Scarf Mania
by Chris Lanier will be shown at Sundance this month. It will also be shown
at our Open Screening on Thursday, Jan. 25 at the Exploratorium, 7:30 pm.
The Internet Animation Boom Began In Earnest
A Year Ago. Has It Ended? If Not Where Is It Going?
Don Bluth's Tune-Up 2000
| Local Screenings | National News
| Festivals
SUNDANCE TO SHOW ANIMATED WORKS FROM THE BAY AREA including Chris Lanier's Scarf Mania and George Evelyn's The Great Big Cartoony Club Show (Wild Brain). Bill Plympton, who has been a member of our chapter for over a decade, is excited about Sundance showing Mutant Aliens, his new feature.
Evelyn and Lanier's works are in Sundance's inaugural online competition. The 17 selected works in the competition will be shown on the Internet (www.sundance.org) beginning Jan. 18, the first day of the festival. If you are looking for creative/quality animation on the world wide web, this selection probably represents some of the best there is.
Lanier says Romanov, the person in Scarf Mania, "is an absurdist character with a yin-yang symbol for a face. A cross between Felix the Cat and one of Kafka's hapless Mr. K's, he's trapped in a world that seems determined to defeat and humiliate him. Scarf Mania finds him trying to assimilate in a city whose cultural and economic life revolves around the wearing of scarves; the results are, of course, disastrous."
AND THE WINNERS OF THE 2000 JOEY AWARDS IN ANIMATION ARE The San Jose Film and Video Commission gave the animation award to Fatbox for their HP Piranha Server, Rachael Russell, producer and Ace Miles, Animator. Fatbox also won the prize for animated openers/closers/corporate logos. That award went to their Nation Geographic Opener, Sasha Houdek, producer and Greg Levenberger, 3D animator.
JOHN ATKINSON'S 'ASPIRE' WINS ANOTHER PRIZE In November the work was given the "Grand Festival Award in Animation" by the Berkeley Video and Film Festival. The computer generated work is the story of a small robot searching for his purpose in life. The 6 minute work has been shown at several festivals in the US and Canada. Atkinson, who lives in Berkeley, will show his new work at our open screening this month.
WILD BRAIN IS PLEASED WITH THEIR NEW CGI AND LIVE ACTION AD It looks like an ad Pixar or Colossal Pictures might have produced if they were still doing commercials. In the new 15 second work directed by Carl Willat, cgi raspberries show they have personality as one tries to get into a bottle of Motif sparkling wine. It is a cute and sophisticated way of saying that the Canandaigua Wine Company makes a raspberry flavored sparkling wine.
Bill Haller was the lead animator. Karen Ansel was the cg supervisor and Ty Robinson the cg animator. Allan Gersten was the modeler, Jeff Raymond the technical director and Phillip Hillenbrand the producer.
Wild Brain also announced recently that John A. Schwallie from England is their new CFO.
NINA PALEY INVITED TO SPEAK AND SHOW HER FILM 'PANDORAMA' AT A BIG FORMAT CONFERENCE IN PARIS The event will be in mid-January at a science and technology museum that has an IMAX theater. The conference will focus on animation in 70mm, so they are flying in animators from all over the world. Paley is delighted to be going. She says Alexander Petrov will be there and will show Old Man and the Sea. Several other animated works will be shown including More (USA), The Boxer (Canada) and Cyberworld.
Paley just began working with Dog Town, a company that does corporate communications. She plans to use her first pay check to get a transfer of Fetch from video to 35mm film.
MICHAELA PAVLATOVA HAS A NEW WEB SHOW The Graveyard will begin to air on Wild Brain.com in January. She has presented 2 shows of her work to ASIFA-SF in the past and is presently teaching at the Academy of Art. Her short Reci, Reci Reci won an Oscar nomination in 1992.
MONDO MEDIA WILL SYNDICATE "ELMO AARDVARK: OUTER SPACE DETECTIVE" Elmo was created by Will Ryan Productions and Renegade Animation. This great looking show has been getting a lot of praise. Now it will be seen by a lot more people. Ryan, a former president of ASIFA-Hollywood and a great writer of lyrics, has assembled a production team that includes voice artists June Foray and Keith Scott.
SHOCKWAVE.COM TO BUY ATOM FILMS AND MOVE THEIR OPERATION TO SAN FRANCISCO The company was purchased in a stock exchange deal that will be finalized soon. Atom Films shareholders will own 30% of the new firm (the present company names are expected to be dropped). Macromedia owns a majority interest in Shockwave.com.
At present Atom Films distributes about 1,500 works. Artists include Aardman Animation, Bill Plympton and Tim Hittle. Atom has theatrical, non-theatrical and television rights to many of the titles along with web rights.
REMEMBER KEN PONTAC AND DAVE BLYMAN? They have been busy directing episodes of Gary and Mike, a clay animated TV show produced at Vinton in Portland for UPN. It premiers Friday, Jan. 12 at 8 pm. Pontac and Blyman came to the Bay Area years ago to work on the last Gumby series. They moved on to create Danger Productions and eventually produced the series Bump in the Night here for ABC-TV.
REMEMBER MARIA ELENA RODRIGUEZ, A FORMER BOARD MEMBER OF ASIFA-SF? She moved to LA years ago and worked as production manager on The Simpsons and at Disney before deciding to begin a career as a screenwriter of live action productions. She recently sent a card reading, "Maria Elena Rodriguez's second episode of RESURRECTION BLVD. 'Las manos de piedra' airs Monday, December 11th at 10PM on Showtime." Congratulations!
DIGITAL INDEPENDENCE 2001 wiil be a national conference on the state of independent production and distribution. It will cover streaming media, motion pictures, video games, broadcast and cable television. It is being organized in part by AFI, SMPTE, ITVS, FAF and BAVC and made possible with funds from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the California Arts Council. It will be hosted by the SF Museum of Modern Art and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, January 28-30. Tickets for the 3 day event are $250. (415) 989-3790. www.digitalindies.com
LUCASFILM AND DREAMWORKS HAVE BEEN ADDED TO THE FORBES 500 list of privately held companies in the US. Both companies have ties to our area. Dreamworks owns PDI in Palo Alto.
PIXAR'S NEW SPACE WAS DESCRIBED AS A COMBINATION OF HOLLYWOOD AND A SILICON VALLEY GETAWAY by the San Jose Mercury News. It is 215,000 square foot studio with walls covered with 515,000 specially made bricks. Somehow the unusual colors of the bricks (mojave, coral, etc.) is supposed to suggest a late 19th Century warehouse. There are 3 screening rooms. They have a 16 acre "campus" and plans call for an apple orchard and an indoor gym with swimming pool and ball courts. The site was a Del Monte cannery. $94 million was spent on the complex and an additional $34 million will be spent completing it.
Inside the complex are 250 new Enterprise Servers according to Wired Magazine. "Each packing eight of Sun's most powerful processors." They figure that gives Pixar 25 terabytes of storage space (25,000 Gbytes).
PDI IS GOING TO COMPLETE THE 70MM VERSION OF "SHREK" EVEN THOUGH IMAX SAYS THEY HAVE PULLED OUT OF THE PRODUCTION The IMAX Corporation is good at creating exceptional equipment. Unfortunately they back a lot of low cost 2nd rate productions, but shy away from better made and more expensive projects. Outside producers and financiers are responsible for some of the better 70mm projects including the Oscar winning Old Man and the Sea and Fantasia 2000..
In December two people said PDI-Dreamworks is finishing the 70 mm version of Shrek. One of those reports came from a man who had talked with Carl Rosendahl, a founder of PDI.
Meanwhile IMAX shares are now at an all time low price. They sold for less than $3 in late Dec. Not too long ago they sold for over $30 a share and once upon a time they sold for around $60.
.FOREIGN CINEMA SHOWED SHORTS BY BAY AREA FILMMAKERS IN NOVEMBER The program included Ralph Eggleston's For the Birds and Jeremy Solterbeck's Moving Illustrations of Machines. The cinema is at 2534 Mission.
GAME DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE will be held March 20-24 at the San Jose Convention Center. Over 250 exhibitors, lectures, etc. www.gdconf com for details.
FAF TO PRESENT A TWO DAY CLASS ON BLUE SCREEN, Sat. Jan. 27 and Sun. the 28th at Courtland Studio, 827 Courtland. Sri Prabah will talk about lighting, mattes and other techniques. Limited to 4 students, $270/$315 tuition. (415) 552-8760
JOB LISTINGS ON THE WEB IN DECEMBER AT AWN included openings at two local firms that haven't been mentioned in this newsletter before. Hot Wired was looking for a part-time artist. No benefits. Mad Lab Creative was looking for a lead illustrator/animator.
CARTOON ART MUSEUM SHOWS 'EVEN MORE STRANGE THAN YOU' and is making plans to move in April to a large storefront space on Market Street.
Their new "Strange" show is up and you can see it now or wait and attend the official opening on Jan. 11. It is being presented with New Langston Arts, so part of the exhibit is at that gallery.
The Cartoon Art Museum is also showing treasures from their collection. Jenny Dietzman, their new curator, found lots of gems that had been donated to the museum, but have never been never show to the public. The animation art being shown includes Fantasia cels donated by Mike Glad.
Their director had to spend much of 2000 working with lawyers instead of planning exhibits. His present landlord wanted to break the lease so he could charge an outrageous amount for the museum's space. The new space will have a 25 seat animation screening room eventually.
ART ABOUT.COM PROVIDES ARTISTS FREE PORTFOLIO SPACE ON THE WEB. THEY ALSO HAVE A CONTEST WHERE YOU CAN DESIGN A CHARACTER AND THEN USE THEIR LIPSYNCH SOFTWARE TO MAKE IT TALK This non-profit group
is headed by John Wong. For free portfolio/gallery space go to artabout.com for details. Check out voiceanimations.com for information about their software system and contest. You can play with one of their characters or design your own.
AN UB IWERKS EVENT YOU CAN LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING Leslie Iwerks made an excellent 35mm feature-length documentary about her grandfather Ub Iwerks. It features retired Disney employees that knew him and a lot of other people including Russell Merritt who lives in Oakland (co-author of Walt in Wonderland). Leslie has given us permission to show a tape of her documentary and have Merritt talk.
Better yet, her book on Ub Iwerks comes out in May or June and her documentary will be released at the same time to the home video market. She may be coming to the Bay Area to sign books. If so we hope there will be a program with her and Merritt at the Exploratorium and a show in Berkeley at the PFA. The PFA can show 35mm and is interested in the event. This year is the 100th anniversary of Ub's birth.
Tuesday, January 16, 7:30 pm the "Pure Pandemonium" program of the S.F. INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL includes Annie McClure's I Like Men, a 1 min. animated video. 1624 Calif.
Thursday, Jan. 18, New prints of THE YELLOW SUBMARINE at 7 pm and FRITZ THE CAT at 8:50. Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley.
Sunday, Jan. 21, THE YELLOW SUBMARINE at 3 pm as part of an International Children's Festival at the Pacific Film Archive.
The festival will also show 4 animated shorts this month: JOHN HENRY by Mark Henn on Jan. 7 at 1 pm, FOR THE BIRDS by Ralph Eggleston (Pixar) on Jan. 14 at 1 pm and at 3 pm FAERIES by Gary Hurst and QUANGLE WANGLE by Michael Nock.
Thursday, January 25 at 7:30 ASIFA-SF PRESENTS OUR ANNUAL OPEN SCREENING FOR INDEPENDENT ANIMATORS AND STUDENTS See our event flyer for details.
LOS ANGELES HAD A PROGRAM OF ANIMATED GEMS FROM THE ZAGREB STUDIOS IN DECEMBER AT THE EGYPTIAN THEATRE The event hosted by the American Cinemateque had Vatroslav Mimica and Gasho Gasparovic, two former director/animators, present. The program included Gasparovic's Satiemania, 1978; Ersatz, 1961 (Oscar winner) and other classics.
NW FILM AND VIDEO FESTIVAL IN PORTAND INCLUDED A NEW BRUCE BRICKFORD SHORT Brickford, who worked with Frank Zappa many years ago, has completed Boar's Head, described as "surreal line animation hiding a nasty roadhouse visual pun." Brickford lives in Seattle.
Joanna Priestly's new work Surface Drive is described as a "trippy, bulbous blend of gel. cell, and claymation." I have no idea what gel animation is (goo like Sparkle Toothpaste?) and animation is painted on a cel, not a cell with 2 "l's." (Is she animating microscopic plant cells.) Also, Claymation is a registered trademark for clay animation produced by Will Vinton's studio.
Other animated works in the festival included Clancy Dennehy's Thief of Souls, Stephen Arthur's Vision Point, Sonia Bridge's The Day Stashi Ran Out of Honey, Rick Raxlen's U-Champions and Evan Mather's Fansom the Lizard (judge's prize).
WIGGLY WORLD IN SEATTLE OFFERS FILM WORKSHOPS INCLUDING FUNDAMENTALS OF ANIMATION taught by Run Vzel. They are located at 610 19th Ave. E. They are connected with 2 non-profit theaters, the Grand Illusion and The Little Theater. All are administered by the NW Film Forum. www.nwfilmforum.com
THE CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN'S FILM FESTIVAL GAVE SEVERAL PRIZES IN ANIMATION At this festival children get to award a set of prizes, as does a jury of adults. The kid picked Help! I'm A Fish as the 1st prize winner in the feature category (by Stefan Fejeldmark and Michael Hegner from Denmark). The top animated short was Humbert by David Williams from Austria. My Grandmother Ironed the King's Shirts by Torill Kove from Norway won 2nd prize. The top TV production was Michael Mort from Wales and the best production by a child was Li'l Pig by John Serpentelli, USA.
The adults picked Circleen: City Mice by Jannik Hastrup from Denmark as best animated feature. One Day a Man Bought a House by Pjotr Sapegin, Norway, won best animated short and Snails, also by Sapegin, won 2nd prize.
RING OF FIRE BY ANDREAS HYKADE, GRAND PRIZE WINNER, OTTAWA 2000
ASIFA-NEW YORK SHOWED WINNERS FROM OTTAWA 2000 IN DECEMBER The screening was held at the School of Visual Arts. No titles were listed on their flyer so it wasn't clear if this was a program shown at the PFA in November. In November the chapter premiered Paul Fierlinger's Still Life With Animated Dogs.
NEW BOOK - ACTING FOR ANIMATORS by Ed Hook, $18.95. The brief mention didn't say who the publisher is, etc. but it did say Hook had been teaching animators acting since 1996.
TURKISH LAW MAY BAN POKEMON FROM TV as the show can have a negative effect on kids (physical, emotional or ethical development). A TV station was closed for one day after they aired a new episode. News stories say a child in Turkey jumped off a 5th floor balcony and broke a leg and other kids have been inspired by the show to do equally stupid acts.
Meanwhile some Italians want the rating of Disney's Dinosaurs changed, claiming the feature is too violent for young kids.
By Karl Cohen
When I left for Spain before Thanksgiving it seemed our country's economy was booming and the Internet was prospering. When I returned two weeks later, there was talk of a recession and I read that several Internet animation companies were in trouble.
When I left San Francisco's Dot Comix (formerly Protozoa) was getting lots of press for their Duke 2000 campaign and for their Sister Randy web series. When I returned I read their staff had been laid off and the company was for sale. They have now been in negotiations with a potential buyer for well over a month. Brad de Graf told the press that his company "just couldn't keep producing as it had in the past."
Icebox, another major animation provider, was bragging in November that Fox TV was going to turn Zombie College, one of their web comics, into a live action comedy series. When I returned I found out that the deal fell through and Icebox had laid off half of their staff of 100 people. They are also being sued by WireBreak for non-payment of Twisted: A Comedy Game Show (WireBreak also closed down their prod department and laid off all but a few key executives.) Icebox produces the Mr Wong series that has offended a great number of people with its stupid racist "Charlie Chan" type stereotype of an Asian butler.
I soon discovered other Internet providers were either shutting down or cutting back production schedules and laying off employees. Stan Lee Media closed down and laid off 140 people. An executive core remains to seek a new direction for the company.
Ant Eye, a company in Los Angeles with a staff of 20, closed. Daily Variety said they discovered "the market can't support this kind of company." They did the webtoon Let Me Hollar @ Ya as a promotion for a series on UPN.
IFILM laid off 15 employees (10% of their staff). Another company that had boasted last Spring that they would have 20 web series available for syndication by the end of 2000, ended the year with 6 available.
Another disappointment for the industry was the cancellation of an ABC TV series called Dot Comedy. It was scheduled to show web cartoons from oxygen.com, bunnygrenade.com, and other sites. The show premiered on December 8 with one of worst ratings ever (a 2.8 or 5 share) for a show on ABC. I suspect that the low rating and quick cancellation will be remembered by other TV producers considering putting web material on network TV.
I was disappointed to hear that cutbacks were also occurring in other forms of Internet culture. Red Herring, a fine online magazine with offices in San Francisco, laid-off 25 people in October and 32 people in December. Creative Planet, publisher of several online magazines and host of several networks including awn.com, let 72 people go in December (20% of their staff). The company also announced they had received an additional $30 million in financing.
I suspect I will be hearing about more staff cuts and closings in the coming days. A common theme of the articles announcing staff reductions is the need to streamline the operations and increase "profitability." A common topic discussed among friends is whether or not the Internet start-up money is vanishing and will firms unable to produce enough income survive for much longer?
THERE IS STILL MUCH TO CELEBRATE
A year ago I wrote that a great deal of animation might be seen on the Internet in 2000. At the end of 1999 there were just a handful of sites offering it. The prediction came true and a lot of young talent found employment. Considering how long it took movies to get going at the turn of the 20th Century, Internet animation has made remarkable advances in a short time.
Two San Francisco companies stand out for their creative approaches to web animation. Wild Brain has hired excellent artists to design their offerings and the company has stressed creativity and quality over shock value and crudeness. Mondo Media has also been exploring creative ways to use the new medium. They recently introduced well designed shows for teenage girls, will syndicate Elmo Aardvark and have pioneered workable syndication models to produce income.
While Internet animators may not have developed a hit that will go down in history like Gertie the Dinosaur, animation on the web has proven its ability to attract viewers. The new industry claims that a million people saw Angry Kid (distributed by Atom Films) in the first 7 weeks the show was on the web! Why did a million people want to see an animated child throw temper tantrums? It just so happens that this spoiled brat is a product of Aardman Animation, the company that made the feature Chicken Run. This is a well made series (it was first shown in theaters) and it stands out from the enormous number of poorly executed works on the Internet. This may not be a valid reason for you to seek out this series, but the novelty and quality of the show has clicked with a lot of people.
Probably the most popular animated work made for the web so far has been Frog in a Blender from Joe Cartoon. Millions of viewers have selected the speeds that the blades rotate at. You get to see how the frog reacts to being spun around at each setting. When the fastest rotation is reached the screen turns red and the game ends. The art work isn't very sophisticated, but the concept apparently has fascinated an awful lot of people.
I have trouble understanding
WHY IS UGLY ANIMATION ON THE INTERNET BECOMING SO POPULAR?
Once upon a time most comic book and animated characters were positive role models and they were cute, well drawn, good looking and intelligent. Much of the new Internet art is poorly drawn and depicts a world filled with ugliness. Many of the web cartoons star poorly educated under-achievers, rebellious youths and other misfits. Fans say the works are entertaining and quite funny, but rarely does anyone praise these shows for their artwork.
I asked Kevin Coffey, an animator who runs Cartoonland, if he understands the new aesthetic. He creates attractive corporate work using the same software used to create webtoons. He believes the public will accept crude, poorly designed visuals if the audio content is entertaining. He says most of the new works are sound driven so their creators can get by with limited art abilities. The software is relatively easy for most people to use so you no longer need to be a competent artist to become an animator.
Coffey says, "being stupid and crude is easy" for the new would-be artists. There is a large audience for their works because, "people think they should like it because there is so much of it. It's the 'hip factor.' If they don't get it, they're not hip."
Another artist who is analyzing what he sees on the Internet is Chris Lanier. He creates the handsome award winning web cartoon Romanov on Wild Brain.com. It won the grand prize in web animation at Ottawa 2000.
Lanier's career demonstrates how quickly the new technology can be mastered by a gifted artist. He drew graphic novels and cartoons before he discovered a promotion for free use of a computer animation software package for a month. He was able to complete his first animated work in that time. He entered it in a contest and won a first place prize that included a copy of the Flash software that he had used to make his short. Excited by his initial success, he created a more ambitious project with the help of a grant from Film Arts Foundation. It won him more praise and a contract for a series from Wild Brain. He has begun work on the second season of that series.
Lanier states, "the supposed aesthetic renaissance of the Internet is yet to really happen." While he speaks well of a few artists whose work is on the web, he is depressed by the lack of imagination in much of what he sees. He says "one can draw anything the mind can imagine, so why do so many artists have such low aspirations?" All too often what he sees on the Internet are "the worst aspects of mainstream culture - works that are not clever and lack wit. Webtoons should be better than what you get on TV, not worse."
While Lanier thinks that there will always be junky stuff, he hopes there will also be a growing number of good works available. He hopes the low costs of the tools and software will enable artists to create wonderful/marvelous personal things. They won't get the press that the conventional mass marketed products will get, but word-of-mouth and off-beat publications will hopefully inform the public of their existence. He doesn't expect much from works that get a lot of hype because the sponsors are usually trying to recoup their expenses by promoting another conventional attention grabbing product. The great works will be harder to find, but hopefully the search will be worth it.
WHERE MIGHT THE NEW MEDIUM BE HEADED?
When the CD-ROM industry developed the creators had several years to experiment and explore the technology before the financial backers decided to dump companies that were not profitable. It seem that Internet companies are not going to be able to have that kind of creative freedom for much longer as it appears backers have begun to pressure companies to be profitable.
I suspect there will be a lot of shows in the future that "push the envelope" further than what television censors will allow. The web is still unregulated so the main reason these webtoons will show some restraint is fear of losing a sponsor. The inspiration for these new explorations will probably be Beavis and Butt-Head, South Park, and work in Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted packages.
Due to economic pressures I assume much of the content will be designed to appeal to the average young person of today rather than to college educated adults with professional employment or to groups on the fringe of society. The audience may be somewhat educated but their tastes will probably run towards Generation X culture rather than Public Television presentations.
The established web companies are encouraging artists to produce low brow animation that is crude and rough looking. A woman told me last year that her well designed proposal was turned down by one company because it was too cerebral.
If the popularity of this material continues to rise, don't be surprised if conservative ministers and other pillars of traditional society begin shouting that this new culture is corrupting our youth. If that happens (and I suspect it will) cries for censorship may be answered with self-censorship rules and regulations. The years 2000 and 2001 may be looked upon fondly someday as the pre-censorship or pre-code era of the Internet.
Another trend we will probably see is mergers of small companies. That happened in the CD-ROM business and it is already beginning to happen with Internet companies. Shockwave, owned by Macromedia, recently announced that they have purchased Atom Films of Seattle. Atom will move to San Francisco. At present the 2 companies have about 200 employees (total). About 100 are expected to be laid off.
I hope companies like Wild Brain and Mondo Media will be able to establish profitable niche markets for smaller audiences. Chris Lanier's comments about it being harder to find quality make sense, but if there is room for PBS on broadcast TV it is logical to assume there will be lots of specialized sites on the web. They will probably lack impressive budgets for advertising and promotion, but if all goes well they will survive. They will probably be the sites where you will find the exciting new directions in Internet animation.
For further information about the state of the Internet see the January issue of Animation World Magazine at awn.com It has a special section addressing the current state of this new delivery system.
A VISIT TO THE BIRTH PLACE OF ART AND ANIMATION
When I was invited last summer to participate in Bilbao's festival of documentary and short films in November, I wrote to get permission to see Altamira. It is a cave, sometimes called the Sistine Chapel of Spain, that contains prehistoric paintings. When the cave was open for tourists several decades ago they discovered the co2 from our breaths damaged the art. The cave has been closed to the public for many years, but they do let about 20 people a day see some of the main paintings. After proving I was a scholar (they requested a resume and other documents), I was accepted!
The visit was a powerful, moving experience for me. I had studied the paintings in detail in graduate school with an early writer about them, but I never expected to see them. I was surprised by their beauty, rich color (even though some have faded), number and size.
I visited the cave with the help of the film festival. They were wonderful hosts and provided my wife and myself with a car, driver and translator. The 4 of us got a private tour with an educated guide who was pleased I knew a great deal about what we were looking at.
When I got my first glimpse of the main room with art in it I was overwhelmed for several minutes. Yes, it was emotionally exciting! The images of prehistoric bison, horses, deer and other animals are on the ceiling which was within reach of the artists when they were painted (20,000 - 14,000 BC). Today, most of the floor has been excavated by archaeologists so the ceiling is higher than it was.
The animals range in size from about 2 to 4 feet across. There is no attempt to show any background and there is no general orientation to the way they face. The unknown artists show the beasts in various positions (at rest, walking, running, kneeling, head looking to the side, etc.). While the images of animals show a sophisticated knowledge of anatomy, the few images of man are simple and crude.
The line art shows a high degree of control of the simple tools that were available. The artists were fine draftsmen with their charcoal and paints made from animal fat and ground rocks/earth.
A remarkable element of the art is that the artist took advantage of irregularities in the ceiling's surface. Their are concave and convex shapes in the stone, so a bulge might be turned into a plump bison and a convex depression might have an animal resting in it.
The earliest date of an image at Altamira is based on when the animal became extinct. The animal said to be the oldest was in a different gallery and was created by scratching a line into the cave wall about the 20,000 years BC.
The purpose of the images is unknown, but it was probably associated with the hunt. The artist or the people he lived with might have been asking the animal spirits for forgiveness, they might have been trying to attract animals to their area or they may have been painted for other reasons. What I can say is I sensed they were there for a very serious purpose and that one chamber (possibly 100+' long and 40 or 50' wide), as opposed to other rooms in the vast underground system of caves, had great significance to the people who created the art. Putting paintings in that room must have worked. In some cases one animal is painted over part of an earlier one. Was that spot special, or did they simply have no need for the earlier painting once it served its function?
The images of Altamira have as much life in them as the best animation drawings/painting of the 20th Century. They capture a fleeting moment of time rather than being a static idealized rendering of an animal. I feel honored to have been allowed to see these remarkable images and I can't thank my hosts enough for arranging this privilege.
In the next newsletter I'll say a few words about Bilbao's impressive film festival of documentaries and short films. I'll even cover what it was like talking about forbidden animation in a country that doesn't have our censorship problems. If there is space, I'll write about Bilbao's excellent art museum, about the remarkable Guggenheim building a few blocks away that defies description, and possibly about a trip to the town of Guernica (destroyed by German bombers in 1937/rembered in one of the last century's most famous paintings, "Guernica" by Picasso, 1937). I also want to write about the exceptional food (seafood, tapas, etc.) if their is space.
On the trip to Guernica we went over a river on an odd "ferry" designed by Eiffel (the tower man). It has a moving platform suspended by cables from a high "bridge" or tower (shaped like a sawhorse, but 150' high) that spans the river. You ride across on the platform. It was built so large sailing ships could pass under the suspension system of the platform. A strange invention.
by Tara Packard
"Life is a banquet and some poor sons of bitches are starving. Don't be one of them" Don Bluth
Don Bluth's Tune-up 2000 weekend seminar was just what the name implies: an animation tune up, comprised of a mixture of Don's stories, work tips and methods, lessons from years of experience, and a whole lot of inspirating thoughts.
I was a bit hesitant to attend at first, not being a major fan of Don's work, yet I appreciated his skill and perseverance. I knew Don had worked along side some of Disney's 'nine old men' and many other greats, starting back with inbetweening on Sleeping Beauty (mentoring under John Lounsbery, who'd mentored under Norm Ferguson). I'd seen Bluth's Secret of NIMH, An American Tale, Anastasia, and the recent Titan A.E., and wasn't completely convinced I liked the stories, or all the characters and animation. But he's done it. He's been out there. Failed, succeeded, and still out there. My questions were still there. Why was there not more information of the seminar 's contents? Why was Don's web page so weak and void of information beyond advertising for his new magazine: ToonTalk. Was this a man who really had something to offer the community and teach, or was he desperate to make a few bucks by joining the seminar circuit, and pushing ToonTalk magazine. I decided for less than half the rate ($400.00) of Richard Williams' seminar (which, by the way was the best class I have ever taken in my life - and I'd been hesitant then) that it would be worth a drive to LA to check out.
On the first day of the seminar, which was in an industrial park-like setting in LA, close enough to Venice to find a good cup o' joe and take a breath of the beautiful illusion of fresh ocean air, Don started out by telling us some of his history and stories. As usual, there were a few familiar faces from the Bay Area in the audience, and the students came from a variety of backgrounds including professional movie directors, students and computer and traditional animators.
Don continued the morning speaking of the mental process before he starts animating, and how important is it. How can you draw or animate it if it is not clear in your own head? Who is your character? Do you know someone like them? Can you feel their reactions? Get up and move how they might walk. Find your character, know its attitude and view, and translate that visually. He wasn't talking technically. He stressed capturing feeling rather than technique. Animation is not about copying movement, but about exaggerating, and capturing its essence. It's about capturing how you, the animator, feel about the character that is interesting, not whether or not the legs move exactly right. We got just far enough for the class to begin to get interesting when it was time for lunch.
Lunch was set in the parking lot with an array of tables that easily promoted meeting and talking with your fellow classmates, and was quite a nice spread with both vegetarian and meat dishes. It was a nice lunch for a seminar setting, although if it had rained it might have been a mess.
After lunch, and throughout the rest of the class, we continued from character design, through each aspect of the A to Zs of animation. Don touched on the importance of having real-life reference, line quality (or shapes) and follow through of that quality to portray your character, and how beautiful simplicity is. Learn what to leave out. If you can't describe it simply, do you really understand it? We spoke of good villains, and heroes, and writing character profiles- even if only for yourself. The importance of acting was brought up- we are actors, aren't we! Don stressed the thumbnail process: half of the work is done if you work it out first, and you can fix your mistakes before too much time is spent. Knowing how to draw enough to be able to communicate your concepts to someone else was also stressed. The 12 steps of animation were gone over, with a new twist on what each really means and its relevance, and the power of reverse curves. Great walks were brought up- what makes them interesting, and pushing things further, how to animate crowd scenes, and how no character is unimportant. "Animate the spirit, not the words" was one of Don's points "close your eyes, and see your vision!"
We went on to talk about storyboarding a piece (and how storyboarding is really like directing).He talked about camera lines, directing the eye, and directing in general. Animating to the "emotional beats" of dialoged was stressed as important. He covered how to work with other creative talent and/or having a team under you. We went over pitching ideas, and the ups and downs of reality out there in animation as a business, including some of the bumps. And what Don kept stressing was to find that thing which makes you want to get up and do it! Find the thing that makes you enjoy each job. When predatory sophisticates back you into a corner, have the power inside to overcome environment. Corporate environment has too many addendas. Have one for yourself - something to learn and a reason to work on everything you do. Success is an opiate to take. Stay sober. Failure is a way to learn more.
I once asked an acquaintance, who was sitting next to me in the Richard Williams seminar, why he was there when he already knew so much about animation. He majored in it in college, and had behind him many a credit. Surely he must understand the 12 principals of animation! His reply has stayed with me, and become my own as I learn more and more about animation. "If I keep hitting myself over the head with the principals of animation, eventually they really start sinking in. Each time I hear someone speak of their experience, something new clicks, and fires me up again".
I am not a classically trained animator, but have a fine arts degree. I am a self-trained animator, who, once I really started getting it, learned that just because I could move things in a computer did not mean I understood animation. In fact, the more I learn the more I realize there is so much more to learn. Animation is cinematography, acting, drawing, psychology, storytelling, physics, kinetics, and so much more! Seminars like these have brought a spark to the surface, and have given me elements of the mentor and apprentice system often left behind these days. It is invaluable to hear these guys, who have been part of or worked under these golden age of animation masters, share what they have learned.
Don Bluth's Toon-up 2000 was not the best seminar I ever took (I have to give that to Richard Williams), but it was well worth my drive, time and money! Maybe to you 4-year Cal Arts students, it may not be the same experience. You have gone over the principals of animation till you are blue in the face, I am sure! But it seams to me, there is still something to learn here for everyone from the man, and his personal take and experience. Don Bluth, to me, came off as amazingly un-jaded, full of honest joy, and wanting to share what he's learned, whether he is making a buck at it or not. He left me remembering why I create things, and with that "I'm dying to go home and animate!" feeling.
One line I remember Don saying. that stands out "Dine, don't eat."
I think I'm hungry.
CANADIAN GALLERY SHOWS PAINTINGS OF POPEYE DONE AS IF THEY WORKS BY OLD MASTERS ILM's David Andrews say the exhibit by Verne Harrison is big and funny. He feels it would be perfect for our Cartoon Art Museum
BRAINWASH MOVIE FESTIVAL DEADLINE IS MAY 10 They only preview work on VHS, but will show 16mm films and _" video at the event. $20 entry fee for shorts under 13 min. (before May 1, $30 after) and $50/70 for features. Add $3.20 extra if you want to get your work back. PO Box 23302, Oakland, CA 94623-0302 www.brainwashm.com
ANNECY INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL DEADLINE IS JAN. 15 for a June 4-9 event. Contact 6 Ave de Iles, B.P. 399, 74013 Annecy Cedex, France www.annecy.org
TOUGH EYE: THE INTERNATIONAL TURKU ANIMATION FILM FESTIVAL DEADLINE IS FEB. 9 for a May 15-20 event. Linnankatu 54, FIN-20100 Turku, Finland www.tough-eye.com or info@tough-eye.com
ANOTHER CLASSIC CARTOON IS ADDED TO THE NATIONAL FILM REGISTRY For the last 12 years the Library of Congress has added 25 films a year to the list. This year's list includes Clampett's Porky in Wackyland, 1938 (Warner Bros.).
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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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