Courtesy of Mark Evanier, here is a link to a page of rare video interviews with animation personnel, many of whom were not usually the focus of attention. Subjects include Willie Ito, Milt Gray, Larry Harmon, Irv Spence, Bill Berg, Norm Blackburn, Alex Lovy, Lew Keller, Bill Hurtz, Philo Barnhart, Leo Salkin, Ward Kimball, Carl Urbano, Hicks Lokey, Al Bertino, Rudy Larriva, Grim Natwick, Pete Alvarado, Tom Ray, Owen Fitzgerald, Lloyd Vaughn, Lillian Astor and Bob Carlson.
Evanier has some background about Paul Maher, the person responsible for the interviews, here.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Brad Bird quote
"There are great animators just as there are great actors I gave a talk once using [digital] animation from the [1996] movie Dragon Heart. I showed two sequences and asked the audience which they believed; they said one sequence but not the other, as they said it looked fake. I said, "Yes, but why?" They couldn't tell me. The interesting thing was, it was the same technology and the same [animation] model; the only thing different was the animator. You can be convincing without being real."Brad Bird is everywhere right now, promoting Tomorrowland. This interview has a fair amount to say about animation.
Thursday, May 07, 2015
Don't Pitch a Buyer, Pitch the Audience Video
In March of 2014, I had the pleasure of giving a talk at Animatic T.O, an informal lecture series founded by Barry Sanders and continued by Andrew Murray when Barry took a job in Halifax. Grayden Laing of the Canadian Animation Blog videotaped the presentation and now it's available online, courtesy of Grayden and John Righton.
I developed the talk into a series on this blog. The first part of that series has been read almost 10,000 times to date. Since giving the talk, my opinions haven't changed. I've seen nothing in the intervening time to suggest that creators are getting a better deal anywhere. I would love it if someday, a stranger walked up to me and told me that as a result of my talk, he or she kept ownership of their property and are making a living from it. Hope springs eternal.
I developed the talk into a series on this blog. The first part of that series has been read almost 10,000 times to date. Since giving the talk, my opinions haven't changed. I've seen nothing in the intervening time to suggest that creators are getting a better deal anywhere. I would love it if someday, a stranger walked up to me and told me that as a result of my talk, he or she kept ownership of their property and are making a living from it. Hope springs eternal.
Sunday, April 12, 2015
Tax Credits, Exchange Rates and Thin Ice
(Updated Below)
Canadian Animation Resources has good coverage of Nova Scotia's decision to reduce it's tax credits for film and TV production (1, 2, 3).
It's going to be a painful disruption for many people. Undoubtedly, some studios will close, and some will shift work to another location. Those lucky enough to be offered jobs elsewhere will have to uproot their lives and relocate to another province. I'm sorry for everyone who will be affected by this.
This is an ongoing problem in Canada and I've seen it in multiple industries over multiple decades. Too many companies base their existence on some kind of government protection (such as content quotas, tax rebates and before free trade, import duties) or on the exchange rate, as the Canadian dollar is generally worth less than the American.
The problem with this approach is that it adds more variables to the already difficult puzzle of making a profit. Creating a product or service, pricing it properly, marketing it and fending off competition is never easy. When government policy or exchange rates are added in, companies are at the mercy of things they cannot control.
There is also the upcoming issue of the CRTC's pick and pay decision. As of next March, cable subscribers will be able to abandon packages of channels in favour of only paying for what they want to watch. To date, YTV has been paid for by everyone in Canada who subscribes to cable, whether they have children or not. They will undoubtedly lose subscribers. Teletoon is part of a package, and no one knows what percentage of the people who purchase it actually watch it.
(Update: Canadian Press is reporting that the number of cable subscribers fell by 95,000 in 2014. That compares to a drop of 13,000 in 2013. It estimates that Netflix went from 3 million to 3.9 million subscribers in Canada last year. Even without the CRTC decision, revenue for cable channels, where the majority of Canadian animation appears, is dropping and that is bound to have an effect on production levels, budgets and deadlines.)
While the animation business in Canada is booming at the moment, I'm not optimistic. I worry about a contraction coming within the next two years.
Canadian gaming studios tend to be either very large or very small. There are branches of Ubisoft, Rockstar and Electronic Arts in Canada. There are also small indie studios that are often less than a dozen people. Those small studios are surviving due to low overhead and a business model that allows them to sell directly to consumers over the web.
I suspect that Canadian animation studios are too married to series production and international financing to be able to work the low end of the market. I'm waiting (and hoping) to see the entertainment equivalent of indie game companies arise, where small groups develop their own intellectual property and take it directly to the audience.
So long as Canadian studios depend on government regulations and the exchange rate, they are skating on thin ice. We'll see how well Nova Scotia withstands the reduction of the tax credit, but what's happened in Nova Scotia could happen anywhere in Canada. I hope that studios are preparing for that eventuality.
Canadian Animation Resources has good coverage of Nova Scotia's decision to reduce it's tax credits for film and TV production (1, 2, 3).
It's going to be a painful disruption for many people. Undoubtedly, some studios will close, and some will shift work to another location. Those lucky enough to be offered jobs elsewhere will have to uproot their lives and relocate to another province. I'm sorry for everyone who will be affected by this.
This is an ongoing problem in Canada and I've seen it in multiple industries over multiple decades. Too many companies base their existence on some kind of government protection (such as content quotas, tax rebates and before free trade, import duties) or on the exchange rate, as the Canadian dollar is generally worth less than the American.
The problem with this approach is that it adds more variables to the already difficult puzzle of making a profit. Creating a product or service, pricing it properly, marketing it and fending off competition is never easy. When government policy or exchange rates are added in, companies are at the mercy of things they cannot control.
There is also the upcoming issue of the CRTC's pick and pay decision. As of next March, cable subscribers will be able to abandon packages of channels in favour of only paying for what they want to watch. To date, YTV has been paid for by everyone in Canada who subscribes to cable, whether they have children or not. They will undoubtedly lose subscribers. Teletoon is part of a package, and no one knows what percentage of the people who purchase it actually watch it.
(Update: Canadian Press is reporting that the number of cable subscribers fell by 95,000 in 2014. That compares to a drop of 13,000 in 2013. It estimates that Netflix went from 3 million to 3.9 million subscribers in Canada last year. Even without the CRTC decision, revenue for cable channels, where the majority of Canadian animation appears, is dropping and that is bound to have an effect on production levels, budgets and deadlines.)
While the animation business in Canada is booming at the moment, I'm not optimistic. I worry about a contraction coming within the next two years.
Canadian gaming studios tend to be either very large or very small. There are branches of Ubisoft, Rockstar and Electronic Arts in Canada. There are also small indie studios that are often less than a dozen people. Those small studios are surviving due to low overhead and a business model that allows them to sell directly to consumers over the web.
I suspect that Canadian animation studios are too married to series production and international financing to be able to work the low end of the market. I'm waiting (and hoping) to see the entertainment equivalent of indie game companies arise, where small groups develop their own intellectual property and take it directly to the audience.
So long as Canadian studios depend on government regulations and the exchange rate, they are skating on thin ice. We'll see how well Nova Scotia withstands the reduction of the tax credit, but what's happened in Nova Scotia could happen anywhere in Canada. I hope that studios are preparing for that eventuality.
Sunday, April 05, 2015
The Upside and Downside of Influences
When a baby goose hatches, it starts following the first moving thing it sees. As that is usually its mother, instinct serves it well.
People don't have an instinct that strong, but from around the ages of 5 to 20, humans are deeply influenced by what's around them. Sometimes these influences cause an ignition moment; a person sees someone or something and suddenly knows the path to take. I'm old enough to remember the first appearance of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, and my classmates were utterly transformed by the event. I'd love to know how many guitars were sold in the weeks after that appearance.
Even when an influence isn't instantaneous, it still shapes shapes a person. The things you are exposed to during your impressionable years contribute to who you are. As they say, the child is father to the man.
There's a strong emotional component to being influenced at that age. The emotions generated by the things one likes cement their influence on you. While I have seen many good movies since my twenties, few have the emotional impact that films I discovered as a teenager had. When you reach maturity, something happens to how you respond; the impact is not as great.
Creative people are formed during that 15 year period. It's why you can look at the mass culture of any decade and find that it's distinctive. It's because the people creating during that period grew up with the same influences. While they don't reproduce those influences exactly, they shape the work in similar ways.
The emotional affection for something in its simplest form results in nostalgia. It's fun to share childhood memories with someone the same age. There's a pleasure to re-experiencing something you loved when younger. The original emotional is evoked. That's why there are oldies stations on the radio, even though the decade(s) they feature are constantly advancing with the age of the listening audience. Good luck finding an oldies station playing '50s rock and roll now.
The emotional attachment to the things that formed us have repercussions for creators. It's why animation studios and broadcasters hunt for young talent. That talent is closest in age to the audience, so it shares more of the same influences. Those people are often inexperienced in the ways of production, but studios think it's a worthwhile risk. Production smarts can be bought more easily than an emotional link to the audience.
It also means that everyone who is creative is in danger of losing the audience over time. As media content shifts, creators often can't shift with it. Because newer approaches rarely evoke the emotional response of the work they grew up on, staying current often produces a superficial result. It apes the surface but can't connect to the core; it lacks sincerity.
This has become very obvious to me recently. I mentioned to one of my classes that I haven't really watched TV animation in 20 years, though I've stayed reasonably up to date with animated features. Partly this is because I know first hand the limitations of TV budgets and schedules and when I watch TV animation all I see are the compromises and shortcuts. The bigger issue is that I'm past the age where I can emotionally connect with shows aimed at children or teens. The influences that formed the people making these shows are alien to me. While my students may love Gravity Falls or Steven Universe, I'm never going to love them in the way that I love Chuck Jones or even Bosko cartoons, something I admit have little absolute value. While I admire the work of Miyazaki, Takahata and Kon, I'm betting that younger people exposed to their work love it in a way that I can't.
(One of the oddities of growing up in the early TV era is that my generation was exposed to older work our parents grew up on: theatrical cartoons, the Marx Brothers, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Abbott and Costello, The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, and The Little Rascals. This proves that the work that influences you doesn't have to be contemporary, only that you experience it during your impressionable years.)
Twenty years from now my current students will discover that they're estranged from the younger people entering the field as they won't have the same influences. Agism in the media is very real, and this is the root of it. The gap between creators and the audience results from a difference of influences and the less common ground that creators share with the audience, the harder it is to connect. Steven Spielberg's latest films are no longer the events they once were, and Spielberg is as audience-wise as anybody. And I suspect that when we reach the point where young adults no longer grew up on The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King, I'm guessing that the desire to make drawn animated features will be a lot less widespread.
While we are less instinctual than goslings, we may also be less flexible. Goslings eventually move beyond their mothers, but do any of us escape our childhood influences?
People don't have an instinct that strong, but from around the ages of 5 to 20, humans are deeply influenced by what's around them. Sometimes these influences cause an ignition moment; a person sees someone or something and suddenly knows the path to take. I'm old enough to remember the first appearance of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, and my classmates were utterly transformed by the event. I'd love to know how many guitars were sold in the weeks after that appearance.
Even when an influence isn't instantaneous, it still shapes shapes a person. The things you are exposed to during your impressionable years contribute to who you are. As they say, the child is father to the man.
There's a strong emotional component to being influenced at that age. The emotions generated by the things one likes cement their influence on you. While I have seen many good movies since my twenties, few have the emotional impact that films I discovered as a teenager had. When you reach maturity, something happens to how you respond; the impact is not as great.
Creative people are formed during that 15 year period. It's why you can look at the mass culture of any decade and find that it's distinctive. It's because the people creating during that period grew up with the same influences. While they don't reproduce those influences exactly, they shape the work in similar ways.
The emotional affection for something in its simplest form results in nostalgia. It's fun to share childhood memories with someone the same age. There's a pleasure to re-experiencing something you loved when younger. The original emotional is evoked. That's why there are oldies stations on the radio, even though the decade(s) they feature are constantly advancing with the age of the listening audience. Good luck finding an oldies station playing '50s rock and roll now.
The emotional attachment to the things that formed us have repercussions for creators. It's why animation studios and broadcasters hunt for young talent. That talent is closest in age to the audience, so it shares more of the same influences. Those people are often inexperienced in the ways of production, but studios think it's a worthwhile risk. Production smarts can be bought more easily than an emotional link to the audience.
It also means that everyone who is creative is in danger of losing the audience over time. As media content shifts, creators often can't shift with it. Because newer approaches rarely evoke the emotional response of the work they grew up on, staying current often produces a superficial result. It apes the surface but can't connect to the core; it lacks sincerity.
This has become very obvious to me recently. I mentioned to one of my classes that I haven't really watched TV animation in 20 years, though I've stayed reasonably up to date with animated features. Partly this is because I know first hand the limitations of TV budgets and schedules and when I watch TV animation all I see are the compromises and shortcuts. The bigger issue is that I'm past the age where I can emotionally connect with shows aimed at children or teens. The influences that formed the people making these shows are alien to me. While my students may love Gravity Falls or Steven Universe, I'm never going to love them in the way that I love Chuck Jones or even Bosko cartoons, something I admit have little absolute value. While I admire the work of Miyazaki, Takahata and Kon, I'm betting that younger people exposed to their work love it in a way that I can't.
(One of the oddities of growing up in the early TV era is that my generation was exposed to older work our parents grew up on: theatrical cartoons, the Marx Brothers, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Abbott and Costello, The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, and The Little Rascals. This proves that the work that influences you doesn't have to be contemporary, only that you experience it during your impressionable years.)
Twenty years from now my current students will discover that they're estranged from the younger people entering the field as they won't have the same influences. Agism in the media is very real, and this is the root of it. The gap between creators and the audience results from a difference of influences and the less common ground that creators share with the audience, the harder it is to connect. Steven Spielberg's latest films are no longer the events they once were, and Spielberg is as audience-wise as anybody. And I suspect that when we reach the point where young adults no longer grew up on The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King, I'm guessing that the desire to make drawn animated features will be a lot less widespread.
While we are less instinctual than goslings, we may also be less flexible. Goslings eventually move beyond their mothers, but do any of us escape our childhood influences?
Monday, March 30, 2015
Sheridan Industry Day 2015 Trailer
Some students have inadvertently been left out, so there may be an updated version coming. If so, I'll replace this version.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Heritage Animation Art Auction
The art that is in this catalog is increasingly limited to the nostalgia market. People growing up now will see this material as old fashioned and they don't have equivalent art to buy from the shows they grew up watching.
There was a time when animation art auctions were common, but since the field has gone digital, whether 2D or 3D, there is no longer any original art to sell. The art that goes into pre-production is generally now available in the books that seem to accompany every animated release. However, the animation business has lost a revenue stream and they seem to have lost interest in the high end collectibles market.
I don't follow the collectibles market closely, but is Disney still putting out limited editions and expensive pieces? With DreamWorks diversifying and looking for revenue wherever it can, I'm surprised that they haven't tried to develop this market. With cgi and 3D printing, I can see a market for turning out limited edition figurines that are actual poses from films. The characters from the How to Train Your Dragon films seem a natural for this.
It will be interesting to see if animation art returns to being a small, esoteric piece of the art market or if studios figure out a way to get back into it in a big way. If it remains a nostalgia item, it will eventually have its customer base die off.
Pete Docter in Toronto
This was followed by Docter introducing a screening of Up.
On Tuesday, Docter appeared on Q, the CBC radio arts program. He covered much of the same material as he did with Crouse, and you can listen to the segment here.
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Michael Sporn Remembered
Michael has been gone more than a year now, and I still find myself missing him every time I see a new film or hear a new bit of industry news. Michael's views were always interesting and hearing them often sharpened my own views. Had he lived, I'm sure right now I'd be hearing stories about the production of his first feature based on Edgar Allen Poe's life and stories.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
New CRTC Rules
The world of television is changing rapidly and the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission is attempting to catch up. It set forth new rules today and while the new rules do not mention animation specifically, they will undoubtedly affect animation production.
Where in the past, specialty channels (which include channels like YTV and Teletoon) had individual requirements for the amount of Canadian content they ran, now all specialty channels will have the same requirement to run Canadian content 35% of the time. I can't find YTV's former requirement, but Teletoon's was 60%. They can now run considerably less Canadian programming.
While the CRTC has mandated that broadcasters must spend the same dollar amount as before, reducing the requirements for Canadian shows means fewer shows with higher budgets. This may be a problem for studios that don't own broadcast outlets. Nelvana and DHX are well positioned, as they will undoubtedly favour themselves with higher budgets rather than have their channels purchasing more expensive shows from other Canadian studios. If Nelvana subcontracts, will their subcontractors see any of the increased budgets or will the the subcontract budgets remain the same with any increase staying with Nelvana?
I'm afraid that these new rules will put the squeeze on smaller studios that rely on broadcasters and cable channels for their sales. Can Netflix or Amazon take up the slack? If not, there's a chance that we're going to see less production in the near future.
The Canadian TV animation industry is presently as large as it has ever been. At Sheridan, we are being approached by studios that are trying to get a jump on Industry Day and hire students before they graduate. Those of us who have been around for awhile have wondered how long the industry expansion can continue. It's possible that these new rules, put in place to improve quality and give broadcasters more flexibility, may not be good for Canadian animation.
Where in the past, specialty channels (which include channels like YTV and Teletoon) had individual requirements for the amount of Canadian content they ran, now all specialty channels will have the same requirement to run Canadian content 35% of the time. I can't find YTV's former requirement, but Teletoon's was 60%. They can now run considerably less Canadian programming.
While the CRTC has mandated that broadcasters must spend the same dollar amount as before, reducing the requirements for Canadian shows means fewer shows with higher budgets. This may be a problem for studios that don't own broadcast outlets. Nelvana and DHX are well positioned, as they will undoubtedly favour themselves with higher budgets rather than have their channels purchasing more expensive shows from other Canadian studios. If Nelvana subcontracts, will their subcontractors see any of the increased budgets or will the the subcontract budgets remain the same with any increase staying with Nelvana?
I'm afraid that these new rules will put the squeeze on smaller studios that rely on broadcasters and cable channels for their sales. Can Netflix or Amazon take up the slack? If not, there's a chance that we're going to see less production in the near future.
The Canadian TV animation industry is presently as large as it has ever been. At Sheridan, we are being approached by studios that are trying to get a jump on Industry Day and hire students before they graduate. Those of us who have been around for awhile have wondered how long the industry expansion can continue. It's possible that these new rules, put in place to improve quality and give broadcasters more flexibility, may not be good for Canadian animation.
Monday, February 23, 2015
My post-Oscar Thought
I wish the media paid as much attention to the Nobel prizes in science and medicine as it does to the Academy Awards.
Monday, February 16, 2015
Toon Talks Podcast
Friend Jim Caswell pointed me to a podcast featuring animator Charlie Bonifacio. It's the latest episode of the Toon Talks podcast, hosted by an animation professional named Sandra. I don't know if she's choosing to keep her last name secret or if it's an oversight.
In any case, besides being an excellent draftsman and animator, Bonifacio is highly articulate. I've listened to his episode and look forward to hearing the others in this series, which feature people like Mark Henn, Carlos Baena, Tomm Moore and Sergio Pablos.
In any case, besides being an excellent draftsman and animator, Bonifacio is highly articulate. I've listened to his episode and look forward to hearing the others in this series, which feature people like Mark Henn, Carlos Baena, Tomm Moore and Sergio Pablos.
Friday, January 30, 2015
Twice Upon a Time
The film features voice work by Lorenzo Music and Paul Frees. There are many names in the crew recognizable from other work, such as David Fincher (who did special effects), Henry Selick, Kaj Pindal, and John Van Vliet.
TCM's blog Movie Morlocks discusses the career of John Korty and the circumstances surrounding the making of the film. Ward Jenkins collects a bunch of YouTube clips and interviews Harley Jessup, the art director of the film.
The 1980s were an odd decade for animation. Disney was rebuilding, Don Bluth was attempting to overtake them and Bakshi was in his rotoscope period. The decade also saw lots of independent animated features that were interesting but failed to have much box office success. It wasn't until the later '80s, when Disney got back on track and Spielberg got involved with animation that a new normal was established. Prior to that, films like Twice Upon a Time, Heavy Metal, Grendel Grendel Grendel, The Plague Dogs, Rock and Rule, The Adventures of Mark Twain and When the Wind Blows were looking to take animation in new directions, but due to inexperience and audience prejudices, they failed.
While these films had small, but professional budgets, this kind of film is made today on a shoestring by independents like Bill Plympton, Nina Paley and Signe Baumane. If those types of films are interesting to you, take a look at Twice Upon a Time.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness
The main one is Hayao Miyazaki himself, a gruff, prickly personality who has a love/hate relationship with making animated films. He has devoted his life to something that he has large doubts about. He says, "Today, all of humanity's dreams are cursed somehow. Beautiful yet cursed dreams. I'm not even talking about wanting to be rich or famous. Screw that. That's just hopeless. What I mean is, how do we know movies are even worthwhile? If you really think about it, is this not just some grand hobby? Maybe there was a time when you could make films that mattered, but now? Most of our world is rubbish. It's difficult."
I would love to know if Miyazaki thought this way when he was younger or if there has been a darkening of his view over time. There are artists who create to escape from themselves; to imagine a world better than the one they live in. Miyazaki may be someone who has created pleasant fantasies to counterbalance his tendency to pessimism. The film reveals that Miyazaki's original intention was to have Jiro, the main character of The Wind Rises, die at the end, but he changed his mind. Miyazaki affirms life, even as he questions its result.
The inside of Studio Ghibli is a lovely workspace, with large windows providing natural light and a rooftop garden that Miyazaki visits often. It was interesting to compare the technical process to what's common in North America. No animation disks are used, just floating pegs on tables with built in light boxes. The Japanese all use the pegs at the top, in contrast to the North American preference for bottom pegs. The backgrounds are still painted on paper and shot on an animation camera, though the animation drawings are brought into the computer for colouring and compositing with the backgrounds. I was aware that voices are post-synched to picture, but the voice of Jiro was not even cast until much animation had been done. In North America, characters and animation are built on top of voices.
I knew nothing of producer Toshio Suzuki before seeing this film, but I have nothing but admiration for him now. He is the producer that every director wants and needs. He is level-headed and patient. He is an ambassador for the studio with merchandisers, distributors and the press. He works very hard, but never seems tired or on edge. He is the calm in the middle of any storm. While Miyazaki seems intimidating at times, Suzuki is never less than friendly. Of the two, I suspect that spending time with Suzuki would be a lot more pleasant.
Unfortunately, the film has very little of Ghibli's other director, Isao Takahata. We never see any part of his Princess Kaguya in production. We do, however, meet the young producer in charge of that film, Yoshiaki Nishimura. Takahata is apparently famous for being unable to stick to a schedule. Initially, Ghibli intended to release Princess Kaguya simultaneously with The Wind Rises, but Takahata was unable to make the deadline. Nishimura is the one who had to deal with trying to get the film finished. In the DVD supplement called Ushiko Investigates! (Ushiko being the studio cat), Nishimura says, "I believe many works in this world are unnecessary. I think there are a lot of them like that. At one point, I thought if I had the time to be making anime like that, I'd rather devote my energy somewhere else. A Takahata-san movie will be a masterpiece for 10 years, 20 years. I figured it would be a work you'd want to see again and again. Create 100 things in 10 years or create 1 thing in 10 years." At Ghibli, while money must play a role in shaping the films, it isn't the only standard that's applied.
The same DVD extra contains a moment so brazen, I am amazed that it was included. John Lasseter visits the studio and on camera talks about his admiration for Miyazaki's films. The two of them seem to have a warm, personal relationship as they talk to each other and move through the studio. When Miyazaki is alone, Sunada asks Miyazaki, "What do you like about Lasseter-san?" Miyazaki's response is "What do I like about him? That's not the kind of relationship we have with each other. I need Lasseter. He's necessary." The same man who can create the warmth of Totoro can be cold, calculating and inconsiderate.
If you wish to know more about Studio Ghibli and if you wish to get closer to Miyazaki, this documentary is essential. It supplements the two volumes of Miyazaki's collected writings. There are no documentaries about North American animation studios that are like it. Even The Sweatbox doesn't come close, as everyone at Disney is always conscious of public relations. No one speaks as bluntly on camera as Miyazaki. Furthermore, if you have worked in animation, watch Toshio Suzuki show how a brilliant producer operates.
This documentary is a precious record of a great director and a great studio that have earned a lasting place in animation history and in the hearts of animation fans around the world.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Bye Bye PDI
PDI was the company that survived. It was formed in 1980 by Carl Rosendahl, who was joined shortly by Glen Entis and Richard Chuang. At that time, all software had to be home brewed. There was no off-the-shelf software. Every company that existed at the time had to invent (forget about re-invent) the wheel before they could do any work.
Take a look at this demo reel from 1983. This was cutting edge stuff at the time.
PDI stayed at the forefront of the computer animation business. It did many flying logos for broadcasters. It moved into TV commercials, animating the Pillsbury Doughboy. It created morphing software used in the Michael Jackson video Black or White. It produced shorts like Gas Planet, and contributed computer character animation to the TV special The Last Halloween.
After Pixar got computer animated features off the ground and drawn animated features were suffering at the box office, Jeffrey Katzenberg of DreamWorks knew he had to get into the cgi game. His way in was by partnering with PDI. Initially a minority owner, DreamWorks eventually purchased the entire company.
Antz was the first film made by the studio, followed by Shrek, the film that really put DreamWorks animation on the map. The PDI facility continued to create some of DreamWorks most successful films, such as the Shrek sequels and the Madagascar series.
Now, it's closing. It's no secret that DreamWorks has been suffering financially of late. The company has worked hard to diversify, buying existing characters and creating TV work. However, it still needs to cut expenses in order to stay healthy. Five hundred employees are expected to lose their jobs across all the DreamWorks facilities, but PDI is being closed.
The last of the '80s companies is gone. It held on longer and had a greater impact than its original competition. With the closing of PDI, a chunk of living cgi history vanishes. A lot of top talent passed through PDI through the years, and now it's just a memory.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Animatic T.O. Returns
Animatic T.O, the Toronto lecture series featuring animation professionals, is back on Wednesday, Jan. 14 at The Rhino, 1249 Queen Street West. Doors open at 7 and the event begins at 7:30. Admission is $10 at the door.
This event features the work of Genevieve FT, an illustrator and designer who has worked in comics and videogames. See you there.
This event features the work of Genevieve FT, an illustrator and designer who has worked in comics and videogames. See you there.
Thursday, January 08, 2015
Book Review: Funnybooks
Historian and critic Michael Barrier is best known for his writings on animation such as Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in its Golden Age and The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney. However, his interest in certain comics is longstanding and he previously wrote two books on this topic. In his latest book, Funnybooks: the Improbable Glories of the Best American Comic Books, he has chronicled the complicated and surprising history of Western while focusing on several creators whose work has stood the test of time. Carl Barks, Walt Kelly and John Stanley were three writer-artists whose work in comic books aimed at children transcended the target age group.
While most comic book companies of the time were located in New York City, Western had offices in New York, Poughkeepsie and Los Angeles. While other comic book companies owned the characters they published, Western licensed the majority of its titles from other media: animation, movies and TV shows.
In the days before the internet, the dominant on-demand medium was print. Movies, radio and television schedules were beyond the public's control. Magazines, produced cheaply and frequently, were present at every newsstand and were there to be read at leisure. There were general interest magazines aimed at adults and magazines specifically aimed at men, women and children. Comic books filled the niche for children starting in the late 1930s and stayed a major part of childhood until the industry was worn down by attacks linking it to juvenile delinquency, the rise of television and the decaying economics of the newsstand.
While the vast majority of comic books were formula stuff, occasionally the stars would align allowing certain creators the opportunity to satisfy themselves while satisfying the market. The three creators that Barrier focuses on all had that opportunity for varying reasons. All three had experience working in animation, though only Barks and Kelly had story experience. They were all draft exempt, making them valuable during the war years when other artists were disappearing into the military. In Barks case, as he had worked on Donald Duck cartoons at Disney, his editors in Los Angeles figured he knew as much about portraying the character in comics as anyone. Kelly and Stanley were lucky to be working for Oskar Lebeck in New York, one of the handful of editors in comics history who could not only recognize talent, but encouraged writers and artists to follow their muses.
Barks made Donald Duck and his supporting cast far more complex than the animated versions and brought a level of characterization that made superheroes pale by comparison. Walt Kelly created Pogo for Animal Comics, and also illustrated fairy tales and adapted the movie characters of Our Gang. John Stanley was handed Little Lulu, a single panel cartoon series created by Marge Henderson Buell for The Saturday Evening Post, and fleshed out Lulu and her friends into one of comics' greatest comedy series.
With his usual precision and thoroughness, Barrier has laid out the history of the company and its key creative personnel. In addition to the aforementioned cartoonists, there is material about Gaylord Dubois, Roger Armstrong, Carl Beuttner, Dan Noonan, Moe Gollub, Jesse Marsh and Alex Toth. Barrier writes about the many artists who crossed over from animation to comic books with varying success. He explains the relationship between Western and Dell in detail and the careers of Barks, Kelly and Stanley are charted from their starts to their ends, with Barrier offering his insights on the nature of their best work and when and why they fell short.
While the publishing company may now be obscure, the work of these three creators continues to be reprinted. Fantagraphics is reprinting Carl Barks' work as well as Walt Kelly's version of Our Gang and the newspaper version of Pogo. Hermes Press is reprinting the comic book version of Pogo. Dark Horse has reprinted John Stanley's work on Little Lulu as well as Tarzan, written by Dubois and drawn by Marsh. Drawn and Quarterly has reprinted some of Stanley's non-Lulu work. In addition, you can find work by most of these creators online at ComicBookPlus for free.
If you haven't read the work of these creators, you are missing some of the best that comics has to offer. If you have read this work, Funnybooks: The Improbable Glories of the Best American Comic Books will provide a historical context and a critical perspective that will enhance your understanding of how this work came to be and why it is so good.
Friday, December 26, 2014
Song of the Sea
Song of the Sea is one of the most beautiful animated features ever made. While the recent flood of cgi features all start with brilliant pre-production artwork seen in dozens of "The Art of" books, the films themselves homogenize that art into a faux--'50s Disney style. Because the techniques used to create pre-production art for Song of the Sea are consistent with the techniques used to make the final images on screen, the film is able to take advantage of its foundational art in ways that cgi features either can't or won't. Each shot of Song of the Sea is worthy of framing.
The story resembles The Tale of Princess Kaguya in many ways. Both films are about mystical creatures living in human families and the members of those families are insensitive, thinking they know best for everyone else. In both films, the conflict arises from people's blindness rather than from stock villains.
The Irish mythology is a little thick. It may be that the writers took in this mythology with mother's milk and it's second nature to them, but the film's two main stories are not tied together as clearly as they might be. One story is that of a family where the youngest child is a Selkie. The other is a tale of character who steals her son's emotions and those of others, turning them to stone, so as to relieve them of the emotional pain they feel. The Selkie's song is the key to fixing this situation, but it's something of a distraction from solving the Selkie's own situation.
It is refreshing to see a film true to the filmmaker's ethnic roots, as opposed to American films like like Aladdin or Kung Fu Panda, which appropriates other people's roots. And Moore and art director Adrien Merigeau are to be commended for the look of the film and for maintaining consistency though production occurred at studios in several countries.
Any year that has given audiences The Tale of Princess Kaguya and Song of the Sea has to be counted as a good one. Forget all the upcoming awards that will probably overlook these two films beyond the nomination stage, assuming they are recognized at all. These are the ones to see. They are both deeply felt and personal to the filmmakers. I've grown increasingly bored with North American feature animation in the areas of design and story and it's satisfying to see that the rest of the world is willing to go its own way.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Friday, December 05, 2014
CTN vs. TCAF and Zen Pencils
I attended CTN for the first time this year, representing Sheridan College. Because of that, I was pretty much tied to Sheridan's table in the exhibition hall. I didn't attend any of the presentations or screenings, though I did get to walk around the exhibition hall several times. The observations that follow all relate to that.
There were hardware and software vendors there, like Wacom and Zbrush. There were schools of various types offering formal and informal education. There were book dealers like Focal Press and Stuart Ng. However, the vast majority of exhibitors were artists selling their work in the form of prints, sketchbooks and collections.
The quality of work was exceptionally high and the love of drawing was visible everywhere. It would have been easy to spend thousands of dollars on artwork and have years of inspiration as a result.
However, it struck me that the exhibition hall was like a farmer's market where the only people buying were other farmers. It puzzled me that the exhibiting artists were not creating work that would appeal to a wider audience than just other artists.
I regularly attend the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF). The people exhibiting there sell comics and graphic novels. Their audience certainly includes artists, but the majority of people who attend are the general public. The work there is something that average people, not people in the art field, might buy for themselves or purchase as a gift.
This is the case even though the average quality of the artwork is below what I saw at CTN.
Similarly, I've just found the Zen Pencils site. Gavin Aung Than illustrates quotes from other people about various aspects of life. While I admire his work, once again it's fair to say that his draftsmanship is below the CTN standard.
Yet at TCAF and Zen Pencils, the artists are reaching a broader audience. The reason is that they are creating content, not simply demonstrating craft. There's a difference between designing a character and creating a character. While the CTN folks are great at design, a sketchbook or print lacks the narrative structure that an audience is looking for.
The artists at CTN love drawing and are good at it. But in only talking to other artists, they're limiting their sales. Why aren't they creating childrens books, comics, graphic novels and greeting cards that would show off their art as effectively as their sketchbooks, but also sell to a general audience?
Zen Pencils shows that you don't even have to be able to write, just recognize writing that has a meaningful perspective on life. It also shows that cartooning, not just realistic illustration, can deal with subject matter that's relevant to adult lives.
I don't doubt that the artists at CTN would love to see drawn animation come back. By just selling to other artists, they're doing nothing to make that happen. Only when a property catches with the larger audience will producers take note. Only when the audience is surrounded by drawings that entertain and enlighten them will there be a demand for drawn animated features.
As Chuck Jones once said, "All of us must eventually do what the matador does: go out and face not only the bull but the crowd." The talent at CTN should seek out the crowd.
There were hardware and software vendors there, like Wacom and Zbrush. There were schools of various types offering formal and informal education. There were book dealers like Focal Press and Stuart Ng. However, the vast majority of exhibitors were artists selling their work in the form of prints, sketchbooks and collections.
The quality of work was exceptionally high and the love of drawing was visible everywhere. It would have been easy to spend thousands of dollars on artwork and have years of inspiration as a result.
However, it struck me that the exhibition hall was like a farmer's market where the only people buying were other farmers. It puzzled me that the exhibiting artists were not creating work that would appeal to a wider audience than just other artists.
I regularly attend the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF). The people exhibiting there sell comics and graphic novels. Their audience certainly includes artists, but the majority of people who attend are the general public. The work there is something that average people, not people in the art field, might buy for themselves or purchase as a gift.
This is the case even though the average quality of the artwork is below what I saw at CTN.
Similarly, I've just found the Zen Pencils site. Gavin Aung Than illustrates quotes from other people about various aspects of life. While I admire his work, once again it's fair to say that his draftsmanship is below the CTN standard.
Yet at TCAF and Zen Pencils, the artists are reaching a broader audience. The reason is that they are creating content, not simply demonstrating craft. There's a difference between designing a character and creating a character. While the CTN folks are great at design, a sketchbook or print lacks the narrative structure that an audience is looking for.
The artists at CTN love drawing and are good at it. But in only talking to other artists, they're limiting their sales. Why aren't they creating childrens books, comics, graphic novels and greeting cards that would show off their art as effectively as their sketchbooks, but also sell to a general audience?
Zen Pencils shows that you don't even have to be able to write, just recognize writing that has a meaningful perspective on life. It also shows that cartooning, not just realistic illustration, can deal with subject matter that's relevant to adult lives.
I don't doubt that the artists at CTN would love to see drawn animation come back. By just selling to other artists, they're doing nothing to make that happen. Only when a property catches with the larger audience will producers take note. Only when the audience is surrounded by drawings that entertain and enlighten them will there be a demand for drawn animated features.
As Chuck Jones once said, "All of us must eventually do what the matador does: go out and face not only the bull but the crowd." The talent at CTN should seek out the crowd.
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