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Commentary 12 Jan 2013 06:00 am

Movin’

Oscar Toons

- The Oscar nominations came out this week. It was an odd mix, and a curious grouping of those in that mix. I couldn’t be happier than that The Life of Pi (left) did so well. Let’s hope it wins one or three awards from those 11 nominations. I like that film a lot. I wouldn’t be too disappointed with Lincoln or The Master winning either, but I really like Pi. How can you not like a film that proves the intellectual existence of god?

Skipping down to the animated shorts, I’m not allowed to say much, but I am surprised at some of the choices. The ones that were eliminated so that a tv cartoon could make the list is embarrassing to me. Perhaps the hollywood people wanted to vote in something they had worked on, or maybe it’s just that it was supposed to be funny. Presumably they must have laughed in LA. They didn’t in NY. Oh, well. As Groucho would’ve said, “Why a duck?”

Best Animated Short

    Adam and Dog – Minkyu Lee
    Fresh Guacamole – PES
    Head over Heels – Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly -
    The Longest Daycare – David Silverman -
    Paperman – John Kahrs

Congratulations to all five nominees.

– As to the features, is it an accident that both the animated short nominees and the animated feature nominees both have one film that’s about the love between a boy and his dog? It seems too much of a coincidence. Hmmm. I never thought of myself as a conspiracy theorist, so I must be onto something here.

I’m impressed that there are three puppet animated films nominated. Not bad. I also don’t mind Brave‘s nomination and think that Wreck-It Ralph will probably win. It was pretty damn popular though I lost interest half an hour in. Maybe I should play more video games. Somehow, though, it seemed to be about so little as compared to all the others.

Best Animated Feature

    Frankenweenie – Tim Burton
    ParaNorman – Sam Fell and Chris Butler
    The Pirates! Band of Misfits – Peter Lord
    Wreck-It Ralph – Rich Moore

They all involved a lot of work and they’re all pretty good. Personally, I’d like to see Tim Burton win one after all the animation work he’s done. There haven’t been that many stars who have been consistently supportive and attentive to the medium. The Nightmare Before Christmas has become something of a classic, and The Corpse Bride was so gracefully attractive. The guy deserves a win.

This actually gives me an idea for a blog. Lately a lot of live action people are turning to animation. I guess animation people are trying o turn to live action as well. There must be something worth discussing there, and I’m going to find it.

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Muhammad’s Cartoon

- Talking about animated features brings me to this oddity. While tooling around YouTube, I came across a feature I’ve wanted to see. It was Directed/Produced by Richard Rich. That guy made a lot of animated features, and they all have some strong semblance of professionalism. I have to give it to him. Features are hard to do, hard to raise money for, and hard to maintain the enthusiasm, not only within yourself, but for the whole crew. As a director, if you’re not up to it, neither is your crew. You’re the backbone of the energy level of a film, and a feature goes on for a long time.

After all, before he left Disney, Richard Rich had directed The Black Cauldron and The Fox and the Hound. On his own, he had a bit of a hit with The Swan Princess in 1994. Good enough to get four sequels out of it, including The Trumpet of the Swan, the biggest. He also did an version of Rogers & Hammerstein’s The King & I as an animated feature. A daring idea that didn’t really work. Then there’s Muhammad: The Last Prophet which sneaks in there among dozens and dozens of Christian shorts about Christ and the apostles. He also produced Alpha and Omega, and another sequel called The Swan Princess Christmas. Those last two were cgi done in India.

John Celestri, a good friend, was an animator on all of Rich’s work done outside of Disney. We’re set to talk sometime soon, but John is buried with work. (I’m glad to hear that.) I’m also glad that Rich recognized John’s talent and held onto him all those years. I only wish some of the films were better. At the very least, better than Don Bluth’s output. At least Richard Rich keeps going. That’s positive in its own right. I’m also sorry he deserted 2D animation. I can’t blame him, though. It’s tough holding onto the 2D world.

Anyway, here’s Muhammad. I suspect it’s better on a big, theatrical screen.

Muhammad, the Last Prophet

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J.J.’s History

– I had planned to post a piece about the study J.J. Sedelmaier did for Imprint Magazine. But then Mark Mayerson did another of his perfect posts, tight and to the point excellently written and finely thorough. Though I’d already spent a lot of time looking at the Imprint Magazine piece, Mark’s writing got me back to read it again.

J.J. has an article with a lot of good pictures, about animation discs, pegs and desks. This is the old style hardware where anmators called themselves at home. Hours staring into desks made of cheap drawing tables with holes cut into them; lighting housing built on the underside of those desks, and animation discs were placed into the holes. This allowed man-made light to shine into the artist’s eyes revealing the animation in process through several layers of paper.

Divine.

For many years I’d collected a bunch of his animation hardware. I have a Fleischer disc – the earliest one I have didn’t use the foot-pedal peg release system. They’re just Acme pegs in that disc, though I have at times changed the pegs to Oxberry system or Signal Corps style. Now they’re Acme. I do have one of the bars of three round pegs from the Fleischer system.

I also collected X-Sheets. They’re all different. Most used the 80 lines on the page. 80 lines representing 80 frames or two 16mm feet or five 35mm feet. Some studios used 100 frames to the page. Shamus Culhane’s studio used those. Mathematically they meant nothing, but Shamus told me he liked that even number. The even number was pointless, really. Some other studios liked using 96 frames on a cover sheet and 80 frames on all sheets that followed. Disney did this for years. There was also a lot of room for I.D. info on those cover sheets. I liked the basic 80 frames; they made sense mathematically.

So you can see why an article like J.J.’s piece on discs and desks and pegs would interest me.

J.J. had also put together an exhibit about the history of NY animation and the studios here. Like most exhibits, they move on. However, Imprint Magazine posted an article covering that exhibit. J.J. also wrote that article. You can click this link to see It All Started Here. The article will live on, fortunately.

As a matter of fact, scroll through J.J. Sedelmaier’s articles while you’re there. They’re all interesting.

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Ken Brown’s NY Street Pop

- Today at TekServe, Ken Brown will open an exhibit of his artistry. Slide Shows, Post Cards, Short Films, Prints, Drawings. Multi media, in short. From 1pm-3pm there will be a feast of all that magnificent material Ken collects and reconstructs to create and artform that’s all his. There’s no charge and it’d be great to get out and support one of our best artists. (I’ll try to post some photos if I can remember to bring the camera and then take my eyes off the art to make stills.)

TekServe is at 119 West 23rd Street

The exhibit runs Saturday, January 12th through Sunday, February 24th
hours: Mon – Fri 9am to 8pm; Sat & Sun noon to 6pm

Just cherck out these sample photos which are displayed in the article on HuffPost. Sheer fun. you’ve gotta see the show live. If you can’t make it today, follow up in the next month while the exhibit stays up and lively.

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Gaiman’s Game’s on

- You’ll remember that I recently posted some photos of Tom Hachtman‘s waterlogged house at the Jersey Shore. His home was a victim of Hurricane Sandy, and that wasn’t too recent. Take a look here if you missed the pictures and want to see them. I received this email from Tom this past Wednesday:

    Neil Gaiman gave a commencement address to the graduating class at U of the Arts and it went viral on Youtube.
    Now it will be a book – any book designed by ‘Chip Kidd is of interest – so I am forwarding this.
    Not animation news but interesting I think.
    Love those Rabbit Boy strips you posted today.
    btw: Len Glasser went to the Museum School that became PCA our alma mater (Phila College of Art) that became University of the Arts.

    We are just getting back into our house.

    We have heat and hot water again.

    Woody is home from LA.

    going to celebrate now – talk later

(Finally, afer all this time, heat and hot water. Some kind of frustration/joy sound; that’s all I can emit.)

Commencement speech? Neil Gaiman?

It’s a comic book. I’m not a big fan of Gaiman, so I have to have a reason for posting about it.
Gavin Aung Than illustrated it.

Ok, here’s part of the HuffPost article about it:

    Gaiman, known for his short fiction works including “Coraline” and “The Sandman,” gives a 20-minute speech on the difficulties waiting in both failure and success that emerge in the pursuit of art. The standout passage reads:
    When things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician — make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by a mutated boa constrictor — make good art. IRS on your trail — make good art. Cat exploded — make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before — make good art.

If you’re an artist, do you really need Neil Gaiman to tell you this?

Seriously, though, the only one like Gaiman out there is William Joyce. His books have also attracted a lot of features: Robots, Meet the Robinsons, Rise of the Guardians, and Epic (coming soon).

Anyway here’s part of Gavin Aung Than‘s strip.



Looks très commercial and way too tight for my taste. But if god serves you lemons, make some art.

By the way, here’s the video of Gaiman’s commencement speech, just in case you’re a fan and haven’t caught it yet.

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Commentary &Puppet Animation 07 May 2011 07:01 am

Left Overs

- There should be plenty of 3D stop-motion films circling the globe ni a year or two. Recently there’s been a bit of news about a few of these animated features.

LAIKA, the company that produced Coraline, under the sturdy direction of Henry Selick, has announced a new two picture deal with Focus Features. Their first film, ParaNorman, will be released on August 17th, 2012. The second, yet-to-be-named, picture will be released nationwide in 2014. The first film is being directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler, from his own original screenplay. Sam Fell was director of The Tale of Despereaux and Flushed Away. Chris Butler was storyboard supervisor on Coraline and storyboard artist on Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride. The voice cast includes Academy Award nominee Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), Tempestt Bledsoe (The Cosby Show), Jeff Garlin (Curb Your Enthusiasm), John Goodman (Monsters, Inc.), Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air), Leslie Mann (The 40-Year-Old Virgiin), and Tony and Emmy Award winner Elaine Stritch (30 Rock).

Meanwhile . . .

Aardman animation is producing two features in conjunction with Sony Pictures Animation. Arthur Christmas, is a 3D adventure that will hit theaters on November 23, 2011. The voice cast includes: James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, and Ashley Jensen, which is currently in production. The film is being directed by Sarah Smith from a screenplay written by herself and Peter Baynham.

The second feature, The Pirates! In An Adventure with Scientists will be directed by Peter Lord and co-directed by Jeff Newitt. The screenplay is by Gideon Defoe, based upon his books. The vocal cast will include: Hugh Grant, David Tennant, Imelda Staunton, Jeremy Piven, Salma Hayek, Brian Blessed, and Brendan Gleeson.

And . . .

Henry Selick has recently signed to direct features for Disney/Pixar. He’ll be working out of Pixar’s Emeryville, Calif. campus and using their resources. The films he will make will be written and directed by him based on both original ideas and literary properties. This brings Selick back to many of the classmates with whom he graduated from CalArts.

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- Last week the ASIFA East Festival was held and awards were presented to the chosen filmmakers. Cartoon Brew posted a note about the winners and included a snarky comment by Amid Amidi which takes a swipe at the board members for entering their films in this local festival. And I do mean local festival. Here’s Amid’s comment:

    ASIFA-East president David Levy also won two of the top awards: Best Educational Film and 1st Place for Independent Film. He’s a nice guy so let’s all look the other way and pretend that’s not a conflict of interest…

    The quality of the film is irrelevant. Doesn’t matter if it’s the best animated short since One Froggy Evening. If the ASIFA-East leadership or board is competing against its members, that’s a serious issue that affects the legitimacy of the awards.

Here’s a response from Adrian Urquidez:

    ASIFA-East board members have always been allowed to participate in the festival and always will because the volunteer board is comprised of active members in the animation community both in their professional and personal lives. In no way are any of the awards just “given to people in their circle”, they are voted on by the hundreds of members who participate in the well-publicized jury screenings. We’ve had 42 years of successful festivals, and while always looking to improve, I believe we have a lot to be proud of
    If one wants to have a discussion on outreach, fine. But unnecessary slander gets you nowhere.
    -Adrian Urquidez ASIFA-East website manager, board member and (horror of horrors) grateful award winner.

The way ASIFA East works is this. Filmmakers are asked to submit films; board members are not discouraged. There are several nights of viewing for any member who wants to attend. Those who attend are the voters for any awards.
Just as the Oscar voters are tied to some of those entering the awards and vote for their friends, those who attend the ASIFA screenings are probably friends of some of the filmmakers and will most likely vote for their friends. This is human nature, not corruption.

This doesn’t mean that it’s a small coterie of friends who always win the awards. However, when only a small number of films are entered, the quality will be lower than usual. If board members (all 9 of them) weren’t allowed to enter their films, there would be fewer board members since they do a lot of work for no pay, and if they weren’t allowed to enter the films in the festival there would be a reason for them not to volunteer to be on the board and do all the hard, necessary work.

This is very different from the awards given out of ASIFA Hollywood. ASIFA East is a small group in New York and should be reccognized as such. When The Lipsett Diaries won the award as the Best Canadian Film at the Ottawa Animation Festival, was that suspect? Somehow I, personally, didn’t see it that way. I did see a good film win a well-deserved award. Just as I saw David Levy’s film win a deserved award.

In the past 40 years or so of ASIFA East’s festivals, I can assure you I’ve won quite a few awards, despite the fact that I’ve been a board member. Certainly all my licking of stamps for the ASIFA mailers wasn’t enough to make my films succcessful with all the voters who didn’t know me. My films won the awards, and I was pleased to be able to share them with the audience – that’s truly the prize you get. (When you win a prize, your film is usually screened in the large New School auditorium.) The awards – a piece of paper – are worthless. Hearing a large audience (about 1000) makes the win worth while and something to remember.

Animation &Art Art &Commentary 19 Feb 2011 08:05 am

Steve, Michel, JJ, Sam & Del Toro

- I recently completed Steve Martin’s autobiography, Born Standing Up, and I recommend it to anyone in the entertainment business – that means all of you reading this.

The theme throughout is his love for the work he’s doing. Fine tuning his comedy (which started out as a magic act, then a magic act with jokes, then just the jokes), took years and years of serious dedication, hard work and fine focus. His life was about little more than the act, and he eventually got it right and became an enormous success.

Like many such books, he predominantly writes about the lean years and the unapproving father who remained cold and distant to him throughout his life. Naturally, there’s plenty of funny material to read here. The short book, 206 pages, zoomed through my hands and was a great inspiration. I heartily recommend it. (it’s real cheap in paperback on Amazon.)

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- Michel Ocelot talks to the Hollywood Reporter from the Berlin Film Festival where his latest feature, Tales From the Night is playing. (There’s also another, much longer, interview with him on Ghibli World.)

The interview is candid and interesting, as usual for Michel. He speaks his mind about animation, and that always makes what he has to say worth listening for. Because he started as a 3D cutout animator,who now works in cgi, it’s worth listening to his take on the medium.

I first met Michel back at the Ottawa Animation Festival in 1980. We were both over the moon for Tale of Tales, the Grand Prize winner of that Fest. The film made its North American Premiere there. The two of us spent the rest of the Festival talking about Norshtein’s film and were pleased when it won the deserved prize. It gave me another chance to see it projected. It was wonderful to have someone so articulate and animation-informed with whom I could discuss the film’s merits at length. I knew Michel would do well after that week’s encounter.

Reviews of Tales of the Night can be found at Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Screen Daily

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On February 24th at 6:30pm, animation writer, Joe Strike, will interview animation filmmaker, J.J. Sedelmaier at the Society of Illustrators.

Here’s the press release that was emailed to me:

    Interview with an Animator: J.J. SedelmaierThursday, February 24, 2011
    6:30 – 8:30pm
    Hollywood may be home to the big animation studios, but there’s no shortage of
    cartoon creators in New York City, the city that gave birth to animation. Join Joe
    Strike
    for “Interview with an Animator,” a multi-part series of live, in-person
    conversations with some of New York’s best known and most creative animation
    professionals.

    On February 24th, Joe will interview J.J. Sedelmaier,
    writer/producer/director/designer, Beavis & Butthead (MTV), Harvey Birdman ([adult
    swim]) Saturday TV Funhouse and The Ambiguously Gay Duo (Saturday Night Live) and
    many award winning TV commercials.

    Tickets
    $15 non-members, $10 members, $7 students
    RSVP@societyillustrators.org or call Katie Blocher 212.838.2560

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Sam Borenstein is the father of Montreal-based animator, Joyce Borenstein. On Sunday, February 27th at 2pm, Yeshiva University Museum will be showcasing paintings by Sam. Joyce’s Oscar-nominated short animated documentary about her father will be screened and she will attend the opening. Here’s the press release:

    Yeshiva University Museum, in the heart of New York City, is proud to announce the very first American exhibition of the acclaimed master of post-war expressionism in Canada, Sam Borenstein (1908-1969).

    You are cordially invited to the opening reception of

    “SAM BORENSTEIN AND THE COLORS OF MONTREAL”
    on Sunday, February 27, 2011,
    at 2 PM.

    Following the landmark retrospective at The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, which also toured across Canada, thirty-five of Borenstein’s most vibrant works will be on display at

    YUM’s SELZ GALLERY, 15 West 16th Street, NYC
    from February 6 to May 8, 2011.

    We hope to have the honor of your attendance and you are welcome to invite your colleagues and friends.

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- Guillermo Del Toro has written the story with screenwriter, Matthew Robbins, and will co- direct a new 3D puppet version of Pinocchio. Set to take a darker turn than Disney’s film, the film should be an interesting mix.

Del Toro, a live-action director, is responsible for the Hellboy franchise, and he also directed 2006 the fanciful Pan’s Labyrinth in 2006. Gris Grimly will co-direct with Mark Gustafson in London. The two were previously involved in The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, and the upcoming Frankenweenie. The film is being produced by the Henson Company.

To read more about this go here.

Books &Disney 28 Oct 2010 07:47 am

Reviews-a-Plenty

- Mark Mayerson has given an initial review of The Illusionist. I’ve waited a while to see this feature. I’d intended to go to Ottawa, not only to represent my film shown there, but to see this new film from Sylvain Chomet. The first screening I will be able to attend is on Wednesday Nov. 10th.

Richard O’Connor in his short review at his site Asteriskpix.blogspot, left me something to think about, but he didn’t feel it was the best of the features at the Festival. Mark Mayerson certainly did. In the comments section of Mark’s site, Richard extends his review telling me, clearly, that I’ll have to judge for myself.

Mark’s review is answers some of the questions I wondered about. He predominantly focuses in on the story elements and leaves plenty for us to digest. His comparison to not only other animated features but live action, as well, takes this review to a high level, which is where Mark seems to be placing this film and where he always writes from.

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- Michael Barrier has reviewed the two important, relatively-new books: South of the Border with Disney by J.B. Kaufman and Two Guys Named Joe by John Canemaker.

The review is quite long and goes into plenty more about Disney and his employees, covering all the times that Joe Grant would have been working there. Barrier talks more about Grant than about the book’s other half, Joe Ranft. This gives a wider view of the studio. Since Barrier has less interest (admittedly this goes for me as well) in Ranft, he’s give short shrift in this review.

There’s quite a bit about the anti-Semitic remarks Disney and others made and faced at the studio. There’s plenty about the importance (or non-importance) of those travelling with Walt for any length of time. And, most importantly, there’s an analysis of others with equal position to Grant in making the films at the studio – particularly as to how the person was moved by Disney into other branches of work as the studio transitioned into live action and television.

Finally, Mike’s take is that all-things-Disney is starting to get tiresome. He questions whether the two books would have been written differently if they weren’t published by Disney. This was a question I’d asked as well, though I didn’t have the courage to add it to my reviews.

It’s another excellent commentary article by Mike and is a must read for anyone interested in animation. As with some of his other recent reviews, I more taken with some of the side notes – slight tangents Barrier takes – than with that which is directly addressing off the book. The article doesn’t flinch in calling the shots against the authors, although I know that Mike is very sensitive, expecially in this piece, in not wanting to hurt either of the two authors.

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- This pushes me into doing my job of reporting on two books I’ve meant to cover for some time. Ken Priebe‘s excellent The Advanced Art of Stop-Motion Animation is a follow-up to his first book, The Art of Stop-Motion Animation.

The first book was a primer about the art of that medium. Ken covered it thoroughly and gracefully. He not only revealed many of the secrest of the process, but he gave plenty of examples of other stop=motion animation which elucidated on the art.

The second book is much more involved with many of the films out there. There’s a good history of the medium in this book, and I was not disappointed to find some of the rare pieces from the early days. Just look into the films of Starewicz (Americanized as “Starewich”, here), and you’ll read plenty that you might not know. The same goes for A. Ptushko and G. Pal. There’s also plenty said about newer stop-motion. Caroline, The Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Corpse Bride are well covered.

The illustrations are plentiful and large, and the book comes with a DVD so that you can view some of the exercises in the book.

Ken Priebe loves the medium of stop-motion. He often advises me of some rare piece he’s found and put up on YouTube. These are often gems in good quality. He brings that same love of this often-neglected branch of animation to the book at hand. If you, too, have any love of the form, get this book.

It’s a paperback published by Course Technology PTR

The second book I’d like to present to you is Drawing for Animation by Paul Wells with substantial help from Joanna Quinn and Les Mills.

Need I say more than Joanna Quinn to get you interested in this book? Her films are brilliantly drawn works of art, as if Daumier had come to life. The drawing in this book is outstanding as well, and we’re treated to a plentiful look at her art – from storyboards to animation drawings to final setups. My only complaint is that the images are small. One wishes it were on line so you could click the thumbnails and enlarge. Alas, it’s a book, and we have to settle for the thumbnails (or scan and enlarge them ourselves as I did at the end of this review.)

The use of drawing is detailed and instructed through many many examples and it’s all worth studying. Paul Wells’ writing is clear and concise, and he well uses examples to illustrate his thoughts. This book is a little gem and I recommend it highly for any animation (especially 2D animation) lover.

The book is a paperback published by Ava|Academia.

Here are a couple of the other illustrations in the book which you can enlarge by clicking:


A comic book version of a storyboard
for the film A Girl’s Night Out.
An unorthodox method that energized the film.


A study for The Knight Riding Horse 0f Wife Of Bath


A walk cycle which I put through a QT movie (on threes) below.

Books &Illustration 23 Jun 2009 08:08 am

High in the Clouds

- A bit of news broke; when it was reported in Variety that Paul McCartney would be the force behind a new animated feature, High in the Clouds.

This work was a book he wrote with Geoff Dunbar and Philip Ardagh, and it was published in 2005 by Dutton. All three are given equal credit. Dunbar is an extraordinarily gifted animator/director in London. His animated short, Lautrec, as well as the animated version of the Alfred Jarry play, Ubu, helped to lead Britain to the animation renaissance of the 70′s. He also made the film, Rupert and the Frog Song, with McCartney. Ardagh is a children’s book writer with some 60 titles to his credit.

There can be no doubt that Ardgh did most of the writing, and Dunbar did the illustrations to the book.

The surprise to me is that Rob Minkoff was hired to direct the feature. He’s talented, but Dunbar had an obvious connection, and I’m surprised he did not get the job. Some obvious behind the scenes mechanics must obviously have been in play.

Caroline Thompson who wrote Edward Scissorhands, The Corpse Bride and The Secret Garden is a wonderful choice to write the script. It’s also interesting that Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne, formerly of the studio New Line Features, are producing this film with their newly devised Unique Pictures.

My hope and my fear is that Minkoff will make it look more like The Lion King and less like Stuart Little.

I bought the book a while back. Let me share some of Dunbar’s illustrations with you.


Inner covers


(Click any image to enlarge.)

3

4

5 6

8 9

10

12

13

15

16

17

18 19

Some of these are exquisite, some not so. The character desing is pure Geoff Dunbar. (Not too distant from Paul Vester’s work.) I’m not a big fan of the stretched out characters. I like the roundness of the earlier years and think this project might’ve profited with that look.

It feels a bit like a modern take on the Wind in the Willows territory.

(More to come.)

Commentary &Puppet Animation 27 Feb 2009 08:56 am

Puppets

- Brian Sibley has written a quite wonderful piece on Viewmaster slides. He shows people prepping to photograph these little sets and characters for the 3D setups. It’s a chance for many of us to get a quick joyride from the past.

Brian’s post had me do a bit more research, and I came across Brian Butler‘s site, What My Dad Saw which has many posts on the subject and actually posts a number of the slide images recreating the 3D effect.

Likewise, this led me to Brian Hunn’s site Mystery Hoard which had a longer piece on Florence Thomas and Joe Liptak who created many of these scenes.

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.- For those of you who’d like to see more puppets on parade, Ken Priebe sent me the link to a beautiful copy of a hard-to-see George Pal Puppetoon on YouTube. Rhythm in the Ranks.

The color on this piece, given the format, is exceptional, well preserved.


. .

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- For those of you who get excited reading new material about puppets, Wade Sampson has an excellent article about Bob Baker’s puppet productions of Walt Disney’s animated musicals. This is an entertaining read.

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- I’ve yet to see Coraline, but I’ll have to get there.
I would prefer not seeing it in 3D (polarized glasses HAVE to grey/green down the image, and I’d prefer seeing actual colors on the screen, despite the 3D effect. However, I don’t believe it’s playing in Manhattan except in 3D. The film seems to be top of the craft, though I’ve read enough semi-negative about the story. I like most of the voice talent and expect that to give the animators something good to work with.

Like Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, Coraline enhances the 3D stop-motion animation with cgi enhancement. This is a distinct advantage modern animators have. Even 2D animation isn’t solely dependent on the Pencil Tests and computerized compositing; animated 2D films are also filled with cg embellishment. And they should be. All tools are available and should be used (although I’m not sure many cg films use 2D enhancement.) I think that’s why I get such joy out of the old George Pal and Ray Harryhausen films. What they saw was what we got. If they opened the shutter, they were usually committed to that frame. It’s amazing that we still haven’t improved on Pinocchio or Bambi or, in some ways, John Henry and the Inky-Poo

Books &Puppet Animation &Trnka 29 May 2007 08:05 am

3D Puppet Book Corner

I’ve written about a lot of books on 2D animation, but I also love 3D puppet animation and have a small collection of books on the subject.

– Bruce L. Holman’s book, Puppet Animation in the Cinema: History and Technique was originally published in 1975 and can only be located today in old book bins (meaning Amazon or ebay). It’s a real primer on the medium, and when it was published was the only one of its kind.

The book does exactly what its title says, it gives a history of the form and tells how the films are made. There are photos of a lot of European puppetmakers and stills from their films. I think David Allen is the only important American who makes it into the book. But then, at the time, that’s pretty much what the landscape described. Loving Jiri Trnka, as I do, I was quite pleased to see quite a bit of space devoted to him, and, of course, that’s as it should have been at the time.

The book stood on its own for quite some time, and those of us who love puppet films loved this book.
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– Another book that you CAN get your hands on is Ken Priebe‘s The Art of Stop-Motion Animation. It brings things more current clearly explaining how puppet films are made, how to construct puppets of your own and how to make films of these puppets. There’s also a chapter on the history of the medium.

It’s a real nuts-and-bolts book that gives a clear demonstration of the process and a commendable how-to approach.
It’s obvious that Priebe loves puppetry and invests that love in the writing. This is a good book for anyone thinking of trying the medium and/or making a living of it.
_____________

– Because the market for this medium is slim, there are a number of excellent books about the medium which exist to promote filmmakers. One such book is Cracking Animation by Peter Lord and Brian Sibley; it’s the story of Aardman and the making of their 3D animation. It’s amazing how many animation books Sibley has been connected to.

The book goes into nice depth in illustrating the history of 3D animation and moves from there to show how the Aardman puppet films are made. Nice illustrations show all of the phases with lots of stills of armatures, walk cycles, sets and animators. It’s a solid book with a lot of information. I believe later editions of the book have been updated to feature more recent films.

Of course, it’s Aardman-centric, but that’s not such a bad thing.
_____________

– Another book that puts its focus on one individual is this Film Fantasy Scrapbook by Ray Harryhausen.

Of course, Harryhausen is the “auteur” who created all those stop motion monsters and sci-fantasy films. (Anyone who has seen Jason and the Argonauts can only remember those incredible fighting skeletons.) This book is literally a scrapbook of stills and posters and illustrations showing off Harryhausen’s career up to 1972, when the book was published.

It’s all in B&W and one wishes there were more back stage imagery as you see in the Aardman book. It’s really more of a “fanzine” type book, but if you’re at all a Harryhausen fan, you’d love owning the book.

Harryhausen has written a number of other books about his film work. I don’t own any, but The Art of Ray Harryhausen looks like it might be good. Unfortunately I was never a wildly enthusiastic fan of this type of special effects animation, so I haven’t gone wild over his books. The only reason I include this book here is that you can’t mention 3D animation without referencing Harryhausen.
_____________

- Finally, let me showcase the book The Corpse Bride: An Invitation to the Wedding by Mark Salisbury.

This is an out-and-out promotional book for the film. However, it really gives a state-of-the-art demo to show how studio puppet films are made. The book includes lots of backstage photos which go into detail about how certain scenes were created. This is a variant on the excellent book done to promote The Nightmare Before Christmas.

We’re shown how some scenes combined 3D puppets with 3D cgi (a technique all puppet animation films include these days.) The details of the odd digital photography are explained fully and illustrated in detail.

Considering the obvious devotion Tim Burton seems to have for 3D puppet animation, it’s worth watching closely. Having made Vincent, Nightmare Before Christmas, The Corpse Bride and, now in production, 9 Burton has become one of the most important advocates of the medium.

Commentary 22 Mar 2007 08:40 am

Nuts

– Last night I got to see Edward Scissorhands, the Mathew Bourne ballet at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. (Watch BAM’s video montage here.)
I like Bourne’s choreography; it seems to fit somewhere between Jerome Robbins and Mark Morris.
Caroline Thompson, who wrote the script for the original film, reworked the story for the ballet. (She also wrote Corpse Bride and Nightmare Before Christmas.)
Danny Elfman, who did the score for the movie added to the score for the ballet.

So, the set was beautiful, gorgeous costumes, original writer and composer, and I liked the choreography. What was wrong? Why didn’t I find it thrilling?

Five words: Johnny Depp, silence & Tim Burton.
(Click any image to enlarge.)

If you’re out to rework a movie that a lot of people love – and a lot of people love this movie – you’d better top it. That means you have to find an approach that is different than and better than Johnny Depp‘s character. Depp IS Edward Scissorhands! In the Bourne production, we had an imitation of the personality Depp created for that film. It was an original, and it can’t be duplicated by someone else, or it ends up feeling like one of those stuffed people dressed like Mickey Mouse and Goofy wandering around Disneyland. (A small side note: I once asked my young niece and nephew, who watched tv with me as Michael Eisner cavorted with people dressed like Donald and Mickey, if that was the REAL Donald and Mickey. They categorically said, “No!” The real characters were cartoons.)
Johnny Depp was being impersonated in this ballet, and the real guy was a pirate in a sequel coming out this summer.

In the movie, Depp’s character was silent; everyone else talked. In the ballet, no one talked. This takes away from Edward’s character. He obviously CAN talk, now, since no one talks in this version – they performed mime to tell the story. Everyone was Edward Scissorhands.

Tim Burton is an original. Go from Edward Scissorhands to The Corpse Bride to Willy Wonka to The Nightmare Before Christmas to Big Fish. No one has to tell you that Tim Burton made those films (with and without Caroline Thompson.) The ballet tried to recreate the movie; they tried to recreate Tim Burton. I’m sorry but originality can’t be duplicated.

I’m glad I saw the ballet, but I’d have preferred something original.

You can see more video clips on YouTube: go here.

_________________________________

– Last year I posted the sheet music cover and talked about the animated short, Donald In Nutzi Land or, Der Fuehrer’s Face (after the name change).

Now on the site Toons At War layout drawings for this sheet music have been posted. You’ll find a lot of other documents about the film there as well.

Bob Thomas, in the original The Art of Animation (1958) wrote the following story from composer, Oliver Wallace:

    A favorite story of his concerns the time when Walt returned from Washington in wartime.
    “I need a song for a cartoon the government wants me to do about the enemy,” Walt said. “It’s got to be serious, but funny.”
    “You mean serious to them but funny to us?” Wallace suggested. (Click any image to enlarge.)
    “Yes,” Walt replied.

    The composer went home that evening, had dinner and took a nap. His wife asked him
    to bicycle to the market with her. As he pedaled, a marching tune began to come to him.
    His wife lost him in the market and finally discovered him leaning against a wall and tapping his foot. When he got home, he went to work. In an hour and a half, the words and music to “Der Fuehrer’s Face” were ready for the publisher. Both the song and the Donald Duck short were hits. “Der Fuehrer” was hailed by Oscar Hammerstein II as the great psychological song of the war.

To hear the song as played by Spike Jones & His City Slickers go here.

The film is available on the Disney Treasures dvd On The Front Lines – Disney Goes To War.

_________________________________

Michael Barrier is hooked, and we benefit. He not only released the Draft for the Disney masterpiece, Who Killed Cock Robin?, but he’s produced a “Mosaic” à la Mark Mayerson. This, along with his Capsule notes on the film, give the short quite an analysis. Show and tell isn’t always enough. Good commentary is necessary. That’s where Mike Barrier and Mark Mayerson’s sites excel far beyond most. (Originality. I’ve heard that word before, somewhere.)

Animation Artifacts 21 Feb 2006 06:51 am

Bambi bits

- Yesterday I came across a chat room discussion about the original Bambi (as opposed to the newer one about to be released). Once I hit this sentence, I had to stop reading: “But the new Bambi sequel is much easier on the eyes than the old Bambi, and from what I saw from that 10 minute clip, I think I’m going to enjoy the sequel a lot more.”

It depressed me too much to continue reading, and I was reminded why I should stay away from animation forums and chat rooms.

To that writer, I devote this posting of some bits and pieces of a Life Magazine article published at the time of Bambi’s original release.

(Click on any of the above images to enlarge to a readable size.)

This material was originally given to me by Jim Logan. I owe the memory of him a long column or twenty, and I will post it eventually.

- Marc Hairston has an interesting posting about Miyazaki, the Oscars and Howl’s Moving Castle at FPS.

- Newsday has an entertaining interview with Tim Burton regarding his Oscar nomination for The Corpse Bride.

Kentridge 14 Feb 2006 08:09 am

Kentridge

- This week New York Magazine is featuring an article on William Kentridge. For those who don’t know, Kentridge is an artist who often uses animation as his medium of choice. Unlike most of us, his films don’t play in theaters but art galleries. His work is quite unique and expressive. You can read the article on line here, but the printed magazine features a number of good illustrations.

The article is timed to coincide with the gallery show in New York of Mr. Kentridge’s recent work. It’s at the (Click on the stills to enlarge.)Marian Goodman Gallery at 24 West 57th Street, NYC 10019.
You can view 10 of William Kentridge’s pieces on display at their site.

- I also would like to repeat mention of the show of art from The Corpse Bride. The gallery features puppets and art from the film until February 20. It’s definitely worth a visit. It’s at the Tribeca Cinemas Gallery at 13 Laight Street (at Canal Street) adjacent to the Tribeca Cinemas. Noon-8pm daily.

- Thanks to Cartoon Brew for notifying us about John Kricfalusi‘s new blog. His original Spumco website was worth the many visits, it’ll be fun to see what he does with a blog.

- A depressing note: While watching Jeopardy last night, I was dumbstruck by one question. (I can’t give the exact question, for you Jeopardy fanatics, but it’s close enough.)

The visionary behind ‘Snow White & The 7 Dwarfs’ which used the multiplane camera for the first time.”

Here’s the shocking part. No one buzzed in! The three college students didn’t know that Walt Disney had done “Snow White” !?!

I’m sure it’s just me. I’m going crazy!

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