Mill Valley Film Festival
Will Present Animated Shows For Adults, For Families, Animated Shorts
With Features, A Pannel On Webtoons And A Workshop With Gary Schwartz For Kids
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Aunt Violet Interviews Lee Marrs
Charles Schulz will be remembered with a rare screening of A Boy Named Charlie Brown, 1969. It was the first of four Peanuts theatrical features. Lee Mendelson, the producer/director, Mrs. Jean Schulz and Snoopy (?) are invited guests. Sunday, Oct. 15, Rafael Cenrer, 2:30 PM.
Petterson & Findus is an animated feature from Sweeden by Albert Hanan Kaminski. This is the film's US premiere. They will show a subtitled print and have somebody read the text aloud for the kids who can not read. Sun. Oct 8 at noon, Sequoia in Mill Valley and Mon. Oct. 9 at 4:30 PM, Rafael.
Buzz Buzz Tweet Tweet is a program of new animation for kids and adults. Pixar's new short For the Birds is included. Sat. Oct. 14 at 11 AM, Rafael.
Tit Chat is a 3 minute animated short about "the burden of breasts" by Kara Herold and Don Thomas (2000, 3 min., Herold does the comic zine Deep Girl). With A Lover's Whisper by Sue Lawrence (2 min.) and WAAD; The Life and Times of John Holmes, a document-ary about the famous male porno actor who died from aids.
Read Me a Movie is a program of 6 tales for kids that were turned into animated shorts by Weston Woods. Sun. Oct. 8 at 11 AM, Rafael.
A 2 day cyberspace symposium will include talks on a variety of animated related topics including Internet distribution, storytelling, and at 1:15 on Fri. Oct. 13 webtoons. The latter will be with people from Dot Comix, Mondo Media and Wild Brain.Com.
Gary Schwartz is once again coming up from LA to present an animation workshop for kids 10 - 16. His events sell out in advance so call (415) 455-8005 right away if you have a kid that would enjoy this 2 day workshop (10-4 on Sat. Oct. 7 & Sun. Oct. 8).
ELECTRONIC ARTS OBTAINS THE GAMES RIGHTS TO "HARRY POTTER" Whatever they produce with the characters should be a hit on the Internet and/or a big sales item at retail stores.
LUCILLE BLISS TO BE HONORED BY ASIFA-HOLLYWOOD WITH A WINSOR McCAY LIFETIME ACHIVEMENT AWARD Millions of kids have grown up listening to her, but most probably never stopped to ask who the person was behind the voice of Smurfette and the hundreds of other roles she has played. Her career with film began as the voice of a sister to Cinderella (Disney). Five decades later she is still bringing animated characters to life. At present she is recording the part of Miss Bitters for the upcoming Nickelodeon series Invader Zim.
Bliss lives part of each year in San Francisco where she presents voice acting classes and does recording sessions. The most important role that she recorded locally was Crusader Rabbit. The rabbit was the star of a show named after him (1950). It was the first limited animation program made for TV to have a successful run on the tube.
Bliss has already received two lifetime achievement awards this year. One was from the World Animation Celebration and the other from Young Artists in LA.
ASIFA-Hollywood will present their Winsor McCay Awards this year at their Annie Ceremony on November 11. The black tie event will be at the Alex Theater in Glendale. McCay awards will be given to Bliss, Norman McCabe and Hoyt Curtin. The June Foray award will go Linda Simensky, the just retired president of ASIFA-East (she is an executive of The Cartoon Network). About 20 or 30 Annies will be awarded to professional productions for special achievements in various categories.
BAY AREA PRODUCTIONS GIVEN 13 ANNIE NOMINATIONS Pixar's For The Birds got one for best outstanding short. Curious Pictures got one for the opening for the Bob Clampett Show. Wild Brain got 3 nominations. They are for their opening to Pajama Party, a Nike ad and for an episode of the web show Space is Dum.
Pixar's Toy Story 2 was given nominations in 8 categories. The nominated talent includes Doug Sweetland for character animation, John Lasseter and Ash Brannon for directing, William Cone and Jim Pearson for production design, Joe Ranft and Dan Jeup for storyboards, Joan Cusack for best female voice, Tim Allen for best male voice, Randy Newman for music and to Lasseter, Brannon, Andrew Stanton, Rita Hsiao, D. Chamberlin and Chris Webb for writing.
"FOR THE BIRDS," A NEW SHORT FROM PIXAR, PREMIERED AT TELLURIDE. IT HAS ITS LOCAL PREMIERE AT THE MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL OCT. 14 Ralph Eggleston directed the 4 minute work. The MVFF catalog says "Life on the high wire becomes a comedy of errors in For the Birds." At Telluride it premiered with Quills, Phil Kaufman's new feature about the Marquis de Sadde.
WELCOME PHILIP MALKIN AS THE NEW KEEPER OF OUR MEMBERSHIP MASTER LIST - PLEASE CHECK YOUR MAILING LABLE FOR MINOR ERRORS AS GLITCHES MAY HAVE HAPPENED when the lists were e-mailed to him. (If there were major ones the post office would be sending your newsletter back to us or to somebody else in another part of the world.) If there are any changes that need to be made contact philip@malkin.net or call Karl Cohen (415) 386-1004.
Thanks also to the 3 other people who offered to take over this responsibility last month. It was nice to know others are willing to pitch in and help. ASIFA-SF could not exist the way we run it without the help of several volunteers. ASIFA in LA has a small paid staff so they charge a lot more for their dues, charge for most or all of their events, etc. They also hold cel sales and other fund raisers. With the help of our volunteers we can have a great chapter and keep the costs down so almost everybody can afford to be a member.
EARLY WARNING - SPIKE AND MIKE'S NEW SICK AND TWISTED FESTIVAL IS COMING TO THE BAY AREA OCTOBER 13 It has its premiere run in the San Diego area Sept. 1 - Nov. 18 and in Lost Angeles Sept. 1 - Dec. 16 (weekends at the Laemmle's Sunset Theatre). It will be shown in San Francisco at the Kabucki Oct. 13 - 28 and for the first 2 weekends in Nov. It will move over to the Roxie (Nov. 17 - Nov. 23). It will also show up on screens in San Jose (Towne, Nov. 22 - Dec. 14), Berkeley (at the California, Nov. 10 - 16) and Santa Cruz (October).
The treats (?) in the program include 16 new works and 2 dubious classics. Don Hertzfeld, who did Billy's Balloon, is back with what might be another nasty gem. There is more Angry Kid from Aardman to be seen. While I haven't seen any of the new works in the show, I can share with you a few of their titles. Beat the Brats, Stinkey Monkey, The Hangnail, Wheelchair Rebbeca, Crotch Man 3 and The Junkie Pimp suggest what you will see if you dare to go. There is also one new film being shown that probably doesn't deserve to be associated with the rest of this show. It is Pixar's For The Birds.
VICTORIA LIVINGSTON'S "WINDOW" HAS BEEN ACCEPTED BY SEVERAL FESTIVALS It will be seen at the Barcelona Festival of Independent Cinema, the Kiev International Film Festival, the Palm Springs International Film Festival, the British Short Film Festival (BBC), Film Art Foundation Film Festival and the Mill Valley Film Festival (with the feature Bread and Roses). It will be at the Rafael Film Center on Sat. Oct 21 at 8 pm in a program of animated shorts with live musical accompaniment by the Sprocket Ensemble. It has already won a first prize from the San Francisco International Film Festival and has been shown by the Madcat Women's Festival and Sprocket's Ideas in Animation at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco.
Victoria has worked at ILM for several years as a computer animator. She graduated from San Francisco State as an animation major in their cinema department.
THE X GAMES "TUBE 2000, ACTION SPORTS FILM FESTIVAL" SHOWED SEVERAL ANIMATED WORKS The two day event was held here in August at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Among the animated offerings was Hertzfeld's Billy's Balloon. It won a major prize that included an Adobe Dynamic Media software package worth about $2200.
Bill Plympton's Can't Drag Race with Jesus was shown along with a great surprise. Gary Meyer, the fesatival's artistic director, treated audiences to Giselle Kerozene. It is a pixillated gem from France that
was in the 22nd Tournee of Animation (late1980's). It stars strange looking people riding hi-tech brooms. It was so carefully shot that feet are rarely seen touching the ground.
NEWS FOR HENRY SEKICK FANS - THE OPENING OF "MONKEY BONE" HAS BEEN POSTPONED No reason has been given as to why the Nov. 3 opening has been changed to a vague "early 2001" opening. Hopefully it is being fine tuned and will be the first animated hit of 2001.
Visfx magazine (August, 2000) ran 8 color photos of people working on stop-motion material. The informative article mentioned that it was the first live action feature to have a stop-motion lead character since Mighty Joe Young.
The magazine said animators working on the feature included Paul Berry, Tray Thomas, Phil Dale, Jeff Newitt, Anthony Scott, Justin Kohn, Webster Colcord, Tim Hittle and Brian Ormiston. Peter Crosman and Pete Kozachilk were visual effects supervisors. Mitch Dubin was a camera operator and Bonita de Carlo headed the fabrication shop. Others shown at work on the production are Josephine Huang, Alice Payton, Sally Waters, Mike Eder & Anthony Zierhut.
The puppets were shot against blue screen. The shots were composited by several companies including Giant Killer Robots, Menace Effects, Howard Granite, Look Effects, Centropolis, Pacific Title Digital and Pacific Ocean Post.
WILD BRAIN WILL EXHIBIT 2 TV SERIES, 4 PILOTS FOR TV SERIES AND 11 WEB SERIES AT THE MIPCOM TRADE SHOW Last year they went to MIPCOM in Europe and came home with several business deals including one that provided the funds needed to produce Poochini's Yard. This October they will be exhibiting the completed Poochini's Yard, along with Mr. Baby, the tale of a drooling child that happens to be 15 feet tall. (The show is intended for kids 6 - 11 years of age.) At MIPCOM they will announce who their international co-producer for the series will be. Both series are 26 episodes of a half hour show.
The company will also promote 4 pilots that they hope to develop into TV series. They are Vanilla Pudding, Sergeant Crab in the Yukon, Racket in the Attic and Art Gecko. For Internet syndication they are offering 11 different products. Joe Paradise, Space is Dum, Romanov, Glue and sfON are now playing. Coming soon are Anita Bomba, Kozik's Inferno, Guilty as Sin, Perfect Weapon, Swing Town and Anthropolis.
WILD BRAIN DID 3 SLEEK ANIMATED ADS FOR SCANDINAVIAN DESIGNS Julia Tortolani designed and directed the 3 spots that began airing in the western US in August. In the ads the furniture glides across the screen in time to up-tempo music by Malcom Paine.
Janica Allen was lead technicl director/animator. Eric Schweickert was the technical director and Kevin Ball the Mac Graphics/Paint Artist. Bill Weir produced and Jeff Fino was the executive producer.
SHOCKWAVE TO FOCUS MORE ON GAMES This Internet giant was supposed to be doing million dollar projects with the likes of Tim Burton, David Lynch and South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone (I wonder what happened to the Parker and Stone pilot that "shocked" Shockwave executives?). Now they say games are "in" as most of the people that visit their web site go to the game section and spend a lot of time there. As a result of their shift in direction 20 people in S.F. and L.A. were laid off.
AWN reports that this change in the company's direction will not effect Thugs on Film made for them by Mondo Media or 7th Portal made for them by Stan Lee.
JOHN ATKINSON FROM EL CERRITO WINS A SILVER AWARD AT THE CRESTED BUTTE REEL FEST His short Aspire won in the animation category. The film tells the story of a small robot searching for his purpose in life. The prize was presented to Atkinson by Edward Zwick (Oscar for being co-producer of Shakespeare in Love). The award from this event in Colorado included an offer from The Independent Film Channel to distribute the film for a year.
Earlier this year the film was selected for screenings at the California SUN International Animation Festival in Northridge and the American Digital Arts Festival in Melbourne, Florida.
Atkinson, working under the name Atkinson Productions, has created work for ad agencies, gaming companies and TV documentaries. He is currently developing Daydreamer, his next short film. For more about this emerging talent go to his well designed web site at www.atkinsonproductions.com or call (510) 525-5049
ANIMATION TEACHER WANTED TO RUN AN AFTER SCHOOL WORKSHOP FOR GIFTED KIDS at Rooftop School on Twin Peaks. Barbara Klutinis, who started the program when her boys attended the school, is ready to retire from running the workshop. The job was non-paying, but there may be a way to find some funds for the next teacher. Call Barbara Klutinis (415) 824-1282 for details.
AWN'S ON-LINE STORE WAS PROMOTING A TAPE OF LARRY JORDAN'S WORK IN AUGUST Jordan developed a strong personal style over the years using cut outs and sections of old engravings. His work is surreal, but it is gentle rather than disturbing or nightmarish. He taught animation for many years at the SF Art Institute. He retired from teaching in the late 90s. He lives in Petaluma where he tends to a remarkable garden with ponds and exotic plants.
WILL YOUR JUST EMERGING COMPANY BE LISTED IN THE NOVEMBER "FILM/TAPE WORLD" GUIDE TO LOCAL ANIMATION AND SPECIAL EFFECTS COMPANIES? Karl Cohen is writing it and will be contacting companies he knows about in the first week of Oct. for the latest information. He will try to list everybody, but he doesn't know about (or remember) every company or one or two person shops trying to do web cartoons and other cool things. Let Cohen know you exist as soon as possible so you can be mentioned. Call him by Oct. 9 at (415) 386-1004 or e-mail him at karlcohen@earthlink.net
INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS LOOKING FOR MEDICAL, LIFE OR DISABILITY INSURANCE may wish to call Todd Aldridge for rates. (707) 575-5885
Wednesday, October 11, ASIFA-SF PRESENTS NEW WORK FROM DOT COMIX, ILM, PDI AND WILD BRAIN at 7:30 pm. This is an excellent annual event where outstanding companies get to share with us some of their recent accomplishments. It is free and open to the public, so arrive a few minutes early for the best seats. At he Exploratorium.
Saturday, October 21, 8 PM, IDEAS IN ANIMATION at the Rafael Center. Nik Phelps and the Sprocket Ensemble will perform live music as films are projected on the Raphael's big screen. A new 35mm print on Nina Paley's Pandorama will be shown. The film was made for IMAX by drawing in a negative color scheme directly on clear 70mm stock.
Other films in 35mm include Richard Zimmerman's Birdcage, Victoria Livingston's Window and Stacey Steers' Totem. They will show two excellent films from CAL Arts: John Held Jr. By Ron Yavnieli and Fur and Feathers by Maria Vasilkarsky (the latter is a Russian born artist who got her MFA from the school in experimental animation before finding employment in the industry in LA with Loko Pictures). About 18 or 20 works will be shown in the program.
NBC PULLED THEIR ANIMATED DAVID SPADE SERIES OFF THE AIR AFTER TWO EPISODES WERE SHOWN The network said Sammy died due to "low ratings."
"WHEN THE DAY BREAKS" WINS THE GRAND PRIZE AT HIROSHIMA Other top prize winners include Village of Idiots and My Grandmother Ironed the King's Shirts. (We showed the 3 films in 35mm at our November event last year.)
ASIFA-INTERNATIONAL'S SECRETARY GENERAL, BORIVOJ BORDO, IS BEING HONORED THIS MONTH at the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in Birmingham, Alabama. He will show a program of his work, a program of work by others from the Zagreb Studio plus additional work from Croatia/Yugoslavia.
WITH NO FABULOUS OFFER TO DO ANOTHER FEATURE, DON BLUTH AND GARRY GOLDMAN ARE FALLING BACK TO THEIR OLD STAND-BY - DRAGON'S LAIR PROJECTS Having caused Fox to close their animation studio in Arizona, the pair have announced they will be doing a new generation of Dragon's Lair projects. They plan to do a game for the web, webtoons (possibly available on DVD at some point) and perhaps, someday, another feature.
E. BAY ANIMATOR SUMS UP HIS FEELINGS ABOUT THE BLUTH/GOLDMAN FLOP This bashful artist, who does not want his name mentioned, said "the emotional impact of watching Titan A.E. was like listening to a telephone dial tone."
THE NEWS STORY THAT AL PACINO WILL CO-STAR WITH A CGI LADY WAS BOGUS A retraction was run in small print by some papers that ran the original story as a headline item. It said that doing a cgi lady would be too expensive, so the producers decided to use an unknown starlet. They got a million dollars worth of free publicity for their project, so I suspect they are smiling.
TELLURIDE PREMIERED A NEW FILM ABOUT CHUCK JONES Chuck Jones: Extremes in Motion is a 90 minute documentary made for PBS that is loaded with insights and information. It also includes lots of short interviews from people who have been influenced by Jones in some way. They include Ken Burns, Roger Ebert, Joe Dante, June Foray, Stan Freberg, Whoopi Goldberg, Matt Groening, John Lasseter, Leonard Maltin, Maurice Noble, Andre Previn, Steven Spielberg, Robin Williams and others. A person who saw it at Telluride said it was "a wonderful, loving tribute to Jones" who turned 88 on September 21.
The show will be presented at several festivals this fall. It airs on PBS in some cities the night before Thanksgiving (8 pm in NYC on Nov. 22).
DISNEY'S FEATURE DIVISION BUYS OVER 500 SGI WORK STATIONS Many of them are Silicon Graphic's latest Octane 2 machines. SGI computers have already been used on several Disney projects including Dinosaur, 102 Dalmatians and Mission to Mars.
ROY DISNEY IS INTERESTED IN RESTORING RICHARD WILLIAM'S "THIEF AND COBBLER" The announcement is simply a wish of Roy Disney to complete the project the way Williams intended it to be. Apparently Williams would like to see the production completed and is interested in working with Disney on it. Before that happens the rights have to be obtained back from those who now own the butchered version (one article said it had been "hacked it to death"). Also, the footage removed from it, replaced by some poorly animated songs, etc., has to be found.
In case you don't know the story of this project, Williams worked on it for many years (since the late 60s or early 70s). He used his own money to hire some of the world's greatest animators to work on it. In the early 90s he had Warner Bros. backing its completion. When he missed his completion deadline in 1992, Warner Bros. wasn't doing well with new animation productions. Rover Dangerfield and Nutcracker Prince had been flops so they let Completion Bond Corporation take over the project. CBC took it away from Williams and gave a series of hacks the chance to be "creative." The voice track was altered in the worst possible way, great animation by Grim Natwick and others was tossed out and some third rate TV quality animation was added. The mess was released in 1995 as Arabian Knights and grossed $300,000. The film did no better on the home video market. Completion Bond went bankrupt.
It is instructive to see the tape as the added footage is obvious. There are magnificent moments followed by footage so bad you may say "oh no" or… The original film was a designers' dream project and an animator's nightmare. Some of the art is so complex that you might say it could only have been done by a modern computer. Of course it was done by hand. Williams' character designs, colors, sets, props, etc. are wonderful. The look of the film may not be your taste, but I think most people who appreciate the art of animation recognize its high artistic integrity.
"FANTASIA" AND "FANTASIA 2000" ON DVD AND VHS Nov. 14 is the release date for the 3 disc delux set. Out-takes from the original production are included including the Clair de Lune segment. It will also include sketches from the unfinished Ride of the Valkries and other preliminary art.
WARNER BROS. TO DO ANOTHER "SPACE JAM" TYPE PROJECT Quincy Jones will produce it and the script is being developed by Ken Kaufman (Space Cowboys).
THERE IS TALK OF A SIMPSONS FEATURE While there are no details to report about the possibility of an animated feature, we can report that stage readings in London of the TV show's scripts by original cast members were sold out events. The Simpsons are presently a big hit in England.
CANADA'S CINAR SCANDAL CONTINUES TO MAKE NEWS The founders of the company were fired in August by their board, but they refused to step down. They started the company in 1976 and are fighting those who claim they are corrupt (millions are said to be missing, there are claims of corrupt business practices, etc. Perhaps the tooth fairy borrowed the money?)
CANADA'S NELVANIA WAS PURCHASED FOR $372.5 MILLION (or $554 million in Canadian dollars) The company has produced the low budget features Pippi Longstockings (1997) and Barbar, the Movie (1989) plus lots of TV shows for kids. Corus Entertainment, "a leading Canadian entertainment and media company" bought the company.
IMAGINA, EUROPES MAJOR SHOWCASE OF COMPUTER ANIMATION, LOOSES THE FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF THE FRENCH GOVT. A group that wants to save this festival has been formed. The govt. had supported it for 19 years.
17th ANNUAL CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN'S FILM FESTIVAL ALWAYS SHOWS LOTS OF NEW ANIMATED WORKS About 200 works from around the world will be shown. Many will be animated. For printed information about attending the October 12 - 22 event call Facets Multi-Media (773) 281-9075, kidsfest@facets.org
DEREK LAMB AND JEFF HALE TEAM UP WITH TOONZ ANIMATION INDIA TO CREATE A COMIC ANIMATED SHORT The new film will be The Last British Colonel in India. Hale and Lamb made The Great Toy Robbery in Canada in 1963. It was distributed in the US by Columbia with Dr. Strangelove. Another of their productions was The Last Cartoon Man, 1973. It was widely seen in an early Tournee of Animation and in other venues. Hale lived in San Francisco for many years and form most of that time he was an owner of Imagination Inc. (our top animation studio in the 1970s). He now lives in the L.A. area.
ISHU PATEL TO TEACH IN INDIA He will instruct the staff of Tooz Animation for about 6 month. He presented ASIFA-SF a program on his career last year.
CHANNEL 4'S CARTOON WEEK INCLUDED THE NEW DOCUMENTARY "CARTOONS KICK ASS: A GUIDE TO SUBVERSIVE ANIMATION" The program, based to some extent on Karl Cohen's book Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators aired in England on the last Monday night in Sept. at midnight. It included a lot of film clips plus interviews with Ralph Bakashi, John Krickfalusi, J.J. Sedelmajer, Jerry Beck, Dr. Bill Moritz, Cohen and others. The production was done by Illuminations, a company headed by Keith Griffith (producer of works by Brothers Quay, Jan Svankmajer, etc.).
When I was interviewed for the show they didn't have a working title. I pointed out several times that animation in the US isn't subversive (according to our traditional definition of the word). Animation has almost always been controlled by conservative interests. I know Beck and Moritz told the filmmakers much the same thing, so it will be interesting (and hopefully not painful) to see what they have done with the theme suggested by the program's title.
STAN LEE MEDIA DOWNSIZES AND BUYS THE INTERNET RIGHTS TO "CONAN THE BARBARIAN" for $4.3 million in stock. About the same time they cut 19 jobs in the US in favor of sending the work overseas. The company says the move will "maintain quality animation while reducing internal overhead costs." Is this the first web animation to be sent abroad? The company does 7th Portal, The Accuser and Backstreet Project for the Internet.
ICAST BOUGHT SHORTBUZZ, A SHORT FILM DISTRIBUTOR, AND THEN LAID OFF 30 SHORTBUZZ PEOPLE They claim they will be replaced with people with "more experience…"
PHIL ROMAN IS DEVELOPING A REALLY CRAZY IDEA FOR WEB FEATURES He has obtained rights to old RKO live action features and plan to reuse their soundtracks with new animation. Each "kid friendly product" will take a year to make. The first film will be based on Sinbad the Sailor, 1946.
THE SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL'S GOLDEN GATE AWARDS SEEKS ANIMATION The entry deadline is Dec. 1, 2000 for a late April - early May event. $500 cash prize in each category (animation, Bay Area, new visions, etc.) plus trophies. For forms call (415) 561-5041 or write them at 39 Mesa St. Suite 110, The Persidio, SF, CA 94129
SLAMDANCE late deadline is Nov. 8. They show first films, works too wild for Sundance, etc. Call (323) 466-1786 for details.
by Steve Segal
For DVD owners who want to build an animation collection, there is a wealth of interesting material available. If sales are good there will be lots more to come.
I'll start with the mainstream. Disney sometimes puts out two different versions of their animated films: one for consumers and one for collectors. Tarzan, for example, is available as just the film for around $25, but for $50 the delux package includes director's commentary, deleted scenes, storyboards and my favorite extra, Glenn Keene showing the test animation his team did to figure out how the title character should move.
A Bug's Life has the same kinds of materials available. The 3-disk set containing Toy Story 1 & 2 has lots of extras - retail $80. Nightmare Before Christmas: Special Edition contains an amazing variety of cool stuff and it can be found for under $20. Disney has also released James & the Giant Peach, but it doesn't include the extras (as near as I can tell).
Dreamworks puts all the extras of even their most recent films on the consumer disk and charges no more for it. Both Antz and Prince of Egypt have lots of great extras. Chicken Run and Road to El Dorado will be released soon in the same way.
WB has yet to put out a special edition of Iron Giant even though material has been prepared for it.
When The Puppetoon Movie was released several years ago I was a bit disappointed the way they cut and pasted the short films together, but for fans of the beautiful George Pal shorts, these are by far the best print quality available. On November 14 a DVD of the film will come out which will include several Puppetoons that weren't included in the feature. We can only hope that they are presented intact.
Speaking of Pal his wonderful live/animated feature Tom Thumb is coming out on DVD with commentary. There is no mention of who did the commentary (director Pal died many years ago), but it should be worth having.
On the more esoteric side there are quite a few collections of independent and international animation. You can't go wrong with WORLD'S GREATEST ANIMATION. It contains an eclectic blend of award winning animation from all over the world (but mostly Canada) and with only two or three exceptions they are some of my personal favorites. Another good bet is The Best of Zagreb Film: Be Careful What You Wish For/The Classic Collection. There are several packages of Zagreb works and all have some worthwhile pieces, but this package has the best concentration.
John Hubley was a Disney art director and one of the founders of UPA. As an independent he worked with his wife Faith to create a wonderful collection of smart and fascinating films. There are several collections of Hubley films. Unfortunately the packages mix the brilliant work they did as a team with the tedius work Faith Hubley did solo. The best collection is probably John and Faith Hubley's Art and Jazz in Animation. Unfortunately it doesn't contain my favorite "Moonbird." That's on The Hubley Collection, Vol. 1 (DVD).
Bill Plympton is one of the most successful solo animators with several features to his credit. His shorts are exceptionally funny and most of them are on Plymptoons.
There are lots that I haven't seen but here is a short list that should be quite interesting:
Ladislaw Starewicz: The Cameraman's Revenge And
Other Fantastic Tales
The Puppet Films Of Jiri Trnka
Beany And Cecil: Special Edition
Private Snafu Collection Uncensored
The Brothers Quay Collection
Best Of Bulgarian Animation
The Cartoons of Halas & Batchelor
The Snowman & Father Christmas
Tom And Jerry's Greatest Chases
Rembrandt Films Greatest Hits
Masters Of Russian Animation
If any readers have seen good animation DVDs, please write me and I'll pass on your review.
http://users.lanminds.com/segal/
by Aunt Violet (aka Caryn Leschen*)
What a fool I was! I thought Lee Marrs was a Famous Underground Cartoonist who had grown to realize that if she wanted to make a living, she had better learn something practical, like computer animation! Kind of like my mother wanted me to take the civil service exam. Turns out, Lee's been practical all along, producing both hilarious, slice-o'-life comix like Pudge, Girl Blimp-and loads of other wonderful stories-and wacky animation for years.
I've known this formidable artist since 1983, through Wimmin's Comix and he associated worldwide sisterhood of women who do comix. This summer, this Emmy Award winner was appointed Program Chair of the Animation Department at the Center for Electronic Art in downtown San Francisco. These days, when not working in her Berkeley studio, Lee is busy expanding and developing CEA's Animation Department into a practical, focused digital training center.
This interview gave me an opportunity to ask a whole bunch of questions I'd always wanted to ask Lee. This particular conversation was unique in that we stayed on topic and avoided our usual pun competition, or manic race to the next ironic one-liner. Lee is hard to keep up with.
Violet: So, Lee, I have always wanted to ask you: How did you turn from a Famous Underground Cartoonist into a successful animator?
Lee: The usual way, bribery and kidnapping. Actually, I've always done both comix and animation. When an art director for the CBS affiliate station in Washington, DC wanted animated promos, they sent me off to an animation house to direct the spots. Wow! Pictures can move! Then I moved to San Francisco and took animation classes at the SF Museum of Modern Art, from the legendary Tod Flinchbaugh.
Violet: Did you have any idea of what you were getting into? Could you see some changes coming, even then?
Lee: NO, the field was much dinkier than I'd thought. Seemed like Lucky Zamora was the only game in town. I was part of the original team at Colossal Pictures, where everyone was interested in weird and innovative ways of doing animation. I had always been interested in technology, and soon I was looking at things like the initial computer animations that NASA was doing.
Violet: Nasa? Was that another animation studio?
Lee: NASA! You know, the Space Program, the Lunar Module? That NASA.
Violet: (embarrassed) Ah, of course. I've heard of them. I actually remember seeing those animations on the news.
Lee: I liked the idea of using a computer to do animation for two reasons. One was that, being a naturally lazy person, I was all for speeding up the animation process. Also, by then I was directing projects that, by the time your idea worked it's through the 25 people that animated it, it would be different than you intended. With a computer, as an artist, I could have more control over the final product-and employ a few animators, steadily.
Violet: What are some of the early systems that you worked on?
Lee: Well, in 1979 I checked out the Quantel Paintbox, and Aurora Graphics System, but all the Paintbox demos crashed, so I became a consultant on the Aurora 100.
Violet: Was this software or hardware?
Lee: The systems at that time were both software and hardware-these were specialized graphics workstations, not mainframe computers. It was an animation consultant's dream: software and hardware designers right there in the room, to ask and answer questions as the system was created. They would come up with something they thought was cool, like being able to wrap an image around a can, and they'd bring it to me to see if, as an animator, I could do anything with it. They'd be all excited and I'd say, gee, how often would anybody want to wrap an image around a can? I mean it was cool and everything, but they had to come up with stuff that would help you ANIMATE. So they'd bop back and create a timeline, or ease controls.
Violet: Yes, I see how the can would be good for, say, package designers, but not necessarily animation. Incidentally, I was just recently trying to figure out how to do that in Photoshop...like, I know it's in there, somewhere, but...where?
Lee: Yeah, the Aurora system was developed primarily for TV stations, for news graphics and corporate presentations. These were basically the first icon-driven interfaces, with early Mac-like menus. In fact, one of the first times I taught animation was teaching people to animate with Aurora.
Violet: Speaking of teaching, after decades of production, what kind of vision do you have for the Animation Department at the Center for Electronic Art? What are you trying to accomplish there?
Lee: Aiming at the practical level, we're setting up programs that can most directly train artists to work professionally as animators.
Violet: How does this program do that?
Lee: For one thing, all the instructors are primarily professional animators as opposed to being primarily academics. The class assignments proceed just like assignments they'd get from clients or art directors; even the core animation classes are arranged the way work is ordinarily produced, beginning with Storytelling, Storyboarding, and moving from Pre-Production to Production to Post-Production.
Along with bribery and nepotism, we know exactly what students need to learn to get out there and work in the field. For instance, as mentioned on the Pixar website and some current industry magazines, studios continually need people who understand the art of storytelling. The ability to tell a story and adhere to other basic principles of animation transcends the specific technology of the day, and is a very desirable job skill-especially for studios with [their own] proprietary software.
Violet: What if I just want to do animation for websites?
Lee: We're now offering a choice of 2D or 3D tracks. We do offer 3D Studio Max, but we include other 3D programs and plug-ins in the 3D curriculum. The 2D track emphasizes web animation, mainly Flash, but we will also be teaching Adobe LiveMotion. We've got Sound and Video for the Web too. We'll also be offering Flash for Animators, and Animation for Flash Designers.
Violet: Hmmm. I'm sure I'm in there, somewhere...
Lee: Well, what also helps is that the small classes give animators a lot of attention.
Violet & Lee (in unison): We animators NEED a lot of attention!
Lee: Yes, in addition to caffeine and back rubs.
Violet: Yeah, I guess I fit right in. You seem pretty excited about this.
Lee: I am really astounded, amazed and delighted to have yet another career in animation. Things looked really bleak for decades, especially when I started out. Even DISNEY had given up doing animation! The current Golden Age of Animation created by this digital turnaround has really messed up my previous, totally pessimistic view about the future. But, fortunately, there are still plenty of things to be depressed about, like the upcoming election.
Violet: (Sigh.) So, where can I sign up? When's the next round?
Lee: Those who are interested can call me at 415.512-9300, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, or Donnie Bruce at 415.536-0846; they can email lee@leemarrs.com, or go to the CEA website at www.cea.edu. You can also visit Lee Marrs' website at http://www.leemarrs.com
*Caryn Leschen is a cartoonist, animator and copywriter who is best known for "Ask Aunt Violet," her internationally syndicated advice comic; somewhat known for her animated e-cards for Blue Mountain and Yahoo, and least known for her flamboyant copywriting for websites such as Tavolo.com and greatEntertaining.com. Every night before she goes to bed she prays that the Flash Fairy will leave a little brain under her pillow and she'll wake up the Best Flash Animator on Earth. Visit her website at http://www.wenet.net/~violet.
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This issue was written by Karl Cohen and proofread by Pete Davis. The production crew included Shirley Smith, Tara Packard and Ron Seawright. Subscriptions are $18 a year. |
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