For Rusty

Rusty Mills needs your help.  He is near the end, suffering from cancer, but is leaving behind a wife and a lot of hospital bills.  A fundraiser has been set up on his behalf.  Please help.

Mickey & Me in the 21st Century

Red pants day at D-World, July '74.

I share the same birthday as Mickey Mouse - November 18th.  He is a cartoon character.  I draw cartoon characters.  I am 50 and aging.  He is 84 and not - though you could argue that he's been dead for decades.

When I was 27, I worked with a guy who had been a clean-up artist on Sleeping Beauty.  I remember thinking, "Old-timer."  Now that I have screen credits older than 27,  the term must now apply to me.

I'm an old-timer.

Haunted in A-113

This time of year always makes me think of Cal Arts' Halloween parties.  They were the wildest, most bizarre galas only a school of artists could conjure.  The parties were exclusive to students and alumni, who could bring two outside guests.   Locals were always trying to crash the party, keeping the old men in yellow who were CalArts Security running all night.

In October of 1985, the Character Animation Dept. had its own 'haunted house' tour in the now trivially-famous room A-113.  They created a maze of horrors through which I found myself getting totally lost, even though I had been in this room hundreds of times as a student.

Sue Nichols, center, as a gypsy woman, Juliet Duncan, right as a dead woman, and Dave Cutler wearing a voodoo mask, behind.   Halloween, 1986.   

Sue Nichols was one of the student masterminds behind the haunted house.  She told FLIP:

"We did those Haunted Houses for ...what...3-4 years...? (Yah, I was around after graduation to see the tradition carried on.) Best room ever was the year we ended the maze with Jim Reardon in a small dark room with a baseball bat and bullhorn. People would rise up out of the maze into a seemingly safe room.  Jim would blow the rrrrrreally loud horn as Rich Moore flashed a light on him and opened the door.  The scared people fell out into the hall ... right into the middle of the line of people waiting to go in.  Screaming people falling over themselves to rush out of the haunted house put the waiting virgins into a state of panic!  They were in the right state of freak before they even entered the maze.  Anything we did would make them scream after that.  Awesome idea!  And of course the screaming people had to save face and never admitted that they jumped at the sound of a horn.  They made the house sound scarier than it was to the line of waiting guests.  Egos make great PR.

Dale McBeath and I made a graveyard on top of desks and made people crawl into a grave and through a maze underground.  As you climbed down into the grave, Juliet Duncan (dressed as a dead woman) sat up in her coffin and screamed right into your face.  She also played a dead bride with Dave Cutler as her butler one year.  They made you crawl under the wedding cake table into a room of mirrors."

My own most vivid memory was crawling through a tunnel (think Bruce Willis in Die Hard) toward a 90 degree corner around which a strobe light was flashing.  Dan Jeup was ahead of me, crawling along, laughing at how cool everything was.  Ten feet from the corner, an evil gremlin stepped out from around the corner and stood in the strobe.  

"What the hell is that?" Dan laughed.  

The creature had long pointy ears and a head full of wild hair.  It had a square body and tiny little legs with long, pointy nails on its feet.  "What the hell IS that?"  I said.  It appeared to be real - not a mannequin or prop.  Was it a chimp in a costume?  

"What the hell is that?"  Dan and I said in unison.

Then the thing began to run toward us!  "Oh shit!" Dan shouted, putting it in reverse.  He slammed into me, and I slammed into someone behind me and we were all freaked out for a second until someone shouted "It's Broose!  It's Broose!"  

Broose Johnson was a student with prosthetic legs.  He had simply removed them and was walking on his hands in costume.  It was very effective.  He ran right up to Dan's face, paused, then casually walked back around the corner, leaving us in a dark tunnel that now smelled like farts.  

Sue recalled Broose's antics:

"Broose loved taking off his legs for this haunt and played a monster running around several times. I think he was a broken statue one year too." 

Brenda Chapman played the Bride of Frankenstein with Alan Smart as the mad doctor.  She recalled the tunnel:

"They brought in live bugs and cockroaches and put them in large clear plastic boxes the you had to crawl over to get away from Broose. Really creepy! If the fire marshal had found us out, we would have been shut down. Once you were in the maze, there was no other way out but forward."

Sue Nichols elaborated:

"We also had a room devoted to bugs one year. Spiders, I believe. Filled the floor with packing popcorn and draped spiders on cobwebs everywhere. Under a strobe, the room crawled!!! Simple yet effective effect. Loads of fun, fond memories."

To truly appreciate these productions, just consider the talent pool involved; Sue, Brenda, Broose and the whole gang herein mentioned have all had very prolific careers in animation.  It's true "ya hadda be there", and I'm glad I was. 

-Steve

Read about the CalArts party in "THE Halloween Party" from the original FLIP.  

CalArts & the Cleveland Browns

In the fall of 1981, I was a freshman at CalArts.  I lived in the dorms, room 251.  I had a small, black and white Regal television in my room, a luxury item back then.  Most students watched the big TV in the lounge at the end of the hall.  On Sundays, I liked to watch football, which put me at odds with most of my fellow students in Character Animation, and Cal Arts in general.  I can still hear my roommate, Dan Jeup, mocking me. "Foootball, yu bet!"

I would watch a game while doing my laundry.  It was usually the Rams, the Los Angeles team of thirty one years ago.  They were playing the Cleveland Browns one afternoon, the original Cleveland Browns, when there came a knock. A guy at the door asked "Do you have the Browns on?  Could I watch with you? They're watching a movie down the hall and won't change it."

I invited him in, he pulled up a chair, and proceeded to watch the game intently.  He introduced himself as John, a guitar major.  He watched for a few minutes, then asked, "You're not a Rams fan, are you?"  I assured him my allegiance was to the Eagles, making it safe for him to openly cheer for his team, which ultimately lost the game.  He thanked me for sharing, then left.

Days later, I was walking on campus with my friend  Dave Coste, a music major.  We passed John on his way to the dorms carrying a guitar case.  John waved, and Dave and I both said, "Hey John."

"I didn't know you knew John." Dave said.  I told him the story of the past Sunday.  Dave shook his head and laughed.  "That's John Modell." He said.

"Yeah?" I said cluelessly.

"His father is Art Modell."

"Yeah?"

"The owner of the Cleveland Browns."

"Oh."  I said, ""No wonder he liked the Browns so much."

Art Modell died yesterday at age 86.  I read that John and his brother were at his side when he passed.  R.I.P.

-Steve

Them Greeks!

A Greek

Spiros Tsounios was one of my students as CalArts - many years ago, when I first started teaching animation. I say "my students", but actually he managed to avoid my classes completely - which was probably a good thing since at the time I had no idea what I was doing. His student film was one of the best of the year, good enough to get him a spot doing story boards at DreamWorks, which was where we became colleagues.

Now Spiros works at Skywalker Ranch, boarding on the latest Star Wars series, and he has revived his student film - but this time as a fully-fledged CG-tastic animated short. It's called "Them Greeks", and you can check it out here:

Spiros is pioneering an animation studio without walls, a virtual studio that brings together artists from all over the world in a digital environment to share their talents. It's something that the industry has talked a lot about - but I have not seen it done yet. At least, not successfully. It looks as if Spiros might just pull it off.

Oh, and he's looking for animators. Good ones, of course!

I might just do a shot or two myself.

----Alex

CalArts Time Warp

Last week, I was in Hollywood visiting friends and taking in some sights with my family.  One of our last stops was a trip north to my old alma mater, CalArts.  It had been at least twenty years since I last set foot on campus.  At the gatehouse, I showed the guard my old ID.  He laughed, said "This was three years before I was born." and opened the gate.  Asshole.

Seeing the campus was like taking a time warp from 1985 into the 21st century.  There's the original buildings, same old parking lot, same old eucalyptus trees, but it's dressed up with new stuff.  There's a funky performance hall for the music department with a small outdoor amphitheater just to the left as you drive up.

The main entrance steps are where I once met Terry Gilliam, who was screening his new movie "Brazil" at the tiny Bijou theater on the second floor.  I couldn't get in, there was such a crowd.  But Gilliam was standing out on the front steps having a smoke.  He chatted with me and a couple of other guys about his battle with Universal over the film cut. I thought my geek head would explode.   That's the kind of cool stuff that happened at that school - geek moments with great artists.

Walking through the main building, its almost exactly the same - same signs, same color coding for the different floors.  The sub-level was still covered with graffiti.  The students still had that unfed, unbathed look.

The second year Character Animation room still had sophomores in it, but no animation desks. They were working on Cintiqs atop two rows of fold out tables. It was Sunday morning, so only a few students were up and working - they had clearly been up all night.  One student was asleep on her desk.  Another student  was nice enough to listen to me yammer on about "Well in my day, we used an Oxberry!" while thinking, "I have to finish my film by Friday, please shut up, old dude."

The dorms were mostly the same.  The jacuzzi's been filled in - no doubt by the health department.  One the east side parking lot, the sprawling lawn has been replaced by ugly, pole barn style buildings with industrial metal siding.  They're small sound stages.

Driving off the lot, I thought of my old teachers: Jack Hannah, Bob McCrea, T.Hee, Hal Ambro, and Elmer Plummer, all gone now.  They worked with Walt Disney himself, and often treated us to personal anecdotes about The Man.

As I drove down Lyons Ave, to the strip mall where Vincenzo's Pizza  and Mongolian Barbecue still catered to student appetites, I thought of my classmates: Brenda Chapman,  Fred Cline, Butch Hartman, Tim Hauser, T. Dan Hofstedt, Mark Kalesniko, Dan Jeup, Kevin Lima, Rob Minkoff, Kirk Wise, and many others who have gone on to be industry leaders.  CalArts was as much a growing up experience as anything else.  I didn't fully appreciate it then, as I was too busy being a "stupid animator" as we were often called by the other departments.  We were goofy, travelled in packs, and totally immersed in character animation, 24/7.  Paradise, man!

-Steve

Read more about CalArts life in this classic FLIP article!

"Walt's Dead - You Missed It"

Those were the words of Ward Kimball, spoken in 1980 to a small theater full of Cal Arts students.  He might as well have been preaching atheism in a cathedral.  Students were not only hurt, but outraged that this "nine old man", this apostle of Walt, could deny their dreams of Walt's Second Coming.  They were, after all, the new generation being groomed to restore and continue the Walt Disney legacy.

Thirty two years later, that generation is still dreaming.  In the Fantasy Disney Studio in their minds, Glen Keane, Andreas Deja, and seven other guys become the new nine old men, and John Lasseter becomes Walt, bringing back old school animation for good,  and the artists move back into the old animation building, with the old desks, and marry ink and paint girls, and have lunch at Alphonse's and martinis at the Pago Pago.  Sigh.

When Glen Keane announced last week that he was leaving the studio, a chorus of shrieks rang out.  How could he do that?   The blablogs were on fire with comments on his announcement - barking up opinions as if Glen actually owed them an explanation for what was, in fact, a personal decision.

I don't know Glen, personally.  But I know he's done the best character animation of his generation and has nothing to prove.  He gave thirty six years to a studio that, during his tenure, grew, as if on steroids, into a pumped-up, corporate soulcrusher.  They'll go on making animated films (or not), but its homey, midwestern roots are gone, save for some very nice people working there, dreaming, dreaming, of the Fantasy Disney Studio in their minds.

"Walt's dead. You missed it."

-Steve

David Bowie got me Hooked on Coffee

posted by Steve

In 1984, I was a student at Cal Arts.  I stayed up late a lot - sometimes all night - working on my student films.  So did my classmates -most of them, anyway.  And when I think back at those times what amazes me is that I did not drink coffee.  Ever.

One night, while watching TV in the dorms with Tim Hauser and the gang, an ad came on aimed right between our eyes.  A man's voice bombastically declared, "YOU are the New American Society.  The movers.  The shakers.  YOU are the NEW Coffee Generation!"  As the man spoke, Jeff Lynne sang "Hold on tiiiiiight - to your dream. Ooooooh yeah....".  This was edited to short, MTV-style clips of celebrities.  There was David Bowie - HUGE in '84.  And the Wilson sisters from Heart. And Kurt Vonnegut, my favorite author of all time. And Ken Anderson the NFL quarterback, not the Disney artist.  And Cecily Tyson the actress, who purred, "...because coffee is the calm moment that lets you think.  Coffee gives you the time to dream it, then you're ready to do it!"  

The dorm gang gave little thought to the commercial except for Tim, who jumped up indignantly (or was he going for more wine?) and said, "They're trying to get our generation hooked on caffein!  That's disgusting!"

Tim was right!  The National Coffee Association sponsored the ad to change the image of coffee from that nasty shit your parents drink at breakfast to a lifestyle accessory for hip and happening young people of the 1980's.  A mere ten years later, Starbucks was everywhere.

We should have taken the ad as a cue.  We should have seen the potential business opportunity in catering to a New Coffee Generation.  We could have been bazillionaires.  But we were animation students, dreaming of Disney glory.  "Hold on tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.............TO  YOUR DREAM!."

Today, it takes two cups just to leave the house, then a third to nurse through the morning at work. To quote Kurt Vonnegut, "Poot te-tweet!"

 

Cecily Tyson: Actress / Coffee Pusher

Here's another commercial, where Heart uses coffee to mix a new hit.  "Go on and set your coffee mugs on the control board, gals, we don't mind."   

Tim Hauser commented:

LOL! -- Tim Hauser: mad prophet of the dorms! Thanks for the memory!!!!

(BTW -- "Caffeine" needs an "e" at the end).