A Counter Con - Of Sorts

Logo design by Vince Alvendia

On Friday, July 13, as the San Diego Comic Con rages downtown, animator and South East San Diego native Jerry Brice will host and moderate a panel of animation artists and business professionals for the children and teenagers of the South East and inner city communities of San Diego, California.


This is not a Comic Con event, but that’s partly the point. “The San Diego Comic Con is an exclusive event that is hard for even the professional artist to get into,” says Jerry, “so this panel is an effort to extend the excitement of the Comic Con being held downtown into the neglected neighborhoods of South East San Diego, and inspire a child to dream, and to let them know that we do, in fact, care about them.”

Jerry continues, “The goal of the event is to introduce to at least two hundred inner city kids to the very real possibility of pursuing a career in the animation, comic, or game art fields. Guest panelists, whose roads to success started in similar circumstances, will tell the kids how they got to be a pro, and let them know what it took to overcome obstacles, and to achieve their goals in a very competitive and specialized talent-based industry.” 

This will be a lecture-style panel, with projected samples to highlight verbal presentations, with Q and A time to follow.

The confirmed panelists are:

Denys Cowan - legendary DC Comic book artist, founder of Milestone Media, former Senior VP of animation for BET, producer of Static Shock, Boondocks

J. Jones III - music supervisor, composer, producer, writer for Nick Cannon's Ncredible Entertainment

Roland Poindexter - experienced network executive and former Senior Vice President of Original Programming, Animation at Nickelodeon

Matt Allen - Senior Executive Director of Strategic Marketing, NBC Universal Digital Entertainment

David Brown - educator, publisher, author, NAACP Image award winning editorial cartoonist for the LA Sentinel/Watts Times

Julian Chaney – veteran storyboard artist in the animation field, worked on The Proud Family and the new Adult Swim series Black Dynamite

Brad Constantine - Senior Artist/Animator at Sony Online Entertainment and San Diego native.

Jerry L. Brice – educator, animator, director, and producer for Brice Productions

Several of Jerry’s former animation students who are currently professional artist will be in attendance as well.  Jerry is hoping for some surprise guests as well.

If you're going to the Comic Con and would like to join Jerry as a surprise guest, or if you have questions,  e-mail him chacta@gmail.com.




The Inner City Comics, Animation, and Games Art Panel

Friday, July 13, 2012
    
1:00 to 4:00pm

Tubman/Chavez Center

415 Euclid Ave, (on the corner of Market St. and Euclid Ave.)

San Diego, CA 92102

Two hundred seats are available on a first come basis. It is a free event, courtesy of Brice Productions.  

Jerry Brice

Says Jerry, “I just want to transform any issue a kid may have for not moving forward with their dreams, while at the same time acknowledging some of their personal and financial hardships, because I can relate. Some of the panelist are from this community, or got into the business with my assistance, so we can track it all back to what happened for me here.”

-Steve

Animating My Demons

by Signe Baumane

The subject of depression is very important to me, personally.  I have obsessive suicidal thoughts almost every minute of my day.  At age 18, I tried to commit suicide, and was hospitalized. I was diagnosed as manic depressive at 22.  The last time I took pills for my mental affliction was six months after release from the mental hospital. I do not take pills anymore - I can't afford them, and they dull my mind.  The fact that I live and am able to work is a result, partly, of years of hard inner work - I am determined to be happy - and partly because of my education - I have a BA in Philosophy and am trained to think, analyze and persuade. The person I have to persuade the most is myself.

Every day I wake up and have to find a new meaning to my life. Luckily, I have been able to find it.  My three cousins were not as lucky, and they were more successful at their suicide attempts than me. Over the years I have pondered whether there was any connection between us, the suicidal cousins from my father's side of the family.  I started to ask questions and unravel old family secrets.  This is what Rocks In My Pockets, my first feature film, is about. I call it a funny film about depression, but in fact it is sometimes serious, sometimes funny, but overall deeply personal, just like my film Teat Beat of Sex.

You know, I feel that depression has the other side of the coin - creativity and brilliance.  Yes, you struggle through the pain, fuzz, and fog, but there are moments when there is a rush of ideas and images and poetry, excitement!  Our minds need to be constantly occupied with making creative solutions.  Maybe we get depressed because our jobs are so mundane, repetitive, without a challenge to our minds?  But then - I don't really know why we get depressed. I certainly have no reasons to get depressed, but I do.

When you tell a personal story it transcends the personal, it becomes more than just your own feelings, fears and obsessions - it becomes a shared experience.  Once you put your darkest secret in words, the light shines on it. Once light shines on it, the healing begins.  I am a big believer in keeping your inner rooms well lit. Even with all that light there are some corners that are left dark, and under beds and tables there will always be monsters hiding.

So, I don't really have a problem to tell a very personal story. Nothing is personal - we all have been depressed, we all know that feeling. The biggest challenge for me was to describe, in words and visually, how does it feel to be depressed.  The feeling of that unbearable pain - how do you put it in words or images?  How do you successfully share it so that people understand what you mean?  An audience will let me know if I have succeeded at this.

The real problem of this project is that I am telling a story of my relatives, and what is MY truth of the events may not be THEIR truth.  So I changed the names and looks. But I feel that may not save me from the family getting upset.

Technically the project is mixed media, stop motion and drawn animation.  First we do paper mache sets.  Then, with digital photo camera, we shoot them as stop motion, frame by frame pans and zooms.  Later, we combine the pictures of moving backgrounds with hand drawn animated characters on top.

Financially... well well well…don't we all want to know how people get their money for their ambitious projects?!  I'd like to know it too, as my experience is limited to my project only.  The Rocks In My Pockets budget is about $100,000. We got a grant from NYSCA, and a grant from the Jerome Foundation. There were many grants we applied for, but didn't get.  Also, the project is part of the Women Make Movies fiscal sponsorship, which means that every donation to the project is tax deductible. We raised about $10,000 from small donations, and one single larger donation covered the missing hole in the budget.  As the producer of the project, I spend many sleepless nights worrying about money.  It looks as though we might run out after paying music and sound fees, and we still need money for transfers, color corrections, and festival submissions.  Money is the blood in the projects system. If the project runs out of money, it runs out of life.

I had set the completion date for December 21st, 2012, the end of Mayan Calendar, as I find that date ironic and fitting for completing a funny film about depression. But we might not be done with the film by that date, as we were able to secure the music recording only for December, so the future will only begin on December 21, 2012. 

No matter what I do, I get severely depressed twice a year. Having a project actually helps to focus on something other than that inexplicable inner pain and suffering. 

Although lately, I have been mildly depressed about the project. A train of obsessive thoughts go around and around....
"Who do I think I am, doing what I am doing?"
"This is 90 minutes I am asking an audience to sit through!"
"The film will never be liked by more than three people."
"It is too strange, too artistic, too metaphorical to be appreciated by a wider audience." 
"I am sure my voiceover will put off festival programmers after five minutes, and they will turn the film off before allowing it to sink in and take them for the ride."
"If the film is not selected by any film festival, how will I look in the eyes of my backers and my young assistants who came to believe in this project?"
"I should kill myself right now, before the shame of major failure comes and gets me." 
….and so on and so forth.

But, if I had never got this project rolling, I'd be depressed that I never tried it.

So, I guess, if one has a tendency to get depressed, doing or not doing causes the same mental strain, except, by doing you actually get to be doing which is much better than not doing.

"Rocks In My Pockets" trailer from Signe Baumane on Vimeo.

Tumblehead Animation

Charlie and Yip

I've been working recently on a independent feature film "My Haunted House", about a perfectly normal kid who lives a perfectly normal life - apart from the fact that he lives in a haunted house with his very strange and highly embarrassing supernatural family. Part of the development process has been to animate a teaser, to explore the overall look and feel of the film and also to establish the visual style. Two of my ex-students from the Animation Workshop in Denmark, Magnus Moller and Peter Smith, created the award-winning Elk Hair Caddis student film in their final graduation year.

Following the success of Elk Hair, Magnus and Peter founded Tumblehead Animation, located in Viborg, Denmark, home to the excellent Animation Workshop and part of a very smart business strategy of growing small start-up studios around the animation school, to develop a new European animation hub drawing in local talent.

Gateway to Tumblehead

The teaser isn't done yet but so far it looks awesome (the still at the top is a small teaser of the teaser) and it is thrilling to work with such talented animators. They take such pride in their work and I am sure that their new venture will be a huge success. - Alex

Cringeable Questions I Am Asked

Whenever I meet someone not in the film industry, there's an undeniable twinge of anxiety.  I know it is just a matter of time before I'm asked what I do for a living.  I'm not ashamed of what I do.  It's just.....the things.....people say......

"My son/daughter likes to draw.  Can he/she come to your studio and show you their drawings?"

"My cousin worked for Disney.  He drove the submarine. Did you ever get to do that?"

"My son/ daughter wants to work for Pixar.  Can you get them a job?"

"I used to draw......when I was a kid."

"You draw EVERY day?  What if you don't feel like drawing?"

"I use to like Flintstones.  Did you ever work on that show?"

"My son/daughter likes that anime stuff.  Did you ever do any of that anime stuff?"

"Must be nice to sit around and draw all day."

"Do you paint every frame, or..........?"

"Do you come up with all the characters, or.......?"

"Do you get money for all those toys or.......?"

"Do you know a lot of movie stars?"

"You should come talk to my first graders.  You could draw Mickey Mouse for them."

"You should come talk to our Red Hats group.  You could draw Mickey Mouse for them."

"Is that ALL you do?"

And so on.  

So when I meet someone new, I know its coming.  The cringeable question.  But once in a while, someone will surprise me.  I'll say I'm an animator and they'll nod and move on to another topic. 

What?  No insipid questions?  No favor requests?  

What an asshole!

-Steve

T. Dan Hofstedt added this one:  "Don't computers do all that for you now?"


My personal favourite is "What have you worked on that I have seen?"
Because psychic powers are definitely among my skills. - Alex


Kirk Wise added, "What do you mean, 'direct'?"

Lovelace and Babbage - The Graphic Novel

Lovelace and Babbage - by Sydney Padua

My old friend and animation kumrad Sydney Padua has some excellent news for fans of her webcomic - The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage.  Pantheon books, publishers of the best selling Maus and Persepolis, have engaged her services to complete a graphic novel of the adventures of her Victorian  heroes. The real Charles Babbage was a 19th century inventor and mechanical engineer who pioneered the concept of a programmable computer. Though he was unable to build it in his lifetime, a working copy now exists in the Science Museum in London. Ada Lovelace was a gifted mathematician and also the daughter of the legendary Lord Byron - mad, bad and dangerous to know.  Sydney's comic has gathered a huge following online and I for one can't wait for the publication of her book. I shall be at the launch party, pestering her for signed copies. - Alex

Ten Bits of Trivia about Redux Riding Hood

First of all, a HUGE public thank you to Jerry Beck, the patron saint of cartoons, for posting about Redux on his Cartoon Brew site.  The ensuing avalanche of YouTube views exceeded 15,000 in 48 hours.  Yikes!

So now that you've seen the film, here's some useless information to store in your head:

1. Most of the photo cut-out elements came from a Montgomery Ward catalog from the 1940's owned by production designer John Kleber. He xerox'ed the entire catalog for our production purposes.  The catalog had live chicks, and kits to build an entire house yourself.

2. In order to sufficiently tone down his voice during the depressed Wolf scenes, Michael Richards recorded those lines while lying on the floor.

3. Grandma is a caricature of my maternal grandmother, Bertha Davis.  She also appears in the movie Bebe's Kids.

Grandma Davis, left, with my Aunt Viola at Disney World's Contemporary Hotel, 1972.

4. The photo over Grandma's bed is my maternal great-grandmother, Louisa Schmickel, who lived to be 100.  

5. Grandma's house is pink because she's a faded red.  It's a color pun, a bad one at that.

6. Next to the door in the Wolf's garage is a shovel and two bags of sheep manure.  A side business for Doris?

7. The boy in the photo on Grandma's dresser is my nephew, Henry Moore.  In one shot, it is background painter Richard Morgan.

8. To entice Fabio to do the part, the Woodsman's role was padded by storyboard artist John Norton, who added the "Mr. Bunny Rabbit." lines.

9. Don Rickles couldn't keep our names straight, so he called us all "Richie."

10. In the final sequence, where hundreds of wolves make plans in the kitchen, there's a wall map with a red X.  That address was the location of Toonz Animation in Auckland, New Zealand.

11.  The final shot is a take-off on Alfred Hitchcock's final shot in The Birds.

Okay, that's eleven pieces of worthless trivia.  I'm glad to have so much interest in a short I thought was forgotten.  Thanks for watching and spreading the word.

-Steve

Here it is - Redux Riding Hood

In September of 1995, at Disney TV Animation, Veep Sharon Morrill asked if I would like to direct a Fractured Fairy Tales type of short, and have stylistic free reign.

"Say that last part again?"

Free reign.  Go crazy with it.

And so I began working on Redux Riding Hood, a short that would take me to the sixth row at the Oscars.  Dan O'Shannon, one of the top sit-com writers around, had written a script about a wolf who, obsessed with his failure to catch Red Riding Hood, builds a time machine to go back and do it right.  It was Dan's concept, and the script was hilarious.

Even with a great script, there are plenty of ways for the final product to fail.  I set to work on the big stuff: production design, cast, and musical score.

Redux needed a  production designer who had never worked in animation, someone not schooled in animation history, not influenced by classic cartoons of yesteryear.  Dan Rounds, who I'd worked for on A Goofy Movie recommended a fishing buddy of his in New Mexico named John Kleber.   When I saw John's work I knew, from the color palette to the use of textural and photo collage elements, I had found my production designer.

John Kleber artwork.  Pieces like this were the springboard to the Redux production design

The first thing John wanted to know was if there were animated films he should view as reference.  "NO!" I said, and forbade him to look at ANY animated cartoons while we were doing this project.  The only other limitation I put on John was, because of our schedule, the style would need to allow background painters to work quickly.

I had a few meetings with casting director Jamie Thomason, who questioned me about the characters - what kind of person was the Wolf, Doris, Red, Granny, etc.  Once we had talked out who the characters were, the casting choices became self-evident.  Michael Richards was the manic Wolf.  Mia Farrow, as his long suffering wife (I made her a sheep, animation's first inter-species marriage.) I liked Mia's casual delivery and the sound of her plaintive voice was a great counterpoint to Richards' abrasive sound.  Writer Dan O'Shannon hated Mia's Doris, because she didn't have that sit-com cadence.  He wanted her recast, but I held my breath longer and won out.  I could go on and on about the cast -  Lacey Chabert, Adam West, Fabio, June Foray, Don Rickles -  but for now I'll just say I hit the jackpot.  And Jamie Thomason is truly brilliant.  There's no one else I would want in a recording session than Jamie.

For music I wanted jazz great Bennie Wallace.  I had met Bennie during the ill-fated Betty Boop feature in '93.  He knows more about music than anyone I have every met.  When I described the project and the off-beat quality of it, he brought me Charles Mingus' album Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus.  Like John Kleber's artwork, I was immediately inspired and excited as a new layer of the film revealed itself.

With Mingus as inspiration, Bennie set to the task, casting his musicians to get the right sound - among them Robben Ford on guitar, Emil Richards and his magic box of percussion instruments, Art Baron and his mad trombone, Alex Acuna brought a Latin beat on drums, and Bennie himself on Sax.

We recorded at Capitol Records in Hollywood, in Sinatra's old stage.  As the musicians assembled, Disney's music veep Bambi Moe asked Bennie to see the cue sheets.  When she saw them, her head exploded. "WHERE ARE THE NOTES?!"  the large orafice on her head shouted.

Bennie laid on his Tennessee drawl. "Bambi, this is jazz." He said, "You don't tell these guys how to play."  Bennie was right.  He had indicated general timing cues and tempo, but the rest was improvised.  When the musicians performed, it was magic.  I got goosebumps, and was truly depressed when they finished.  I wanted them to play all night.

Here's the end credit cue with full band.  Bennie and Art Baron have a musicians' joust.  The spontaneity of this could not have been reproduced from transcription.

Disney TV President Dean Valentine loved the music, but said, "Jazz is for having a cigar and scotch. Not cartoons."  This time my head exploded.  How could this guy be in charge of an animation studio and have no knowledge of the history of the medium?  I was seriously outranked on this fight, and the score would have surely been scrapped without the intervention of Peter Hastings.  Peter's One Saturday Morning cartoon block was a huge hit,  so he was one guy who Dean trusted.  Peter gave the score his approval, and it was saved.

Thanks Peter!

I got to spend five months in New Zealand for production - what a beautiful country.  We did our best with a fairly green crew.  Lily Dell did some amazing work on the Wolf and animated the Time Machine combining cut-outs and drawings.  While in New Zealand, Jeffrey Katzenberg called me from DreamWorks.  I thought it was a friend doing a prank, so I played along rudely.  Then it struck me.  "This really is Jeffrey Katzenberg."

"Yes it is,"  he said, "the horse's ass."

I have no idea how he found me, or that he even knew who I was.  He wanted me to call him when I got back.  I only mention it because it was so bizarre.

Back in the States, the post mix with Dave Stone's awesome sound effects - his custom made Time Machine sound is hilarious. We did some festivals, went to the Oscars, lost, and then the film was put away.  Seven months after the Oscars, I was shown the door.
I won't go into that ugliness.

In the years since, Michael Richards had his infamous night club blow-out.  Garrison Keillor, our narrator, has made some less famous blow-outs.  I don't know if that has hurt the chances of a Redux release, but I hope not.  No one at Disney or on my crew endorses the backward thinking of two actors in the cast.  And while I dish about some now ex-Disney execs, in the big picture, Sharon, Bambi, Dean, and all the Disney brass were very supportive of Redux Riding Hood.  They let me make this film.  It would not have happened without their ultimate consent.  For that I will always be appreciative.  I'd like people to see it, so I post it here.

If you like Redux, show your support and join out Facebook page!

Team Squirrel wants YOU to run the Royal Parks Half-Marathon this October

Chester squirrel wants YOU on October 7th

A few years ago I started helping out the Royal Parks Foundation by designing characters and logos for them - helping to raise funds for the Royal Parks, the green spaces that help to make London a liveable city. It started with Deckchair Dreams, an event which rounded up artists like Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin to design deckchairs to brighten up the parks in summer. The theme was flora and fauna so obviously I picked red squirrels - despite the fact that there aren't any in the parks; they've all been driven out by their grey North American cousins. Anyway you can still buy the deckchairs here if you fancy some designer artwork for your garden this summer.

Deckchair Dreams - perfect for your garden tbis summer!

This year, on October 7th they are planning a half-marathon through the parks, great fun and very picturesque (not like the full London Marathon which goes through some bits of the metropolis you'd rather forget). Last year someone ran in a full squirrel costume - obviously they were completely insane but amazingly the runner made it to the finishing line.

Squirrel costume optional

All of this is in the name of charities and good causes - and you can raise funds for any charity you like - not just the Royal Parks Foundation. Which gives you a marvelous opportunity to pester friends and family for cash. So much fun.

- Alex

Cinesite sold...but for how much?

Ever since Kodak filed for bankruptcy in the US, a question mark has hung over its UK subsidiary Cinesite. Cinesite is an excellent visual effects house in London's Soho, one of the "Big Four" (including Frame Store, Double Negative, and MPC) which I worked at for many years. We animated hundreds of shots on Underdog, Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Marmaduke. Talking animals is not the most glamorous end of the VFX business but we took pride in building a highly efficient pipeline that could produce a huge amount of high-quality work in a very short time.

Some of the most fun I had there included working on the Harry Potter films - who wouldn't want to work on the series that has transformed the visual effects business in London? We did the magical tweeting birds from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - all beautifully rendered and suitable for an extreme close-up (though in the end we never got closer than a wide shot).

Working at Cinesite is fun in part because it still has the intimate feel of a small company - but with big, rich parents overseas, it was always protected from the short-term chill winds of the market. Now, with Kodak gone, it is having to fend for itself. Still, it was a surprise to see that a company which (according to yesterday's Sunday Times) made a profit of £2.7m on a turnover of £25.8m in 2010, has been sold to the private equity firm Endless for "around £2m".

Now, as every Londoner knows, £2m will barely buy you a house in the metropolis these days. Surely one of London's leading VFX houses is worth more than that?

- Alex

Lunch at Maurice's

Maurice Sendak invited me to lunch.  I had been in the running to take over as director of the animated Where the Wild Things Are feature at Universal, which, after many many months of development, Maurice hated. He liked my take on Wild Things, and I had meetings at Universal and phone conversations with Maurice about how to put the project back on-track.  Spike Jonze swooped in and made the film in live action,  but on this day in August of 2002, I found myself driving down a small, windy road to have lunch at his house in Connecticut.

When I arrived, Maurice was a couple of hundred yards from his house, taking his daily walk.   I complimented him on his place - a beautiful bucolic cottage with lush gardens.  Maurice gestured with his cane to some very large nearby homes.  "This was a great place to live until they came around."  he said, slowly shaking his head,  "McMansions!"

He gave me a little tour around the property. The walkway to the back door of the house led us through a rich, floral garden, for which he took no credit.  "People come in and tend to it." he shrugged.  He had an amazing collection of early Disney memorabilia with Mickey and Donald toys from 1930 made of celluloid - very rare.  But what was truly mind-blowing was seeing his drawing table, where he had done so many books, and was working on his latest, Brundibar.  He had a partially complete illustration on the table, and asked me to look through the other pages while he told me the story.  I felt very self-concious, ol' Stevie Moore from a little hick town was now in the presence of artistic royalty.  I flashed back to being in first grade, reading Wild Things in the library, and now here I was with the guy.  Then he asked me what I thought of Brundibar.

Huh?

"It's your masterpiece."  I said, terrified he might think I was laying it on too thick. He didn't.  Even a 73 year-old legend likes to hear his work is good. Brundibar really is a masterpiece, by the way.

A lady magically appeared from the kitchen with salads for lunch.  Maurice and I had a meandering conversation about the business of animation and the business of book publishing - they have a lot of the same problems with management driven creative decisions.  He hated the trend in children's literature where famous people, like Madonna, were publishing books as vanity projects to impress their children.  To Maurice Sendak, they made a mockery of his medium, the implication being that it took no real skill to write for children.  He talked fondly of Ted Geisel, his friend.  Dr. Seuss was probably the only one in his field who Maurice Sendak held above himself.  He called him a genius, then chuckled at how he would taunt Geisel about his drawing ability.

He talked about authors he knew socially, like Kurt Vonnegut, but always felt treated like the kiddie-book guy.  He never really belonged to the club.  Maurice's intellect and wit was as sharp as they come, so he found this social snubbing quite demeaning.

His view of children was quite different from the consensus.  He believed that children were not innocent, that innocence is a quality adults project onto them.  Children had the same flawed character traits as adults, and that childhood was not full of wide-eyed, idyllic magic.

The conversation eventually found its way to Wild Things.  He recalled the animation test done at Disney in the early '80's by John Lasseter and Glen Keane.  He was talking about the same test that me and my CalArts classmates had drooled over twenty years earlier.  Maurice not only disliked it, he hated it.   Beautiful animation and breakthroughs in CG technology aside - the character was not Max.

He recounted how Michael Eisner pressured him to sell the rights to Disney.  Over dinner, Eisner laid on the charm.  At one point, he pulled out a checkbook and tossed it toward Maurice.

"What's this?" Maurice asked.

""You fill it out."  Eisner said.  "Any number you want.  I want  Wild Things."

Maurice had a general distain for pomposity.  But instead of telling Eisner where to endorse the check, he made a proposition.  "I collect Disney memorabilia.  Rare stuff."

Eisner nodded, unsure where this was going.

"Back in the '30's, Walt and Roy Disney owned Duesenbergs with gold plated Mickey Mouse gas caps.  There were only two made.  They are the Holy Grail of Disney collectibles.  Roy Disney has one, the other is in the morgue."

He paused for effect.

"Get me that gas cap and you can have the rights."

Eisner was completely gobsmacked.  "I can't do that!"  he said.

Maurice laughed, turning the knife, "You're Michael Eisner, the most powerful man in Hollywood!  You can't get me a gas cap?"

Eisner's face flushed.  "Okay,"  he said, putting away his checkbook, "I'll see what I can do."

A few days later, Maurice got a message from one of Eisner's secretaries.  He couldn't do it.

Maurice reveled in stories like this, where bully-headed big shots get knocked down a peg.  There was a wounded quality to Maurice that made him appealing even in his most bitter moods.

As happens in our business,when we stopped working together, we gradually lost touch.  I tried to call once in a while, but felt like I was bothering him, even though he was always kind to me and  my wife.   He was one of the good guys, and I'm sorry to see him go.    

-Steve

Jeff Koterba editorial cartoon

The Prince of Glendale

A DreamWorker

The vast arch that leads into DreamWorks animation is even bigger than the one at Paramount - and this is surely not an accident. Few visitors can fail to be impressed by the sheer size and elegance of Jeffrey Katzenberg's Glendale animation studio. I was lucky enough to work there for many years on a number of projects including The Road to El Dorado, Spirit - Stallion of the Cimarron, and Sinbad. Not the most successful films that the studio produced, but all three crammed with excellent work lovingly hand-crafted by a hugely talented crew.

Don't you wish you worked here?

Ten years later, I want to slap my younger self for not appreciating it more, or for realizing quite how fortunate I was. Stepping onto the DreamWorks lot is an extraordinary experience - there are fountains, lakes, waterfalls, aquatic fowl nesting in the topiary, and paved avenues lined with trees. Little expense has been spared to create what is entirely mistakenly referred to as "a campus". Actually, it feels more like an Italian Renaissance town, complete with campanile, olive groves - and of course an excellent restaurant, which has the added advantage of being free. 

Pressing the metaphor, all of this would make Jeffrey a sort of Prince of Animation, or at the very least a Grand Duke. The only thing missing is a cathedral (though a cynic might say that the screening theatre provides a substitute venue for worship). Actually, that would be harsh. It is easy to under-estimate the scale of Jeffrey's achievement - taking on Disney at their own game, and winning. His studio took a while to become a hit-factory but, like Pixar, DreamWorks has assumed Walt's mantle and inherited his legacy.

OK - I'll stop now

I was there last week meeting my old friend and colleague Nassos Vakalis for lunch - which was delicious. Nassos is an excellent animator and story board artist who draws with fluency and skill and has a fine sense of camera and shot progression. We first worked together at Warner Bros Feature Animation - another studio which tried (and failed) to emulate Disney's success. I have always been envious of Nassos's ability to capture an idea in a few lines, and his creative energy. Here's a link to a trailer to his latest short film, which looks very charming. It has been winning awards in animated film festivals all over Europe.

- Alex

Disney kills 2D animation...again? A Dinosaur's view



Some dinosaurs, including Andreas Deja, Nik Ranieri, Raoul Garcia and Charles Solomon. Tom Sito is behind the camera.

Animation critic and historian Charles Solomon kindly set up a lunch for me last thursday with some old Disney kumrads, at a burger joint in Toluca Lake called The Counter. A "Dino's lunch" is an irregular gathering of wizened 2D animators (ie dinosaurs), most of whom I haven't seen in many years. We used to meet at Mo's in Burbank but they have since dropped curly fries from the menu - obviously this was just one step too far and we Dino's have been forced to take our custom elsewhere. 

It was great to see so many familiar faces. Andreas Deja was there, whose awesome blog Deja View you can see here. Andreas recently left Disney after decades of dedicated service, along with fellow uber-animator Glen Keane. It looks like the recent brief revival of 2D animation - which culminated in The Princess and the Frog - under John Lasseter's leadership has already burned itself out, and there are no 2D projects on the horizon.

The end of 2D animation at Disney?

What a sad end to the world's finest tradition of 2D animation. And especially confusing since I am told that the re-release of The Lion King in 3D made $100m at the box office - so there must be some life left in hand-drawn animation yet.

Anyway, here's a photo of some of the Dino's, including - in no particular order - Andreas Deja, Tom Sito, Raoul Garcia , Nik Ranieri, and Charles Solomon. Many thanks to Charles for bringing everyone together. He is a wonderful writer and you can pre-order his latest excellent book here:

- Alex

(Editor's Note: You can read more about the end of 2D animation at Disney here)

From the Disney Vault - A Screening of Rarities

From Disney Studios' Dave Bossert:

"Don Hahn and I will be doing another evening of Disney Rarities at the Newport Beach Film Festival this Wednesday, May 2, 2012.  This is our 5th year doing the festival and we have put together a great show with some rarely seen Disney bits.  If you are around Newport Beach on Wednesday, drop by for a fun screening at the Lido Theater, at 7:30."

Dave, Don, and Roy Disney screened my short "Redux Riding Hood" back in '07 - the first screening in nearly ten years.  This may be your only chance to see these films on the big screen.  If you're in Southern California, don't miss it!  - Steve


Click here for more information and to buy tickets.

Duncan Studios' Project on Kickstarter

Duncan Studio is turning to Kickstarter to independently fund their interactive storybook, My Beastly ABC's.





Ken Duncan told FLIP:


"The iPhone/iPad app market is growing daily, and we wanted to experiment with something that would be graphic and simple as there are currently some limitations on the amount of full animation that can be accomplished.  Our intention for creating a storybook app was to make something fun and educational for kids that would deliver interactivity not achievable with the traditional book format.


We came up with the My Beastly ABCs concept to design stylized creatures from around the world, interwoven into a story of a boy who has difficulty getting to sleep because of the beasts he encounters.  The viewer is able to interact with the beasts and discover, as the boy does, that they are not to be feared. The goal is to not only encourage kids to read, but to create an enjoyable piece of entertainment with a comprehensive narrative.


We were very fortunate to get Jim Dale, world famous narrator of the Harry Potter books, on board as our story's reader/performer.  He narrates the story from the boy's point of view, an adult looking back at a time when he was young.  The entire process, so far, has been very gratifying because we were able to conceive and approve ideas with a small crew, not with a long, multi-layered approval process. 


The current plan is to release the app later this summer.  We recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to complete and market the project at the highest quality level possible.  The desire is for our studio to continue developing more original apps, with a focus on personalities and unique styles."

Visit Ken's Kickstarter page and donate if you can.  

Help independents like Duncan Studio thrive .

Disney MGM Studios, Summer of 1989 - Part 2

Roger Rabbit by Rob Minkoff - Rob corrects my animation drawings 

One of the best things about working at Disney MGM Studios was being able to go on all the rides for free. In the evenings after work the Park thinned out and, as employees, we could come and go as we pleased. My personal favourite was the Hollywood Tower of Terror a fantasy ride based on the old Twilight Zone TV series. I rode it endlessly and could never get enough of the butterflies-in-the-stomach final plunge. 

Disney MGM Studios, RollerCoaster Rabbit and the summer of 1989 - Part 1

Me at my Disney-MGM desk, animating a scene from Rollercoaster Rabbit

In the summer of 1989 I managed to get a job as an animator at the newly built Disney MGM Studio Theme Park in Florida, set up by "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" Production Manager Max Howard. Max was hired by Disney to build the new studio from scratch, and he quickly set about making a series of short "Roger Rabbit" films with his enthusiastic but fairly inexperienced crew. 

Kelly Asbury - loving his new jeans

Part of the Studio's production expenses were paid by the Park itself, as visitors would pay to watch the animators at work. We called it the goldfish bowl - guests would walk through the studio all day long and watch us draw. The inexperienced and the unlucky had to sit by the window - closely supervised by camera-wielding tourists.

Some of the animators claimed to be able to line up dates by gradually moving through the studio exchanging nods and winks and finally phone numbers with the girls "on the other side". For me it was heaven - my first proper animation gig since Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, a paid summer job in a sunny paradise and a chance to learn and get better at my craft.

Rob Minkoff tells Jim Beihold a thing or two

We were led by the incredibly talented Rob Minkoff - who patiently took the trouble to fix my drawings and squeezed far better work out of me than I thought I was capable of - invariably the sign of a great director.

Master Animator Mark Henn - quality and speed

Lots of extremely able artists got a head start at Disney MGM Studios. I was lucky enough to work with Kevin Turcotte, Kelly Asbury, Mark Henn, Jim Beihold and Tom Bancroft, among many others who brought their huge talents to the studio. 

It was a huge privilege to be there and like everyone else who passed through its doors I thought it was a tragedy that such an excellent studio was eventually closed down by Disney.

-Alex

You can see the second part of this article about Disney MGM studios here, and read more about it in this classic FLIP article.

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!

Faberge Big Egg Hunt comes to Covent Garden

"Pandora" by Martin Aveling

The Faberge Big Egg Hunt is almost over - bids close on Easter Monday for your chance to own a one meter high hand painted fibreglass egg - how can you possibly resist? All the eggs have been gathered together in Covent Garden over the Easter weekend for one last push to break the world record for the world's largest-ever Easter Egg Hunt. Some of them are truly amazing - my personal favourite is "Pandora" - hand painted by the very talented wildlife painter Martin Aveling. The photo doesn't really do it justice - the surface texture has been beautifully rendered so it looks and feels like a real giant egg.

And I was thrilled to see that my egg - The Great Eggscape - is still alive after 6 weeks in the rain - apart from a few sticky handprints it was completely unscathed. One wet cloth and a gentle scrub later and it looks as good as new.

Sarah on egg cleaning duty

Bids close at 5pm on Monday 9th April. Go on....you know you want one! - Alex