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ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.6 - SEPTEMBER 2000
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Jewish Rabbits
Yoram Gross
Still, the film industry in Israel was very limited until 1970, when Educational TV and IBA national TV started influencing the local scene. The most dramatic TV influence came after commercial and cable TV started operating in 1993. It gave quite a push to computer graphics, including animation and special effects, as well as video productions. As a result, the last film lab in Israel closed down in 1996. Post-production houses, such as Gravity, which completed Raoul Servais' Taxandria, Broadcast and JCS, all in Tel Aviv, became a central creative force, each developing a strong animation unit relying on Silicon Graphics and Mac computers with the most advanced software. The demand for animation talent has been steadily growing in the last decade. The production of educational CD-Roms, games, multimedia and to supply various Internet needs is on the increase. Tel Aviv's multimedia and software house Disk-In even opened an animation unit when Dudu Shalita closed down Anima Studio and offered his services. They now do international co-productions of TV specials and series, in addition to commercials. There are three art schools which could be considered the major suppliers of trained talent: Bezalel, Jerusalem; WIZO, Haifa; and Camera Obscura, Tel Aviv. The latter is in a rather peculiar situation. Its Digital Media department offers a 4 year animation program. Yet second year students already get tempting job offers from the industry.
Thirty years ago the only animation training available in Israel was a six month course offered by the late TV Arts College in Tel Aviv. It was a private body taking commercial advantage of the void. Only two of its hundreds of students became professional animators. Then, most of the young animation industry consisted of self taught artists. Prominent among these was, and still is, Roni Oren, director of the Claytoons Studio in Binyamina. Admired as an excellent plasticine animator, he has managed for years to create, almost by himself, at least an hour of full character animation every year. His work consists of many commercials and TV specials, as well as four TV series. The latest of which, Grabbit the Rabbit, is a 13 X 8 minute series co-produced with IBA TV. The series premiered last month and has already been bought by more than 20 TV stations worldwide, from Channel 4 in the U.K. and Fox Kids France to Asia TV Hong Kong and Transworld Association, Japan.
His professional track record includes his own studio in Jerusalem, where top international artist Gil Alkabetz started his career in '84. He has had two other studios since. One was for a Danish company owned by a U.K. businessman and the other was in California (1988), doing commercials and TV specials. What he is most excited about now is: "The possibilities offered by easily available electronic means are mindblowing," says Oren. "I am working now with two Bezalel graduates who every day are doing a 15 to 30 second Flash animation for a commercial Website. Every day a new film! And it is done while we work on a second episode of a cartoon series, do commercials and develope new projects. The creative independence and efficiency offered by computers makes it possible. We are using Crater's CTP and DPS' Reality/Velocity cards, easily getting a lot of good work done fast in broadcast quality. And this is only the beginning of dynamic computer visuals development, with the Internet still in diapers. True, it is now a hungry monster swallowing everything; not able to discern between good and bad [and with] lots of vulgar, stupid or sloppy stuff. Yet, I expect it will not take long to mature into sophisticated work taking advantage of its unique limitations to create exciting new ways of expression." Another kind of new technology is about to hit Israel -- sattelite TV is due to start operating soon, already influencing TV programming. Israel is about to get exposed to new channels, including Cartoon Network and Fox Kids, with the latter using Saban International's library. In a way bringing Haim Saban's empire in closer contact with the local scene. "There are no plans yet to get into production in Israel," says Varda Saban of the Israel branch. "Our production facilities are well established and very satisfactory. The only involvment we have with Israeli productions is when we do here promos, merchandizing commercials or sell rights of a property of ours." They may have second thoughts. A delegation of top executives from a giant U.S. corporation has been in Israel in August, checking possibilities. Optimists and dreamers alike will be glad to assure anyone of plenty of promising possibilities in the Promised Land. Tsvika Oren is a veteran animator, film critic, lecturer and animation missionary. He is also Director of The Animation Center in Tel Aviv and the International Creative Filmmaking festival.
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