Bob the Dragon

The 1983-84 school year at Cal Arts was my favorite, and my student film that year, "Bob the Dragon" is a reflection of that. 

I was a junior that year when Hal Ambro came to teach animation.  Hal was a top notch animator, his work dating back to "Snow White".  Here he was, the man who animated the owl in "Bambi", at our disposal. Thank you, animation gods!  I would take my scenes to him (all on paper back then, kids) and Hal would sit at his animation desk and flip through the entire scene, going over my drawings, one by one, while explaining the importance of silhouette for clarity, or using the hands for expression, or giving the characters an implied weight.  Every visit to Hal turned light bulbs on for me and his mentoring was evident in my film that year, a huge leap from my sophomore effort.

T. Hee was another favorite of my teachers, a kindred spirit when it came to a love of whimsy.  I pitched my film in storyboard form and he not only loved it, but added the gag where the dragon encounters a goat.  Dan Jeup would voice the goat, using the goofy sarcastic laugh noise he would do when someone told a bad joke.  "Mmmahaha!".   The only other vocal was the dragon sniffing, done by the late, great Rusty Mills as only he could.  

I got to push my boundaries with the film, defying gravity, logic, and reality, with no one saying "You can't do that.".   All sound effects were interpretive, like the ricochet sound when Bob hiccups.   There's no arc of character or story whatsoever, it just ends.  I wasn't aiming to be a story guy in those days.  

Like all the Character Animation films back then, the finished product was a pencil test.  We shot our films on 16mm film using a massive old Oxberry camera from the 1920's.  Some day, I'll do a post on the dramas that unfolded around that camera as students got desperate for time.

The music is a piece called "Morning" from jazz artist Billy Taylor's LP  "I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to Be Free".  Billy Taylor plays piano, Ben Tucker on Bass, and Grady Tate on drums.    After spending hours listening to random records in the CalArts library,  I heard "Morning" and knew I had my score.  It matched my animatic incredibly, just by chance.   I should have given credit.  I correct that now. 

I did, however, credit "The Small World".  What he hell is that?  In the A-113 suite, there was the big room, and the small room that I shared with Kenny Thompkins, Mark Rouse, Tim Hauser, Kirk Wise, Kevin Lima, Fred Cline, Carlos Baeza, and the late Ray "Supreme" Johnson.  Gary Conrad (of the big room) dubbed us "The Small World".   I was thanking them for their input and support, as well as Bob McCrea, who ran the department.

Some truly worthless trivia for you, but its my blog, dammit!

-Steve 

So Long, Eggman

 

I first learned of Ralph Eggleston's death in James Baker's wonderful tribute post. I didn't know he'd been ill, so it came as quite a shock.   

I first met Ralph at CalArts in 1983.  He was a 17 year-old incoming freshman.  I was a know-it-all junior with no interest in the freshmen.   However, it didn't take long for Ralph's name to get bantered about among my classmates.  Apparently, he had animated 30 seconds of full animation in his first weekend at school.  We all scoffed at this, and couldn't wait to see what kind of awfulness this kid cranked out.  

In the A-113 suite of the Character Animation Department, we shared a Lyon/Lamb video recorder to shoot our pencil tests (there were two, actually, but only one of them worked at any given time).  We crammed into the small pencil test room to see Ralph's opus, like wolves waiting for raw meat.  

We watched.  

Huh! 

Not bad!  

Now we had to meet this guy!  Ralph was best described as a feral nerd - skinny, shaggy, with a wild energy that was a bit hard to be around.  He was madly passionate about animation. 

Cut to 1987.  I led a small crew of mostly Americans working on "Duck Tales" in Taiwan.   Among them were CalArts alum Brian Pimental, Gregg Vanzo, Chris Wahl, Carlos Baeza, and 'The Egg Man'.   

Ralph was now a feral nerd in a foreign land.  Having sushi with the crew, he scarfed plate after plate of wasabi - just wasabi- for laughs.  His face would turn red, he'd twitch, his eyes bulge and tear up.  He'd grab our water glasses, guzzling them down.  The more we laughed, the more he'd eat.  He kept this up until the waitress cut him off.  Feral.  But funny! 

Cut to 1992.  I ran into Ralph in San Francisco.  I was working on "The Nightmare Before Christmas", and he was dating one of the young ladies on the crew.  His manner had changed drastically.  He was still Ralph, but calm, at ease, like he'd learned to harness that feral nerd energy, saving it for his work. 

I would see him sporadically over the next 30 years - usually at Sue and Bill Kroyer's Christmas parties.  We'd exchange Christmas cards, and I just assumed that he'd grow old with the rest of the CalArts gang.  He was robbed of that privilege, and we were robbed of his creativity and humanity.   There's an old Taoist saying that surely applies here, "The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long."   

So long, Eggman!

-Steve

The List of 1982

Program for the 1982 show, designed by Fred Cline.

Forty years ago this week, I took part in my first CalArts Character Animation Show.  Through the course of the school year, I had managed to fool myself into thinking I was good.  But seeing my film next to those of Dan Jeup, Chris Sanders,  Kelly Asbury, Bruce Smith, Rob Minkoff,  and a couple dozen other better skilled artists, a hard, hard reality hit me like a brick from Krazy Kat.  I sucked.

I did not make the cut for the Disney show, where all the old timers came up to watch.  At the post-show reception, I got to hob nob with Frank and Ollie, Ken Anderson, and Marc Davis.  It was a comfort to know they did not waste a minute of their shortening lives watching my mess of a film.  Marc Davis cut me to the quick anyway, because apparently, he was good for that.  You can read about it in an old post here.

The Sinking of A-113

S.O.S. to all CalArts Alum on land and sea!  If you're looking for an end-of-year charitable donation and want to support the arts (yes!), consider the CalArts animation programs.  I started giving a few years ago, in appreciation for the student aid that provided a lifeboat to start my career in animation.  And even though my donations are not Earth-shattering, I always get a personal thanks from Gwen Strong, the Director of Leadership Giving. 

This time around, she told me that many of the animation labs were damaged this year when a water-pipe burst in A-block.   "Insurance will cover most of the cost of repairs, but there were unavoidable inconveniences to the students as they returned to campus."  She said.  "Thankfully our students have been able to continue their work and the energy they are bringing back on campus is palpable.  As always, CalArts won't let the vagaries of the "real world" get in the way of imagining and creating art."

Help the animation department dry out, and provide the students with their own 'lifeboats' with a tax-deductible donation! 

Go to: https://calarts.edu/about/giving-to-calarts/how-to-give

Click "Online gift".  A new window will open to input your information.  Click 'select designation', then type in "Animation Department", or choose your own designation.  In the 'special instructions box, write "to be directed toward areas of greatest need in the animation program."

Pretty easy.  But for you luddites out there, mail a check to:

Office of Advancement
California Institute of the Arts
24700 McBean Parkway
Valencia, CA 91355 

Add a note to instruct the designation and there you have it.  

OR skip all that and donate to a real person by calling 661-222-2745.

If CalArts changed the course of your life the way it did mine, then why not invest in the next generation of artists? 

-Steve

The Freshman

 

 

CalArts I.D., 1981

40 years ago this week, my journey in character animation began.  I've been thinking about it recently, like looking through a dusty box of memories in the attic.  

I went to CalArts right out of high school, sight-unseen, putting full faith in my decision to become an animator; a decision not exactly met with enthusiasm back home in southern New Jersey.  Back there, dreamers and artists are kooks, so I was a double-whammy.  My high school guidance counselor strongly advised against pursuing animation (yeah you, Fr. Nick).   But I had been dreaming and working toward this for years, and at last it had all fallen into place. 

On the long drive to the Philadelphia airport, I nearly chickened out.   The reality that I was about to leave everyone I knew, go to a place I'd never been and fend for myself, chilled me to the bone in the back seat of Mom's car.  I came very close to telling her to turn back, but I did not want to give the naysayers the satisfaction of being right (yeah you, Fr. Nick). 

I clearly recall the drive up the 5 freeway to Valencia and seeing the school for the first time.  Then the intense joy and nausea I felt as we turned off on McBean Parkway, turning right into the driveway just past a round concrete planter with "California Institute of the Arts" emblazoned across its front.  In the movie version, this scene will be in slow motion with very cool acoustical music.

We parked in the dorm lot, then wandered around until we found the office, where we met Liz McColl - a beautiful Scottish woman (think Stevie Nicks) who ran the office and truly loved the students.  There, we got the key to my room - 251, right off the main lobby.  It came with modular furniture from 1971.  The bed had groovy chrome pipes that supported a sheet of plywood with a mattress on top.  I remember the smell of the air,  a mix of sage and smog; dry air that gave me nose bleeds for the first couple of months.  

We dropped off my suitcases, then drove around town. Pre-Google, you may recall that the way to find things in a strange town was either through the yellow pages of a phone book or by just driving around.  Fortunately, in 1981 Valencia, there wasn't much town to be seen.  We found the K-Mart, where Mom filled a cart with the necessities; a pot, pan, knife, fork, spoon, plate, bowl, cup,  a small black and white TV, a pillow, sheets, a comforter, and, to top it off, a mini fridge.  

Shopped out - we looked for a place for lunch.   There were taco places around - but what was a taco?  I'd heard of them in Speedy Gonzales cartoons, but what were they?  Tacos were not a thing in South Jersey,  just like subs were not a thing in Southern California  (still aren't, really).  We settled on a small hot dog joint.  Looking out the window, the reality that Mom would be leaving me soon chilled my bones once again. 

After meeting with the financial aid office and taking a tour of the school, we returned to room 251, where I met my roommate, Dan Jeup.  Dan was from Michigan, and with his mid-western friendliness, we hit it off right away.  Dan invited me to tag along as he and a few other classmates went to open bank accounts at Security Pacific (remember them?). That was Mom's cue to leave, and we said goodbye - quickly, the South Jersey way.  Many years later, she told me she cried on the freeway back.  I had done the same when I had a moment alone.  Dan caught me, and I made up an excuse about my contacts bothering me. 

During the next four months I would learn as much about character animation from Dan as I did my teachers, many of whom had worked with Walt Disney personally.  Unfortunately, Dan was just as clueless as me when it came to nutrition.  We ate crap food; canned, frozen, plastic wrapped, processed garbage.  Just what was in those salisbury steaks?  Eating became a bit of a sport.  We would cruise the art shows around campus, filling up on their hors d'oeuvres and Almaden wine. And when our bi-weekly work-study checks arrived (eighty buckaroos!), we'd treat ourselves to Shakey's all-you-can-eat buffet.  On my weekly calls to Mom from the pay phone in the dorm lobby, she'd always ask if I was homesick, and I always answered "No."  Being at CalArts was a dream come true.  I had found my people. 

Five years ago, I moved back to the area, where it all started. Mom's gone now, as is the K-Mart.  The hotdog joint is now, ironically, a taco joint.  The trees around CalArts have grown so you can no longer see it from the freeway.  Whenever I drive past the round planter out front, I think about that first time, with Mom, and get an urge to pull in.  I see Dan on occasion, and it's like old times - though I've learned how to cook real food since then.  And 40 years on, those CalArtians are still my people. 

-Steve

A Zoom Toast to Kelly

Top row: Kevin Lima, Steve Moore, Chris Bailey, Fred Cline.  Middle row: Kirk Wise, Dan Jeup, Rob Minkoff, Wendell Luebbe.  Bottom row: Tim Hauser, Butch Hartman.

Friday night I took part in a toast via Zoom - the pandemic's next best thing to being there.  We were toasting our friend, director Kelly Asbury, who had passed away a week earlier.   There are hundreds of industry people who would have turned up for this, but we kept it to a core group who hung out as CalArts character animation students in the early eighties: Chris Bailey, Fred Cline, Butch Hartman, Tim Hauser, Dan Jeup, Wendell Luebbe, Kevin Lima, Rob Minkoff, Kirk Wise and myself.  These guys are more than an animation who's who to me - they are my brothers. 

For the most part, the gang looked the same - a testament to living the animation life, I guess.  Most of us wore glasses now.  Kevin was rocking a new, bearded cue-ball look. And me with my COVID lockdown '70's hair  (cowbell band, anyone?).  The only real sign of age is that we were on Zoom for more than three hours and never talked shop once. 

Stories I either didn't know or had forgotten kept us laughing for hours - the crazy shit that makes us glad cell phones and social media did not exist back then.  These were not the flattering stories told at funerals, but hilariously human stories about Kelly.  Maybe you had to be there. I'm glad I was.   

"He was like the Sun." Kirk said.  "People just gravitated to him."

Cheers, Kelly!

-Steve

CalArts dorm, July 1984.  From left: Mark Rouse, Kirk Wise (white shirt), Butch Hartman, Steve Moore, and Kelly Asbury. Photo by Kevin Lima

What Makes a Great Animator? A Personal View from Mike Nguyen

Korean Goshawk - animation by Mike Nguyen

Mike Nguyen is a veteran animator who has worked on many classic Hollywood feature films such as "Beauty and The Beast" and "Space Jam".  He was a lead animator on Brad Bird's classic "The Iron Giant" and also on "Osmosis Jones", and has been working for a number of years on his own independent animated feature film  "My Little World".  FLiP asked him to talk about what makes a great animator.

Nancy Beiman Talks to NPR

FLiP's own Nancy Beiman has now had two major interviews in one month.  First, as part of the Vanity Fair story on the early days of the CalArts Character Animation program, and now a follow up interview on NPR's Weekend Edition, where she dishes a bit on life in A-113….

http://www.npr.org/2014/02/16/277882145/disneys-first-crop-of-trained-animators-profiled

Looking Backward

I'm writing this as a bit of an addendum to the VANITY FAIR article on the early years of Cal Arts.

I'm pleased and honored to have been included in the list of interviewees, and think that the article is a good snapshot of that time. But like a snapshot, it only shows a few details, while others are fuzzy, and there may be distortions to the image. This post will attempt to bring one issue in particular back into focus.

One attitude that prevailed at that time was that if you weren't going to Disney you weren't going anywhere. After all, the Cal Arts program had been set up to retrain artists for the Disney studio as the older artists retired. We ate, breathed and learned from Disney films (This monolithic attitude began to crack in our second year, thanks to my classmate Darrell van Citters, who arranged visits after hours from artists Michael Maltese, Mike Lah, Maurice Noble and Ed Love as a hint of what else was out there.) Cal Arts sponsored a talk by Chuck Jones and another by Richard Williams.

The Hunched and Goofy in Vanity Fair

The latest issue of Vanity Fair has a fantastic article on the genesis of the CalArts Character Animation program and the Hollywood heavyweights who got their start there.  Among them is FLiP's own Nancy Beiman, who is extensively quoted in the piece.  Congrats, Nancy!

The Crap I Lived on at CalArts

I went to CalArts in the fall of 1981 as an 18 year-old just out of high school.  I had never lived on my own, and found myself suddenly having to think about little details such as my next meal.  I had very limited knowledge of food and how to cook it, and an equally limited budget - $40 a week from my work/study job.

I can remember quite clearly that first excursion to the supermarket without Mom.  I wasn't completely on my own.  I had my roommate, Dan Jeup, and classmates Tim Hauser, and an Australian named Harry Weinmann.  They didn't know how to cook either.

Appreciating Diane Disney

Sad news.  Diane Disney, Walt's daughter, died today at the age of 79.  

I had the opportunity to meet Diane in 1984, as a Cal Arts student.  The school had just completed a new student apartment complex, and was having an open house for the trustees.  As a rule, if there was free wine and food to be had, we were there - we being fellow students Tim Hauser, Kevin Lima, and myself.  Tim has the greatest knowledge of all things Disney of anyone I know, and he was quick to point out the presence of the big players - Card Walker, Donn B. Tatum, Roy Disney, and his cousin Diane.

My Most Influential Contemporaries

I have posted before about artistic influences, artists who I did not work with personally, but had a strong influence on my own work.  This time, I write about artists of my generation. In the past 30 years, I have worked with hundreds of artists, and many have influenced me in some manner.  Here is a list of five artists who, for me, had the greatest impact, in chronological order.  

1.  Dan Jeup – Dan was my roommate during my freshman year of CalArts, in 1981.  I knew next to nothing about Disney animation, though Dan was already animating at a professional level, and was an encyclopedia of Disney animation knowledge.  His passion for the medium was contagious, and I felt lucky to be asked along when he studied Disney film prints in the school library, pointing out different animation techniques.  Dan taught me about editing and match cuts and animating a character with weight.   And I taught him how to drink a lot of beer.

The Amazing Double Life of Jorgen Klubien

Dane Jorgen Klubien has lived in two parallel career worlds going back to the 1970's: one as an animator and story man for studios such as Disney and Pixar, the other as a Danish pop star.  It's a safe bet to say he is the only one in the world with that distinction.  He took a little time out to talk to FLIP.

FLIP:  Can you tell us about your music career?

Jorgen: I began playing the drums in bands in Copenhagen as a boy in the early 1970's.  We were four pals from school and we played high schools dances, etc . I always thought of myself as an artist who would become a fine artist with playing music for fun on the side.

I enrolled in the Danish Design school at 17, and was then invited to attend CalArts two years later.   My music career was put on hold until I returned to Denmark after having assisted Glen Keane, Jerry Rees, and Randy Cartwright on The Fox and The Hound for a year.  Back in Denmark I began writing songs with friends and soon thereafter I was in another band, this time as the front man and lead singer. We had a few hits in the mid 80's in Denmark and we have continued to play for fun every so often.

I returned to the US in 1982 to work on a title sequence for the show Animation Around The World, one of the first shows on the newly formed Disney Channel.  It was produced by my friend and classmate from CalArts, Rick Heinrichs.  He's been a great supporter of me throughout the years, and  has pulled me unto such great productions as The Nightmare Before Christmas and lately, Frankenweenie.

Mr. Future, At Last We Meet

I told you about my new short, Chief Your Butt's on Fire last week, and how it took thirteen years to complete.  My last shorts, The Indescribable Nth and Fractured Fairy Tales: The Phox, the Box and the Lox, were both completed in 1999 - that's right, the 20th century.

Here we are in the second decade of the 21st century, the year to which Marty McFly time travels in Back to the Future, and don't you know - it really IS the future.   When my wife looked into film festival submissions, film was not an option for many of them.  They wanted something called a DCP - Digital Cinema Package.  Why?  BECAUSE IT"S THE FUTURE!

My new "film". 

Degrees of Talent

On occasion, I get e-mails from young adults looking for entry positions in animation.  They see my company listed somewhere and, unaware that my studio is just me and my wife, they send resumes and links to their reels.  But I'm not hiring.  I don't plan to expand.  So if you're an art student or recent graduate - don't write.  I have no job for you.  

When I get these e-mails, I check them out as long as they don't seem like spam. Sometimes, their work is good.  Sometimes it is just dreadful.  I got one such e-mail just this week, from a young woman who wrote, "I am a recently graduated Animation major from the Maryland Institute Collage of the Arts".

Stop right there.  You may be an art major, but you really should know how to spell "college" by the time you graduate such.

Speaking of Public Art.....Who Needs It?

Public art, Las Vegas.  Can-oe believe it?  

I just returned from our annual family vacation, visiting Los Angeles, the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and Las Vegas in a rented, fire engine red Dodge Caravan.  Throughout the trip, from the cities to the suburbs to the little isolated cowboy towns, we took note of the variety of public art.  It stands out to us because in Southern New Jersey, where we live, public art is seen as a frivolous luxury.

In a May 23rd article in The Press of Atlantic City, New Jersey State Senator Jim Whelan "took aim at the estimated $12 million behind the art initiatives during his opening remarks Wednesday at the East Coast Gaming Congress. Whelan, D-Atlantic , said he’s frustrated to see dollars being spent on the arts when financing to advance the city is becoming more scarce.

“The question is: Is anybody asking for art? I don’t think so,” Whelan said."

Ray Harryhausen Lives!

Mention the film Jason and the Argonauts, and people think of  Ray Harryhausen.  He didn't write it, he didn't direct it, he didn't star in it.  But it's his film.  He produced it, and other fantasy adventures like it around his ideas involving stop-motion animation - an enviable position.

I had seen Harryhausen's work long before I knew his name, which I first heard as a student at CalArts.   Two friends from film graphics, Steve Burg and Shannon Shea, were always talking about this brilliant guy Harryhausen.  For the longest time, I thought his name was Harry Hausen - they never referred to him using his first name.  They had super 8 films of their primitive attempts to ape Harryhausen - pardon the pun.  Shannon was animating dinosaurs, Steve was more about space ships.

A Kick in the Pants from Marc Davis

When I first heard of Walt Disney's "Nine Old Men", seven of them were still alive.  Of those seven, I got to meet six.  And one gave me a kick in the pants: Marc Davis.

At the end of the school year, the CalArts Character Animation department would host the Disney animation gods in a screening of the best of that year's student films followed by a reception where they could mingle with students.

I arrived at CalArts having never heard of the Nine Old Men.  But after eight months of intense indoctrination on all things Disney by classmates Dan Jeup and Tim Hauser,  I was bursting to have my film be part of The Show, and figured that since I had learned so much and cared so much, I was a shoo-in.  So when that didn't happen, I was left mortified and searching for answers / excuses.  

Cal Arts and the Easter Gorilla

At Easter of 1985, I was living in the CalArts dormitory of heathens when I hatched an idea: I would borrow the Bo-Peep dress Kevin Lima made for the pagan holiday of Halloween - yes, the director of Tarzan went as Bo-Peep - then I'd put on my gorilla mask and go through the dorm giving out....uh...potatoes.   Easter spuds.  Ha!

I called upon first grade memories to create little baskets using construction paper and staples, baskets just big enough to nest a potato. On  Easter morning, I got dressed, gathered my potato baskets and set off to bring joy to the sleepy student body.  Surely this gag would be a gasser!