My first exposure to the talented artists at Blue Sky Studios was a couple years back when I wrote the ART OF ROBOTS book. The general feeling I got while working on the book was that the development artists at Blue Sky took more of an illustrative/fine art approach to animation design as opposed to the cartoon-oriented production design sensibilities of Pixar and its imitators. This sensibility is front and center in the new graphic anthology, OUT OF PICTURE: ART FROM THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN, a dazzling collection of work by eleven artists who currently work (or have previously worked) at Blue Sky Studios.

It would be a disservice to label this simply a collection of comics or a graphic novel. On every page, there are gallery-quality paintings and illustrations. Freed from the need to conform to the stale narrative routines of modern animated filmmaking, the Blue Sky artists explore looser, more personal storytelling styles which are a perfect complement to their stunning visuals. The artwork is uniformly excellent throughout, but a few of the pieces that stood out for me were David Gordon’s disturbing post-9/11 cautionary tale “The Wedding Present,” Dice Tsutsumi’s atmospheric and beautifully painted “Noche y Dia,” and Daniel L–pez Muñoz’s intensely drawn “Silent Echoes.”

OUT OF PICTURE was originally intended to be self-published, but it was picked up by French publisher Paquet, and is now available in both French and English editions. The English edition, which has just come out, will be available at the San Diego Comic-Con exclusively at Stuart Ng Books. Four of the book’s artists will be signing at Stuart’s booth: Dice Tsutsumi, Robert MacKenzie, Michael Knapp and Nash Dunnigan. The book’s official website is HERE.

Storyboard artist ‘Skribbl’ has a hilarious illustrated guide to the various types of oddballs that attend San Diego Comic-Con. Scroll down the Story Boredom blog to familiarize yourself with everybody, or if you’re a first-timer to San Diego, print out his drawings and use as a field guide.

“Shady Characters” is an art show that opens Friday, July 28th, at the ‘Live with Animals’ Gallery (210 Kent Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211; entrance to the gallery on Metropolitan). Opening reception is from 6-9pm. The show, curated by Jared Deal, is “simply a tribute to all of the creepers and tweakers, outcasts and outlaws, and freaks and geeks, we encounter daily.” Participating artists include Deanna Marsigliese, Clio Chiang, Steve Lambe, Gabe Swarr, Rex Hackelberg, Anna Chambers, Mark Ackland, Todd Kauffman, Joel Trussell, Bobby Chiu, Martin Wittig, Aaron Augenblick, Phil Rynda, Peter Browngardt, Danny Kimanyen, Randy Ramos, Garnet Syberg-Olsen, Jamie Mason, Chris George, Eric Nocella, Dino Alberto, Jason Levesque, Tim Shankweiler, Eric Brown, Mark Pecoraro, Pat Pakula, Kevin Schmid, Kaori Hamura, Richard Mather, Rod Filbrandt, and Deal himself. Stay tuned to Jared’s blog for additional details.

(Top: A painting from the show by Clio Chiang)

A bit of a followup to last week’s post “Cartoons, Copyright and YouTube”. Emru Townsend at fps magazine linked to this excellent article in the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER that discusses the various copyright issues surrounding material being posted on YouTube. The article, penned by Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Fred von Lohmann, has this fascinating bit in it:

(Note to content owners: If you use takedown notices to remove noninfringing content, you can be sued by YouTube or its users for abusing the system!)

Of course, nobody knows how Warner Bros. phrased their takedown notices and whether they asked for the removal of specific films, but the fact remains that dozens of public domain titles have been removed from YouTube in recent weeks, including the WB shorts EATIN’ ON THE CUFF, PORKY’S MIDNIGHT MATINEE and A DAY AT THE ZOO, as well as the Fleischer SUPERMAN shorts. Now it turns out there is some legal recourse for the removal of these films.

Here’s an amazing site. In honor of their 65th anniversary, the National Film Board of Canada has posted on-line fifty of their most well known animated shorts. Quality versions of the films can be seen for free HERE. The films serve as a great primer to the NFB’s output and reflect the wide range of techniques and storytelling styles used by NFB artists over the years. Included are Norman McLaren classics like A CHAIRY TALE, BLINKITY BLANK and NEIGHBORS, Peter Foldes’ HUNGER, Caroline Leaf’s THE STREET, Richard Condie’s THE BIG SNIT, Cordell Barker’s THE CAT CAME BACK and Michèle Cournoyer’s THE HAT. Surprisingly, many of the NFB’s most well known artists are excluded from the line-up, including George Dunning, Kaj Pindal and Gerald Potterton, so it’s not a comprehensive overview, but still, if you’re looking for a good intro to the NFB’s work, I can’t think of a better place to start.

(Thanks, Warren Leonhardt)

I’m a happy camper today. That’s because animation director Ward Jenkins just posted an amazing piece on his blog about Jim Flora’s 1957 children’s book THE DAY THE COW SNEEZED. Not only does the post include lots of images from the book and Ward’s thoughtful writing about the artwork, but it also has Flora’s mock-ups for the book, which have never before been published. For more about Flora’s art and life, look no further than Irwin Chusid’s excellent biography THE MISCHIEVOUS ART OF JIM FLORA.

A very random post. Here’s a couple interesting commercials I recently saw on YouTube. The first is a beautifully animated spot for the orange drink Kia-Ora. It reminds me a lot of Oscar Grillo’s SEASIDE WOMAN and I’m guessing it’s by Mr. Grillo himself, but he’ll have to correct me if I’m wrong.

This next one is really goofy and stupidly simple. It was pointed out to me by Marc Crisafulli. It’s hard to tell who it’s by but I think the responsible individual is Len Glasser. If not, then it’s probably by Ernie Pintoff. I’ll try to find out.

Jenny Lerew recently posted a photo on her blog of Disney legend Ken Anderson posing for a publicity snap with an unidentified Japanese woman during the production of Disney’s 101 DALMATIANS. I thought I’d continue the theme and share the one photo I have that falls under the category of “Disney artists posing for publicity photos with weird foreigners during the production of 101 DALMATIANS.” This one features a newspaper reporter all the way from India. The artists in the photo are from the layout and background department. Identified left to right: Homer Jonas, Walt Peregoy, unidentified Indian man, Tony Rizzo, Ralph Hulett and Ray Aragon.

(click on image for larger version)

Veteran animation artist Floyd Norman has written a great piece for Jim Hill Media about what it was like to work in the Disney “bullpen” during the 1950s. The bullpen is described by Floyd as:

…the animation equivalent of the secretarial pool in the modern office environment. It was a training ground for the young artists as well as a resource for the animators needing their scenes in-betweened. Every young artist dreamed of moving out of the “Bullpen” and occupying a seat next to a real Disney animator.

For another vintage look at the Disney bullpen, see this post at the Animation Guild Blog with a 1954 caricature by John Sparey of Disney bullpenners.

Jason Vanderhill points out on the fps blog that the 2004 documentary, TINTIN AND I, about Tintin creator Hergé, will premiere this week on PBS stations in the US. In conjunction with the doc, the PBS website has audio and video interviews with the film’s director Anders Østergaard, as well as a series of online interviews with contemporary comic artists (Jessica Abel, Daniel Clowes, Phoebe Gloeckner, Jason Lutes, Seth, Chris Ware). LA folks can see the documentary on KCET this Saturday, July 15, at 9pm. For other cities, check your local listings.

The amount of animation related programming at this year’s Comic-Con International: San Diego borders on the obscene. Nearly every current animated TV series and feature being produced in LA has been granted its own panel. If you have a burning desire to interact with the creator of SQUIRREL BOY or want to find out how they transferred Savion Glover’s tapdancing onto a penguin in HAPPY FEET or just want to meet Nickelodeon’s “funky-fresh creators,” then be sure to check out the daily event listings here: Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The rest of us who don’t care about tapdancing penguins or TAK AND THE POWER OF JUJU will be emptying our wallets at Stuart Ng’s.

Wow, lots of responses to last week’s post, “Is My Animated Short Worth a Penny”. The general consensus seems to be that while these new video hosting/sharing sites offer filmmakers an audience and exposure for their work, they don’t provide a viable means of income. Various thoughts from Brew readers are posted below.

First, an email from an artist who prefers to remain anonymous:

In regards to your Cartoon Brew posting about YouTube, I’ve got a few shorts on Atomfilms, and the money is laughable. But for me, it’s just an outlet. Someplace where lots of people can see my work. It’s great to have a place to show a short idea, something that couldn’t necessarily work as a series or feature. I think your point about the artists getting screwed in the deal is valid, though at least I retain ownership of my work. Try that at a studio. At a feature studio I worked for, I never spoke of any ideas because they claimed your thoughts as “intellectual property.” The artists will spend years on a feature, but see no residuals. A musician spends a week performing on a score, and gets residuals not only on the film, but on the soundtrack album as well. I should have kept taking drum lessons, right? My point is, the game is rigged against the artist across the board, not just on the web.

Shawn McInerney of Moose Mouse Media noted that the “Diet Coke and Mentos Experiment,” which I used as an example, was likely a special case. In other words, even if your film is lucky enough to receive millions of views, you probably won’t be making twenty grand from a site like Revver:

I am an independent animator and I have been doing a lot of research into these places. I actually think Revver’s payment to the creators of “The Diet Coke and Mentos Experiment” is unusually high. According the the AWN article, the filmmakers got $20k for 3 million views at 50/50 revenue share. That comes out to around $13 CPM. But the Business 2.0 article said YouTube could get about $1 CPM. $1 CPM sounds more typical for this type of traffic. I think the $13 CPM was due to the fact that Mentos advertised on the video. And Mentos probably realized that tons of kids would run out and buy Mentos to try this. So advertising on this one video is particularly valuable, and probably pretty unusual.

Animator Keith Lango posted this thoughtful response on his blog regarding the issue. He offers a solution that would bypass these video hosting/sharing sites:

“…skip the suits and advertisers and distributors altogether and go straight to John Q. Public with the content and let them pay for the content. After all, if they come to watch the content that must mean they value the content. So let’s go right to the end user audience- the people who value the content.”

Dave Redl thinks that the best way for independent animators to generate a buck on-line is by going off-line and establishing dvd sales, which is something that he is currently attempting with his Family Pants project. He also offered the following thoughts:

Years before downloading MP4s and iPod videos, Flash animation allowed for the creation of “online cartoon networks” of sorts. The producers of these sites boasted “give me your cartoon for free, get seen by a global audience, become famous and maybe cash a check at the end of the month!” It sounded great then, but the cashing the check part was always dodgy.

Sometimes fame begets fortune. If the right guy sees your work, you could land yourself a nice contract or at least work for hire. But the money always comes from “traditional” sources: TV, print, film. The Internet still is just a glorified business card. You really don’t make money from it, but rather use it as a means to extend your brand. Cartoon Network makes money from their TV network. Their website extends their brand. Their website might break even, profit-wise if they’re lucky, but mostly the website exists because the network does.

An opinion from an artist who prefers to remain anonymous:

No filmmaker is going to get rich (or even make a living) contributing to YouTube just as no designer or illustrator is going to get rich off Threadless or CafePress. As you said, what sites like Revver, YouTube, CafePress and Threadless offer is exposure. A chance for artists to fine tune their act.

If filmmakers want to see high returns for their labor, they are going to have to start thinking like businessmen, paying attention to details like business models. Successful Internet business models for filmmakers to follow include Homestar Runner, Penny Arcade, and, more recently, JibJab.

The Internet is a tool. A great tool. But the talent for making money is one artists must learn by studying other businesses and success stories. Simply relying on the Internet is a recipe for disaster. Fortunately, good artists have the most important skill on their side: creativity.

Filmmaker Robert Hemby believes the potential for making money on-line is there, but it still hasn’t been figured out:

I recently read the AWN article you cited (“Animation Portals Advancing Indie Opportunities”) and the other AWN article (“Brave New Media: Opportunities for Independent Animators”) speaking to the same issue – new opportunities for the Independent Animator (of which I am one). Both of these articles excited me in that new distribution models and revenue streams are opening up for the independent animator to exploit. Your article, however, provides the opposite slant that the distributors themselves are the ones “exploiting” the content creators. These Distributors … these Aggregators … do seem to have the better end of the new distribution model. Hasn’t this always been the case though? Don’t the TV and Ad Agency execs make the lion’s share of the profits from content distributed as opposed to the content creators themselves?

Don’t get me wrong, I wholeheartedly agree with you that my animation is worth much more than 1 cent per view. What is it worth (over the Internet or mobile device) per view? … 5 cents? … 25 cents? … a buck fifty? … more / less? Does this mean that these “new distribution models” are flawed in that they should focus more on their returns to the content creators? Are they flawed at a more fundamental level in that they should generate greater returns for what they provide? How can they be improved upon in their current iteration? What can they evolve into that would sufficiently compensate the content creator?

The “Audience” is definitely going to drive this bus though. They are the ones who will determine what the final outcome will be. I believe that there are different distribution models and revenue streams that exist for the Internet and mobile devices that have not as of yet been explored. The enabling factor is the Internet. I agree with you that content creators should “…stop giving away their films for free (or almost-free) and to actually start generating income from their work on-line”. There are those that say they have the answer to how this can be done, but it would seem as if they have their best interests in mind. They do have an answer though, and depending on how you measure success, their solutions do succeed at some level. I am hopeful though that a more viable solution for better revenue returns via Internet and mobile device distribution will be developed soon. In the interim, all I can do is keep animating and exploiting any and all avenues to distribution and compensation.

As relevant as FREEDOM RIVER was in Vietnam-era United States, I’d wager its message is even more relevant in our day and age. The film’s heavy tone is tempered by spare and appealing production design by Bernie Gruver. Other credits include narration by Orson Welles, direction by Sam Weiss (THE ALVIN SHOW, ROGER RAMJET) and animation by Vincente Bassols. The film was produced at Stephen Bosustow Productions.

(Thanks to Steve Moore for the link)

I hope this will be the last update on ANIMATION BLAST 9 before the issue is finally released. My printer tells me that the issue will be out right in time for the San Diego Comic-Con. Unfortunately, the printing process has taken far longer than I’d anticipated, but somehow that seems fitting for an issue that took four years to put together. Initially, the printer discovered problems with my files during pre-press, and when everything had been straightened out, they made the proofs. The proofs looked great except all the italics in the text had disappeared. Not surprisingly, it’s been a tremendous challenge getting the italics back in because of incompatibilities between our software. Anyway, the second set of proofs should be done any day now, and if all goes according to plan, I’ll be receiving the issues in a couple weeks.

So, what’s new in the world of animation this week? Well, YouTube has bowed to pressure from the movie studios and removed hundreds of animated films from their site, deleted hundreds of user accounts, and in the process, alienated thousands of users who’ll now be taking their business to other sites like DailyMotion. What is most disturbing about this indiscriminate purge of cartoons is that they’ve also removed dozens of public domain cartoons which were legally posted on their site. Warner shorts like EATIN’ ON THE CUFF, PORKY’S MIDNIGHT MATINEE and A DAY AT THE ZOO, as well as the Fleischer SUPERMAN shorts, are all films that have entered the public domain, and can be freely reedited, redistributed and resold without permission from anybody. Unfortunately, YouTube has shown a woeful ignorance of copyright law and removed these films citing a baseless “terms of use violation” clause.

It’s important to look at the root cause of why so many classic shorts are appearing online in the first place. It’s because they aren’t available anywhere else for legal purchase. If these cartoons were available for purchase on dvd or available for download online, there’s no way that anybody in their right mind could justify these lo-res versions that are appearing on YouTube. Disney, for example, has been doing a commendable job of releasing their animation library onto dvd, in their Treasures collections, and relatively few of those cartoons show up on video hosting/sharing sites. Disney has also taken another positive step forward by releasing individual shorts onto iTunes. Other media conglomerates, however, neither care about nor respect the classic animation in their vaults, and corrupt “copyright protection” laws have allowed these companies to withhold the cartoons from the public for far too long.

There’s plenty more to be said about this topic, and nobody is saying it more eloquently than animation director Mark Mayerson. He wrote an excellent article on his blog yesterday that I highly recommend checking out. He even offers a novel solution for how YouTube can address the issue of copyright, and please both the studios and fans. The bottom line though is that until studios start listening to consumers and make these classic cartoons widely available, they can expect the shorts to appear over and over on the multitude of video hosting sites now available to the public.

PS: Even though all the Tex Avery cartoons have been removed from YouTube, the opening of the DiC series, THE WACKY WORLD OF TEX AVERY, is still available on YouTube. If this is any indication of YouTube’s future, you may as well stick a fork in ‘em because they’re done.

UPDATE: Some really intelligent posts are turning up about this Youtube issue. Tony Mines of Spite Your Face Productions, has a post about the terrific manner in which his company has dealt with their cartoons turning up on YouTube. And here’s another great post from ‘J.C. Loophole’ that describes the situation from a collector’s perspective. Studios would be wise to read his thoughts – especially the last paragraph – and discover how consumers feel about these classic cartoons.