Brooklyn animation boutique Awesome and Modest created this new music video for The Mountain Goats track, Estate Sale Sign. In the video, two shape-shifting beasts wage a war over a snow globe – with a brief pause for a moment of tenderness.
Credits
Director : Awesome and Modest
Editor : Sean Donnelly
Animation: Sean Donnelly, Jordan Bruner, Abbey Luck, Taili Wu, Vanessa Appleby
Avatar: The Last Airbender was a very successful anime-inspired seies for Nickelodeon. Unfortunately the franchise took a hit last year with the M. Night Shyamalan live action feature. Undeterred, Avatar creators Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko are supervising 26 episodes of a new spin-off limited series, The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra, which is scheduled to debut next year. Last week at Comic Con Nick released this first taste:
More Penguins, more dancing, more rap music… Here’s the full theatrical trailer for Warner Bros. Happy Feet 2 which opens on November 18th.
My Mother’s Coat is a beautiful, sensitive film by Marie-Margaux Tsakiri-Scanatovits, a freelance illustrator and animator based in South London. She completed her MA in Animation at Royal College of Art; this was her 2010 final project. Tsakiri-Scanatovits’ is also part of the artists collective, MOTH, and we’ve featured her in our “Animated Fragments” section before. She describes the film:
“My Mother talks to me about post-dictatorship Athens, her struggle to adapt to the greek mentality, her memories of motherhood, and her longing to go back to her small town in Italy.”
For more information about the filmmaker, follow her blog.
(Thanks, David Prosser)
Here’s a Cal Arts student film from this past year’s producers show that really impressed me with its storytelling. Obviously I wasn’t the only one impressed. David Wolter just started work this week in Dreamworks story department.
Something good has come from this new Smurfs movie: Katy Perry and her Smurfette dress. More hot photos from The Smurfs World Premiere at The Huffington Post.
It’s that time of year again. This month the gang at Cartoon Dump invites you to help celebrate their 4th anniversary. Join Jerry Beck and Frank Conniff (“TV’s Frank” from Mystery Science Theatre 3000) with Erica Doering as “Compost Brite” and J. Elvis Weinstein as “Dumpster Diver Dan” for Cartoon Dump – for another depraved offering of sketches, songs, puppets, stand-up comedy, and the most God-awful Saturday Morning Cartoons from the 50s, 60s and 70s.
Is there any better way to wind down from Comic Con? Special anniversary guests include Emo Phillips, Blain Capatch and other surprises. It’s tonight, Monday July 25th, at 8pm at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood. Advanced tickets can be ordered here. Also join the Facebook Page.
Continuing our real estate listings for the legends of animation: Walt Disney’s Los Feliz Woking Way residence is up for sale. The property, where the Disney family resided from 1932 to 1950, includes a Snow White-styled playhouse designed for his daughters. Here’s the complete listing:
Private, Gated, Historic home on large Double lot; over ONE ACRE in total. Mediterranean entry; circular rotunda, painted ceilings, vaulted beamed ceilings, original stained leaded glass, Juliet balcony. The EPIC IMAGERY: PROJECTION and SCREENING Room built for Walt Disney to watch his dailies, perhaps Snow White, Fantasia, Cinderella… and enjoy private screenings. Beautiful Floor Plan: 4 Bedrooms, 5 Baths. Downtown VIEWS, Pretty Swimmers Pool, Billiard’s Room with Sleeping Porch, 2 fun Original Bar areas and the Original Playhouse featured in “The Man Behind the Myth”. Renowned history from Hollywood Royalty, yet a place for your imprint could make this the happiest place on earth.
The asking price is $3,650,000. Take a virtual tour of the place here. If you feel you have what it takes to purchase this piece of Disney history, contact agent Patricia Ruben at Sothebys Realty.
UPDATE: David Lesjak has posted amazing then-and-now photos of this home on his blog Vintage Disney Collectibles.
(Thanks to David Lesjak, Stepehn Arnold and David Bowers)
The music video for South Korean pop group 2NE1′s new single, Hate You, was directed by graphic artist Mari Kim. The song does nothing for me, but her bold visuals are based on classic anime – maybe too classic. Isn’t that nuclear explosion (at :24) a clip from Akira – or something awfully close?
At a special Comic Con panel today in San Diego, Warner Bros. Senior VP George Feltenstein announced the forthcoming release of the first Blu-Ray collection of classic Warner Bros. cartoons, The Looney Tunes Platinum Collection. The panel, moderated by yours truly included writer Paul Dini, and directors Spike Brant and Tony Cervone, included a video presentation comparing a standard DVD image against the new blu-ray transfers. Two cartoons in blu-ray were also shown, Bob Clampett’s The Great Piggy Bank Robbery and Hanna-Barbera’s Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Mouse. Information about the Tom & Jerry Golden Collection was posted here.
The Looney Tunes Platinum Collection contains 50 classic cartoons in high definition. Disc #1 includes Hare Tonic, Baseball Bugs, Buccaneer Bunny, The Old Grey Hare, Rabbit Hood, 8 Ball Bunny, Rabbit of Seville, What’s Opera Doc?, The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, A Pest In The House, The Scarlet Pumpernickle, Duck Amuck, Robin Hood Daffy, Baby Bottleneck, Kitty Kornered, Scardy Cat, Porky Chops, Old Glory, A Tale Of Two Kitties, Tweetie Pie, Fast And Furry-ous, Beep Beep, Lovelorn Leghorn, For Scent-I-Mental Reasons and Speedy Gonzales.
Disc #2 includes One Froggy Evening, The Three Little Bops, I Love To Singa, Katnip Kollege, The Dover Boys, From A To ZZZZ, Chow Hound, Feed The Kitty, Hasty Hare, Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century, Hareway To The Stars, Mad As A Mars Hare, Devil May Hare, Bedevilled Rabbit, Ducking The Devil, Bill Of Hare, Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare, Bewitched Bunny, Broomstick Bunny and several others to be announced.
Bonus material includes several Behind-The-Toons pieces and Chuck Jones documentaries, numerous bonus cartoons including Chuck Jones’ FDR re-election film, Hell Bent For Election (1942), a rare Air Force re-enlistment film, A Hitch In Time (1955), and Ken Mundie’s expressionist anti-war animated short, The Door (1967) – plus two all-new documentaries on Marvin The Martian and The Tasmanian Devil.
Additionally, the collection comes in a sturdy plastic box, which will include a 52 page booklet, a commemorative magnet and mini collectible drinking glass. The Looney Tunes Platinum Collection will go on sale in November.
One more time. I promise its the last. Here’s the final version of the upcoming Mexican 3D “Top Cat” feature, coming to theaters in South America this fall:
The doors just opened at Comic Con, and I’m not exactly in a position to “live blog” the event – but perhaps you are. If you are reading this while on line or waiting for a panel to begin, send us your thoughts on how its going, what you’ve seen or any or if you found anything cool in the exhibit hall (like this limited “Con exclusive” Comic Book Guy ornament (above) being sold at the Hallmark booth).
If you are you an animation artist artist who is exhibiting your wares at Comic Con or Tr!ckster, please post that info on our Open Thread. And don’t miss Tr!ckster, across the street in the San Diego Wine and Culinary Gallery. It’s a must see – and I’ll be screening Cartoon Brew’s Student Film Festival Thursday and Friday mornings at 10am!
If you are in San Francisco this weekend, I’d recommend a visit to the Disney Family Museum to see my pal, Disney historian extraordinaire Jim Korkis, speak about Walt Disney’s fascination with outer space. Jim examines Walt’s contributions to the U.S. space program, including his collaboration with Dr. Werhner Von Braun on a design for a working space shuttle, 25 years before one was actually built. Jim will be talking about the Tomorrowland Space Trilogy of shows from the Fifties, merchandise that was spawned from those shows, the film Moon Pilot, Disney space shows that were never made – and much more. Korkis will be speaking at 3 pm on Saturday July 23 at the Disney Family Museum.
Here’s the trailer for Kealan O’Rourke’s short film, The Boy In The Bubble. I don’t know anything about the film, but it’s a gorgeous looking teaser:
Another animation landmark is up for grabs – for $1.1 million. The late Adriana Caselotti, the voice of Disney’s Snow White lived in a house near Larchmont Village (in Hollywood) done up as Snow White’s cottage. If you are in the area this month, they are holding several open house showings of the property – the ultimate collectible for the Disney fanatic who has everything!
(Thanks, James Gibson)
