January 15, 2005

RAY HARRYHAUSEN: THE EARLY YEARS

rhdvd.jpg
Ray Harryhausen is making several live appearences in L.A. during the next few weeks to promote his book (which I got for Christmas) and a new DVD (which I watched last night). The new DVD is called RAY HARRYHAUSEN: THE EARLY YEARS, and it's a must-have for fans of Harryhausen, stop motion animation, students of Hollywood history and everyone who grew up with Jason and the Argonauts and Famous Monsters of Filmland.

This dvd collects Harryhusen's rare Mother Goose Stories and Fairy Tales, newly restored and more vivid and vibrant than they've ever looked. This dvd also collects all of Ray's early stop motion experiments, tests, commercials and wartime training films. There is a nice featurette on the making of The Tortoise & The Hare that shows the modelmaking and painstaking process required to make these films. And that's only disc one.

On disc two are various interviews with Ray (sometimes with old pals Forry Ackerman and Ray Bradbury) including his recieving a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame and an extensive interview with Leonard Maltin at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. There are still photo galleries, tributes by famous filmmakers and a wonderful mini-documentary on the restoration of these fairy tale films and test fragments. There is more material than I can list - suffice to say, check the website and buy this dvd. It goes on sale February 1st and I highly recommended it.


Posted by at 10:22 AM

JERRY BECK ON G4TECHTV

g4tvlogo.jpg
Media Alert: Brewmaster Jerry Beck is scheduled to appear as a guest on Comcast's video game channel G4techTV (aka G4TTV) next Friday, January 21st. I'll appear on Screen Savers, a daily live broadcast that features the latest internet/video game/consumer electronics news. What I'll be doing on this show, I have no idea. But I'll plug the Brew and my new book ANIMATION ART. The show airs live at 4pm Pacific, 7pm Eastern - and will rerun over the weekend.


Posted by at 09:03 AM

January 14, 2005

Miyazaki in the New Yorker

This week's NEW YORKER (Jan. 17) has a piece by Margaret Talbot about Hayao Miyazaki. That piece is only in the print edition, but the NEW YORKER has an online interview with Talbot HERE wherein she discusses Miyazaki’s films, his influences, and his temperament. (via Ronnie del Carmen's TIRADE)

Posted by AMID at 09:31 PM

OSBORN'S DILBERT

osborne.jpg
I'd never heard of cartoonist Robert Osborn before today.

Cartoonist Paul Giambarba has started a new weblog devoted to cartoonists past and present, and his first lengthy entry is devoted to Osborn, and his drawings of Lt. Dilbert, USN - a character who appeared in thousands of posters and service manuals describing all sorts of hazards to U.S. Navy pilots during World War II. Milton Caniff's Male Call is the subject of his next posting.

Also check out Giambarba's other blog 100 Years Of Illustration & Design where he examines the likes of Howard Pyle, Haddon Sunblom and Norman Rockwell, among others. Beautiful stuff.

Posted by at 05:02 PM

January 13, 2005

The Animation Show Is back

Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt's THE ANIMATION SHOW is back for a second edition, and it's another fine film line-up. They recently announced the program and opening theatrical dates at TheAnimationShow.com. Included in this year's festival: the terrific WARD 13 which Rita wrote about yesterday, the debut of Don Hertzfeldt's epic short THE MEANING OF LIFE, the impressive-looking CG short FALLEN ART, and films by the likes of Bill Plympton, Amanda Forbis, Wendy Tilby and Georges Schwizgebel. Fireworks will be provided by Pes.

All that, plus this excellent poster by Tim Biskup...



Posted by AMID at 02:13 PM

AS A PUBLIC SERVICE...

3amigos1.jpg
The United Nations has announced the release this week of The Three Amigos, a series of 20 short, professionally produced animated Public Service Announcements designed to encourage the use of condoms to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS throughout the world. The three animated condom characters are named - get this - Shaft, Stretch and Dick.
"The launch today at the United Nations by Firdaus Kharas, Producer and Director of the series, signifies the start of the world’s largest integrated behaviour modification programme. The Three Amigos is a groundbreaking HIV/AIDS prevention strategy, strongly supported by Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has called the PSA’s “a powerful communicating tool”, has written an open letter to broadcasters around the world which he calls “an impassioned plea” to “use these PSA’s. They cannot be played enough”. The Three Amigos is currently playing continuously in South Africa, the Netherlands and Canada. As of today, an international roll-out will offer the PSA’s free to broadcasters, NGO’s and community groups in any country."

Posted by at 10:35 AM

January 12, 2005

Stop-Frame Ward

ward132.jpg
I'm a huge stop-motion fan, so was interested to score a DVD copy of Australian filmmaker Peter Cornwell's WARD 13 last week. In addition to some impressive awards in 2004 for this 14:35 minute-long mental trip, Cornwell's short boasts some pretty spectacular fight scenes. The website for the film is also pretty tricked-out (www.ward13.com.au) and includes a few tidbits of backstage info like:
"The seemingly endless corridors of the Art Deco hospital in WARD 13 are in fact just three 75cm-long modules which clamped together on a metal L-profile slide rail. In many shots, the camera appears to track smoothly with the characters as they run or motor down the corridors. In fact, both camera and figures were stationary, and it was the corridor modules that were moved along with each frame. The size of the movement varied with the apparent speed of the characters. As each module moved out of frame, it was carefully detached from the others and reclamped at the front, perhaps with different model furniture and props or a fake door flat."
Definitely worth seeing for the animation in the action scenes.


Posted by at 09:35 PM | Comments (0)

POOH ON YOUR TOAST

poohtoast.jpg
Yesterday while Steve Jobs revealed the new iPod in San Francisco, the electronic wizards in Japan revealed their own cutting edge technology. For the cutting edge of your butter knife, that is!

This new "super toaster" introduced by Sanyo imprints Winnie The Pooh on your white bread. Now you can have your Pooh and eat it too!


Posted by at 07:44 AM

The Irv Spence Blog

Daily visual inspiration for the rest of '05. Sweet! Here's an awesome BLOG where somebody ("Filboid Sudge") is uploading the 1944 day-by-day illustrated diary of animation great Irv Spence. Irv was an animator in Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera's Tom & Jerry unit at the time, and he kept the diary throughout the entire year of '44, documenting daily events at MGM and in his personal life. This was during the height of WWII so there's plenty of references to victory gardens, gas shortages and the like. I've seen the entire diary and there's beautiful energetic drawings throughout, somewhat reminiscent of George Lichty's newspaper comic GRIN & BEAR IT.


Posted by AMID at 02:01 AM

January 11, 2005

Weebls Wobble Good

One of the gigs I have had the privilege to work on recently was THE NICKTOONS FILM FESTIVAL (last episode on this Sunday at 7:00 pm, PST) with Frederator Studios. As a co-producer, I got to screen a ton of really great cartoons from around the world. And while we were still doing our call for entries I got to ask my friends for suggestions on shorts they'd like to see submitted. One great friend, Rick Sayre, said, "You would be totally hip to run WEEBL AND BOB."

Now, if you don't know Rick there are three interesting things to consider about him. One: he can find the best chocolate and wine in any town in the world - always an important asset for a good friend. Two: he's one of those genius types that works over at that little old shop called Pixar and served as supervising technical director on THE INCREDIBLES. Three: you try to listen when a cool guy like that gives you advice.

Ever since Rick clued me in to Weebl, a.k.a. U.K.-based Jonti Picking, I've been hooked on the Flash series WEEBL AND BOB as well as his other Monty Python-esque and perversely silly shorts like THE LORD 3. The WEEBL AND BOB series definitely has its particular following, but I highly recommend it simply for its shameless surrealism-meets-every-ball-shaped-guy world. Plus, if you want to get a full dose of Weebl-ism, there's a brand new DVD out on the site. (Go to http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/)

After you check out WEEBL AND BOB, I also suggest going HERE and checking out the "toons" header. There you'll not only find odd little gems like the can't-get-that-damn-music-out-of-your-head KENYA and a really super out-there series from Michael Firth called SALAD FINGERS.

Posted by at 11:40 PM

COLLECTING

The next time someone chides you for collecting stuff, send them to this website.

Scroll down to see this guy's impressive "Cartoon Figures Collection" (near the bottom of this long-loading page). And you call yourself a collector?

Posted by at 09:09 PM

Innovation, Imagination and Squiggly Lines

priestley.jpg
Animator Joanna Priestley is celebrating 20 years as an innovative independent artist with a new 2-DVD anthology of her work. The two discs, titled FIGHTING GRAVITY and RELATIVE ORBITS, collect 16 of her animated short films, and contain many bonus features, including 4 documentaries providing behind-the-scenes glimpses into the animation process. She is self-distributing the discs and packed them with high-quality transfers and fun bonus features. Her unique animated films are full of compelling themes dealing with gender, love, aging, human rights, and candy(!).

Joanna Priestley is the founding president of ASIFA-Northwest, and she runs an apprenticeship program through her studio in Portland, Oregon.

Please visit www.PrimoPix.com for more information.

Posted by at 07:00 PM

Art Of Robots Now Available

THE ART OF ROBOTS is now shipping at Amazon.com. It's not like Fox is paying me any royalties on the book so if you buy it through this LINK, at least Amazon will toss a few pennies my way. Bonus points if you geek out completely and buy it with THIS and THIS.



Posted by AMID at 11:37 AM

A Brush With Will Eisner

Mark Bunker sent in this nice memory of recently departed comic legend Will Eisner:

Eisner has long been my favorite comic book artist. The only comics with which I haven't parted are my Spirit issues from Warren and Kitchen Sink. I marvel at his story telling abilities and the wide range of tone and subject matter he would explore within what would seem a limited superhero genre.

While I was in college, Denis Kitchen came to campus for a comic book expo. I dragged one of my friends along from the drama department. Holly had no interest in comics but I had to introduce her to the work of Eisner. It was one of two introductions for her that day because I insisted on meeting and talking with Denis Kitchen and introduced him to Holly, who would soon after become his wife.

I went on to do some acting and writing including a few radio dramas for Wisconsin Public Radio in Madison. The woman in charge of the statewide radio drama department had worked in the 40's for another hero of mine, Carlton E. Morse of "One Man's Family" and "I Love a Mystery" fame. She told me they had some money left over for a radio series and I pitched her "The Spirit" as a possibility. She was interested.

I wrote two sample half hour shows. The first was the Spirit's origin with a wrap around of the "Death, Taxes and the Spirit," the story of IRS agents investigating Denny Colt. The second script was based on "Meet P'Gell." I laid out a series of thirteen stories taken from my favorite Spirit adventures. All would have been faithful adaptations that I hoped would bring greater attention to Eisner's stories which were just starting to be reprinted by Kitchen Sink.

Okay, one wasn't so faithful. I wanted to pay tribute to Eisner's fondness of spoofing 40's movies and radio shows by having one broadcast done completely as a Jack Benny show with Jack and the gang doing their version of "The Spirit." It would have brought together two of my favorite passions at the time...and allow me to do my Benny impression again .

Denis gave me Eisner's address and I approached him with the idea. Unfortunately, he had just signed a deal to bring the Spirit to the big screen as an animated film. As I recall, there was later an announcement from an animation studio about the film as well as another production based on Winsor McCay's "Little Nemo." While "Little Nemo" was released in 1992, I'm not sure if it was from the same studio although it likely was.

So I never got to do "The Spirit" but I did receive a lovely handwritten note from Eisner thanking me for my interest and explaining the situation. The Spirit film sadly never happened.


Posted by AMID at 10:39 AM

Further Beauty-full Thoughts

If you read my last post, you'll know I've been thinking a lot about Sleeping Beauty. So much so that I asked the guys where they stand on the movie and whether or not Earle's work had any influence on later Disney films. Here's what Jerry had to offer:

"I love Sleeping Beauty. It's one of my all-time favorite animated movies, one of the Disney studio's best! You haven't lived till you see it in 70mm on a huge screen (as I did at the Cinerama Dome - it's whole a different experience). I see no evidence of Earle having left any lasting influence at the Disney studio through 1992. Some recent shorts and features (by the new generation) look to have his influence ("Mulan," "John Henry," maybe a little Home on the Range")."

And Amid sent me this great quote that really hints at the tension in the studio that must have been a bit more blatant once Earle was onboard with the project:

For Eyvind's perspective, here is a quote from his book, HORIZON BOUND ON A BICYCLE: "Never before had Walt given one person the freedom and authority to take over the designing of an entire animated feature. The old time animators who were revered as gods at the Disney Studios, were in the habit of telling the directors of each sequence what colors they wanted their characters to be, and working directly with the ink and paint department."

"Whereas, I saw the job as designing a complete stage setting, where every detail from A to Z was considered and harmonized to make a total picture that could only be done by letting one single artist create the color schemes in the first place. I simply could not give an inch on the question of color schemes. Everyone had admitted that I was a good colorist, and it would be like letting another artist put the finishing touches on one of my paintings in any old color he felt like. I tried to reason with the animators and explain how hard I was trying to make an overall color scheme that would work as a whole."

Posted by at 12:35 AM

Considering Merryweather

I’ve been considering the weather a lot lately, as have most of us in Los Angeles and all parts East. I’m particularly annoyed with all this rain, especially since I have been a small victim of the flood—not only did I have some damage in my home, but I actually got stuck in Topanga Canyon over the weekend unable to drive out due to road closures (and thus my lack of a post for Monday!).

While I was “away,” Amid put up his great note about Eyvind Earle which reminded me of watching the “Sleeping Beauty” Special Edition DVD release on New Year’s Day. Like many, I hadn’t really watched the whole movie since childhood so it was a real treat and a great way to ring in 2005.

Although Earle’s work sometimes, at least to me, overwhelms the viewer—hard to find the characters at some moments—it is really stunning. It also makes me wonder what he might have done with a digital palette. Would he have shunned the medium or embraced it?

More than Earle’s contribution though, I was taken with Ollie and Frank’s work on the three fairies, Flora, Fauna and Merryweather. My particular favorite is Merryweather for her pouts, moodiness and ability to come up with the right answer at the right time (for which she never gets credit). I think she’s one of the most charming and overlooked characters in animation and I really love what Ollie and Frank have to say about the creation of her character in “The Illusion of Life”:

“…Now we had to find the best way to play Merryweather against that character Flora. [They’re talking here about Flora’s ability to grasp the big concept of what was going on.] What if she had better ideas than Flora, especially in times of crisis? Then the frustration of having to do it Flora’s way would pay off. She could have a reason to argue with Flora, and this type of conflict would liven up their relationship. Also, maybe she is more impulsive and quick to act—more of a doer than the others but without an understanding of the big events around her. She would be interested in little things and how things looked and would volunteer to do the housework. We thought she would love to dance and to be happy and to express herself physically. Her feelings would be on the surface, and she would flare up in anger more readily than the others.”

Merryweather is a true expression of the weather and definitely how we feel when confronted with its many beauties and frustrations. More power to the legends Ollie and Frank for not only lending life to a particularly challenging trio, but for making each one so distinctive. For me the fairies, and Merryweather in particular, make this movie and remind me that there really is a lot of good in a little storm.

Posted by at 12:16 AM

January 10, 2005

Rare Earle on DVD

Christmas is over, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the following holiday-themed dvd: Ernie Ford's THE STORY OF CHRISTMAS. It can be ordered HERE. The hour-long TV special from 1963 features an 18-minute segment designed and produced by SLEEPING BEAUTY background stylist Eyvind Earle. Earle wrote about the challenges of producing the piece (which primarily consists of camera moves over bgs and special fx) in his autobiography HORIZON BOUND ON A BICYCLE:

For many of the scenes showing the manger, Mary, the shepherds and the wise men, there was no time left to paint intricate overlays for my four-level multiplane camera setup which Chuck Arnold and I had built out of aluminum angle irons and four sheets of glass that moved under the camera.

I ran outside and picked all the weeds I could find, and slung them on the glass sheets above Mary and the Christ child, and then tracked in with the camera, moving through a forest of overhanging branches created by the weeds. The effect was excellent and by some miracle I finished the whole product in time to be aired on NBC two separate times before Christmas.

(Thanks to Ken Hettig for the heads up on the dvd)


Posted by AMID at 07:52 AM

Z is for Zagreb

At the fwak blog, Lili and Eddie write about some early Zagreb cartoons they recently saw: "If Disney's objective was to create the 'Illusion Of Life', then the Zagreb school wasn't under any illusions. Zagreb characters behave like drawings, and as a result create their own kind of life." It's an incredible shame that the vast majority of the studio's output from the '50s and '60s (Zagreb's golden age) isn't available on video/dvd.



Posted by AMID at 07:27 AM

January 09, 2005

Lazy Sunday Film Viewing

Here's a WEBSITE with a lot of nice film clips of Eastern European stop motion animation by the likes of Starevitch, Zeman and Trnka. It'll either inspire you or put you to sleep. Or maybe it'll inspire you to sleep. In any case, it's worth a click.

Posted by AMID at 11:17 AM

MORE OSWALD

avatar3.jpg
Cartoon Brew's own correspondent in Japan, Bill Schacht, writes in with this update:
The Oswald merchandise previously posted on your site is available only inside "UFO Catcher" games, not regular retail outlets. They are being made by a company called Taito as fodder for their game centers (prizes for their crane games - about $1 a try). Taito is introducing new products each month. The watches were premiums for the machines last September.
Bill sent more toy and doll images - and I've started to collect them on this dedicated webpage.


Posted by at 09:09 AM