36 Comments »   posted in Disney

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The folks at the John Basmajian Collection have just unearthed – and posted – a reel of rare 8mm film footage of the infamous 1941 Disney animators strike. This is new stuff and incredibly rare. They even did a nice job of adding sound effects to bring it to life. Tom Sito points out, when watching the footage, to look for these highlights:

• The first man shown speaking on a microphone is Animator Art Babbitt.

•We see a shot of Walt Disney standing in the guard shack, hat on head and white shirt open at the neck, watching the strikers outside his gate.

• The second closeup of a man using a microphone is actor John Garfield, a matinee idol of the 1940s.

• The next shot is Walt Disney going through the picketline in his fashionable Packard.

• The next person driving his car through the disapproving pickets is director Ham Luske.

• The group carrying the Guillotine is the Warner Bros unit, led by picket captain Chuck Jones- the young man to the left in the black shirt. The effigy in the Guillotine was supposed to be of Disney’s attorney Gunther Lessing.

The footage is posted here.

20 Comments »   posted in Disney

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Why is Foghorn Leghorn Racist?

July 30, 2009 1:05 am

How did we ever manage to answer these burning animation history questions before the existence of Yahoo! Answers?

46 Comments »   posted in Cartoon Culture

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Lorax and Nimh going CG

July 29, 2009 8:00 pm

What hath Disney’s G-Force wrought?

Thanks to its huge opening weekend box office gross, Paramount is fighting back with the Rats of Nimh. Neil Burger, who wrote The Illusionist and is currently working on The Bride of Frankenstein for Universal, is turning his attention to a CG re-do of Don Bluth’s The Secret of NIMH, according to Variety.

Meanwhile, Variety is also reporting that Universal Pictures and their animation division, Illumination Entertainment, are joining forces to turn the Dr. Seuss book The Lorax into a 3-D CG animated feature. The project will be co-directed by Chris Renaud and Cinco Paul & Ken Daurio, with Paul & Daurio writing the script. The picture is targeted for a March 2, 2012, release, which falls on the birthday of Theodor Geisel, who died in 1991.

I’ve nothing against adapting great children’s literature, or remaking cartoons based on great children’s literature, but why hasn’t the success of UP (U.S. gross $284,239,283. to date) inspired Hollywood to create something original? Oh, yeah… it’s Hollywood.

50 Comments »   posted in Feature Film

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Hayao Miyazaki/John Lasseter Press Conference

July 29, 2009 2:00 pm

I had an opportunity to join selected journalists at a Hayao Miyazaki-John Lasseter press conference held yesterday (7/28) before their appearence at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences last night. I also shot some video (sorry for the shakey hand held camera work, and the low audio) and thought it was worth sharing with our readers. In this first part below Miyazaki talks about using (or not using) CG and his chances of making a film in 3-D. Lasseter discusses the process of dubbing a Miyazaki’s films. Interesting to note they’ve already dubbed Tales From Earthsea.

In the second part, Lasseter discusses 3-D animated films; Miyazaki talks about what’s happening with his son:

In the third part, John Lasseter discusses his admiration of Miyazaki’s films, his reaction to the first one he saw, Castle of Cagliostro, Miyazaki’s influence in Pixar films, and why he wants to bring Miyazaki’s films to the US:

33 Comments »   posted in Anime, Disney

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Beatnik Animation at the Silent Movie Theater

July 29, 2009 11:30 am

Next Tuesdsay night at 8pm, I’ll be presenting a program of animation reflecting the styles, language and music of the Beat Generation. The screening will take place at the Silent Movie Theatre in Hollywood (on Fairfax and Melrose), continuing my series of first-Tuesday-of-each-month animation spectaculars there. Rare film prints and video will be screened and the program will include independent films, TV cartoons (though not any Dick Tracy cartoons with Heap O’Calorie and Nick, as pictured above). We will screen works by Ernest Pintoff, Bob Clampett, Jay Ward and others. Grab an Espresso and join me next week. It’ll be cool, Daddy-o! More info here.

10 Comments »   posted in Events

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Born Under Fire, Documentary about War in Colombia

July 29, 2009 10:05 am

Powerful trailer for Born Under Fire, a documentary about the on-going war conflict in Colombia that uses voices from children who have witnessed the events and incorporates their drawings into the film. It is directed by Jairo Eduardo Carrillo with animation produced by Oscar Andrade at his studio Jaguar Digital. It was originally a short, Pequeñas Voces, that has been reworked into a full-length film. Visit the website HERE.

(Thanks, Carlo Guillot)

5 Comments »   posted in Feature Film

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Mary Blair Exhibit at Tokyo’s Museum of Contemporary Art

July 29, 2009 7:38 am

“The Colors of Mary Blair” is a major new exhibit of Mary Blair’s artwork that has opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, Japan. Over five hundred pieces of original artwork are on display, including her animation work, book illustrations, package designs, watercolors, and personal artwork. The show’s website is in Japanese, but there is an English section with basic address and admission details. These photos on Flickr (HERE and HERE) give a sense of the exhibit’s scale, and this image shows that the exhibition is accompanied by merchandise and a catalog. The show runs through October 4.

(via Disney History)

9 Comments »   posted in Events

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