Author Archives: Jerry Beck

The Art of Joseph Mugnaini

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VFX artist artist Ryan Leasher is writing a book about illustrator and animation artist Joseph Mugnaini. His book, Wilderness of the Mind: The Art of Joseph Mugnaini, contains a Forward by Ray Bradbury and is currently set for publication in early 2010 from Art of Fiction.

Mugnaini is best known in animation circles for his work on Icarus Montgolfier Wright, the 1962 animated short produced by Format Films, which received an Academy Award nomination. All the artwork for the film was done by Mugnaini, based on an original story by Ray Bradbury; It was produced by Jules Engel, directed by Osmund Evans with narration by James Whitmore and Ross Martin. The painting above is from the film.

Leasher tells us that he obtained “a lot of materials relating to Icarus. Lee Klynn had a great number of items–including orignal artwork, the shooting dialogue script, etc. We’ve currently slated approximately 50 pages in the book for Icarus artwork – including concept artwork for post-Icarus projects with Format that never materialized..”

Other notable animation projects for Mugnaini were Concept, a pitch film for the Hollywood Museum in 1964, on which he did all the artwork; as with Icarus it was a static art, animated camera affair but with better use of multi-plane cameras; and Room for Heroes, a 1971 Walt Disney educational film about American folk heroes for which Joe did background paintings

Ryan also tells us:

We’ve had unrestricted access to the estate’s archives and, most importantly, to Joe’s journals. What we’ve found is nothing short of amazing. The book will include many pieces from Joe’s journals and give an unparalleled view into Joe’s creative process.

Joe is best know as the illustrator for many of Ray Bradbury’s books, including their first collaboration on Golden Apples of the Sun, the iconic Fahrenheit 451, The October Country, and my personal favorite The Halloween Tree. No previous book has come even close to showing the depth of the collaboration between Joe and Ray Bradbury. We’ve got stunning concept work, including the very first and never-before published Fahrenheit 451 sketches. They were discovered during the research, hidden in a scrapbook in the estate archives, safely tucked away by Joe’s wife Ruth some 45 years ago.

The book will include Joe’s views and teachings on art. Although Joe was best known to many as an artist and illustrator, his greatest impact was as a teacher. His focus on the structure of form has found purchase in animation studies; Walt Stanchfield references Joe’s approach to form and structure in his lecture series.

We’ve spent a lot of time making sure that the reproductions will be as close to the original pieces as possible, with an emphasis on color reproduction. The book will also present many 1:1 reproductions of segments of Joe’s larger pieces so the reader can appreciate and closely examine Joe’s mind-blowing line work.

Sounds like a book we have to have. For updates, check the Wilderness of the Mind website.

Monte Schulz on Stu’s Show

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Charles Schulz’ son, Monte Schulz, will be the guest all this week on Stu’s Show, the internet radio show you can listen to each day at 4pm.

Monte will discuss his new novel, This Side of Jordan, then talk about what it was really like growing up in the Schulz household in Sebastapol. Monte is very grateful to Cartoon Brew because, as you’ll hear on the show, he owes his novel being published to the fact that the owner of Fantagraphics Books reads this site. When Monte was posting comments about the Michaelis book two years ago, the publisher saw his posts and contacted him. Monte sent him his manuscript and Fantagraphics bought it and four other novels almost immediately.

Tune in to hear right here!

A rare Starevich article

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Another purchase I made at Cinecon this past Labor Day, was an entire stack of Films In Review magazines, the entire run from 1956 through 1959. I’ve been going through them slowly and enjoying them throughly, finding many great insights and articles about the history of film. There was so little written about animation in these pages that I was surprised to find this piece on pioneer stop motion animator Ladislas Starevich in the April 1958 issue. It’s a nice overview of his career, written while Starevitch was still alive and working. Since I couldn’t find it posted anywhere else on the web, I figured it was my duty – in the interests of history – to add it here myself. (Click thumbnails below to enlarge)

For those who need to brush up on their Starevich I highly recommend the DVD collection, Cameraman’s Revenge & Other Fantastic Tales. In the meantime, here is the one of his classics, from 1933, The Mascot:

If you haven’t seen Sita yet…

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…you have no excuse. You can watch it this coming Saturday October 17th, if you have a satellitte dish, on LINK TV, DIRECTV Channel 375 and DISH Network Channel 9410 at 7:30am Eastern/4:30am Pacific.

Or you can watch Sita Sings the Blues in its entirety right now on LINK TV’s website. Or check Nina Paley’s page for downloads, festival screenings and future broadcast playdates.

(Thanks, Lee Burack)

Lightheaded

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Drips of humanoid wax worship the fire that gave them life, and then risk everything to investigate a mysterious object that lands beyond the next horizon. This is a 40 second trailer for Mike Dacko’s 5-minute short, Lightheaded, currently playing festivals around the country (though sadly not in Ottawa this week). Dacko is an animator at Disney’s ImageMovers Digital Studio (A Christmas Carol).

CTN Expo Update

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Last month we told you about the animators expo shaping up for this November in Burbank being organized by former Disney character designer/animator Tina Price. In addition to the folks attending we mentioned in the last post, we have these updates and additions to announce:

• Pixar Art Director Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi, Laika Art Director Lou Romano, Sony Art Director Andy Gaskill, and Disney Art Director Dave Goetz discussing the art of Color Scripting. Moderated by LA Times animation critic and author Charles Solomon.

• Pixar comes to CTN-X with Andrew Gordon (Pixar/Spline Doctors), character designers Derek Thompson and Jason Deamer, art director Scott Morse and Pixar recruiter Pam Zissimos who will be participating in Raising the Bar Recruiting, looking for Story Artists.

• Live art demonstrations by Sean Galloway (Got Cheeks?), Marshall Vandruff, Kent Melton, Peter de Sève, Eric Goldberg and Mike Mignola.

• A screening of The Secret of Kells and Banjo the Woodpile Cat on Saturday night. 3-day pass holders admitted first.

• An artist contest sponsored by Corel and Wacom. Artwork is executed on site at CTN-X and judged by top creative talent. Two categories Pro and Non-Pro and the winners of each win a free software package of Painter from Corel and an Intuos 4 tablet.

• Also, Cartoon Brew will be holding a contest for 2 free room nights at the event hotel plus a 3-day pass. Includes all panels and speakers, Raising the Bar Recruiting, Speed Talent Portfolio Reviews and CTN-X@nite schmoozing and connecting.

• Also note: as of Oct 1st the exhibitor floor is sold out.

The CTN Expo will be held at the Burbank Marriott Convention Center – located across the street from the Burbank Airport and an Amtrak Station – on Friday November 20th through Sunday, November 22nd.

Early bird tickets are $25 for the exhibit floor only, $50 for a day pass and $125 for a 3-day pass. Early bird deadline is Sept. 30, 2009. Discounted rates are available to students, active military and professional industry organizations. Space is strictly limited at this groundbreaking event. Click here for more information or to register or call (800) 604-2238 and mention the special member discount code (BrewX09) to obtain an extra 10% off any 1-day or 3-day professional/general passport.

Happy Halloween from JibJab

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Here’s the scariest thing you’ll see all month:

This Jib Jab Halloween Sendable incorporates new technology which allows users to cast themselves inside cool props (like a Frankenstein head or the Wolfman) and color correct their faces if they choose. That’s Uncle Walt as Frankenstein, June Foray (as the Bride), Ward Kimball (as Dracula) and John Lasseter unrecognizable as the Wolfman. Try it yourself here.

P.S. Artist Justin Parpan did all the backgrounds for this piece and just posted a personal blog with his artwork here.

(Thanks, Evan Spiridellis)

Contest #2: El SuperBeasto

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CONTEST CLOSED! The first six readers who provided a correct answer to this question in the comments section below will receive a copy of the new DVD feature, Rob Zombie presents The Haunted World of El SuperBeasto (courtesy Starz Media/Film Roman). This film is for adults only and will require the winners to state they are over 18.

Paul Giamatti plays Dr. Satan in The Haunted World of El SuperBeasto. Name any other animated film, animated TV series or independent animated short Giamatti has loaned his voice to.

See the answers in our comments section below. CONTEST CLOSED! NO MORE ANSWERS ACCEPTED!

2009: Five Features for Oscar??

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I was going to write a post about this, but my friend Pete Hammond at the L.A. Times beat me to it.

This has been a pretty good year for animated features and by my count we have fifteen films that are technically qualified for an Academy Award nomination. In order to qualify for five nominees (as opposed the usual 3) the producers of all fifteen of these films must enter their features for nomination. Then a 16th (or better yet, a 17th and 18th) film must qualify – the rules state that five animated features can be nominated if 16 films qualify.

Here are the fifteen that already played (or will play) theatrically this year for at least one week in Los Angeles, in order of release:

1. CORALINE – Focus Features.
2. MONSTERS VS. ALIENS – Dreamworks
3. BATTLE FOR TERRA – Lionsgate.
4. UP – Pixar.
5. ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS – 20th Century Fox.
6. PONYO – Walt Disney Pictures.
7. 9 – Focus Features.
8. CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS – Columbia.
9. EVANGELION: 1.0 – YOU ARE (NOT) ALONE – Funimation.
10. MARY AND MAX – Sundance Selects/IFC.
11. ASTRO BOY – Summit Entertainment.
12. A CHRISTMAS CAROL – Disney.
13. THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX – 20th Century Fox.
14. PLANET 51 – Tri-Star.
15. THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG – Disney.

What, if any, other features are likely to open before now and the end of December? Perhaps The Secret of Kells, which had only one festival showing in LA. but no U.S. distributor that I know of. Perhaps the stop-mo A Town Called Panic, which recently played in NYC, will be given a run in LA? Maybe Disney, who are playing the direct-to-video feature Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure for one week at El Capitan in Hollywood, CA, next week, will submit it for Academy consideration?

With ten (most likely all live action) films being nominated in the Best Feature category, it only seems fair that the animated feature race is upped to five contenders. Personally, I think there are more than enough good films this year worthy of a shot at the prize.