Cartoon Brew

AnimationMentor.Com

Here's a website that looks quite promising: AnimationMentor.com. The concept is an on-line animation school where students can receive personalized animation instruction from pros working in the industry. There's only a preview video up right now, although I'm told the site will begin accepting students this Fall. Not only does the concept seem well thought out, but the creators of Animation Mentor are all animators actively working in feature animation which means the instruction should be first-rate. If the preview video is any indication, they've gotten a lot of their industry co-workers backing the project and they're aiming to offer a serious alternative to traditional animation schools. Definitely something to keep an eye on. (Thanks to Ted for letting me know about this)

LION KING REUNION

Ten years ago, The Lion King not only became the high water mark of the Disney Feature Animation revival, but it also capped the 2-D animation renaissance of the 1990s.
On Monday June 14th in Glendale you can join story artists, directors, producers and animators as they recall the making of this film, and remember a time when animators drew with pencils.

Former Lion King story artist TOM SITO will moderate a panel which will include JEFFREY KATZENBERG, both
directors ROGER ALLERS & ROB MINKOFF, co-writer IRENE MEECHI, animator of Scar ANDREAS DEJA, animator of Pumbaa TONY BANCROFT, animator of Timon MIKE SURREY, CGI creator of the Wildebeast Stampede SCOTT JOHNSTON - and others.
All proceeds will benefit the ASIFA-Hollywood Archive Fund.

Monday, June 14, 7:00 p.m.
Glendale Public Library Auditorium
222 E. Harvard Ave, Glendale, CA

More info at www.asifa-hollywood.org

MONKEY EXEC

FYI - Don't miss Pete Emslie's wonderful poem posted on Jim Hill Media today, "The Monkey's Tale".

Are You Down With That?

In the forthcoming GARFIELD movie, the filmmakers have apparently made the bold decision to have CG Garfield be afflicted with Down Syndrome. You can see more stills of Down Garfield at Cinema Confidential. Now if somebody could just tell me what genetic condition is affecting the mo-cap humans in the CG film POLAR EXPRESS. (link via Animated-News.com).

Genndy's New Gig

Genndy Tartakovsky (creator of SAMURAI JACK and DEXTER'S LABORATORY) has been signed by Sony Pictures to write and direct a live-action version of Osamu Tezuka's ASTROBOY. (source: AWN)

Fun and Educational

While I already have a pretty firm grasp of the concepts of "up" and "down," I'm still going to buy THE UP AND DOWN BOOK when it's released in August. That's because this is a reprinting of Mary Blair's hard-to-find last illustrated book, originally published in the Sixties.

SIAN KA'AN

Here's more proof that there's life after Disney.

Raul Garcia, who was an animator at Disney on most of their major features of the past decade-and-a-half, including ALADDIN, LION KING, POCAHONTAS and HERCULES, is currently directing his own animated feature SIAN KA'AN. The Spanish-themed film is being produced by Puerto Rico-based Muvi Films. A unique aspect of the film is that the dialogue is being recorded in both English and Spanish by a bilingual cast, which includes Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina, Michelle Rodriguez, Placido Domingo and Cheech Marin. This means that the film won't have to be redubbed by different actors when it receives release in Spanish-speaking countries.

Raul's been telling me about this film for a while, so I was pleased to see his project receive some press in this month's issue of FLAUNT (#54). The image comes from the one-page piece in the mag, although it's not exactly a production still because the two guys in it are caricatures of producer/co-star Rafael Monserrate and Raul Garcia (far right). SIAN KA'AN will be released in summer 2005.

False Alarm of the Week

"The 2-D business is coming to an end, just like black and white came to an end." - Michael Eisner (June 2, 2004)

Eisner has been known to occasionally enjoy speaking in code. By "the 2-D business" Mikey actually meant "my job," and when he said "black and white," that was his code for "every other incompetent Hollywood executive's job."

LIFE'S A PITCH

The April 2004 edition of ASIFA-East's newsletter, "aNYmator", had a great piece by ASIFA-East president David Levy on the realities of pitching shows. As someone who has pitched shows, sold shows, been an exec taking pitches, etc. I can confirm that David has nailed it in this article. Unfortunately it's all true.

ASIFA-Hollywood has posted Levy's article, "Life's A Pitch" on its website. It's worth reading.

Another Look at United's TV Spots

A few months ago, I expressed some bewilderment about United Airlines' new animated ad campaign. Now here's another OPINION from Slate.com where the writer initially dislikes the ads, but later changes his mind because "The animation techniques, the stories, and the song all foster an upscale mood—of confidence, expansiveness, elegance, optimism." For further reading about United's animated foray, here's a STORY from USA TODAY. (Links via Deneroff.com)

HERITAGE AUCTION

Once again, my friends at HERITAGE COMICS AUCTIONS have released their latest drool-inducing catalog of "stuff I would buy if I were a billionaire".

Among the offerings in Auction #811 (June 11-12, 2004) are: THE WISE LITTLE HEN model sheet - which is perhaps the first Donald Duck model sheet; original art for a complete 1953 CASPER comic book story; tons of mint copies of classic comic books including Harvey's PARAMOUNT ANIMATED COMICS #5 and DC's FUNNY STUFF #1; and lotsa Walt Kelly POGO art.
The folks at Heritage are good guys (I did a consulting job for them in March) and their catalog (which is online) must be seen to be believed. From Curt Swan to R. Crumb, from Frank Frazzetta to Schulz - Amazing stuff!

ITALY ANIMATION FESTIVAL

Let's add another international animation festival to this year's calender: If you are in Italy in September the Chiavari Animation Festival will take place from September 21-25, 2004. Animation historian Giannalberto Bendazzi is hosting this event. It's exactly opposite Chrs Robinson's international cartoon party (aka the Ottawa Animation Festival). Perhaps the two events can have a video hook-up and compare awards?