Author Archives: Amid Amidi

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Miyazaki’s Quiet Protest of the Iraq War

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Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki didn’t come to the United States in 2003 to accept his Oscar for Spirited Away because of his opposition to the Iraq War, he recently told the LA Times:

“The reason I wasn’t here for the Academy Award was because I didn’t want to visit a country that was bombing Iraq. At the time, my producer shut me up and did not allow me to say that, but I don’t see him around today. By the way, my producer also shared in that feeling.”

Critic Daniel Thomas MacInnes offers some context to Miyazaki’s actions on The Ghibli Blog:

It should be common knowledge to any serious Miyazaki scholar that he abhorred not only the Iraq War, but war itself. The idea of violence is depicted in his work as violent tragedy, slapstick mockery, or both…I don’t think very many Westerners know that the war in Howl’s Moving Castle was itself a reflection on the Iraq War. It was a comment on that war, viewed through the lens of Miyazaki’s long career.

2-D Lovers of Another Kind

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Love in 2D

It seems only appropriate to wrap up Comic-Con weekend with this New York Times article about Japanese men who have long-term relationships with drawn images of cartoon characters. The article profiles Nisan (above) who met his current girlfriend–a pillowcase with a video game character printed onto it–at a comic book convention:

He treats her the way any decent man would treat a girlfriend – he takes her out on the weekends to sing karaoke or take purikura, photo-booth pictures imprinted on a sheet of tiny stickers. In the few hours we spent together, I watched him position her gently in the restaurant booth and later in the back seat of his car, making sure to keep her upright and not to touch her private parts. He doesn’t take her to work, but he has a backup body pillow with the same Nemutan cover inside his desk drawer in case he has to work late at his tech-support job.

THIS WEEKEND IN BROOKLYN: Animation Block Party

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The sixth annual edition of Animation Block Party runs this weekend in Brooklyn. The event is the closest thing there is to an animation festival in the New York City area. There are five programs of the latest animated shorts from around the world, as well as a few parties. Tonight at 8pm is the opening night screening, which takes place outdoors on the roof of the Automotive High School in Williamsburg. More screenings follow on Saturday and Sunday. Film line-up, ticket info and locations are all available on the Animation Block website.

Mon Chinois by Cédric Villain

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I’m having an unforgettably fantastic time at Anima Mundi in Brazil. One of the films that picked up an award at the festival is Mon Chinois (2008) by Cédric Villain, which looks at how the Western world stereotypes Chinese people. The film does a good job of evoking both laughter and unease from the viewer. It’s in French, but I think you’ll be able to figure it out.

Max Weintraub

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Max Weintraub

Whether it’s the elegant animated navigation of his Flash portfolio site or the visually adventurous commercials and promos on his reel, Max Weintraub‘s work has style to spare. He’s a 2000 CalArts grad who is now living and working in Tokyo. I only discovered his work last week when his delightful freshman CalArts film, Dance Mania, featuring Michael Jackson, made the rounds on Facebook. His latest project is particularly interesting. He was commissioned by a Japanese TV network to create thirteen short animated pieces based on La Vilaine Lulu, a vintage illustrated boook by fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent. The website for the project doesn’t feature any of the episodes (as far as I can tell), but I love the simple, charming bits of animation with the girl and want to see more.

“Tetragram for Enlargement” by Apparati Effimeri

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Apparati Effimeri

There has been a lot of growth in site-specific animation over the past few years, and artists like Blu and Pablo Valbuena are finding different ways to incorporate the built environment into animation. The video installation “Tetragram for Enlargement,” created by the Italian visual artist collective Apparati Effimeri, is set against a medieval castle, and it’s one of the trippiest marriages of architecture and animation I’ve seen to date.

Peripetics by Zeitguised

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Peripetics

Peripetics is a fantastic experimental CG short. The “piece in six acts” was made by London-based Zeitguised for the opening exhibition at the Zirkel Gallery. I love the tension that is created by placing surreal, organic imagery against formal environments and movement. This Motionographer post offers insights into Zeitguised’s creative process and there’s also a behind-the-scenes video that gives a sense of how they developed their ideas. What appeals to me most about this piece is best summed up in the mission statement of Zeitguised: “If it can be shot in camera or animated using manual techniques, why use computer graphics?”


(Thanks, Red Pill Junkie)

Bill Plympton’s Dog Days dvd

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Dog Days

Independent animation great Bill Plympton has released a new dvd collecting all of the shorts he has created between 2004 and 2008: Guard Dog, Guide Dog, Hot Dog, Spiral, The Fan and the Flower, Shuteye Hotel, and Santa, the Fascist Years. The disc is packed with tons of extras including music videos for Kanye West, Weird Al Yankovic, and Parson Brown, TV commercials, animated documentary excerpts, and a TV special 12 Tiny Christmas Tales, as well as pencil tests, animatics, storyboards and filmmaker commentary. Animation director David Levy wrote a review of the dvd with insightful thoughts about Plympton’s work in general. Levy’s comments about the Parson Brown music video “Mexican Standoff” stood out to me:

I am tempted to describe Bill’s recent commissioned work, the music video “Mexican Standoff,” as one of those misfires in that it can appear to be an average work. But as soon as I think that, I correct myself: Average for whom? The film is full of innovative camera angles, daring animation, and enough style and ideas for 10 films. I wonder if one price Bill has paid for his productivity might be that we’ve become accustomed to his ordinary excellence. If we had never seen a Bill Plympton film before and started with “Mexican Standoff,” we might be asking, “Who did that terrific animation?” But, the value of the “Dog Days” collection is that it answers that injustice by forcing the viewer to look at this five-year period of Bill’s work as a whole.

This morning, we’re giving away a dvd signed by the legend himself. To enter, leave a comment below until 11am (Pacific time) and we’ll choose a random winner from the comments. To order the Dog Days dvd, which is $24.95, visit Plympton’s website.

Wall Street Analyst Apologizes For Predicting UP Would Fail

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Here’s something you don’t hear often: an analyst on Wall Street admitting they’re wrong. Richard Greenfield of Pali Research told the New York Times that he was “dead wrong” when he suggested that investors sell their Disney shares, in part because UP would flop. Prior to the opening of the film, Greenfield had said, “We doubt younger boys will be that excited by the main character,” and he also claimed the film lacked commercial appeal because there was no female lead. Now that UP has become Pixar’s second-highest grossing film domestically, Greenfield is backtracking. It’s worth noting that Greenfield has a history of being wrong about Pixar and Disney. In 2008, he’d been hesitant about the potential of Wall-E, and in March of this year, he predicted that Disney’s stock would crash to $12.50 a share whereas it has jumped to over $22 in the past couple months. There is no animation business plan more foolproof than creating work from a foundation of creative integrity. Pixar gets that; it’s too bad the analysts on Wall Street don’t.

(via Michael Sporn)

VeggieTales’ Phil Vischer Launches JellyTelly

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JellyTelly

“Is it any wonder that our kids are growing up knowing more about Hannah Montana than about the Apostle Paul?”

That’s the question Phil Vischer is asking with his new faith-based company Jellyfish. He is the co-creator of VeggieTales, an idea which had its heyday a decade ago before Vischer’s company, Big Idea Productions, imploded in 2003. Jellyfish has created a show called JellyTelly, which is designed exclusively for on-line audiences. The segments are mostly puppets, with some live-action and animation. There are a number of episodes viewable on the JellyTelly site, as well as this short intro video that explains the concept. When Vischer launched the idea earlier this year, he had started with a subscription-based model but has since moved to giving away the episodes for free. He wrote on his blog that they’re currently trying to figure out a sustainable business model, or in his words, “awaiting the new direction God has in mind.”

More News About the Network Formerly Known as Cartoon

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Thurop Van Orman, the creator of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, posted an entry earlier this week on his deviantART page, in which he wrote the following:

NO, CARTOON NETWORK isn’t changing its name. Not anytime soon anyways… they were gonna… But I think their reality show idea didn’t go as well as they had hoped, so… they’re kinda backing out of that idea. Yay for cartoons!

His perspective on what is happening at Cartoon Network is wildly different than that of Chowder creator C.H. Greenblatt. Care to make a guess which one of them still has a show at the network and which one of them has had their show cancelled?

Granted, it’s true that Cartoon Network has removed their Andrew W.K. video from YouTube (600 negative comments will do that), but I wouldn’t read too much into that token gesture. From where I’m standing, it appears to be little more than a carefully calculated effort to quell their viewership’s outrage and not representative of a meaningful shift in direction. If any doubt remains about the network’s true intentions, look no further than this recent Broadcasting & Cable article in which the architects of the live-action strategy speak about their goals. The piece details at length why they’re switching to live-action, and describes the network’s “360 degree” marketing campaign to usher in live-action, including the distribution of 8 million copies of a free CN Real magazine at theme parks and movie theaters.

One of the figureheads in their brand-wrecking transition is Stuart Snyder, executive VP and COO of Turner animation, young adults and kids media. The article states that Snyder made switching to live-action a priority when he came on board in 2007. “I think these new shows, whether reality or live scripted, really open up and broaden the audience, so you can be thinking about new advertising categories,” Snyder said. “It opens up more categories for us than just being in shows specifically [targeting] 6- to 11-year-olds.”

Cartoon Network’s Chief Content Officer Rob Sorcher acknowledged in the same article that inserting live-action into a brand called Cartoon Network will take time for audiences to accept: “Anytime you do something new at a network, particularly at one with a very specific niche, there will be a reaction. People will say, is this appropriate? We are doing something that is very different than anything in the nearly 20 years of history of the channel. It is possible that this is going to take a while.”

Animation fans meanwhile continue to mobilize. Over 2,500 people have now joined the Boycott Cartoon Network’s CN Real Block on Facebook. A new website has launched called “Stop the Madness” that encourages people to take specific actions to protest the network. A quick search for “Cartoon Network” on Twitter also reveals a steady stream of complaints. (Cartoon Brew suggests using the hashtag #CNFail to organize all the complaints on Twitter.) Finally, if you’d like to register your complaints directly with Stuart Snyder, try sending him a friend request on Facebook. I’m sure he’d love to hear from a few fans of the channel.

More to come…

EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW: What is Torch Tiger?

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Torch Tiger

Following on the heels of last year’s successful graphic novel anthology Who is Rocket Johnson?, Disney story artists and directors have teamed up once again to self-publish What is Torch Tiger? The new book will debut later this month at Comic-Con (booth #2302) and is limited to 1,300 copies. The line-up of artists is impressive to say the least, with a cover painted by Paul Felix and contributions from the following:

Steve Anderson
Aaron Blaise
Paul Briggs
Kevin Deters
Rob Edwards
Mike Gabriel
Nathan Greno
Don Hall
Byron Howard
Trevor Jimenez
Mark Kennedy
Joe Mateo
Nicole Mitchell
John Musker
Jeff Ranjo
Aurian Redson
Jeremy Spears
Lissa Treiman
Josie Trinidad
Chris Ure
Mark Walton
Dean Wellins
Stevie Wermers
Chris Williams

Pin-ups by:
Andreas Deja
Andy Harkness
Jeff Turley
Jin Kim
Shiyoon Kim

More details are available at TorchTiger.blogspot.com. Below are some exclusive preview pages provided to us by the Torch Tiger team. Click on any of the images for a closer view.

Torch Tiger

Torch Tiger

Torch Tiger

Torch Tiger

Torch Tiger

Torch Tiger

Torch Tiger

Torch Tiger