Ottawa Festival Report

My visit to the Ottawa International Animation Festival got off to a bad start. I usually walk from the bus station to the hotel, but it was pouring rain when I arrived. As the walk would have been a half hour, I would have been thoroughly soaked, so I was forced to take a cab.

The wireless at my hotel was not working when I arrived, which was frustrating. The first program I attended was the International Student Showcase, which was a unrelieved depression and boredom. It may be the choice of films or maybe students are actually this depressed, pretentious and boring, but I was contemplating never coming back to the festival during this screening.

Fortunately, this was the low point and things rapidly improved. The next thing I attended was Amid Amidi's presentation on Ward Kimball, a teaser for his forthcoming book Full Steam Ahead: The Life and Art of Ward Kimball.  Amidi covered things I didn't know about Kimball's childhood and his artistic evolution.  Kimball's father had repeated business failures and seemingly moved the family to a new location after every one.  It prevented Kimball from forming long-term friendships and made drawing more attractive as it was one of the few areas of his life that Kimball could control.  Amidi talked about the influence of T. Hee on Kimball, moving Kimball's art more towards simplified design.  The talk was illustrated by unpublished paintings, drawings and home movies.  Amidi has the cooperation of the Kimball family, including access to the journals that Kimball kept during his time at Disney, so he had access to a rich source of material not common in other Disney books.   I pre-ordered the book as soon as Amazon listed it, and I am even more anxious to read it after seeing this presentation.

I started Saturday seeing part of an interview with Elliot Cowan conducted by Richard O'Connor.  Cowan is at work on an independent animated feature starring his characters Boxhead and Roundhead, the star of several shorts.  It's great that so many animators are tackling the challenge of a feature either solo or with small crews.  It's more likely we'll see artistic and thematic growth in these films than in mainstream animated features.

That was followed by a panel discussion of professional etiquette for job seekers and people pitching in animation.  I've attended several of these panels and they all hit the same notes: research who you're talking to and make sure you're a good fit, be brief, get to the point, and network like crazy.

Ralph Bakshi

Ralph Bakshi's talk was easily a highlight.  Unfortunately, it was not well-attended and people missed a tremendous opportunity to hear an important figure.  Bakshi readily confessed to the shortcomings of his films, but stressed the conditions they were made under.  He couldn't afford pencil tests and there was no room for retakes.  He talked about the incessant battles over money, ratings, distribution, etc.  His attitude has always been that it's better to say something in a flawed way than to say nothing new in a slick package.  By coincidence, I was re-reading Sam Fuller's autobiography A Third Face during the festival and I realized that Bakshi is animation's Fuller.  Fuller stuck with low budgets in order to have creative freedom (though I suppose that Bakshi didn't do that by choice), and Fuller's style was always blunt and direct.  There are similarities between Fuller's films Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss and Bakshi's films set in New York.

Bakshi is currently doing shorts for YouTube.  Here is Trickle Dickle Down.  The animation is repurposed from Coonskin, which caused Jerry Beck to reject running it on Cartoon Brew.  Bakshi was very vocal in his disagreement over this, stating that the message was more important than the re-use.

Following Bakshi's talk, I caught up with Paranorman, which I had missed in theatres.  Made by Laika, the company behind Coraline, I actually liked it better than their first feature.  While I felt the designs could have been more attractive and that the second act seemed padded, the film worked and had strong themes.  The fear of those who are different and the mob descent into violence are themes that are as relevant to the film's supernatural world as they are to international politics.

I only saw one shorts competition this year.  These programs are always a mixed bag and all you can hope for are enough films you like to make the program worthwhile.  Films I enjoyed in this program included I Am Tom Moody by Ainslie Henderson, Melissa by Cesar Cabral, Pythagasaurus by Peter Peake of Aardman, Night of the Loving Dead by Anna Humphries, Una Fortiva Lagrima by Carlo Vogele (using a 1904 recording by Enrico Caruso), and The People Who Never Stop by Florien Piento.

Due to arriving on Friday and various schedule conflicts, I only got to see one feature in competition, Le Tableau, directed by Jean-Francois Laguionie.  It is set inside an unfinished painting, where the figures form a class system based on their level of completion.  While this film also had a meandering second act, it dealt with fascism, ethnic cleansing, the search for God and God's responsibility toward his creations.  The film combines cel-shaded 3D with painterly 2.5D backgrounds and while I could think of ways that characters could have been more developed, I was still highly impressed with the look and the thoughtfulness of the film.  See it if you get the chance.

I regret missing Arrugas, directed by Ignacio Ferreras, a feature set in a retirement home and which won the grand prize at the festival.  If anyone has seen it, please comment below.

Barry Purves

Sunday, I started with the Barry Purves retrospective.  Purves, a brilliant stop motion animator, introduced his work and then returned to answer questions at the end.  Besides running clips from his TV work, he ran Next, Screen Play, Riggoletto, Achilles and Gilbert and Sullivan.  Purves is clearly in love with opera and operatic voices.  Riggoletto and Gilbert and Sullivan are built entirely around them.  However, I wonder if the music and singing are too broad for the intimacy of film.  On stage, the audience is a distance from the action and there is no cutting or close-ups possible.  When the audience is only inches from a character's face, the operatic delivery often overpowers the visuals.  Purves would be horrified at the idea of redubbing his films, I'm sure, but I wonder how they would play with more intimate arrangements and singing.  None of this takes away from his mastery of performance, though.

I ended my festival with the screening of children's films.  Every year I look forward to this, as the films are the antithesis of most of the shorts in the festival.  They are bright, funny, well-paced and are clearly concerned with how the audience will receive them.  While all the films were worth watching, my favourites were Stick Up For Your Friends by Anthony Dusko, My Strange Grandfather by Dina Velikovskaya, From Point A to Point Z by Karl Staven, Why Do We Put Up With Them? by David Chai and Thank You by Pendleton Ward and Thomas Herpich.  I was pleased to see that two excellent films were from Toronto: The Fox and the Chickadee by Evan DeRushie and Beethoven's Wig by Alex Hawley and Denny Silverthorne of Smiley Guy Studios.

Ottawa International Animation Fest Winners

JUNKYARD WINS BEST SHORT, ARRUGAS SELECTED BEST FEATURE,  AT OTTAWA INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL
OTTAWA (September 23, 2012) – The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) came to an end Sunday, with closing ceremonies held at the National Arts Centre. Organizers announced the winners of the official competition during the ceremonies.

This year’s event, held September 19th-23rd, was a tremendous success with packed screenings, sold out workshops, high profile networking events such at the Television Animation Conference (TAC) and a strong weekend of professional development.

The OIAF is a major international film event that attracts 1500 industry pass holders from across Canada and around the world with a total attendance of close to 30,000. Although the final numbers are not officially in, there are strong indications that this year’s Festival reached its highest attendance to date.

The 2012 international jury for Short Program, Student and Commissioned Films included: Mike Fallows (USA), J.J. Sedelmaier (USA) and Sarah Muller(UK). The international jury for Feature Film Competition and School Showreels included: Barry Purves (UK), Hisko Hulsing (Netherlands) and Izabela Rieben (Switzerland).

The Festival also featured a special jury made up of local kids to select the Best Short Animation Made for Children and the Best Television Animation Made for Children. This year’s kids jury included: Jordan Quayle, Evelyn Abacra, Lucas Kelly, Jakob Boose, Zoe Monogian, Conall Sloan, Eleanor Simonetta, Jacob Cooper, Chantalyne Leonhardt and Lauralee Leonhardt.

List of WinnersNelvana GRAND PRIZE for Best Independent Short AnimationJunkyard– directed by Hisko Hulsing, Netherlands

GRAND PRIZE for Best Animated FeatureArrugas (Wrinkles), directed by Ignacio Ferreras, Spain

Walt Disney GRAND PRIZE for Best Student AnimationI Am Tom Moody– directed by Ainslie Henderson, Edinburgh College of Art, UK

GRAND PRIZE for Best Commissioned AnimationPrimus "Lee Van Cleef" - by Chris Smith, USA

Best Animation School ShowreelSupinfocom (France)

BEST Narrative ShortA Morning Stroll - by Grant Orchard, STUDIO AKA, USA

BEST Experimental/Abstract AnimationRivière au Tonnerre – directed by Pierre Hébert, Canada

Adobe Prize for BEST High School AnimationThe Bean – by Hae Jin Jung, Gyeonggi Art High School, South Korea

Honourable Mention:La Soif Du Monde (Thirsty Frog) – by a Collective: 12 Children, Camera-etc, Belgium

BEST Undergraduate AnimationReizwäsche - by Jelena Walf & Viktor Stickel, Germany

BEST Graduate AnimationBallpit – directed by Kyle Mowat, Sheridan College, Canada

BEST Promotional AnimationRed Bull 'Music Academy World Tour' – by Pete Candeland, Passion Pictures, UK

BEST Music VideoThe First Time I Ran Away - by Joel Trussell, USA

BEST Television Animation for AdultsPortlandia: Zero Rats – by Rob Shaw, USA

BEST Short Animation Made for ChildrenBeethoven’s Wig, directed by Alex Hawley & Denny Silverthorne, Canada

Honourable Mentions:Au Coeur de L’Hiver - directed by Isabelle Favez, Switzerland
Why do we Put up with Them? - directed by David Chai, USA

BEST Television Animation Made for ChildrenRegular Show: Eggscellent - by JC Quintel, Cartoon Network

Honourable Mention:Adventure Time: Jake vs. Me-Mow - by Pendleton Ward, Cartoon Network, USA

The National Film Board of Canada PUBLIC PRIZEIt's Such a Beautiful Day - directed by Don Hertzfeldt, USA

Canadian Film Institute Award for BEST Canadian AnimationNightingales in December, directed by Theodore Ushev, Canada

Honourable MentionsBallpit – directed by Kyle Mowat, Sheridan College, Canada
MacPherson - directed by Martine Chartrand, National Film Board of Canada, Canada

BEST Canadian Student Animation AwardGum - By Noam Sussman, Sheridan College, Canadaa

Honourable MentionsBallpit - By Kyle Mowat, Sheridan College, Canada
Tengri - By Alisi Telengut, Concordia University, Canada

The Ottawa Media Jury AwardFor the best short competition film, as deemed by the local Ottawa Media, consisting of:

-Peter Simpson (Ottawa Citizen)
-Sandra Abma (CBC)
-Fateema Sayani (Ottawa Magazine)
-Denis Armstrong (Ottawa Sun)

I Am Tom Moody– By Ainslie Henderson, Edinburgh College of Art, UK

About the OIAFOIAF 2012 was held September 19-23rd, 2012 in Ottawa. Events at the OIAF included screenings, panels, workshops, parties and the Television Animation Conference. The OIAF is a leading competitive animation film festival, featuring cutting edge programming, catering to industry executives, trend setting artists, students and animation fans. For more information about the OIAF, please visit www.animationfestival.ca.

OIAF 2012 Selections

The Ottawa International Animation Festival has posted its selections for 2012.  Congratulations to everyone whose film will screen.

Some Ottawa Festival Thoughts

Everyone who attends the Ottawa Festival (or any other large event for that matter) is going to have an individual opinion. It's impossible at Ottawa to see every screening and attend every presentation, so opinions will vary based on what a person experienced. What follows are my thoughts, based on being there for just the weekend and the programs I chose to attend.

It's a shame that the animator picnic is not included in the weekend pass, as it is now the only venue at the festival where everyone is together. When the festival used the National Arts Centre, it was a central place for everyone to meet. This is my second year attending since the National Arts Centre is no longer used, and my feeling that the festival is spread over too great a distance remains. The individual venues are nice, but the lack of a real hub makes it tougher to find people and lessens word of mouth for any hot films.

I saw The Bug Trainer, a European documentary on Ladislas Starewitch, the stop motion animator. I didn't know much about him personally, so I was grateful to the film for filling me in, but I wish that the film, which only ran an hour and was most likely made for TV, had showcased more of his animation. Perhaps Europeans are more familiar with his films and didn't need to be reminded, but I've seen only a few Starewitch works and would have liked to see more.

John Canemaker

John Canemaker's presentation on Joe Ranft and Joe Grant was a highlight for me. Canemaker knew both men, so there was a personal dimension to the talk, which included artwork that isn't in his book Two Guys Named Joe. The Joe's emphasis on entertainment value was a contrast to much of what is screened at Ottawa. Canemaker mentioned that his next book was on Herman Schultheiss, an effects animator at Disney, who kept an extensive notebook about how the effects of the time were achieved, such as the snowflakes in "The Nutcracker Suite" section of Fantasia.

I always attend the screenings of children's films as I find them to be more satisfying than the films in competition. This year, my favorite was Princess' Painting, a German short by Johannes Weiland and Klaus Morschheuser about a Princess who receives automatic praise for superficial work and how she discovers that her priorities are wrong.

Saturday had several panel discussions set up by Tom Knott to give guidance to aspiring animation artists. I was on a panel about web portfolios chaired by Richard O'Connor of Ace and Son Moving Picture Company that also featured Knott, Brooke Keesling of The Cartoon Network, and Cal Arts instructor Fran Krause. Some solid information was passed along during this panel. The following panel, which I stayed for, was a collection of directors including Jan Pinkava, Marv Newland, Joanna Priestly, Isaac King and Jessica Borutski.

Left to right: Marv Newland, Jan Pinkava

Saturday night, I attended two competition screenings. The only film that I'd like to see again is Joost Lieuwma's Things You'd Better Not Mix Up from the Netherlands. The film was funny, something you'd think wouldn't be in short supply at an animation festival, but you'd be wrong.

Sunday, I saw two presentations from Disney-Pixar. The first was Enrico Casarosa screening the Pixar short La Luna, which will be released next year with Brave. The film is charming and clearly comes from a personal place for Casarosa. That personal connection is what separates the film from some other Pixar shorts and too much Disney these days.

The second presentation was of the Winnie the Pooh feature and the short The Ballad of Nessie. Pooh directors Steve Anderson and Don Hall were there to talk about the film after the screening. While they made it a point to go back to the original shorts for the design of the film, they talked about reworking the characters of Owl and Rabbit to make them carry more of the comedy. Personally, I felt that those characters were pushed too much, to the detriment of Tigger. Originally, Tigger's hyperactivity and wackiness was a strong contrast to the staid nature of the other characters. Now Tigger is only one of many broad characters. I also thought that the animators on Tigger (Andreas Deja) and Rabbit (Eric Goldberg) were miscast. Goldberg should have been given Tigger and Deja Rabbit.

Nessie also looked backwards to the Disney design of the 1940s and '50s. Johnny Appleseed was referenced for design.

Both the feature and short lacked the personal connection of La Luna. They were well crafted, but seemed to me to be imitation Disney rather than stories that needed to be told. By coincidence, the day after I returned from the festival, I was reading Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland and came across this quote:

In the first third of [the twentieth] century, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and a few fellow travelers turned the then-prevailing world of soft focus photographic art upside down. They did so by developing a visual philosophy that justified sharply-focused images, and introduced the natural landscape as a subject for photographic art. It took decades for their viewpoint to filter into the public consciousness, but it sure has now: pictures appearing in anything from cigarette ads to Sierra Club books owe their current acceptance to those once-controversial images. Indeed, that vision has so pervasively become ours that people photographic vacation scenery today often do so with the hope that if everything turns out just right, the result will not simply look like a landscape, it will look like an Ansel Adams photograph of the landscape.

This too will pass, of course. In face, artistically speaking, it has passed. The unfolding over time of a great idea is like the growth of a fractal crystal, allowing details and refinements to multiply endlessly -- but only in ever-decreasing scale. Eventually (perhaps by the early 1960's) those who stepped forward to carry the West Coast Landscape Photography banner were not producing art, so much as re-producing the history of art. Separated two or three generations from the forces that spawned the vision they championed, they were left making images of experiences they never quite had. If you find yourself caught in similar circumstances, we modestly offer this bit of cowboy wisdom: When your horse dies, get off.

If drawn Disney animation is to survive, the artists are going to have to find their own voices, not "making images of experiences they never quite had." Time to find another mount.

As I said above, this is only my experience of the festival. For other viewpoints, see Jerry Beck, Richard O'Connor (1, 2, 3 and 4) and Michael Valiquette.

At the Ottawa Festival

I will be at the Ottawa Animation Festival from sometime Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon. On Saturday at 1:00, I'll be on a panel called Web Portfolios with Richard O'Connor of Ace and Son Moving Picture Company and Brooke Keesling of The Cartoon Network.

Stop by and say hello if you're there.

Ottawa Animation Festival

I was extremely tired during the Ottawa Festival, so I've decided to only talk about films that I enjoyed even in my exhausted state. It's quite possible that a second viewing would lead me to different conclusions for films I didn't like, so rather than say things I'll later regret, I'll stick to what I liked. I've also reconciled myself to the fact that my taste and that of festival organizer Chris Robinson differ. It's pointless to criticize this year's selection as it was consistent with previous years and will no doubt be consistent with coming years so long as Robinson is making the selection.

The Ottawa Festival is one of the most heavily scheduled events I know of; every time slot now has four events running concurrently. While that pretty much guarantees there will be something of interest every waking moment, it's also a guarantee that you miss things you'd like to see. For the record, I saw three of the five competition screenings, one of the two screenings of films for children, one of four UPA retrospective screenings, and two of the three features. I also attended two panels (one of which I spoke at) and a master class.

I've already praised Perspeolis and Golden Age. In the competition, another favorite film was Lapsus by Juan Pablo Zaramella of Argentina. It's a graphically simple film, black and white with no half-tones, where a nun confronts a dark space. The film is highly inventive and funny, doing a lot with little. You can watch a brief clip of the film here.
Zhiharka by Oleg Usinov of Russia is a fairy tale about a girl trying to avoid being eaten by a fox. The film had great humour and fantastic energy. I'm constantly amazed by the lack of timing in modern animation. This film was expertly timed and really carried the audience along as a result. If you can read Russian, you can find more about the film here. If there's a link to a clip, somebody please let me know.

The UPA screening I attended was the one dedicated to directors. I think that Bobe Cannon is underrated as an animator and as a director. His animation in Robin Hoodlum very stylish and got me thinking about what we've lost in animation. There's no shortage of original design work visible at the Ottawa Festival, but I don't think that there's much in the way of original motion. Certainly, there's little where the quality of movement itself is entertaining in the way that Bobe Cannon routinely animated. I'm pretty sure that he did the fox and the knight here as well as the fox drinking his first cup of tea.

Robin Hoodlum
Uploaded by thadk

Cannon's direction also used movement to entertain. I think that I already linked to Christopher Crumpet, but here it is again. Christopher's walk and his first transformation into a chicken are both fun in and of themselves. Bilgewater's stylized way of moving from pose to pose with no inbetweens is also fun to watch, as is the mother tripping and landing at the dinner table. These things don't take money to do, they just take imagination, but I don't see enough of it these days.

Persepolis

Persepolis started as a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi. It's autobiographical, relating her childhood in Iran during the period when the Shah was deposed and the government that replaced it was (and remains) an Islamic theocracy. This combination of a coming-of-age story set against political turmoil is what gives the story its power. Satrapi's family is politically liberal, so their position relative to the government was always precarious.

Marjane confronted for wearing a Michael Jackson button.

Persepolis is now an animated feature made in France, co-directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. It's currently playing festivals (The Toronto International Film Festival and the Ottawa International Animation Festival, where I saw it and where it took the award for Best Animated Feature). It is due for release in North America in December in order to qualify for the Oscars. It has already been selected as France's Oscar entry for the category Best Foreign Language Film and of course it will be eligible for a nomination for Best Animated Feature.

The film is a successful adaptation of Satrapi's book and I highly recommend that you see it. Besides being a satisfying experience in itself, it stands in stark opposition to most Hollywood animated features. It's drawn animation. It's black and white. It deals with politics and the real world. It not only has a female protagonist, but as Satrapi is the screenwriter and co-director, it has a genuinely female point of view.

Marjane with her grandmother, one of the most vivid characters in the film.

All of the above qualities are nothing special in live action. I'm sure that the audiences who view Persepolis at live action film festivals will that find it fits easily into the world of independent films and their subject matter. But in the world of animation, Persepolis blazes many new trails and it shows just how provincial animated features are.

Yes, short animated films tackle many of the same themes, but the films are difficult to find and rarely reviewed. Whether we like it or not, features are the coin of the realm when it comes to film, and it's there that audiences and critics focus their attention.

Animation tends to speak metaphorically. If it has a point to make, it places it within a fantasy context. This is one of the things that's kept animation at the children's table. Only a few animated film makers working in long format have grappled with the world as it is: Ralph Bakshi and Paul Fierlinger come to mind.

What Satrapi has done with her first film is to show that animation is capable of more than Hollywood will allow. The film has shattered many tropes of conventional wisdom and proved in its festival screenings that it satisfies audiences. What she's done is to take subject matter that's commonplace in independent films and shown that animation can communicate it successfully. It's depressing that someone without a background in animation can use the medium more broadly than those who have laboured in the industry.

Perspepolis will not be the highest grossing animated film released this year. It may not win any Oscars. But Persepolis is unquestionably the most important animated film of the year in terms of its subject matter and how the subject is treated. Perspeolis suggests a way forward that animation has mostly ignored. I'm not saying that all animated films should be like this one, but what good is a medium that voluntarily avoids dealing with large portions of human experience? That's Hollywood animation in a nutshell.

Director Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer, Places in the Heart, Nobody's Fool) said in a recent interview,

“I believe there are conversations filmmakers have with one another that they don’t have across the table,” said Mr. Benton. “I believe Butch Cassidy [and the Sundance Kid] is a conversation that Will Goldman was having with Bonnie and Clyde. Its a conversation that can only be done through work.”

I'm sure that Marjane Satrapi was focused on bringing her story to the screen as effectively as possible rather than challenging the animation industry. Be that as it may, she has entered the conversation. The question is, will anyone respond?

Golden Age

Golden Age is a series of 10 short parodies of various aspects of animation history made by Augenblick Studios. The series was done for Comedy Central and ran at the Ottawa Festival.

We're surrounded by parody in cartoons these days, but Golden Age is more sharply written and more quickly timed than most. The level of invention is high and there's not a bad one in the bunch. You can find the rest of them here. Enjoy.

Various Links

The Ottawa International Animation Festival has posted the list of films that have been accepted. There is also a list of retrospectives and other screenings.

Michael Sporn has posted the first part of John Hubley's storyboard for Cockaboody.

Keith Lango has written a three part essay entitled "The Fool's Errand," talking about strategies for making independent computer animated shorts. Part 1, Part2, Part 3.

Kevin Langley has put up some slow motion videos of Bobe Cannon's animation from the Chuck Jones cartoon The Dover Boys. Keith Lango adds his thoughts about Cannon's animation here.

Hans Perk has resumed putting up drafts for Disney shorts. Here's Moving Day, Polar Trappers, and The Dognapper.

Didier Ghez has also posted some Disney drafts from the collection of Mark Kausler. Here are Pioneer Days, Midnight in a Toy Shop, Winter, and Playful Pan.

Mark Kausler's own blog has an evaluation of the various studios that made Krazy Kat cartoons over the years.

Michael Barrier revisits The Iron Giant. It's not possible to link to specific entries on Barrier's blog, but it was posted on July 25.

And a reminder that Volume 1 of the Popeye DVD set is now available. All the Popeye cartoons from 1933 to 1938 restored from original negatives. Furthermore, the Woody Woodpecker set, including cartoons by Tex Avery, Shamus Culhane, Dick Lundy and Bill Nolan, is also available.