This homage to Disney’s Alice in Wonderland is one of the nicest cartoon tattoos I’ve ever seen. A larger version of the pic above can be found HERE. The artist Holly Azzara has a post on her blog about the process of creating the tattoo. I’d like to see Disney’s legal team try to get rid of this example of “copyright infringement.”
Sanjay Patel’s Ramayana: Divine Loophole is a retelling of the classic Hindu myth with the addition of cheerfully stylized cartoon graphics that reflect the colorful spirit of Indian culture. The graphics are so overwhelming that reading it almost seems secondary; I’ve looked at the book plenty in the past few weeks but haven’t read past the intro yet.
Sanjay, who works at Pixar by day, has previously dabbled with Hindu culture in The Little Book of Hindu Deities. There’s another animation connection too: he was inspired to illustrate the story after watching Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues, which is also based on the tale. The book, published by my pals at Chronicle Books, is available for just under $20 at Amazon.com.
Links for more about the book:
Interview with Sanjay Patel including a terrific section on how he came up with the book cover design
The Getty Conservation Institute and Disney’s Animation Research Library (ARL) division are partnering to study why the plastic in certain cels deteriorates more quickly than others and to find ways of slowing down the deterioration process. The study is expected to take three years to complete. Like the Tim Burton exhibit currently at MoMA, this is another encouraging example of animation artwork receiving serious consideration from an art institute. According to the LA Times which broke the story:
The Getty said the initial phase of research will involve an assessment of the best methods for the identification of the actual plastics used in the cels, and for monitoring the condition of cels made with cellulose nitrate and acetate. Scientists at the Getty will also examine the physical and thermal properties of the plastics. The new collaboration is part of the Getty’s “Preservation of Plastics” project that was initiated to study signs of deterioration in plastic objects in museum collections.
Another take-away from the article is that Disney’s ARL houses 65 million pieces of Disney art. Granted, the drawings and cels add up quickly in animation, but wow, that’s still a whole lot of artwork!
(Thanks, Alexander Rannie)
Masterpiece 2.0 is a social media animation project by Dutch artists Baschz and Selfcontrolfreak, and according to them, “the first ever unique painting made with a Web 2.0 approach.”
Even after reading the description of their process, I’m a bit confused by how the interactivity worked, but I highly recommend checking out the finished piece, which is visually striking and quite inventive. What follows is an explanation of the project by the artists:
In the summer and fall of 2009 a multilayered canvas and animation was
created which could be influenced and followed by website visitors online 24 hours a day. Six weeks long and through actions like Introduce Object, Shirt ‘Em and Cameo Appearance website visitors could interact with leading character Selfcontrolfreak.Each sent in gesture added a new animated interaction as they were painted layer-by-layer into the growing animating canvas by Baschz. Every new layer was photographed seperately and together with the other frames created the animating canvas, leaving the end canvas consisting of well over 100 different painted layers. The whole coming-of-art process could be followed live through a webcam and Twitter feed, on YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Fotolog, etc.
NY animator Tom Smolenski was looking for a good 6B pencil to animate with (in 2010 no less–what a masochist!) so he tested a bunch of pencils to find the best one (I’ve always been partial to Tombows myself). Much of it comes down to personal preference, but Tom’s list is good for getting a sense of what’s available. What are your favorite pencils?
I saw Yulia in Annecy last year, and now everybody can view it online at the filmmaker’s website AntoineArditti.com alongside a few of his other pieces. It’s a cute concept with an unexpected ending. According to Arditti, the film was first animated in CG, then printed onto paper and drawn with traditional tools. It was produced by Metronomic.
Concept art from John Hubley’s Finian’s Rainbow
This repost of John Canemaker’s article about John Hubley’s unproduced feature Finian’s Rainbow reminded me of a book idea I’ve had for years. With my full plate of writing, editing, and creative directing various book projects, I know I’m never going to get around to doing this book, but I believe in the idea so I’m going to put it out there and hope somebody runs with it.
Here’s what I’d like to see: a richly illustrated coffeetable book that explores unproduced animated features. Kind of like Charles Solomon’s The Disney That Never Was minus all the dull-as-dishwater Disney projects. There’s a good reason why most of those Disney films were never produced! (An exception might be made for Marc Davis and Ken Anderson’s Chanticleer.) Looking past Disney, there is an extensive catalog of daring and colorful feature animation projects that were unrealized. It’s an eye-opening alternative animation history that spans some of the art form’s biggest names. Anybody who tackles the book should be sure to include:
* Orson Welles’ The Little Prince (developed with Hugh Harman and Mel Shaw)
* UPA’s The White Deer (developed by Leo Salkin and Aurelius Battaglia)
* John Hubley’s Finian’s Rainbow
* John Dunn and Vic Haboush’s Wolgalooly
* Richard Williams’ Thief and the Cobbler
* George Dunning’s The Tempest
* Fred Calvert’s Don Quixote (developed by Ray Aragon)
* Yuri Norstein’s The Overcoat
* Tom Carter Productions’ Huck’s Landing
* TMS’ Little Nemo: Adventures In Slumberland (with various crews that included Hayao Miyazaki, Chuck Jones, George Lucas, Isao Takahata, Ray Bradbury, Frank Thomas and Brad Bird)
* Ralph Bakshi’s Last Days of Coney Island
* Bill and Sue Kroyer’s Arrow
* Brad Bird’s Ray Gunn
The “what could have been” factor of these films is a persistent source of fascination for me. Any number of these projects had the potential to change the course of the art form. Imagine if Orson Welles had released an animated feature at the height of his influence, or if John Hubley’s vision of mature feature animation had come to fruition in the 1950s. Some of these films were indeed produced in bastardized forms (Little Nemo and Arabian Knight are examples), but most perished for a variety of reasons like financing, a director’s inability to finish, a director’s death, the Hollywood blacklist, or in the case of Huck’s Landing, the head of the studio being sent to prison.
Putting together this book won’t be easy. Whoever does it will have to do tons of research and detective work; it would even be wise perhaps to divide it amongst a cadre of historians and writers to ensure that the book is finished in a reasonable period of time. But if executed properly, I have no doubt it would be an entertaining, educational, and thoroughly unique contribution to animation literature.
Nobody’s come forward to claim responsibility for this elaborate animated review of Avatar. I particularly like how they (I’m assuming more than one person made it) used the same performance capture animation technique as the film itself. Stats on YouTube show that the video is popular in New Zealand, but word on the street is that it’s not WETA. Hmmm . . .
(Thanks, Kim Hazel)
Bob Peterson, the co-director of UP and voice of Dug, is interviewed by Glenn Close about his affection for dogs. He offers some good details on how he developed the personalities of the dog characters in UP.
Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist easily tops my list for most anticipated animated feature of 2010 (sorry Tangled). The film premiered to raves last week at the Berlin International Film Festival, and the Pathé Distribution website lists a May 5, 2010 release date, which I believe is for France. Pathé is also handling UK distribution, though I haven’t run across a release date yet. ScreenDaily reported yesterday that the film has also secured distribution deals for Japan (Klockworx), Italy (Cinema 11), Greece (Nutopia), Benelux (Paradiso) and the Middle East (Phars Film) while “a US deal is expected to be announced shortly.”
The first clips from the film to appear online can be seen in this video interview with Sylvain Chomet. Here are three different reviews of the film from people who saw it in Berlin:
Screen Daily: “The imagery excels at depicting less-harried times: as a train chugs over a trestle bridge in the country, its reflection in the water below is as stunning as the changing light over Edinburgh. And somehow the animated rain seems more real than the wet stuff in live-action films. The deceptively simple story (which bears some scattered similarities to Chaplin’s Limelight) is anchored in nostalgia for bygone traditions. And yet the theme of dedicated craftsmen (a clown, a ventriloquist, a magician) made obsolete by changing tastes (not to mention age making way for youth) remains relevant.”
In Contention: “It took six days and an awful lot of films, but the Berlinale has finally turned up a masterpiece. Moreover, it’s a rare case of one of the fest’s most eagerly awaited titles managing to meet, and even subvert, expectations. The Illusionist . . . confirms a truly singular auteur sensibility, while revealing a more disciplined artist and storyteller within. A streamlined character study, less deliriously eccentric in tone and structure than his debut feature, The Illusionist nonetheless boasts an emotional heft that handsomely repays its creator’s restraint.
Variety: “The pic is a thrilling exercise in retro aesthetics, from the pencil-and-watercolor look to the 2D animation that harks back to mid-1960s Disney (especially “101 Dalmatians”) and the delicate lines and detailed backgrounds of Gallic animator Paul Grimault, to the details that perfectly evoke Scotland in the 1950s. All the same, the backgrounds here brim with little jokes that the long takes offer a chance to catch, such as the sight of lobster thermidor (with a fried egg on top and haggis) on offer at a fish-and-chips shop . . . Pace may seem a little slow for those reared on contempo animation, but for those immersed in the film, the rhythms are delicious.”
(Thanks to Martin Gornall, who worked on the film, for these links)
The deadline to enter ASIFA-East’s 41st Annual Animation Festival is Monday, March 1. Entry forms are available on the ASIFA-East website.
Jury screenings take place in March at the SVA 3rd Floor Amphitheater (209 E. 23rd Street). They are free and open to all, though only ASIFA-East members can cast votes. Screening schedule is below (all of them start at 7pm):
TUESDAY, MARCH 9 – Student Films
THURSDAY, MARCH 11 – Commercials/Promos under 2mins
TUESDAY, MARCH 16 – Independent Films
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17 – Sponsored Films over 2 mins (5th fl, rm. 502)
In last week’s LA Times, James Cameron continued to assert his position that Avatar isn’t animation, though at least he’s acknowledging now that “a whole team of animators” is used in the process:
“I’m not interested in being an animator. . . . That’s what Pixar does. What I do is talk to actors. ‘Here’s a scene. Let’s see what you can come up with,’ and when I walk away at the end of the day, it’s done in my mind. In the actor’s mind, it’s done. There may be a whole team of animators to make sure what we’ve done is preserved, but that’s their problem. Their job is to use the actor’s performance as an absolute template without variance for what comes out the other end.”
In the LA Times, animation director Henry Selick also weighed in publicly for the first time on the issue:
“The academy has to come to terms with where [performance capture] goes. Is it animation? Is it a new category? I’m like the academy. I don’t know where it fits. I will tell you this, animators have to work very, very hard with the motion-capture data. After the performance is captured, it’s not just plugged into the computer which spits out big blue people. It’s a hybrid.”
In response to the recent article, Kristin Thompson at Observations on Film Art has written a thoughtful article about the hybrid nature of the performance and the disingenousness of Camerons’ claim that the creative work ends with his actors.
(Earlier Brew coverage about the amount of animation in Avatar can be found here, here, here, and here.)
I spent some time on Facebook last night compiling data that shows who the most popular classic animation artists are on the social networking site. As a historian, I’m interested in understanding how artists from the early years of animation are remembered within the online community. The results aren’t particularly encouraging. Of the forty-eight artists I managed to find, roughly a quarter of them have attracted over five hundred fans. That’s a small number considering that these are some of the most revered names in our art form. Furthermore, a majority of the artists (nearly 60%) have less than 300 fans.
However, there is a silver lining. Classic artists who have continued to receive exposure in recent years have a disproportionately larger number of fans, which means that people would care about these artists if they were more aware of their accomplishments. Mary Blair, who has had a couple gallery exhibits and books published about her recently is the sixth most popular animation legend on Facebook. Walt Stanchfield, whose instructional handouts were compiled into books last year, is one hundred times more popular than Bill Tytla, who despite his stature, has received scant attention in the past couple decades.
What is most surprising are the omissions. Are Bob McKimson’s cartoons so disliked that he can’t garner even one fan from a pool of 400 million Facebook users? And McKimson is the tip of the iceberg. For starters, where are Ken Anderson, Bobe Cannon, Norm Ferguson, Carlo Vinci, Hawley Pratt, Pete Burness, Dick Lundy, Emery Hawkins, Preston Blair, Rod Scribner, Ray Patterson, Bob Givens, Art Davis, Dave Hilberman, Hugh Harman, Rudy Ising, Dave Tendlar, Grim Natwick, Bob McKimson, Milt Kahl, Sterling Sturtevant, Frank Thomas, Tom Oreb, Eric Larson, Les Clark, Shamus Culhane, Bill Littlejohn, Ken Harris, Art Babbitt, Virgil Ross, Manny Gould, Willard Bowsky, Al Eugster, Joe Grant, Dick Huemer and T. Hee to name but a few. Nobody appreciates any of these artists enough to start a fan page for them on the world’s largest social networking site, and that says a lot when nearly everything else has a fan page or group on Facebook nowadays.
Animation artists have never been ones to hanker for the spotlight, and as a result, there are few celebrities in this art form save for the characters themselves. So while nobody may appreciate the name Bob McKimson anymore, his character the Tasmanian Devil has 82,000 fans on Facebook, and though the name Grim Natwick may draw blank stares, rest assured that his eighty-year-old character Betty Boop has 92,000 fans.
The list of classic artists on Facebook is after the jump. I’m curious to hear what others make of these numbers.
The Ricky Gervais Show, produced by Wild Brain LA, premieres tonight on HBO. If you’ve seen it, share your thoughts on the show. For those without cable, the complete first episode can be viewed on the HBO website (not available in all countries).
The generosity of the animation community never ceases to amaze me. Inbetween demanding workloads and crushing deadlines, we still manage to find the time to pull together and help with bigger causes. Just in the past few months, we’ve had the Help the Hodges campaign and Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich’s benefit for Haiti auction.
Now, two employees at Blue Sky Studios, David LaMattina and Chad Walker, will be holding an online postcard art auction between March 6-13. Over one hundred and fifty artists, including many Blue Skyers, have donated work. The proceeds from the “Brownstones To Red Dirt” benefit will go towards building a school for orphans in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and to create a school library for kids in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, which incidentally happens to be my own neighborhood. The use of wooden postcards and the choice to support these two projects is not random; the benefit is tied in to a feature-length documentary that LaMattina and Walker made a couple years ago about “a pen pal program between a group of at-risk sixth graders living in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn and orphans from the war living in Freetown, Sierra Leone.” The documentary website is BrownstonestoRedDirt.com.
There are a surprising number of beautiful and delightful pieces created for the auction. A preview of all the pieces can be found on the Brownstones to Red Dirt auction website. The postcards I’ve included in this post are, from top to bottom, by Sandeep Menon, Patricia Horing, Dice Tsutsumi and Nicole Gustafsson.
