was recently selected for inclusion in the 2007 Best American Sportswriting annual. To follow along with the analysis, I’ve posted Freleng’s short below. (Thanks, Mark Newgarden)

The illustration above appears in the latest issue of Southwest Airlines inflight Spirit Magazine. This month the magazine has a fun article written by a parent who spent a marathon day watching all the kids cartoon channels. It’s an interesting snapshot of what’s right - and mostly wrong - with kids TV these days. Read the whole article here.

The article also features several great illustrations (below and above) by Pasadena based cartoonist Mark Matcho.

Dutch director and animator Fons Schiedon, previously featured on Cartoon Brew and quickly becoming a favorite director of mine, just finished a lovely looking music video for Amsterdam-based band VOICST. Schiedon tells me, “The video was completed in just about five weeks from animatic to final (a schedule that leans towards insanity I must admit), working with basically the same compact team that previously worked with me on the MTV ASIA Mobbed series (2006). Technically, we’re looking at cel-style Flash-animation and Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop/Maya backgrounds in an AfterEffects composite.” The character animation was created by Brazilian studio Birdo. Watch the video and read a ‘making-of’ on Fons’ site.

Does the fact that cartoon channels like Cartoon Network and Teletoon are no longer interested in airing animation have any relation to the fact that Ice Age director Chris Wedge and Ratatouille director Brad Bird are now directing live-action features. Animation director Mark Mayerson seems to thinks so and his commentary is a thought-provoking read. Here’s what Mayerson has to say about directors like Wedge and Bird who are trying out live-action:

“As much as we want to believe that animation is a medium and not a genre, maybe everybody outgrows it after a while. Which isn’t to say that animation isn’t capable of more than it’s currently doing, but looking at what’s out there now, it’s not hard to sympathize with directors who want to try something new.”

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