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TAG FOR “Animators”Cartoon Brew's home for up-to-the-minute, unedited announcements and press releases direct from industry sources.
December 19, 2007 1:30 am
Mark Mayerson has informed us that animator Jack Zander has passed away at age 99. Zander cut his teeth as an animator at Van Beuren, Terrytoons and MGM (Harman Ising) Studios in the 1930s. After World War II, Zander’s New York studio was considered one of the best in the business. In addition to hundreds of commercials, he produced the TV special Gnomes (1980) and the infamous King Features TV special The Man Who Hated Laughter (1972). Mayerson has posted an overview of Zander’s career, with remembrances by colleagues and friends, on his blog 13 Comments » posted in Animators 
December 17, 2007 9:37 am
It is well known that, for a variety of reasons, legendary Disney director and animator Ward Kimball was demoted by Walt Disney from director back to animator in the early-1960s. In 1966, Kimball made his comeback into the director’s chair. Responsible for the shift was not only Walt’s softening stance towards Kimball but also the retirement of director Ham Luske, which opened a slot for Kimball’s return. The subject of today’s post is Kimball’s first project upon his return to direction: the rarely seen episode of Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color called “A Salute to Alaska,” which debuted on April 2, 1967. (A sidenote: this was the last episode of Wonderful World of Color that Walt Disney filmed an opening for before his death.) Kimball shares a co-direction credit with Luske on the show. According to Ward’s son, John Kimball, who worked on the animated segments, the animation in it is extremely limited, and some of the scenes are simply held cels that are slid across the screen. I’ve never seen it and am unable to comment on the animated segments that Kimball directed. If anybody has the animated segments from the special, feel free to post it onto YouTube. Thanks to some recent digging around (more about this later), Kimball’s rough character models for the “Alaska” special have been discovered. These drawings offer a rare glimpse into Kimball’s personal design sensibilities and show a great designer at work. While Kimball is well known for his design-oriented films—Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom and Mars and Beyond—those were designed, respectively, by Tom Oreb and John Dunn. Kimball collaborated closely with both artists, and his imprint can be felt throughout, but the primary visual styling belongs to other artists, as is indicated by the very different looks of each project. The drawings in this post, albeit more than a decade after those films, allow us a look at pure Kimball design. A good starting point to compare these designs would be the project that Kimball had worked on immediately prior to this, the theatrical short Scrooge McDuck and Money (1967), which can be viewed on YouTube in two parts (Part 1 and Part 2). In that short, Kimball served only as animator and had no influence on the design. The incidental characters in that short were designed by animator Art Stevens. A while back, I posted Stevens’ designs from the short here.
The level of design in Stevens’ work and Kimball’s is night and day. While Stevens’ designs are cute, they lack the sophistication of shape and form that only a master draftsman like Kimball could bring to the table. Kimball’s designs feel solid and complete. Despite their high stylization, they have a quality of weight and power that make Stevens’ designs look flimsy and insubstantial by comparison.
Furthermore, Kimball’s drawings are incredibly funny to look at even without the benefit of movement. Around the time he made these drawings, Kimball was teaching at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and one of the tips he imparted to students was, “A cartoon character who is funny to look at before he is animated is going to be made funnier by the movement.” He certainly practiced what he preached.
This design of “Ivan the Fur Trapper” communicates textures in the fur cap and facial hair, while maintaining the integrity of the overall shapes and forms.
Another notable aspect of these drawings is that many of them are based on real-life figures, which allows us to observe Kimball’s gift for caricature. Ward hits hard with his caricatures of the aristocratic Russian businessmen who were running Alaskan affairs in the 1800s. I’ve managed to find online the engravings and illustrations that Kimball based his drawings on and have included them alongside Kimball’s roughs. He caricatures not only their likeness, but also their pompous poses and power-hungry, borderline maniacal, desires. Like the best caricaturists, Kimball tells us more than simply what these people look like, he tells us who they are.
His caricatures of other historical figures are broader and cartoonier, based on the style of the cartoon, but even the cartoony rendition of US Secretary of State William H. Seward (in Uncle Sam garb) is spot-on when compared to one of his photos.
After “A Salute to Alaska”, Kimball continued directing and producing full-time until his retirement in 1973. His final years at the studio are a mixed bag—they include his last great “edutainment” short It’s Tough To Be a Bird (1969), the occasionally brilliant Dad, Can I Borrow the Car? (1970), and other projects like the “The Mickey Mouse Anniversary Show” (1968) and the syndicated TV series The Mouse Factory (1971). A few of the images above can be enlarged by clicking on them. The rest are as-is. Enjoy! 26 Comments » posted in Animators, Disney, Ward Kimball
December 15, 2007 5:14 am
CG filmmaker David O’Reilly (RGBXYZ) has redone his website DavidOReilly.com and also posted an enticing trailer for his new short Serial Entoptics. What continues to impress me about O’Reilly’s work and what makes him one of the more exciting young CG animators working today are his efforts towards finding a true and honest graphic expression befitting the CG medium instead of trying to force traditional graphic concepts to fit a CG mold as most everybody else does. In other words, his work is designed from the groundup for the digital world. It doesn’t look like anything that could be accomplished in a medium besides CG. Impressively, he’s uncovering this new visual terrain sans a bloated crew of hundreds or an overblown Pixar-sized budget; the only things necessary are creative aspiration and a clear sense of artistic purpose. O’Reilly gave a talk last month at the Pictoplasma Animation Festival, which impressed cultural commentator Régine Debatty so much that she calls him a ‘genius’ in this discussion of O’Reilly’s work on her blog. Previously on the Brew: Up-and-Coming: Miwa Matreyek & David O’Reilly 3 Comments » posted in Animators, CGI, David OReilly
December 10, 2007 1:26 am
A company called Documentary Educational Resources (DER) has begun releasing episodes of a rare 1970s tv series called Screening Room that featured interviews with lots of independent animators including John and Faith Hubley, Derek Lamb, Ed Emshwiller, George Griffin, Suzan Pitt, Robert Breer, Caroline Leaf and Mary Beams. Their site offers the following description of the TV series:
Upcoming releases offer discussions with directors Jan Lenica, John Whitney, and Stan Brakhage. The downside is each interview dvd is $50, but then again it’s not everyday that one finds lengthy filmed interviews with such a who’s who of the animation world. Personally I’m tempted to pick up the chat with the Hubleys. The episodes can be purchased from the DER website. 2 Comments » posted in Animators, Robert Breer
December 5, 2007 5:45 pm
This just in from animator Ken Priebe: It is with a heavy heart that I pass this news on to you…. Priebe collected career information on Southworth for his website several years ago. Click here for that information. 4 Comments » posted in Animators
December 1, 2007 1:45 pm
Ottawa-based animator/director dynamo Nick Cross talks to Chris Robinson about his career in this article in Guerilla magazine. He explains why he chooses to work from home instead of animation studios (“Every time you go into a studio, it just feels like, ugh.”), and why he jumps back and forth between industry gigs and creating his own independent films (“I just have to do something of my own. I get more satisfaction just doing short films… Maybe it’s really arrogant, something like that, ’cause I just like doing my own things and having my control of things. I just do it to please myself, you know.”) Nick’s latest film, Waif of Perspephone, which has the distinction of being labeled “an interminable twelve and a half minutes of pseudo-Kricfalusi ugliness” by Michael Barrier, can be purchased on dvd here. 8 Comments » posted in Animators
November 27, 2007 10:48 am
There isn’t a whole lot of work on the site of London-based Brazilian illustrator and animator Fernando Leal but what is there shows a strong flair for design and concepts, and solid ability to translate those ideas into animation. I hope to see more from him in the future. 1 Comment » posted in Animators
November 8, 2007 8:07 am
No one animator’s career covered the history of animation, with so many important cultural touchstones, as Grim Natwick. His work spanned the entire 20th Century, influencing and contributing to all the important studios, characters and films. When he died at age 100 (in 1990), Steve Worth was given the task of organizing the hundreds of pieces of animation artwork he had personally saved from his career. Worth is currently in charge of ASIFA-Hollywood’s Animation Archive and has now curated an amazing exhibit culled from this material. He has also created an on-line exhibit catalog, with much of the art and commentary outlining Natwick’s life story. But nothing compares to seeing this artwork in person. It will be on display at the ASIFA-Hollywood space on Burbank Blvd. for the rest of the year. I highly recommend you check this out if you are in the area. GRIM NATWICK’S SCRAPBOOK |
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