Monday, January 24, 2011

Mark Kausler Interviewed

If you have ever read a book about American animation history, the odds are that Mark Kausler's name is in the acknowledgments. In fact, if his name isn't there, you probably shouldn't bother to read the book.

Besides being one of the most knowledgeable people on animation's history, Kausler is also an animator himself who has worked on features such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Fantasia 2000 and Osmosis Jones; TV series like Snookums and Meat and his own independent film, It's the Cat (you can view the pencil test here).

The Animation Guild, as part of its continuing series of podcasts, has interviewed Kausler. Here is part one and here's part two.

5 comments:

Thad said...

In fact, if his name isn't there, you probably shouldn't bother to read the book.

I actually laughed out loud reading that, but, A-MEN!

Mark Kausler is not only one of the most knowledgeable and generous historians, he's easily one of the greatest animators alive. We all commiserate over 'how things should be', but Mark's one of the very, very few who can actually do it. If you've enjoyed any Hollywood animation over the past 35 years, chances are you were enjoying some of Mark's work.

I look forward to listening to this interview later today.

Brubaker said...

Mark is one of the most talented and the most generous animation people I've ever met. I'm listening to the interview now.

Floyd Norman said...

Mark Kausler is an animation treasure.

David said...

Ditto all the comments by Thad, Brubaker, and Floyd Norman above.

I was privileged to work as an assistant animator on some of Mark's scenes in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and I can heartily affirm that he is a great animator and an inspiration to work with. A rare combination of someone who knows just about everything there is to know about animation's history and can DO IT , too. His short film "It's the Cat" is one of my favorite modern animated shorts and I was thrilled when Mark showed me the pencil test of his in-progress follow up film "There Must Be Another Cat" at the CTN-Expo in November 2010. It is a worthy successor to "It's the Cat".

warren said...

"follow up film "There Must Be Another Cat" "

COOL! His work is really amazing...and my 4 year old LOVES 'It's the Cat.' So it's not just for FrameHeads...