Buck is an incredible design studio that uses animation, anime, and visual effects to create commercials, I.D.’s, and short films for a variety of clients.
They’ve recently completed two jobs for Toyota’s viral Scion ad campaign, Want2BSquare, that are well worth watching: the CG/traditional Tower of Grantville and the stop motion Three Years. Advertising money well spent.
Explore Buck’s website to see their absolutely amazing sample reels.
Animator Marv Newland dropped us a note about his new art project/website, Marvcards, which he says is part of “a little film in the works.” That’s what I like about Marv, he’s always pushing the envelope—or in this case, postcards.
The journalism trade magazine, Editor and Publisher is reporting that the three cartoonists reported to be Pulitzer Award finalists all do animation:
What do Nick Anderson, Walt Handelsman, and Mike Thompson (his latest cartoon above) have in common?
They are the three names leaked to E&P’s Joe Strupp as likely finalists for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. And, as E&P has reported on several occasions, all three are part of a growing group of print cartoonists who also do online political animations.
“The profession is abuzz with this,” one cartoonist told E&P today. This cartoonist (not Anderson, Handelsman, or Thompson) added that he heard all three possible finalists submitted animations with their print Pulitzer portfolios.
This is the first year that video, audio, and other new online entries havebeen accepted by the Pulitzers. (Online text and online still images were previously accepted.)
Anderson, a 2005 Pulitzer winner, is with the Houston Chronicle and the Washington Post Writers Group. Handelsman, a 1997 Pulitzer winner, is with Newsday of Melville, N.Y., and Tribune Media Services. And Thompson, a 2006 Pulitzer finalist, is with the Detroit Free Press and Copley News Service.
(Thanks, Lou Spirito)
There is an important Disney history triple-play going on at three of our favorite blogs.
Michael Sporn got the ball rolling last year by posting the first 23 pages of the animator drafts for Pinocchio (1940). These are the sequence by sequence breakdowns of who animated each shot, scene by scene. Start here to read the earliest scenes.
Hans Perk at A Film L.A. picked up the ball and continued this project by posting the rest of the draft, (backtrack from here), posting several new pages each day.
Mark Mayerson is taking this information and visualizing it into “mosaics”: illustrating each shot with a frame grab, identifying the animators, and offering insightful commentary for each sequence. (Mayerson has previously done this, based on Perk’s collection of drafts, for several shorts including Mother Goose Goes Hollywood, Symphony Hour and Plutopia).
Now, Michael Sporn has now begun posting the original storyboards for the film.
This is a treasure trove of information for one of the undeniable classics of animation. It’s also a great example of what the Internet can do—bringing together information from three sources, in different parts of the world, that now allow us to study the individual work of the artists who brought this masterpiece to life.
Though mentioned on the Brew back in May, I just stumbled upon a copy of Halas & Batchelor Cartoons today, at my local Barnes and Noble.
First off, this book is a must-have. John Halas himself was one of the world’s great animators and producers. He was also a pioneering cartoon historian and was one of the founders of ASIFA and the Annecy Animation Festival. Joy Batchelor was an amazing artist, designer and business woman. Together they created Britain’s largest animation studio creating hundreds of films, from experimental avant-garde works to commercials, full length feature films (Animal Farm) and TV series (Do-Do the Kid from Outer Space, among others). 3-D, stop motion, CG and practically every other technique available was tried in their fifty year career together.
The book itself, compiled by daughter Vivien Halas and historian Paul Wells, covers their entire history thoroughly–the personal side and the professional–with numerous illustrations and photographs and a bonus DVD featuring seven of their best short films. The art and images are especially well chosen and a delight to look at. This book covers an important piece of animation history and two pioneers who should never be forgotten. Amazon.com has it in stock at discount. Buy it.
We’ve highlighted this new trend before. The high-end, urban fashion vinyl dolls not aimed at the kids or the Disneyland family crowd. From the same Japanese figure maker (Medi Com Toy Corp) who produced the vintage Mickey and Oswald vinyls (mentioned here), here’s an interesting looking pirate Mickey Mouse figurine (above right), a follow up to the companys previous figure, from last summer, where Mickey was molded in homage to the punk band, The Clash.
We’ve come along way since the days of Charlotte Clark.
(Thanks, Mika Tolvanen)
It’s rare for this website to promote a visit to Disneyland twice within the same week, but we’ve just recieved word from artist Kevin Kidney that, in addition to the Pirates of The Caribbean art exhibit (which Kevin is a part of), the park quietly opened a new exhibit in the Disney Gallery (above the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction) showcasing many of the great Disney Western Publishing book illustrations from the 1950s and 60s. The original paintings on display are among the cream of the crop of Disney book illustration–of any time–with so many of these images permanently ingrained in our memory from childhood. Kevin says:
Viewing these in person is a real treat. The artists represented include John Hench, Al Dempster, Retta Scott Worcester, Campbell Grant, Al White, Dick Kelsey, and several others. There hasn’t been much advertising for this exhibit, but the display is sure to excite a lot of artists who grew up with these beautiful books. In addition, many of the images are available for purchase as “print on demand” reproductions through the Disney Gallery.
Here is the link to Disneyland’s official site, though there’s not
much information on the artists and history, unfortunately.
A few weeks ago I posted about Chuck McCann and mentioned his memorable voice work as Sonny and Gramps in the original 1960s Cocoa Puffs cereal commercials. At the time, I couldn’t find any on the internet to link to, but thanks to our pal J.J. Sedelmaier we were able to place several on You Tube ourselves. These spots were animated by the great Jan Svochak (1926-2006), who was best known for some of the early Hawaiian Punch commercials.
It looks like he had a lot of fun animating these.
What do Brad Bird, Bill Plympton, Mel Blanc, Pinto Colvig, Carl Barks, Matt Groening, Basil Wolverton and Will Vinton have in common?
They all came from Oregon. Film historian Dennis Nyback has been running an animation festival there all month long, highlighting these local talents as well as the entire history of animation. There are incredible shows all week, leading to grand finale on Thursday March 15th at Portland’s historic Hollywood Theatre. The program that night will include classic shorts in 35mm by Jan Svankmajer, John Hubley, Mike Judge, Marv Newland, Will Vinton, Bill Plympton, John Lasseter (pictured above left), Barry Purves (above right) and, believe it or not, Paul J. Smith (center image).
The show starts at 7:15 PM. Admission: $6.00. Tickets can be purchased online at hollywoodtheatre.org
Here’s an oddity.
I found a copy of cartoonist Chuck Thorndyke’s 1939 book The Business of Cartooning: The Success Stories of the World’s Greatest Cartoonists. In it, he profiles three dozen print cartoonists (mainly artists of newspaper strips, magazine gags and editorial cartoons), with caricatures by Thorndyke. Under a subsection for Animated Cartoonists, Thorndyke profiles only three animators. He devotes a whole page to Walt Disney, that’s understandable — but some some unknown reason, from all the animators to choose from in 1939, he singles out Fleischer’s Roland “Doc” Crandall and Jack Mercer.
What? What about Max or Dave Fleischer? Paul Terry? Walter Lantz? Why not Hugh Harman? It’s great to learn a little more about Crandall and Mercer, but it seems a bit odd. My guess is he knew Crandall and Mercer personally. Perhaps owed them a favor. Here’s the spread devoted to animated cartoonists. It’s not particularly well written, but a few bits of odd information can be gleaned from it.
Here’s a reason to visit Disneyland next weekend. Michelle and Amanda (aka The Girls Productions) will be doing a signing Sunday March 18th from 9-11:30 in the Disneyland Gallery above the Pirates Of The Caribbean attraction. This is to commemorate the 40th Anniversay of the ride. There will be some cool new merchandise available and one-of-a-kind art for sale. The Girls will be joined by artist Jeff Granito, and Disney Legends Alice Davis, X Atencio, Bob Gurr, Harriet Burns and Blaine Gibson.
Here’s a link with more info.
Actress Geena Davis spoke at the National Conference for Media Reform in January, discussing her new foundation, See Jane. This group seeks to reduce gender stereotypes, and encourages an increase of female characters in the media–particularly in children’s media. In her speech, she discussed the history of female cartoon characters. Although her facts may not be completely accurate, she certainly makes a valid point. Her speech was broadcast this morning on public radio’s Democracy Now!.
DAVIS: “Do you remember the kinds of stuff that they made for us, for kids, in the oldie old days? Let’s see, the first animation, of course, was Disney’s Minnie Mouse and… Daisy Duck, who didn’t really do much at all, except ask to go shopping, I think. There were a lot of Hanna-Barbera cartoons — Magilla Gorilla, Wally Gator, George of the Jungle — virtually no female characters. I had a vague recollection that Yogi Bear had a girlfriend, and I searched and searched, and I finally found her, Cindy Bear, as you all remember…”
“…On the Looney Tunes website, they list twelve characters, and only one of them is female, but it’s the great one. It’s the one you all love and remember the best: Granny. She’s the one who owns Tweety, and she has to leave so that the story can happen.”
Geena rips into the Smurfs, Judy Jetson, Winnie The Pooh as well. It’s very entertaining. The whole transcript is posted at the Democracy Now! website, and you can also download a streaming video of the speech.
As a follow up to my posting a 1943 Look Magazine article on George Pal, Brew reader Kevin Kidney sends us this April 1944 Coronet Magazine article. Lots of neat things to look at here, including famed sculpter Wah Chang (in picture #3), and the fact that they are making Jasper Goes Hunting, the one with a cameo by Bugs Bunny. Click on thumbnails below to view at full size.
Dutch animator Paul Driessen will make a rare Los Angeles area appearance next week, on Friday March 16th.
Driessen will do an Q & A at the UCLA James Bridges Theatre following a screening of some of his best work. The program begins at 7pm and there will be a reception after the screening. The whole evening is free (though parking is $8.00 in Lot 3 and you may need to RSVP). See you there!
Once again, Brewmaster Jerry Beck will open his big mouth and blab about classic cartoons on radio this Saturday afternoon, March 10th.
I’ll be on in the second hour (2pm Eastern, 1pm Central, 11am Pacific) on Movie Talk with Dave DuBos. It originates out of BizTalk 990 AM in New Orleans, and you can listen to a live stream on your computer.
