James Baker's Days at Cuckoo's Nest

sketch by James Baker

I first met James Baker at Cuckoo's Nest Studio in Taiwan, in 1986.  He was working on Hanna Barbera shows,  and I was there for retakes on The Brave Little Toaster.  He gives an hilarious account of his experiences in his blog.  I can attest to the veracity of his tales - he tells it how it was!
http://www.james-baker.com/news/2014/04/one-flew-to-cuckoos-nest.html
Check it out!
-Steve

Richard Bazley introduces Lost Treasure Hunt - just launched at Kickstarter

Richard Bazley is an animator, director and film-maker who has just launched a new animated film project at Kickstarter - Lost Treasure Hunt, a history adventure series intended to entertain and educate. The project is being made in partnership with the public broadcasting giant PBS. Here Richard talks about the genesis of the project, and how the public can get involved - and help bring it to life.

British animation industry booms

Calamity Island. Shipwrecks... and penguins

According to an article in today's Guardian, the British cartooning industry is booming as never before, thanks in large part to the tax credits put in place by Chancellor George Osbourne in April 2013. CBeebies, the UK's most popular broadcaster of animated children's content, is apparently doubling its output, and it is largely local talent which will reap the rewards of this new boom in UK cartoon spending.

DNeg and Elizabeth Murdoch to open Locksmith Animation studio in the UK

According to yesterday's Variety, Elizabeth Murdoch and the London based visual effects house Double Negative are opening an animation studio in the UK, to be known as Locksmith Animation. The venture is being piloted by Sarah Smith, who was the writer and co-director of the Aardman animated feature film Arthur Christmas.

Wide Mike in Pharmacy

Wide Mike by Steve Moore

"This tells me nothing."  he said with a groan, gently flicking the paper back to me from behind the pharmacy counter.

My wife was getting her bi-weekly chemotherapy, and she sent me down to pharmacy to answer a question they had regarding her new insurance carrier.  She did not yet have a new insurance card, so she gave me sheet of paper with all the information printed on it, with the instruction, "Show this to pharmacy."  The pharmacist, a wide, miserable sack of paste named Mike, wasn't in the mood for my sheet of paper, and dismissed me with a passive smirk, avoiding eye contact.

DreamWorks' artist Nassos Vakalis introduces his latest short film: "Dinner for Few"

Nassos Vakalis is a story board artist, director and animator who has worked for many years at DreamWorks, storyboarding on just about every DreamWorks film you can think of over the last ten or fifteen years. He and I worked together on many projects, during the course of which I learned to respect his skill, versatility and speed. Nassos also writes and directs his own short films; his most recent short is the impressively designed and very ambitious Dinner for Few. FLIP asked him a few questions about how he managed to complete such a complex project.