"The Snow Queen" trailer
"Arrietty" Will Be Ghibli's Biggest US Release Yet
How Much is a Ward Kimball Painting Worth?
Ricky Garduno, RIP
I stumbled onto scans of an article that Parmelee had written in the mid-1950s. The piece, which I’ve reprinted below, smartly sums up many of the issues that progressive animation artists faced in the 1950s. For example, Parmelee argued that Disney’s heavy reliance on live-action was an artistic dead-end and countered every other development in art at the time:
Follow @CartoonBrew on Twitter
YouTube
Vimeo
RSS
Follow Cartoon Brew on Facebook
|
|
|
|
TAG FOR “Ideas/Commentary”Cartoon Brew's home for up-to-the-minute, unedited announcements and press releases direct from industry sources.
September 22, 2011 12:05 am
It worked for THE LION KING. Who knows what cartoon treasures lie in studio vaults, awaiting 3D conversion? Perhaps Terrytoons Flebus?
Or maybe Clutch Cargo?
(Thanks, Reg Hart) 14 Comments » posted in Ideas/Commentary, Clutch Cargo, Flebus 
August 27, 2011 6:52 am
I’ve attended my fair share of foreign animation festivals over the years, and have always bemoaned the lack of Los Angeles industry artists at these gatherings. In Annecy artists from throughout Europe’s animation industry show up, in Ottawa a sizable lot from the New York and Toronto industry attend, but artists from Los Angeles have been conspicuously absent at every animation festival I’ve ever attended. There might be a few stragglers, but undoubtedly they’ll be outnumbered by the LA-based development and creative execs, who pounce on any opportunity for a free “business” trip. The apathy of LA industry artists is historical. During the legendary 1967 Montreal animation expo, which was one of the great all-time gatherings of animation talent, only one Disney animator who had worked on Dumbo and was still employed at the company, took the time to attend the screening of that film. It was, of course, the studio’s most creatively curious artist, Ward Kimball. This all leads up to some positively encouraging news. Browsing through the schedule for the upcoming Ottawa International Animation Festival, I noticed that not only are Adventure Time and Flapjack being shown in competition screenings , the creators of both shows—Pen Ward (top photo, left) and Thurop Van Orman (r.)—will attend and participate in a discussion about their work. This interaction between Los Angeles animators and the much larger world of animation beyond the San Fernando Valley doesn’t happen nearly often enough. Considering how relatively inexpensive it is to attend one of these festivals versus the mind-expanding benefits of meeting like-minded artists and seeing innovative new animation, I’m surprised that more studios don’t encourage and finance these trips for their employees. It would certainly be a wiser investment than shipping a cartload of executives to each festival. The appearance of Ward and Van Orman isn’t the only TV-centric event at Ottawa either. Aaron Augenblick (top photo, center) who runs Brooklyn-based Augenblick Studios (Superjail!, Wonder Showzen, Ugly Americans) will be presenting a retrospective of his work. The program isn’t exclusively TV-related, but Augenblick is best known nowadays for his studio’s consistently high quality TV output, which is no small accomplishment. 37 Comments » posted in Events, Ideas/Commentary, TV, Aaron Augenblick, Ottawa International Animation Festival, Pen Ward, Thurop van Orman
August 26, 2011 10:23 am
What advice would you give to a budding artist who’s considering entering the lucrative and glamorous animation industry? It’s tough telling someone where to start, but I’ve rarely seen better advice than this blog post by “Waveybrain”. The artist who wrote it has experience in both feature and TV animation, and his advice is grounded in hard-earned personal experience, which he generously shares in the post. With the school year kicking into gear, it’d be a good idea for students to read Waveybrain’s post as a reminder of what they need to learn if they want to end up with a job in the industry. 17 Comments » posted in Educational, Ideas/Commentary
August 23, 2011 1:01 am
Ted Parmelee (pictured above, right) is perhaps best remembered today as the director of UPA’s The Tell-Tale Heart, but his career in animation stretched from Pinocchio through Rocky & Bullwinkle and included lots of fine work in TV commercials and industrial films inbetween. While browsing through some files related to my book Cartoon Modern,
There is a strong correlation between Parmelee’s critique of Disney in the 1930s and ’40s, and today’s art form — only the technique has changed. Contemporary big budget CG features exhibit increasing sophistication in lighting, textures, character animation and effects, but to what effect? Realism has again been cast as an end, when it is only a means for expressing a personal artistic vision. Parmelee credits World War II as the impetus for animators experimenting with new filmmaking techniques, storytelling approaches and graphic styles. He also hails the arrival of the TV commercial, in which the form’s brevity allowed artists to explore different approaches for communicating with audiences. Thankfully today’s animation medium is diverse enough that there is tons of experimentation happening, even moreso than in the 1950s. Parmelee, of course, anticipated this when he wrote that the single biggest improvement awaiting the industry “would be a decisive change in the actual physical means for making animated pictures, a more fluid kind of thing. . . a thing that provided quicker results.” Indeed, digital animation software and techniques have proven to be the savior, and offer an improvement over old production methods, especially when used by artists for the purpose of expressing themselves. Read Parmelee’s article by clicking on the image below:
6 Comments » posted in Ideas/Commentary, Cartoon Modern, Ted Parmelee
August 10, 2011 10:58 am
John Lasseter believes that, “No amount of great animation will save a bad story.” Not every exec at Disney appears to share the same values though. Speaking at SIGGRAPH last Sunday, Andy Hendrickson, the chief technical officer at Walt Disney Animation Studios, offered his opinion by emphatically stating that when you’re making a tentpole feature like Toy Story 3 or Alice in Wonderland, story is overrated:
He supported his theory by citing Disney’s recent Alice in Wonderland as an example: “The story isn’t very good, but visual spectacle brought people in droves. And Johnny Depp didn’t hurt.” So according to Hendrickson, here’s the Disney formula: VISUAL SPECTACLE+JOHNNY DEPP-STORY = $$$. At least he’s honest about how Hollywood works nowadays. Give this man a promotion and corner office post-haste! 149 Comments » posted in Disney, Ideas/Commentary, Andy Hendrickson, Story is Bullshit
August 9, 2011 4:37 am
Cold Hard Flash brings news of a legal case that JibJab is pursuing against Toyota over this spot: Click the following link to download a PDF of the complaint for damages to the California District Courts. JibJab is holding Toyota responsible for the ad, instead of Hoffman Lewis, the ad agency that produced the spot. The website TubeFilter summarized the document’s complaints:
It should be noted that the offending spot is actually a visual mash-up of two different JibJab productions—the cut-out style animation of Founding Father’s Rap and the Starring You Tap Dance in which users can insert different heads on top of a live-action actor. Personally, as unoriginal as I find the ad agency’s use of these techniques, copying someone’s graphic style—especially ones like these that aren’t exclusive to JibJab—would be a dubious case. However, Hoffman Lewis made the fatal mistake of also copying JibJab’s well-established animated trademark (the heads of the brothers who say “Jib” and “Jab”). In my eyes, that changes the dynamic of the entire commercial because it signals a clear intent on Toyota’s part to deceive viewers into thinking that JibJab created the spot. Obviously, let me say that I’m no lawyer, but I have served as an expert witness for major corporations in similar infringement cases. Often times, the “this company stole my idea” claim is frivolous, especially when it’s coming from an amateur artist or writer with no industry experience or understanding of how the business works. In this instance though, I feel that JibJab has a legitimate concern. Judges seem to agree so far too: Toyota has twice requested a judge to dismiss the suit, and both times the judge has nixed Toyota’s motion. It’ll be interesting to watch how this case plays out through the legal system and who ends up on top. Perhaps it’ll also serve as a wake-up call to all the ad agencies who freely take their ideas from existing animated films produced by independent filmmakers and small companies that lack JibJab’s resources to defend themselves. (Disclosure: JibJab is a sponsor of Cartoon Brew’s 2011 Student Animation Festival. I learned about this case though by reading about it on Cold Hard Flash.) 21 Comments » posted in Ideas/Commentary, jibjab, Toyota
August 2, 2011 5:12 pm
The drama beween DreamWorks Animation and its distributor Paramount continues with plenty of unsubstantiated rumors, but no hard details of the negotiations. Paramount, of course, recently launched its own in-house animation studio, which strikes me as a bargaining chip more than anything else. We’ve also heard rumors that Paramount has just appointed a new studio president, and if it’s who people are claiming, it’s someone with one of the most disastrous track records of any recent executive to work in the animation industry. The situation reminds me a lot of what Disney did when they started contract renewal talks with Pixar some years ago. Disney launched a new studio, Circle 7, and tried to make their own Toy Story sequel before coming to the conclusion that Pixar’s creative culture couldn’t be replicated with deep pockets alone. I’m not suggesting that Paramount will buy DreamWorks, but I am saying that Paramount is sorely mistaken if they think they can just launch an animation studio and start churning out consistent box office winners like DreamWorks. This morning, an anonymous commenter on the Animation Guild blog posted a list of thirty properties currently optioned or in development at DreamWorks. The list is printed below. I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but I’ve heard of at least half of the projects on the list. Allowing for some fluctuations in the nebulous nature of options and development, it appears to be fairly accurate. This list to me is indicative of the infrastructure that DreamWorks has built and the underlying strength of the company. In spite of personal reservations about the creative content of the studio’s films, it would be foolish to not acknowledge that the studio has one of the strongest creative foundations of any animation company currently in operation. It would take Paramount years, if not decades, to develop as robust a development slate as DreamWorks. In nearly a decade of operations, Sony Pictures Animation has managed to release a handful of middling features and doesn’t appear to have a development slate anywhere near the size of DreamWorks’s. I don’t think anybody on the outside knows for certain how the deal between DreamWorks and Paramount will conclude, but looking at what DreamWorks Animation has achieved, I’d like to believe that the cards are stacked in its favor over the long term. What follows is the list of DreamWorks films in development: 32 Comments » posted in Feature Film, Ideas/Commentary, dreamworks, DreamWorks Animation, Paramount Pictures
July 29, 2011 2:53 pm
Actor Patrick Stewart expresses his appreciation for animation in this CNN interview and says that, “I think in film the most exciting work currently is being done in animation.” (Thanks, Tres Swygert) |
ADVERTISEMENTS
EVENTS
RECENT BREW TV EPISODES By Sitji Chou. A man tries to understand the futility of creating human connections when they’ve been impeded by the microcosmic void between material particles.  By Nikolas Ilic. A story of a Scottish sheep farmer who shears his sheep and tosses them cliff side…  By Dylan Hayes. Lesson 1: Everyone gambles, not everyone loses. Lesson 2: The world is full of traps. Lesson 3: You cannot win if you don’t take risks.  By Jean Yi. A personal and humorous exploration of being the ‘Nice Girl’ and coming to terms with the label and all its different meanings.  By Ferg Brennan. A lonely fisherman catches an unusual fish, which he decides to keep as a pet. |
