FLIP goes to Shepperton Studios

On wednesday I went with some of my students from Buckinghamshire New University to visit Shepperton Studios. Being a movie geek, I couldn't wait to visit the place where classic films like Kubrick's Dr Strangelove, The Day of The Jackal,  Ridley Scott's Alien and Attenborough's Ghandi were filmed. I mean, even empty film studios are full of atmosphere; a place to fill the imagination with dreams of stardust. Shepperton did not let us down.

Disney and Dahl's "Gremlins" Redux

In 1992, I got to work on three great projects: The Nightmare Before Christmas, A Goofy Movie, and one that was never produced, Gremlins; not the Joe Dante Gremlins, but the Roald Dahl / Walt Disney one.

You cartoon buffs out there recall the Bugs Bunny shorts from World War II featuring little gremlins who tear apart Bugs' warplane in flight?  They were based on a short story by Roald Dahl done during the war for Disney Studios.  Disney was developing a feature from the story, but could not secure the complete rights, partially owned by the British Air Ministry, so he mothballed the project.  Dahl would release it in book form using Disney development art as illustrations.

Learn Flash with Andy Sykes - free online video tutorials!

Andy's in the house

Earlier this year I posted about New Year's Resolutions for Animators, one of which was to learn a new piece of software. Right now I am (for a change) practicing what I preach, and learning how to use Adobe Flash, creating 2D animation - just like I used to do back in the Olden Days, before I got seduced by the Dark Side of 3D animation.

Fortunately, students today are blessed with an astonishing variety and breadth of web content, including free tutorials in just about anything one could ever want to learn. Flash is no exception to this rule. Below is a link to an excellent website which hosts a series of excellent - and highly recommended - free tutorials in Flash.

On Reinvention

Animation is a weird combination of art and business. The medium used such a Byzantine mess of equipment, and took so long to create compared to live action, that you once had to get a grant or work for the National Film Board of Canada or spend your life savings if you wanted to make 'your own' productions. This was a problem for live action film makers as well; independence came at a price (generally a low one.) In the bad old days if you didn't have a distribution contract, no one except your Mom saw the finished product.  Animated films were distributed by companies that specialized in kid films or cartoons; you had to know someone to get anything screened in a  theatre.

Nancy Beiman Joins FLIP!

As we begin our third year a blog, Alex and I are pleased to announced the addition of Nancy Beiman as a FLIP writer.  Nancy was the first person interviewed in the old format FLIP, and has, over the years, been a regular source for quotes and insights.  Having her as a partner on the team is a natural fit.

Bizarro Sketch Night - A Follow Up

Photo by Ted Mathot

This past Thursday night, Ben Walker hosted Bizarro Sketch Night as a fundraiser for Jamie Baker where artists sketch with their opposite hand  (see Wednesday's post).

Ben told FLIP,  "It went really well! Jamie had fun. We all did. It sounds like having "the playing field leveled" by drawing with our bad hands made for a lot of fun and talking amongst artists. I haven't gotten a total from Jamie but we clearly brought in a nice amount of funds for him."

Here's a few pics from the event....

Photo by Ben Walker

Photo by John Hoffman

Photo by Ben Walker

Photo by Ben Walker

Photo by John Hoffman

The man of honor, James "Lefty" Baker.  Photo by Ben Walker

Jamie told FLIP: "It was a hell of a lot of fun."
-Steve

Bizarro Sketch Night in San Francisco

If you're in the San Francisco area Thursday night, be sure to check out an unusual fundraiser being by Ben Walker. Bizarro Sketch Night is an event where artists draw using their "bad" hand. These sketches will then be auctioned, proceed to help artist Jamie Baker with medical bills incurred after a devastating stroke in December 2012.

How long does it take to get good at something? 10,000 hours - or 20 hours?

Author and polymath Josh Kaufman gave an excellent talk at TED recently where he discusses the horror of trying to invest 10,000 hours in a new skill in order to get really good at it. He's just become a father to a baby girl, and (like many of us) he hasn't got 10,000 seconds - let alone 10,000 hours - to invest in learning something new. So his theory (which should cheer everyone up) is that the whole 10,000 hour thing is a big exaggeration. Try doing something new for 20 hours - and you should be able to master the basics.

Bean Bonkers and Life as a Human Resource

Every business has its bean counters.  In the bean business, they have them in spades.  A team of bean counters determines exactly how many beans to place each can to yield the maximum profit for the company.  If a worker at the cannery should strive to create a better can of beans by adding more beans or being more selective of the beans to be canned, that employee would, after a few formal warnings, be canned themselves.

Beans are not art.  Art is not beans.  But sometime way back, the two were crossbred to create an abominable freak worthy of Dr. Moreau; the animation production.  In this business, there are people who try to create art and people who try to count beans.  Together, they fail miserably in their individual tasks, but produce a bi-product called the animated cartoon; neither art nor beans.

New Year's Resolutions for Animators

What should an animator's new year's resolutions be? Animation is a huge and growing business, a far cry from the cottage industry it used to be when I got my first gig on Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in 1987. But it is a very competitive world, and good animators need to work smart to stay on top of their game. So here's our FLIP checklist of some simple ways to maintain your edge in 2014.

From Rabbits to Robots - Matt Novak Introduces his latest book

I first met Matt Novak working at the Disney Florida animation studio, known back in the late 1980s as the Disney MGM Studios. We were both working on Rollercoaster Rabbit, and we were part of the Magic of Disney Animation ride, called by everyone who worked in it (safely out of earshot of anyone important) as The Goldfish Bowl, a walk-through animation installation where the public could witness actual animated films being made.

For me, just 19 years old and still studying at University, it was a paradise, an absurdly lucky break into one of the top studios in the animation business. I was there in the summer of 1989, and Matt had already started a career as an illustrator, having published his first book Rolling back in 1986.

We got on famously, joining in obligatory trips to the local karaoke lounge, and even making it down to the Florida Keys, before my golden summer at Disney finally ended and I returned to England to continue my studies. Matt stayed on, but eventually left Disney to become a full-time writer and illustrator. Now, with around 20 books to his name, Matt has just published his latest book: Little Robot.

Moving Forward

How could you possibly make the holiday season any more hectic?

Move!

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.

A Lazy Elf for Christmas

Thomas Bo Huusmann is a graduate of the excellent Animation Workshop in Denmark, surely one of the very best places to study animation in Europe. The school encourages its students not just to find work as employees in animation companies, but to be entrepreneurs, starting up small businesses and media enterprises. Since graduating in 2011, Thomas has founded his own independent company Huusmann Media. He has just published a new eBook - Lazy Elf - just in time to solve FLIP readers' last minute Christmas gift crises. Phew!

Going Postal for the Holidays

If you shop on the internet, or have friends or family who live far away, the holiday season includes some sort of postal service.  Fed-Ex, UPS, DHL (they still exist!), or the good ol' USPS all play a role in just how stressful the holidays will be for you.  When the system works, as it generally does, it's great.  Hooray, your stuff arrived intact.  But when it doesn't, oh man.  Sometimes, there is no time for plan B.  

Walt Disney Crossing Buena Vista Street Barefoot.

As a CalArts student in the early '80's, I had the opportunity to meet many people who worked for Walt Disney himself.  Today being the anniversary of Walt's death in 1966, I thought I would share a story that Elmer Plummer, my life drawing instructor, told me, recalling the last time he saw Walt.... 

We all knew Walt was in the hospital, but we didn't know how bad it was. Well, I was coming down the hallway and saw him standing there - barefoot.

He said, ‘How are you, Elmer?’

‘Oh, I’m all right.’ I said. “Where are your shoes?”

The Thief and The Cobbler - A Moment in Time - by Andreas Wessel-Therhorn

The Golden City - part of the newly restored Director's Cut of The Thief

Last night on Tuesday December 10th Richard Williams introduced - for the first time ever - a newly-restored director's cut of his lost masterpiece The Thief and The Cobbler.  Titled The Thief and the Cobbler – A Moment in Time, the long-awaited screening took place at The Academy's Los Angeles home, the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in Beverly Hills. Animator, director and Academy member Andreas Wessel-Therhorn was there to tell us what we missed.

CTNX 5 - After the Show with Tina Price

Tina Price started the Creative Talent Network (CTN) as a website for animation artists to showcase their work after Disney laid off a very large part of it's animation department back in the '00's.  It proved to be a very popular site, inspiring her to host an expo of animation talent which other animation talent could meet, hob nob, and gain inspiration.  With the fifth CTN-X just completed last month, Tina gave FLIP the post-mortem.

The aftermath.

FLIP:  How would you compare this years event to the past ones?
Tina:  Each year has it's moments, with Moebius in 2010 and Glen Keane in 2012, but honestly, this years event, CTNX 5, was great. The weather really helped too being sunny all weekend.

Kirk Hendry's Very Impressive "Junk"

Kirk Hendry is a London based director of the critically acclaimed short Junk, the story of a boy with a voracious appetite for awful things.  He took some time out to talk to FLIP....

FLIP:  Why did you chose to tell the story in silhouettes?
Kirk: I had previously made a film called Round that was made entirely with hand shadows, so was a big fan of the drama of silhouettes. I had made the animatic for 'Junk' without tying it to a particular style. Then I saw The Adventures Of Prince Achmed by Lotte Reiniger. After seeing Achmed, I got excited about doing that cutout/lightbox style with computers. It became an exercise in lighting that has been very useful ever since.

John Ramirez on Animation, Parades and Theme Park Design

John Ramirez has forged an exceptionally successful career not just as an animation artist but as a designer of parades and theme parks. His designs are clear, accessible and appealing, and for decades he has done design work for leading parks all over the world, especially in Asia. FLIP asked him to reveal the secret of his success.

Support Fellow Artists - Give their Work as Gifts

It's that time again, when media whips people into a shopping frenzy, then sits back and laughs as gift buying turns into a bloodsport.  Ha ha, suckers!  Once again, FLIP offers our readers a creative alternative.  Over the course of the past year, there have been many artists featured whose work is available for sale.  We present those items here for your convenient shopping.

Support animation artists, and get something unique for your loved ones!

First up, Richard Williams' classic book The Animator's Survival Kit is now available for the iPad.  FLIP wrote about it back in February.  Get yours here!

Director's Cut of The Thief and The Cobbler to screen at the Academy on December 10

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that it will screen a newly edited director's cut of The Thief And The Cobbler - introduced by the Director in person - on Tuesday December 10th at 7:30pm, at the Academy, in the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre. The Thief will be preceded by Williams' Oscar winning short, A Christmas Carol. You can also see an exhibition, Richard Williams: Master of Animation in the building lobby until Sunday December 22nd.

My 20th Birthday Party - at age 46

Friday night was my 20th birthday party. Well, technically it was the 20th birthday party of my cartoon strip, Queen's Counsel, which has been running for 20 years in The (London) Times, since it was first published in October 1993. Friday was a good excuse to have a party, sell a few books, and celebrate my longest-ever job, by far.

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.

The Brandy & Mr. Whiskers that Wasn't

Brandy, an upper crust pure breed, is shipwrecked in the Amazon jungle with Mr. Whiskers, a  bunny used for science experiments.  

Does anyone out there remember a show called Brandy & Mr. Whiskers?  No?  It ran from 2004 to 2006 on The Disney Channel.    Last night, I came across some forgotten design work I did for that show at this time of year in 2002.  I was freelancing then, and Disney TV Animation hired me to design characters for the show, in its early development stage.   Barry Blumberg was in charge of DTVA then, and instructed me to come up with something really far out, maybe some mixed media stuff, like the photo collage elements I used in Redux Riding Hood, which DTVA produced and everyone loved but didn't love enough to release on DVD.