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July 1, 2008
 "... Max's invention of the rotoscope, the Helen Kane/Betty Boop lawsuit, the animator's strike in 1937, the move of the studio from New York to Miami, and the eventual takeover by Paramout Pictures in the early 1940s."Animation aficionados are encouraged to call into Shokusradio.com, ask questions and chat with these two Fleischer Studio experts! Previously on fps: Labels: Betty Boop, Fleischer Studios, Internet, interviews, Popeye, radio December 7, 2007
 At last year's Ottawa International Animation Festival, I met with I.Toon founder and president Yuichi Ito; at this year's festival, we—along with his manager Hiroko Kamata—sat down to talk about his series of short stop-motion films, Norabbits' Minutes. Created for Shochiku's 110th anniversary, Norabbits' Minutes features two young rabbit brothers who live together in the forest and have endearing adventures together... though not without some absurd twists. As a bonus, we are also presenting the first episode of Norabbits' Minutes in its entirety.Links I.Toon Shochiku Ottawa International Animation Festival Buy the Norabbits' Minutes series on DVD (Region 2) Labels: anime, interviews, Japan, Ottawa International Animation Festival, podcast, shorts, stop-motion, Yuichi Ito  At last year's Ottawa International Animation Festival, I met with I.Toon founder and president Yuichi Ito; at this year's festival, we—along with his manager Hiroko Kamata—sat down to talk about his series of short stop-motion films, Norabbits' Minutes. Listen to the interview and see the short Labels: anime, interviews, OIAF, Ottawa International Animation Festival, shorts, stop-motion October 31, 2007
 Three new podcasts this week, all focusing on the San Francisco Bay Area studio Little Fluffy Clouds. First, two shorts: their 2003 Au Petite Mort, which I favourably reviewed in my coverage of SIGGRAPH 2003; and Alignment, one of three ads they produced for IBM. Finally, there's my interview with Betsy de Fries and Jerry Van de Beek, who have been busily creating animated commercials since they founded the studio in 1996.Labels: commercials, computer animation, interviews, San Francisco, shorts My guests in this podcast are Betsy de Fries and Jerry van de Beek, who form the San Francisco Bay Area studio Little Fluffy Clouds. (And yes, they're named after the Orb song.) Little Fluffy Clouds has been in business since 1996, when the pair left the (Colossal) Pictures studio during its last days. The studio's been busily creating ads for a wide variety of clients since then.Links Little Fluffy Clouds Au Petite Mort IBM: "Alignment" Festival Watch: SIGGRAPH 2003 March 2006 issue of fps, featuring Little Fluffy Clouds' Today Labels: Betsy de Fries, CGI, commercials, computer animation, interviews, Jerry van de Beek, Little Fluffy Clouds, podcast, shorts September 26, 2007
 Interview by Emru Townsend and Tamu TownsendTekkonkinkreet has a long history, having started with a CG short created in the late 1990s, based on the Taiyo Matsumoto manga Black & White. Originally created as an exercise, Tekkonkinkreet was eventually slated to be a feature helmed by seasoned director Koji Morimoto—and then, silence. It wasn’t until late 2005 that it was announced that Tekkonkinkreet was on the boards again, this time with Michael Arias (who had created the original short) directing. The result was a heady, lush and sometimes baffling feature that saw very limited theatrical release in North America and is now out on DVD. Shortly after the film opened this year's Fantasia film festival, we interviewed Michael Arias via e-mail about the story behind Tekkonkinkreet. Read the interview Labels: anime, interviews, Studio 4C, Tekkon Kinkreet August 17, 2007
 In April, the Tokyo-based company Digital Meme released the Japanese Anime Classic Collection, which contained almost 60 animated shorts from Japan's silent era. I recently spoke with Digital Meme CEO Larry Greenberg about this landmark collection, as well as his company.Links Digital Meme Matsuda Film Productions Japanese Anime Classic Collection review Oira no Yakyu [Our Baseball Match] (excerpt) Benshi Labels: anime, Digital Meme, interviews, Japan, Larry Greenberg, podcast, shorts July 2, 2007
 Interview by Kenji IshimaruStudio 4°C has been leading the world of high quality animation in Japan. We interviewed Eiko Tanaka, CEO of Studio 4°C, about their highly anticipated but very secret latest product, called Genius Party. Read the interview Labels: anime, Genius Party, interviews, Studio 4C June 6, 2007
 Ed Hooks is an actor and acting coach who has been helping animators understand the importance of acting theory to improve their craft. He is also the author of Acting for Animators, the first book that was written solely on the subject and has taught the principles of the book to animators the world over.He will be in Montreal on June 11 at Centre NAD to teach his Acting for Animators workshop. Ed was kind enough to answer a few questions I had for him. Tamu Townsend: The first group you instructed were animators on the crew of Antz. How has your workshop changed since then? Besides all of the knowledge you have conferred to animators, what have they taught you and how has it affected your workshops and approach? Ed Hooks: In 1998, Pacific Data Images had recently been acquired by DreamWorks and was in pre-production for its first feature, Antz. Ken Beilenberg, the Special Effects director, happened to be one of my students in my ongoing Palo Alto acting class for actors. One night after class, he asked me if I would be interested in teaching an acting class on-site for the animators at PDI [Pacific Data Images]. He explained that the animators at PDI were working on their first feature film, that they had previously only worked on commercials, and they needed acting training. I'm the kind of person who rarely says "no" to something, and so I agreed. Mind you, I did not know squat about animation at that point. I knew I was a good acting teacher, but that was as far as it went. After that talk with Ken, I shortly thereafter wound up standing in front of a group of about 25 animators at PDI. I made the mistake of trying to teach them acting the same way I taught it in my acting-for-actors classes. I was arrogant enough to belive that there was only one way to teach actnng. I brought in scripts, had the animators get up and "cold read" them, assigned them scene partners and told them to go home and rehearse, to commit scenes to memory. By the third week, I had lost about half the class. That was when the Human Resources people at PDI took me to lunch. "This isn't working, Ed," they explained. "I can see that," I replied. "But Ken says you are a good acting teacher and so, if you want to try something else, we'll keep paying you." I went back to the animators and started all over again. "I know a lot about acting," I said, "But I obviously do not know much about animation. If you guys will tell me exactly what you do, I will do my best to bring what I know to bear on your work process." And so they sat me down at their computers and showed me what they did, which was an eye-opener to me. I went back to the drawing board. How could I teach acting theory to people who did not, in fact, want to be actors? Very few animators even fantasized about appearing on Broadway or in a Robert DeNiro movie. Indeed, probably more than eighty percent of the animators were too shy to get up in front of people. This was a different situation than I faced in my regular acting classes for actors. I decided to teach the animators at PDI with a combination of lectures on basic acting theory, supported by clips from live-action movies. That was how it all started. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention. What I do today in my Acting for Animators workshops had its beginnings back there at PDI in 1998. I have expanded and refined on it, of course, but the basics of the class began there. Since those early days at PDI, I have taught for most of the major animation studios and game companies. Each time, I try to improve on what I did the last time. A year or so after I taught for PDI/DreamWorks, I started looking for books that addressed the difference between actors and animators. There were none, and that is what led to Acting for Animators. To this very day, I continue to refine what goes on in the class, but I now have a concrete understanding of what animators do and how it differs from what stage actors do. I continue to teach stage actors but, when I teach animators, I essentially change hats. Actors operate in the "present moment"; animators, by contrast, do not really have a present moment. Animators have twenty-four-frames-make-a-second. Animators have the illusion of a present moment. One must therefore teach acting theory to actors in a different way than one teaches it to animators. I learned the lessson, with the help of PDI/DreamWorks, the hard way. TT: Do you feel that animators that use different techniques - 3D, 2D, stop-motion - will get the same use from the course? Are there certain components that may speak more or be more important to one person because of the technique he or she uses? EH: Acting theory is acting theory, and it doesn't matter what animation technique you use: it is all about storytelling, and the process is ancient, going all the way back to Aristotle. I teach that the origins of acting lie in shamanism. An actor steps in front of the tribe, draws a circle in the dirt and says, in effect, "Listen to me. I have something to tell you." The tribe gathers round, hoping to learn something about survival on earth. The story is everything. It doesn't matter if you are using 2D, 3D, stop motion or... whatever. If you have something useful to say to the tribe, it will be well taken. If you do not, it will not. TT: Mark Mayerson would like to know, when you are doing talks at studios, if you make recommendations for keeping characters consistent given that multiple animators will be working with the same character. That's obviously a problem that live actors don't have to deal with. EH: I recommend that, at the beginning of a project, the animation director establish a "character bible" that contains everything there is to know about each individual character. Usually, the character bible is a three-ring notebook. It contains drawings of the characters, biographies, descriptions, et cetera. All of the animators working on a particular character should refer back to that bible. It should be kept in some place that is open to the entire production team. TT: Do you have a specific teaching experience you would like to share? EH: One of my students- Sharon Coleman- received an Academy Award nomination in 2006. Ms. Coleman was in my class in Swansea, South Wales and again at the National Film School in the UK. I had the opportunity to monitor her progress, from initial idea all the way to final 2D execution of Badgered. I was fortunate to be able to give her advice at several different stages of development. Sharon is a brilliant storyteller and animator, currently working for DreamWorks in Los Angeles, but at that time she was a student. I am proud of my input into her project. My worst experience would probably be at a game company- not to be named. I was hired to teach an Acting for Animators class and, before the class started, the company owner took me into his office to explain what he wanted. He showed me a sports video, a football thing. He explained that he had himself performed as a mo-cap [motion capture] performer for some of the crashes and falls. He wanted me to teach his animators to do "good acting" such as he was doing in his mo-cap suit. Oh, Jesus! The man was very nice, but he didn't have a clue about acting! Taking falls on-camera had nothing whatever to do with acting theory. I can remember grinning at him and assuring him that I would teach them how to do it right. Then I went into workshop and taught my regular class. TT:After Montreal, where will you go next in 2007? EH: For certain, I will be working at Swansea Animation Days in Swansea, South Wales, and at Animex in Teesside, England and at FMX in Stuttgart, Germany. It is looking like I will be going to Australia for the third time in late September. The last time I taught in Oz was for Animal Logic, which was at the time working on Happy Feet. Labels: books, interviews, Montreal, schools, workshops June 4, 2007
 Madame Tutli-Putli is a remarkable work for many reasons, but the one that many (including me) have seized on is the one that continues the tradition of combining live-action and animation: the "gimmick" of compositing live actors' eyes onto the movies' stop-motion puppets. (The image to the left is Laurie Maher—Madame Tutli-Putli's co-creator, as it were—providing a reaction shot.) It is, perhaps, a form of motion capture that Robert Zemeckis and company never dreamed of.That bit of trickery was achieved by Montreal-based painter/animator/compositor Jason Walker, who dropped me a line earlier today and pointed me to his website, which provides a glimpse into the process of capturing actors' ocular performances and then matching them up seamlessly. Still, after poking around I found I needed more, so I went straight to the source. Jason Walker: When I'm painting a portrait, one of the priorities, to me, is creating an exact likeness of the subject. Painting a human face requires a great deal of accuaracy. If any feature is even slightly off, you have a different person. The placement of eyes, especially, are key to making a person look human. For Madame Tutli-Putli I placed, rotated, and scaled each eye individually, by the pixel, to make sure that Tutli's character was consistent through the four years of compositing. I used the same approach as painting a likeness. Tutli's eyes were also slightly stretched vertically to give her more of a sympathetic look. ET: You're a little vague in your description of your process for matching human eyes to stop-motion actors. You used "every trick in the book and more," as you put it. Can you give us a detailed breakdown of one of those tricks? JW: Vague, you say! Okay, you asked for it! First of all, this technique of adding human eyes to stop-motion puppets is extremely complicated and starts long before the compositing stage. I will be adding more information on the technique to my website once Tutli has had time be in a festival or two before showing her "un-masked." We decided that seeing Tutli with no eyes, and just the silicone puppet, is quite shocking and should be held back. The technique itself is a system I came up with back in 2003 when Tutli was still in talks with the NFB. I had worked on post-production effects for Clyde Henry Productions for several years before Tutli-Putli, and this was simply our latest collaboration and a chance to try a new challenge. I would start by applying makeup to an actor. For Tutli's character this makeup would evolve throughout the film. With the "Pervert" character, and the small boy, I would add texture to the actor's skin to resemble the puppet they were to inhabit. I would then choreograph the actor's moves based on a chart that I would create. A "Wunderbar," as they became known. This was my way of breaking down the moves that the stop-motion puppet was making. This timeline for each eye shot in the film would also indicate every time there would be a light flash or shadow pass on the puppet. With this puppet's actions indicated in colours, I could teach the actor to replicate the head moves. Once the moves were rehearsed, Chris and Maciek could then direct the actors for the context of the scene while I would call out the moves, and light flashes, shadows, etc. The actors were incredible at learning their choreographed moves, and giving great acting performances. We had Laurie Maher (Tutli-Putli) cry for two long days of eye takes for the dining car scenes. Depending on the complexity of the shot, we would film between 15-20 takes of eyes for each scene supplying a range of acting, and a varying degree of head angles. Chris and Maciek would then review the takes and make a final decision based only on acting, and then I would import the take, and try a quick test on the puppet footage to see if I could make the timing and moves work. Very few takes had to be discarded, so I got the angles I needed, and Chris and Maciek got the acting take they wanted. Matching the eyes to the puppet footage presented many unique problems. When you film a person going through their moves, it never matches up... ever! The timing is way off, no matter how hard you try. So I decided not to even try matching the timing, just the head angles and lights. One trick was to re-time the footage in an extreme way. This is what gives Tutli her stop-motion style of realism. The eyes are in fact "re-animated" frames. If I had a puppet take that lasted 200 frames, and the chosen eye take lasted 3,000 frames, I would selectively take only the frames that I could use to re-build the acting performances whilst staying within the restrictions of the moves and light changes. Tutli might need to blink over 10 frames, so I could re-create a blink which retains the acting from the video blink that lasts 20+ frames. For example, you can make a blink sleepy or sudden with the same take if it's re-timed differently. I tried at the beginning to rely on the computer for tracking but it wasn't nearly subtle enough. I decided that placing the eyes by hand for each frame was the only way to do it, and was actually faster. I would use alpha masks to remove all of the actor apart from their eyes, eyebrows, and partial under-eye, using varying feathered edges to match the facial structure of the puppet. This required a lot of painting experience. Many pieces were painted still patches, touched up in Photoshop, and positioned over problem joins or missing skin, fading in and out over time. This was one hurdle, another was matching colour. Almost every frame of Tutli-Putli flickers because she is on a moving train. The only way to match eyes into this was to film as many of the big flashes at the time of the eye take, the rest have to be created with brightness and contrast tools, and colour balancing the darks, mediums and highlights to match every frame. Film grain was matched. Motion blurs [were matched], and making the eyes look like they were behind dirty glass in some shots. Making Tutli's puppet hair fall back over her composited eyes was a handy little trick I used. Filming the eyes would take about 3 hours per shot, compositing them seamlessly into a shot would take about 2 to 10 days. ET: What software applications were in your compositing toolbox? JW: I used Adobe After Effects for the compositing, and Photoshop to paint the facial patches. After Effects had its quirks, but it was quite solid over four years. From the start of the film in 2003 I went through 3 versions of After Effects. ET: In the four years that Madame Tutli-Putli was in production, computer and video hardware got faster and more flexible while software became more powerful. As time went on, did this allow you to do more in less time, or did it open up more options? JW: No, I got faster with practice, but the computer was always a bit slow. This project has been a 2D effect from the start so compositing shouldn't be too hard on the computer. However, as your readers will know, being able to flip through your last few frames in stop-motion is crucial to developing the flow of the move. Sometimes I would have to manipulate the eyes so much that the computer was never fast enough at frame advancing all the separate layers, masks, and colour effects attached to each eye. This was always a problem. This effect has to be in full resolution mode all the time to see if it matches. Very slow. Labels: interviews, Madame Tutli-Putli, National Film Board of Canada, NFB, stop-motion May 25, 2007
 We're still picking our jaws up off the floor a month after checking out the website for Style5, a new Toronto-based studio that's all about applying bolder, contemporary illustrative style to animation. We virtually sat down with creative director Sam Chou for a quick e-mail interview. (Thanks to Kino Kid for coming up with the questions.)Emru Townsend: How did this madness come about and where do you want it to go? Sam Chou: You're right, it is madness! We started Style5 because we are passionate about animation, both Chuck [Gammage] and I are traditional animators and we love the medium, but we were disapointed by how animation is viewed here in North America. It's a form of art, and a technique to tell a story, there are no limits... infinite possibilities! So why are there so many boundaries? And why are we still doing wacky talking animals? Style5 is our venture to change people's view on animation. ET: I don't think we've ever seen a studio in North America with such a high percentage of non-white creators. Proportionally, boutique or no, that's just weird (and good). Is this a plus or minus in Canada? In the US? Internationally? SC: Hey, you're right! (I actually never noticed that.) We chose all of our designers because we love their work. They all have great insight on culture and what's going on in the world, and it shows in their art. I think it's very important for an artist to have that. I guess that's what makes us different. The world is getting smaller and we see it every day. Everything is changing, not just film or television. North America is changing. The world is changing. Is is important to be culturally diverse? Definitely! ET: Would you cringe from or embrace the word "urban" to define your sensibilities? How do you define the word "urban?" SC: Urban. Hmmmm... The only reason why I'd cringe is because of the overuse of the word. "Urban-chic condo," "urban music," "urban cell-phone plan." It seems to be the "it" word now. Otherwise, you're right. We get much of our inspiration from the city. The fashion, the sounds, the music, the dirt and the grime of the city, we see graffiti everyday, it's all around us. It affects and inspires us. ET: What type of music do you listen to and how does it influence your art? SC: Music is my biggest influence by far. I have too many favorites... Album Leaf, Ratatat, Air, Metric, The Feathers, RJD2, Kid Koala, Supercar. I've recently been obsessed with 80's mashups. ET: You list a series in development, The Wrong Block, as a recent project. Can you tell us about that? SC: The Wrong Block is a series we are working on. It's a serial crime/action adventure. It follows a middle-aged, tough-as-nails detective as he's tracking down an old adversary, who has kidnapped a billionaire heiress. The way it's written is quite interesting, it's almost like one story being told three different ways, through the eyes of three different characters. Keep checking the site, we are going to be putting a development page up with lots of new artwork. ET: What kind of project would you like to work on right now? What kind of client do you want to walk in and say, "I want you to do _____ for me." SC: I've always wanted to do a sneaker commercial, all traditionally animated. You don't see that too often. My dream project, though, is an RJD2 music video, or a Kid Koala. ET: What animation do you think people are ready for that they aren't getting right now? SC: I'd like to see an animated feature, aimed for adults that has action, intrigue, mystery, murder! There, I said it! Murder! ET: What are you watching these days? (Live or animated.) SC: Wacky talking animals. Labels: advertising, interviews, Toronto May 16, 2007
 Last Friday I sat down to talk with Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, who make up Clyde Henry Productions. They were getting ready to leave for France, where their ambitious stop-motion film Madame Tutli-Putli was selected for the International Critics' Week at the Cannes film festival. We spoke at length about cinematic influences, our previous encounter at the beginning of production, and why comparing them to the Brothers Quay is a bad idea; you can find the podcast here, if you don't already subscribe to the feed. (And why not? The link's in the sidebar to the right.) Also, check out our video podcast, where I present some excerpts from the 2001 animatic of the film. (See, if you subscribed you'd already know about that.)If you're not currently in France, you won't have much of a chance to see Madame Tutli-Putli in full just as yet. I'd recommend that you head over to the official website and take a look. Labels: festivals, interviews, Madame Tutli-Putli, National Film Board of Canada, NFB, stop-motion May 15, 2007
 Clyde Henry Productions is Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, a team of multimedia artists who have been working together in animation and effects since 1997. But for about half that time, the pair locked themselves in a dark room to produce Madame Tutli-Putli, a seventeen-minute stop-motion short for the National Film Board of Canada. The title character, a demure and hesitating young woman, boards a train for an overnight journey in what appears to be 1920s Europe. But her journey is filled with strange passengers and even stranger events.Madame Tutli-Putli is exquisitely produced, with meticulously crafted puppets and carefully worn sets and props. It's a wordless fever-dream of a story that nails you to your chair—even in its quietest moments, you get the feeling that something isn't quite right. Part of that unsettling feeling comes from what Chris Lavis calls the "gimmick" of digitally compositing human eyes onto the puppets, which produces a haunting effect that's difficult to ignore. I spoke with the Clydes last Friday, just a few days before they were off to France. Madame Tutli-Putli was selected for the International Critics' Week at the Cannes film festival, and it's also slated to screen at the Annecy animation festival a few weeks after that. When we met at a local pub, they'd just finished several whirlwind days of publicity, and were recharging their batteries with a few pints before getting ready for their trip. Clyde Henry Productions' next project is The White Circus, a feature in development at the National Film Board. Links Clyde Henry Productions Madame Tutli-Putli Marcy Page spotlight (from the July 2005 issue of fps) Photo credit: National Film Board of Canada Labels: Canada, Chris Lavis, Clyde Henry Productions, interviews, Maciek Szczerbowski, Madame Tutli-Putli, Montreal, National Film Board of Canada, NFB, podcast, shorts, stop-motion March 14, 2007
Just corrected a minor oversight: For people who'd rather not download our last two video podcasts but are still interested in the interviews, I've added two audio-only versions for your enjoyment, with the earlier one back-dated to when it was supposed to go up. You'll find the Bruno Girveau interview here and the Lella Smith interview here.
Labels: Disney, events, exhibitions, interviews, Montreal  Much of the artwork seen at the Once Upon a Time Walt Disney exhibit comes courtesy of the Disney Animation Research Library, which is under the direction of Lella Smith, who was present for the exhibit's opening at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art.Photo credit: Emru Townsend Labels: Disney, exhibitions, interviews, Lella Smith, Montreal, podcast Much of the artwork seen at the Once Upon a Time Walt Disney exhibit comes courtesy of the Disney Animation Research Library, which is under the direction of Lella Smith. In this video podcast you can listen to my interview with her while watching a slideshow of some of the Library's artwork that's on display at the exhibit.Watch the video Labels: Disney, events, exhibitions, interviews, Montreal Much of the artwork seen at the Once Upon a Time Walt Disney exhibit comes courtesy of the Disney Animation Research Library, which is under the direction of Lella Smith. In this video podcast you can listen to my interview with her while watching a slideshow of some of the Library's artwork that's on display at the exhibit.Photo credit: Emru Townsend Labels: Disney, exhibitions, interviews, Lella Smith, Montreal, podcast March 12, 2007
 Veteran Disney animator Andreas Deja was an unexpected guest at the press conference for the Once Upon a Time Walt Disney exhibit at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. I sat down with him and talked about how he was inspired to become an animator, and how he feels about anime, CGI, and people referencing his animation the way he used to reference his predecessors.Listen to the interview Labels: Disney, events, exhibitions, interviews, Montreal  Veteran Disney animator Andreas Deja was an unexpected guest at the press conference for the Once Upon a Time Walt Disney exhibit at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. I sat down with him and talked about how he was inspired to become an animator, and how he feels about anime, CGI, and people referencing his animation the way he used to reference his predecessors.Links Andreas Deja (Wikipedia) Photo credit: Emru Townsend Labels: Andreas Deja, Disney, exhibitions, interviews, Montreal, podcast March 7, 2007
The Once Upon a Time Walt Disney exhibit opens tomorrow at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and we did a tour of the exhibit yesterday. We've got a lot to say about the exhibit, but right now I'd like to point you to our first video podcast, in which we give a taste of what's on display, and interview curator Bruno Girveau. (Anime fans will also want to check out the interview for a surprise Girveau drops toward the end.) Labels: Disney, events, exhibitions, interviews On March 8th, the exhibition Once Upon a Time Walt Disney opens at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Yesterday we did a tour of the exhibit, which presents the work of the Walt Disney Studio from 1928 (the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, Plane Crazy) through to 1967 (The Jungle Book), in its artistic context. Hundreds of production drawings, concept sketches, background paintings, character studies and film clips are presented side by side with classical artwork and contemporary media to show how Walt Disney and his artists drew from the world around them to create animated movies that are still astonishing to this day. In this podcast I interview the exhibit's curator, Bruno Girveau.Links The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Shop Once Upon a Time Walt Disney (hardcover) Il était une fois Walt Disney (hardcover) Labels: Bruno Girveau, Disney, exhibitions, interviews, Montreal, podcast On March 8th, the exhibition Once Upon a Time Walt Disney opens at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Yesterday we did a tour of the exhibit, which presents the work of the Walt Disney Studio from 1928 (the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, Plane Crazy) through to 1967 (The Jungle Book), in its artistic context. Hundreds of production drawings, concept sketches, background paintings, character studies and film clips are presented side by side with classical artwork and contemporary media to show how Walt Disney and his artists drew from the world around them to create animated movies that are still astonishing to this day. You can see a sampling of the exhibit in this video podcast, as well as my interview with curator Bruno Girveau.Links The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Shop Once Upon a Time Walt Disney (hardcover) Il était une fois Walt Disney (hardcover) Labels: Bruno Girveau, Disney, exhibitions, interviews, Montreal, podcast February 10, 2007
 Earlier this week Hellboy: Sword of Storms, the first in a series of original animated Hellboy movies, came out on DVD—just a little over four months after its debut on Cartoon Network. Last December, Emru Townsend spoke with Tad Stones, who wrote, directed and produced the movie.Links Hellboy Animated Shop Hellboy DVDs, books and more Labels: Cartoon Network, features, Hellboy, interviews, OAVs, podcast, Tad Stones October 26, 2006
 One year ago today, we held our second Animation Innovator event, in which we invited Corpse Bride animation co-director Mike Johnson to come to Montreal to speak about his craft and his work on the movie. In this podcast we revisit that event, as well as present some new material.Film Clips Mike Johnson on HypaSpace (2:05, 20.2 MB, MPEG-4) Links Natasha Eloi Matt Forsythe Kevin Holden and Trudie Mason Mark Osborne AnimationTrip CJAD Space: The Imagination Station fps Links Mike Johnson interview Animation Innovator: Mike Johnson Photo Gallery Corpse Bride review Suggest an Animation Innovator Guest Shop Corpse Bride DVDs, CDs, books and more The Devil Came Down to Georgia (as part of the Animals Should Not Try to Act Like People compilation) Credits: Photo © Warner Bros. Entertainment; podcast opening and closing audio from The Corpse Bride soundtrack Labels: features, interviews, Mike Johnson, podcast, stop-motion August 28, 2006
In our second podcast, I interview Canadian animator Chris Hinton, tracing the course of his animation career from the mid-1970s to the present, much of which has been through the National Film Board of Canada. Hinton's work has evolved considerably over the last thirty years, starting with the kind of cartoony style that most people identify with animation, and now leaning toward abstract explorations of music and sound. But in all cases, his work exhibits a twitchy vibrancy that's all his own. He's been nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film twice, for Blackfly (1991) and Nibbles (2003). Both films are very different in appearance and execution, but they're both distinctly Chris Hinton films. For the last 17 years, Hinton has also been teaching animation at Concordia University here in Montreal (and, in fact, I was among his first students). In the course of this interview, we also explored his observations about today's emerging animators.Animation Lingo In the podcast, we make references to fields and smears. A field guide is a reference for standardized frame sizes to accommodate both the film/TV viewing area and the animation camera. The higher the field number, the larger the frame. A smear is, literally, a smear of colour in a frame that indicates something moving quickly; essentially, hand-drawn motion blur. Film Clips Blackfly (1991; 0:25, 1.3 MB, MPEG-1) Watching TV (1994; 0:30, 1.5 MB, MPEG-1) Flux (2002; 0:25; 1.3 MB, MPEG-1) cNote (2004; 0:34, 1.7 MB, MPEG-1) Links Chris Hinton Dennis Tupicoff Blackfly Flux Cinémathèque québécoise National Film Board of Canada Credits: Photo provided by the National Film Board of Canada; podcast opening and closing audio from cNote Labels: Canada, Chris Hinton, interviews, National Film Board of Canada, NFB, podcast, shorts March 25, 2006
Emru Townsend interviews British animator Phil Mulloy, who was recently in Montreal to host a retrospective of his work at the Cinémathèque québécoise. Phil Mulloy is a prolific animator who has created over twenty films in the last sixteen years, and in many of his works, the landscape and characters are stark and grotesque: rendered in black paint and ink, his characters are mostly in silhouette, with skeletal bodies, large, bony hands, and distended mouths with jutting teeth. Animation is accomplished by manipulating cutouts of his painted and drawn images. And while his plots have varied, they often feature themes of sex, persecution, violence, the body, and religion. Emru Townsend, Phil Mulloy, and Marco de Blois. Film Clips Cowboys: High Noon (1991; 0:43, 2.0 MB, MPEG-1) The Sex Life of a Chair (1998; 0:59, 2.7 MB, MPEG-1) Intolerance I (2000; 0:59, 2.7 MB, MPEG-1) Intolerance II (2001; 1:00, 2.7 MB, MPEG-1) The Christies: Mister Yakamoto (2006; 0:27, 2.0 MB, MPEG-1) Links Phil Mulloy Cinémathèque québécoise Lotte Reiniger David Anderson Credits: Photo by Tamu Townsend; podcast introduction audio from Intolerance I Labels: interviews, Phil Mulloy, podcast, shorts, silhouette animation, United Kingdom |
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