I had a wonderful time in the City of Orange yesterday, guest speaking at Bill Kroyer’s class at Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. While there, I visited a few antique shops in town and came across this vintage public school reader, In The City and On The Farm (1940). What caught my attention in the book was a 3-page chapter (thumbnails below, click to enlarge) about going to the movies to see a cartoon - Papa Penguin. It’s rare enough to find any acknowledgement of animated films in American culture at the time, even rarer in an elementary school text book. And this one sort-of predicts the spate of Penguin films to come (Happy Feet, Surf’s Up, et al). The third page even illustrates, via film strip, how the cartoon tells its story through pictures - just like a storyboard. I bought it (cheap) and decided to share - enjoy!

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the title Tangled isn’t the only thing being changed about Disney’s production of Rapunzel - it’s repositioning the film to attract a male audience.

From the article:

The makeover of “Rapunzel” is more than cosmetic. Disney can ill afford a moniker that alienates half the potential audience, young boys, who are needed to make an expensive family film a success.

Concluding it had too many animated girl flicks in its lineup, Disney has shelved its long-gestating project “The Snow Queen,” based on the Hans Christian Andersen story. “Snow Queen” would have marked the company’s fourth animated film with a female protagonist, following “The Princess and the Frog,” “Tangled” and Pixar’s forthcoming “The Bear and the Bow,” directed by Pixar’s first female director, Brenda Chapman, and starring Reese Witherspoon.

Since the release of its first movie, “Toy Story,” in 1995, Pixar has uniformly featured male leads in its films, including Buzz and Woody; Mr. Incredible, the middle-aged superhero in “The Incredibles”; and Lightning McQueen, the stock-car star of “Cars.”

Disney’s Tangled open on December 10th, 2010. Below is the latest teaser:

Quick, watch the first five minutes of this before the Academy removes it from You Tube Oops, too late. Watch the clip here.

(Thanks, Matthew Gaastra)

The Oscar winners were announced tonight.

UP won two Academy Awards: It won for BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM and Michael Giacchino won an Oscar for its musical score.

The winner for BEST ANIMATED SHORT was LOGORAMA.

The highlight of the broadcast was a segment featuring lead characters from all five nominated animated films, Coraline, Mr. Fox, Louis the Alligator (from Princess and the Frog), Aisling (from Kells) and Carl & Dug from Up talking about being nominated. We’ll post this as soon as it’s online. In the meantime, congratulations to Pete Docter and Pixar - and let the talkback begin!

(illustration above by Oscar Grillo)

Speaking of the Oscars (isn’t everyone?), when I attended the Academy Feature Animation Symposium the other night I briefly met Bevin Carnes, winner of the 2007 Student Academy Award for Animation (Silver Medal). She made her prize winning film, A Leg Up, while a student at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, and recently posted it on You Tube. Since winning the award, Carnes has since worked for Rhythm and Hues, Disney (on Bolt) and at Blue Sky, as an animator on Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinisaurs. Here’s her film:

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From the top: Today’s Lio (3/7/10) by Mark Tatulli; Ink Pen (3/6/10 and 3/7/10) by Phil Dunlap; Butt Sweat n’ Tears (3/6/10) by Makinita (Andres Silva); and Reality Check (3/6/10) by Dave Whamond.

(Thanks, Jim Lahue and Charles Brubaker)

Writer, director, designer and modeler Heiko van der Scherm took three years to produce his CG short film Descendants. Whoopi Goldberg lent her voice to the project, which has been playing film festivals and winning awards all over the world.