Rehab for Comic Con Exhibitors

Fun day! Editing ASIFA State of the Animation Industry panel video to try and post it here. The sound on the close-up camera was all messed up but the establishing camera has good sound. So it will take a little longer than I first thought. Hoped to have it up first thing today but it was a vain hope and I should have known that. The fun is non-stop, also need to go through the ASIFA receipts and try and make some sense out of the dollars.

Update: Garrett Gilchrist and his Re-Cobbled Thief and the Cobbler. Garrett, who is one of my heroes, has got a hold of all of the 35 MM footage for the Cobbled Thief and the Cobbler that was all thrown away during the Warner Bros. production. I am hoping he has his re-re-clobbled version finished for next year`s Comic Con. (Gods! I`m already planning next year`s Comic Con programming! Have I no common sense? Somebody stiop me before I Comic Con again.)

I went out to a store yesterday and there were only a few hundred, fully clothed, people and the sound level wasn`t lethal. I felt strange, like something was very wrong. They should have rehab for Comic Con exhibitors.

Back to editing.

Pixar Doc Review

Just got this review from Leslie Iwerks. The review is from the sneak peek of her documentary that ASIFA-Hollywood screened at Comic Con last Thursday night.

Dear friends,

I`d like to share the first review for The Pixar Story feature documentary which made the front page of online Variety today after our sneak peek at San Diego`s Comic Con this weekend.

http://www.variety.com

I`ll keep you posted on upcoming screenings.

Hope you`re well, and all the best.

Leslie



Film
Posted: Sun., Jul. 29, 2007, 1:45pm PT

New U.S. Release
The Pixar Story
(Documentary)
By PETER DEBRUGE

Leslie Iwerks` documentary The Pixar Story tells of the rise of the animation company through the visions of people such as the three Pixar principals, John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs.

A Leslie Iwerks Prods. presentation of a Disney/Pixar production. Produced, directed, written by Leslie Iwerks.

With: Brad Bird, Loren Carpenter, Ed Catmull, Diane Disney Miller, Roy Disney, Michael Eisner, Bob Iger, Steve Jobs, Ollie Johnston, Glen Keane, John Lasseter, George Lucas, Alvy Ray Smith, Andrew Stanton, Frank Thomas.

Leslie Iwerks` The Pixar Story charts the company`s rise to infinity and beyond, so to speak, and who better to chronicle the journey than the Oscar-nominated granddaughter of animation pioneer Ub Iwerks? Though a talking-heads retrospective by nature, pic boasts not only all the right heads (from the three Pixar principals -- John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs -- to Michael Eisner and honorary godfather George Lucas) but also plenty of animated eye candy from Pixar itself, including early shorts and concept art. Result makes for a rosy inhouse portrait, sure to interest fans, especially down the road on DVD.

Version screened at San Diego Comic-Con was well polished but not quite complete, with credits still in flux and clearances still pending on a few of the clips.

In retrospect, it`s easy to mistake Pixar`s success as savvy planning on the part of Lasseter (talented artist), Catmull (creative scientist) and Jobs (visionary entrepreneur), but the docu goes a long way to remind just how remarkable the meeting of these three minds proved. After all, even Lucas, who developed Pixar as the computer-graphics arm of his own filmmaking operation, decided to cut it loose before the division had revealed its true promise.

Narrated by Stacy Keach, pic opens with the image of a spinning zoetrope, followed by highlights from a century of hand-drawn toons, a fitting reminder of just how far animation has evolved to reach the sophistication evident in Pixar`s product. The key, of course, was the introduction of the computer -- a tool Lasseter has elsewhere referred to as a multimillion-dollar pencil.

In other tellings of the Pixar story, Disney figures as the would-be villain (for letting Lasseter go during the early days of computer animation), with Lasseter`s promotion to chief creative officer of Disney animation seen as the underdog-hero`s poetic victory. But now that Disney and Pixar are one and the same, and because Iwerks` docu was produced internally, such dramatics have no place in this telling - which probably makes for a more accurate account of events, considering that neither company would be where it is today without the other.

Still, history is written by the winners, and The Pixar Story is first a tale of how computers saved the animation medium (ignoring that Disney was on a hot streak with Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King when Toy Story debuted) and how, in turn, the Pixar team will save traditional toon-making methods now that they run the show.

The movie is, above all else, a celebration of animation in all its forms. Iwerks naturally has a firm grasp of the medium`s history and rightly sees Pixar as the catalyst for the recent resurgence of audience interest in animation.

Early in the movie, Lasseter credits the book Walt Disney`s Art of Animation with inspiring him to enter the field, and Iwerks` film will no doubt have a similar effect on future generations. She focuses less on Pixar`s behind-the-scenes methodology (with good reason, considering how exhaustively those details are chronicled on the Pixar DVDs themselves), but presents a treasure trove of rare footage, including clips of Lasseter`s first two Student Academy Award-winning film-school projects, Lady and the Lamp and NiteMare, which presage Luxo Jr. and Monsters Inc.

Iwerks also includes the computer-animated Where the Wild Things Are demo Lasseter and Glen Keane developed for Disney, as well as Catmull`s U. of Ohio experiment in rendering his own hand (the first 3-D computer effect featured in a movie) and Loren Carpenter`s 1980 fractal landscape experiment Vol Libre (which enabled Pixar`s work on Star Trek II).

The film acknowledges the existence of Shrek and other CG toons, but doesn`t devote much time to the competition. Instead, Iwerks puts Pixar in a league of its own, detailing the many unheard of hurdles the company overcame: a back-to-the-drawing-board revision of Toy Story nine months before its release, the decision to hire an outside director (The Incredibles` Brad Bird) to shake things up after four major hits and so on.

Though positive, the film does not feel overly promotional. Pic fits in nicely with the open-door tradition Walt Disney established in the 1930s and captures the corporate culture of the place, where employees ride Segways around the office and participate in paper-airplane contests.

Tom Hanks and Tim Allen appear to discuss their work on Toy Story, but Iwerks recognizes that the suits (or the Hawaiian shirts, in Lasseter`s case) are the real stars of the Pixar story.

Camera (color, DV), Suki Medencevic; editors, Stephen Myers, Iwerks; music, Jeff Beal; sound, John Locke. Reviewed at San Diego Convention Center, July 26, 2007. Running time: 87 MIN.

Battle Zone Recap

It is finished. I am home from Comic Con and somewhat alive. I am walking like an old man. My legs are sore from the hips down. Hell, I am an old man.

Have the car unpacked. Looking through the cash box to try and make a little sense out of the paper trail created by poorly train volunteers. It is like a war zone. New recruits with very little training thrown into combat. They do the best they can.

Saturday at the Tom Sito book signing I saw Jacki Sanchez. If you have watched Dream On Silly Dreamer then Jacki is the outspoken one. And no she did not throw a chair at the Head of Disney Feature Animation. Every time their is some kind of fight at Disney the old chair throwing rumor comes back out. Jacki is looking happy. She may have some kind of secret project in the works. She is her old bubbly she. It just makes me happy to be in the same room with her. She is one of the sweetest people in animation. She gave me a great big hug and completely made my day.

Today or tomorrow or (let`s be truthful) maybe later this week I will be putting up the video of the ASIFA State of the Animation Industry panel. Very good information is a very short space of time. For now you can check out Bill Plympton`s comments on Hollywood Animation budgets in the post below.

One of the sad things is the number of demo reels I am starting to get, like I can really turn somebody onto to a job. I am just fighting to keep myself employeed. The sad part is that this is not the way to break into the business. Networking. Join, voluteer, get to know people in the industry. Handling out demo reels at Comic Con is one of the poorest ways to get a job.

Okay, I did it. Sunday at noon I went and signed up to do it all over again. I have already put together my first panel for 2008. Sleep, yes to sleep per change to not be sleepy.

State of the Animation Industry

Bill Plympton (seen in the video with DreamWorks director Tim Johnson) takes on Hollywood animation budgets. at the ASIFA-Hollywood State of the Animation Industry panel, Comic Con Saturday 2007.

Saturday Late Because of Tech Betrayal

Been having a hell of a time getting a wireless signal in the booth this morning. Been trying to post my blog since 8 o`clock this morning. Now it is 9 PM and I am back home having never been able to get on the WiFi I paid for.

Last night Jerry beck`s worst cartoon were. Jerry manages to bottom himself every year. This group of films came in below anything he has shown to date. 2,000 seat hall, standing room only.





Beating up the sidekick


Tinker Bell`s lips.


Villain victory dance from Johnny Cypher.


No time to finish this post, plan on having a video clip from the State of the Animation Industry panel up tomorrow if the WiFi works?

Friday Update:

Eric Goldberg stopped by the ASIFA-Hollywood Booth (5434) today and checked out the new drawing tools on FlipBook. Drew us a very nice Goofy.

Talked to Leslie Iwerks. We got talking about the 1 inch video master of lost Pixar short animation that ASIFA has in storage somewhere in 26 pallets from the Terry Thoren collection. We really need to go through those boxes and get that master to Emmerville where it belongs. The story I got was that was that there was a hard drive crash.

Friday - No Really

Yesterday`s post had Friday listed, not Thursday. But that is the Comic Con Time Warp for you. So yesterday was really great even if I don`t know what day was up.

We packed the Pixar Documentary with Leslie Iwerks, filling a 2,000-seat hall. People into spontaneous applause 8 or 9 times during the screening.

Garrett Gilchrist came up to before the Pixar screening and we had a chance to talk after the screening. Garrett is the guy that did the amazing Re-Cobbled Thief and the Cobbler last year. Seems he found more and better footage and is planning of revisiting this important project. Can`t wait. I am thinking of trying to talk him into talking to some of my classes next year.

Re-connected with Jay Francis after the excellent UPA panel. Jay uses to be the recruiter at Film Roman he is now at Disney as Director Animation Development. Unfortunately I didn`t have time to talk to him because I had to run to the Pixar screening.

My Animation on a ShoeString panel went very well. I was going through my ebook giving tips on how to set up a studio and showing video examples when I came to a section on Internet promotion.

I told the story of a computer animation I did in late 1996 where I killed the Dance Baby and fed his wireframe soul to the Old Gods because I was sick of seeing the little monster on every other TV show and commercial. It is a little piece name The Dancing Baby Meet Cthulhu. (here is a non-sound version)

The point I was making was that you never know what will happen when you put something on the Internet. A Lovecraft Convention wanted this animation for a Lovecraft Film Festival. The other point was that you need to label your backups so you can get back to old work. It took me more time to find my assets than it did to do the animation in the first place. The audience made me screen it. Something I try not to do with my computer animation from that time period.

I have my kids with me today. Tobias has been coming to Comic Con since he was 7 and Raven has been coming here since she was 5. I am still having trouble getting photos to upload or I would show you a photo of his vest with every badge from ever convention he has ever been too picked on it.

Today:
TREASURES OF THE ASIFA-HOLLYWOOD ARCHIVE VAULT Friday July 27th 4:30 to 6:00 Room3

and

THE CHIODO BROS. STOP MOTION ANIMATION IN THE COMPUTER AGE: Friday July 27th, 6:30-7:30pm RM 5AB

Thursday Programming:

Setting in room 30 about an hour from my first panel. Got them backed up for the rest of the day. My Animation on a ShoeString panel is from 3:30 to 5 with Marericks, Magic and MaGoo about a mile away in Room 3 on the other end of the Convention Center starting at 6:00.

You would think that 1 hour would be enough time to get from one side of the Con to the other but it is going to be tight. Because I will be lugging camera equipment for the UPA panel.

After that is is 15 minutes to the Pixar Story in Room 6 CDEF which should not be so back if the people directing traffic aren`t a pain. This is a oneway hall you have to go all around the building to into the room that you are standing 3 feet away from at this moment.

Thursday Comic Con Photos:

This comic con wireless is giving me a fit. It does not like to work with Blogger. Keeps asking me to relog in and then will not show the photes. I hope you can see these images because I can`t. I have got the images up on the sit just don`t know if they are viewable.

Cultural War Corespondent

Preview Night looked like Friday. The crowds were impossible. I could not see the carpet under foot. I was locked in a mass of unmoving bodies on my way down to Hall E to see Bill Plympton. I had to take a short cut by leaving the dealer`s floor, walking down several halls outside and re-entering the dealer`s floor closer to my goal.

This morning as I type this in my hotel room that, oh so familiar, ache has settled into my legs. It will grow over then next 4 days and I will be sore for weeks after. Why, I ask myself again?

We fought the good fight yesterday. Downloading drivers for the tablet for the ani jam. Kent working to get the latest version of FlipBook working with the projector. Me trying to animate while running the booth and talking on the cell phone to Leslie Iwerks.

It is hard to believe that the convention has not really even truly began yet, the horror, the horror. Today is when the ship hits the sand. As we closed down the booth last night Paul Husband showed up in the booth next door. Dyslexic Dogs. Seems Paul is their lawyer too. Paul is a former ASIFA board member, a friend and the legal consul for ASIFA and all around good guy.

The time warp has set in, real world time has slipped away and Comic Con time is firmly in place stretching back to all those other years of Comic Cons forgotten. I see people I haven`t seen in a year and it seems like I just talked to them the day before.

Today from 2 o`clock until 9 tonight I am running one program after another. My Animation on a ShoeString presentation first then UPA followed 15 minutes later by Pixar in another hall. Run Larry run! I am really looking forward to Leslie`s Pixar documentary tonight. So are a lot of other people. One of the nicest things is that all I have to do is watch it. I don`t have to get up and talk for this one.

Marcus just woke up. It is 6 AM; the alarm is set for 6:30 but my eyes popped open at 5 this morning with adrenaline pumping. What is that about? Comic Con starts today. The truth is that Comic Con never stops. I was putting together the programming way back at the Annies. Line up guests. Nursed it along all year long with phone calls and emails and this Sunday I will be in line to sign up again for next year. The horror!

Comic Con Setup

Here I am at Comic Con in the half-finished booth. I would put photos by my laptop is not recognizing my peripheries so you are stuck with my words.

The power box in the booth does not work so the Freeman Electric guy came over and tested the box found it didn`t work and then ran an extension cord in from the booth next door. Like that is going to fly. They will be pulling the plug as soon at they move into their booth.

Waiting for people to come back to set the booth so I can go back and talk to Electric. Also need to get in the line to pick up pro badges. DigiCel will be in as 4 to set up the animation jam. Have to find 2 more chairs before that.

Out the Door

Everything is packed but this laptop and that comes right after this post. Comic Con 2007! ASIFA-Hollywood will be in Hall C at booth 5434.
The map below is linked to the map page on the ASIFA at Comic Con site. We are in between Asylum Press and Bliss On Tap (God the Dyslexic Dog) and across from AIT/Planet Lar.

Reading and Packing

In a feat of family reading we (the Loc Family Ruth, Tobias, Raven & Larry) have finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, all 759 pages, in just 3 days of mad reading aloud. No spoilers here. But it was very good and she managed to tie it all up but not too tightly.

Tomorrow is packing day for San Diego Comic Con 2007. Everything has to be ready and in the car before I go to bed Tuesday night as I am off first thing in the morning to pick up Marcus Adams at the train station on our way down to set up the booth.

There is this strange thing, this time warp, that happens each year at Comic Con. It is like the days between Comic Cons fall away/blur and I am in the middle of one giant Comic Con that has gone on since 1986. It is hard to explain for people that have not gone year after year.

So my next report will be from Comic Con, Booth 5434 in Hall C. See you at San Diego.

On Site Contact Numbers Starting Wednesday:
818-793-1517 Jon Reeves - Opening Lead
818-534-6757 Steve Gattuso - Afternoon Lead
213-595-1244 Marcus Adams - Closing Lead

Surviving Comic Con:

I have been going to San Diego Comic Con since it was in the Grant Hotel and before that I went to Creation Con in New York City. I remember when Comic Con first topped 60,000 attendees. Below are 10 hopefully helpful hints for making the most of your time at Comic Con.

1. The trick is to spend a little time with your program book the first day, or go out on line and check before you even get in the car. Go through and mark what you want to see. I always mark everything on the front cover of my program book by day. Then grade the programs by most important. I use 1 to 5 stars.



2. Wear comfortable shoes, wear comfortable shoes, wear comfortable shoes, this is not the time to break in new footwear. Even new sneakers are not a good idea. You will be walking miles and miles. Just to walk past every booth on the dealer`s floor is over a 5 mile walk.



3. Wear an empty backpack and try to resist the giant bags every other booth is handing out. Comfortable clothes with a lightweight jacket for when the air conditioners really kick in. Something you can stash in your backpack when not needed.



4. Get there early and find your parking. Then go out to breakfast. I go to the Ralphs up the hill. I get something for breakfast and set outside at their picnic tables. At the same time I pick up stuff to make sandwiches with that I put in a cooler along with fruit and other snakes. But I have a booth to stash my cooler at. If you are walking around just get snacks that you can put in your pocket because the prices of on site food are outrageous but you can`t afford the extra weight.



5. If you know somebody running a booth, offer to help them watch their booth. This gives you a place to seat down and a place to stash your food and other small items. It also puts you the the pro side of the table.



6. Mix it up, give yourself time to walk the dealers room floor and give yourself time to go to programs. This will give you time to set down and time to walk around. Give yourself lots of time to get to your programs. If you are on the dealers floor head to your program 45 minutes early. It takes a long time to get from one side of the floor to the other and then you have to get up stairs.



7. Keep water with you. As Frank Hubert tells us in Dune the best place to carry your water is in your body. Stay hydrated. A water bottle in your backpack is heavy. Drink it as you go and it will be lighter. Small bottle are refill.



8. If you are going with people, make a plan to meet at a certain time at a per determined place and time. Of course cell phones are good as a back up plan but they don`t always work inside the convention center.



9. If you are trying to break into some aspect of the business leave your fan boy/fan girl persona at home. If you act professional you will fool everybody, including yourself, into thinking that you are professional and after a while you will be.



10. Pace yourself, you are never going to see or do everything at Comic Con. Get use to the idea of not seeing everything. Just go with the flow. Use all your per planning as a guide not as a bible. Enjoy yourself. Live to Con another year.

The Godfather of Penguin Animations:

I have always had a warm spot for Chilly Willy. In this age of too, too many penguin animations it is nice to look back on the simplicity of a pantomime character like the pint-size flightless aquatic water foul dynamo. Just been checking out The Legend of Rockabye Point. (1955 Tex Avery written by Michael Maltese)

It doesn`t get much better than this. Michael Maltese is near the top of my list of unsung animation geniuses and of course Tex Avery is Tex Avery. Over the top is never enough for Tex. Put them together and there is magic.

I have been thinking of adding The Legend of Rockabye Point to my Comic Con Treasures From The ASIFA Vault screening this coming Friday (July 27th 4:30-6:00 pm ROOM 3). Still playing around with the layout of the screening part of the presentation. Not sure what I would trade it out for. (Too many films, not enough time)



What an amazing image. It says it all.

A Good Animator is a Good Actor:

CLICK IMAGE

My good friend Aki Umemoto, who will be appearing as part of the ASIFA-Hollywood State of the Animation Industry panel next Saturday at Comic Con, will be appearing this week as a contestant on the Internet steaming video game show Show Me the Funny.

Aki started out taking improve and acting classes to improve his skill-set as a director. He is now finding a second career in front of the camera.

Crowds Done Wrong:

Last night was the roll out of the 7th Harry Potter book and the people at my local Borders Books fumbled crowd control in a big way. With Comic Con just 4 days away I am reminded of the amazing job the Comic Con people do with handling over 100,000 plus attendees. Handling that many people is a learned talent that takes years of practice.

Forgotten Master:

He directed, wrote, and often animated over 70 Bobby Bump cartoons, he co-wrote Snow White, did character design on Fantasia, he ran the animation department at Paramount, and he created and patented the cel overlay process that was the standard of the animation industry for over 80 years and most of you don’t know his name.

Earl Hurd was born on 14 September 1880, in Kansas City. He was a New York animator before there was an animation industry in New York. He devised and patented the cel overlay process in 1915.

His lawyer suggested that he join his patent with J. R. Bray`s animation patent because of some ligel overlap. He became a partner in the Bray studio as a result of the 1915 Bray/Hurd patent.

I still think it should be the Hurd/Bray Patent. The Bray process of preprinted backgrounds was not only flawed but proved completely unworkable in real production.

Bray and his wife, the Prussian Bitch as she was called behind her back, spend the rest of their lives pretending that they had invented cel overlay and that Earl Hurd was their employee and not their partner.

While Bray and his wife chased down prosecuted/persecuted patent violators Earl Hurd put out the visually sophisticated and well-written Bobby Bump series.

If that was not enough he moved to Disney in the mid 30s where he wrote a host of top-notch shorts and co-writing Snow White.

He died in 1940 in Burbank, California and has gone on to be an unsung hero. With people still giving credit to Bray for the Earl Hurd cel overlay invention. His Bobby Bump Forms a Lodge can be seen at the Origins of American Animation Site by clicking the image below.

ASIFA Animation Jam Fills Up

Only 2 open time slots left for the Second Annual ASIFA-Hollywood Comic Con Animation Jam.

QBU Student Blast From the Past:

So yesterday I am looking through the stacks for Jeffery Scott`s book on writing for animation for a pre-production class I am teaching today and I ran across this 1977 gem:



Parade Of Gore, lovingly calls POG for short, by the first and second Kurbert School classes that put it out in 1977 much to the disgust of Joe Kurbert. (not the name, that we put it out) The subject matter of two pieces were of a sexual and or scatological nature and were therefore too much for Joe and Muriel.

The offenders were Rick Grimes and Cara Sherman. (sadly Care is no longer with us) Rick`s back cover is open to some interpretation but all of them were a little lacking in taste. Cara`s vampire lunar cycle oral sex strip was not open to any kind of interpretation or taste, but was very well done.

The fun parts of the book are all the other crude student pages many by people currently of some stature is the Animation and Comic Book worlds:

• Steve Bissette (Comic Books)


• John Totleben (Comic Books)


• Tom Yeates (Comic Books)


• Tom Mandrake (Comic Books)


• David Schwartz (Animation)


• Tom Marnick (Animation)


• Kim Demulder (Comic Books)


• Chris Kalnick (Comic Books)


• Kevin Altier (Animation)


• Dave Dorman (Comic Books / Movie Posters)


• Ron Randall (Comic Books)


• Rick Vitch (Comic Books)


• Larry Loc (Animation)

The Bissette, Totleben, Yeates, Vitch and Schwartz pages are not too bad, artwork wise. The rest of you have been warned. I am willing to keep your student artwork under wraps for the right price. You know the drill, $100,000 each in unmarked gumballs in the hollow log behind the swimming pool at the old Baker Mansion and your fans never have to see your early published work.

Friday, ASIFAS at Comic Con

Treasures From The ASIFA Vault 4:30-6:00pm Room 3. I have already talked about this further down the page. Cool screenings and great artifacts.



The Chiodo Bros. Stop Motion Animation in the Computer Age Friday July 27th 6:30-7:30pm Room 5AB





Many predicted that computers would be the death of stop motion. My friends Stephen and Edward Chiodo along with Chris Warren and Jesse Gregg look at how computers have, in fact, helped sparked a renascence in stop motion puppet animation.

Worst Cartoons Ever 9 to 10 pm ROOM 6CDEF. What is to say. Come sing the Might Mr. Titan theme song with 2,000 crazed fans of very bad animation. Get tip top with Titan, shape up the Titan way. Get tip top with Titan, get stronger every day. Your country needs an active crew of heathly girls and boys like you. Get tip top with Titan, join the Titan team today.

Comic Con Animation Jam Fills Up

Thomas,

You don't need no sinkin' credentials to animate in our jam. All you need is a love of animating and the willingness to set down and animate in front of people.

Last year my son, who had not animated since he was 11, jumped in when someone failed to show up for their slot. We are just having fun. Welcome to the jam your time slot is open and you are good to go on Saturday 4:30 to 7.

See you then

Larry

Only 3 time slots left for the ASIFA Comic Con Animation Jam. Just one slot each open on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Going, Going, . . .

Build Your Own:

I have drilled a couple of holes inside each corned of my marked out window area. This will give us a starting point for the saw blade. There are 2 ways to go from here depending on if you have access to a saber saw.

I have been writing and updating my ebook Animation on a ShoeString (tm) for the last 6 years. This book grew out of all the questions I get from my animation students. Each year I try to add something new and useful. This year, because of the rising prices of animation wheels, I have added a pattern for building a backlit animation wheel for under $40.

If you would like to check out a sample of the stuff in this handy reference work you can see a striped down sample here: http://www.agni-animation.com/ (click of the sample link and wait for the PDF file to load - takes a little time to load)

We forget that the pioneers of animation built everything in their studios. They never went out and bought equioment because there was no equipment to buy.

I hear students over and over again saying I will do my animation just as soon as I can afford to buy X piece of equipment. Otto Messmer never said that. Grim Natwick never said that. And Ub Iwerks sure as hell never said that.

Thursday at Comic Con

A lot of people give Thursday a pass at Comic Con. This is becoming a bigger mistake every year as more and more top notch programming is pushed to Thursday because of the Hollywood Studio invasion.

Thursday July 26th I get to set down with Fred Crippen and Tee Bosustow and talk about United Productions of America (UPA) one of the most important studios of the 50s.

MAVERICKS, MAGIC AND MAGOO
6:00-7:00pm ROOM 3

Then I get 15 minutes to run to the Leslie Iwerks Pixar documarty. Leslie is the granddaughter of Ub Iwerks, one of the most important people in the whole history of animation. And Pixar, many of us think that Pixar is the most important studio making animation today.


THE PIXAR STORY -TO INFINITY AND BEYOND
7:15-8:45 Room 6CDEF

Thusday at Comic Con, no longer just a throw-away day.

An Open Letter to Amid:

Dear Mr. Amid Amidi,

I was just going to let your diatribe on the Annies pass because it really does not deserve a response and anyway I am too busy keeping that useless organization running to waste time on another sideliner who bitches but does not give back to the animation community. If I was still the Blog voice of ASIFA-Hollywood I would never write you this letter. But there is fredom in running your own blog as you well know.

In fact, if it wasn`t for the tribe of mindless drones yeah-saying your venom in the comments on your blog I would still have left your heartfelt but I believe way misguided attack to die the foolish death of other mindless hot headed attacks.

This isn`t the first time you have attacked the Annie Awards and called them an ultimately useless award . If you truly believe they are useless then I wonder why do you even bother to attack us?

First off, what are you attacking? Not all the Annie Awards per say, not all the Annie Awards that you grouped together and call an ultimately useless award along with all of ASIFA-Hollwood. Even you have to know better.

Strange, I see you showing up at our screening and events all the time. Why are you wasting your time. Your problem has always been with the Winsor McCay Awards for lifetime achievement and the fact that the nominating committee does not always think exactly like the great and all know voice of animation, Amid Amidi.

But to tar the entire Annie Awards and all of the work of ASIFA-Hollywood with the same useless brush is just wrong. Especially by someone who never has time to help save us from uselessness.

I fear that our industry disagrees with you. Ever year the Annies and ASIFA-Hollywood the Animation Archives are bigger and bigger with wider industry support. Come on Amid, you have got to know that you are basically full of shit here or just trying to up your readership again so you can make more on banner adds by starting a blog war when you call ASIFA-Hollywood an even more useless organization.

The Animation Archives is useless, the animated films we preserve are useless. The AFI Screens you come to are all useless. The Afternoon of Remembrance is useless. I seem to remember seeing you there. The cartoons that would be lose forever if we on the board did not fight for them the same way we fight for are heroes every year when it comes Winsor McCay Award time, they are all useless, useless, useless. The programs we put on are useless. The Stop Mo Expo that I killed myself to put together last April is useless. All the animation programming I put together every year for Comic Con are useless. Fine, stop coming to our useless events and stop logging on to our useless web resources. Or tone down your attacks.

It is easy to set on the sidelines and spend all your time promoting only Amid Amidi and never give back to the animation community unless there is a pay check in it. It is another thing to roll up your sleeves and lug over 2,000 boxes slated for the trash out of Klasky-Csupo in 103-degree heat on your Saturday off. Or get up on a Sunday morning and save a 1935 Dick Huemer mural from the wrecking ball. Or spend all day with Q-Tips and mild soap slowly cleaning 15 years of cooking greece off part of the Oogie-Boogie set from Nightmare Before Christmas. In fact, I can`t think of a time when you did anything that did not promote Amid Amidi.

You say that you`re not privy to the politics of the Annie Awards. Damn right! You haven`t earned the right to set at that table and fight for your heroes. You will never know how close Art Stevens has come any number of times to getting that Winsor McCay Award. You will never have to suffer the heartbreak of watching one of your childhood heroes loose out to another one of your childhood heroes and then have the added pleasure of being called useless by some sideliner who is always ready to eat the bread but not to make it.

Being called Useless is just one of the perks we board members get for all our years of hard work that we never get thanked for while you are off at another self promotion event or thinking of your next book tour and working out how you are going to use animation to make a living for Amid Amidi.

We get to set at the table and fight for our heroes and get to be called useless by the people like you that will not lend a hand. Because we earn that right. Amid you have to know in your heart of hearts that you are way out of line when you call us useless. We don`t call you useless. We get use out of your hard work even if it is done to the glory of Amid Amidi.

Kick Gets a Little More Time

At last, movement on the animation preservation front, Thursday night the ASIFA-Hollywood Executive Board funded the preservation of the only 35 MM copy of the Fleischer cinecolor cartoon A Kick in Time. We also funded the copying of a Mike Lah pencil tests reel that spans his career, as well as finishing the preservation of the Ub Iwerks Sinbad the Sailor.

I have been working to getting Kick and some other films from the Kausler collection persevered for a number of years.

It is always a delicate balancing act not to step on toes or piss off people, or accidentally divert funding from other people`s projects or other ways rock the boat with studios and donors.

There are so many films that need to be saved and only limited resources. But it is worth it when one of the films gets stay of execution away from oblivion.

The thing with film is that it always is just a stay of execution, because each time we make a preservation copy of an endangered film all we are really doing is resetting the clock to zero. But the clock just keeps on ticking.

There is no such thing as a perfect standard archival quality preservation medium, not safety stock, not modern 35 mm, not DVD or any other digital medium, they all are subject to the encroachment of time in one form or another.

So the next time you see a great copy of 60 or 70 year old film, stop and think about all the people who fought to keep that film alive.

Treasures of the ASIFA Vault

I am spending some time this morning putting together my Treasures From the ASIFA Vault program for Comic Con.

Treasures From The ASIFA Vault
Friday July 27th 4:30 to 6:00 Room 3

Steve Worth burned me another killer DVD so I have a lot to choose from. Here are some of the cartoons that I am playing around with for the screening part of the presentation. They may change a little by the time I get to the Friday program:

• Sweet Jennie Lee 1932 Fleischer Bros. - Screen Song


• Barnyard Actor 1955 Terrytoons - Gandy Goose


• A Dream Walking 1934 Fleischer Bros. - Black and White Popeye


• Old Mill Pond 1936 MGM - Harman-Ising


• Legend of Rockabye Point 1955 - Tex Avery Chilly Willy


• Ski for Two 1944 - Shamus Culhane Woody Woodpecker


• Tin Pan Alley Cats 1943 - Bob Clampett


• What Happens at Night 1939 - Terrytoons


• Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs 1942 - Bob Clampett

Like I say, some of it may change depending on what the audience wants at the time of the program but this is the current plan.

Lots of fun and surprises, cool artifacts, archive pristine prints and news about the exciting one-of-a-kind animation resource that is the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archives.

Fact Check:

I am saddened by the passing of Dave Hilberman, the pioneer of the new animation. He was involved with so much animation that is groundbreaking and revolutionary. He also is a hero of the animation labor movement who suffered, in a very real way, for his ideals. The working world of animators is a better place because of him.

But I really am not really going to talk that much about Dave Hilberman today. I just want to talk about what wasn`t said over the past week in regards to his career.

I have been reading the Dave Hilberman memorials from people who knew and loved this great man of animation and I have been struck by how a lot of historians today tend to simplify into sound bites. Even the top notch ones that I respect. They have all seemed to have bought into the media short hand. It is like they know know that they have to dumb it down for the masses. Here is a quote from Tom Sito, one of the best of the best:

Dave Hilberman was an important animator-layout artist at Walt Disney Studios in the 1930s. He spent time in Leningrad in 1930 with the Futurist Theater there and met Maxim Gorky, Mayakovsky and Vertov. He was a leader of artists in the Walt Disney Studio Strike of 1941, and for that earned the lasting animus of Walt Disney. When Walt testified to HUAC in 1947, he personally named Dave as a communist. Dave was one of the aentral founders of UPA and the UPA style. (italics mine)

And here is a quote from Amid Amidi:

ASIFA-San Francisco president Karl Cohen forwarded a note to let us know that UPA co-founder and one of the last of the truly great animation legends, David Hilberman, passed away on July 5. (italics mine)

I know I am being picky and that is what Tom will tell me at the ASIFA board meeting tonight. Hell, I respect Tom and Amid and their work and they are not, by any means, the only ones taking shortcuts with animation history.

I have been out to the Guild site, I have done a Google search and I have even gone over to IMDB and checked the company names. They don`t even list Industrial Films and Poster Service or give them credit for the films they created under that company name.

See here is the thing, Dave Hilberman and his partner Zack Schwartz never really worked at a company named UPA nor did they own the company named United Productions of America.

Yes they founded the studio that became UPA but its name was only changed to United Productions of America after Zack and Dave sold Industrial Films and Poster Service to Steve Bosustow and John Hubley. Long, and very interesting story that no one is going to look into because no one talked about it.

And that is what I am bitching about here, the sound bites taking the place of the story, taking the easy way, dumbing everything down for the widest audience. Even the best historians know instinctively that they have to back off on the whole story to get anybody to listen, which just plays into the whole vicious cycle and trains another generation to not look deeper.

David Hilberman is a very important figure in animation history. Can`t we tell a little bit more about his life? Put some clues in the story so maybe someone will want to look deeper? Must we put everything into neat little packages with easy but incorrect labels?

I know it is easier to say Dave Hilberman co-founded UPA than to say he co-founded the company that became UPA. Maybe it is because I am a teacher, but can`t we let people know about a little bit about the complexities? Then maybe they will want to look a little deeper. Why must it always be lowest common denominator?

Maybe if the best didn`t feel that they had to dumb stuff down we wouldn`t have another generation of A.D.D. students that can`t follow my lectures? We will never know unless we try.

Call For Animators:

Eric Goldberg Antic from Last Year`s Jam

We still have open animation slots for the Comic Con Animation Jam. There are 2 slots on Thursday, 1 slot on Friday, 2 on Saturday and 3 on Sunday. Come and be part of the fun.

Rat Again:

One of the first things I do when I get on the web each day is click on over to Tom Sito`s Blog. Tom has been going on of late about what a break though film Ratatouille is turning out to be. Agreed, but then so was the Incredibles. And what about Iron Giant?

I was in a computer store yesterday picking up some CDs so I could burn copies of my ebook Animation on a $hoe$tring and behold in the Flat Screen area of the store they where showing the 100 Mile Dash scene to show how great their TVs where but all I saw way just how great Brad Bird is. Ratatouille does not look like a movie he rescued. If you did not know the back story you could never tell. Can`t wait to see what he does next!

Thursday Comic Con Programming Update:



The Sneak Peak of Leslie Iwerks` Pixar Documentary, the Pixar Story: To Infinity And Beyond, has been moved from 10:15 to 7:15. Same room, ROOM 6CDEF. I will be updating the Comic Con site over on the ASIFA server today after one more root level virus scan to make sure I`m safe to talk to other computers.

Trojan Wars Part II:



I`m Back, some what, after having about a 100 hour of my labor stolen from me. Guess what is on my mind this morning as yet another virus scan runs in the background.

So half-way through my battle I am doing web based virus scans. I do the PC-Cillan scan and the Norton web based scan and while I am looking for them I keep seeing a web based scan called StopSign.

A web-based scan works this way. You download an ActiveX Korneal that allows the web site access to run the application over the Internet on your computer.

But this, so called, web scan downloads an execute file and wants to run it on my system. This does not ring true. So I call their 1-800 number just to hear if there is a real phone at the end of the number, which there is. But that tells me very little.

So I do a search on the web and I start finding all these sites talking about this produce and how it is not a web based scan but a scam that installs their produce on your system and uninstalls all other virus detection software without your permission. Which explains why the virus detection software products, that I pay for and trust, treat it as a virus. What would you call it?

What kind of slims take advantage of other people`s tragedy to make a profit? Okay, besides doctors and funeral homes and lawyers and dentists. Well at least animators don`t prey on people in the market place.

Trojan Wars:



It has not been a very good last couple of days in computer hell. I will be back as soon as I beat the viruses.

Estimates:

I have been putting together a budget for a project that may or may not fly and if it does I may or may not still be involved with by the time it comes to production. If it ever does? Business as usual.

One of the great unknown animation resources of the web is the Adobe Acrobat copy of the current union contract over at the Animation Guild Local 839. There laid out for all to see is the going union rates for every possible job in the animation industry.

Guild home page
Contract PDF file

One of the questions I always get from friends and students (not to say students can`t be friends, a lot of my friends started that way) is what should I charge? What should I charge? What should I charge?

When you are starting out you are going to be charging less than the union rate, just to get your foot in the door. Once you are established you should charge more than the union rate because, honey, they aren`t paying into your retirement fund.

And if you can get into the union, do so. The reason we are doing as well as we are has a lot to do with Babbitt, and Hubley, and Jones and Sigall and Melendez and Sito and the hundreds and hundreds of others that risked everything to make animation safe for animators in their day to day and in their older years.



That`s it for today. Not going to sing I Dreamed I saw Joe Hill Last Night, as liv` as you or me. But Joe you`re 10 years dead said I. I never died said he, I never died said he . . .

Job Security:

I am late is posting today because of what I thought was an eCard from my sister. Who writes viruses? The important question is of course why? Who does it benefit? I have said it before, follow the money! Who makes lots of money off viruses? And guest what, I need to renew my virus software just next month. Strange! Have a safe 4th and watch what emails you open.

Gumbasia, First Music Video?:

There are still people around who think Walt Disney was an animator. He was a producer. He stopped animation in 1922 or 1923. Until I started assigning subjects for the Animator Report in my history of animation classes students kept doing reports on Charles Schultz listing him as the animator/director of the Charley Brown cartoons. (Can you say Bill Melendez?)



So it comes as no surprise that most people think Art Clokey is the stop motion animator of Gumby. He animated Gumbasia his 1953 abstract USC student film. But he wasn`t even the director on the Gumby show. He was the writer and executive producer. Veteran stop motion animator Raymond Peck was the director on the early Gumby Shorts. Here is the back story very nicely laid out by Ron Kurer`s Toon Tracker http://www.toontracker.com/gumby/gumby.htm

I`m not coming down on Clokey like I did last week on Bob Kane. Gumby is definitely Art`s baby. Gumby reflects his worldview. He created him and wrote his adventures but other people carried out his vision. There is nothing wrong with that.

But the one project he did animate was a really great film, maybe even the forerunner to the music videos (it is animated to a bongo driven Jazz beat). It is an important work and if you haven`t seen it you should. I, for one, wonder what would have happened if Art Clokey had continued to animate?

Death of Public Singing:

There use to be a time when song was for everybody. It was a community function. A public activity. A joy! But today everybody is too cool to sing in public anymore. And all we have left of the phenomena are a few bouncing ball cartoons like this 1958 Famous Studios cartoon Comin` Round the Mountain.





What killed off the joy of publicly raising voice with neighbors and made us too cool to sing? I think I may surprise a few people here when I say that it is not coolness that keeps us mute, it is stark fear of not being good enough to match the best singers in the world. For that is who you have to compete with today.

In the old days we, the people, were is a much smaller world, a smaller pond. When we compared our talents it was with our neighbors. Now thanks to radio, and TV, and I-pods, and MTV we have to measure to the best talents the world to offer and the joy of song has gone out of the world. We stand during the National Anthem and move our lips in church but nothing comes out.

I am first generation Television -Watching-Man, a mental mutation that forever separates me from my forebearers, and I am as guilty as anybody else of fear of public singing. Maybe more so because my voice breaks above a base register. But a couple of year`s ago Jere Guldin of UCLA Film and Television Archive invited me to an animation screening of films that ASIFA-Hollywood, UCLA, and others had helped to preserve. When the bouncing ball came on the screen and the audience all started to sing along with Ethel Merman there was a real joy not often found it today`s too cool world.

Sing with me now . . . she`ll be comin` round the mountain when she . . .

Vegetable Sex and Violence:

One of the highlights of the Stop Mo Expo was Jason Wishnow`s Oedipus. It is the story of a potato who is the victim of a prophecy. In short, it is the retelling of the Oedipus myth with vegetables. A cute idea for a stop motion project but in the hands Wishnow, a first rate Director of Photography, it is brilliant, breathtaking, epic and funny as hell.





Okay, hell my not be that funny, but Jason Wishnow`s Oedipus is. He tells the story straight with overwhelming camera work. And Billy D. Williams as the voice of the bartender. More info here: http://www.newvenue.com/production/content-themovie.html



The Queen is a real tomato!