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IT LOOKS LIKE WILD BRAIN, INC. IS GOING TO BE SAN FRANCISCO'S NEXT REALLY BIG ANIMATION HOUSE - THEY ALREADY HAVE A STAFF OF 50 AND ARE GROWING... The company was founded by John Hays, Phil Robinson and Jeff Fino in 1994. This year Gordon Clark, David Marshall and Robin Steele joined the firm as partners. The company is so busy that when Colossal laid off most of the artists in their animation department, Wild Brain was able to hire 10 people within a few days of the layoffs.
What is keeping people busy at Wild Brain are several TV series plus production of CD Rom material and a few TV commercials. Their current project and client list includes the TV series "Spawn" for HBO (Los Angeles), "Freakazoid" for Warner Brothers, Dave Feiss' "Cow and Chicken" for Turner Cartoon Network and "Happily Ever After" for HBO (New York). The company's CD-Rom projects include "Flying Saucer" for AnyRiver
Entertainment, animated "Carmen Sandiego" sequences for Broderbund and a series of "Dr. Seuss" titles for LivingBooks including all of "Green Eggs and Ham." The company is also designing chacters and locations for websites for McDonald's and MCA Records, and is doing several commercials for Coca Cola that incorporate major league baseball.
The talent available at Wild Brain is varied and exceptional. John Hays, a graduate of Cal Arts' outstanding animation program, has worked for Colossal, Lucasfilm, ILM, Hanna-Barbera, Mill Valley Animation and other companies. His credits include animation director for two seasons of "Back to the Future" for Universal/Amblin Entertainment, director of "The Dangwoods" for "Liquid TV," and co-producer of the NBC series "The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley." Hays has directed lots of other shows, commercials, etc. Among his prizes are awards of excellence for the show openings for "Eyes On the Prize" I and II for PBS.
Phil Robinson is a British animator who worked with Halas and Batchelor Animation in London before moving to San Francisco in 1980 to work on Plague Dogs. Since then he has worked in every aspect of production. He has worked on TV commercials, TV series and features for ILM, Colossal, Hanna-Barbera, Marvel, and DIC. He also has considerable experience supervising production of shows in Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines. Among his recent credits are work as a computer animator on Casper The Friendly Ghost, two seasons as co-director of the TV series "Back to the Future" and director of several episodes of the "Felix the Cat" TV series.
The third founding member of the company is Jeff Fino, an executive producer who has worked in live-action and animation production and business management for many years. His varied experiences range from four years of work at Colossal to work on "some of the worst B-movies ever made." He has worked overseas and in the US on dozens of live-action features and TV shows.
The first new member of the partnership is David Marshall, who has 21 years of experience in the film industry including 9 as a director of animated TV shows and commercials. He has worked for Warner Brothers, Disney Television, Ralph Bakshi, Games Animation, MGM Animation, Kroyer, and Nelvana. His show credits include "Animaniacs," "Pinky and the Brain," "Tazmania," "Tiny Toons," "Little Mermaid," "Snookums and Meat," "Mighty Mouse," "Ewoks and Droids," to name a few.
Robin Steele joined the company in 1996 as a partner. His background includes being an editorial cartoonist and illustrator as well as years of experience in animation. Among his best known works are the award
winning "Stick Figure Theater" episodes that he conceived and created for MTV's "Liquid Television," the animated series "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," "Garfield and Friends," and "Back to the Future." His "Stickin' Around," a 26 half-hour series, will air this fall around the world. "Stickin' Around" was based on a series of one-minute interstitials he
created for CBS' 1994-'95 Saturday morning schedule.
The final new member of the partnership is Gordon Clark. His background includes work on the animated feature Plague Dogs, years of work at Colossal, and experience as an assistant animator at ILM. Clark's commercial work has captured a lot of attention at festivals and competitions where he has won numerous awards.
The one thing missing from Wild Brain is a large animation ink and paint department. The smaller projects produced by the company are animated at the studio and are then composited, inked and painted by computers. The larger projects, including the TV series, are sent abroad where they are animated, inked, painted, and often filmed. It is more economical to use overseas studios for the production of these works.
The company is housed in a 17,000 square foot building that was formerly a furniture warehouse. They plan to grow into most of the space, and are sharing some of it with PostLinear Entertainment, a software game developer, ThinkFish, a computer firm of programmers and designers that is developing software to combine 2D and 3D art, and Imagination Plantation, a 3D computer animation house. Terry Zwigoff, the producer/director of Crumb, also has his production office in the building.
SF STATE ANIMATION STUDENTS SHOWED 30 WORKS AT THEIR ANNUAL ANIMATION SCREENING IN MAY The works represented a wide range of techniques including pencil tests of drawn animation, computer animation, stop motion and motion control. The program ran almost 1 1/2 hours, not including the juggling demonstration by two masters of the art or the audience warm-up exercises with a giant beach ball.
The students who showed work in the May 17th program are Jay Hathaway, Dave Thomas, Aaron Sorenson, Ethan Reed, Alan Lau, Damon O'Keefe, Brett Pulliam, David Ball, Elizabeth Nelly, Dave Martinez, Fung Siman, Amy Adamy, Gordon Smith, Gordon Thomas, Pierre Maurer, Vince Fung, Jeff Nevins, Nica Lorber, Tanya Haden, Adam Kendall, Tim Sutter, Dave Zbriger, Alan Dye and Dylan Brown. Congratulation for a job well done.
ARE STUDENTS BEING RIPPED-OFF? Students at a local private art college are real angry with their administration. The school plans to charge them a $400-a-semester lab fee to use their high-end computers in the fall. The fee had been under $100 and the computers are on free loan from the manufacturer. One student claims they are being ripped-off so the president of the school can fly around in a Lear Jet.
ILM WORKED ON THREE OF THE BIG FEATURES RELEASED IN MAY AND HAS SEVERAL HOT COMMERCIALS AIRING ON NATIONAL TV The company's CG department did all the twisters in Twister, the Chunnel scenes in Mission Impossible (the tunnel between France and England), and several images in Dragonheart.
Their latest TV commercials include an ad for Snickers that shows an elephant on an escalator, a BMW ad that features a penguin, and a CompuServe ad that includes a whale and Linda Hunt's voice.
Their most unusual project required them to take an old cereal ad featuring Mikey eating a spoonful and reworking it so it appears he is drinking Snapple. (Snapple is now owned by the cereal company.) They not only had to do realistic image replacements, but they even had to make changes in his dialog!
At present ILM is creating computer generated dogs for a new version of 101 Dalmatians (Disney), images for an Imex film on special effects, and some rather unusual images for the features Lost World (Jurassic Park 2), Tim Burton's Mars Attack, Star Trek 8, Men in Black, and Eraser. The company is also getting ready to reissue the first three Star Wars films.
PDI DOES A TALKING COW FOR ARCHWAY COOKIES They did the ad by creating a CGI lower jaw that was morphed to a live-action upper lip to create a realistic illusion. The cow was filmed against a blue-screen and composited with the CGI elements and a background shot of an Archway billboard, grass, etc. Digital color correction was used to make the grass greener, the sky bluer, etc.
Animators on the ad were Todd Heapy and Eric Strand. They were assisted by Noel McGinn and Curt Stewart. Raman Hui was the director.
CONGRATULATIONS TO STEVE ADAMS and bon voyage. He starts at Disney Interactive on June 3. Adams animated Uppity Albert McGuire, a work that pokes fun at art auctions. In the 1980's he received an AFI grant to produce a short called Face of the City. A few years ago he painted elaborate backgrounds for Fritz Freleng limited editions. He was working at ImaginEngine when he got the call from Disney.
"ANIMATING WOMEN" SERIES WINS BAY AREA EMMY Although the show was produced in New York City and aired on 30 to 40 PBS stations across the nation, it had to be entered in our local competition as it aired first in San Francisco on KQED in January, 1995. The show entered in the competition was on Lynn Smith. Other half-hour episodes are on animators Faith Hubley, Joanna Priestly and Ruth Peyser.
The series was produced by Patty Wineapple and Sybil DelGaudio. It was funded by ITVS. The series had its world premiere at the National Educational Film Festival in Oakland in May, 1994. DelGaudio was quite surprised about the award since the show was competing with documentaries about the Viet Nam War and Iwo Jima. When she told Lynn Smith about the prize she told DelGaudio "Wow! Me and my crayons against two wars?"
DAVID AND LIBBY HILBERMAN CELEBRATE 60 YEARS OF MARRIAGE! David was a Disney animator who left the company after the strike in 1941. In 1944 he and two partners founded a company that became UPA. In the 1960's he founded the animation department at SF State. He now lives in Menlo Park.
TOD KURTZMAN has moved to Running Springs, CA and is developing 4 pilots for the Disney Channel.
SCOTT TOLME is rumored to be working on a top secret project at Wired magazine.
TIM FALCONER JOINS CLICK 3X IN NYC as a Flame Artist and their chief engineer. He had been working in SF as an engineer for Western.
SIX FOOT TWO EXPANDS SERVICES AT NEW LOCATION The company outgrew their old studio when they got a large contract from Media Station in Chicago to do several CD-ROM titles. They have moved and added two US Animation digital ink and paint work stations. They run them on their Silicon Graphics system. They are at 1011 Magnolia Ave., Larkspur, CA 94939 (415) 925-9909.
JONATHON KEATON JOINS RADIUM AS A FOUNDEER
ASIFA-SF IS ON THE INTERNET AT HTTP://WWW.AWN.COM on a trial basis. This is Ron Diamond's website. They took a sample issue and posted parts of it on the electronic highway. If we get positive feedback & new subscriptions we will continue to be a contributor to his electronic magazine.
CARTOON ART MUSEUM PRESENTS A GIANT SHOW OF CHARLES SCHULZ'S "PEANUTS," PLUS ANIMATION ART FROM SUNBOW - THROUGH SEPT. 1 If you love "Peanuts" this should be a wonderful show for you to visit. I was fascinated with the daily strips from the 1950's that are primitive looking when compared to the present strip. The show includes over 100 strips covering 45 years of "Peanuts," plus an exhibit case of toys based on the series, a selection of cels from "Peanuts" TV specials and a display of first edition books.
The art from Sunbow features about 50 cels from their most recent shows. Sunbow produces syndicated TV series and network shows. The works on display are from The Brothers Flub, Littlest Pet Shop, Conan the Adventurer, Bucky O'Hare, The Mask and The Tick (Fox). All are dated 1995. There are also 33 storyboard images on display and 3 animation drawings.
The current shows at the museum were of limited interest to me. I am no longer a "Peanuts" fan so seeing over 100 strips wasn't as exciting to me as seeing the Harvy Kurtzman show that was at the museum earlier this year. As I wandered through the exhibit the "Peanuts" images began to look alike and I began to loose interest in reading them.
Sunbow's cels are attractive samples from the shows that aired last year, but they are not exceptional works of fine art. I'm sure fans of The Tick and The Mask will enjoy seeing this nice selection of images.
What would have made the shows come alive for me is in-depth educational material about the creation of the work on display. I'd love to know how Schulz works and what inspires him to continue after working on the same strip for 45 years. I'd like to learn how he gets his ideas and I'd like to see photos of him at work and play.
Sunbow is a really exciting company, but this doesn't come out in the show. Their exceptional leadership develops a great deal of product each year with a very small staff thanks to an impressive business approach to animation. One element is their collaborating with other companies on their shows. They are experts in co-financed productions and developing projects for an international market. They syndicate their shows in over 100 countries. Their product is manufactured in Asia and Europe and past productions include the feature My Little Pony and "GI Joe."
I wish the exhibit had included cels from past productions and photos of some of the artists and studios that produce their work. Maps showing where the series are made and where they are shown might have interested me.
Since Sunbow represents a departure from the way TV series were made a few years ago I interviewed 3 executives from Sunbow. The article will appear in our July newsletter. KC
CHOW DOWN WITH CHARLES M. SCHULZ on Friday, July 12, at the Family Club on Nob Hill (black tie optional). Cocktails at 6, four course meal at 7 followed by "an engaging presentation by Mr. Schulz." To sit at his table send $300 (limited to 8 people). To sit elsewhere send $175 per ticket. For further details contact the Cartoon Art Museum. (415) 227-8666.