Animation director Steve Moore, who previously posted Duane Crowther’s long-lost student film BLUM BLUM, has posted another amazing rarity on his website. It is an animatic from a 1993 attempt to produce a Betty Boop animated feature. The project was spearheaded by Max Fleischer’s son, Richard Fleischer (who passed away last month), and was to have been directed by Moore.

The animatic is for a musical sequence with Betty and her estranged father Benny. It was boarded by Steve Wahl and features a piano performance by the legendary Jimmy Rowles. The concept piece above was drawn by Fred Cline. Moore recalls that the difficult-to-please Richard Fleischer teared up after watching the reel.

Frederik Du Chau (QUEST FOR CAMELOT, RACING STRIPES) has been hired to “direct” another film. The project he’s ruining this time is Disney’s live-action adaptation of the 1960s cartoon series UNDERDOG. To get an idea of how the animation industry feels about Du Chau’s directing skills, look no further than this blog post.

The upcoming feature TEKKON KINKURITO, scheduled for Japanese release in December 2006, is produced by Studio 4°C, the Japanese animation outfit behind MIND GAME. It is based on the comic BLACK AND WHITE by Taiyo Matsumoto, and is being directed by Michael Arias, a first-time director who was previously a segment producer on THE ANIMATRIX. Pixar story artist Enrico Casarosa saw a portion of the film in Japan last month while visiting the studio, and he speaks highly of it on his blog. A lo-res version of the trailer can be seen HERE. Here’s to hoping that the film isn’t neglected like MIND GAME and actually receives some distribution in the US.

Just a brief update on the status of ANIMATION BLAST #9: I’m almost done with the issue and planning to send it to the Canadian printer in the next couple weeks. It should definitely be out by the end of April. A huge thanks to everybody for their patience.

Here’s something I had to cut from the issue this week. It’s a DePatie-Freleng era thumbnail board by one of the issue’s featured artists, John Dunn (1920-1983). I have no idea whether it was for production (unlikely) or just a personal idea. I also don’t know if there’s more to the board; these three pages are all that exist at the moment. There’s a bitter undercurrent in a lot of Dunn’s humor, and it comes through rather strongly in these boards.

(click on images for larger versions)

If you have an extra ten minutes to spare today, you can spend that time no better than watching the lyrical short HERON AND CRANE (1974) by Russian animation genius Yuri Norstein.

Here is a bit of background about the film that I found online:

Norstein’s third feature is based on a Russian fairy tale. It marked the first of several collaborations among Norstein, his wife, the artist Francesca Yarbusova, and a cameraman Alexander Zhukovsky. To achieve Norstein’s artistic vision, they invented a special piece of equipment which allowed them to animate on layers of glass. Norstein’s original script was not approved by the studio administration. Veteran director Roman Kachanov was assigned to serve as project “supervisor” and write an acceptable script. Unbeknownst to the studio administration, Norstein filmed the original script. Thanks in great part to support from Fyodor Khitruk, Norstein’s HERON AND CRANE – with Norstein credited as co-writer – was approved for distribution after numerous additional clashes with the studio management. Very Popular in the former USSR , the film also won many honors abroad.

A dvd of Yuri Norstsein’s complete works can be purchased from RussianAnimation.com or Amazon. There’s also a fairly new book out about Norstein written by Clare Kitson – YURI NORSTEIN AND TALE OF TALES: AN ANIMATOR’S JOURNEY – which I’ve heard good things about.

Some sick perverted souls in South Korea came up with this piece of Flash animation. It might make you queasy. It might make you hate animation. If you know what’s good for you, just don’t click on this link. Seriously, DO NOT CLICK ON THIS LINK. If you clicked on that last link, then for heaven’s sake, please don’t click on this one HERE! Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
(Thanks?, Karl Cohen)

If Michael Eisner talks and nobody listens, does he still have a talkshow? The debut of Eisner’s new series on CNBC tanked with a 0.0 Nielsen rating and a 0 share on Tuesday night, the lowest rating possible. CONVERSATIONS WITH MICHAEL EISNER lost 82% of the total viewers from its CNBC lead-in, a rerun of the gameshow DEAL OR NO DEAL, and ended up with 95,000 total viewers, including 39,000 adults 25-54 (the network’s desired demo). For the record, most of the show reviews haven’t been very positive. All I can say is that it’s incredibly refreshing to finally see Michael Eisner muck up something that isn’t related to Disney or animation.

UMB is a graduate film created by Israeli animation/broadcast design student Liron Damir at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. The film is set to the song “Flugufrelsarinn” by the Icelandic group Sigur Rós, and it does a commendable job of capturing the otherworldly vibe of the band’s music.
(via hydrocephalic bunny)