David Sonnenschein, professional sound designer and author of “Sound Design: the Expressive Power of Music, Voice, and Sound Effects in Cinema” has invited me to co-host a free sound design webinar for animators (all filmmakers are welcome!) on March 17, 2011 at 9:00 am PST / noon EST.

Writer/director Adam Elliot and producer Melanie Coombs talk with the press at the Sundance Film Festival.

The opening night selection of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, Mary and Max is a clayograph (a claymation biography hybrid) feature film from Academy Award winning writer/director Adam Elliot and producer Melanie Coombs, featuring the voice talents of Toni Collette, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Humphries and Eric Bana.

Robert was the father of one of my eldest daughter's best friends at school and this relationship became the basis of being friends-by-proxy with Robert Culp. When someone with whom you have shared time and experiences passes away, one half of your shared story dies with them.

What's professional? If you're an instructor, this is likely a tedious discussion. Recently, while renovating yet another apartment (don't ask) a possible discussion-ending metaphor occurred to me:

Being professional means using cheap sheets of plastic.

So I headed on down to Hollywood because Gnomon was showing off an art gallery featuring art from Transformers: War for Cybertron. Hit the jump to see exactly what I saw.

“My name’s Zélie Bérubé, I’m 20 years old, and I’m currently going into my fourth and last year of animation at Sheridan College in Canada. This summer I’m interning at Auryn Inc., an animation studio in LA.”

Samurai Champloo

Few topics stimulate as much discussion in my workshops as the “willing suspension of disbelief.”  What is it? Why is it important? … Actors, audience members, tech crews all come together at the same time in the same place for a common purpose.  Their meeting is not any more random than meetings at church, synagogue or mosque. … There is an implied contract between actors and audience, and the terms of that contract are fragile.

A shot from Idiots & Angels.

Great news, we just got booked in Chicago's prestigious Music Box Cinema! It looks like it will be screening there the 1^st week of December.

Several weeks ago, I went to the Academy screening of all the eligible animated shorts – about 30 films. It's held at the N.Y. Academy screening room (The Lighthouse) and is attended by all or most of the Academy members living in the Northeast area. Members even come down from Canada.  It's one of my favorite events, because often I discover films I've never seen before and I always have a film that I'm trying to get nominated.

We all have our own projects that we feel are better than some of the things that we see on broadcast television or cable.  Who hasn't wondeded what would happen if only they could get their film seen - After all it has to be better than a lot of the crap that seems to fill the airways.  Kent Butterworth worked for a number of years off and on to make his film Attila the Ham, in the end he finsihsed the film, found a distributor and kept the lion's share of ownership and rights.... Just like the good old days when broadcasters were broadcasters and producers were producers...  Here's how he did it.