Monthly Archives: July 2011

SATURDAY: Jim Korkis at Disney Family Museum

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If you are in San Francisco this weekend, I’d recommend a visit to the Disney Family Museum to see my pal, Disney historian extraordinaire Jim Korkis, speak about Walt Disney’s fascination with outer space. Jim examines Walt’s contributions to the U.S. space program, including his collaboration with Dr. Werhner Von Braun on a design for a working space shuttle, 25 years before one was actually built. Jim will be talking about the Tomorrowland Space Trilogy of shows from the Fifties, merchandise that was spawned from those shows, the film Moon Pilot, Disney space shows that were never made – and much more. Korkis will be speaking at 3 pm on Saturday July 23 at the Disney Family Museum.

Buy Snow White’s House

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Another animation landmark is up for grabs – for $1.1 million. The late Adriana Caselotti, the voice of Disney’s Snow White lived in a house near Larchmont Village (in Hollywood) done up as Snow White’s cottage. If you are in the area this month, they are holding several open house showings of the property – the ultimate collectible for the Disney fanatic who has everything!

(Thanks, James Gibson)

Max Fleischer predicts the Future!

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Popeye authority Fred Grandinetti found this clipping in The Miami News (published on December 25th, 1936) in which Max Fleischer predicts a day when audiences will flock to theatres to see 3-dimensional cartoon feature films! Of course, Uncle Max was thinking more along the lines of his Stereo-Optical process, using three-dimensional sets and not computer graphics. Nor motion capture (despite his invention of the rotoscope). Still, Max was a visionary…

New Animation School Opens Across the Street from Pixar

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Animation Collaborative

The Animation Collaborative is a new series of animation workshops that take place in Emeryville directly across the street from the Pixar campus. While not affiliated with the studio, all of the school’s teachers work at Pixar. In my opinion, the class prices, which range from $1,400 (8-week summer sessions) to $1,900 (13-week fall sessions) are too steeply priced for a school that has no official accreditation, so you’re essentially paying a celebrity surcharge for learning at a school run by Pixar artists. On the plus side, class sizes are intimate (8 people) and if you stand outside of the school long enough, perhaps John Lasseter will wave to you as his chauffeur drives him home.

FACT CHECK: Weta Did Not Invent Motion Capture

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No one turns to the Wall Street Journal for insightful animation coverage, but that’s still no excuse for this egregious error in an article about the use of motion capture on Rise of the Planet of the Apes:

The film, which follows the development of the chimp Caesar from baby to adult, takes advantage of “motion capture,” a technology the visual-effects company Weta Digital Ltd. first developed for the 2009 blockbuster “Avatar” and has evolved one step further.

The sentence is written in such a way as to imply that Weta developed motion capture, which it clearly did not. Motion capture is a major filmmaking technology that has been used in dozens of films and has been utilized for decades. A newspaper claiming that it was invented in 2009 by Weta defies comprehension.

“Gorge” by Thomas Knowler

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When an all-consuming city overwhelms you, remember music can set you free… Thomas Knowler’s post-grad thesis project for the School of Visual Arts, NYC has a Gahan Wilson meets Mobieus vibe. And I like it.

Since Gorge, Knowler has been working on a series of animated-illustrations for JG Ballard’s The Drowned World. Knowler says, “I think it’s evident that as technology provides more areas for animation to be displayed; illustrated books could well take advantage of using short animations as a form of illustration. You can find two I have completed (in serious detail) here (Part 1) and here (Part 2).”

“The Sleischers” by Tim Razumovsky & Eyal Oren (NSFW)

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Tim Razumovsky & Eyal Oren’s third year student film at the Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design/Israel, is an R-rated tribute to 70s trash films “a la Rodriguez & Tarantino”. Says Razumovsky:

“The film is a kind of short pilot episode which will hopefully become a series in the future. The main characters are a pair of twisted married assassins and the title “The Sleischers” is actually their family name. “The Sleischers” is a sort of a pun for the word “slashers” and a hint that both characters speak with heavy foreign accent and their origin remains unclear. The film is a marriage of various kinky B-Movies that we like. As for the plot, I’ve heard a couple of interesting theories about it – such as hidden religious or feminist messages in it.”

It’s Not Safe For Work, nor for the sweamish. Submitted for your approval, The Sleischers:

San Diego Comic-Con and Tr!ckster Open Thread

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Comics

Are you an animation artist artist who will be exhibiting your wares at San Diego Comic-Con or TR!CKSTER this week? If so, use the comments section to tell everybody where you’ll be and what you’re selling.

(Note: If you know how to use an HTML image tag, feel free to add images as well. Just keep them below 420px so the site layout doesn’t break.)

“Cars 2″ Outgrosses “Winnie the Pooh” Debut

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Winnie the Pooh

Winnie the Pooh, Disney’s first hand-drawn animated feature since 2009′s The Princess and the Frog, opened in 6th place with $7.85 million dollars. Cars 2, another Disney release, pocketed $8.4M in its fourth weekend, good enough for a 5th place finish and an overall gross of $165.4M. Below are the openings for the other recent films in the Pooh franchise:

The Tigger Movie (2000): $9.4M
Piglet’s Big Movie (2003): $6M
Pooh’s Heffalump Movie (2005): $5.8M

The film’s reason for existence has nothing to do with box office, however. Like Cars 2, it appears to be a corporate obligation first and foremost. Winnie the Pooh is the second-largest character franchise in the world, earning $5.7 billion in revenue last year. To put that into perspective, Pooh earned more in 2010 than the combined Toy Story and Cars franchises, which are the fifth and sixth highest-earning character franchises.

The world’s most valuable franchise is Disney’s Mickey Mouse, which took in $9 billion last year. If the company’s approach to its other top-earning franchises like Pooh, Cars and Toy Story is any indication, could a Mickey Mouse feature be that far off?

THIS WEEK: Comic-Con & Tr!ckster

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I’ll be down in San Diego later this week, splitting my time six ways (and probably pulling my hair out) running all over Comic Con where I’ll be hanging at the ASIFA-Hollywood booth (#1534) when I’m not moderating a panel or a screening (see below), or taking meetings, looking for old comic books or crashing parties (I’ll happily accept any legitimate invites I can get – hint, hint). I’ll also be attending numerous panels – too numerous to list here – if I can get into them.

I’ll also be jumping across the street, to present films on behalf of Cartoon Brew at Tr!ckster, the alternative animation-artist con which we are co-sponsoring at the San Diego Wine and Culinary Center (across the street in the Gaslamp District). They got a nice write-up in Sunday’s L.A. Times. Check it out if you are down there.

As I said, there are too many animation industry panels at Comic Con of interest for me to list. Every current primetime, cable and kids animated series, theatrical feature and direct-to-video movie in production has a panel devoted to it. I highly recommend you consult the daily schedules posted online. Here are the ones I’m doing, as well as some I may attend and a couple I want to plug because they feature friends as panelists:

Thursday

10:00 -11:00am Cartoon Brew’s Festival of Student Animation, a celebration of student animated short films, curated by yours truly and Amid Amidi of “the phenomenal animation website Cartoon Brew”. At Tr!ckster (200 Harbor Drive, suite 120)

3:00-4:00pm Classic Warner Bros./Hanna-Barbera Cartoons Going Blu-ray – Yours truly Jerry Beck and Warner Archives’ George Feltenstein lead a panel of renowned animation creators, including directors Spike Brandt (The Looney Tunes Show), Tony Cervone (Duck Dodgers), and Paul Dini (Batman the Animated Series), in presenting and discussing selected vintage cartoons from Warner Home Video’s fall 2011 Blu-ray release of the newly remastered Tom and Jerry Golden Collection and Looney Tunes Platinum Collections. Don’t miss this panel – secrets will be revealed! Room 32AB

6:00-9:00pm – 3rd Annual Comic-Con Beer Bust – ASIFA-Hollywood, One Plus Hub, Technicolor, and The Producer’s Guild of America invite you to the 3rd Annual Beer Bust. Meet, connect, hang out with members of animation community that will come together for this fantastic event. No need to RSVP. Just show up! The first 400 beers are FREE! At The Yard House Keg Room (1023 4th Ave.)

Friday

10:00-11:00am Cartoon Brew’s Festival of Student Animation is a second screening of the same program curated by me and Amid. At Tr!ckster (200 Harbor Drive, suite 120)

12:00-1:00pm ASIFA-Hollywood’s State of the Animation Industry What do pros think of the animation scene today? Will it all go 3D? Is 2D dead? When is a hybrid VFX flick an animated flick? How do I get my first job? Join Tom Sito (Lion King, Hop), Ken Duncan (Tarzan), Allen Battino (The Smurfs), Sean Petrilak (Kung Fu Panda TV show), Kevin Grow (Resistance: Fall of Man), and Brittany Biggs (KFP II) and get in on the discussion! Room 32AB

9:00-10:00pm Worst Cartoons Ever! – Once again I compile a new selection of the most terribly written, ugliest drawn, and unintentionally funniest animated films ever made. Cartoons this year include The Cautious Twins, Paddy Pelican and of course, a fresh episode of Mighty Mr. Titan! Room 6BCF

Saturday

12:15-1:00pm The Futurama Panel with creator/executive producer Matt Groening, executive producer David X. Cohen, and stars Billy West (Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg), Katey Sagal (Leela), John DiMaggio (Bender), and Maurice LaMarche (Kif Kroker, Calculon, Morbo). Get a sneak peek at never-before-seen footage of Futurama reincarnated as Japanese anime. Moderated by Bill Morrison. Ballroom 20

3:00-4:00pm Cartoon Network: Adventure Time See what’s in store for Finn, Jake, and all their friends from the mystical Land of Ooo with show creator Pendleton Ward, Jeremy Shada (Finn), Hynden Walch (Princess Bubblegum), Olivia Olson (Marceline the Vampire Queen), Kent Osborne (storyboard artist), and others. Room 6A

4:00-5:30pm Scott Shaw!’s Oddball Comics Scott brings back his ever-popular now-digital slide show featuring “the craziest comic books ever published!” Room 7AB

Sunday

11:00am-Noon IDW: Special Projects and Imprints Senior editor Scott Dunbier, designer Dean Mullaney (creative director of the Library of American Comics), comics historian Craig Yoe, and head of IDW’s prose line Jeff Conner present a revealing look at some of the upcoming additions to IDW’s superb archival comics collections. Room 24ABC

11:30am-12:45pm Cartoon Voices II – A panel full of those amazing folks who provide voices for animation. This one has Bill Farmer (Goofy), Laraine Newman (The Goode Family), Jason Marsden (The Fairly OddParents), Gregg Berger (The Garfield Show), Vanessa Marshall (The Avengers), and maybe a surprise or two. They’ll be questioned by moderators Mark Evanier (I recommend every panel moderated by Mark – these are the best at the convention) and Earl Kress. Room 6A

2:15-3:15 The Looney Tunes Show Screening and Q&A Following a special screening, supervising producers Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone, story editor Hugh Davidson, writer Rachel Ramras and other members of the creative team take the stage to answer your questions. Room 6A

3:45-4:45 The Holocaust Through the Eyes of a Child, Animated by a Child Bill Plympton along with 11-year-old prodigy animator Perry Chen, his mother Dr. Zhu Shen (producer), Karina Bessoudo (Toon Boom Animation, vice president), and Kevin Sean Michaels (director) share insight and a sneak preview of the film Ingrid Pitt: Beyond The Forest and the cross-generational collaboration that was formed to create it. The short animated film illustrates the miraculous true story of the late actress Ingrid Pitt (Where Eagles Dare) who, in 1945, escaped at age 8 from a Nazi concentration camp in Poland to later become one of the UK’s biggest movie stars. Moderated by Pat Swinney Kaufman (executive director for the New York State Governor’s Office for Motion Picture & Television Development) and Lloyd Kaufman (president/co-founder of Troma Entertainment). Room 5AB

Look forward to seeing you there – if you can find me!

Tod Polson and Chronicle are Making a Maurice Noble Book

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What

Tod Polson (El Tigre, The Secret of Kells) announced recently that he’s putting together a book on Maurice Noble that will be published in 2012 by my pals at Chronicle Books. Polson knew him as well as anybody, and I have no doubt he’s going to make this something special. This book will not only give Maurice his due, it’ll also make up for the disappointingly shallow biography of Noble that was published a few years back.

Tod describes the project on his blog:

The last few years of his life, Maurice had been working on a design textbook that described his approach to design. Unfortunately he passed away before he was able to complete the text. For most of the last year I have been working with Chronicle Books in putting together what I hope will be the book that Maurice had dreamed of. It will be chocked full of his pre-production art, notes, and thoughts from the master himself describing his process. The book will also be full of reflections from folks that knew and worked with him.