Monthly Archives: April 2012

“Tron: Uprising” new trailer

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Check out this kick ass new trailer for Disney XD’s Tron: Uprising. The series will premiere next month with a voice cast that includes Paul Reubens, Nate Corddry, Mandy Moore, Reginald Vel Johnson and Bruce Boxleitner as “Tron”. Oh, and Elijah Wood plays the main character, leader of a revolution inside The Grid, named “Beck” (great name, eh?).

The show will officially debut Thursday, June 7th on Disney XD, with a prelude called Tron: Uprising, Beck’s Beginning airing on the regular Disney Channel on May 18th. Charlie Bean (Ren & Stimpy, Samurai Jack) is directing and exec producing, and the incredible Alberto Mielgo is also contributing to the project.

HOUSEKEEPING: How to Send Stories to Cartoon Brew

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Have an animated film or a piece of news to share? Here are some helpful tips for submitting to Cartoon Brew:

* If you are submitting a news item, DO NOT SUBMIT using our personal contact forms or Twitter accounts. Submissions via our personal forms will be junked. Use our SUGGEST A STORY form, which is conveniently located in the right sidebar.

* An easier way to get our attention is to submit items via Cartoon Brew’s Facebook page. The benefit is that even if we can’t post it, it becomes part of the public discussion among over 5,500 Brew readers. Our FB page is quite active and we look at it regularly.

* If you have a company press release, submit it to our CB BIZ news editor Chris at PR [at] cartoonbrew [dot] com

* Do not send links to film fundraising campaigns. We haven’t linked to a single fundraising campaign in over two years, yet we still get multiple fundraising submissions on a daily basis. We will under no circumstances link to a third-party fundraising campaign on Kickstarter, IndieGogo or any such similar site. We instituted the no-fundraising policy as the fairest solution to deal with the barrage of requests. If a film project is newsworthy for a reason other than the fact that it needs money, we may write about it AFTER the campaign’s completion (or after its fundraising goal has been met), or we’ll post about the project without promoting the fundraising effort.

Amid Interviewed About The Ward Kimball Biography

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Ward Kimball

Didier Ghez, editor of the important Walt’s People anthologies and proprietor of the Disney History blog, interviewed me about my upcoming biography Full Steam Ahead!: The Life and Art of Ward Kimball. It’s the first time I’ve spoken about how the book came about and some of its contents. Read the interview HERE.

Ruby-Spears on Stu’s Show

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Thundarr, Fangface, Turbo Teen, Plastic Man, Rickety Rocket (above), Mighty Man and Yukk, Rubik The Amazing Cube, Mr. T… If these are the Saturday morning cartoons you grew up with, you’ll want to tune into Wednesday’s internet radio broadcast of Stu’s Show. TV animation producers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears will be giving a rare 2-hour interview, live on May 2nd at 7pm Eastern/4pm Pacific, with host Stuart Shostack and writer Mark Evanier.

Probably the most succesful suppliers of Saturday morning programming next to Hanna-Barbera, Joe and Ken actually began their careers working at H-B in 1959 in the film editing and sound tracking departments. They were quickly hired as writers and contributed so much to H-B that CBS network president Fred Silverman wanted them to supervise such H-B staples as “Wacky Races” and “Scooby Doo”. When Silverman left CBS for ABC, he gave the team an exclusive contract to produce ALL of the cartoons for the network, and that’s how “Fangface”, “Thundarr”, “Plastic Man”, and many other series were born.

Ruby-Spears (the company) still exists (check their website) and the two veteran producers will discuss what they’ve been up to, what they plan to do next and of course, answer questions about their classic shows from Stu and Mark – and from readers who submit their questions via email. Check the Stu’s Show website for details on how to submit questions and how to hear the the show free this Wednesday.

2012 ASIFA-East Awards Announced

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Tonight, ASIFA-East handed out prizes for its 43nd annual Animation Festival. The Rauch Brothers took home the Best in Show for their 9/11-themed short John and Joe. Two children’s films that I particularly enjoyed at the screening were Michael Sporn‘s inspiring I Can Be President (which was shown in excerpted form) and an adaptation of Mo Willems’ book Don’t Let The Pigeon Stay Up Late directed by Pete List. The latter showed that preschool animation can engage audience participation without talking down to kids.

The most surprising film of the evening was Leah Shore‘s Old Man. The “old man” in question is Charles Manson, and Shore uses a breathless array of techniques and styles to illustrate recordings of his schizophrenic ramblings. Though we’ve posted Shore’s films here before–see BOOBatary and Meatwaffle–I’d suggest that Old Man is a breakout work for the young filmmaker. She is a talent to watch.

A full list of winners follows the jump.
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Box Office Report: Aardman’s Weakest US Debut

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Aardman’s latest feature The Pirates! Band of Misfits, directed by Peter Lord, debuted in second place in the US with $11.1 million. It’s Aardman’s weakest opening ever in the US. However, it was considered on a par with studio projections, and the film should end up with a respectable run, especially considering that no other animated films are set to be released in May.

For comparison, here’s how other Aardman features have opened in the US:

Chicken Run (2000): $17.5 million
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005): $16 million
Flushed Away (2006): $18.8 million
Arthur Christmas (2011): $12.1 million

Directors You Should Know: Kaj Pindal

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Kaj Pindal, who turns eighty-five years old this year, ranks up there as one of my all-time favorite animators. Pindal typically works with a very basic library of shapes, but his animation is whimsical, funny, and filled with graphic quirks and tics. It all adds up to a distinctive and appealing style that looks even fresher today amidst the proliferation of mechanical Flash and After Effects animation.

The City: Osaka is not necessarily a Pindal classic–for that, see I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly, King Size, or Peep and the Big Wide World–but I was delighted to discover such a pristine copy posted onto the NFB website. A commissioned film for Expo ’70 held in Osaka, Japan, it was intended to give Japanese people a glimpse into Canadian life, which apparently consists mostly of deforestation and hockey.

The spare black-and-white design of the film, as well as the two minutes of blank screen at the beginning (albeit with excellent jazz music), are due to the film’s original mode of projection. “It played around the clock for the duration of the World’s Fair on a screen made of sixty thousand individual light bulbs,” Pindal said. Kaj talks about his experiences associated with the film on the Kaj Pindal blog.

Here’s a terrific documentary about Kaj Pindal called Laugh Lines from 1979:

“The Pirates! Band of Misfits” Talkback

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Man, I can’t wait to see this film (I’ll be seeing it at an ASIFA-Hollywood screening tomorrow). It opened today to great reviews: Manohla Dargis of The New York Times calls it “a curiosity cabinet of visual pleasures”, while Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times says its “a clever piece of business that is a complete pleasure to experience”.

How about you? This talkback thread is open only to those who have actually seen the film (your comment will be deleted if we detect you haven’t seen it – and we can tell). Tell the world what you think in the comments section below.

EXCLUSIVE: “Motorcity” Production Footage And Deleted Scene

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Whatever happened to limited TV animation? For those of us who remember when Jonny Quest was state-of-the-art for TV adventure animation… this leaked footage (below) from Disney’s Motorcity is pretty amazing. The animation looks really slick for a TV production, and especially good for a show that’s digitally animated in flash.

Here is an eleven minute compilation of nine sequences pulled from upcoming episodes. These clips showcase the animation and compositing techniques employed in the series. Each sequence features the final composited footage, followed by the animation in it’s rough form.

Created by Chris Prynoski, Motorcity is produced by Robin Red Breast, Inc. (a subsidiary of Titmouse, Inc.) and Disney Television Animation. It premieres this Monday, April 30th at 9pm, ET/PT on Disney XD. The first episode is now available to watch for free on iTunes (there’s a free iPhone/iPad game on iTunes as well). More information on this clip reel after the jump.
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Laika President Travis Knight Thinks Stop Motion Is A “Completely Awful Process”

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In this LA Times story about the resurgence of stop motion animated features, Travis Knight, the producer of Laika’s ParaNorman and one of its lead animators, had this to say:

“Stop-motion is probably the worst, most painful way to make a film. It’s a completely awful process to engage in, an anachronism.”

The one thing stop motion has working in its favor? It’s not computer animation. Knight, who is also the president and CEO of Laika, added:

“But the stories have a warmth and a charm. You’re not looking at ones and zeros. You’re looking at the hands of the artists who made it.”

Photo of Travis Knight, with his father, Nike chairman and Laika owner Phil Knight. (Quote via Kirsten Lepore)

“After School Midnighters” trailer

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In today’s installment of “Animation WTF?”, I hereby submit this trailer for After School Midnighters (Hôkago middonaitâzu) by artist/animator Hitoshi Takekiyo. The official synopsis reads…

“The main character ‘Kynst Lijk’ is a human body model that stands in a science room of an elementary school. Kynst Lijk also reigns over the school after midnight. One day, when a naughty kindergarden trio accidentally meets him, his ordinary life changes. The scariest and craziest after midnight adventure begins…”

Around the same time we’ll be watching Brave, Ice Age: Continental Drift and ParaNorman, this film will be opening in Tokyo theaters:

Chronicle Books Is Releasing A Ton Of Cartoon Titles This Fall

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My favorite publisher Chronicle Books just put out their Fall/Winter 2012 catalog and they’re releasing more animation and cartoon-related books this holiday season than ever before. Below are the six titles (including one by myself) that will be of interest to Cartoon Brew readers, followed by the catalog pages with images and descriptions of each book.

The Art and Making of ParaNorman by Jed Alger
August 2012, Pre-order for $21.74.

Sketchtravel by Gérald Guerlais and Dice Tsutsumi
September 2012, Pre-order for $23.52.

The Art of Wreck-It Ralph by Maggie Malone and Jennifer Lee Monn
November 2012, Pre-order for $21.74.

Imagination Illustrated: The Jim Henson Journal by Karen Falk
November 2012, Pre-order for $16.27.

Full Steam Ahead!: The Life and Art of Ward Kimball by Amid Amidi
November 2012, Pre-order for $29.70.

The Art and Making of Peanuts Animation by Charles Solomon
December 2012, Pre-order for $20.83.