If you are wondering where I am this weekend – I’m hanging out all day and night at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, attending the annual Cinecon convention. Cinecon is essentially a non-stop schedule of screenings of classic Hollywood films – from 1914 through the mid-50s, new restorations of mostly obscure films, projected in 35mm, from 9am to midnight for four days. Highlights include several films with Shemp Howard, the final chapters of The Iron Claw, and the rare Krazy Kat cartoon, Southern Exposure. Complete schedule here.

Also on the program, a rare theatrical showing of Crazy House, Olsen and Johnson’s zany follow-up to Hellzapoppin’. Someone posted the first five minutes of this film on You Tube. Check it out and you’ll have an idea of how bizarre this film is. And what kind of films I’ll be seeing this weekend.

A kid in Boston, Robbie, took just over 3000 digital photos in three days documenting his life in and around the city, and then compiled them into the animated film below. The life he documents is hardly extraordinary (lots and lots of public transport), and yet the film manages to evoke an emotional reaction by offering an intimate glimpse into one guy’s personal life. If not necessarily an original idea, it’s still a well done experimental film.

Pooh plays the role of Gulliver, Mickey has hung himself, Superman is a painter, and a cellphone has been kidnapped by the Grinch. These are some of the images in “It’s always six o’clock,” a gallery exhibition by Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG. Similar to Toy Story, the show offers an interesting new way of looking at everyday toys and dolls. Exhibition photos are here.

Some happy news to report today. The Mass Animation project that we mentioned here last week released a new set of details today on their Facebook page. Notably among those details is that every artist whose work is used for the short will be compensated financially. Granted that the project is still structured like a contest and there’s a chance that the work you create won’t be used in the film (hence no compensation), but at least the artists whose work wins approval will receive something for their effort. Exploring new production models based on online collaboration is a worthy cause as long as it’s not done on the backs of artists, and I’m glad that we can now show some support behind a contest like Mass Animation.

AICN recently posted the above two images as part of a preview of Disney’s Bolt. So, as I understand the animation process at Disney, here is how you translate a board drawing into a final CG film frame:

1. Remove all the funny shapes in the character design and turn the character into a nondescript blob.

2. Take out any asymmetry (like the angles on the arms) and even out the pose.

3. Tone down the funny expressions.

4. Just in case there is any appeal still left in the CG model, add flat lighting and excessive texturing so the characters and background mesh into an indistinguishable dark muck.

5. Repeat this process until you have blown $150 million dollars.

Excellent mixed-media student short by Johnny Kelly of the Royal College of Art. I was going to post it last weekend, but, well, you know…

Join us tonight for Cartoon Dump, our monthly live comedy and cartoons showcase in Hollywood. We will have two guest comedians performing within our show tonight: Andy Kindler (above left) and Jim Turner (above right). So join Andy, Jim, Moodsy, Compost Brite, Officer Pete, Dumpster Diver Dan, Cue Card Goddess and me, Jerry Beck, tonight Tuesday, August 26th at 8 PM, for an evening of hilarious comedy, demented songs, and really, really crappy cartoons.

It’s at the Steve Allen Theater, 4773 Hollywood Blvd. (two blocks west of Vermont). Map here, see you there!

A dealer of Mexican movie lobby cards has posted just some of his thousands of pieces online and even created a slide show for some of the ones relating to animated cartoons. He even separated the Disney cards from the riff-raff from other studios. Some of these things are way off model, but you can’t beat the Mexican lobby cards for wild layouts and colorful graphics.