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Editor’s Note: Welcome to the first post by award-winning filmmaker and regular Guest Brewer Pes.

Recently I’ve been spending a lot of time in the fabulous Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx — doing research for a new short film. It’s been no hardship to pass the day here…Woodlawn is one of the most beautiful cemeteries I’ve ever seen and feels more like an impeccably manicured park than a burial ground.

Woodlawn is home to many creative luminaries including Miles Davis, Herman Melville and Thomas Nast, and curiosity getting the better of me, I decided to stop by their graves to see what’s going on. I was slightly horrified to find that people choose to pay their respects to Herman Melville by balancing BIC and other cheap clickable ballpoint pens (the free kind you get at a bank) on his tombstone — so that it now looks a bit like a trash can. Despite this, I really like that Melville’s tombstone has a blank sheet of paper sculpted into the front, as if encouraging every visitor to think for a moment about the dreaded blank page at the end of life. I wondered momentarily if this was Melville’s last brilliant idea.

In my wanderings in the cemetery, some other interesting things have happened. For instance, one day I was photographing a tombstone and just as I clicked the camera, a rabid wolf or wild dog thing jumped from behind the tombstone baring his teeth at me. My heart raced. I was in the center of the cemetery, alone, and I hadn’t seen anyone for at least an hour. I instantly thought about being mauled alive by this thing. Would my tombstone read something like “Eaten alive by a wolf right on this spot”? Fortunately, I held my ground and the thing ran away. Evidently he was more scared of me than I of him. I later learned from a groundskeeper that what I had seen was one of the cemetery’s resident (and harmless) coyotes and that I should be happy to have seen him without having to pay admission to the nearby Bronx Zoo.

In another corner of the cemetery, on another day of research, I stumbled upon this fascinating tombstone, which tells of a 15-year-old boy who died on his birthday in 1909 in a most unfortunate manner. The tombstone has to be seen to be believed: click to enlarge.

Curious, I did a little research. First, the Penbid website (yes, an Ebay for pens!) clarified this little thing called an “ink eraser” : “Modern ink is dye or stain, but writing of the early period was done with inks containing carbon as a pigment and on animal skins (such as vellum or parchment) or on paper made entirely from rags. Carbon ink did not penetrate these writing surfaces but dried on the surface, sort of like paint. This explains the tools known as steel erasers or ink scrapers [aka 'ink eraser'], which were used for scraping mistakes from the writing surface.”

So, basically an “ink eraser” was a knife, kind of like an X-Acto blade: and George Spencer Millet fell on his while trying to avoid getting the cooties on his 15th birthday.

But did the ink eraser stab him in the eye or in the heart when he fell on it? And what about the girls, throwing birthday kisses at him? What happened to them? Just how did this horrifying scene unfold? After a bit more research I uncovered this New York Times article from February 16, 1909 (links to downloadable PDF article) which helps reconstruct the horrifying event and adds some interesting plot details along the way.

34 Comments »   posted in Ideas/Commentary

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Wanna be an Annie Judge?

September 30, 2008 12:05 am

ASIFA-Hollywood is seeking a few good men and women interested in serving on nomination committees for the 36th Annual Annie Awards. Nomination judging will be taking place on Saturday, November 15, 2008, at Woodbury University, in Burbank, California. Judges may also be required to do some additional judging within the following days, or participate in pre-selection activities, via email, prior to the judging sessions.

Applications must be received no later than Friday, October 17, 2008. Individuals who are selected to serve on a nomination committee, shall receive a pair of complementary VIP tickets to the Annie Awards ceremony, on January 30th at UCLA’s Royce Hall. To apply click here.

No Comments »   posted in Events

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Academy posts Animation highlights

September 29, 2008 1:30 pm

If you couldn’t make it to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills this year for their record number of animation exhibits and programs, the Academy has just posted a review and gallery online, as well as a video podcast with highlights narrated by Academy president Sid Ganis.

Academy animation programs this year included Drawing on the Future: Mentorship in Animation with James Baxter, Andreas Deja, Pete Docter and Eric Goldberg; the gallery exhibit Ink & Paint: The Art of Hand-Drawn Animation; The Sound behind the Image II: Now Hear This!; Canadian animation with composer Normand Roger and animator Frédéric Back, as well as the current exhibition Frédéric Back: A Life’s Drawings. The Academy is preparing further video highlights from each of these events.

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Cartoon Brew TV: Dinner Time

September 29, 2008 12:04 am

Today we’re kicking off the first edition of Cartoon Brew TV’s “Brew Vaults.” Every three weeks we’ll present a long-lost piece of animation history along with brand-new audio commentary by animation historian Jerry Beck and other special guests. Our first pick from the “Brew Vaults” is the 1928 short Dinner Time (1928), a synchronized sound cartoon produced before Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie and rarely seen since its release 80 years ago. The short, directed by Paul Terry and John Foster, was in the words of Walt Disney “one of the rottenest Fables I believe that I ever saw.” But its historical significance is undeniable as it was the film that inspired Walt Disney to create a better sound cartoon. The rest, as they say, is history. Jerry Beck and Mark Kausler offer knowledgeable commentary about this cartoon curio. Watch episode 3 right here!

No Comments »   posted in Site News

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Messy Despereaux Business

September 28, 2008 2:57 pm

I alluded in an earlier Brew story that Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville) wasn’t happy with his short-lived directing stint on Universal’s upcoming Tales of Despereaux. He was fired from the project shortly after the film received a production greenlight. An article in this weekend’s NY Times includes a lot of nasty allegations from Chomet, including the assertion by him that the film’s producer Gary Ross (Seabiscuit) wanted to direct the film “but because he can’t draw, he had to use me in order to get the green light.” Chomet also says that after he was fired from the film, “these bodyguards, big nasty-looking guys in suits, showed up; they took everything out of the studio and nailed doors shut so we couldn’t have access to it.” But the article’s most colorful Chomet quote is this one:

“We’re making a film for kids, a film that has a moral, and behind it is such aggressive action about lawyers and legal things — there are no human relationships. I felt like a lemon; they got the juice out of me and threw me away.”

Based on everything I’ve read and heard about Chomet, he doesn’t necessarily sound like the most easy person to work for, but it’s difficult not to admire a director who stands up for what he believes in and demands that films be filtered through his personal point of view. Directors, like Chomet, who aren’t afraid to speak their minds and actually have something to say are a rare breed in animation, and if anything, we need more artists like him.

(Thanks, Carolyn Bates)

18 Comments »   posted in Feature Film

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Superjail Interview

September 28, 2008 1:10 pm

Cold Hard Flash has an interview with two of Superjail’s co-creators Christy Karacas and Stephen Warbrick, as well as the show’s animation director Aaron Augenblick. Superjail premieres tonight on Adult Swim at 11:45 p, (ET/PT).

13 Comments »   posted in Animators, TV

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Tom & Jerry theme song in Japan

September 27, 2008 6:00 pm

Catchy tune, violent imagery, fun for the whole family! Forget Superjail… click here to see the delightful Japanese opening for Tom and Jerry.

(Thanks, Charles Brubaker)

14 Comments »   posted in Classic

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