Monthly Archives: March 2007

Animators Up for Pulitzer Prize

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The journalism trade magazine, Editor and Publisher is reporting that the three cartoonists reported to be Pulitzer Award finalists all do animation:

What do Nick Anderson, Walt Handelsman, and Mike Thompson (his latest cartoon above) have in common?

They are the three names leaked to E&P’s Joe Strupp as likely finalists for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. And, as E&P has reported on several occasions, all three are part of a growing group of print cartoonists who also do online political animations.

“The profession is abuzz with this,” one cartoonist told E&P today. This cartoonist (not Anderson, Handelsman, or Thompson) added that he heard all three possible finalists submitted animations with their print Pulitzer portfolios.

This is the first year that video, audio, and other new online entries havebeen accepted by the Pulitzers. (Online text and online still images were previously accepted.)

Anderson, a 2005 Pulitzer winner, is with the Houston Chronicle and the Washington Post Writers Group. Handelsman, a 1997 Pulitzer winner, is with Newsday of Melville, N.Y., and Tribune Media Services. And Thompson, a 2006 Pulitzer finalist, is with the Detroit Free Press and Copley News Service.

(Thanks, Lou Spirito)

Freehead Benefit Concert

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Freehead

Cartoonist extraordinaire Jim Smith (Ren & Stimpy, Samurai Jack, The Ripping Friends) will be performing a “farewell concert” with the band Freehead on Saturday, March 31, from 4pm until whenever at Safari Sam’s (5214 W. Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, CA). The concert is for a good cause: to raise money for Freehead band member Richie Hass who is currently fighting multiple myeloma, a type of cancer that affects plasma cells. Lots of other bands are also performing that evening, and Jim Smith notes on his blog that he will “draw and sign anything that holds still long enough.”

Pinocchio Scene by Scene

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There is an important Disney history triple-play going on at three of our favorite blogs.

Michael Sporn got the ball rolling last year by posting the first 23 pages of the animator drafts for Pinocchio (1940). These are the sequence by sequence breakdowns of who animated each shot, scene by scene. Start here to read the earliest scenes.

Hans Perk at A Film L.A. picked up the ball and continued this project by posting the rest of the draft, (backtrack from here), posting several new pages each day.

Mark Mayerson is taking this information and visualizing it into “mosaics”: illustrating each shot with a frame grab, identifying the animators, and offering insightful commentary for each sequence. (Mayerson has previously done this, based on Perk’s collection of drafts, for several shorts including Mother Goose Goes Hollywood, Symphony Hour and Plutopia).

Now, Michael Sporn has now begun posting the original storyboards for the film.

This is a treasure trove of information for one of the undeniable classics of animation. It’s also a great example of what the Internet can do—bringing together information from three sources, in different parts of the world, that now allow us to study the individual work of the artists who brought this masterpiece to life.

Alone, Stinking & Unafraid: Screen Test Dummies

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In this new edition of Alone, Stinking & Unafraid, Chris Robinson, the Artistic Director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival, discusses the poor state of feature film submissions that he receives at the festival.

Illustration by Theo Ushev
illustration by Theodore Ushev

Fuck people, ya gotta stop speculating from dustbunnies. Wanna know why THIS and THAT wasn’t in Feature competition at Ottawa in 2006? Cause they weren’t submitted tis why. Ya just had to ask rather than beeeeee-atch about what you know nothing about. We chase stuff we like to a degree, but we don’t beg. You dont want to send your film, I ain’t gonna cry. Course that makes me wonder WHY we’re doing a feature category to being with. We started it cause it was apparently what the masses wanted (course i should know by now that the masses dont know their ass from an elf)…we started it cause apparently everyone was making features now. So okay, we’re friendly, we’re here for ya.. but what happens? Producers don’t bother with animation festivals. Suddenly Annecy and Ottawa aren’t good enuff for their green purposes. They want Toronto, Berlin, Venice. Can understand to a degree, but seems these folks forget that animation festivals were the ones who gave em their place to begin with. They all started with shorts, shorts that relied on festivals to find an audience. But now they’re too good, not just for animation festivals, but animation in general.

Does it bother me… slightly…but in truth I also don’t wanna waste precious festival space for films that already have an audience. That’s not really the point of festivals (in case u furgot). Result? We get what we get and have to deal with it. Often that means a lot of godawful crap like that Romeo Seal Kiss crap or straight to dvd features. Originally we aimed to have 5 features. Don’t think we ever achieved that. Usually hard enough to find 3. Last year I was glad to show Christies and Book of the Dead and sure I did think of the masses when showing Kids Next Door (although, in tv land context, it ain’t bad), but in truth, none of the three entries stroked me to pleasureville. That’s nothing too new. outside of maybe 10-15 short films, I’m generally selecting stuff that don’t clickety clack my track. Problem is though that we’re taking up a total of 6 programming spots (we show all films twice) for 3 non-clacking films. Space is better used showing another 30-40 short films that, hey, likely don’t move me towards stars, but warrant being shown AND will undoubtedly help out a lot of neglected short film animators. And this year, that’s what we will do if the crop of feature submissions continue to smell like your mom after a 2 week bender with kick ass post-xmas elves. Besides, why the need to make a feature? Most of you can’t even conceive for a few minutes, so why the fug do u wanna prattle bout air for 10 x that? It’s not a race kids and if you think it is, then you belong in the F1. I mean, you’re just racing around in circles, going nowhere anyway. At least car crashes are cool.

Chris Robinson is the artistic director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival and a noted author/critic/historian whose books include Between Genius and Utter Illiteracy: A Story of Estonian Animation, Ottawa Senators: Great Stories from the NHL’s First Dynasty, Unsung Heroes of Animation, and Great Left Wingers and Stole This From a Hockey Card: A Philosophy of Hockey, Doug Harvey, Identity & Booze. He lives in Ottawa with his wife, Kelly, and sons Jarvis and Harrison.

Halas & Batchelor Cartoons

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Though mentioned on the Brew back in May, I just stumbled upon a copy of Halas & Batchelor Cartoons today, at my local Barnes and Noble.

halasbook.jpgFirst off, this book is a must-have. John Halas himself was one of the world’s great animators and producers. He was also a pioneering cartoon historian and was one of the founders of ASIFA and the Annecy Animation Festival. Joy Batchelor was an amazing artist, designer and business woman. Together they created Britain’s largest animation studio creating hundreds of films, from experimental avant-garde works to commercials, full length feature films (Animal Farm) and TV series (Do-Do the Kid from Outer Space, among others). 3-D, stop motion, CG and practically every other technique available was tried in their fifty year career together.

The book itself, compiled by daughter Vivien Halas and historian Paul Wells, covers their entire history thoroughly–the personal side and the professional–with numerous illustrations and photographs and a bonus DVD featuring seven of their best short films. The art and images are especially well chosen and a delight to look at. This book covers an important piece of animation history and two pioneers who should never be forgotten. Amazon.com has it in stock at discount. Buy it.

Punk Mickey Vinyls

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We’ve highlighted this new trend before. The high-end, urban fashion vinyl dolls not aimed at the kids or the Disneyland family crowd. From the same Japanese figure maker (Medi Com Toy Corp) who produced the vintage Mickey and Oswald vinyls (mentioned here), here’s an interesting looking pirate Mickey Mouse figurine (above right), a follow up to the companys previous figure, from last summer, where Mickey was molded in homage to the punk band, The Clash.

We’ve come along way since the days of Charlotte Clark.

(Thanks, Mika Tolvanen)

The Animation Show on iTunes

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Animation Show on iTunes

Last week our friends at The Animation Show started selling independent animated shorts on Apple’s iTunes. The films from their touring festival are packaged together into short episodes and there’s six episodes currently available. One episode features a couple of personal favorites from the past few years, Ward 13 and Overtime, another is a Bill Plympton compilation with his films Guard Dog and Eat plus a special making-of-Guard Dog, and another episode has Tomek Baginski’s CG shorts Cathedral and Fallen Art. All are priced at $1.99. They can be found in the TV Shows>Comedy section of iTunes.

Golden Book Art at Disneyland

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It’s rare for this website to promote a visit to Disneyland twice within the same week, but we’ve just recieved word from artist Kevin Kidney that, in addition to the Pirates of The Caribbean art exhibit (which Kevin is a part of), the park quietly opened a new exhibit in the Disney Gallery (above the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction) showcasing many of the great Disney Western Publishing book illustrations from the 1950s and 60s. The original paintings on display are among the cream of the crop of Disney book illustration–of any time–with so many of these images permanently ingrained in our memory from childhood. Kevin says:

Viewing these in person is a real treat. The artists represented include John Hench, Al Dempster, Retta Scott Worcester, Campbell Grant, Al White, Dick Kelsey, and several others. There hasn’t been much advertising for this exhibit, but the display is sure to excite a lot of artists who grew up with these beautiful books. In addition, many of the images are available for purchase as “print on demand” reproductions through the Disney Gallery.

Here is the link to Disneyland’s official site, though there’s not
much information on the artists and history, unfortunately.

Homage or Rip-off?

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“Homage or Rip-off” should be a new category on Cartoon Brew. Certainly we have enough material. In the comments of the Lee Lennox’s “Girl and the Sea” music video, which was a homage/ripoff of Yuri Norstein’s work, Brew reader Doug posted a link to this new commercial for GE. The commercial is more than a little inspired by Osamu Tezuka’s short film Jumping (1984), and unlike Lennox’s video, it doesn’t build on the original concept or offer any new perspective on the material. The commercial is part of GE’s fittingly ironic campaign called “Imagination at Work.”

Below is Tezuka’s original (and much more creatively executed) short Jumping.

The Fly by Ferenc Rofusz

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Another contemporary animation classic on YouTube. This 1980 Hungarian short by Ferenc Rofusz won an Oscar. Hungary was at the time a Communist country and Rofusz himself wasn’t allowed to leave the country to attend the Oscars. Without his knowledge, somebody accepted the award for him during the show. I recall watching an interview once with Rofusz where he explained who the guy was, and how surprised he was during the broadcast to see somebody he didn’t know accepting the award for him. This excerpt from the LA Times in 1981 discusses the mystery person who took his award:

Academy officials were still wondering late Tuesday night if the real Ferenc Rofusz had accepted his award. Rofusz, the Hungarian producer of the winning animated short film “The Fly,” had not been scheduled to attend the ceremonies. But just as presenters Alan Arkin and Margot Kidder were announcing that the academy would accept on behalf of Rofusz, a bearded man bounded onto the stage, made a short acceptance speech, posed for the obligatory photos and departed with an Oscar, leaving, somehow, an air of mystery…

(Thanks, Philip Rogosky)

Coo-Coo for Cocoa Puffs

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A few weeks ago I posted about Chuck McCann and mentioned his memorable voice work as Sonny and Gramps in the original 1960s Cocoa Puffs cereal commercials. At the time, I couldn’t find any on the internet to link to, but thanks to our pal J.J. Sedelmaier we were able to place several on You Tube ourselves. These spots were animated by the great Jan Svochak (1926-2006), who was best known for some of the early Hawaiian Punch commercials.

It looks like he had a lot of fun animating these.

Pure Portland Animation

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What do Brad Bird, Bill Plympton, Mel Blanc, Pinto Colvig, Carl Barks, Matt Groening, Basil Wolverton and Will Vinton have in common?

They all came from Oregon. Film historian Dennis Nyback has been running an animation festival there all month long, highlighting these local talents as well as the entire history of animation. There are incredible shows all week, leading to grand finale on Thursday March 15th at Portland’s historic Hollywood Theatre. The program that night will include classic shorts in 35mm by Jan Svankmajer, John Hubley, Mike Judge, Marv Newland, Will Vinton, Bill Plympton, John Lasseter (pictured above left), Barry Purves (above right) and, believe it or not, Paul J. Smith (center image).

The show starts at 7:15 PM. Admission: $6.00. Tickets can be purchased online at hollywoodtheatre.org

Thorndyke on Mercer and Crandall

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Here’s an oddity.

I found a copy of cartoonist Chuck Thorndyke’s 1939 book The Business of Cartooning: The Success Stories of the World’s Greatest Cartoonists. In it, he profiles three dozen print cartoonists (mainly artists of newspaper strips, magazine gags and editorial cartoons), with caricatures by Thorndyke. Under a subsection for Animated Cartoonists, Thorndyke profiles only three animators. He devotes a whole page to Walt Disney, that’s understandable — but some some unknown reason, from all the animators to choose from in 1939, he singles out Fleischer’s Roland “Doc” Crandall and Jack Mercer.

What? What about Max or Dave Fleischer? Paul Terry? Walter Lantz? Why not Hugh Harman? It’s great to learn a little more about Crandall and Mercer, but it seems a bit odd. My guess is he knew Crandall and Mercer personally. Perhaps owed them a favor. Here’s the spread devoted to animated cartoonists. It’s not particularly well written, but a few bits of odd information can be gleaned from it.

Russian Pooh

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Winnie the Pooh

Russian animation director Fyodor Khitruk once said in an interview that the best award he ever received was when Disney director Woolie Reitherman told him, “You know, your Winnie is better than mine.” Now we can judge if Reitherman was right. The first of Khitruk’s three Pooh shorts, Winnie the Pooh (1969), has been posted online (watch it below). I think if I ever had to point to an example of perfect stylized animation, this short would be it. Just look at the way Pooh and Piglet move in this cartoon–so simple yet so much personality and humor throughout. There’s a moment when Pooh is talking to Piglet and he takes a deep breath before speaking. It is absolutely beautiful. You can truly feel these characters thinking before they act.

Looking at this, I can’t help but think of all the Flash TV cartoons being produced nowadays. The character designs in this Pooh short, in terms of complexity and construction, are no more complicated than anything one would find in a contemporary piece of Flash animation. Yet the animation in Khitruk’s film is light years ahead of anything being produced today. I was just watching an episode of a Cartoon Network Flash series yesterday. The movement was even fuller than this Pooh cartoon, but it left me feeling completely empty. The characters moved with generic gestures, mechanically matched to the dialogue and scripted actions; there was never the sense that the characters were alive or had a thought process beyond their meaningless movements on the screen. To create great character animation, whether it’s stylized or full animation, one must believe in…empathize with…truly feel…their characters; clearly Khitruk and company did.

Some stills from Khitruk’s other Pooh shorts are here.

The Girls at Disneyland

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Here’s a reason to visit Disneyland next weekend. Michelle and Amanda (aka The Girls Productions) will be doing a signing Sunday March 18th from 9-11:30 in the Disneyland Gallery above the Pirates Of The Caribbean attraction. This is to commemorate the 40th Anniversay of the ride. There will be some cool new merchandise available and one-of-a-kind art for sale. The Girls will be joined by artist Jeff Granito, and Disney Legends Alice Davis, X Atencio, Bob Gurr, Harriet Burns and Blaine Gibson.

Here’s a link with more info.