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Television execs seems to be stuck in a neverending nostalgia loop. In just the past week, reboots or spinoffs have been announced for "The Lion King," "The Magic School Bus," "The Powerpuff Girls"...and now, "Danger Mouse." The iconic U.K. cartoon series, which was produced by British studio Cosgrove Hall from 1981 to 1992, is returning to the small screen next year with 52 eleven-minute episodes.
The Japan Image Council has opened its call for applications for the Animation Artist In Residence Tokyo 2015. If you’ve had a film that has screened in an international festival or exhibition, I strongly encourage you to apply. As a previous resident of the program, I frequently find myself thinking about my wonderful experience in the residency.
In a sign of changing times, animated programming produced for both Netflix and YouTube has begun to earn a significant number of Emmy Award nominations, competing alongside traditional broadcast and cable series.
DreamWorks Animation's "How to Train Your Dragon 2" opened in second place this weekend with an estimated $50 million. The film trailed the $60 million debut of another sequel, the R-rated "22 Jump Street," directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who also directed "The LEGO Movie," which opened to $69 million earlier this year.
Foreign animation distributor GKIDS announced yesterday that they have acquired North American rights to the Brazilian film "Boy and the World."
Peco blazes through the tournament, but his knee begins to act up, leaving his future in question. Only Peco, Smile and Ryuichi remain at the end.
At least one DreamWorks animated film has lost money for the past three years in a row: "Rise of the Guardians" in 2012 had an $87 million writedown; "Turbo" in 2013 resulted in a $13.5 million writedown; and this year's "Mr. Peabody & Sherman" caused a $57 million writedown. This is rather obviously not a sustainable trend from a business standpoint, and investors are beginning to worry about the studio's long-term prospects.
The world of animation software is dominated by a handful of industry-standard titles. However, the margins are dotted with more specialized pieces of software, often designed for animators who prefer to work outside the demands of studio production. One such program is Animake It, a piece of software that aims to provide an accessible animation experience that ties in with current trends in online content.
Sony Pictures Animation today announced that they've acquired an original comedy pitch entitled "Medusa" from screenwriter Todd Alcott ("Antz") and reality TV producer Holly Golden ("Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura"). More interesting: Lauren Faust ("My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic," "Super Best Friends Forever") is attached to direct.
Animation and visual effects studio Sony Pictures Imageworks has confirmed what many in the industry had suspected for a long while: the studio is moving its headquarters from Los Angeles to Vancouver, Canada to take advantage of generous tax credits provided by the Canadian government. This move, combined with Digital Domain's jump to Vancouver and Rhythm & Hues' bankruptcy, prompted "Variety'"s VFX chronicler David S. Cohen to say that the Los Angeles feature film visual effects industry is "in full collapse."
Disney's head animation writer in 1977 was cartoon veteran Larry Clemmons, who had first been hired at the studio in 1930. At the time of his hiring, he was a Yale graduate with a degree in architecture, but an Ivy League education was of little value in 1930 when the economy was collapsing...and few buildings were being erected.
Veronika Samartseva is an animation director from Germany, who specializes in analog animation techniques. Her award-winning films have been shown at international festivals worldwide. After her graduation from HFF Konrad Wolf Babelsberg, Veronika joined the Berlin-based animation collective Talking Animals. Recently she started teaching animation at the BTK University of Design.
Every time you want to stop writing about "Frozen," it breaks another record. This weekend, the Disney smash hit remained in first place at the Japanese box office for an incomprehensible eleventh weekend in a row.
Joanna Davidovich is a freelance animator based in Atlanta, Georgia. A graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, she has been working as an animator, designer, and storyboard artist on commercials, on-air content, and TV shows since 2005. Her animated short film "Monkey Rag", which debuts online this afternoon, has been making the festival rounds since it was completed last July.
The producer of this year's most intriguing and visually eclectic animated feature may well end up being the Mexican/Arabic actress Salma Hayek, who screened a work-in-progress version of her pet project, "The Prophet," last week in Cannes.
As long as I've loved animation, I've been fascinated with the personal stories of people who work in the animation business. Not simply, "What character did you make?," but WHY and HOW did you make it? I became actively involved in documenting those stories when I published the print 'zine "Animation Blast," and it's something I've never stopped doing. For me, it wasn't just about talking to a handful of familiar directors and animators, but to talk with everyone, especially those who had worked quietly in the trenches and whose stories hadn't yet been told.
The 45th annual ASIFA-East Animation Festival Awards took place last Sunday in Manhattan. The long-running ceremony, which celebrates achievements in East Coast animation, is making an effort to gradually transform its annual ceremony into a more upscale affair.
Half a year on from the events of the previous episode, it's a winter of the soul for the various protagonists. We see just how much has changed in the intervening months through the kaleidoscopic lens of one Christmas Eve.
Yesterday on Cartoon Brew's Instagram, we offered a small taste of John Canemaker's new book "The Lost Notebook: Herman Schultheis & the Secrets of Walt Disney's Movie Magic," which will be released on May 27.
Last weekend, "The Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return" recorded the worst opening ever for an animated film in more than 2,500 theaters. The film's exec producer, Greg Centineo, a former Florida coffee shop owner who raised over $100 million from investors to produce this film and its followups, thinks he knows what went wrong.