The Grinch Who Left an Easter Egg

In May of 2014, my wife Donna was a patient at Sloan Kettering Hospital in Manhattan, being treated for complications from the cancer she'd been fighting for 3 1/2 years.  The doctors were treating her aggressively.  They were the best in the country, so we were confident she would beat it.  As she rested, I sat next to her bed with my Cintiq, doing storyboards for Illumination on "The Grinch".

"Fossils" Lunch in Toluca Lake

From left: Charles Solomon, Bob Kurtz, Scott Johnson, Howard Green,  Eric Goldberg, Tom Sito,
Alex Williams, Ruben Aquino and Ross Blucher.  Photo copyright the nice waitress at "The Counter".

Animation historian and critic Charles Solomon organised a "Fossils" lunch today, a meeting of various former (and current) Disney and DreamWorks animators to talk about the olden days, and wonder what the heck happened to our industry.  Little did I know that Eric Goldberg, master of 2D animation timing is still doing hand-drawn animation at Disney, working on special projects for the Parks.  Bob Kurtz is still doing freelance jobs,  James Baxter is still flying the flag for 2D animation, and animator-turned academic Tom Sito trains his students at USC in the correct use of exposure sheets. And I still use Ruben's model sheets from "Lion King" to teach quadruped locomotion to my students.

Who says 2D animation is dead?

---Alex

Jettisoned - "Radiohead meets Hawkwind"

Welsh filmmaker (and friend of FLiP) Nathan Erasmus has teamed up with young psychedelic rockers KOYO to produce a new sci-fi inspired animated video for the band’s new single ‘Jettisoned’.