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God's of an industry that relate to animation in some way

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God's of an industry that relate to animation in some way

Who do you see as the absolute god's of animation or working in a company that rel;ates to that. Mine are as follows.

Naughty Dog's- Jason Rubin, i would but his partener Andy down but he was more of the programmer rather then the artistic side although i still have loads of respect for him. Jason brought the best games to PS1 and PS2. His brilliant directing skills made each game have film quality animation. From this i give even more respect to each artist and animator in Naughty Dog. Jason also stands up for what he believes is right, which is admireable. I wouldnt wanted to be pushed around by publishers so he taught me the lesson to stand up to them....thats when i actually get a publisher.

Insomniac's- Ted Price, constantly pushed the boundaries of a weak console which actually seems to have better graphics then some of the latest games. By this i mean Spyro, brilliant from start to finish.

Pixar's-John Lasseter, the genius that brought us comple CGI movies which unfortunatley is being used by every other company which is stealing it's originality. As much as i detest the increasing number of CGI films i will always have my respect for Lasseter for daring to try something new. He also always backs up his brilliant animations with teriffic stories and characters. Unfortunatley Dreamworks can't.....come on Shark Tale and Madagscar were average if not below.

South Park-Trey Parker and Matt Stone's South Park stands out. It's not the everyday bright, brilliantly animted cartoons of today. It's severe simplisity adds to it's rather dark and unusual humour. Constantly taking risks to what should and shouldnt be done makes there animation one of the best around.

The Simpsons-Matt Groening, i wasn't going to put this down but he helped bring children and adults back into animation with an original style of American humour. I just wish it would end.

Aardman-Nick Park and Peter Lord are still demonstrating the one of my favourite techniques of animation which is clay. His brilliant english humour mixed with his characters makes these films unforgetable. Voiceless Gromit is one of the most famous characters around as well as impressive. Just look at the way simple eyebrow movements determine what the character is thinking.

The Brothers Quay, i've only really seen one of their animations but it was brilliant. It was far from the childish humour of many animations today but it demonstrated how adults can be pulled in to the industry as well. This eerie short wasnt one to miss.

Studio Ghibli- Do i really need to explain about their brilliant animation.

John k - probably the first to have *dirty stuff* in cartoon without it being to offensive.

peter chung -able to push proportions to the extreme and still make it work.

Adam Phillips former disney employee - pushed the limits of flash animation with prowlies of the river www.biteycastle.com

Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle)

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Unfortunatley Dreamworks can't.....come on Shark Tale and Madagscar were average if not below.

Most people I know really enjoyed Madagascar - a simple, vibrant, squishy-stretchy cartoon.

Oddworld's Lorne Lanning.
Psychonaut's Tim Schaffer.

Wil Vinton and crew for their wonderful stop motion. Their experimental work is fantastic, too. (Any one seen their Christmas Special? Brilliant.)
Tex Avery, Chuck Jones and The crew from the "Termite Terrace"

and of course
Bill Plympton
Don Hertzfeld

Simplicity meets brilliance. And they prove over and over again that it doesn't need to look like Disney or Pixar to be entertaining.

Producing solidily ok animation since 2001.
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Now with more doodling!
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Otto Messmer ("Felix the Cat". Sure, that old reprobate Sullivan got the credit; but Messmer did all the heavy lifting)

Lotte Reiniger (The Adventures of Prince Achmed still has the power the fascinate the hell outta people)

Max Fleischer (not so much the Popeye cartoons as 'Koko the Clown' and Gulliver's Travels)

Oh, yeah, Ralph Bakshi (you probably might not like all his stuff- had a bit of a problem with Lord of the Rings and some parts of Cool World, myself- but you have to admire his cojones. He did Fritz the Cat and Coonskin, f'rChrissakes. Hey Good Lookin' wasn't bad, either. As gods go, he's more Coyote than Set)

--my $0.02, anyway

"...It is a foolish mistake to even try to second-guess the public. Make things for yourself and if by chance someone agrees with you, it's coincidental."

--Julian Schnabel

Richard Williams... someone who didn't take "it can't be done" for an answer

Sylvain Chomet... breathed new life into an old medium

I'd like to 2nd the Ralph Bakshi as well. One of my personal early favorites.

www.MattOrnstein.com
Character Animator - Lucas Arts

I'd have to say for me the gods of animation are:

Winsor McCay; who is the father of animation. He animated Gertie the Dinosaur back in 1914, he also animated "How a Mosquito Operates," "Little Nemo," which was the first color film ever I beleive. He colored the actual film stock frame by frame. He also animated "The Sinking of the Lusitania" in 1918 for the news media since there was no film footage of the actual event.

Ray Harryhausen; stop-motion force onto himself. Animated the "King Kong" and all the cool creatures in "Jason and the Argonauts," "Sinbad," "Clash of the Titans" and a bunch of others. One of the coolest scenes has to be the sword fighting skeletons!

Sorry, I have to lump Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston together: responsable for all seven of the Seven Dwarves. Bambi, Thumper, and Flower. Animated Pinnochio, the faries from Sleeping Beauty, and the list goes on.

Milt Kahl; the draftsman at the old Disney studio. The guy that Frank, Ollie, Mark, Ward and the others would go to for advice. Drew a ton of the key drawing on most of Disney's films. You can pretty much still frame any frame on one of his scenes and the anatomy would be spot on. Side note, Iwao Takamoto, creator of Scooby Doo, worked side by side with him.

Chuck Jones; amazing timing and character developement. a god with broad cartoon animation, but could also do so much with a subtle, well timed glance or expression. Responsible for creating Pepe Le Pew and the cat, Michigan J. Frog, the Coyote and Road Runner, Hubie and Bertie, as well as treating the main WB cast as actors and putting them in diffent film rolls. Also created the clasic shorts, "the Rabbit of Seville," and "What's Opera Doc?" as well as tons of others.

Other gods; Mark Davis responsible for Tinker Bell in "Peter Pan", as well as designing the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Disneyland. Ward Kimball, probably most noteable for his work on "Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom"

The New gods:

Eric Goldberg: the Genie in "Aladdin"

Glen Keane: animator of Tarzan in "Tarzan", the Beast in "Beauty and the Beast", Aladdin in "Aladdin" and the eagle in "Rescuer's Down Under", and a bunch more.

Andreas Deja: animator of, among others, Jafar from "Aladdin", Scar from "The Lion King" and Lilo from "Lilo and Stitch."

Brad Bird: director, writer of "The Incredibles", writer, director and animator of "The Iron Giant." Storyboard artist on the Simpsons.

Pete Doctor: writer and director of "Monster's Inc." writer on "Toy Story2", story artist, supervising animator on "Toy Story"

John Lasseter: head, writer, guru, soul of PIXAR.

Nick Park and Pete Lord: the gods of modern stop motion at Aardman. The team that brought us "Creature Comforts", the Wallace and Grommit shorts, and soon Feature film, and "Chicken Run"

Demi-gods

Bobby "Boom" Beck, Carlos Baena, Shawn Kelly, Tony Bancroft, Doug Sweetland, Nik Ranieri, Jason Ryan, Mark Walsh, Pete Nash

Aloha,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

richard williams -made who framed roger rabbit,and writer of the most popular animation book ever *animators survival kit*

Most people I know really enjoyed Madagascar - a simple, vibrant, squishy-stretchy cartoon.

I'd agree the problem was the sotries main characters did very little. They had little depth to them and no real....character. The giraffe did nothing for the story, he was just in there in order to bring more celebrities into the picture rather then getting a voice actor. The hippo "Gloria" showed some sign of relationship with the other charatcers but once again she had little character, many people i talked to couldnt tell what kind of position she had in the story. For instance Sculley and Mike from Monsters Inc, you can immediatley tell who is the more humerous character through design and well thought out voices, even if they are celebrites. You immediatley got the impression that Sulley was the more dominant character yet his fuzzy exterior give him a more playful caring aura. These charatcers, the lion, the zebra, the hippo and the giraffe werent needed within the story. A much better story could of been told with fewer characters. There was certianly no need to have a celebrity dominating the voice of every main character. The story seemed to change half through the film, from being the Zebra wanting to go to the wild, to the lion becoming more of a lion. This lacked consistancy. Although i didnt hate the film to much i just hate the idea Dreamworks are just living off "From the creators of Shrek" and sticking loads of celebrites into the picture. Look at Shark Tale, the posters for that, the actual names of the celerbrities took up more space then the actual films name.

... i just hate the idea Dreamworks are just living off "From the creators of Shrek"...

I do believe every single PIXAR movie trailer and poster, with the exception of "Toy Story," has "From the creators of 'Toy Story'" or something to that effect on it.

Oh, and I forgot Herry Selleck in the new god's catagory. He directed "Nightmare Before Christmas," "James and the Giant Peach" and most recently the animation on "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou"

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

I do believe every single PIXAR movie trailer and poster, with the exception of "Toy Story," has "From the creators of 'Toy Story'" or something to that effect on it.

Thank you i'm glad you pointed that out to me, i will now withdraw my statement.

in addition...

...Akira Kurosawa

Alfred Hitchcock

F.W. Murnau

Sergio Leone

David Lean

Fritz Lang

Orson Welles

Erich von Stroheim

(You know, for pacing, visual storytelling and setting up shots 'n stuff... :rolleyes: )

"...It is a foolish mistake to even try to second-guess the public. Make things for yourself and if by chance someone agrees with you, it's coincidental."

--Julian Schnabel