“They gave me a gun, a pick, and a hand grenade, and said ‘Win at any cost,’ and I said ‘Right.’ There’s nothing I love more than winning…”

Indie filmmaker Nick Fox-Gieg has great taste in choosing material for his shorts, and More Than Winning, based on a story by Susan Murray, continues that streak.

This Thursday, January 12, Trigg Ison Fine Art (9009 Beverly Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90048) will host the opening reception for “American Optimism: Celebrating the LA Art Scene 1935 – 1980.” The show will feature an eclectic mix of artwork by at least a dozen regional artists, including numerous works by Disney and UPA background painter Bob McIntosh, who passed away in 2010. In addition, there will be some newly discovered paintings by another fine artist with a strong animation connection—Oskar Fischinger. There’ll also be some pieces by Jirayr Zorthian, a SoCal painter who didn’t work in animation, but whose work had a strong cartoon aesthetic. Zorthian was friendly with some animators, particularly Ward Kimball. The opening is from 6-9PM, and an RSVP is required by emailing info (at) triggison (dot) com.

Since posting our 2012 animation book preview, I’ve updated the list with additional titles, and one of those books deserves its own post. It’s being released this winter in honor of the 75th anniversary of Disney’s first feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The title of the book is The Fairest One of All: The Making of Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and the author is the esteemed J. B. Kaufman, whose earlier books South of the Border With Disney and Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney (with Russell Merritt) are highly valued for their original research and thoroughness.

In Kaufman’s able hands, this book has easily moved to the top of the heap as one of my most-anticipated animation books of 2012. The book will be published by the Walt Disney Family Foundation Press, and it will be accompanied by an exhibition of Snow White artwork at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, currently scheduled to open in November.

A long-lost version of The Hobbit by animation legend Gene Deitch has resurfaced online in the past few days. Why did Gene produce this 12-minute “animatic” version instead of the feature-length version he’d originally planned with Jiří Trnka? Why did he have just one month to produce it? Why has nobody ever seen it? The crazy circumstances that led to the production are revealed in this piece that Gene wrote on his website. In short, the film was a financial ploy by Deitch’s producer William L. Snyder to earn himself a nice chunk of change. Deitch writes:

The Tolkien estate had now been offered a fabulous sum for the rights, and [William] Snyder’s rights would expire in one month. They were already rubbing their hands together. But Snyder played his ace: to fulfill just the letter of the contract – to deliver a “full-color film” of THE HOBBIT by June 30th. All he had to do was to order me to destroy my own screenplay – all my previous year’s work, and hoke up a super-condensed scenario on the order of a movie preview, (but still tell the entire basic story from beginning to end), and all within 12 minutes running time – one 35mm reel of film. Cheap. I had to get the artwork done, record voice and music, shoot it, edit it, and get it to a New York projection room on or before June 30th, 1966! I should have told him to shove it, but I was basically his slave at the time. It suddenly became an insane challenge.

The rest of the story can be read on Gene’s website. And just for the record, the delightful illustrations in the film were created by Czech illustrator Adolf Born.

(Thanks, Stephen Persing, via Cartoon Brew’s Facebook page)

Wolcott Gibbs was the the drama critic of The New Yorker for many years, but he also wrote about other sorts of stuff, such as this smart take on The Three Caballeros. A lot more of Gibbs’ writing can be found in the new collection Backward Ran Sentences: The Best of Wolcott Gibbs from the New Yorker. There’s also a recent piece about Gibbs written by Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal that sheds light on his quirky personality.

Here’s a batch of recent music videos from around the globe to start off the new year. Remember to keep submitting your videos. We intend to make the music video roundup a regular feature on the Brew.

“My Heart Belongs to You” by Colin Huggins
Video directed by Lev Polyakov (US)

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“Cronache di una marionetta” by Radiochimica
Video directed by Milan Kopasz (Hungary) and Pezze&Bottoni (Italy)

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“Pelican” by The Maccabees
Video directed by by David Wilson (UK)

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“Good Love” by the Whitaker Brothers
Video directed by Malika Whitaker (France)

A few months ago, Colorado-based filmmaker Corrie Francis Parks raised nearly $12,000 through Kickstarter to create her first professional animated short. Afterward she wrote a detailed blog post explaining how she did it. There’s lots of valuable advice in her post, including the importance of setting a realistic fundraising goal and managing the campaign after it’s launched:

Like many artists, I’m not much of a self-promoter, so I had to find ways to keep sharing the project over and over without losing my authenticity. I also wanted to share something meaningful with my potential backers. This meant creating new content by writing project updates, offering special rewards at landmark moments, making some new rewards when the funding flat-lined. One of the sand paintings I created for a special reward. I had 450 people on my email list, and after every email, I saw a jump in the pledges. I asked people to share the project with 2 of their friends in a personal email or phone call. 35% of my backers are people i don’t know, but I’m pretty sure many are a result of those emails and phone calls.

Fundraising is in many ways a full-time job. One of my next-door neighbors recently raised over $40,000 for her film project, but she had to commit a couple months to full-time campaigning. Deciding whether you want to commit the time and effort to raising money is an important decision to make before embarking on any fundraising campaign.

(link to Corrie’s blog via ASIFA-SF newsletter)

Let’s have one more batch of Animated Fragments to close out the year. Fragments has been one of our most popular new features in 2011, and we intend to feature plenty more bits and pieces of animation in the new year.

Lip Sync Test by Luca Tóth (Hungary/UK)

Bonne Année! by Rafael Sommerhalder (Switzerland)

Tribute to Emir Kusturica by Pavel Pogudin

2 Comedians by Spencer Morin (US)

Petit Cul by Gabriel Harel (France)