This month, we picked the brains of three innovative animation artists currently living along the United States west coast. Seth MacFarlane (Los Angeles, California) is the creator/executive producer of Fox's heavily-hyped series, Family Guy. In addition, he previously created/directed the What A Cartoon! short Larry and Steve while at Hanna-Barbera Cartoons. Lee Lanier is a computer artist at PDI (Palo Alto, California) who worked on Antz and most recently, single-handedly completed Millennium ...
This month, we picked the brains of three innovative animation artists currently living along the United States west coast. Seth MacFarlane (Los Angeles, California) is the creator/executive producer of Fox's heavily-hyped series, Family Guy. In addition, he previously created/directed the What A Cartoon! short Larry and Steve while at Hanna-Barbera Cartoons. Lee Lanier is a computer artist at PDI (Palo Alto, California) who worked on Antz and most recently, single-handedly completed Millennium Bug, a digitally animated short which premiered at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. Tim Thiessen is an After Effects animator at DownStream (Portland, Oregon), a leading post-house. His most recent project is for Nike Cross Training. In addition, he has created a number of short animated films such as Paperman, a mix of live-action and paper cut-out animation; and an educational film shot in time-lapse, From Moo to You: The Making of Cheese, which takes a look at the fascinating world of cheese-making.
Seth MacFarlane's Choices:
1. The Simpsons (Matt Groening). 2. The Big Snit (Cordell Barker). 3. That WWII cartoon where Daffy Duck whacks Hitler with a mallet (Daffy the Commando, 1943, Warner Bros.). 4. The breast cancer episode of She-Ra (Filmation). 5. Fonz and the Happy Days Gan g: The one with the time machine. Brilliantly conceived. Just brilliant. (Hanna-Barbera Cartoons). 6. The cartoon sequence from Annie Hall where the evil queen from Snow White is having her period. 7. Anything with Trent Lott (his crazy cartoon antics get me every time). 8. The Fred and Barney Winston cigarettes commercials (Hanna-Barbera Cartoons). 9. Davy and Son of Goliath (Corky Quackenbush/Mad TV). 10. The breast cancer episode of Garfield and Friends (Film Roman).
Lee Lanier's Favorites
1. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles). 2. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock). 3. L'Avventura (The Adventure) (Michelangelo Antonioni). 4. Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa). 5. A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick). 6. Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick). 7. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott). 8. Nikita (La Femme Nikita) (Luc Besson). 9. La Reine Margot (Queen Margot) (Patrice Chereau). 10. Fargo (Joel Coen).
Tim Thiessen's Suitcase
1. Brazil (Terry Gilliam). 2. Dr. Zhivago (David Lean). 3. Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder). 4. The Great Escape (John Sturges). 5. A Bug's Life (John Lasseter/Andrew Stanton). 6. City Of Lost Children (Marc Caro/Jean-Pierre Jeunet). 7. Raising Arizona (Joel Coen). 8. Miller's Crossing (Joel Coen). 9. Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich). 10. The Big Carnival (Billy Wilder).
Amid Amidi is the Associate Editor of Animation World Magazine.
