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.
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.
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.
Sure, there have been animated logos, but what about animation itself as a logo of sorts? What piqued my curiosity in this was a recent post over at Creative Review, the British magazine that is all things design related.
They recently had a discussion among designers to choose their top logos of all time. The woolmark one won in case your curious. Last week, they posted the shortlists from their panel and there was a surprise lurking far down the page.
It was listed by Miles Newlyn who’s reason for including it was:
Nice animation and memorable mnemonic.
A bit short and sweet to be sure, but he is right in that it’s memorable. The image above has been engrained in the public’s consciousness for nearly 80 years, there must be something good about it, right?
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.
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.
Your task for today is to check out Donald In Mathmagic Land and to ponder the superb visual style of similar education films of the era. It’s available online if you know where to look.
In fact it’s even closer than that, it’s standing just across the street!
Yes, this Sunday (May 1st) plays host to the 42nd annual ASIFA-East Animation Festival in New York City. If you are not familiar with it, it’s the chapter’s annual awards show although it is much more than simply handing out glittering prizes.
It’s been three (!) years since I first attended and the evening has been an absolute pleasure every time. The festival is a fine display of talent from the East Cost and beyond and with such a wide variety of categories, the films are a joy to watch and provide for plenty of entertainment throughout the evening. If you aren’t convinced (shame on you!) check out the signal film for this year’s festival produced by Dan Meth:
Besides getting to see some lovely films, there is also the opportunity to meet lots of really talented people, or as Mr. Warburton would call them, soooooooper talented people. The evening is a superb chance to meet and greet (and explain to everyone why an Irish civil engineer of all people would attend).
Things kick off this Sunday (May 1st) at the Tischman Auditorium in The New School at 6pm. If you love animation and live near New York, you really don’t have any excuse for not being there.
The 42nd ASIFA-East Festival.Sunday, May 1st, 2011 6pm Tishman Auditorium The New School 66 West 12th Street NYC Party/Reception to follow Admission: Free!
Yesterday’s xkcd comic turned up a bit of a surprise. Oh sure, it made me feel as old as the hills (The Lion King came out how long ago???) and it gave me a good laugh. I couldn’t help noticing the list of movies Randall picked for the comic.
Out of 11 films, 5 of them are animated. That’s just under half!
Those films weren’t the only ones to come out those years so why on earth would Randall choose to use them instead of more live-action ones? It would be safe to argue that the animated movies are in fact better but I’d say it’s more likely that because of animation’s timeless qualities, the films’ ages are much harder to judge and as a result can be used for superior comic effect.
It’s just another reminder that animated films stand the test of time much better than live-action.
It’s a tough question that’s not too easy to answer straight off the bat. So let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages and compare them at the end, OK?
Having you own particular style of animation can have many advantages. Although it may sound tough to be unique in a market filled to the brim with creativity, there are always ways to make your own mark. A unique style can serve as a fantastic calling card. For example, look at the picture below. Can you tell who drew it? I bet you can.
It is of course, Bill Plympton. His pencilly style is known throughout the animation world and beyond. The same goes for the likes of Bruce Timm, Matt Groening, John Kricfalusi, David OReilly, etc. etc.
Besides being instantly recogniseable, a particular style can serve you well in your films as well. Arguably Bruce Timm’s style of hard edges and stylized characters and backgrounds served the original Batman: The Animated Series very well and played a significant role in that TV show’s success.
The same goes for the likes of South Park. Yes, it is incredibly crude, but it suits the incredibly crude nature of the show and after so many seasons, it is impossible to imagine it any other way.
Is there anything else a certain style can help you out with? How about merchandising? It’s something that is not necessarily at the forefront of your mind when you create a TV show is it? Or is it? Did you know that Chowder creator C. H. Greenblatt supposedly designed Chowder with a plush toy in mind?
Forget the fact that Cartoon Network never took up the opportunity but think about how easy it would be to turn the round little guy into a toy. Chowder is not a toyetic show in the traditional sense, but it style does lend itself quite well to marketing.
Now the bad news. Can a style hurt your career? Sure, it is easy to become typecast into a particular style although a lot of the time, this could be due to a multitude of other reasons besides the style of your work alone.
In fact, if you think about all the poor animated films out there, the style normally doesn’t even factor into it. Why? Well for one, a lot of poor films attempt to copy successful styles and appear as such, and secondly there are usually even bigger problems with the likes of the story or script that overshadow the style.
As an animator, it is these problems that will be the ones you will have to watch more so than your style. Having said that, there are still plenty of opportunities to go wrong, especially in the are of character design. An area where many non-Disney animated films seemed to fall short (at least according to my mother).
The second danger with having a strong style is that it may go out of fashion. A great example are the fantastic Cartoon Modern TV shows and films put out in the 1950s and early 60s. As fantastic looking as these shorts are now, they apparently could not stay in style forever and by the end of the 1960s, it was extinct in the mainstream.
This is not fault of its own, just the whims of consumer taste. Just bear in mind that if you have a very strong, contemporary feel to your style, you should be prepared to adapt a new one at some point.
Overall, the reasons for adopting your own style far outweigh the disadvantages. Signs of uniqueness and individualism can go a long way in the creative arts (just ask Andy Warhol or Georgia O’Keefe). In animation, developing a particular style should be a priority when it comes to your personal films or indeed your creative pitches to others.
What are your thoughts on a unique animation style?
While reading Amid’s post about the upcoming exhibition of so-called street art at MOCA in Los Angeles, a thought occurred to me. Is there a reason why there is animation in it at all?
What I mean is that, why on earth would such street artists choose to use animated characters? As Amid points out, some have graduated to using their own characters, but the majority will use well known characters (from perhaps some big, evil corporation).
If you think about it, it seems somewhat obvious. We do seem to have a strong attachment to the cartoons and cartoon characters from our youth. Is it a subconscious yearning for the old days? I’m not sure (but feel free to post your theories in the comments below).
I would argue that characters do tend to work their way into your life as a child and they do tend to reside in the ol’ noggin for the rest of your life. They also represent a certain time that you may like to hold dear or perhaps you identified with the character as a youngster. For artists like the ones in the exhibition, cartoon characters can represent a whole host of things, either from their own personal lives or from their work. Either way, they seem to find artistic value in the characters far outside their original purpose.
What is clear is that cartoon characters pop up all over the place. I’ve seen plenty of 18 wheelers with a Tinkerbell sticker on them! I’ve also seen plenty of old folks wearing a Disney sweater or baseball cap. They are surely well outside the target demographic for such things, right? But is it really that surprising to see such things?
All of this is a sign of the relationship that animated characters form with ourselves. If you need any proof, just think about the last time you saw someone some Saved by the Bell merchandise. Such stuff is pretty hard to come by. Now compare it with all the Ren & Stimpy stuff out there. I think the answer speaks for itself.
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:
Magic, that’s what happens. No, seriously, the lads over at 
Yesterday’s xkcd comic
