Once each year at the DeMille Barn in Hollywood, the Animation Guild, ASIFA-Hollywood and Women In Animation present An Afternoon of Remembrance, “a non-denominational celebration of departed friends from our animation community”.

This year the event takes place on Saturday, March 3rd, at 1pm (A reception precedes the memorial at 12 noon). Tributes will be paid to many, including:

Karen Aqua, Jordan Belson, Robert Breer, Vincent Cafarelli, Don Christiansen, Cornelius “Corny” Cole, Del Connell, Ray Dieter, Norm Gottfredson, Steve Jobs, Bill Justice, Earl Kress, Dorse Lanpher, Dwayne McDuffie, Dan Mills, Barney Posner, Hal Silvermintz, Paul Somner and others.

The Afternoon of Remembrance is free of charge and is open to all. No RSVPs necessary. Food and refreshments, 12 noon, Memoriams, 1 pm. The Hollywood Heritage Museum (Lasky-DeMille Barn) is located at 2100 N. Highland Ave. (across from Hollywood Bowl) in Hollywood, California.

Director Carlos Lopez Estrada has been working ten months on Bear for Venice, California based 3 Round Burst Productions.

CREDITS
Boy: Garren Stitt
Directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada
Producers: Andrea Riveron, Sarah Lawson and Christian Heuer
EP: Edgar Romero for 3RB
Director of Photography: Larkin Seiple
Production Design: Tyler Jensen
Editor: Trevor Durtschi
VFX Supervisor: Diego Dominguez
Sound Design: Matt Schwartz
Original Score: John W. Snyder and Johnathan Snipes

Sheridan College student Aminder Dhaliwal created this sweet graduation film to complete her studies last year. She’s currently working as a Storyboard Revisionist at Nickelodeon Animation Studios. Her blog is worth a look too.

(Thanks, Dana Terrace)

If you ever wondered what your favorite childhood cartoon characters might look like having sex, or doing something nasty, wonder no more.

Out of Context Animation is a Tumblr site that posts unique frames from innocent animated films, which out of context could possibly be interpreted as something incredibly obscene. Here’s a couple of examples from the site below (click thumbnails to enlarge image). Mickey, Porky, Spongebob, Inspector Gadget… no one is spared. Nothing not-safe-for-work, but actually quite funny… or at least I think so.

Don’t “Skip” this nice little student film, with a nod to Buster Keaton, from Sarah Jolley at Vancouver Film School.

The animated alphabet in film. Atlanta based Evan Seitz presents his love “letter” to cinema. How many film titles can you name?

Studio Ghibli’s The Secret World of Arrietty opens today and Disney is quite excited about it. It’s the biggest US release of a Ghibli film (1200 screens), and the feature will be shown in selected theatres in Japanese with subtitles, as well as the more common English dub. The press reviews are looking good – The LA Times says the film is “imeccable and pure”; The Village Voice calls it “pure magic”.

As longtime fan, follower and one-time distributor of Ghibli films allow me to add my two-cents and say that Arrietty is one my personal favorites from the Ghibli factory. It’s a gentle film, a beautiful film and, yes, it may have the most accessible story for Western audiences to grasp. It should be, as it is a relatively faifthful adaptation of Mary Norton’s 1952 book, The Borrowers. Who knew this would fit so perfect into the Miyazaki canon?

The comments on this post are open only to those who have seen the film and wish to share their opinion of it. If you haven’t seen it yet, I urge you to go see it this weekend – and tell us what you think.

Three cheers to everyone involved with The Simpsons for achieving the unheard of goal of producing 500 episodes! There has been a lot of deserved hype this week in honor of this milestone – I especially love the $500,000 contribution by Matt Groening to UCLA’s Animation program, an endowment which will “allow visiting master artists to teach classes” and “bring working professionals with wide-ranging expertise” to work with students. Groening also got a star this week on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. All well and good.

But someone explain to me these looney “Simpson’s fashions” (below) which made their debut this week in New York. Designer Jeremy Scott, whose previous designs were inspired by The Flinstones and Mickey Mouse, unveiled an entire line devoted to The Simpsons which – as much as I love Bart – are embarassingly bad.

Regardless, I’ll be tuning in this Sunday for the 500th time and, like these fashions above, I’m sure the show will get many laughs. Congratulations Matt, and to the crew at Film Roman.

Once again it’s melody time on Cartoon Brew with our periodic selection of new music videos. First up…

Halfway by Rayons

We begin with this lovely film by Jason Malcolm Brown and Aya Yamasaki Brown (aka Overture, who did the previous Bless) for a Japanese musician named Rayons.

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Robbers by The Laureates

Next up, Chicago-based director/animator/illustrators Sara Jean Cough and Joey Potts created this mostly-live action video for local band The Laureates.

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My Flea Has Dogs by Casper Babypants

Our friends in New Zealand, Mukpuddy Animation, fashioned some bouncy animation for this catchy kids tune.

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Buy Me by Bev Lee Harling

And finally, this cute cut-out style video directed and animated by London based Zach Ellams.

Tyler Carter produced and directed this beautiful short at BYU’s Center for Animation. It features a sublime use of 2D and CG techniques with spectacular effects animation. The story is good too. For a behind the scenes making-of video, click here.

(Thanks, Aaron Ludwig)

Two Dreamworks publicity pieces, created for display at Toy Fair (currently going on in New York), have been leaked online and they look intriguing.

First up, a look at the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and Jack Frost by way of William Joyce’s Guardians of Childhood. Dreamworks’ adaptation, Rise of The Guardians, will be released this year on November 21st.

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Next, Chris Sanders is following up his firstDreamworks success—How To Train Your Dragon—with a caveman adventure, The Croods, due out next year – March 22, 2013. Can’t wait!

(via Bleeding Cool)

BREWMASTERS NOTE: This week Cartoon Brew takes a closer look at the five Academy Award nominated animated shorts. Each day at 10am EST/7am PST we will post an exclusive interview with the director(s) of one of the films. Today, we discuss Pixar’s La Luna with its writer/director Enrico Casarosa:

Jerry: Enrico, how long were you at Pixar before La Luna?

Enrico: Roughly 8 years. I’ve been there 10 years this month, and it was a couple of years ago that I pitched La Luna.

Jerry: You worked on Ratatouille…

Enrico: Yes, I worked on Ratatouille, a little bit on Cars and Up, and then a little bit on Cars 2. It sounds funny, but in eight years I was mostly on two movies. But then, of course, these movies are marathon. (laughter)

Jerry: What is the pitch process for shorts at Pixar? Is John Lasseter open at all times or does he takes pitches for shorts a couple of times a year? How does that work?
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