How do they make those drawings move?This chart, an separate pull-out from the 1943 booklet, The Ropes At Disney’s (see below), explains the whole process.You’ll note that it all starts with “Walt”. And his main focus was “Story” and “Direction”.

A hearty CONGRATS to Don Hertzfeldt who earlier tonight won the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking at the Sundance Film Festival for his new film EVERYTHING WILL BE OK. An animated short winning top honors at Sundance is a rare and noteworthy event because at the festival, animated films compete alongside dramatic live-action shorts and documentary short subjects. It’s refreshing to see Sundance recognize a piece of animation with a strong point of view, intelligent storytelling and legitimate artistic merit, particularly after the embarassingly subpar slates of animated short nominees chosen this year by ASIFA-Hollywood’s Annie Awards and the Oscar’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

I was visiting the Van Eaton Gallery in Sherman Oaks this week (and you should too if you are in the area), and Mike Van Eaton, knowing I am a big fan of pressbooks and old animated movie advertising, showed me this newspaper clipping of SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS from its premiere Hollywood engagement at the Carthay Circle Theatre. I’m always wondering what cartoon shorts played with what feature films back in the 1930s and 40s. But have you ever wondered what live action shorts played with SNOW WHITE? This ad tells you: A newsreel and a Pete Smith Specialty - matinees only.UPDATE: Disney historian J.B. Kaufman tells us more about the short subjects that played with SNOW WHITE dsuring its initial engagements:

The story of short subjects playing with Snow White at the Carthay Circle gets a little more complicated. Snow White was at the Carthay Circle for four months, and the supporting bill changed periodically during that time. According to the theater’s programmes, there was a newsreel every week — The March of Time, Pathe News, Pathe Parade, and sometimes more than one of these on the same program. The Pete Smith short A Friend Indeed was on the bill for five weeks, apparently, from February into early March 1938. For the last four weeks there was a short called The Quintuplets, surely about the Dionnes. (The ads read: “They Sing, They Dance, They See a Movie.” No short titled The Quintuplets appears in the Copyright Catalog, but in 1935 Pathe News had copyrighted a short about the Dionnes called The Quintuplets’ Second Christmas.)Another item of interest: the Spanish-language edition of the feature, Blanca Nieves y los siete enanos, was unveiled at the Carthay Circle on Sunday, 27 February 1938, and became a regular Sunday-afternoon feature during the remainder of Snow White’s run there.Finally, for what it’s worth, when Snow White opened at Radio City Music Hall in New York in January 1938, it played for five weeks. For the first three weeks it played with The March of Time, for the fourth and fifth week there was a different newsreel which I haven’t identified, and during that last week there was an added attraction: the Warner Bros/Vitaphone short Ski Flight.

(Thanks, Mike Van Eaton)

I don’t know how I missed mentioning this last Tuesday, but it should be noted here that our good friends Mike Glad and Leslie Iwerks were nominated for an Academy Award for their live action film, Recycled Life in the catagory of Best Documentary Short.Mike Glad has one of the largest and finest collections of vintage animation art in the country. His various collections of animation movie posters, cartoon sheet music, backgrounds, cels and all manner of production materials have been the backbone of many exhibits at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and museums around the world. He’s donated numerous pieces from his incredible archive to Amid’s Cartoon Modern and to several of my books and DVD projects. Leslie Iwerks is, of course, grand daughter of Ub Iwerks and an incredible documentary filmmaker. She’s best known in our circles for The Hand Behind The Mouse and will be better known outside our circles with her forthcoming documentetry on Pixar (I’ve seen it and it’s teriffic).For more information about Recycled Life, go here and here. Congratulations to Leslie and Mike. We’ll be rooting for you.

USA TODAY writes about the new Disney print ad campaign which features Annie Leibovitz photographs of celebrities dressed as Disney characters.

(Thanks, Eliza Kinkz)

This article, which was originally published in the WALL STREET JOURNAL earlier this week, offers some details on DreamWorks Animation’s upcoming slate of films, which includes three planned MADAGASCAR sequels and a Nick TV series featuring the penguins from MADAGASCAR. But lest anyone think that DreamWorks is only interested in milking their existing franchises, Jeffrey Katzenberg says in the piece, “Fortunately, our next six or seven movies are unlike anything we’ve done before or anything anyone else is doing.” The forthcoming films include BEE MOVIE, KUNG FU PANDA, MONSTERS VS. ALIENS and HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON. Katzenberg also talks in the piece about how they’re adding a year of production to their films because, “We’ve been racing to the finish line and that has meant compromising on story telling sometimes.”

This is pretty funny: a 1970 JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS comic where the characters visit the Hanna-Barbera Studios to learn how an animated cartoon is produced. Besides Bill and Joe, there are guest appearances by Iwao Takamoto, Carlo Vinci, Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, all drawn by Dan DeCarlo.

Spotlighting talent from Cartoon Network’s local team of designers, animators, graphic artists and, according to the press release, “producers and writers,” the Museum of Design Atlanta will present an exhibition, Design at Play: The High Design and Low-Brow Humor of Cartoon Network opening on February 1st. The exhibit will include samples of print advertising and marketing materials, billboard executions, premium design, on-air spots, Web sites and online games.Artist Stephanie Gladden tells us:

This exhibition shows off the talents of the designers and illustrators from Cartoon Network Atlanta. The displays will include posters, premiums, and some CN Studios production art. Also I’m hyping it ‘cuz my fellow illustrators and I are gonna paint cartoons on the walls!

The installation runs through May 19 at the museum’s downtown facilities at 285 Peachtree Center Avenue. More information here.

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