Cartoon Brew

OSCAR TIME!

Tomorrow night is Oscar night and nothing seems as certain as the WALLACE & GROMIT win. However, the only suspense around here is for who will win the award for animated short. They are all outstanding, and the winner will seem obvious in hindsight.

John McElwee on his Greenbriar Picture Shows blog takes an affectionate look at how RKO and MGM touted their Oscar winning cartoon characters with ads in Hollywood trade magazines 60 years ago.

LIVE ACTION SIMPSONS

A must-see: live-action SIMPSONS opening from the UK's Sky TV.

Weekend Animation Notes

Finally, an animation executive salary increase that's actually deserved.

Anime has arrived in Iraq, otaku will follow.

Nick Park on the Oscars: We're animators, we're not used to getting out of our dark studio and meeting real people, let alone glamorous and attractive ones

CNN does an article about all the crap CG-animated features scheduled for release in 2006. "Hollywood has never been bashful about its own competence," says Dennis McAlpine, an independent media analyst. "If studios see somebody else do something, they think they can do it better. But it's not as simple as it looks -- the story has to attract people."

Iger Interview

This interview with Bob Iger is an interesting read. He discusses the Pixar acquisition at some length, and says that in his five months as Disney CEO, the Pixar deal is "what I'm most proud of." The interview also lays out his three strategic priorities for Disney:

1. Creating great content.
2. Applying technology in the creation and distribution of your businesses.
3. Growing internationally, in terms of both expanding Disney's businesses around the world and changing the notion that Burbank has a monopoly on creativity.

(via Animated-News)

NEW DISNEY BOOKS OF NOTE

University Press of Mississippi has two great new Disney books coming out in the next few months. Mouse Tracks: The Story of Walt Disney Records by Tim Hollis and Greg Ehrbar, is an appreciative overview of the oft-overlooked Disney record company.

The book chronicles for the first time the fifty-year history of the Disney recording companies launched by Walt Disney and Roy Disney in the mid-1950s, when Disneyland Park, Davy Crockett, and the Mickey Mouse Club were taking the world by storm. The book provides a perspective on all-time Disney favorites and features anecdotes, reminiscences, and biographies of the artists who brought Disney magic to audio. Authors Tim Hollis and Greg Ehrbar go behind the scenes at the Walt Disney Studios and discover that in the early days Walt Disney and Roy Disney resisted going into the record business before the success of "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" ignited the in-house label. Mouse Tracks reveals the struggles, major successes, and occasional misfires. Included are impressions and details of teen-pop princesses Annette Funicello and Hayley Mills, the Mary Poppins phenomenon, a Disney-style "British Invasion," and a low period when sagging sales forced Walt Disney to suggest closing the division down.

The book is loaded with performer biographies, reproductions of album covers and art, and facsimiles of related promotional material. It'll be out in May.

The other book, Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book: Unmasking the Myth of Modernity by Thomas Andrae, will be published in July. This is a critical study of Barks's work from a cultural perspective. Andrae analyzes all phases of Barks's career from his work in animation to his postretirement years writing Junior Woodchucks stories. Barks is one of America's greatest storytellers and, Andrae contends, "lifted the comic book form to the level of great literature."

Blog Roundup

There's lots of new blogs I've been meaning to mention recently and haven't found the time. Here are five good ones for the moment:

Dan Krall (SAMURAI JACK, POWERPUFF GIRLS and currently on Laika's CORALINE) now has a BLOG.

So does Bill Wray (REN & STIMPY, BIG BLOWN BABY) who has decided to go legit and become a fine art painter.

Not only can Andrea Blasich draw well, but he does terrific character maquettes.

The boys at the Animation Guild, Local 839 IATSE are blogging now too. This is shaping up into a solid resource for insider-type industry news.

CINEMA 4: CEL BLOC is a site where Rik reviews one classic animated short every day—from Felix the Cat to Popeye and Clampett to DePatie-Freleng. The writing is solid (if a bit long occasionally) and his write-ups make me want to see these films again (or in some cases, for the first time).

OH!

Tonight, March 2nd at 8pm, Janet Klein and the Parlor Boys celebrate the release of their 5th album, entitled: "Oh!" So, if you have yet to thrill to the sweet syncopations of Janet and her band, then this is the night! As always, the musical program will be preceded by another great selection of vintage cinematic goodies presented by Brewmaster Jerry Beck. THE STEVE ALLEN THEATER (Center for Inquiry-West), 4773 Hollywood Blvd. in Hollywood (Two blocks west of Vermont -- Plenty of FREE parking in the rear). Tickets $15.

Calling All Graphic Designers

Ok folks, something a bit different. We're looking to redesign the CartoonBrew logo. It's been up for two years, and we think it's high time for a new look. We want something really solid, worthy of the Brew name. The project is a little more involved than just a logo for the site, so make sure you're good. Also, we are paying. Not a fortune, but enough that hopefully you won't want to do bodily harm to us. Please send links to your portfolio site or email examples of your work to both of us at:
amid at animationblast dot com
jbeck6540 at aol dot com

Thanks,
Your Brewmasters

Musker and Clements Return To Disney

O-Meon.com is reporting that veteran Disney directing duo John Musker and Ron Clements (THE LITTLE MERMAID, ALADDIN) are returning to Walt Disney Feature Animation. They had left Disney in 2005 because of the studio's deteriorating creative atmosphere. This is great news...as long as they don't make another TREASURE PLANET, or for that matter, another HERCULES.

Toy Story 2 Requiem

This is a genius trailer mash-up of TOY STORY 2 and Darren Aronofsky's gritty REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. (Click on the image above to watch the video.) It also inadvertently makes a powerful point about contemporary cartoons: the problem with most animated films today isn't the actual artwork or animation, but rather the writing, the voice acting and the lack of directorial vision. TOY STORY 2 is a great film to begin with, but this trailer shows how so many weaker animated films could be improved if other aspects, besides the visuals, were overhauled.
(Official TOY STORY 2 REQUIEM trailer mash-up site HERE)

OSWALD STENCILS ON EBAY

A super-cool and incredibly rare 1928 Oswald The Lucky Rabbit Stencil Set sold on ebay today for $1525. Click here for photo gallery of this item, one of the earliest known pieces of Disney licensed merchandise to exist. Would this have sold at that price a few weeks ago?

CARTOONS AT UCLA

Heads up for those in Los Angeles area. On Friday (3/3, 7:30pm) the UCLA Film & Television Archive is running a tribute to Comic Art Onscreen. The Friday night program presents a selection of animated cartoons from the silent to early sound era (drawn from the Archive's own collection, the Museum of Modern Art, Library of Congress, George Eastman House and Columbia Pictures).

Titles include: LITTLE NEMO (1911), DREAMS OF A RAREBIT FIEND: BUG VAUDEVILLE (1921), Fragment from THE CENTAURS (1921), GERTIE THE DINOSAUR (1914), BOBBY BUMPS STARTS A LODGE (1916), BOBBY BUMPS AT THE DENTIST (1917), INDOOR SPORTS (1921), BREATH OF A NATION (1919), THE BEER PARADE (with Scrappy, 1933), KRAZY KAT GOES A-WOOING (1916), KRAZY KAT AND IGNATZ MOUSE AT THE CIRCUS (1916), THE APACHE KID 1930 (Krazy Kat), FELIX THE CAT IN BLUNDERLAND (1926), FELIX THE CAT WEATHERS THE WEATHER (1926).

A second program (Saturday March 11th, 2006, 7:30PM ) features another rarity, the only non-live-action feature film by Japanese New Wave master Oshima Nagisa (MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE [1983], IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES [1976]). BAND OF NINJAS (1967) is not animated, but rather a filmed manga (comic book). Using sound and montage techniques, Oshima made an action epic by filming the pages of Shirato Sampei's 16-volume manga classic about bloody revenge and revolt in feudal Japan.

(Thanks, Sharon Burian)

Cartoons for Victory!

I rarely buy dvds, but one of the few that I'm planning to get is the forthcoming GOLDEN AGE OF CARTOONS: CARTOONS FOR VICTORY!. I saw a 'rough cut' of the dvd a few months back and it's a spectacular collection of super-rare World War II-era cartoons from the US and Europe. The group of filmmakers represented on this dvd is stellar: Lou Bunin, Jiri Trnka, Hans Fischerkoesen, John Hubley, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett and Frank Tashlin, among others. DVD producer Steve Stanchfield is passionate about animated films and puts a lot of care into finding the best prints around and presenting these cartoons properly. The dvd also has commentaries by Cartoon Brew's very own Jerry Beck, as well as Eric Goldberg and John Kricfalusi. For a mere $10 on Amazon, it's hard to go wrong with this collection. For more details about what's on it, check out this review.

HARRY VISITS PIXAR

Our pal Harry McCracken goes inside Pixar and tells us about it on HARRY-GO-ROUND.

An Apple For The Mouse

An article in BARRON'S is suggesting that Apple may eventually purchase Disney, sending up stock futures by 6%. I think there's a good chance of this occurring and said so back in January. Here's what I'd written about a possible Apple-Disney merger: "If this were Vegas, I'd personally put money on this scenario happening within the next 18-30 months."

A Blair A Day...

It's Mary Blair Week!
Guess where?

John Canemaker in the NY TIMES

Yesterday's NY TIMES (use BugMeNot to bypass registration) had a piece by Charles Solomon about John Canemaker's Oscar-nominated short THE MOON AND THE SON: AN IMAGINED CONVERSATION. At the end of the piece is this eloquent thought by Canemaker:

The potential for animation to be emotionally expressive and personal has barely been touched. In the future, we're going to see more personal films, including memoirs and diaries... Animation has been ghettoized as a kids' medium, which is a waste of its potential for artists who could express larger visions.

(Thanks, Joel)

Tachiguishi Retsuden

TACHIGUISHI RETSUDEN is an upcoming Japanese animated film by Mamoru Oshii (GHOST IN THE SHELL) and Production IG. It is yet another example of the type of innovative animated features that are being produced in seemingly every corner of the world nowadays except the United States. I was really impressed with the film trailer. The film's visuals are comprised largely of digitally manipulated photo cut-outs mixed with some straight-up CG. It's worth noting that the filmmakers don't hide the fact that these are flat photos, and the animation style emphasizes the flatness when characters are turned and moved around. The last film I saw that innovated this much with photo cut-outs was Virgil Widrich's mind-bending FAST FILM.

A synopsis of the film at Twitchfilm.net is both confusing and intriguing for its nuttiness: it is apparently some type of historical comedy/fantasy about "fast-food grifters." At least that explains why people continuously yell 'Hamburger' in the trailer. Catsuka.com offers some other interesting details about the production. The film uses 30,000 photos, taken in only five days, and a lot of the digital animation was created by students. Most of the cast was made up of folks who work in animation: the actors include the CEO of Production IG, Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki, ESCAFLOWNE director Shoji Kawamori, and storyboard artist Shinji Higuchi. One can sense that the filmmakers and crew were truly having fun on this project. This anything-goes spirit of experimentation and playfulness is one of the primary factors that makes cartoons from the Golden Age of Hollywood animation so appealing, and it's something that's largely absent from contemporary animation. It's nice to see the spirit is alive and well in Japan.

TACHIGUISHI RETSUDEN opens in Japan on April 8. The official website (in Japanese) is HERE.

Doogal Tanks

Well, that didn't take long. Congrats to our friends at the Weinstein Company for releasing the first CGI bomb of 2006, DOOGAL. The film opened relatively wide in over 2,300 theaters, but managed only $3.6 million for an 8th place finish. The film had a per-theater average of $1,556, the second-lowest per-theater average in the top ten. With over a dozen CG cartoons still on the slate for '06, and most of them poorly conceived, DOOGAL promises to be only the first of many flops.

WIRED ON SCANNER DARKLY

Good article on the CG rotoscope technique used in WAKING LIFE and challenges in making the forthcoming A SCANNER DARKLY in the latest WIRED. Worth reading.

PLIGHT OF THE BUMBLE BEE

Hans Perk of A. Film A/S in Denmark sent us these drawings (below) and storyboard images (above) from unfinished Disney production #2428, PLIGHT OF THE BUMBLE BEE, mentioned in our previous post. This material is certainly intriguing! (Click on each to see larger image)