Does the fact that cartoon channels like Cartoon Network and Teletoon are no longer interested in airing animation have any relation to the fact that Ice Age director Chris Wedge and Ratatouille director Brad Bird are now directing live-action features. Animation director Mark Mayerson seems to thinks so and his commentary is a thought-provoking read. Here’s what Mayerson has to say about directors like Wedge and Bird who are trying out live-action:

“As much as we want to believe that animation is a medium and not a genre, maybe everybody outgrows it after a while. Which isn’t to say that animation isn’t capable of more than it’s currently doing, but looking at what’s out there now, it’s not hard to sympathize with directors who want to try something new.”

This 1930 article from Popular Mechanics magazine (below) tries to explain the process of recording sound for animated cartoons in pseudo-scientific terms. There are all kinds of interesting and oddball facts bandied about, such as cartoons costing $20,000 per reel, and the artists themselves being able to draw the dialogue soundtrack (Huh??). The images are cool, and one seems to demonstrate an early method of matte photography. In a particularly dated reference the article’s author, in explaining that cartoons are popular all around the world, says, “They appeal alike to the Chinese Coolie and the Alaskan Indian”!

Click on thumbnail pages below for larger, readable images.
(Thanks, Leslie Cabarga)

One of the most rewarding parts of running Cartoon Brew is hearing from artists who are inspired by the items that we post here. Here are letters from two regular readers who have recently completed short animated pieces. The first letter is from Jerry Pyle:

“my friend, dion labriola and i just finished a music video for singer/songwriter daniel ahearn. we employed a few animation techniques that i thought you might be interested in seeing. in addition to the flash animation you see at the beginning, middle and end of the video, we used cut out animation for much of the song and for the chorus, we used an “eight-frame-fade” technique where we printed out every eighth frame, stapled them all together and nailed them to a pole outside, ripping off each frame and rephotographing it. the look suprised us.

“i’m a big fan of cartoon brew. you’ve turned me on to a lot of great animation both new and old and its a daily destination for me on the web. i’m sending along this link so you can put the video on the brew if you like. and also to show you what you in some way have inspired. thanks.”

The next letter is from John Brown (aka Jaye Bhee):

I’m an aspiring animator, busting my hump to put myself through animation courses (animation mentor, more specifically), and I’m so grateful to have cartoon brew as an enormous inspirational “bottomless well” of inspiration and history (I am obsessed with classic black and white cartoons)…

I’ve even done a sort of faux-homage (fauxmage?) to classic animation myself. It’s my first real try at a do-it-yourself animation (a la Bill Plympton), but I find it extremely rewarding (but exhausting, haha).

Anywho, if you have a free 2 minutes, feel free to check it out. If not, just know that what you’re doing is of incredible importance to beginners like me, and you guys provide constant inspiration. Thanks a quadrillion!

Illustrator Ben Butcher has done an interview with Grain Edit about his illustration process on Lots of Bots, a graphically-striking illustrated book being released this week as a tie-in for Pixar’s Wall-E.

Richard Mitchelson writes in to tell me about a new ad that he animated in Flash for Christian Aid Week. Though created before any of the recent natural disasters, it’s unfortunately very timely at the moment because of the tragedies in Myanmar and China. The spot was directed by 2AM’s PAM (Paul, Anthony, Malcolm), designed by graphic collective Eboy, and composited in Flame by Jason Watts of Finish. I really like this spot; not only is it well animated, but in a commercial world of rapid-fire cutting and dizzying camera angles, it’s refreshing to see a static isometric-shot for an entire 30-second commercial.

Lena Grieseke created this 3D “exploration” of Picasso’s famed painting “Guernica.” In the description of the project, Grieseke writes that recreating the work in 3D “provides the unusual opportunity to view the painting from a unique perspective, revealing aspects that would normally stay hidden from the casual viewer.” While experimentation like this is worth applauding, I’d also argue that the 3D adds little to the original. The power of the painting derives largely from Picasso’s nightmarish Cubist-inflected composition, and attempting to ‘deconstruct’ the objects in realistic space diminishes the graphic impact of the original work. Picasso’s work is certainly not off-limits to animated interpretation, but I think such attempts are better served when there is original thought behind the artwork, as in Juan Pablo Etcheverry’s Minotauromaquia, instead of exercises in recreating his artwork literally.

A short but fun interview with Ralph Bakshi appeared in last week’s New York magazine. I particularly enjoyed this exchange between the interviewer and Bakshi:

You mentored Ren and Stimpy’s John Kricfalusi. But we can never forgive you for giving Thomas Kinkade his big break.
That son of a bitch! Kinkade was the coolest. If Kinkade wasn’t a painter, he’d be one of those cult leaders. Kinkade came into my office with James Gurney when I was looking for background artists [for Fire and Ice]. He’s a good painter, and he did a spiel. He made all these deals. How he went out and did what he did is beyond my understanding now. He’s very, very talented, and he’s very, very much of a hustler. Those two things are in conflict. Is he talented? Oh yeah. Will he paint anything to make money? Oh yeah. Does he have any sort of moralistic view? No. He doesn’t care about anything. He’s as cheesy as they come.

(click for full-sized chart)

Designer Allister Roberts recently created a chart documenting the use of jazz in animated shorts between 1929 and 1945. He has generously allowed me to share his work with Brew readers. In addition to being informative, it’s a lovely piece of information graphics. Roberts tells me, “By all means this is not a complete list, as I purposely glazed over some lesser works, but barring time and money I would love the opportunity to completely flesh this out to cover entire eras.” Personally, I’d love to see him extend it out to cover the late-’40s and 1950s, when musicians like Oscar Peterson, Shorty Rogers and Ella Fitzgerald worked with animators like Norman McLaren, Bill Hurtz, Ernie Pintoff and John Hubley.

The above graphic will be reprinted in a forthcoming book by Robert Del Tredici, and a ten-foot printout of it is currently on display at the Mel Oppenheimer Centre in Montreal.

Former Disney 2D animators James Baker (Mulan, Tarzan, etc) and Joe Haidar (Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas) have directed a new combination live action/animation independent short film, Animated American. I don’t know much about it, but I was handed a postcard announcing a screening of it at the Rialto Theatre in South Pasadena on Thursday night. Click on image above to see the full poster for the film. Voice actors Jason Marsden (Batman) and Bill Farmer (Goofy) star. It sounds intriguing. Hopefully James and Joe will write in and give us more information.

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