ASIFA-San Francisco April 1998

April 1998

PINKAVA WINS! Jan Pinkava, who won the Oscar for Best Animated Short for 1998, said it was "amazing to be up here" on world wide TV as he thanked everybody. He also mentioned that the Oscar celebration was on his mother's birthday. When he was interviewed for the article about him in last month's newsletter, he wished that his mother in Prague would get to see him accept the award. Congratulations on having that dream come true. And congratulations to everybody at Pixar who had a hand in the production of the 1998 Oscar winning Geri's Game.
In case you didn't notice, two other local companies contributed to the Oscars broadcast - well sort of. Coke commercials by Colossal Pictures and Wild Brain were shown during the breaks. Wild Brain did "Supermom" and Colossal did the ad that takes us inside a Coke machine to show us a Rube Goldberg type of mechanism.

APRIL WILL BE A GREAT MONTH FOR SCREENING NEW ANIMATED SHORTS IN THE BAY AREA - MANGA & SPIKE AND MIKE ARE OPENING MAJOR PROGRAMS HERE AND THE S.F. FILM FESTIVAL WILL SHOW SOME GREAT WORKS The first program to open is Manga's General Chaos: Uncensored Animation. The show presents some hard-hitting cutting-edge works that push animation in new directions (see last month's newsletter for a review of this fine program). The show contains several sophisticated works that challenge how far a work can go in exploring the limits of taste and content. This is a show for adults including females who are angry about all the sexist animation that gets shown. It doesn't pander to kids wanting to see naughty sick and twisted cartoons. Jan Cox has tried hard to find excellent works that are creative, well executed and stimulating to our intellect.
General Chaos will be at the Red Vic Theatre in San Francisco from April 1 - 11. It will also be at the Nickelodeon in Santa Cruz from April 2 - 8, at the UC Theatre in Berkeley from April 3 - 5, at the Lark in Larkspur starting April 10 & at the Tower in Sacramento April 17- 23.
If you enjoy seeing outstanding contemporary work that can be enjoyed by the whole family, then make sure you see the 1998 Classic Festival of Animation. Mellow Manor (Spike and Mike) is presenting a wide variety of works in this show including Pixar's computer generated, Oscar winning Geri's Game. Another outstanding work in the show is T.R.A.N.S.I.T. a splendid looking art deco film-noir story by Pied Kroon that won the Grand Prize at the 1998 World Animation Celebration. Also included is Stage Fright, an award winning clay animation by Aardman's Steve Box. A review of the show appears later in this newsletter.
The 1998 Classic Festival of Animation will be shown at the Castro April 10 - 22, at the Palace of Fine Arts April 24 - May 9, at the Town Theatre in San Jose April 24 - May 14, at the UC Theatre in Berkeley April 17 - 26, at the Lark in Larkspur May 15 - May 28, at the Lakeside in Santa Rosa May 29 - June 4 and at the Cubberly Auditorium at Stanford University May 14 - 23.
On opening night at the Castro animators from Pixar will say a few words to the audience. Advanced publicity from Mellow Manor says, "Director John (sic) Pinkava, Producer Karen Dufilho and lead animators Michael Kass and Tony DeRose to discuss the making of Oscar nominated Geri's Game and Pixar/Disney's other cutting edge computer creations Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Toy Story II."
The San Francisco International Film Festival will be held from April 23 - May 7. They have programmed a show of animated shorts called "Animated by Dr. Freud." Brian Gordan explained that most of the films in this program are about adult psychological quirks (not sick, twisted or gross content, just quirky themes). Three of the four prize winners in animation this year's Festival are in this show. The program is at the Kabuki on Monday, May 4 at 9:45 PM in the big theatre. It will be repeated on Thursday, May 7th at 7:15 PM (Kabuki). For information about the films in this show see the next article.
The festival will also present two animated shorts before features. From the Inside directed by Dominique Jonard from Mexico will be shown before the documentary Chile, Obstinate Memory on Sunday, May 3 at 9:30 PM and again on Monday, May 4 at 1 PM. The film was animated using cut-outs made by people living in a half-way house. It deals with life on the street.
Pony Glass by Lewis Klahr from New York will be shown at the Castro before the feature Jeanne and the Perfect Guy on April 24 at 9:30 PM. In the animated cut-out short Jimmy Olson from Superman has an identity crisis when he thinks he is gay.

CORRECTION: Last month Ralph Guggenheim was listed as a producer of Toy Story 2. Helene Plotkin, formerly with Xaos, replaced Guggenheim as co-producer of the feature about 6 months ago.

"ANIMATED BY DR. FREUD" sounds like a really unusual program at the SF Film Festival. The program includes 3 of the 4 prize winning shorts from their Golden Gate competition. The show consists of Geri's Game by Jan Pinkava, The Fetishist by Jim Trainor from NYC, Keep in a Dry Place and Away from Children by England's Bolex Brothers, Linear Dreams by Richard Reeves from British Columbia, Calendar, The Siamese by Lewis Klahr from NYC and Yours by Jeffry Noyes Scher from NYC. The program includes a wide variety of techniques from the impressive drawings of Jim Trainor to the highly skilled stop-motion work of the Bolex Brothers. Reeves paints directly onto film and Klahr works in cut-outs. A previous work by Scher was made using hand drawn animation on paper and other techniques.
This program is at the Kabuki on Monday, May 4 at 9:45 PM in the big theatre. It will be repeated on Thursday, May 7th at 7:15 PM at the Kabuki.

AND THE GOLDEN GATE AWARD WINNERS IN ANIMATION ARE The Golden Spire goes to Jim Trainor for The Fetishist, a 38 minute work. The festival's director says Trainor's drawings skills are very impressive. The film just won a major award at the Ann Arbor Film Festival which is the nation's top festival for independent & experimental work.
The Silver Spire goes to From the Inside, directed by Dominique Jonard from Mexico. Two certificates of merit were awarded. They went to Keep in A Dry Place And Away From Children by the Bolex Brothers from England; and Linear Dreams, which was painted directly onto film by Richard Reeves from Seattle.

BAY AREA ANIMATION STUDIOS WIN MAJOR AWARDS AT THE WORLD ANIMATION CELEBRATION IN PASADENA at least 6 awards went to local companies. About 40 awards were presented at this international competition, so the Bay Area did extremely well in Pasadena.
Curious Pictures and the Cartoon Network won the award for "Best TV Commercial Campaign" for their Animate Your World, a series of 13 spots. "Bob," one of the Animate Your World pieces, won first prize for "Stop-Motion Produced Professionally."
Protozoa won the top prize in the "Best Animation Produced for the Internet" category. The award went to their "VRML Skits." Protozoa also won the award for "Best Performance Animation." It went to We Should Go by Emre and Lev Yilmaz.
Colossal won the award for "Best Director of Animation for a TV Commercial." The prize was for George Evelyn's work on Coca-Cola Factory.
Pixar won the prize for "Best 3-D Computer Generated Effects" for Geri's Game.

ROBIN STEELE'S ANIMATED SERIES "STICKIN' AROUND" WINS GEMINI AWARD The award for "Best Animated Program/Series" is from the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. It is the Canadian equivalent of an Emmy. Steele and Brianne Leary are the co-creators of the show which uses stick-figures as the show's characters. Steele wrote several episodes of the show and story supervised the entire series.
He joined Wild Brain in 1996 and is vice-president of Creative Development.

CURIOUS PICTURES PLAYS CRAZY 8'S FOR THE COLORADO LOTTERY Denis Morella created a humorous 30 second cel animated spot using "traditional cel animation and digital ink and paint" (how can cel animation be "traditional" if it is inked and painted on a computer?). Morella worked with animation director Steward Lee, 2-D animators Lee, Nick Hewitt, Chris Petroco, James Munro and coordinator Craig Medvecky.

CURIOUS PICTURES AND FLEA CIRCUS ARE DOING OPENS AND CLOSES FOR "TOONS FROM PLANET ORANGE" The companies are working on a series of 7 second opens and 4 second closes for the Nickelodeon show. The program showcases animation from around the world. Flea Circus is in Auckland, New Zealand and is represented in the US exclusively by Curious. They created the images and Anne Smith of Curious was the line producer.

CURIOUS PICTURES SIGNS ANIMATION DIRECTORS ANDREW KNIGHT AND SYLVAIN CHOMET FOR US REPRESENTATION Both men are working for Red Rover Studios in Toronto, Canada and are having Curious Pictures represent them exclusively in the U.S.
Chomet recently won an Oscar nomination for his The Old Lady and the Pigeons. He came to the Bay Area to talk about his work at our March event at DeAnza and to enjoy the snow at Tahoe.

PDI DID A PARODY OF PATTON FOR A JET-DRY AD Although they had to produce the ad in ten weeks the results are apparently delightful. It has been aired during "Seinfeld," "World Funniest Videos" and at breaks on the NBC and CBS Movies of the Week.
Larry Bafia directed both the animation and the live-action film crew from Red Sky Films in SF. Adam Chin was the computer graphics supervisor and the animators were Bafia, David House and David Spivak. Bert Ong was the technical director and his assistant was Kristi Hewitt. Lighting was by Larry Weiss, Adam Chin and David Blizard.
PDI is also proud to announce that Julie M. Haddon has been appointed as director of marketing. She had previously worked at Blue Sky in New York.

ILM & WESTERN WORKED WITH WARNER BROTHERS ANIMATION to put the Tasmanian Devil into a 1998 Chevrolet TV ad. ILM did the live action production, Western did the digital production and Warner Bros. provided the animation. Frank Molleri was the animation director, Bill Werts the ILM director in Los Angeles and Orin Gree was the digital artist.

SPIKE AND MIKE'S 1998 CLASSIC FESTIVAL OF ANIMATION COMES TO THE BAY AREA The new show coming to the Castro and other theatres in April is a "must see" for anyone who loves contemporary animation. The show includes 13 shorts from Sweden, Germany, Belgium, France, England, Russia and the United States. Several of the films are sophisticated, mature works that should even impress people who claim they don't like animation. The program demonstrates that animation is one of the greatest art forms at the end of this century and that it has intellectual merit.
The show has several exceptional works in it and a couple might end up on your list of all time favorite animated films. T.R.A.N.S.I.T. by Pied Kroon is the film in the show that I have added to my list of really great works. It is an exquisite looking film-noir adventure set in the 1920's. The art deco design work is stunning and the story tells of love, marriage, boredom, seduction, jealousy, rejection and murder. This 12 minute film took 4 years to make, had a budget of $400,000 (30,000 cels were used) and looks like something PBS could show on "Masterpiece Theatre" (it is a British production). The film won the grand prize at the 1998 World Animation Celebration. Kroon is presently working for Warner Brothers in Los Angeles.
Another outstanding work in the program is Jan Pinkava's Oscar winning Geri's Game. You may have already seen it on video, but it is even better looking projected in 35mm on a big screen. Seeing this Oscar
nominated short at the Castro or U.C. Theatre with a large audience should be a wonderful treat.
Stage Fright by Steve Box from Aardman Animations is a fine clay animated short from the company that Nick Park made famous. It was made for Channel Four Television in England and tells a dark story about the degradation of a dog juggling star by a silent film actor named Arnold Hew. It ends with a final confrontation on the stage of a crumbling music hall.
Spike loves to claim his shows are "all new," but he always slips in something great from the past. This year he brings to San Francisco The Janitor by Vanessa Schwartz which won an Oscar nomination in 1995, and Welcome by Alexei Karaev from Russia. Both films are outstanding works. Welcome is a delightful humorous tale in the style of Dr. Seuss.
If you loved Manipulation by Daniel Greaves (Oscar, 1991) you will be delighted by Shock by Zlatin Radev of Germany. The film takes Greaves' concept further and in new directions.
The remaining films in the program are for the most part nice to see, but not memorable. For example Gutten Appetit by Berad Beyreuther and friends from Bulgaria is a technical masterpiece that combines 3-D cgi and live action. The minimal script is inspired by Warner Bros. & Tex Avery cartoons. The film's strength is the special effects work.
Underwear Stories by Blair Thornley looks like sophisticated drawings from the old New Yorker magazine brought to life. Thornley created a series of short sketches (10 or 15 seconds long) that do not build or seem to go anywhere. Apparently they
were commissioned for use in a German production. They are lovely to look at and I'm glad Spike shared them with us.
It seems like every Festival of Animation has one film in it that gets under my skin and really irritates me. This year that honor goes to Lily and Jim by Don Hertzfeldt. It won the grand prize at a festival in New Orleans, but I think it is a golden turkey. I found it painful to watch and once it made its point it made it again and again and again and... At 13 minutes it is the longest film in the show, so if you enjoy it as much as I did, go buy yourself some popcorn and stay out in the lobby till it ends.
The 1998 Classic Festival of Animation will be shown at the Castro April 10 - 22, at the Palace of Fine Arts April 24 - May 9, at the Town Theatre in San Jose April 24 - May 14, at the UC Theatre in Berkeley April 17 - 26, at the Lark in Larkspur May 15 - May 28, at the Lakeside in Santa Rosa May 29 - June 4 and at the Cubberly Auditorium at Stanford University May 14 - 23. K.C.

THERE APPEARS TO BE ALMOST NO INTEREST IN AN E MAIL EDITION OF THE ASIFA-SF NEWSLETTER Only one person bothered to call expressing interest in the project. Interest was also expressed by the member who first offered to help us get the newsletter on-line. The board will put this suggestion aside for another year or two.

OUR MAY ASIFA EVENT WILL BE WINNERS FROM THE ASIFA-EAST ANNUAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL Mark your calendars now for Saturday, May 16, 7:30 PM. The show features all their prize winners (complete works or clips if the work is over 20 minutes long). Some of the artists in the show are Bill Plympton, Paul Fierlinger, John R. Dilworth, Debbie Solomon, Wild Brain and J. J. Sedelmaier. Our screening will be at the Exploratorium's McBean Theatre. It will be free and open to the public, so arrive early for the best seats.
ASIFA-East members judged the show in mid-March and their screening of the winners will be on April 2 in NYC. The show will be screened by ASIFA-Central (Chicago area) in April and by other chapters of our association later this year.
CARTOON ART MUSEUM EXHIBITS THE WORK OF THE CRUMB BROTHERS: ROBERT, MAXON AND CHARLES plus they have a show of "44 hauntingly beautiful watercolor paintings" created by Charles Vese as illustrations for Stardust, a novel by Neil Gaiman. Vese paints a world inhabited by "sensuous maidens, unicorns, sprites and magical spells." There are about 80 works in the Crumb show. The shows are up until July 19. The museum is located on the 2nd floor of 814 Mission (near 4th
St.) Admission is $4 and less for students, seniors and kids. (415) CAR-TOON for hours and other details.

FILMS STILL WANTED IN 35MM FOR AN ASIFA MEMBER'S SHOW Right now there are enough shorts on our list for a small program. There is room for more work so if you have a 35mm print of something animated and would like to have it shown at a meeting in June or July, call Karl Cohen at (415) 386-1004.

SPECIAL THANKS TO MARTY McNAMARA FOR AN EXCEPTIONAL PROGRAM - HE SCREENED 4 OF THE 5 OSCAR NOMINATED SHORTS and had the director Sylvain Chomet in-person along with two Pixar technicians. All talked about their work.
McNamara was able to borrow a video copy of Redux Riding Hood from Disney-TV. Chomet brought a copy of The Mermaid as well as his delightful The Old Lady and the Pigeons, and Michael Kass and Leo Hourvitz from Pixar brought a copy of Geri's Game. Hourvitz was the Supervising Technical Director on the film. Kass was a member of the Human Character Research and Development Team. He created some of the new software called "Cloth Dynamics." All 3 speakers provided a wealth of information about their productions and answered questions.
Over 100 people, including ASIFA members and DeAnza students, attended the program. I suspect most people left wondering which film would win the Oscar, as each was exceptional in different ways.

WES TAKAHASHI FANS will be happy to know he is alive and well in Los Angeles. He can be reached at (310) 451-1023. He called from LA around 11 PM a few nights ago from a party. He needed to know the answer to an "important" trivia question about animation history. He was with Mark Dippe, another former ILM fun loving guy, and an animator from Japan who does sexy robots.
In case you don't know Wes, he was head of animation effects at ILM when things were done by hand. My favorite memory of him is his driving Bill Plympton and me out to the Lucas Ranch in his ancient Cad convertible with the top down. I think we went a bit faster than was safe for the twisting Lucas Valley Road, but we arrived safely. Of course there were the really wild parties he tossed from time to time, but that is another story.

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