Not sure how many will get the same kick out this as I did – but my inner geek is grinning ear to ear. Here’s a fan-made opening title for a Mighty B episode, done in the style of Paramount’s old Noveltoon theatrical cartoons. Aspiring cartoonist/animator John Paul Cassidy, who is apparently huge fan of both Nick’s Mighty B and old Paramount cartoons, got it right. It’s also worth noting that both Nickelodeon and Paramount are owned by corporate parent Viacom, so this isn’t as far-out as it seems.
Disney’s Tangled finished in third place this weekend, pulling in a FINAL $14.3 million. Its three week total is $115.4 million, pushing the domestic gross ahead of Disney’s last three features: The Princess and the Frog ($104.4M), Bolt ($114.1M), and Meet the Robinsons ($97.8M). In Russian, Tangled has become Disney’s highest-grossing animated feature ever after only two weeks. (Remember, Russians love American CG nowadays.) In Italy, the film moved from a third-place opening to first place in its second weekend.
DreamWorks’ Megamind finished in 10th with a FINAL $2.5M. Total stands at $140.2 million. Paul and Sandra Fierlinger’s My Dog Tulip snatched $3,148 from 3 theaters, lifting its cume to $139,923.
Italian street artist Blu, who also happens to be one of my favorite contemporary animators, was commissioned by LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) to paint a mural on one of the museum’s walls. The mural, which depicted wooden caskets draped with dollar bills, proved to be too contemporary for the museum and they whitewashed it (literally!) less than 24 hours after it was completed.
[Blu] was on the scene as a crew began to paint over the work, and he was not pleased, said Daniel Lahoda, a street art advocate who curates the L.A. Freewalls Project and was in Little Tokyo to document the whitewashing. “He was here this morning, taking pictures,” Lahoda said. “He was [angry].”
MOCA has provided just about the lamest response imaginable: “Directly in front the north wall is the Go For Broke monument, which commemorates the heroic roles of Japanese American soldiers, who served in Europe and the Pacific during World War II, and opposite the wall is the LA Veterans’ Affairs Hospital. The museum’s director explained to Blu that in this context, where MOCA is a guest among this historic Japanese American community, the work was inappropriate.”
Unurth, a street art blog, tore into that rationale, writing that, “This is a terrible explanation. The concept that street art and graffiti must be ‘appropriate’, to the point of not making political statements, is absurd and contrary to the history of the medium.”
The most embarrassing aspect of this is that MOCA is opening a show next Spring about street art. Too bad it’s now going to be viewed as a joke by many of the artists it was supposed to be celebrating and promoting.
Here’s a video of Blu’s painting being whitewashed:
Looking for holiday gifts for that special animation someone…or maybe just for yourself. Look no further than Cartoon Brew’s 2010 Holiday Gift Guide compiled by Jerry and Amid.
LEONARDO – THE COMPLETE CODEX
Animator Jim Capobianco (Pixar) first created a beautiful hand drawn short, Leonardo, then packaged it for sale so attractively, it’s a model for what we’d like to see all animators do. Included in the beautiful DVD boxed set is the complete preliminary storyreel, deleted scenes, audio commentary – as well as a flipbook, a notebook and a pencil. And much much more. A perfect gift to all animators and those aspiring to be.
In case you missed it last night, NBC’s Community ran its Christmas episode “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas”, which was produced in stop-motion animation. Duke Johnson directed and complete production credits for this episode have been posted at 23D Films.com. Here it is, in its entirety, off Hulu.com:
Variety is reporting that DreamWorks Animation has announced a March 2013 release date for Me and My Shadow, a new 3-D animated feature which will combine CG with traditional animation, a first for the company.
“Shadow” tells the story of Shadow Stan, an incredibly frustrated shadow that yearns for a more dynamic life but happens to be stuck with Stanley Grubb, the world’s most boring human. Eventually pushed to the brink, Shadow Stan breaks the singular rule of the Shadow World — “they lead, we follow” — and takes control of Stanley.
Steve Bencich and Ron Friedman’s original screenplay is being revised by the writing team of Tom Astle and Matt Ember (Get Smart). “Shadow” will combine “the time-honored tradition of hand-drawn animation with the magical sophistication of CG characters and worlds in ways that have never been experienced by audiences before,” Damaschke said.
In the toon, the Shadow and everything in the Shadow World will be hand-drawn, while the human character and human world will be CG. The movie will alternate between the two worlds.
Mark Dindal (Chicken Little, The Emperor’s New Groove) is directing. Other members of the team include head of story Shane Prigmore and production designers Scott Wills and Raymond Zibach. Since there is no production art available, the photo above is from Spy Shadow, a 1967 DePatie Freleng TV cartoon shown on NBC Saturday Mornings. I predict the new DW feature will be a lot funnier than this.
From last night’s show, Conan O’Brien riffs on lesser DC comics characters with creative director Peter Girardi and, about 5 minutes in, works with Bruce Timm to design a superhero version of himself:
Santiago, Chile-based animator Guayi Mas created this opening for the TV series La Colonia. The single-man production was made in After Effects over a two-week period.
Sorry for the last minute notice, but I just found out myself: This evening (December 10th) at the National Center For Democracy (369 East First Street, in downtown Los Angeles) is the opening night ceremony of the Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center’s annual African-American Film Marketplace. Tonight’s program, A Great Day in Black Hollywood Part 4: Honoring Veteran Black Animators.
Honorees include an amazing group of animation artists, both young and old: Lyndon Barrois, Jamaal Bradley, Frank C. Braxton, Jr. (1929—1969, pictured above right with Ben Washam), Lennie Graves, Dan Haskett, Keith Hunter (1966—2007), Ron Husband, Floyd Norman, Ron Myrick, Bruce Smith, Leo Sullivan (pictured above left), Corey Turner, and Marlon West. Click HERE (PDF link) for a nice write-up on each honoree. The program will begin promptly at 8:00pm followed by a reception. Tickets are $25 per person.
That’s me and Amid, John Lasseter and our late friends Walt Disney and Chuck Jones in the latest “Starring You” Sendable Christmas video from our friends at JibJab. This year they secured the rights to the Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters recording of Santa Claus is Coming to Town and created an original stop-motion, Rankin Bass-esque production animated by Max Winston (Flapjack) For more information on how you can send one of these to your friends, visit JibJab.com.
Indie animation legend Bill Plympton‘s outlandish experiment to remake his Oscar nominated short Guard Dog as a global jam session is nearing completion. Dozens of animators contributed a few seconds each to recreate his original short shot-by-shot in their personal styles.
Bill shared this exclusive clip with us to show its progress. The mix of styles, techniques and skill levels is delightful, and the animator who animated the dog barking at the squirrel is the wildest piece of animation you’ll see today. The film will be completed in January and will hit the festival circuit in Spring ’11.
The Gruffalo, a holiday special based on a children’s book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, makes its US debut TONIGHT on ABC Family at 7pm/6c. The half-hour CG/stop motion mix was directed by Jakob Schuh and Max Lang at Germany’s Studio Soi and produced by London-based Magic Light Pictures. The film also debuts in Canada next Wednesday, December 15, at 6:30pm on TVO.
The filmmakers are posting pieces of Gruffalo pre-production art on their blog every day during the month of December. I’ve yet to see the special, but have been hearing plenty of raves about it throughout the past year, and have watched it pick up award after award including Best TV Special at Annecy, Best European Program of the Year at Cartoons on the Bay, Best Short Film for Children at Anima Mundi, and Best Television Animation Made for Children at Ottawa. The film was also nominated for a BAFTA and is currently on this year’s Oscar shortlist for best animated short.
If you’ve seen it already, share your thoughts in the comments.
Disney Animation followed up its CG Prep & Landing TV special from last year with this new 7-minute short, which premiered on Tuesday night during the telecast of A Charlie Brown Christmas on ABC. In case you missed it (I did), they’ve graciously posted it onto YouTube. I loved the first one, and this is a worthy little follow up. Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers-Skelton wrote and directed. And yeah, that’s Betty White as Mrs. Claus.
