Animation producer Lydia Holness has teamed with directors Jonathan Garin and Naomi Nishimura to launch a new design/animation studio, PandaPanther, based in New York. This G4 ID spot is representative of their work – but check out their website for pure psychedelic eye candy.
Roughly a month from now, on Saturday March 31st, the American Cinematheque and The Japan Foundation are presenting a double bill of two new animated features at the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Blvd.
Aachi & Ssipak from Korea will screen at 11am. According to a synopsis found on koreanfilm.org the film is “about a futuristic world powered entirely by human feces. With the government anxious to control this sole, important source of energy, they install special sensors on its citizens’ anuses to monitor production, while controlling the populace by distributing addictive popsicles.” Sounds good to me. Watch the very cool first five minutes here. I can’t wait to see this on the big screen.
A reception with food and drink follows at 12:30pm and a second film, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, the new feature from the Japan’s Madhouse studio, will screen at 1:30pm.
After the second film will be a panel discussion with the filmmakers (the directors of both films are scheduled to attend) moderated by producer Ken Duer (The Animatrix). This entire event is FREE! You must RSVP at www.jflalc.org and pick up your tickets at the door on the day of the show.
Once again this Thursday night – and every first Thursday of the each month – Jerry Beck will be the opening act for Janet Klein & Her Parlor Boys at the Steve Allen Theatre in Hollywood.
Janet and her boys play authentic 20s jazz music live, and I start the proceedings by providing about 45 minutes of vintage musical shorts and cartoons in glorious 16mm monophonic movie projection. It’s a lot of fun – and if you’re in the area, I highly recommend you check out the show. Janet and her band are amazing! Here’s a clip of Janet teaching you how to play Tonight You Belong To Me on the Ukulele. Come on down!
Thursday, March 1st, 8:00 pm
The Steve Allen Theatre
4773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood
(West of Vermont, across from Barnsdale Park)
$15 323-666-4268 for reservations
More info at JanetKlein.com
Here are a few more caricatures from Jules Engel’s estate, courtesy of USC’s Christine Panushka, Jules’s executor. Christine wants to share them with the animation community. Perhaps someone will recognize the style and can identify the artists who drew these. Click on each to see a full-size version.
These three caricatures, above, are of Jules Engel enacting part of a storyboard on Bambi.
Don’t strain your eyes. Click here to see a full size version of the first one, the second and the third. Christine Panushka, Professor of Animation and Digital Arts at USC, has been cataloging Engel’s archives and papers, and has been finding some amazing things. Christine says:
I have been carefully sorting through Jules estate trying to preserve any relevant materials. Besides these wonderful caricatures, the archive documents Jules’ artistic practices, his teaching processes, his time spent working in the animation industry, for Charles Mintz, Disney, UPA and Format Films, and his personal life.CalArts and I have agreed that we will work to place the archive at an institution where the materials will be preserved properly for the future and be available for scholars.
Christine will keep the Brew informed as to where this material ends up. In the meantime, we’d love to know who did these sketches. If you have any idea whose work this may be, email us or post a comment below.
There have been many cartoon characters based upon… uhh, shall we say, doo-doo.
From Spumco’s Nutty, the Friendly Dump to South Park’s Mr. Hankey, and not forgetting doodie.com, Burgerlog and Winnie the Pooh (Winnie is a doo-doo, take my word for it).
Now Manny Galan (who in real life is Director of Animation for Nickelodeon’s on-air promotions) has just created Dookie-Poo, and it’s a real contender for biggest brown lump of the year. (I mean that in a good way). Galan says:
This whole endeavor is just my way of keeping as much control over one of my own creations as possible. And doing something outside of the NICKELODEON system.
His characters are charming and the website is a lot of good clean fun. There’s a CG music video by upstate NY studio Virtual Persuasion, a cool Theatre section filled with small animations and short films, an interactive fun page and of course, a blog. Give it a look.
Happy Feet won. Does it matter?
The sad fact is, it may.
I won’t deny that Happy Feet was a well made, entertaining film. I liked it personally. It does qualify under the definition of an animated film. But it doesn’t respresent the medium.
Unfortunately, the win by Happy Feet will reinforce to the powers-that-be in Hollywood that motion capture is a valid subsitute for authentic character animation. That live action writers, directors and actors can make a “cartoon” without the skills honed by decades of accomplishment created by Walt Disney and his successors.
Oscar winning animator and Academy member Gene Deitch sent us his thoughts:
So, exactly as I feared, a Performance-Capture movie has won the Oscar, masquerading as an Animated Film.HAPPY FEET is a good movie, full of charm, and with something important to say. Bravo!
But now, what about us? To paraphrase what General Douglas MacArthur once said, “Old animators never die, they’ll just fade away.” I just read that Disney will be setting up a new studio, dedicated to performance-capture production. I’m personally lucky. I’ve had five of my shorts nominated, one which actually won the Oscar. So I’ve had it.
Even better, my long-time client – nearly 40 years – Weston Woods/Scholastic, is virtually immune from mo-cap and even CGI, as they produce short films adapted from children’s picture books. Practically the only way they can be made is with traditional drawn animation. So my harangues against accepting performance-capture films for the Animation Feature Film category have not been in any way an effort to save my personal skin. I grieve for our craft in general, and for those skilled traditional animators, who will increasingly be shunted off into special-effects work. Their only hope of getting back into the big time of feature film animation will be if a powerful enough producer, with a powerful enough story, brave enough to finance a graphically advanced production – something that can only be drawn – immune from mo-cap – who will give frame-by-frame animation a chance to live. Aardman is still clinging to clay, and they may survive, but where is there a future for feature-length drawn animation?.
May the Power of Pegholes be with us!
My first thought last night was that this is the first time the Annie Award didn’t portend the Oscar winner. That made me a bit prouder of my fellow Asifa-Hollywood members who do indeed honor films created by actual animators.
I agree with most of Gene’s points – and share his discomfort with this new technique. To clarify, Happy Feet is an animated film – but it’s not a cartoon. To paraphrase Gene, where is the future of the feature length cartoon?
The plus side? 2007 is an exciting year for authentic animated features. Between Brad Bird’s latest, Shrek III, Bee Movie, the stop motion Coraline and the hand drawn Simpsons there seems to be some potential – both at the box office and with the Academy – to reverse Hollywood’s mind in this matter.
Perhaps this win will cause Warner Bros. to now take animation a little more seriously, after a history of botched releases (notably The Iron Giant and The Ant Bully). Perhaps this will inspire John Lasseter and the revived 2-D team at Disney to really prove themselves, to blow us away with something that mo-cap can never be – and force Hollywood to return the art of animation to the hand of the artist.
Let’s hope.
In case you haven’t heard, at the Academy Award Ceremonies tonight the Oscar for Best Animated Short was won by The Danish Poet.
The Oscar for Best Animated Feature was won by Happy Feet.
I just came across this trade ad from a 1945 issue of Box Office Magazine. Click on thumbnail image at left to see it in full size.
Now this is the way to sell a cartoon short – with Sex. Apparently MGM was hot to promote “Red” and had big plans for her. The ad reprints a trade article claiming Red Hot Riding Hood had 15,000 bookings – with more to come! The article wrongly credits the film’s direction to Fred Quimby (Avery’s name is no where in sight). Imogene Lynn, of Artie Shaw’s orchestra, is credited as Red’s vocalist in The Shooting Of Dan McGoo.
If you’re interested in seeing Dan McGoo, the short will be released on DVD as part of Tex Avery’s Droopy – The Complete Theatrical Collection on May 15th.
Here’s a heads up on two unusual animation screenings on Friday night, March 2nd—one in New York, the other in Los Angeles.
In New York, Marv Newland is appearing in person a retrospective of his amazing International Rocketship short films. The screening includes such classics as Lupo The Butcher, Anijam, Pink Komkommer and many more – projected in 35mm! This event will occur at the Two Boots Pioneer Theatre on East 3rd Street near Avenue A, at 7pm.
In L.A. Laemmle’s Sunset 5 in West Hollywood is screening the independent stop motion feature Blood Tea and Red String. Since filmmaker Christiane Cegavske lives in L.A. there’s an excellent chance she’ll be there in person. It plays at midnight on both Friday March 2nd and Saturday March 3rd.
Cool McCool was not a great cartoon show. In fact, it was downright poor. Created by Bob Kane (of Batman and Courageous Cat fame), and produced by King Features’ Al Brodax (Yellow Submarine), it originally aired on NBC Saturday mornings in 1966. It’s not bad enough to qualify for my Comic Con Worst Cartoons screenings, and it’s neither good enough to recommend. I could never warm up to the character – I think it’s either his phony mustasche or his lame Jack Benny personality, or perhaps his outdated appearance of what a spy should be. It just doesn’t quite work. This clip on You Tube will give you a taste. A boxed set of the complete series on DVD comes out on March 13th (they sent me an advance copy) and, sadly, I cannot recommend it.
I say “sadly” because the DVD is practically a tribute to my favorite New York City kid-show host Chuck McCann. Chuck (pictured in the center, above) did almost all the voices on the show – and he’s great. Bob McFadden (left, was McCool) and Carol Corbett (right, another New York kiddie show host) did all the other voices and the set features commentary, interviews, classic clips and bonus material all paying tribute to McCann (perhaps best known outside of New York as the voice of Sonny and Gramps in those Cocoa Puffs commercials – and his co-starring role on Far Out Space Nuts). If you grew up watching McCann in the 1960s you might want this DVD just to relive some cherished memories with an old friend. Otherwise, you can forget it.
As a follow-up to yesterday’s image of Mickey Mouse Liver Paste, Brew reader Michael Levine sent in this picture of Popeye Paté from Spain.
This was posted on Boing Boing but I couldn’t resist linking to it here. Mickey Mouse Liver Paste from Croatia. Yecch!
The Japan Media Arts Festival has announced the winners of it’s 10th annual competition and have set up a very nice website offering video of the honored films. Check out the diversity of animation techniques — particularly Alexander Petrov’s moving painting, My Love; the fun designs of Bloomed Words; and whatever-the-technique of Lightning Doodle Project’s Pika Pika.
If you happen to be in Japan between February 24th anad March 3rd, check out the free exhibits, panels and screenings at the Tokyo Metropolitan Photography Museum.
Cartoonist David King has posted on his blog several interesting pages from a 1950 book, The Complete Guide to Professional Cartooning. How Animated Cartoons Are Made by Fred Quimby (!) is an illustrated behind-the-scenes article, with photos of the staff, including Tex Avery and Scott Bradley, Hanna, Barbera and many other artists, working primarily on Old Rockin’ Chair Tom (1948). Very cool.
