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POSTS FOR “August, 2009“Cartoon Brew's home for up-to-the-minute, unedited announcements and press releases direct from industry sources.
August 28, 2009 11:00 am
I am not sure if this French production, Baidir, is a proposed TV series or a feature film – but it’s damn nice looking: 36 Comments » posted in Feature Film August 28, 2009 2:34 am
Following the contentious Ottawa poster debate that spanned across eight or so blogs, I think we all need something soothing and magical in our lives. We could use a little Whale Magic. The Olde English Blog does a nice job of explaining why this is the BEST THING EVER. 30 Comments » posted in CGI August 28, 2009 12:05 am
Nina Paley designed this year’s poster for Asifa-International’s annual International Animation Day. It communicates the idea beautifully, agreed?
For a larger download, or a textless version, click here. 36 Comments » posted in Cartoon Culture August 27, 2009 6:30 pm
A “One Night Only” theatrical screening of The Haunted World of El Superbeasto is set for September 12th in about 50 movie theaters across the country. In LA it’s playing at the Mann Chinese 6. In New York, it’ll be at the Chelsea Cinemas. Most theatres are running the animated feature as a midnight show. Theatre locations, film information and tickets are available online here. 3 Comments » posted in Events, Feature Film August 27, 2009 11:30 am
Calling George Lucas! Forget the fight between Avatar and Delgo – this Brazilian feature, currently in production at Cacomotion, looks like knock-off of The Clone Wars. 38 Comments » posted in Feature Film August 27, 2009 12:05 am
For the sake of film history, I’ll occasionally seek out odd bits of animation contained in obscure Hollywood movies and post them here – so you don’t have to. Previous postings in this series included Dave Fleischer in Trocadero (1944), and the Leon Schlesinger animation sequences in When’s Your Birthday? (1937) and She Married A Cop (1939). Today’s clip (below) is three sequences bunched together from United Artists 1943 screwball comedy, Hi Diddle Diddle. Leon Schlesinger provided a bit of animation at the beginning of the film (looks like McKimson animation to me, but I’ll defer to the more knowledgeable experts in our readership) and a cartoon bit in the last scene. The clip in the middle, coming in the middle of the film, sets up the end gag: An egotistical opera singer (silent screen actress Pola Negri, in a comeback role) has wall paper depicting a cartoon Richard Wagner and his family. In the final sequence, Adolphe Menjou, who’s been drinking, imagines the cartoon images (looks like from Freleng’s unit) on the wall paper coming to life and running away from the awful singing of his family (including “good witch” Billie Burke, seated at the piano bench). You don’t want to know what leads up to this; you don’t want to see this movie. It’s pretty bad. Even the animation stuff is rather lackluster. But here it is, for those of you who were ever wondering about this relatively rare sequence: The entire flick can be seen on 50 Movie Pack: Classic Musicals, a DVD boxed set from Mill Creek Entertainment, which I recently snagged for $9. at Big Lots. The aforementioned Trocadero is on the set, as well as King Kelly of the USA (1934) which has a really odd animation sequence – which I will posting very soon. 15 Comments » posted in Classic August 26, 2009 1:39 pm
In my mind, the worst quality a teacher can have is to be close-minded because that narrow interpretation of good and bad is passed on to an entire generation of young artists at a critical time when they should be learning, growing, and exploring. That’s why I shuddered when I read this post on Sheridan instructor Pete Emslie’s blog in which he trashes this year’s poster for the Ottawa International Animation Festival (pictured above). The poster was drawn by Theo Ushev, who in addition to being an accomplished fine artist, is the director of amazing animated shorts like Drux Flux and Tower Bawher. In his post, Emslie he describes it as “blecchh!,” a “cat vomiting,” and writes that it’s proper place would be “taped to a fridge door by some loving mom.” It’s downright embarrassing to think that this guy represents the quality of instruction and critical thinking at a school that purports itself to be one of the top animation institutions in the world. Emslie’s criticisms, if describing something as “blecchh” can be regarded as a valid criticism, drew a response from Ottawa festival director Chris Robinson who wrote on his blog:
Animation director Michael Sporn also weighed in on the issue (and a lengthy comments thread follows his thoughts), while the artist himself, Theo Ushev, wrote on his blog, “I had much more daring posters in my life. But it seems that the animation community is a little special. And this conversation happens in 2009?!!! Not in 1909.” Not sure what any of this means except that I was bothered enough to write about it. At the end of the day, life goes on. Sheridan students who are too young to know any better will continue accepting instruction from a guy who draws cartoon characters on a par with Chris Hart and throws in some tired Hirschfeld impersonations to boot. Theo Ushev will continue making beautiful films and drawings. The Ottawa International Animation Festival will be a great time for everybody who attends. And animation will continue to advance as an art in spite of those who wish to impose primitive rules and restrictions about what a piece of animation can and can’t be. If something good came out of all this, it’s that Marco de Blois, the animation curator at the Cinémathèque québécoise, started a new blog devoted to the art of the animation festival poster. UPDATE: NY animator Elliot Cowan has redesigned Theo Ushev’s Ottawa poster to appease those who feel that the artwork should be more “animationy.” 195 Comments » posted in Bad Ideas August 26, 2009 12:15 pm
File this under “People who don’t know when to quit while they’re ahead”: The producers of Delgo – the biggest bomb of 2008 – are considering a lawsuit against James Cameron over the similarities between their film and his Avatar. (Cue the laughter). (Thanks, Mark Mayerson) |
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