Danny Hayes, a guy who worked on Coraline, complains in Bitch magazine that the Coraline production was too much of a boys-only club. Says Danny:

Make no mistake – Coraline (the just-released stop-motion feature made by Laika Productions right here in Bitch’s hometown of Portland, OR) may be a girl’s story, but the animation industry is still very much a boys’ club. Stick around for the credits after the film and you’ll see that the screenwriter, director, editors, most of the animators, and the “Based on the Novel by” guy are all dudes. This tidbit may come as a surprise, but it shouldn’t. Men were at the helm of almost every major animated feature in recent and not-so-recent history, including those movies that have been embraced specifically by female audiences.

But what does keeping female voices out of the upper echelons of the movie machine do to the industry as a whole?

In my (admittedly limited) experience, it creates a stressful, and at times hostile, work environment. From Henry Selick (the movie’s sometimes maniacal leader) on down, there was definitely a machismo feeling on the set. Competition among co-workers and an assembly-line type of atmosphere was imposed on employees, most of whom were there because of their obsession with the art form but let down by the studio’s poor treatment of its workers.

Danny has a valid point that animation production in general is too male-dominated, but I’d argue that the situation has been changing very rapidly during the past decade. Though the mainstream industry’s creative figureheads remain almost entirely male, the independent animation industry has become much more diverse, with many of the coolest commercials, music videos and independent films being made by women like Gaelle Denis, Suzie Templeton and Laurie Thinot. Two recent indie animation features were also directed by women—Tatia Rosenthal’s $9.99 and Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues—and women are principals of some of the coolest studios around like Shy the Sun, Panda Panther and Tiny Inventions. In other words, the animation world is currently experiencing an unprecedented diversification of its gender make-up, and as a result, the art form is becoming much richer and more interesting to watch.

40 Comments »   posted in Ideas/Commentary

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You Are Loved by Arthur Metcalf

February 13, 2009 10:14 am

Animator Arthur Metcalf (Fantaisie in Bubblewrap) has debuted a new short just in time for Valentine’s Day. Composed, performed and animated by Arthur Metcalf.

No Comments »   posted in Shorts

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Paint by Norman Gollin

February 13, 2009 3:13 am

Paint is a trippy live-action short from 1968 directed by West Coast advertising art director Norman Gollin. Why post it here on Cartoon Brew? Not only because it has the mesmerizing voice of Paul Frees, but because it was produced at the Haboush Company, which was the commercial production studio of animation legend Victor Haboush. I’ve known Vic for quite a few years and I’m always amazed by how many cool projects and people he’s been involved with throughout his career, from studying with Lorser Feitelson at Art Center, apprenticing under Tom Oreb for much of the 1950s on Disney films like Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom and Sleeping Beauty, art directing Gay Purr-ee, starting a commercial studio with the inimitable John Dunn, and later directing hundreds of live-action commercials and producing experimental animated shorts at his own company. Oh yeah, he also worked on The Iron Giant. Somehow it’s not surprising that he’d be involved with a film as wild as this.

The painter in Paint is Charlie White III, a veteran airbrush artist who is one of four people featured in the new book Overspray: Riding High with the Kings of California Airbrush Art. White notes that Gollin shot the entire film without any re-takes. No paint-overs or practice; it was all painterly improv.

(Warning: This film might be considered NSFW, though most people would consider it art.)

19 Comments »   posted in Illustration, Shorts

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Dear Anna Olson

February 12, 2009 6:00 pm

Dedicated independent animators will do – and should do – anything they can to complete their films. Case in point: East coast animator Dean Kalman Lennert has been working on a personal film for over ten years between professional jobs on Doug, Beavis & Butt-head, TV Funhouse, and Ice Age. Inspired by a note he found tied to a balloon, Dear Anna Olson is hand drawn, fully animated and entirely dependent on donations for completion. In an effort to raise the funds to finish the last 30% of the project, Lennert is doing everything he can think of, including making this recent appearance on local TV (“Better Connecticut”, WFSB, Channel 3 in Hartford) to make his case:

For more information on Lennert’s film, or to make a donation, go to DearAnnaOlson.com.

17 Comments »   posted in Animators

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World Wildlife Fund PSA by Stephen Watkins

February 12, 2009 12:02 pm

Stephen Watkins, repped by Melbourne’s XYZ Studios, created “Tick,” a stylish PSA for the World Wildlife Fund. The piece, set to Fleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal” (which has its own animated music video too), makes effective use of digital animation and CGI to create a hand-crafted feel. The agency behind the piece, Leo Burnett Sydney, gave the following brief to the filmmaker:

Sometimes it’s hard to get people to support a cause because they think, ‘I’m just one person, what can I do?’ We wanted to show individuals how their support can have a direct and positive effect on Australia’s natural environment. So we took the universal symbol for pledged support, the ticked box, and we animated it. Then that ticked box joined forces with hundreds of other animated ticks and they built habitats around some of Australia’s precious native animals so they can survive.

(Thanks, Tony Sykes)

5 Comments »   posted in Advertising, CGI

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David O’Reilly Wins Top Prize the Berlinale

February 12, 2009 11:13 am

Congrats to David O’Reilly who just won the Short Film Golden Bear at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival for his animated film Please Say Something. It’s a thrill to see animation take the top prize at one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals where distinctions aren’t drawn between live-action and animation and both mediums have to compete in the same category. (Don Hertzfeldt accomplished the same feat at Sundance in 2007.) O’Reilly’s ten-minute computer-animated short, a self-described Internet turbodrama that examines the “troubled relationship between a Cat and Mouse set in the distant Future,” uses a unique narrative structure comprising 23 episodes of exactly 25 seconds each. Below you can watch the first five of twenty-three episodes in the series. (On a sidenote, last December I also chose Please Say Something as my pick for the year’s best online animation.)

17 Comments »   posted in CGI, Shorts, David OReilly

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Jr’s Fun To Draw

February 12, 2009 7:35 am

I could have sworn someone would’ve posted the animation section from Alan Dale Bogorad’s 1943 book Jr’s Fun To Draw by now. When comics/animation historian Mark Arnold offered to scan his copy (in better shape than my own) I jumped at the chance to put it here for posterity. This chapter was compiled by Nat Falk and is a companion to his 1941 How To Make Animated Cartoons, combining model sheets, storyboards and animation sketches from Terrytoons, Fleischer and Warner Bros. Click on thumbnails below for full size images.

14 Comments »   posted in Books

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Cartoon Brew TV: To the Moon

February 11, 2009 12:59 pm

We’ve arrived at the end of season one of Cartoon Brew TV and we’re going out with a bang. This week’s offering, To the Moon (2008), by Jacob Ospa is one of the finest examples of cartoon animation we’ve seen in a long time. That it was animated by a 21-year-old reaffirms our faith in the future of animation. The Flash-animated thesis film was created at the School of Visual Arts. Watch To the Moon only on Cartoon Brew TV.

No Comments »   posted in Site News

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