May 2011

How ‘Film Rights’ Screw Everyone, Not Just The Artist

Via: Still from ‘Enrique Wrecks The World‘ and incredibly funny short film that I cannot show you.

The other evening I spent some time watching some very fine films at the Maryland Film Festival. It was an enjoyable time with some great films. So, being the animation enthusiast that I am, I thought I would share some of these films that I saw with my readers.

Surprise! The majority (but not all) are not available online. Why? If I were to hazard a guess, it is because festivals and distributors insist on certain clauses covering rights to the films which dictate when those films can and cannot be shown. Want to enter it in some festivals? Sorry, it can’t be also available online. Want to get a distribution deal? Sorry, it can’t also be available online.

How does this screw everyone? The people who want to see the film can’t see it while the person who needs it to be seen by people is SOL.

Posting one or two of the films here may not do much, but it won’t hurt either. Animation should be seen by everyone, not just the folks who made the effort and braved the rain to see them.

/rant

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The Maryland Film Fest, Cars 2 Posters & Michael Sporn on the ASIFA-East Festival

MD Film Fest

Last night was a lot of fun down at the Charles Theater in Baltimore. The screening was packed and there was lots of top quality animation to be seen along with plenty of laughs and applause.

The shorts will be screened again on Sunday evening at 5pm in case you missed them.

Cars 2 Posters

Via: Hollywood.com

As much as I have already discussed the ones created by Eric Tan, the latest batch (such as above) truly boggle the mind. For one of the top creative companies on the planet to turn out/approve such banal works is most disappointing. Especially when the concern things like cars, objects elevated to the status of art a long time ago.

Besides that, the ‘puns’ for titles make for almost gut-wrenching reading. They are neither funny nor appropriate.

Based on what I’ve seen, I’d say we’re headed for Pixar’s first major misstep. You heard it here first.

Michael Sporn on the ASIFA-East Festival

Last week the ASIFA-East Festival took place in New York. I wasn’t there for personal reasons but I read about the winners the following day. Seeing as I had a final exam on Tuesday, I congratulated a few winners and carried on with my life.

However, it seems that a heated discussion blew up on Cartoon Brew after the list of winners were posted. Sometimes negativity can cloud the debate and spoil it for everyone. Which is exactly what happened here.

Michael Sporn has posted a sage response on his blog that is the best I’ve read. If you are in doubt about the society or its voting procedures, you should read it. I’m glad I read it first before the Brew comments.

 

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This Weekend: Animated Shorts in Baltimore.

Yes, something animation-related on my own doorstep! Starting tonight, May 6th, the Maryland Film Festival runs until Sunday. Besides loads of great films, there is an animated shorts segment featuring the following:

  • BOTTLE, Kirsten Lepore, 6 mins
  • THE COW WHO WANTED TO BE A HAMBURGER, Bill Plympton, 6 mins
  • ENRIQUE WRECKS THE WORLD, David Chai, 5 mins
  • FAMILY PORTRAIT, Joseph Pierce, 5 mins, UK
  • FLESH COLOR, Masahiko Adachi, 4 mins, Japan
  • HONEYSUCKLE BLUE, Miranda Pfeiffer, 5 mins
  • KIDNAP, Sijia Luo, 4 mins
  • ONCE IT STARTED IT COULD NOT END OTHERWISE, Kelly Sears, 8 mins
  • STANLEY PICKLE, Victoria Mather, 9 mins, UK
  • THIS ROOM IS WHITE, Karen Yasinsky, 5 mins
  • WONDER HOSPITAL, Beomsik Shimbe, 12 mins, Japan
  • X.O. GENESIS, Rowan Wernham, 12 mins, New Zealand

Some names are familiar, some not so familiar so it appears you are in for a treat.Last year featured Elliot Cowan’s masterpiece ‘Brothers in Arms‘ so you know the bar is set quite high.

The shorts will be screened tonight (Friday) at 9:30pm in the Charles Theatre (I’ll be there) and again on Sunday in the Windup Space at 5:00pm. Tickets are $10.

You can find full details of the program as well as complete info on the Maryland Film Festival here.

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What Happens When Two Irish Guys Interview John R. Dilworth?

Magic, that’s what happens. No, seriously, the lads over at The Comic Cast recently managed to collar him the recent screening of his films at The Big Screen Project in New York and have a chat with him.

Besides hearing to the thick Irish brogues of Liam Geraghty and Craig O Connor, there are some great questions about Dilworth’s career and how he ended up in animation as well as some of his unique sense of humour. There is also some great tips for aspiring animators and some talk about Courage the Cowardly Dog.

Start your day off right! Head on over the The Comic Cast and have a listen!

 

 

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Were the 1980s the Golden Age for Girl Cartoons?

Ultra, from Dan Meth's Meth Minute 39 series. A parody of Gem and described by Meth himself as: "a loving tribute to 1987, when cartoons were just badly animated toy commercials and women who rocked were outrageous."

Over at Fanboy.com they have a post that counts down some of the top (in their opinion) girl oriented cartoons of the 1980s, the supposed golden age for the genre.

The list includes the likes of:

  • She-Ra
  • Strawberry Shortcake
  • Punky Brewster
  • My Little Pony
  • Jem
  • Gummi Bears
  • Care Bears

While it is admirable that such a list be compiled, it does seem to miss the point when it comes to animation and who it is aimed at. Just because a show has a female lead does not automatically make it a ‘girly’ show. For examples, see Kim Possible and My Life as a Teenage Robot, two shows with very prominent female leads but far from girly (both contain numerous shots of people getting punched in the nose).

The same goes for the content, just because it isn’t all guns, lasers and fast cars does not mean that no boy is ever going to watch it. I got plenty of mileage out of both the Gummi Bears and Care Bears when I was young, and I certainly didn’t think they were aimed at girls in the slightest.

The post does kind of lament the decline of these kinds of shows, but that is not without reason. Firstly, the majority were created to sell toys, and you can’t really sell a girls toy without a girly show to go along with it. A fine example is My Little Pony, you might as well make that about as girly as they come.

Secondly, the rise of cable networks and the subsequent re-emergence of creator-driven programming eliminated toyetic shows like these almost overnight. This caused a bit of a shift in thinking wherein the shows became the source for toys and not the other way around. As a result, the nature of children’s broadcasting changed dramatically and the quality increased accordingly.

Nowadays you see shows that can appeal equally to everyone and that are of far superior quality to those we were accustomed to in the 80s. In retrospect, the ‘golden age’ was just a fad.

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Disney & Pixar Should Not Make Any Marvel Cartoons

I apologise for this post. It is by far the worst I have written although I am sure it is not the last. The only reason I leave it up is as a reminder of the kind of post you should not post on your blog.

There I said it. Disagree if you must, but please hear me out before you judge me!

Two years ago, The Walt Disney Company agreed to buy Marvel Entertainment in a massive deal that cost so much money, I could very happily live for the remainder of my years on 0.01% of it. The question arose at the time and it still exists today in what will the company do with the new acquisition?

Many answers abounded with one of the most prominent being the possibility that the Walt Disney Company could use its superior animation skills and artists to create some wonderful new Marvel-related entities.

There are numerous problems with this approach and I suppose the fact that we are discussing it two years after the fact is proof enough. Firstly, Disney and Marvel do not see eye to eye when it comes to their content.

Who would a Disney-produced Marvel TV show/film appeal to? Oh sure the likes of the X-Men films can be theoretically suitable for kids, but I’d be willing to be that the Old Man would be spinning in his grave at the thought of the company he built putting out such stuff.

Disney is purportedly all about the family whereas Marvel is about the individual. Each approach tends to deal with very different approaches to the story and characters and there is little common ground between them save for the fact that individuals can enjoy family-orientated entertainment too.

Who would produce the content? Marvel has its own department for such things but Disney has all the necessary staff. Can you imagine Disney artists working under people accustomed to comics? I can’t and I doubt the artists can either.

Comic animation is also very different to what Disney is accustomed to. The current artists wouldn’t be able to work on it so new ones would have to be found. Besides that, Disney has never done a comic-style film or TV show. Tron is about as close as they got and even then that was technically live-action.

On a related note, would Pixar take up the challenge? According to head honcho John Lasseter, no:

No, not at Pixar. We have The Incredibles, so we’ve done superheroes here ourselves and so we have that kind of history with Brad Bird doing The Incredibles.

Arguably the best situation is to run both companies independently. There is little common ground so why exert all the effort to merge for no real benefit. Unlike TimeWarner, Disney has no need for excuses when it comes to keeping its comic department separate from its animation one.

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