Richard Williams (above) holds his Pulcinella Lifetime Achievement Award aloft (left) while Giulio Gianini receives his overdue honor (bottom).

These daily discussions were followed by a series of talks nominally dealing with various aspects of innovation. I was the leadoff speaker, with my topic being “Innovation in Feature Animated Films.” Others included Linda Simensky, whose speech on “Innovation in Production” centered on the reasons she left Cartoon Network to go to PBS. In particular, she recalled her growing displeasure with the network’s shift toward action/adventure series from comedy, and how this reflected current trends in American TV animation.

Los Angeles-based Craig Miller, of Wolfmill Entertainment, talked about “Innovation in Writing.” Although he did discuss the use of computers and the Internet, which he feels have made the writing process easier, he did not see them as changing the process in any fundamental way.

The hot ticket though was Richard Williams’ talk on “Innovation in Animation.” As might be expected, he mainly spoke about how he came to rediscover the secrets of the masters, or in his phrase, how he learned to drink the blood of the likes of Ken Harris, Art Babbit and Grim Natwick. When asked about the difference between drawn and computer animation, he believed that 2D animation is an extension of the drawn image, while CGI is an extension of puppetry; he also felt the current swing away from traditional animation is temporary.

Williams was also on hand to receive one of Cartoons on the Bay’s two Pulcinella Lifetime Achievement Awards. The other was given to Giulio Gianini, which was long overdue, since the symbol of festival’s prestigious Pulcinella Awards was modeled on the famed l6th century Neapolitan Commedia dell'Arte character, as seen in the Pulcinella, his 1973 film he made with Emanuele Luzzati.

The conference concluded each day with presentations from representatives of four studios who were competing for the honor of Studio of the Year. This year’s lineup featured Japan’s Toei Animation, France’s Folimage, England’s HIT Entertainment and Italy’s Gruppo Alcuni; while the latter ended taking top honors, there really did not seem to be much sense of competition among the companies.

The retrospective screenings were rather limited and mostly featured historic Italian TV commercials shown in tribute to Rai’s 50th anniversary. However, the real revelation was Kimio Yabuki’s1969 Puss ‘n Boots from Toei, especially as seen in a beautiful new 35mm CinemaScope print. This is certainly a film that deserves to get a DVD release in the U.S.

There were also a series of preview screenings of movies prior to their Italian release, starting off with Jacques-Rémy Girerd’s La prophétie des grenouilles (Raining Cats and Frogs), from Folimage, which might be best described as an offbeat version of Noah’s Ark. The others included Jose Pozo’s El Cid, from Spain’s Filmax, a rather uneven retelling of the familiar tale, combining some impressive Disney/DreamWorks-style animation which is marred by some awkward character design and inept motion capture work. And then there was Roberto Lione’s Kate, a version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew that was inspired by Cole Porter’s Kiss Me Kate; it is remarkable for its stop-motion technique, which uses sculpted paper puppets first used in the studio’s Obie & Bingie TV series.