Author Archives: Amid Amidi

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New Art from The Haunted World of El Superbeasto

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The Haunted World of El Superbeasto

New stills have appeared online from the forthcoming direct-to-video Rob Zombie feature The Haunted World of El Superbeasto. Chris Battle, who did some work on the film, posted a few of the images on his blog with this accompanying thought:

“Above are some of the better pics that actually retain the brilliance of Carey Yost and Mark Colangelo’s original art, but judging from some of the other pics, the final product is falling a bit short of what it was supposed to be. I guess that’s what happens when the studio shuts things down way too early and sends everything overseas before it’s ready in order to concentrate on sure-fire winners like ‘Everybody’s Hero’…”

That’s disappointing news to hear. Back in August 2006, Jerry had written on the Brew about the promise of this project.

UPDATE: Multiple well-placed sources inform us that El Superbeasto is still being prepped for a theatrical release and not direct-to-video.

Brad Bird Interviews

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Brad Bird

Brad Bird has done a couple radio interviews in the past week which are worth a listen. The first interview refers to him as “Big Bird” and “one of Pixar’s chief polishers,” but beyond that unnecessary cuteness, it’s a decent chat in which Bird discusses what’s wrong with Hollywood filmmaking and expresses reservations about how animation is treated at the Oscars. The second interview gets off an to equally bad start when the host refers to animation as a “genre” and Bird has to correct him. It eventually picks up, especially when he discusses how he came onto Ratatouille midway through the film’s development. The latter interview also features unintentional moments of comic relief by historian Charles Solomon who makes heroic efforts to correctly pronounce the name Ratatouille.

(Thanks, Jakob Schuh, for the first interview link)

Prada’s Trembled Blossoms

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Trembled Blossoms

Trembled Blossoms, a short film advertising the new Prada line, is worth pointing out not for its animation, which is a blend of awfully inept mo-cap and awkward CG effects, but for the simple fact that Prada is using animation to promote its clothes. Illustrator James Jean has posted some of the concept artwork that he created for the film, and for the record, it’s far more pleasing to the eye than the finished product.

(via NotCot.org)

Why Don Hertzfeldt Probably Won’t Win An Annie

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Everything Will Be OK

There are five nominees for Best Short Subject in this year’s Annie Awards, which will be presented by ASIFA-Hollywood tomorrow evening:

• Everything Will Be OK – Bitter Films
• How to Hook Up Your Home Theater – Walt Disney Feature Animation
• Shorty McShorts’ Shorts “Mascot Prepâ€? – Walt Disney TV Animation
• The Chestnut Tree – Picnic Pictures
• Your Friend the Rat – Pixar Animation Studios

One of these films—Don Hertzfeldt’s Everything Will Be OK— is a true underdog because of unfortunate circumstances surrounding this year’s voting in the shorts category. The issue was first brought to my attention by an ASIFA-Hollywood member who contacted Cartoon Brew about the situation. I was struck by the unfairness of the matter and decided to look into what happened. I’m bringing this matter to light in the hope that all future Annie nominees will be given a fair shot at winning the award.

The Annie Award rules for short subjects specify that voting members must view all of the films before voting for a winner. Members can view the films through a password-protected online website that shows the films in their entirety. However, Hertzfeldt’s film was never shown to online voters in its entirety until the last day of voting. Here is a timeline of what happened, which has been confirmed by both ASIFA-Hollywood president Antran Manoogian and Hertzfeldt’s manager, Jeremy Platt of Spectacle Entertainment Group:

January 15, 2008: Online balloting begins. All of the films in the short subject category are posted in their entirety, except for Hertzfeldt’s Everything Will Be OK, for which there is only a six-second clip from the 17-minute film. (See UPDATE below which says that other films may not have been shown properly either.)

One week later: Balloting in this category is suspended. According to ASIFA-Hollywood president Antran Manoogian, “…[A]ll ballots that had been cast in the category up to that point were deleted, and those
individuals who had voted were instructed to go back and view the new video, and vote again.”

At this point, Hertzfeldt’s manager messengered over a dvd copy of the film so they could get the entire version posted on the online ballot. But instead of posting the entire film, ASIFA-Hollywood posted an incomplete 13-minute version of the 17-minute film. The film abruptly ends in the middle but voters have no idea that they’re watching the incomplete version.

January 31, 2008: Don’s manager, Jeremy Platt, discovers that the film is incomplete yet again and calls ASIFA-Hollywood. According to Antran Manoogian:

“Upon further investigation, it was determined that the reason for this error was because the DVD of “Everything Will Be OK” that had been provided for the ballot was defective, which resulted in the last few minutes of the film not appearing on the video, with the other shorts.

“Luckily our video editor was able to figure out a way to transfer the corrupt file of the missing footage, and the complete version of the film was uploaded onto the ballot, immediately.”

Platt contends that the dvd was fine, pointing out that they were able to eventually post the complete film from the same dvd. Also, with the running time printed on the dvd package, it should have been doubly clear that a 13-minute version was not the full film.

February 1, 2008: The complete version of the film is online for its first full day, but online voting also ended on this day. The entire version of Everything Will Be OK was posted on the site for just over 24 hours of the two week voting period.

That only a 6-second version was shown initially is unfortunate but could be chalked up to human error. A stupid human error, since it should’ve been obvious that it wasn’t a six-second film, but an error nonetheless. However, to be so careless as to not properly post the film the second time around is grossly negligent on ASIFA-Hollywood’s part. After screwing up once, it’s unfathomable that they didn’t double- and triple-check the second posting of the film.

Hertzfeldt’s manager Platt thanks ASIFA-Hollywood president Antran Manoogian for being attentive to the situation and taking steps to remedy it. Yet, Platt also says that he has not seen this level of “sloppiness” in any other major film award. The sloppiness has likely cost Hertzfeldt any shot at an Annie this year, and Platt tells the Brew,”We’re disappointed in the process and with how this award was carried out, but we’ll just move on.” Platt says that Don Hertzfeldt, who is busy finishing up his next short, is taking the whole situation in stride and doesn’t worry too much since winning awards is not the reason he makes films in the first place.

For ASIFA-Hollywood’s part, president Antran Manoogian tells the Brew that his organization, “believes that all the nominees were reasonably considered for the award.” He also accepts full responsibility for Hertzfeldt’s situation:

“Although it would have been ideal to have been able to start the voting all over again, with balloting set to close the next day, and the Annie Award taking place a week later, it was not possible to extend the voting period without jeopardizing the timely delivery of the voting results…While one could argue that many parties could be blamed for this situation, ultimately ASIFA Hollywood takes full responsibility for what happened, and intends to take whatever action is necessary to insure that this type of an incident does not occur again in the future.”

The decision to offer an award in the category this year hasn’t pleased everybody, including the ASIFA voter who initially made Cartoon Brew aware of the problem. Though he has asked to remain anonymous to avoid possible repurcussions, he tells me:

“In my honest opinion, if they don’t do the right thing this time – throw out the votes again  for another re-vote period – then they ought to just admit they made a gross error and declare there to be no winner in this year’s category, since the voting was so clearly flawed.  To admit all their mistakes but “go on with the show” anyway (and break their own printed rules about watching all the films) is not something I would call ‘animation’s highest honor.’

“It’s not fair to the other nominees either, because whoever wins that award is going to get it under these fishy circumstances that turn the trophy into tainted goods. I truly do love the ASIFA organization and what they are trying to do, that’s why it’s so important for me to see things like this done right.”

Whether Hertzfeldt wins tomorrow night or not is besides the point. The integrity of the voting process was seriously compromised in one of the Annie Award categories this year. In the future, ASIFA-Hollywood must put in place new and stricter safeguards to ensure fairness towards all its nominees and maintain the intregrity of its highly respected and coveted industry award.

Chestnut Tree

UPDATE: I received an email from Bert and Jennifer Klein, the producers of another film nominated in the shorts category The Chestnut Tree. They tell me that the problems with Hertzfeldt’s film were not an isolated incident and that their film was also not properly shown to online voting audiences. They sent details on what had happened with their film and have allowed me to reprint this portion of their message:

“Our film was entirely omitted the first time around, we didn’t even get a 7 second clip. We contacted Antran [Manoogian] right away, which was probably around the same time as Don’s manager did. The timeline for the rest is correct—they didn’t have our full version up until the Monday before the voting ended. That was 2 FULL WEEKS of trying to fix the situation! It’s a huge hurdle to try and even complete a film, and only us two independents were left out of the race.”

Next Tuesday: Patrick Smith Show in NY

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Painting by Patrick Smith

Hot on the heels of his first solo art show last September, New York director and animator Patrick Smith is having another solo exhibit of his paintings, as well as drawings from his animated shorts. The show opens next Tuesday, February 12, at RIOT New York, a visual fx and post-production studio that Smith has worked with closely on both his independent shorts and commercial projects. Opening reception is from 6:30-10pm at RIOT (545 Fifth Avenue, 2nd floor, NY, NY). More details about the show are available at Pat Smith’s website.

David Levy on The Rise of NY Indie Features

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My Dog Tulip

When I posted about my move to NYC last month, I alluded to the exciting trend of independent animated features being produced on the East Coast. ASIFA-East president David Levy has penned a new column in the ASIFA-East monthly newsletter Anymator about the growth of indie East Coast features. An incredible seven artists out here are working on or have recently completed independent features: Bill Plympton, Michael Sporn, Nina Paley, Paul Fierlinger, Emily Hubley, Dan Kanemoto, and Tatia Rosenthal.

In his article, entitled “Better Late Than Never,” Levy learns more about these features by interviewing four of the filmmakers: Michael Sporn, Nina Paley, Paul Fierlinger and Dan Kanemoto. It’s a pleasure to hear the filmmakers describing the subject matter of their films: the relationship between a WWII pilot and his father, a film based on the memoirs of British author J.R.Ackerley, a biography of Edgar Allen Poe, and an animated interpretation of the Indian epic Ramayana. Sounds like American animated features are finally growing up.

(Image above from Paul Fierlinger’s My Dog Tulip)

Obama-mation

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Barack Obama commercial

Continuing our coverage of how animation is being used in this year’s Presidential election, below are two pro-Barack Obama spots targeted towards California voters. They were commissioned by the Power Pac organization, and created by Eddie Codel and Ryan Junell. Junell, who handled direction and animation, writes about the spots on his website:

“I made these two ads from concept to completion in less than two weeks with the help of Phillip Niemeyer of Double Triple, Blevin Blectum, Tonya Glanz, and several others. Our target is the younger, fence-sitting voter who needs a positive lift to the voting booth.”

(PS: A friendly reminder to keep discussion in the comments focused on the use of animation in the campaign and the effectiveness of the spots. This is not a forum for expressing political views.)

(via Laughing Squid)

Meet Hyacinth Hippo

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Hattie Noel

I know what you’re saying to yourself right now: he’s finally lost his marbles and has started posting suggestive photos of voluptuous black women and calling them hippos. But actually the above photo is a rare piece of Disney animation history. It’s a photo of actress Hattie Noel who was the live-action reference for Hyacinth Hippo in Fantasia.

This is one of the “lost” pics from her modelling sessions for Disney artists. For obvious reasons, it’s a bit of Disney history that you never read about in their official histories. Over the years, I’ve seen a couple other reference shots of her, but this one has ended up on eBay (or at least a copy of it has, since the seller is only offering a printout and not the original photo).

(via Disney History blog)

The Making of Timmy’s Christmas

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Timmys Christmas

Mike Nassar has written a super-detailed blog post documenting every step of how he and a few other artists produced Timmy’s Christmas, a one-minute Flash short completed in a week. Kudos to Nassar for being so open about his techniques and production pipeline. Whether one is already an expert in Flash or not, it’s fascinating to read such a comprehensive account of how a Flash cartoon was created.

Faking It

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Bee Movie

Animator (and Animation Guild Local 839 prez) Kevin Koch has a useful post on his blog entitled “Faking It”, which addresses the topic of what’s an animator to do when assigned to animate shallow and superficial characters. Having working in the animation department on seven DreamWorks features, Kevin is certainly well qualified to speak on the subject. Koch offers a number of solutions, including just doing the job as well as you can:

“If you’re not in a position to make story/character contributions, if that superficial character and shallow, unbelievable story aren’t going to improve no matter how many suggestions you make, then just do the best you can. There are times when I have to remind myself that I’m a pro, I’m being paid to do a job, and the least I can do is a solid professional job. Think of those shots as a technical problems. Look for ways to emphasize the basic principles of animation. Are the arcs as full as they could be, can you pack in a touch more overlap and follow-through, are your poses as clear and well staged as they can be? If you’re stuck having a minor character walk around for no particular reason, make it the sharpest walk in the movie, without upstaging the main action. Remember the oft quoted line, “There are no small scenes, only small animators.”

Radio Nova Spot by Romain Segaud

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Commercial by Romain Segaud

“Electro” (download 16mb file) is a stand-out commercial for French station Radio Nova directed by Romain Segaud (previously on the Brew). Segaud’s earlier student works like Tim Tom and Bip Bip displayed great promise and this latest spot continues the development of his unique digital style. I can’t wait to see where he takes it next. Character design on this commercial is by Laurent Nicolas, and the production company is Passion Paris. Complete production credits at Motionographer.com.

A Really Whole New World

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This video is impressive: a guy, Nick Pitera, sings both the male and female parts of the Aladdin song, “A Whole New World.” As the video has become an online sensation these past couple months, there’s been a lot of debate about whether it’s really him singing, and the consensus seems to be that he’s legit. Just to make this more animation related, Nick Pitera is also a computer animation major at Ringling College of Art and Design. Ironically, the last post on his art blog is about animating lip sync. More videos of him singing and some biographical info can be found on his YouTube page.

(Thanks, Dai Kun)

Animation Industry: West Coast vs. East Coast

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NY animation studio

Last week I had the pleasure of being the guest speaker for Dave Levy’s animation career class at SVA (School of Visual Arts). It was a lively conversation, owing to Dave’s skillful moderation and plenty of excellent questions and comments from the SVA senior class. A significant portion of our discussion revolved around comparing and contrasting the Los Angeles and New York animation scenes. Dave Levy has summarized and expanded upon that class discussion with this post on his blog. It’s a thought-provoking read for artists both east and west.

Marcell Jankovics Animation Used In A Super Bowl Spot

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Licensing old songs has been a staple of TV advertising in recent times, but could licensing animated shorts become the next trend in the world of commercials? Brew reader Joshua points out that a GMC Yukon Hybrid commercial aired during yesterday’s Super Bowl repurposed animation from Marcell Jankovic’s 1975 Oscar-nominated short Sisyphus. Watch the commercial above.

The message delivered is not entirely effective but that’s not the fault of Jankovics’s animation, rather in how they decided to use it. In fact, it’s to Jankovics’s credit that a short film he made over thirty years ago looks as fresh and vital as any contemporary piece of animation. So who’s next? Will other ad agencies take a cue and begin making use of visually striking animated shorts like Norman McLaren’s Begone Dull Care or John Hubley’s The Adventures of an *? Considering how well some of these films hold up graphically, and also the fact that the average TV viewer has never seen these films, there are a lot of fascinating possibilities.

And speaking of Marcell Jankovics, last week I wrote about his rarely seen (but must-see) animated feature Fehérlófia. The comments in that post are well worth reading including a particularly nice commentary about Jankovics’s work by Aeon Flux creator Peter Chung.