Commercials Issue - Animation World Network

Commercials IssueCommercials Issue

Profiles of:Profiles of:Acme FilmworksAcme Filmworks

Blue Sky StudiosBlue Sky StudiosPGAPGA

Karl CohenKarl Cohenon (Colossal)Õon (Colossal)Õss

Life Life After Chapter 1After Chapter 111

Gunnar Str¿mÕGunnar Str¿mÕssFumes From The FjordsFumes From The Fjords

An Interview WAn Interview With ith AardmanÕAardmanÕs Peter Lords Peter Lord

May 1997May 1997 VVol. 2 No. 2ol. 2 No. 2• MAGAZINE •

Words From the PublisherA few changes 'round here. . . .

Editor’s Notebook

Letters to the EditorQAS responds to the ASIFA Canada/Ottawa Festival discussion.

Acme Filmworks:The Independent's Commercial StudioMarcy Gardner explores the vision and diverse talents of this unique collective production company.

(Colossal) Pictures Proves There is Life After Chapter 11Karl Cohen chronicles the saga of San Francisco's (Colossal) Pictures.

Ray Tracing With Blue Sky StudiosSusan Ohmer profiles one of the leading edge computer animation studios working in the U.S.

Fumes From the FjordsGunnar Strøm investigates the history behind pre-WWII Norwegian animated cigarette commercials.

The PGA ConnectionGene Walz offers a look back at Canadian commercial studio Phillips, Gutkin and Associates.

Making the Cel:Women in CommercialsBonita Versh profiles some of the commercial industry's leading female animation directors.

An Interview With Peter LordWendy Jackson talks with co-founder and award winning director of Aardman Animation Studio.

Festivals, Events:

Cartoons on the BayGiannalberto Bendazzi reports on the second annual gathering in Amalfi.

The World Animation CelebrationThe return of Los Angeles' only animation festival was bigger than ever.

The Hong Kong Film FestivalGigi Hu screens animation in Hong Kong on the dawn of a new era.

Reviews:

Books: Fred Patten reviews Samurai from Outer Space: Understanding Japanese Animation.

Software: John Parazette-Tillar braves the world of Java, testing out two new programs, WebBurst and Jamba

NewsCinar opens shop in Europe, Aardman announces their feature film, Pixar closes their interactive division andmore…

On A Desert Island . . .Commercial Free?Ron Diamond, Darrel Van Citters and Paul Vester.

Cover: Image from Aleksandra Korejwo's Tammhäuser commercial for The Austin Lyric Opera. © AcmeFilmworks.

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Table of Contents

© Animation World Network 1996. All rights reserved. No part of the periodical may be reproduced without the consent of Animation World Network.

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AWN ComicsDirdy Birdy by John Dilworth

Next Issue’s Highlights

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by Ron Diamond

I 'd like to take this opportunity tointroduce myself, and to sharesome of the background that

motivated me to publish AnimationWorld Magazine and motivates mestill in our great and growing ven-ture. I would like also to introducemy esteemed partner in AWN, andco-publisher, Dan Sarto. Dan is ourtechnical guru and the spark behindthe creation of the magazine.

We have just begun our sec-ond year in publication, suc-cessfully reaching people inmore than 100 countries whoall share a common interest,animation. We are connectedby our fascination, apprecia-tion and enthusiasm for themany ways animation hascome to enrich our lives.

I can recall a pivotal televisionseries offered in the early1970s that forever changedmy perception of what ani-mation could be. The series,entitled The World ofAnimation, was hosted byJean Marsh and aired on LosAngeles' public television sta-tion, KCET. The strong impressions itmade remain with me today. Theprogram featured work from thegreat National Film Board ofCanada and from Eastern Europe.

IMATION WORLD MAGAZINE

Unlike the conventions of animat-ed series television and the featurefilms of the day, these short filmsonly needed remain true to them-selves and not to a premeditated"bible" of character poses and in-character scenarios. With each newshort would come the anticipationthat a new story or expression couldchallenge the foundations of myearlier animation reference.

My fascination with animation hasbrought me along an unusual path.Though I have not animated sincesome exercises in film school, my

Ron Diamond

commitment to the medium haspermitted me to distribute works tointernational audiences and to pro-duce for directors whom I greatlyadmire. I invite you to learn moreof my recent history in the article inthis issue on Acme Filmworks.

It's as though there is a force with-in us Animation World citizens tochoose this road less traveled, and

to take on this ominous andsometimes ridiculous task. Thework is often tedious, compli-cated and few (very few) peoplewho work in this business makea grand income. The answersto the question of "why?" are asvaried as the numbers of theones asking the questions. Forme, it is confirmed every time Isee a great animated film with amessage well told, art well illus-trated or a beautiful blend ofpoetry and motion. To partici-pate in this process, my time iswell spent.

To work within the system thatcreates the extraordinary is ablessing. Our lives are enrichedby working with the imagina-

tive individuals who painstakinglyenvision to move the medium for-ward. From the day I becameinvolved professionally in animation,I've found animators to be a special

May 1997 3

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE

ANIMATION WORLD NETWORK6525 Sunset Blvd., Garden Suite 10

Hollywood, CA 90028Phone : 213.468.2554Fax : 213.464.5914Email : [email protected]

ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE [email protected]

PUBLISHERRon Diamond, President

Dan Sarto, Chief Operating OfficerEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Harvey Deneroff

ASSOCIATE EDITOR/PUBLICITYWendy Jackson

CONTRIBUTORS :Otto Adler

Giannalberto BendazziJanet Benn

John R. DilworthBruno Edera

Maureen FurnissTom Knott

Mark LangerArnaud Laster,Wendy Jackson

Mark LangerPhilippe MoinsChris Robinson

John Parazette-TillarAnnick Teninge

Le WEBMASTERGuillaume Calop

DESIGN/LAYOUT :John Parazette-Tillar

Guillaume Calop

IMP Graphic

ADVERTISING SALESNorth America : Bart VitekUK: Roger Watkins

We welcome our new Editor– Heather Kenyon.

breed. I am immensely impressedby their humanity, creativity, orig-inality and by their dedication totheir art. I consider myself privi-leged to have worked and to con-tinue to work with so many tal-ented people.

With this issue, we also introducean important change at AnimationWorld Magazine. It is my pleasureto announce that Heather Kenyonhas joined our staff as Editor-in-Chief. Heather has worked atHanna Barbera for the last 3 and1/2 years, where she vacates theposition of Manager of theProduction InformationDepartment. I invite all who wishto send Heather a message (email:[email protected]) to congratu-late her on her new position at .We are grateful to HarveyDeneroff for his contributions to

the magazine during our first year,and we wish him success on allhis future endeavors. Please readHarvey's farewell in this issue'sEditor's Notebook. Wendy Jacksoncontinues her expert and devot-ed work as Associate Editor ofAnimation World Magazine, andalso continues to compile theAnimation Flash.

It is my intention as Publisher ofAnimation World Magazine to cel-ebrate all forms of animation, stu-dio and independent, student andprofessional, commercial and artfrom all nations. Great works needto be viewed and discussed, andit is my continued desire to pro-mote works representing diversi-ty in animation.

-Ron Diamond

May 1997 4

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by Harvey Deneroff
Commercials
Many years ago, when I wasan undergraduate student, I volun-teered to transcribe an oral historyinterview with Hans Richter, one ofthe pioneers of European avant gardecinema, whose career dated back tothe 1920s. One of the comments thatstuck with me all these years wasabout an offer he had to make anadvertising film. As he considered him-self first and foremost an artist, herefused. Later, after seeing the result-ing film, he was so delighted that hechanged his mind towards workingon such films.

Today, with the likes of SpikeLee making commercials, the specterof selling out has long since vanished;this has been especially so for ani-mators, as early on advertising filmsbecame an integral part of the ani-mation mainstream. Thus, the com-mercial studio run by JuliusPinschewer in pre-Nazi Germany wascertainly one of the most importantin that country’s animation history,employing the likes of such artists asOskar Fischinger, among others;Fischinger, in turn, supported hisexperimental work by working oncommercials, including the first oneto employ marching cigarettes (wellbefore Lucky Strike did in the US inthe early years of TV). (The key roleadvertising films have played in help-ing establish animation in Norway isvividly illustrated elsewhere by GunnarStrøm’s discourse on “Fumes From theFjords.”)

In the United States, TheodoreGeisel (Dr. Seuss) probably had hisprofessional introduction to anima-tion via advertising films, long beforehis books were adapted to the screen


and he wrote the original story forGerald McBoing-Boing. With the com-ing of television, commercial studiosliberated many animators fromdependence on a few theatrical stu-dios as their almost sole source ofemployment; in fact, spot housescame to dominate the New York ani-mation industry in the 1950s. It wasan era when such studios as UPA andHanna-Barbera set up major com-mercial operations and which is stilllooked upon as a Golden Age ofAmerican Animated Commercials.

Today, with the worldwidetoon boom going on apace, com-mercials no longer play as dominanta role in the global animation com-munity; nevertheless, it remains a fer-tile ground for creativity. In the US,this can be seen by increasing use ofindependent animators and design-ers by such companies as The InkTank, J.J. Sedelmaier, Klasky Csupo,Duck Soup and Acme Filmworks. Atthe same time, digital studios like BlueSky and Rhythm & Hues use theircommercials as a means to push theboundaries of CG animation. Withthe proliferation of new TV channelsaround the world, many of whomare advertiser supported, animatedcommercials would seem to have avery long life ahead of them.

ThirtyWith this issue, I am stepping

down as Editor of Animation WorldMagazine to devote more time to var-ious personal projects, including TheAnimation Report, the industrynewsletter I edit and publish. It is nota decision I took lightly, as editingAnimation World Magazine has beena wonderful experience, which

enabled me to both explore theheady possibilities of publishing onthe Internet, as well as establishingan exciting new journal of news andopinion.

Before departing, I would liketo offer a few observations aboutInternet publishing. When I was firstapproached about this assignment inlate 1995, the conventional wisdomheld that none of the old rules forputting together a print magazinereally applied to online journals. Afterall, given the nature of computers,readers probably had little tolerancefor articles of more than a few hun-dred words. Needless to say, weignored this sort of opinion and real-ized that Internet publishing gave onethe freedom to publish longer articleswithout having to worry about print-ing costs. (As it turns out, the mostpopular article in the first issue wasBarry Purves’ “The Emperor’s NewClothes,” a delightful essay on com-puter vs. stop-motion animation, wasone of the longest we ran in our earlymonths. In fact, it continued to beread widely for several months afterit became a back issue!) The same free-dom to print longer articles, withoutworrying about running up printingbills, has also allowed us to print arti-cles in an author’s original languageas well as in English.

But perhaps the most impor-tant freedom I found is the ability toreach out across international bordersand address the worldwide anima-tion community with unparalleledease. And it is for this opportunity thatI will always remain grateful.

--Harvey Deneroff

May 1997 5

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Letter to the EditorMay 1997

Defining ASIFA

T he following letter was sentin reply to Chris Robinson’s“To Be or Not To Be An ASIFA-

Sanctioned Festival,” whichappeared in the January issue ofAnimation World Magazine.Additional letters responding to thisarticle were published in theFebruary 1997 issue.

March 27, 1997To: Animation World Magazine,Hubert Tison, Chris Robinson,Michel Ocelot, David Ehrlich andGunnar Strom.

Dear People,

I feel compelled to write regard-ing remarks made by Mr. ChrisRobinson concerning the organiza-tion that is ASIFA, and it’s relevanceto it’s members, of whom I am one.Frank discussion is necessary, but Ifind Mr. Robinson’s remarks couchedmore in mean-spiritedness and lessin frankness. This correspondenceappeared on the ASIFA web site andAWN.

It was the following remark thatI took particular offense to in light ofthe tone of his correspondence:“Why do you think societies havesprung up across the country inVancouver, Toronto, Winnipeg andCalgary? Because it is impossible forASIFA Canada to represent theirneeds.” Mr. Robinson should havedone some research before makinga statement like this. I can’t speakfor the founding members of the


Quickdraw Animation Society(which is probably who he wasreferring to in Calgary) regardingthe formation of the Society in1984, relative to ASIFA (so I don’tsee how Mr. Robinson can,) but Ican speak as an active producingmember (since 1990) and opera-tions coordinator (since 1994) atQAS.

QAS is primarily a non-profit,artist-run animation film productionco-op with equipment, facilities andsupport services for artists to pro-duce their personal visions in ani-mation. Nowhere in the ASIFA liter-ature that I have does it say thatthey are a production facility. QAS isnot an international organization,with international connections, norcould we ever hope to be, butthrough ASIFA we can approach alevel of recognition that we couldnever achieve on our own. This ishow ASIFA-Canada can meet ourneeds. QAS is taking positive stepsto get more involved; by activelyencouraging our members tobecome ASIFA members, contribut-ing to the newsletter, networkingwith other ASIFA members, possiblyhosting an ASIFA children’s work-shop in connection with our QuickKids programming, and so on. I willnot allow QAS to be used as ammu-nition by Mr. Robinson in his attackagainst ASIFA. ASIFA has been veryEastern-centric, but it is changing,and QAS is assisting with thatchange. It’s unfortunate that thechange is occurring when there islittle funding to support it.

As far as ASIFA-Canada separat-ing into chapters, oh yes, that’s justwhat we need, yet another bunchof under-funded organizationsduplicating services that could verylikely wither and die for lack offinancial and volunteer support. Thecurrent political and financial climatedoes not adequately support thearts and culture organizations thatalready exist. Regional representa-tion on the board of ASIFA-Canadawould be a much better idea, withassistance provided through theexisting animation groups. QASalready actively supports andencourages cooperation with otherorganizations (locally withEM/Media Gallery and VideoProduction Society, and the CalgaryArts Facility Association; provinciallywith the Alberta Media Arts AllianceSociety (amaa-s); and nationally withthe Independent Film and VideoAlliance (IFVA), and ASIFA). There isa large national push for more sup-port and communication amongarts and culture organizations; ittakes some effort, but it will createa strong and united community,instead of further fracturing it by cre-ating splinter groups. Why does Mr.Robinson want to encourage some-thing that is in direct opposition tothese nationally supported initia-tives?

As operations coordinator atQAS, I am continually struggling (asare most non-profit arts organiza-tion) to maintain our current struc-ture of support for our members,including (under)paying staff, pay-

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ing rent, maintaining very expen-sive film production equipment, sub-sidizing members’ productionsthrough our volunteer credit pro-gram, creating and administeringcourses, workshops and program-ming relevant to our members, andthese concerns have to beaddressed all year, year after year. Imake a little over $11,000.00/year,QAS is forced to operate on$70,000.00/year, so the money hasto be spent in exactly the rightplaces. We have the potential to doso much more, and we are veryfrustrated.

There are a great many arts pro-fessionals in this country that arebecoming completely demoralizedbecause of the constant battle forfunding. The people with thepower and the money don’t seemto care, there is a lack of philan-thropic initiative in the business com-munity, individuals have to spendtheir time volunteering and sup-porting health and educational insti-tutions to provide basic humanneeds so there is no energy left overto devote to supporting arts andculture. This is a horrible andunhealthy social climate that artsgroups are constantly facing.Support to QAS through theCanada Council has been frozen forthe last five years, and up until lastyear we were the lowest fundedMedia Arts group. ASIFA-Canadafunding was cut completely in1996. This is something that I won-der if Mr. Robinson was aware of. Ithink his energy would be put tobetter use lobbying the government(on all levels) to increase funding toarts and culture, instead of con-stantly complaining to ASIFA abouthaving no funding. Perhaps ASIFAcould assist with this lobby, as thiswould directly support and encour-age the art of animation on it’s mostbasic level - funding for the creation


and presentation of animated films.QAS is involved with an initiativewith the IFVA regarding a NationalCultural Emergency Day of Actionon April 26, I can and do sympa-thize with Mr. Robinson regardinghis funding concerns with theOttawa Festival, and I would bevery interested in seeing a copy ofthe festival budget; I have someopinions but would like to presentsome educated feedback. I have noexperience in festival operations, butI have practical experience in the-ater, which operates on similargrounds, and with organizing largeevents for QAS. I also know how I,as an animator, would like to seefilms presented.

As far as ASIFA being an “oldboys network”, these “old boys” areestablished professionals in the fieldwho have the time, inclination andfinances to be able to provide thenecessary support. I respect andadmire these people for theiraccomplishments and have noqualms about their ability to repre-sent me as an ASIFA member. QAShas a policy of inclusion regardingstyles and concepts of animation,and we appreciate and promoteour proud heritage, as does ASIFA.Among the Pantheon of Gods atQAS are Norman McLaren, FredericBack (I would suppose that wouldmake Hubert Tison a prophet), JanSvankmajer, Chuck Jones, RayHarryhausen, Ishu Patel, CarolineLeaf, John Whitney, the BrothersQuay, Tex Avery. . . . Our Valhalla isquite crowded. If Mr. Robinson trulywants to be an advocate for ani-mators, doesn’t he realize he isalready in the perfect position to bethat as a festival director?

I would love to be a represen-tative on the board of ASIFA, butwhen I am not working at my job,with the attendant committee andassociation meetings and volun-

teerism, I am trying to make myfilms. My partner, Kevin Kurytnik,and I are in production on a 15minute cel animation project thathas been in development for thelast three years, and I myself havetwo projects in development. Wedo not work for a studio, we areself employed, we get limited finan-cial support through grants (whenthe application is successful, thecompetition is enormous), moneywe don’t use for food or rent goesback into our films, so there is littleleft for other concerns.

Having spoken to many ASIFApeople over the course of this lastyear, they are coming to understandthe approach to animation here atQAS, and stylistic preferences aside,they respect and appreciate whatwe are accomplishing. I was alsosurprised to find that many of themare facing the same issues that ani-mators at QAS have or are now fac-ing, those being struggling withcompleting their latest film, waitingfor funding for their next project,fighting with producers, looking fordistributors; it’s encouraging and dis-couraging at the same time. Theseare the people who sit on the ASIFAboards, it is very clear that theyunderstand what animators face. Idon’t see them as being out oftouch at all. It is Mr. Robinson whoappears thus. If he purports to speakfor animators, is he himself an ani-mator? Who is he, where does hecome from, why is he involved?

It is also quite evident that ani-mation as an artform is very frac-tured. “Independent” has a differ-ent definition depending on whoyou talk to, most industry peopleappear to have absolutely no clueabout animation as fine art and onlyseem interested in where themoney is made, fine art animationis not properly or adequately pre-sented at festivals except in token

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gestures, and the younger genera-tion doesn’t seem to care about ani-mation unless it’s hooked up to acomputer, or steeped in cynical popculture posing and smugness.Communication and education isso important to bringing moreunderstanding and appreciation ofthe vastness of animation, and thisis what the festivals should be, ahuge conduit for communicationand education, along with enter-tainment, networking, and goodwill.

ASIFA as an organization needstime to recover from the financialhit it took. M. Tison stated in his June1996 editorial for the newsletterthat “newly established govern-mental budget policies have hadnegative repercussions...we are abit shaken by the financial con-straints...” You’d think that Mr.Robinson would be more compas-sionate towards this reality as he isfacing the same thing with his fes-tival. Most organizations have torethink and restructure in order tosurvive now, and these things taketime. What is needed is positive crit-ical discussion and action. I supposethrough Mr. Robinson’s efforts we


Letters to th

Anim6525 Sun

Holly

are now entering into these dis-cussions, however I take issue withhis reasons and methods. His criti-cism of ASIFA with regards to theOttawa Festival might have somevalidity if this was a recurring prob-lem from past festivals.

As I understand it, this is his firstexperience as director of theFestival, perhaps there was notproper orientation by the last direc-tor in outlining the responsibilitiesof ASIFA with regards to the Festival,there was obviously a lack of com-munication and this goes bothways. I was very disappointed withthe whole experience of the OttawaFestival. There was no indicationthat the people who are the mainfocus of the Festival, that being theanimators, were ever really wel-come. The workshops were ofabsolutely no relevance to me as anindependent animator. The layoutof the trade fair, with the dreadfulcrush of humanity before and afterscreenings, had no appearance ofadvance planning, there were somerude and distracted volunteers moreconcerned with where the donutswere than with assisting festival par-ticipants. Yes they were volunteers

e editor can be sent b

[email protected] fax to:

(213) 464-5914

or by regular mail to:

ation World Netwset Blvd., Gardenwood, CA 90028 U

(and thank the gods for them!,) andtheir duties can be brutal, but thereis a certain level of professionalismexpected. I appreciate Mr.Robinson’s position as a first timedirector and am fully aware of thework involved with a festival of thiscaliber, but I think he should makea more informed analysis of a situ-ation before leveling the type of crit-icism he has.

The Ottawa Festival is the per-fect venue for active support andadvocacy of animators and theirpassion. Mr. Robinson’s attitude doesa disservice to the festival. With theapproach that he has taken withASIFA I can only see him alienatingthe people whose support heshould be actively encouraging. Ihope further rational dialogue con-tinues that results in a strongerASIFA-Canada and a better OttawaFestival, and I offer my participationas needed.

Sincerely;

Carol BeecherASIFA Member

May 1997 8

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Acme Filmworks:The IndependentÕsCommercial Studio

by Marcy Gardner

I n the fast-paced world of com-mercials, its hard to find room forvision and individualism. But a

unique production company thatemerged from the fields of produc-tion and distribution of independentanimation is changing all of that,and the result is some of the mostinnovative commercial work in theindustry.

Acme Filmworks was founded sixyears ago with the intent to repre-sent independent animators toprospective ad agencies. The rolethat this Hollywood-based companyhas since assumed far surpasses thatoriginal mission. “My vision forAcme,” explains the studio’s co-founder and now sole owner RonDiamond, “was to find opportuni-ties for the world’s most creative ani-mators. I wanted to work with thesebrilliant directors to help them notonly find work, but better under-stand the commercial arena of theentertainment industry.”

A Global StudioSomething of a cross between acommercial animation house and atalent agency, Acme matches ani-mator/directors with advertisingagencies. Representing over 40directors from 8 countries, from apool of talent that has no consistentvenue in North America, Acme is averitable global studio. Acme hasno “house style,” as its’ directors use


of techniques spans across allmedia: photo-collage, scratch-on-film, paint-on-glass, traditional char-acter-cel, stop motion, clay anima-tion, special effects and title design.“Any one director does not carry thecompany.” says Diamond, “It is a col-lective group of directors, and that,I think, is a formidable force.” Theroster of Acme directors reads some-thing like an animation festival cat-alog, with award-winning anima-tors on the list such as Bill Plympton,John Kricfalusi, Caroline Leaf, Paul

and Menno De Noojier, WendyTilby, Sue Loughlin, RaimundKrumme, Cordell Barker, andChristoph and WolfgangLauenstein, to name a few.

Raimund Krumme’s Lev

So how did an artists’ rep turn intoa full-scale production company?“Ron scours the globe looking forthe world’s best artists, the fresheststyles and newest techniques,” com-ments Bill Plympton, an Acme direc-tor and cult-status independent ani-mator. Diamond’s background inboth production and distribution(For six years, he produced theInternational Tournee of Animation)lends itself to his unique line ofwork. “I decided that I wanted tobe an integral part of production,

not just sell already completed pro-ductions,” says Diamond. And inte-gral he is, traveling around theworld to stay on top of everything.At any given time, Acme projectscan be going on in several locations

i’s spot, Trading Secrets.

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Mulazzani & Toccafando's award-winning Levi’s spot, Woman Finding Love.

around the globe. Some animators,like Montreal-based Wendy Tilby,choose to fly to sunny Los Angelesto work on projects at Acme’sHollywood production facility,which is host to an Oxberry cam-era stand, Avid editing system andother equipment. Others, like stop-motion animators Christoph andWolfgang Lauenstein in Germany,prefer to work out of their estab-lished studios to execute theirunique stop-motion work.

The more exotic the location, in fact,the more involved in the produc-tion Diamond seems to get. “Thefirst major commercial we did waswith the Russian director MikhailAldashin. It was a tumultuous timein Russia. Ad agencies want, aboveall, a sense of security and comfort.I just found it prudent to becomedirectly involved in the productionaspect.” And it seems that coordi-nating productions all over theglobe is Diamond’s rather extraor-dinary talent. Says independent ani-mator and Acme director CarolineLeaf, “Ron is able to pull thingstogether over large distances. In thisrespect he’s fearless. I remember thefirst time I got a call for a job fromAcme. I was heading off to Australia.

Monkey Business, Christoph and WolfgangLauenstein’s stop-motion animated com-

mercial for Nestle.


By the time I landed in Brisbane,Ron knew exactly where I could renta 35mm camera.”

Animation With A PurposeOne of Acme’s best known cam-paigns is its award-winning seriesof commercials for the Levi’s Jeansfor Women campaign. The cam-paign consists of five animatedspots, three of which were done byAcme for the San Francisco-basedad agency Foote, Cone & Belding.The three Acme spots includeWoman Finding Love by SimonMulazzani & Gianlugi Toccafondo,Woman with a Purpose by SusanLoughlin, and, most recently,Trading Secrets by RaimundKrumme. Each spot has a distinct,separate style and storyline.

Mulazzani & Toccafondo’s WomanFinding Love depicts a youngwoman floating out in the stratos-phere, flying over hills of lust, lone-liness and rejection. As the musicsoars, she glides into a landing ona fat, red heart. The fluid, painterlystyle that the Italian duo are knownfor quietly seduces the viewer. Yes,

this woman happens to be wear-ing a loose representation of Levi’sjeans, but other than that, there isnever a mention of productendorsement in the spot, whichended up winning the 1995 “BestCommercial” prize at the Annecyanimation festival, as well as nomi-nations for an Annie Award in 1993and a Clio in 1994.

Trading Secrets, German directorRaimund Krumme’s Levi’s spot, fea-tures a very different style of ani-mation than the evolving line draw-ing the he is known for in his inde-pendent films such as Passage andBorderlines. Secrets borrows stylis-tically from the Surrealist movementand psychedelic art. Here, twowomen appear as if in garden ofEden, a landscape of stylized leavesand flowers where words turn intoclocks, and pens into butterflies. Asthe women journey through thegarden, a love letter is written, a

“We don’t want to have anyfilms fall in the forest and not

get heard.” - Ron Diamond

May 1997 10

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Sue Loughlin’s Brenda & Elaine Go Shopping spot for Weight Watchers.

boy grows out of the girl’s head andthey float away on a giant soccerball of butterflies. We do seeKrumme’s sensibility here, in that theevolution of the storyline seems toevolve from the drawings them-selves. “Things evolve by drawingthem,” comments Krumme, “This iswhere my ideas come from.Because my drawings sometimesonly gain meaning through motion,it is possible to change content byadding a new movement.” Krummealso directed four spots for the GotMilk? campaign last year, and is cur-rently residing in Los Angeles, work-ing on a short film.

In British animator Sue Loughlin’sLevi’s spot, Woman with a Purpose,a line-drawn woman sauntersthrough a looming, pulsingcityscape. The lines snake and flowaround her as she walks, purpose-fully and undaunted, through traf-fic, a basketball game, and enor-mous buildings. She approaches agigantic door which she proceedsto open and march on through.Loughlin’s powerful spot garneredher a Clio award in 1994. Herexquisite line quality can be seenagain, in her 1995 AmnestyInternational spot Human Rights.The spot features a woman, FreeSpirit, who has been torn away

NIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE

Raimund Krumme’s commercials forthe Got Milk? campaign are akin to the

style of his independent films.

from her family and unjustly placedin prison. Through symbolism, theartwork communicates the horrorof this violation, without so muchgraphic depiction that the spotwould not be able to air. Loughlinis a graduate of The UnitedKingdom’s National Film andTelevision School, where she devel-oped her trademark expressive flow-ing line style in her student films,Grand National and The Occasion.Loughlin recently completed threenew animated commercials forLowe & Partners, SMS agency’sclient, Weight Watchers. Now air-ing nationally, these light, humor-ous spots depict two womenscheming up ways to lose weightor disguise their bodies.

A Resource for AnimatorsDwindling arts funding throughoutthe world necessitates resourceful-ness for independents today. Formost Acme directors, producingoccasional commercial work is theonly way for them to support theirindependent filmmaking endeav-ors. Caroline Leaf, who is currentlyteaching at Harvard, and who hasanimated several award-winninganimated films such as Two Sisters

and The Street, says “As an inde-pendent animator, I can just driftalong for years and no one notices.The commercial work buys time forthe independent work.” She addsthat the commercial jobs help herto hone her technique, comment-ing, “I enjoy the structure of work-ing within 30 seconds. Every framecounts and [that] forces me to bereally clean with the animation.” BillPlympton, who is now finishing uphis second independently-producedfeature film, I Married A StrangePerson, says, “I would not be able todo the features I am doing withoutRon.”

Acme has no staff animators, andthus has a fairly low overhead.Diamond comments that “The abil-ity to pay directors star salaries is cer-tainly an advantage of low over-head. One director said to me that

“As an independent animator, Ican just drift along for years

and no one notices.The com-mercial work buys time for the

independent work.”-Caroline Leaf

May 1997 11

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Paul Fierlinger’s animated doc

after completing a spot she wasgoing home to their country to buya house—not just place a down-payment, but to buy an entirehouse.”

In addition, Diamond wants to assistanimators in finding new outlets fortheir work. He says, “My desire is tocreate means by which these direc-tors can do well financially, and alsodevelop their ideas into long formworks.” Branching out from thecommercial arena, in 1995 Acmeproduced Drawn from Memory, afeature length animated autobiog-raphy by Paul Fierlinger, which wasfunded by American Playhouse, andis now airing internationally in


Acme director David Wasson recently coWeakling, a 2-D animated spot for the Texa

Canada, Germany, Sweden andHolland. “We don’t want to haveany films fall in the forest and notget heard,” jokes Diamond, stressingthat he wants to see the animatorsobtain the benefits of exposure thatlong form provides.

Speaking with Ron Diamond, onegets the immediate impression thathe greatly admires and respects theartists he works with. Just describingtheir styles, he speaks with excite-ment. “I decided a while back thatlife is short, and that I’m going tospend my time working with cre-ative, nice people.” he says, “I real-ly value working with people Irespect and enjoy. Not many people

get that opportuni-ty.” He also feelsrather protective ofthese animators,reflected in his pas-sion for protectingthe animators’ rightsto the original art-work and charactersthat they create forthe work they dothrough Acme.“The way I see it,”he says, “animators

umentary, Drawn From Memory.

mpleted 98 Pounds Board of Tourism.

are hired to make a 30 second com-mercial, not 720 individual frames ofartwork. So why should the agencyhave the rights to this artwork? Ifthey were hiring them to create 720individual frames of artwork, thanthey should be paid substantiallymore than they are.” This rather con-vincing argument seems to be hold-ing sway with the ad agenciesthemselves. “These artists don’t havea pension plan, and historically thestudios they’ve worked for haveshown them little loyalty,” he adds.And if it sounds like Diamond is upon his soapbox about this issue, hejust might be. “Last year my wifegave me a great gift,” he muses, “It’sthis Nineteenth century shippingcrate that has a label on it for ‘AcmeSoap.’ So, now I have my very ownactual Acme Soapbox for proclaim-ing our philosophy.”

Acme is currently producing a seriesof three animated commercials forStarbuck’s Coffee with director DavidWasson, as well as three animatedspots for Nabisco with director ScottIngalls.

Marcy Gardner([email protected]) current-

ly works in the Children’sProgramming Department atWGBH in Boston, where she

answers Arthur’s fanmail and iscompiling a library of kid’s ideas,art, films/videos, and projects forthe new Zoom show. Previously,

she worked on Sesame Street.

May 1997 12

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Colossal Pictures Proves There is Life

After Chapter 11by Karl Cohen

N ews stories about Disneyare often read around theworld, but major news

about lesser-known animation com-panies are generally ignored by thenational press. One important storythat was treated this way began tounfold in public on April 3, 1996,when a San Francisco Chroniclestory headlined, “Colossal Picturesto Lay Off Third of Staff.” This itemwas followed by rumors that thecompany, one of the mainstays ofthe local animation industry with astaff of about 130, had given pinkslips to 40, 80, 100, and even 120people.

In June, the Chronicle ran a sec-ond story noting that they had filedfor Chapter 11 bankruptcy protec-tion. The rumor mill in the local filmcommunity seemed to go out of

Drew Takahashi.


control, and there was even talkthat Colossal was out of business.The company issued press releasesexplaining what had happened, butit appears the writers at several trademagazines didn’t read them.Instead, they continued to run sto-ries that suggested things atColossal were bigger and betterthan ever.

Colossal Pictures, founded in1976, became well known in the1980s for its innovative designwork. They pioneered the “Blendo”look that featured a mixture of dif-ferent animation techniques in thesame commercial. Often live-actionfootage or photo montage wasincluded along with stop-motion,cel animation, drawn images andother techniques. They also devel-oped the Liquid Television andAeon Flux shows for MTV and areknown for their music video pro-ductions for The Grateful Dead,Bobby McFerrin, Primus, The KronosQuartet, Peter Gabriel, and otherstars. Their feature work includestitles for such films as The BlackStallion, Peggy Sue Got Married,andBram Stoker’s Dracula. They didspecial effects for The Right Stuff,

“We can look forward to beingout of Chapter 11 in 1997.”-

Drew Takahashi

Top Gun, Demolition Man andRunning Man. In addition, they pro-vided animated sequences forNatural Born Killers and Tank Girl.

Today, Colossal has undergonean extensive reorganization. Theyconsolidated their operations in onebuilding (there had been four). Theynow have around 40 people onstaff, including a new CEO. AndDrew Takahashi, co-founder andchairman of the board states that,“We can look forward to being outof Chapter 11 in 1997.”

What HappenedThe changes that occurred in

1996 were triggered by the risingcosts of doing business and a dropin the company’s profits. The ani-mation division had become solarge it was not only unwieldy to

Brooks McChesney.

May 1997 13

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Pictogram.

run, but it was also less profitablethan it had been in years past. Itwas decided that it was wiser torestructure the company and con-centrate on the development ofwell-written and designed projects,rather than maintain all the facilitiesand staff needed to execute ani-mated, live-action, and specialeffects work. It was especially diffi-cult to maintain its high-tech com-puter facilities, which require con-stant upgrades of equipment andsoftware. It was decided that, in thefuture, they would send the pro-duction of their animated and spe-cial effects work out to other com-panies.

Colossal eventually consolidat-ed their activities at their facility at101 15th Street in San Francisco.Prior to doing so, they had their inkand paint service in one building,the animation department in anoth-er, the administrative office, a designdepartment and other services in athird, and stages, a model shop, acamera room and other facilities ata forth location. Drew Takahashisays it was just too much to keeptrack of.

Just as important to the survivalof Colossal as the downsizing ofspace and staff were the changesmade in the administration. GaryGutierrez, who co-founded the

One of Colossal’s 20 Locomotion IDs.


company with Takahashi,left to pur-sue his desires to work as a film-maker on feature productions,though he still remains a stock-holder and believer in Colossal’sfuture. Takahashi has stepped asideas president and CEO to becomechief creative officer and chairmanof the board of directors. InDecember, Brooks McChesney wasappointed president and CEO.

McChesney, who was trained asa lawyer, has over 20 years man-agement and production experi-ence with hi-tech and interactivecompanies. Before coming toColossal, he was chief operating offi-cer of IVN Communications Inc., aleading producer and distributor ofnonfiction programming.

McChesney says he is refocus-ing the business end of Colossal tohave a more aggressive accountmanagement strategy. He statesthat “We’re now more proactive incommunicating our menu of ser-vices to our client base, so that anadvertising account will use us fortheir Web site design and an onlinecompany will discover we can help

them with their advertising needs.”“Drew Takahashi is Colossal,”

according to one staff member. Hisgreatest strength is conceiving anddesigning projects. The company’sinternational reputation for pro-ducing remarkable works, noted fortheir unique style and techniques, isbased to a large extent on hisvisions. Unfortunately, in recentyears he had little time to devote hisenergies to the company’s creativeside. With the addition ofMcChesney, Takahashi can onceagain concentrate on what he doesbest, design and direct projects.

Colossal’s Latest WorkProof that the company is alive

and well can be seen in their latestdemo reel. It isn’t as long as pastreels, but it is just as exceptional,with one outstanding work on itafter another.

The company’s latest commer-cials for Coca-Cola demonstrateTakahashi’s brilliance as a creativedirector. The two spots are so dra-matic that many people areunaware that one was done with

May 1997 14

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Colossal’s spots for Turner Classic Moviesanimate the style of Edward Hopper

CGI and the other all live-actionwithout any added special effects.Both are journeys through unusualspaces. For viewers, it isn’t how theywere done that is important. Whatis important is that they are visuallycaptivating and reinforce the spon-sor’s name.

Pictogram, the computer-gen-erated Coke ad, flies around somesort of carnival ride of the future.We go past fascinating statues, gad-gets and other cool things. There isno hard sell on the soundtrack,instead we see some 40 or 50 Cokebottles in the landscape, often seenas tiny decorative details. The prod-uct’s name is sometimes barely visi-ble on a bottle or sign for a fractionof a second as we fly on by. Theend result is our seeing the com-pany’s name 15 or 20 times in 30seconds. It is a sophisticated, under-stated spot that just might win afew major awards.

The live-action Coke spot takesus inside a Rube Goldberg-stylevending machine, starting with acloseup of a finger pushing a but-ton and ending with an inflatedrubber glove deflating, allowing thebottle of Coke resting on it to tipover and pour its contents into aglass. In-between marbles, eggsand steel balls roll and bounceabout, making levers move withinthis unique device. It should also bean award winner.

Other recent work by the com-pany includes a series of 20 IDs forthe launch of Locomotion, a newSouth American satellite animationchannel. Using a variety of styles,including stop-motion and com-puter graphics, they created a won-derful series of images. Most are fullof primary colors and are done withreally hot, contemporary-stylegraphics. Charlie Canfield, whojoined the company in 1991 afterworking at Industrial Light & Magic


(ILM), directed them. Another remarkable work, direct-

ed by Canfield, is a show openingfor the Nickelodeon channel, thatagain combines both traditional anddigital animation. It shows a bluerhino galloping across a pink cloud-scape at sunrise. He stumbles on acouple of clouds and they fall overto reveal they are painted billboardswith scaffolding holding them upfrom behind.

My favorite work on the reel is astunning work done for TurnerClassic Movies, directed by TomMcClure, which brings the paintingsof Edward Hopper to life. We watchsunlight and shadows move acrosshis cityscapes as people sit or standquietly, or slowly move about. Thecity seems to be a series of 3-D setsor models, but it still maintains thelook of Hopper paintings. All this isset to a period song about thesunny side of life. The music andvisuals works so well together thatthey must make a lot of viewershappy when they see this art that

paintings.

What (Colossal) does best istell short stories—whether itbe via a commercial, a stationID, a TV show or an interactive

project.

moves.Colossal’s latest work to be

released is Koala Lumpur, a CD-ROM created and directed by JamieBaker, that provides an interactivejourney in the form of an action-adventure movie with lots of out-rageous humor. A review onGamesite said that Colossal’s col-laboration with Brøderbund pro-duced “mature themes, high-browremarks, and twisted puzzles withthe finesse of a seasoned Las Vegaslounge comedian. And their routinedeserves a loud round of applause. . . a unique fun experience . . .theypull the trick off so well that it’s hardto believe that Koala Lumpur is thecompany’s first attempt at a comedytitle.”

Future PlansExecutive Producer Jana

Canellos said that restructuring thecompany, so that its energies aredirected toward design work, hasresulted in a smaller company,where everybody can work togeth-er. She also feels that Colossal is agreat working environment wherepeople help each other, and whatthey do best is tell short stories—whether it be via a commercial, astation ID, a TV show or an inter-active project.

Canellos expects the companywill expand by creating work fornew markets, including the Internet.She stresses that regardless of whatthe format is, the main thingColossal is concerned about is acommitment to quality.

A look at Colossal’s current pro-jects gives some idea where thecompany is headed. For instance,they are developing an online showwith Microsoft, material for kids’ pro-grams on the MSN (MicrosoftNetwork), an interactive TV projectwith a major entertainment com-pany, and interstitials for a major TV

May 1997 15

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rain’s Humpty Dumpty Nike Spot.

network. They are also doing live-action TV commercials for GTEMobilnet and animated IDs for theDiscovery Channel.

Colossal also has its own award-winning Web site athttp://www.colossal.com, so checkit out if you want to learn moreabout one of San Francisco’s greatcompanies.

Colossal’s Successful ChildrenWhen a company gets into trou-

ble, the press rarely mentions whathappens to the people who join theranks of the unemployed.Fortunately, the San Francisco Bayarea’s film and animation industrieshave been growing rapidly in recentyears; so, when Colossal laid-offmost of their production staff in1996, there were lots of jobs avail-able. Some former staffers joinedwell-established companies like ILM,Zoetrope and Pixar. Others joinedstudios that were formed in the1990s by Colossal alumni, whileothers formed their own companiesafter the layoffs.

The live-action, animation andspecial effects companies in the Bay

area run by former Colossal employ-ees include: Cartoonland, CompletePandemonium, Curious Pictures,EyeHeart, Kirk’sWorks, Little FluffyClouds, M5, Maverick, MessyOptics,

Aeon Flux.


Protozoa, Six-FootTwo Productions,Story AnimationCompany, and WildBrain. They may notbe well known yet,but all are producingexcellent work, sug-gesting working atColossal was animportant education-al experience.

Wild Brain, founded in 1994,has grown rapidly. In 1996, whenColossal laid off most of its staff, WildBrain was busy doing commercialsfor Nike and Coke, animation forHBO, Warner Bros. and the CartoonNetwork, plus CD-ROM projects,including Flying Saucers forAnyRiver Entertainment, an ani-mated Carmen Sandiego sequencefor Brøderbund, and the GreenEggs and Ham CD-ROM for LivingBooks. About half of their staff of 80are former Colossal people, includ-ing 10 taken on within two weeksof their being laid-off last year.

Wild Brain is run by a consor-tium of directors (John Hays, Phil

R o b i n s o n ,Gordon Clark,David Marshalland Robin Steele,plus producer JeffFino) who use acombination oftraditional andcomputer anima-tion, other newtechnologies, andoverseas anima-tion service. Theirwork stresses sto-rytelling and

entertainment. At present PhilRobinson is directing Ferngully II, adirect-to-video sequel to the BillKroyer film. They are also develop-ing an Internet situation comedy for

Wild B

the Microsoft Network, a pilot forNickelodeon, and several commer-cials (Coke, Mainstay, etc.).

EyeHeart is Siri Margerine’s newanimation art production service,doing ink and paint, backgrounds,illustrations, and whatever else yourart needs might be. For many years,Siri headed the art production ser-vices department at Colossal. Clientsinclude Colossal, Story Animation,Wild Brain, Curious Pictures,Maverick, and other local studios.

MessyOptics is an animationcamera service founded in 1996 byCarter Tomassi. The company usesColossal’s late model Oxberry ani-mation stand, with a 16mm and35mm cameras, featuring all thebells and whistles needed to docomplex productions, including amotion control system. Tomassi alsohas a 35mm high contrast filmprocessor for doing pencil tests anda 35mm Steenbeck flatbed. Hisclients include Colossal Pictures,Curious Pictures, Lucas Arts, PacificData Images, SpellboundProductions, Story Animation Co.,and Wild Brain.

Maverick is an animation stu-dio formed in 1996 by Robert Valleyand Jeanne Reynolds. Valley, whoanimated for Colossal; he was inKorea working on a Aeon Flux withPeter Chung when he got wordthat Colossal had filed for Chapter11. Maverick was formed when he

May 1997 16

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returned to the States. They havebeen kept busy doing work for WildBrain and Curious Pictures.

Little Fluffy Clouds is a com-puter animation firm run by Betsyde Fries and Jerry van de Beek.Since opening up in June 1996,they did the character animation forColossal’s recent Pictogram Coca-Cola spot, created the destructionof the universe in 60 seconds forRocket Science, and animated a 30second Mainstay commercial forWild Brain. The company is nowworking on another Coke com-mercial for Colossal.

Media Concrete is a multime-dia design company run by StuartCudlitz, George Consagra and AnneAshbey-Pierotti. They had formedColossal’s New Media Division in1990 and opened Media Concretein March 1995. Working withColossal, they produced the KoalaLumpur CD-ROM for Brøderbund.Other interactive projects they haveworked on are Play-Doh Creationsfor Hasbro Interactive and Ruff’sBone for Living Books. They havealso worked on projects for IBM,Hewlett-Packard and others usingnew technology for communica-tions.

Story Animation Company isrun by Robert Story, who workedat Colossal as a producer. He recent-ly produced a commercial for GTEMobilnet and is presently produc-ing the animated segments of aSears commercial.

Protozoa, a motion capturecompany, was founded in 1994 byBrad de Graf with seed money fromMotorola. They are a spin-off ofColossal’s performance animation,which had developed the Moxiecharacter in 1993 for the CartoonNetwork. The company’s focus is oncharacter-based, real-time 3-D enter-tainment. Their projects alsoincludes Squeezils, a cartoon game


for Inscape. Dev, the real-time ani-mation character seen daily onMSNBC’s The Site is also theirs. Theyhave also been developing otherunusual characters for a variety ofmedia, including TV and the WorldWide Web. Clients include Microsoft,Silicon Graphics Images, andMSNBC.

Six-Foot Two Productions isRobin Atherly’s company in Larkspur.Atherly has provided computer inkand paint services for several CD-ROM producers.

Curious Pictures, a New York-based company founded in 1993,opened a branch office in SanFrancisco on September 4, 1996. Itis headed by Colossal alumna AnneSmith, who worked her way upthrough the ranks from productionmanager to senior managing pro-ducer of animation. CuriousPictures’ first projects here were aNike commercial directed by RobertValley and three stop-motion ads fora superstore in the Midwest thatwere directed by Denis Morellia.Both directors had also worked atColossal.

Kevin Coffey’s Cartoonland,founded in the 1980s, does sever-al interesting projects each year.

Colossal alum Kirk Henderson worked onthe Orly’s Draw A Story CD-ROM for

Brøderbund.

They’ve produced the animation forthe Star Wars Chess Game forSoftware Tool Works and the ani-mation for Doonesbury Flashbacks:25 Years of Serious Fun forMindscape. Coffey has also workedon several TV commercials for suchnational clients as Coca-Cola,Nabisco, Van de Kamp, GeneralMills and others.

Kirk Henderson, who was oneof Colossal’s top directors in the1980s, works as an artdirector/designer/animator underthe name Kirk’sWorks. Last year,he completed Orly’s Draw-A-Storyfor Brøderbund. Prior to that, hehelped develop the Toe Jam andEarl CD-ROM.

The influence of (Colossal)Pictures on the local animation andeffects industry is immense. For theover 20 years since the companywas founded in 1976, Colossal haspushed animation forward as anexciting art form and medium forcommunication. They helped devel-op the skills of hundreds of pro-duction people and have helpedmake the Bay area one of the mostexciting production centers in thecountry.

Karl Cohen is President of ASIFA-San Francisco whose first book,Forbidden Animation: Censored

Cartoons and BlacklistedAnimators, will be published

later this year. He also teachesanimation history at San

Francisco State University.

May 1997 17

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Ray Tracers:Blue Sky Studios

by Susan Ohmer

Photo by SAWhite.

T he essence of computer ani-mation is making somethingthat is fabricated look real.

Artists and technicians in this fielddevote a considerable amount oftime to analyzing which elementsgive objects and people their real-istic appearance. Textures, move-ments, shading, and sound all haveto be carefully designed to createconvincing replicas. In the opinionof the executives and animators atBlue Sky Studios in Harrison, NewYork, light rays are the most impor-tant element for creating believablecomputer images. Their numerouscommercials and recent feature filmwork demonstrate convincingly thatunderstanding how light affectsobjects is essential to creating qual-ity computer graphics.

Blue Sky Studios, Inc. was found-ed in February 1987 by a group ofpeople who had met atMAGI/SynthaVision while they wereworking on Disney’s TRON. Eachbrought a range of talents andexperience that proved valuable indealing with the emerging businessof computer animation. David

Dr. Eugene Troubetskoy.Photo by SAWhite


Brown, the company’s currentPresident and CEO, had been amarketing executive with CBS/FoxVideo. Alison Brown (no relation),now Vice President of Marketingand Sales, came from advertisingand special effects. The company’screative director, Chris Wedge, wasan animation artist and teacher. Themost unusual member of thegroup, and the man responsible forthe distinctive look of its films, isEugene Troubetzkoy, who holds aPh.D. in theoretical physics fromColumbia University. He and formerNASA engineer Carl Ludwig devel-oped the proprietary software andrenderer that give Blue Sky its com-petitive edge.

The Physics of AnimationTroubetzkoy’s approach to ani-

mation grew out of his earlier workin nuclear physics. Just as physicistsstudy the way beams of electronsand photons bounce off other sub-atomic particles, Troubetzkoy ana-lyzed how light rays interact witheveryday objects. He and Ludwigstudied how objects appear in avariety of lighting conditions, frombright to shaded, under clouds orunder water, and looked at how

In a recent contest for comput-er animation, judges rejected acommercial that Blue Sky hadproduced for Braun’s electric

shaver, because they believed ithad been shot on film.

they reflect or refract light rays.Using complex algorithms and over50,000 lines of computer code, theywrote software that mimics theseconditions in the computer.

Blue Sky’s trademark softwareCGI Studio™ also defines the mate-rial properties of an object—its den-sity, transparency, and degree ofreflectivity—and how these will beaffected under different light con-ditions. When the company is work-ing on a computer graphics project,technicians shoot a reference object,often a small white sphere, withinthe light environment that will beseen in the film, to study its illumi-nation. Blue Sky’s research teamcombines this information aboutlight conditions with data on thematerial properties of the object toreplicate how its surface would lookunder those conditions. The com-pany’s patented renderer, under thesupervision of Carl Ludwig, thenmodels that surface texture onto theanimated object, in a process calledray tracing.

Is It Real, or Is It Animation?

David Brown.

May 1997 18

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The CG Braun shaver in question.

Chock Full O’Nuts’ talking coffebean.

The result of the ray tracingprocess is high quality photorealismthat even fools professionals. In arecent contest for computer ani-mation, judges rejected a commer-cial that Blue Sky had produced forBraun’s electric shaver, because theybelieved it had been shot on film.The surface texture of the metalobject is so convincing, and themovements it makes so smooth,that it’s easy to see how they weredeceived.

In addition to the Braun com-mercial, Blue Sky has used its pro-prietary software to create over 200spots for other clients, includingChrysler, M&M’s/Mars, GeneralFoods, Texaco, and the U.S.Marines. Last Christmas the com-pany produced a holiday commer-cial in which three ornaments rap-pelled off a Christmas tree to drinka can of Pepsi that had been left forSanta. This story of toys staging aheist is reminiscent of the birthdayparty scene in Pixar’s Toy Story, andin fact the spot originated at Pixar,before the studio announced itwould stop making commercialsand concentrate on feature films.Pixar recommended Blue Sky for theassignment—solid confirmation ofthe studio’s prestige within theindustry.

Blue Sky commercials are alsodistinguished by the believable per-sonalities they develop for inert


objects. Two spots that illustrate thisaccomplishment were created forChock Full O’ Nuts coffee and BellAtlantic. The ad for Chock Full O’Nuts features a coffee bean whichis animated so that the crease in itsside looks like a mouth. The talkingbean, who speaks with a distinctiveTexas drawl, lavishes complimentson his hostess for serving whatsounds like an outrageous combi-nation of foods: artichoke hearts inhot fudge sauce, butterscotch pep-peroni soufflé, and brownies filledwith garlic. The bean’s flattery vivid-ly illustrates the point that this coffeeis so smooth it can “complement”any meal. In the Bell Atlantic com-mercial The Big Deal, the main char-acter is a telephone cord whoseplastic connector becomes ananthropomorphic head. The cord,nicknamed “Jack” by animationdirector Carlos Saldanha, takes ona childlike personality as it acts outthe various services the phone com-pany offers, tapping its “foot” to illus-trate Call Waiting, and splitting intoa three-pronged wire to demon-strate Three-Way Calling. Its engag-ing personality and energeticresponses demonstrate Blue Sky’sdesire to cut through the flood ofcommercials that bombard us andcreate a memorable impression.“Not all inanimate objects becomecharacters.” Alison Brown com-ments, “What gives them personal-ity is their ability to awaken our emo-tions.”

Several Blue Sky executives whoworked in advertising in the 1980shave drawn on their industry con-tacts to build new business, and thecompany also has two reps work-ing with agencies on the East andWest coasts. Scripts and storyboardsfor commercial spots usually origi-nate with the agencies, becausetheir clients have to approve theconcept. Since advertisers thor-

oughly research the demographicsfor a product, they know what kindof audience they want to reach,and often choose animation forproducts that appeal to younger,more hip viewers. For example, BlueSky created the promos for theNickelodeon channel, in which amound of orange glop takes on var-ious shapes before emerging as thecable channel’s distinctive “NickBoy.” The creative, offbeat use ofanimation in these spots is in syncwith the type of viewers who watchNickelodeon.

Advertising agencies vary in theirwillingness to use computer ani-mation. Though some, like BBDOWorldwide, who commissioned thePepsi commercials, appreciate thefact that computer animation canmake the impossible possible, othersprefer to continue working with tra-ditional filmed spots and stopmotion or puppet animation. Attimes, Blue Sky produces testfootage on spec, to convince clientsof the value of its approach. Arecent sequence for Hershey’s Kissesshowed how the foil-coveredchocolates could take on believablepersonalities. However, as the pop-ularity of computer animationincreases, and it appears more fre-quently in Hollywood films, Blue Skyis finding a growing demand for itstalents.

May 1997 19

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The Pepsi Christmas Tree spot.

Alison Brown. Photo by SA White.

Hollywood’s CallingIn addition to its commercial

work, Blue Sky has begun produc-ing animated sequences for featurefilms, a line of work which it plansto expand. The studio’s most famousaccomplishment in this area is theanimated cockroaches it created forWarner Bros.’ feature-length versionof the MTV short Joe’s Apartment.The film, released last summer, starsa twenty-something resident of adilapidated apartment in New York’sEast Village who shares his livingquarters with roaches—-thousandsand thousands of roaches. The pro-duction used 3,500 live insects aswell as rubber puppet and stop-motion replicas.

Blue Sky’s contribution to the filmconsists of 13 minutes of computeranimation, in which the insects dothings that would have been toodifficult to portray with puppets orstop motion. To achieve a realisticappearance for the creatures, super-vising animator Carlos Saldanhastudied the texture and motions oflive roaches to get a shiny, wet lookand to make the movements oftheir legs and antennae seem nat-ural. The most memorablesequence in the film, however, has

“Not all inanimate objectsbecome characters.What givesthem personality is their ability

to awaken our emotions.”


nothing to do with realism. In themusical number “Funky Towel,”roaches rap dance on a bar of soap,waltz around the rim of a toilet, andperform a water ballet right out ofBusby Berkeley. Some scenes in thefilm even mix live roaches with theircomputer-generated counterparts.Thanks to Blue Sky’s careful render-ing, they’re hard to tell apart—untilthe computer insects start to sing.“Funky Towel” has won numerousawards from festivals in Spain,Canada, England and most recent-ly, Monaco.

To promote its feature film work,Blue Sky President and CEO DavidBrown meets often with studioexecutives in Hollywood, and thecompany has recently hired severalpeople with substantial experiencein film production. Director/design-er Jan Carlee joined Blue Sky afterserving as Director of DigitalImagery and Computer Animationat Don Bluth’s animation studio inIreland. Amy Jupiter, ExecutiveProducer and Vice President ofProduction, worked on specialeffects for Apollo 13 and wasresponsible for production activitieson special films for Disney themeparks in Florida, Paris, and Japan.Blue Sky has also recently hiredHenry Anderson, who animated theCoca-Cola “Polar Bears” and workedat Digital Domain and Rhythm &Hues. The studio’s current projectsinclude computer graphicssequences for Twentieth CenturyFox’s Alien: Resurrection and for theBubble Factory/Universal project ASimple Wish, both slated for releaselater this year.

Alison Brown feels that workingon both commercials and featuresgives the animators the “opportu-nity for a breather.” If they tire ofworking on the character in a fea-ture sequence, they can switch overto a shorter commercial project for

change of pace. A recent tour ofBlue Sky’s spacious facilities revealeda work space that is carefullydesigned to allow both creative con-centration and friendly interaction.Offices are separated by dividersthat are high enough to provide pri-vacy when animators want to focuson their computer screens, but lowenough so that when they stand,they can talk comfortably with col-leagues. Many animators have linedtheir offices with wind-up toys andmerchandise from Star Wars andother special effects films. The30,000 square foot building alsohouses communal meeting spaceswith couches and chairs, and aglass-enclosed kitchen and diningroom. Animators use SiliconGraphic workstations, and there aredigital editing suites and a studiowhere they can project footage forcritiques.

1997 marks the ten yearanniversary of Blue Sky Studios’founding. The company nowemploys 85 people, and continuesto expand as the demand for highend computer animation increases.

Susan Ohmer, Ph.D. teachescourses on new technologies in

the Graduate Media StudiesProgram of the New School for

Social Research in New YorkCity. She can be reached at

[email protected].

May 1997 20

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Fumes From The Fjords

Norway is a small country,with only four million inhab-itants. It is more famous for

its cold climate and beautiful, moun-tainous fjords scenery than for itsfilm industry. If you are lucky, an ani-mation fan abroad may have heardabout Ivo Caprino and seen a cou-ple of Norwegian shorts at interna-tional animation festivals, but that’sit. Very few, even in Norway, knowthat this little country has a long ani-mation film history going back tothe early 1900s.

As is the case today, when it cameto animation, Norwegian cinemascreens were dominated byAmerican animation before WWII.The first animation stars in Norwaywere in the Colonel Heeza Liar(Norwegian name Mentulant), andKapten Grogg series, made by theSwedish pioneer, Viktor Bergdahl.In the 20s, Felix the Cat was theleading star, and from the late 20sup until today, Mickey Mouse andthe other Disney stars have ruledthe ground.

Eventually, the American cartoonsinfluenced Norwegian artists tomake animated films themselves. Asfar as we know, the first animationsmade in Norway were done bySverre Halvorsen in 1913, inKristiania (Oslo), using a chalk on ablackboard technique. As with hisfellow animation pioneers, OlaCornelius and Thoralf Klouman, hewas a cartoonist in thepress, and his films such as RoaldAmundsen on the South Pole werebased on the same subjects, andcharacterized in the same way ashis newspaper drawings. Theseartists did also drawings for post-cards and advertisements in thepress, and most gave up animation


because funding was difficult to findat the time.

A New Venue:Cinema CommercialsFrom the middle of the 1920s tothe late 30s, more than 100 ani-mated cinema commercials weremade for Norwegian companies.One-third of them were made forthe Norwegian tobacco company,Tiedemann. Among the directorsthat made them are leading inter-national names as Viktor Bergdahl,Hans Fischerkoesen and OskarFischinger.

The start of animated commercialsfor the cinema goes back toGermany and Julius Pinschewer in1912. In Norway, advertising filmsappeared in the cinemas at leastfrom the early 1920s, and there wasa boom in thisformat in the latter half of thedecade. The 1920s were a goldentime for the advertising industry inNorway. From soap to cigarettes,customers were attracted to prod-ucts with animated commercials.Static advertising slides had beenscreened in the cinemas for years,but in 1922, the leading cinemaadvertising agency, Sverdrup Dahl,organized screenings of advertisingfilms. Now suddenly there wasmoney for production of animatedfilms in Norway, but those first ani-mated commercials were still madeabroad. The Danish cartoonist andanimation pioneer Storm P. made afew margarine commercials in theearly 20s. The domestic boom did-n’t happen until 1927, when near-ly 100 different cinema commercialswerescreened in Norwegian cinemas, atleast 13 of which were animated.This high production volume con-

tinued into 1928 and into 1929.

Most of the early Norwegian ani-mated commercial films were madewith a combination cut-out anddrawing technique, similar to thestyle of 1920s advertising films byDanish animators Viktor Bergdahland Storm P. These two pioneerswere likely the inspiration for manyNorwegian animators from the late1920s. The use of cels was still verylimited at the time, but sometimesthe animation was more advanced,with animation drawn directly onmultiple printed cards with staticbackgrounds, a technique Bergdahlused in his Kapten Grogg films.Some films were done as object ani-mation in combination with liveaction, by artists such as the Méliès-inspired filmmaker Ottar Gladtvet,but most of his films were animatedcartoons with extensive use of addi-tional cut-out technique.

The quality of the early Norwegiananimation varied quite a lot. Someof the films are surprisingly good,like the 1927 Fiinbeck er rømt pro-duced by Gladtvet. But most of thefilms suffered from being made insmall studios, on simple equipment,and by animators who were still inthe beginning of their learningprocesses. These films did impressthe Norwegian cinema audience in1927, but after Mickey Mouseentered the Norwegian screens atthe end of the 1920s, Norwegianadvertisers preferred live-action com-mercials over the “second-class,”Norwegian produced animation.This is probably the main reasonwhy the boom in Norwegian ani-mation suddenly came to an endin 1929.

In the mid 1930s, however, ani-

By Gunnar Strøm

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mated cinema had a resurgence incommercials. The films wereextremely professionally made, butmost were made outside ofNorway, mainly in Germany and inCzechoslovakia. But these were atleast films made for Norwegiangoods and companies. Some of thefilms were just dubbed Norwegianversions of foreign films, but mostof them included longer segmentsspecially made for the Norwegianversion, and some of the films weredirectly made for the Norwegianmarket.

These films differed in techniquesand style. The animated cartoon stilldominated, but the standard hasmade the transition from paper tocels. Many of the films were madewith puppets and other objects.Twenty of them were made in color,and at least three were abstract filmsin the style of Oskar Fischinger. TheNorwegian advertising industry wasprofessionalized in the 1930’s. At theStockholm exhibition in 1930, theScandinavian advertisers were intro-duced to the German Bauhausmovement, and this influenced theindustry in Norway both to profes-sionalism and a new visual and artis-tic approach. This can be seen inmany of the animated cinema com-mercials made in the late 30s.

Competition Breeds InventivenessJ.L.Tiedemanns Tobaksfabrik is stillthe leading company in theNorwegian tobacco industry, as itwas in the early 1920s. But its posi-tion were seriously threatened byAmerican and British companieswho, through the tobacco trust,BATCO Ltd., tried to conquer theNorwegian market. BATCO filledNorwegian newspapers and mag-azines with advertisements for theirproducts. With Tiedemann in thelead, the Norwegian tobacco pro-ducers had to answer. While thecompetition in the press was tough,


it seems that Tiedemann & Co ruledthe ground quite alone in the cine-mas.

Heading the advertising depart-ment at Tiedemann was HalvorAndresen. Back from marketingstudies in the U.S., he introducedmodern marketing to Tiedemann.With Andresen at the helm, theadvertising costs at Tiedemannincreased every year through the1920s. In 1930, the BATCO warended with the founding of a newcompany with both Tiedemann andBATCO as owners. This is anotherreason for the lack of animatedTiedemann commercials in the early1930s, but it doesn’t explain thetotal stop in the making of animat-ed cinema commercials in 1930.

The Medina CampaignIn the late 1930s, Tiedemannsadvertising costs reached a newpeak, and so they became moreinventive in their advertisingapproach than ever. The introduc-tion of a new cigarette brand(named Medina) made them trynew ways of marketing. In the radioyou could hear Medina classicalconcerts, and in the cigarette pack-ets you would find collecting cardswith haute couture from Paris.Tiedemann even invested in anautogirocopter, a plane that wasused only to promote the Medinacigarettes. Meanwhile, in the cine-mas, they used animation to sell theMedina brand.

The Medina films are quite differentfrom the tobacco commercials ofthe 20s, both in style and content.

From the middle of the 1920sto the late 30s, more than 100animated cinema commercials

were made for Norwegiancompanies.

While the Teddy films from the late20s were humorous and quiterough in their approach, theMedina films are delicate, elegantand even abstract. As a parallel tothe American Lucky Strike cam-paign, Medina was Tiedemannsattempt to make women becomesmokers in the name of sophistica-tion, elegance and equality. Itworked.

It is strange today, when peopledon’t even smoke on television anymore, and when all advertising fortobacco and alcohol are strictlybanned in Norway, to see howthese films tried to convince theaudience of the advantages of cig-arette smoking. The inventiveness,quality and variation in animatedaudiovisuals of these spots are quiteimpressive, and the commercials areamong the best advertising filmsever shown in Norway. Maybe it isbecause a product like tobacco,which is difficult to sell with plainobjective arguments, ultimately stim-ulates the advertisers to use theirfantasy and imagination.

A teddy bear and the mascot of thecigarette brand, named Teddy, wasa character in several animatedcommercials for Tiedemann. A typ-ical Teddy film is the 1927 Teddy’sbiltur (Teddy’s Car Ride ) animatedby Niels Sinding-Hansen for WalterFyrst, one of the leading filmmak-ers in Norway before WWII. In thisspot, Teddy is out driving, and hegets hungry, so he stops at a restau-rant. While he’s inside eating, a manflattens all four tires on Teddy’s car.Out from the restaurant, Teddy dis-covers what has happened, stopsto think, and lights a cigarette.Inventively, he blows four smokerings that fit nicely around the flatwheels of his car. He smiles and dri-ves happily away on his wheels ofsmoke. Sinding-Hansen made atleast five more films for Tiedemannin this style in 1927-28.

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Ottar GlatvetThe leading advertising filmmakerin Norway before WWII was OttarGladtvet. He made mostly liveaction films, but as an experimen-tal cameraman, he used cleverobject animation and different stop-motion effects in many of his films.He also produced animated car-toons and cut-outs, but I’m quitesure he didn’t make the drawingshimself. Some of the Gladtvet filmsare perhaps animated by the pio-neer Sverre Halvorsen, with whomGladtvet collaborated on some ani-mated shorts in the early 1920s.Some of the other films were madein collaboration withThs.W.Schwartz, a filmmaker influ-enced by Viktor Bergdahl.

Gladtvet also collaborated withmajor animators outside of Norway.He made three films for Persil wash-ing powder, in collaboration withJulius Pinschewer, and in 1927 heproduced Fiinbeck har rømt (JiggsHas Escaped.) The film, based onthe characters from GeorgeMcManus’ comic strip Bringing upFather shows how the character’swife manages to bring Jiggs backhome and keep him indoors byoffering him the finest Tiedemanntobacco for his pipe. This film is veryprofessionally done, and I’m quitesure that Viktor Bergdahl, whomade advertising films in Stockholmat this time, is the animator behindit. I also believe that this film influ-enced other Norwegian animatorsin their work, since many of the fol-lowing films were made in the sametechnique, but less professionally. Itis possible that a Norwegian ani-mator, like perhaps Schwartz,worked in Stockholm as an assistantto Bergdahl and brought this knowl-edge to Norway afterwards.

Kalifens hemmelighet (The Kalif’sSecret ) was made in 1936 byDesider Gross in Prague, according


to the censorship cards. It’s a twoand a half minute, classic black andwhite cartoon with excellent ani-mation. Like The Sorcerer’sApprentice from Fantasia, it is basedon Goethe’s ballad “DerZauberlehrling.” Kalifens hemme-lighet is a beautiful example ofmusic and animation fulfilling eachother. In the spot, the kalif is con-trolling the movements of cigarettesby playing his flute. After dancingfor him, the cigarettes offer them-selves to the kalif, who lights themand enjoys his smoke. The kalif’sapprentice tries the flute while thekalif is away, and he looses controlover the cigarettes. When the kalifgets his flute back and retains con-trol, he realizes that he shouldn’tkeep the cigarettes just selfishly forhimself, but share the joy with oth-ers.

GasparcolorThe theme in the 1938 puppet filmEt orientalsk kunststykke (AnOriental Piece of Art ) made byGasparcolor in Berlin, has severalsimilarities with Kalifens hemme-lighet. The way the Medina ciga-rettes are presented in the end ofthe two films, looks similar. Uniquely,Et orientalsk is a well-made puppetfilm where an oriental sorcerer isabout to entertain a sultan. Afterseveral failures, he finally succeedswhen he magically offers the sultana Medina cigarette.

En sigarett - en Drøm (A Cigarette -A Dream, ) produced in 1938, isalso produced by Gasparcolor, butin black and white. Itis a very ele-

It is strange today, when alladvertising for tobacco is

strictly banned in Norway, tosee how these films tried toconvince the audience of the

advantages of cigarette smok-ing.

gant film with long, smooth cam-era movements over gracious bal-let dancers in an oriental castle.Harp and piano are providing themusic and the whole scene iswrapped in elegant live action cig-arette smoke! The moral in the endof the spot says that if you smokeMedina cigarettes, you will havewonderful dreams, as shown in thefilm. To me, at least parts of this filmlook like they were made on a pin-screen, but the film is not registeredas an Alexeieff commercial. Ensigarett - en Dream also has closesimilarities to a 1933 German ciga-rette commercial called Schall undRauch, which is credited to HansFischerkoesen. En sigarett - enDrøm is probably made byFischerkoesen. Could then, Alexeieffhave been involved?

The Fischerkoesen studio probablyalso made the 1938 commercialfilm, Sjakk Matt (Chess Mate, ) afourth film credited to Gasparcolor.This is a funny cartoon in which thewhite players have lost a game ofchess to the red, but the white kingobtains new powers when he getsa taste of a Sorte Mand Cigar.Accompanied by a jolly song inNorwegian and helped by seduc-ing cigar smoke, the white playerstake their sweet revenge.

Not credited to Gasparcolor but def-initely made with the Gasparcolorprocess is the abstract 1936 film, Enfargesymfoni i blätt (ColorSymphony in Blue ). This is really ashortened version of OskarFischinger’s Komposition in Blaufrom 1935. Some scenes from theoriginal are missing, and the endhas been re-done using the logo ofthe Medina cigarette in the anima-tion. According to an article in aNorwegian trade journal, suchabstract color commercials werequite common in Norwegian cine-mas, but in 1938, such color exper-iments were “replaced by more eas-

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ily understandable visuals with prop-er content.”

Who Made These Films?A lot of questions around the pro-duction history of these commercialfilms still have to be answered.According to the Norwegian cen-sorship cards, Desider Gross andGasparcolor were the two main pro-ducers of animated commercials forNorwegian companies in the late1930s. I know of 18 films creditedto Desider Gross, and 11 that areproduced by Gasparcolor. But inPrague, they don’t know of thisDesider Gross company. AndGasparcolor was a color film patent,not a production company. Why,then, are these films credited asbeing produced by Gross andGasparcolor?

Fischinger made Komposition inBlau in 1935, and after he leftGermany, it was made into com-mercials for at least 17 different cig-arette brands all over Europe byTolirag, Fischinger’s collaborators.Several of the films credited toGasparcolor are definitely made byFischerkoesen, while others like the1938 Radiorør-revolusjonen weremade for Phillips by George Pal inthe Netherlands. Why then, this mis-crediting?

In Czechoslovakia, several of thepioneers of Czech animation likeKarel and Irena Dodal, George Paland Hermina Tyrlova made excel-lent commercials in the 30s for theproduction company Propaga-Film.BATA, the leading Czech shoe pro-ducer and industry giant, made itsown film company to produce com-mercials, and Czech avant-gardefilmmakers worked for them. Severalof the Desider Gross films I have reg-istered are for shoes. Are these filmsoriginally made by BATA? MaybeDesider Gross and Gasparcolorserved as agents for advertising filmsaimed for the Scandinavian market.


A lot of research is still to be done inthis area. In any case, these filmsrepresent a most interesting collab-oration between filmmakers andadvertisers in different Europeancountries. Several of the leading ani-mators before the war wereinvolved in the production of thefilms, and different versions of thesame films have been made for thedifferent countries. The films them-selves are wonderful examples ofhigh quality art which still make animpression among advertising filmstoday.

With the beginning of World WarII, both shortage of goods and thenew political situation made aneffective stop in the production ofthese advertising films. After the war,it was impossible to re-establish thisfruitful collaboration betweenNorwegian companies and ani-mated filmmakers in Germany andCzechoslovakia. What was proba-bly the most fascinating period inthe history of Norwegian animationwas over.

ReferencesAgde, Günter. Witz und Werbung:Der Trickfilmpionier Hans Fischerkoesen. Paper pre-sented at the 38th InternationaleKurzfilmtage. Oberhausen, 1992.

Goergen, Jeanpaul:Julius Pinschewer, Künstler undkaufmann, Pionier des Werbefilms.Article in epd Film 3/92, Berlin1992.

Jungstedt, Torsten. Kapten Grogg

These [advertising] filmsthemselves are wonderful

examples of high quality artwhich still make an impressionamong advertising films today.

och hans vanner. Sveriges RadiosForlag/SFI Stockholm.

Mastrasova, Vera. TchechischerWerbefilm (1928-1937). Article infestival program for 38thInternationale Kurzfilmtage.Oberhausen, 1992.

Loiperdinger, Martin & Harald Pulch:Geschichte des Werbefilms inDeutchland. Article in festival pro-gram for 38th InternationaleKurzfilmtage. Oberhausen, 1992.

Moritz, William: Resistance andSubversion in Animated Films of theNazi Era: The Case of HansFischerkoesen. Animation Journal1.1, 1992.

Sejersted, Francis & Arnljot StrømmeSvendsen (ed). Blader av tobakkenshistorie. J.L.Tiedemanns tobaksfab-rik 1778-1978. Oslo, 1978.

Skretting, Kathrine. Reklamefilmenskommunikasjon: Norske reklame-filmer 1922 - 1988. University ofTrondheim, 1988.

Strøm, Gunnar. “Fanden i nøtten” til “Fargesymfon iblättAnimasjonsfilm i Norge, 1913- 1939. Volda College, 1993.

Westbrock, Ingrid. Der Werbefilms.Hildesheim, Zürich , New York.1983.

Gunnar Strøm([email protected]) isAssociate Professor at Volda

College in Norway, where he ishead of the animation depart-

ment. He has published a num-ber of books on animation andmusic videos. He is president of

ASIFA Norway, and a boardmember and former secretarygeneral of ASIFA International.

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The PGA Connectionby Gene Walz

I f a monument is ever built toRichard Condie and the Manitobaanimation scene, there’s an old

animation stand in a convertedNational Film Board storage roomthat would make a perfect center-piece.

Now that Richard Condiehas switched to computers for LaSalla, the old black-piped machinemay have few glory days left. Butits role in the creation of a localindustry is undeniable.

Without that animationstand, there probably would not bea “Richard Condie—Two-time OscarNominee.” No Getting Started, noPigbird, no Big Snit. No Cat CameBack by Cordell Barker either, norGet a Job by Brad Caslor. And cer-tainly no Primiti Too Taa by EdAckerman.


From a PGA spot for

As an oversized hand-me-down, the animation stand has hada weird history. Like a lot ofCanadiana, it has passed from pri-vate to public ownership. From NeilMcInnes and Kenn Perkins to theWinnipeg Film Group and now theManitoba Society of IndependentAnimators.

The key link in the chain ofownership is Kenn Perkins, the kingof the K-Tel commercials. It was athis animation shop that Caslor andCondie and others learned theircraft. They swept floors and emp-tied wastebaskets there just to get achance to see their own cels underthe old Bolex on the animationstand’s housing.

Perkins bought the standfrom its original owners, Phillips,Gutkin and Associates (PGA) just

Toastmaster bread.

when it seemed that a glorious erain Winnipeg animation historywould disappear without a trace.

The Biggest and the BusiestDuring the 1950s, PGA was

among the biggest and busiest ani-mation companies in NorthAmerica. The fact that they accom-plished this in Winnipeg, a city ofmaybe 300,000 people on the bald-headed Canadian prairie, speaksvolumes about the creativity andcan-do stubbornness that Condiealso exhibits.

PGA got into the animationbusiness in 1952, four years afterJohn Phillips and Harry Gutkinformed a partnership to provide live-action industrial films and printadvertising for western Canadianbusinesses. John and Harry werequite an unlikely pair. Gutkin, fromWinnipeg’s ethnic North-end, wasa commercial artist and part ownerof a publishing firm. Phillips was theson of a renowned Canadianpainter, a quiet man from the WASP-ish south end of town, who left ajob as layout man and fashion pho-tographer for the Eaton’s catalogue.

The Canadian equivalent ofthe great Sears and Montgomery-Ward catalogues, the Eaton’s cata-

Caslor and Condie swept floorsand emptied wastebaskets just

to get a chance to see theirown cels under the old Bolex

on the animation stand.

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A mexican-themed spot for B.F. Goodrich.

logue was one reason that postwarWinnipeg was the third largestadvertising center in North America.It was a good time and, oddly, theright place for PGA to get into theanimation business.

PGA did not make cartoons,although they eventually tried to.Their first venture was a movie forthe co-ops that were so important towestern Canadian development.What’s Co-operation All About? wasa 20-minute promo, half animationand half live-action. Rudimentary indesign and structure, the movie issignificant mainly because it forcedPGA to invest in the now-historicanimation stand.

The specifications for thestand came from the National FilmBoard. That’s more ironic than itappears. For, at the time the NFBwas justly famous for NormanMcLaren’s cameraless (and, there-fore, non-animation stand) films.The stand was then built by a localmechanic for Trans-Canada Air Lines(now Air Canada), HaroldRasmussen. Sturdy and reliable as aDC-3, the stand would be crucial toPGA’s main claim to fame—hun-dreds of animated TV commercials.

PGA’s First Big BreakWhen CBC television

became a coast-to-coast operationin 1954, PGA had already donesome local animation ads. So HarryGutkin took a sample reel to Torontoto impress the Libby’s Foods’ exec-utives who had just agreed to spon-sor National Movie Night on CBCtelevision. With an amusing story-board for “Quality Control Cops,”PGA got their first big break.

The ad proved more expen-sive than PGA estimated. With nolab facilities in Winnipeg, manyflights had to be made across NorthAmerica to complete the sound-track, the editing, the final print, and


even the live-action “sandwiches”inserted between the animationsequences.

To complicate matters, a fast-talking “Hollywood producer” con-vinced PGA to substitute milk fortomato juice in the black-and-whiteproduct closeups. A budget-bustingtrip to New York to mask and recol-or each individual frame of theinsert saved the account.

The golden age of PGA wasbetween 1954 and 1960. The com-pany was making between 15 and30 TV commercials per month.Major accounts included WindsorSalt (whose “Wacky Bird” wasGutkin’s favorite creation), Esso Oil,the Bank of Canada, Simonize Wax,Blue Ribbon Tea, Kellogg’s Cereals,

Although all ads were done inthe spare UPA animation stylepopular at the time, PGA still

needed between 25 and 30 ani-mators working full-time to

keep up.

Chrysler Canada, Kraft Foods, andLibby’s. Most of these were exclu-sively Canadian ads; Kraft, Libby’sand Windsor Salt spots alsoappeared on American television.

Although all ads were donein the spare UPA (United Producersof America) animation style popu-lar at the time, PGA still neededbetween 25 and 30 animatorsworking full-time to keep up withthe pace. Some of the animatorscame right out of local art schoolsand apprenticed on the job. Amongthose who worked at PGA and laterwent on to even better things wereBarrie Nelson (who later set up hisown animation operation in SantaMonica, California), Barrie Helmer(John Phillips’s brother-in-law, whowas recruited from the NFB), JeffHale, Jan Kamienski (who becamea noted political cartoonist), and,perhaps most famous of all, BillMason (whose canoing and wolffilms—especially Cry of the Wild—were among the best-selling NFBdocumentaries of all time).

PGA is also where Charlie

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Storyboard for an Imperial Esso commercial.

Thorson ended his long career inanimation. He spent three monthshere in 1956, drawing the “fuzzybunnies” and other cute animals hehad perfected as a character design-er at Disney, MGM, Warner Bros.,Fleischer, Terrytoons, Columbia, andGeorge Pal Studios in the 1930sand 1940s.

Most of PGA’s talent, how-ever, was imported from Europe.And this, plus a feature article in theprestigious Swiss magazine Graphis,led to a proposed trans-Atlanticalliance with John Halas and JoyBatchelor, England’s premier ani-mators of the time.

Beginning of the EndHarry Gutkin met John Halas

in New York City in 1960, and thetwo worked out a plan to alternateproduction of a weekly cartoon.PGA created a pilot from a series ofchildren’s books that Gutkin hadpublished and one of his animators,Ray Darby, had created before PGAwas founded. The series was to becalled T. Eddy Bear. The pilot wasthen included on a demo reel withHalas and Batchelor’s famousHamilton the Musical Elephant anda handful of commercials from bothcompanies.

Although the menagerie ofanimals was cute and kookie andthe UPA-style animation colorful andinventive, the sample vignettes weremiscalculated and uninspiring. T.


Eddy Bear never found a buyer. Itwas the beginning of the end forPGA.

With production costs risingand profit margins evaporatingbecause of costly trips to labs out-side of Winnipeg, PGA struggledthroughout the swinging sixties.Twenty-second animated commer-cials took over 300 person-hours tocomplete; the average contract wasfor $5,000 to $6,000. Live-actioncould be done for about one-tenthof that.

The coup de grace camefrom the CBC. Canada’s govern-ment-sponsored TV network ruledthat it would no longer accept ani-mated ads for products aimed atchildren. The CBC was convinced

PGA's Wacky Bird spot for Windsor Salt.

that, “Animation was like a Trojanhorse that secretly worked its wayinto children’s minds.” Cereal ads forCoco Puffs and Rice Krispies werethe first to go. Everything else thatwas animated was somehow sus-pect.

So, in 1966 PGA mergedwith another local ad agency,Brigden’s, and reluctantly aban-doned animation for print advertis-ing. Luckily, they found a localbuyer, Kenn Perkins, for their trustyanimation stand. That meant thatanimation in Winnipeg did notcome to an abrupt end. For that wecan all be grateful.

Gene Walz([email protected]) is head

of the film program at theUniversity of Manitoba, Winnipeg.He is currently finishing a biogra-phy on character designer Charlie

Thorson and is now editing abook called Great Canadian

Films.

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Making the Cel:A Profile of

Women in Commercialsby Bonita Versh

Bonita Versh.

T he world of TV commercials.… where 30 secondmegabuck monoliths litter

the landscape, dedicated to the solepurpose of selling a product thatmany of us would not bother tobuy if not for the stunning visualaides created by some smart-assdirectors. . . . directors who havethe foresight, the talent, the rightagency, the right campaign, thebest crew, the right producer, and,with any luck, the right budget tomake a short, sometimes minusculefilm. But a film never the less.

The short format of animatedcommercials is an avenue for all ofthe artists involved to get the hands-on training of making animatedfilms from beginning to end—andget paid for it! One can quickly learnall styles of animation, from tradi-tional to wacky, experimental tocomputer generated. When a direc-tor needs to get a difficult projectdone on time, he (yes, most direc-tors are still male) wants the best,most dependable, most versatileartists available. Women haveproven that there is no gender callhere.

Commercial animation is a fieldin which gender is less importantthan talent. For women in anima-tion, myself included, the commer-cial arena has sometimes been theonly place where one could get


hired as an animator, assistant ani-mator, or ink and paint personwhen all the TV series jobs weregoing overseas. That’s not to saythere isn’t any prejudice around. Acommon myth among the men ofthe “old school of thought” is thatwomen can’t be funny.

You’d better not say that toBecky Bristow, Cynthia Wells, SallyCruikshank, Peggy Yamamoto, PamCook, Pattie Shinagawa, Tissa David,Sue Kroyer, Sara Petty, Candy Guard,or Caroline Cruikshank, just a fewof the many talented (and funny)women who have worked in thecommercial arena at some point intheir careers, and who have ani-mated some pretty wild scenes.

Women-Friendly StudiosWhile there are countless com-

mercial animation houses through-out the country and across theglobe, a few in particular that I’mfamiliar with have worked withnotable women over the years.

Personally, I am grateful to KlaskyCsupo Commercials for trusting myabilities as a director, and for cham-pioning other women directorssuch as Tamara Varga and InginKim. I have a great crew to credit,starting with assistant director (nowproducer) Liz Seidman, executiveproducer Tim Bloch, assistant direc-tor/animator Renate Kempowski, aswell as Jackie Ross, Lisa Cupery,Adam Byrd, Nancy Avery, CristiLyon, Kim Tatum and all other ani-mators and assistants who help melook good!

Duck Soup Producktions, a longestablished commercial house, hasprobably used every talented ani-mator in Los Angeles at some timeor another. In the early 1990’s, theyhad an all-female animation staffthat consisted of Peggy Yamamoto,

A common myth among themen of the “old school of

thought” is that women can’tbe funny.

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Lunchmakers, a recently completed spot d

Patti Shinagawa and myself. We dida slew of commercials for DuckSoup, including the award-winning7-Up Dot campaign. Kunimi Tarada,their color stylist, is a master of celanimation. Beth Epstein, DuckSoup’s assistant director, has a longhistory in the animated commercialworld, starting back at Film Farewith Frank Terry. Recently, DuckSoup actually hired a female direc-tor, Maureen Selwood, who alsoteaches in the experimental anima-tion department at CalArts. ProducerCaroline Bates brought the studiointo the 21st century with her com-puter expertise, and now DuckSoup is establishing itself as a cut-ting edge digital studio as well.

Playhouse Pictures, one of theoldest commercial houses inHollywood, pays great tribute toSterling Sturdavant, a female design-er who established the Playhouselook in the 50s and early 60s, set-ting the commercial standard forthe times. Years ago, Playhousegave Sally Cruikshank, a wackyAmerican independent filmmaker,a chance to direct, still a rare oppor-

for Klasky Csupo Comme


tunity for awoman in thisbusiness, unlessyou own yourown company.Cynthia Wells,Becky Bristow,and RuthKissane are alsoalumni ofPlayhouse.

In Chicago,C a l a b a s hA n i m a t i o nStudios’ produc-er MonicaKendall workswith wonderfulanimators such

as Jackie Smessart, sand-animator

Priscilla Olson, cel artist Diane Griderand technical director CelenePecker. Star Toons, also out ofChicago, is headed by female pro-ducer Chris McClenehan. She men-tions that the few women anima-tors they’ve managed to train soonleave for the larger studios. This is aproblem for all of the commercialhouses.

Ron Diamond of AcmeFilmWorks has been a real impetusfor matching independents withsponsors. The list of artists he hasproduced commercials with readslike the “Who’s Who” of the inter-national festival circuit. This rosterincludes Caroline Leaf, Wendy Tilby,Simona Mulazzani, AleksandraKorejwo and others. British directorSue Loughlin recently completedthe third spot in Acme’s series of celanimated commercials for WeightWatchers. Loughlin has directed sev-eral spots for Acme, including onefor the award-winning Levi’s ani-mated series, a campaign which putAcme and many other studios onthe map in the commercial world.

We can’t talk about the L.A.

irected by Bonita Vershrcials.

scene without mentioning JaneBaer, co-founder and head of BaerAnimation Studio in Studio City. Shefounded Baer Animation in 1984,and has proven to be a formidableforce in the commercial world, withclients ranging from Coca-Cola toPampers and Starkist Tuna, theyhave established a reputation for aclassical, what some might call“Disney” style. Cynthia Wells is ananimation director who worked onseveral of Baer’s M&M’s spots in theearly 1990’s.

Wells, who has also worked forWarner Bros. and Fox FeatureAnimation, taught at CalArts, andcreated her own independent films,just finished up directing two com-mercials for Los Angeles-basedRhythm & Hues, a studio known forits’ computer animation commer-cials and special effects. Simon Says,for Twizzler’s candy, and Bullseye,for Kraft barbecue sauce, were bothcreated with Rhythm & Hues’ pro-prietary software. Traditionally a 2Danimator, this was a first time com-puter animation experience forWells, who is working on a newindependent animated film calledA Shadow of Doubt, a five minutetrailer for a feature film conceptwhich she expects to complete laterthis year.Women Directors

Independent women filmmak-ers like Cynthia Wells are really break-ing ground in commercial directionand animation. Commercials havegiven them a chance to perfect theirart while being funded by a spon-sor. As you can gather by now, read-ing the names of directors at vari-ous studios, the commercials indus-try is one in which talent travels.Anyone with more than a few yearsexperience in the industry hasworked at their fair share of studios,on a variety of projects and tech-niques.

May 1997 29

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Becky Bristow has worked withmost of the major commercial hous-es, animating on countless spotsincluding over a dozen of FrankTerry’s Raid commercials. Bristowalso influenced the careers of manya young animators during her five-year position as head of CalArts’renowned Character Animationdepartment, which is now headedup by Frank Terry.

Kris Weber-Sherwood, a longtime assistant director and produc-er, started her career at Spunbuggy,the historically significant commer-cial studio that started the careersof people like Frank Terry, Bill Kroyer,Bob Zambini, and even GaborCsupo back in the late 60s and early70s. Auril Thompson wasSpunbuggy’s color stylist, and is nowknown as a legendary inker fromWarner Bros. Sue Kroyer also gother start at Spunbuggy, and is nowwell known throughout the indus-try as one of the top directing tal-ents. With her husband Bill Kroyer,Sue is currently working on devel-opment for Warner Bros. Feature


Animator Maureen Selwood recently directDuck Soup Pro

Animation. Talent surely runs in SueKroyer’s family. Her sister, KarenJohnston has run her own anima-tion studio, Karen JohnstonProductions in Racine, Wisconsin for20 years.

Up in Vancouver, DebraDawsen has designed for MarvNewland’s International Rocketshipfor 15 years. Vancouver andCanada in general boast a largepopulation of independent womenfilmmakers. Caroline Cruikshank (norelation to Sally,) a Canadian and agraduate of Sheridan College, wentto London and gained an out-standing reputation as a commer-cial director, working with RichardWilliams, Pizzaz Pictures, Richard

For women in animation,myself included, the commer-cial arena has sometimes beenthe only place where one couldget hired as an animator, assis-tant animator, or ink and paintperson when all the TV series

jobs were going overseas.

ed this spot for El Torito restaurants atducktions.

Purdum Productions, PassionPictures, and Hibbert Ralph in the80s. Since 1996, she has beenworking at Walt Disney FeatureAnimation in L.A., where she justcompleted work on their next fea-ture film, Hercules .

In New York, Tissa David leadsthe way as the “Grand Dame” ofAnimation (she deserves an entirearticle!.) She is currently working atInk Tank, along with Suzan Pitt, anaccomplished independent film-maker who recently signed on toThe Ink Tank’s new division, Ink TankToo.

Los Angeles-based Kurtz andFriends has long depended on theversatile talents of Peggy Yamamotoand Pam Cook. Pam also has along-time relationship with Celluloid, a Denver-based animation house.

I know I have failed to mentionmany women who may be cur-rently animating and directing inthe studios that I didn’t get toresearch. Hopefully, this article canserve as a catalyst to bring othersout of the woodwork. The non-prof-it organization, Women inAnimation, is planning to celebratethese and other women in com-mercials at a presentation and meet-ing next October. This is an openinvitation to you readers working inthe industry to let me know aboutother women working in the field.Through recognition of our accom-plishments, we can foster thegrowth of a new generation ofwomen in the animation industry.

Bonita Versh is a director forKlasky Csupo Commercials, and

an active supporter of Women inAnimation, a non-profit organiza-

tion. She can be reached byphone at Klasky Csupo in

Hollywood: (213) 957-4198.

May 1997 30

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An Interview With Aardman’s Peter Lord

As an animator, director andco-founder of AardmanAnimations, Peter Lord has

established himself as one of today’spremier talents in stop-motion, or,as the Brits call it, “model” anima-tion. Together with David Sproxton,he established Aardman Animationsin 1972, after experimenting withanimation in their school years.

Early endeavors produced a TheAmazing Adventure of Morph, aclay animation series for childrenthat aired on BBC in the early1980s. Conversation Pieces, a seriesof short films commissioned byBritian’s Channel Four led to thedevelopment of Aardman’s uniquestyle, appealing to adults more thanchildren. This eventually led to manycommercial jobs for the studio, andthe landmark Sledgehammer videofor Peter Gabriel, in collaborationwith Stephen Johnson and TheBrothers Quay. As the studio grew,additional talents were added, suchas Richard Goleszowski, Jeff Newitt,Steve Box and Nick Park, whose1994 Creature Comforts andWallace and Gromit films, A GrandDay Out, The Wrong Trousers andA Close Shave have taken homethree Oscars and countless festivalawards.

Over the years, and in betweencommercials, Lord directed severalshort films, including the Oscar-nominated Adam in 1992. Lord’s lat-


est short film, Wat’s Pig, is Aardman’ssixth Oscar nomination, and Lord’ssecond Oscar nomination as a direc-tor. We caught up with Peter for aninterview during his recent visit toLos Angeles for the AcademyAwards. I was struck by his friendly,cordial manner and articulation,qualities not so common in anima-tors, a breed of human whichspends countless hours alone cre-ating just seconds of film frame byframe.

Animation World Magazine:Hasthe financial success ofAardman’s short films,commer-cial work, and all of the relatedmerchandising given you morecreative freedom?

Peter Lord: For the finan-cial, yes, we have got that. It

Peter Lord.

enabled us to make Wat’s Pig, andSteve Box is directing an 11 minuteshort called Stage Fright, which isterrific as well, I must say. Aardmanfunded those by 40%. That’s part-ly about us retaining all the rightsto them, character rights and so on.I don’t expect, Wat’s Pig to make it’smoney back, or Stage Fright tomake it’s money back, but we havethat luxury. We can do that here,because we get money from thecommercials and the merchandis-ing malarkey.

AWM: What has Aardman’sinvolvement been in the licens-ing and merchandising of theWallace & Gromit films? Haveyou been very closely involvedwith the concepts and designs?

PL: Yes, we have. When it start-ed, we were very shy about it.Didn’t want the characters to beexploited. We didn’t want the peo-ple buying the stuff to be exploited,either. Our circle of model-makersdid most of the original models forthe merchandise, just because it’sso difficult to do well. The samegoes for the illustrations. I knowthat the likes of Disney have thesefantastic bibles how to do every-thing, but we don’t quite do that.

AWM:You used a very interest-ing split-screen technique inWat’s Pig. How did you go about

by Wendy Jackson

May 1997 31

AN

Aardman’s Wallace and Gromit characters have achieved cult status in England.

doing that?PL: As a concept, it was in there

right from the start. I think it is inter-esting as a way with story telling,not just as a technical exercise. Ithink about Paul Driessen’s film, TheEnd of the World in Four Seasons,a similar storytelling approach. Therewas a time when I thought of doingmore of the film in split-screen, notthe whole film, but more with split-screen, but that [idea] slowly erod-ed as I worked on the storyboards.I felt it would become too “tricksy.”It was, in a way, an intellectual chal-lenge, but technically, we wentabout it in the most quaint, old-fash-ioned way imaginable, with filmopticals at the end. Exactly why wedidn’t composite it electronically, I’mnot quite sure. I wish we had, itwould have been a lot easier!. It’sfunny, the way we work, it’s like wewere in a time warp, really. It’s likemaking a film 20 years ago or some-thing. We didn’t assemble twohalves of the image until the end, soI didn’t really know how thingswould work out accurately until theend.

AWM: If you didn’t compositeuntil post-production, how didyou sync up the movements soprecisely—like the scene in whichthe two brothers stretch in thesame position?

PL: There were two of us work-ing on the film at that stage, so, inthat case, my partner Sam shot hishalf first, then I could analyze it andclock it accurately. But, you couldn’tsee it, you could only guess howthe two were going to interact. It’skind of like the animation equiva-lent of these films where peoplework with non-existent images,where they’re acting to somethingthat isn’t there yet.

AWM: Did you matte-off the


camera while you were filming?PL: No, we filmed full-frame and

matted-off the screen only when wewere viewing the footage. So,where you’re animating is wonder-fully perfect, you know, and theother side of the frame is kind ofchaotic, with all of the junk, tools,messes and things animatingaround on the table! [laughing] Weshould make the “animators atwork” version of the film, usingthose out-takes!

AWM:Everybody is talking aboutcomputers replacing stop-motion. How do you use com-puters, and do you foresee com-puters ever replacing what youdo?

PL: Our finished material is stillshot on film, we think it still givesthe best image, and what’s really onfilm remains a mystery until it comesback from the labs the next morn-ing. We use computers for frame-grabbing videos, or, we still call itvideo, even though it is digital now.Actually, we simultaneously shooton these computer disks, so we’rewatching the animation as we goalong. We are fairly committed to

working that way now with com-puters, because it’s safer. We’vebeen doing it about ten years. Ithink of all technical innovations, it’sthe most useful because it trans-forms the 3-D scene to the 2-D tele-

vision screen, so it’s much easier tokeep track of how your puppet’smoving.

This [kind of system] is the normnow, the standard, but I haven’talways worked that way and I havesome misgivings about it. The peo-ple we train now, they think to workany other way is just absurd orridiculous. But I still think there is avirtue in animating what we call“blind.” The thing about workingwith the computer, working reac-tively, as it were, is that you seewhat you’ve done and then youreact to it and even correct it. That’swhat wrong to me. If you workwithout a computer, you workdirectly, instinctively. I think of ani-mation as a performance, a liveevent. It’s slow and painful , buteven so, it’s a live performance just

“I think of animation as a per-formance, a live event.”

May 1997 32

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Peter Lord with puppets from Wat’s Pig

the same And also answering the ques-

tion about computers, there is ofcourse CGI. We have a small CGIdepartment now. Just two peopleat the moment, just doing researchand development, poking around,you know. They aren’t researchingthe technique or programming somuch, because with all of the [soft-ware developers] out there, wedon’t need to think about that. Thetask of our team is to come up withsome really attractive performance-based stuff working on the com-puter. So it actually interests me agreat deal.

What doesn’t interest me aboutanimation is the hard work. I mean,I know this art is hard work, gener-ally speaking. But I don’t see whyyou should suffer unnecessarily - Ioften think that stop-frame anima-tion is a way to suffer unnecessari-ly, so anything that you can do toease that pain gets my vote. Really,you know, I’m not into this machokind of thing when animators say,“Hah! I did a sixteen-hour shottoday and it was sweltering hot, thepuppet was hanging on tungstenwire the whole time,” just to makethe impression of how much theysuffered. Who cares? All that real-ly matters is the performance on thescreen. So in that sense, looking atCGI as a labor-saver, then it gets myvote entirely. I was going to say, ifyou could do the same perfor-mance on CGI as with stopmotion....but then why try for that?Isn’t that a strange thing to do? Ifyou try to exactly copy clay anima-tion in CG form, that actually seemsto be a very sterile exercise becauseyou’re just copying. More interest-ing, surely, is to devise a new lan-guage for CG animation.

AWM: What if you could scanyour puppet characters into the


computer, and have them lookexactly the same as they do. . . . Ifyou could animate them in thecomputer, do you think youwould do that?

PL: Well, there is somethingabout working with the materials.There is a fundamental differencebetween working with your handsand your arms and your fingertips,and working on the keyboard. Idon’t know. . . . For all of us ani-mators at Aardman now, we aretrained in this craft, just the like amusician or a painter, it’s all handand head, hand and brain. One ofthe guys said to me just the otherday: “When I animate,” he said, “Ican do it by sound,” I think he wasdreaming actually, but he said thatwhen he animates a puppet, it’s thesound of the joint moving that he’saware of. This type of experienceindicates how instinctive and tactileour art is. You grab the puppet withtwo hands, and you feel the wholething move, you feel the twist ofthe chest away from the hips, theroll of the shoulders. . . . The cam-era has to move right, the light has

to be right, the actor has to do theright thing — make-up, costume,everything has to be right. Just forone moment in time. That’s the waywe work. I believe that the human-ity in what we’re doing, the process,all comes through in the final film.

Whereas with CG, of course, thisis not the case at all. You can justget each piece right separately andin isolation. One guy works on theperformance, about a month latersomeone sorts out the lighting, thenthe camerawork.

AWM: I’ve spoken to a numberof stop-motion animators haverecently made the switch tocomputer animation, and I’msensing a lot of their frustrationThey’re saying,“I can’t touch it,”it’s not what they’re used to.

PL: Well, now we’ve still got sortof a hangover from the old days,lots of people re-training their handsand their brains and bringing oldideas to a new medium. What I’mexpecting is to have kids comingout of college who have just donethis [computer animation] forever,

May 1997 33

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wothmchthtyp19bystomsindirutfinGiChAabaseAaofabwto

AWab

A Close Shave.

and for whom it’s the only way ofanimating, for them it’s natural.When those people start comingthrough with new ideas, then Ithink we’ll see something, and Iassume it will get very exciting. IfI saw such a person, I wouldemploy them at Aardman because

I’m not interested in us being thatbehind, like practicing an ancientmedieval craft!

David Sproxton and I are thetwo founders of the company, and,at 43, we’re virtually the oldestmembers in the studio. But eventhough everyone else is youngerthan us, we’re still much moreinclined to experiment than theyare. There’s an incredible traditionin a lot of people. I’d like to experi-ment with CGI, but we haven’tmuch. I guess the first thing you do,is to do as they did in James AndThe Giant Peach, those things that

I’m told you must never say“family audience.” It’s a dirtyword, the ‘F’ word, you know.


you can’t do , like water and envi-rons, smoke and stuff. . . . .youmight do that as a first delicate steptowards CGI.

AWM:You have a lot of effects ina lot of Aardman films, and Ioften wonder how they were cre-ated. Do you use computers inpost production to take outwires,or to add effects,or are you“too pure?”

PL: No, we’re pure, but not toopure. For the nice commercialwork, we go to post productionand take out all the rigs and tidy up,and occasionally we do have com-pletely CGI parts as well. But, forthe films, we are very pure. A CloseShave was done in the very oldfashioned tradition. There were afew shots where we used post pro-duction to take out rigs, but other-wise, everyone went to enormouslengths to do it for real.

AWM: I sense that.When I see adrop of water or a bead of sweatin a Nick Park film, I just know

that it’s hand-blownglass from Milan orsomething.PL: Yeah, you’re

right. I’m still amazedat the ingenuity ofpeople. And it comesfrom this desire to getthe performance right,in front of camera, allat once, and byinstinct. But I have afeeling that we’ll usemuch more electronicpost production withthe feature film thatwe’re working onnow. Editor’s Note:Since

the taping of this inter-view, Aardman hasannounced that the

feature film they arerking on is called Chicken Run.

e film will be a stop-motion ani-ated comedy feature about twoickens, Rocky and Ginger, andeir attempt at a “prisoner of war”e escape from a farm in the50s. The screenplay was written Jack Rosenthal, and based on ary which has been in develop-

ent by Peter Lord and Nick Parkce 1995. The film will be co-ected by Lord and Park, and exec-ive produced by partner andancier Jake Eberts (James and theant Peach.) of Allied Filmmakers.icken Run will be produced byrdman in their Bristol, England-sed studio, with pre-productiont to begin in September 1997.rdman is currently in the process talking to several U.S. studiosout distribution for the film, whiche can expect to be releasedwards the end of 1998.

M: What can you tell usout the feature?PL: Not much! It’s a shame real-

May 1997 34

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ly, but that’s how it is when you’rein development. Nick [Park] and Iwrote the story at great length andthe screenplay is now being writ-ten by a guy named Jack Rosenthal.He’s bringing our story to life withbrilliant dialog. We’re designing andbuilding some of the charactersnow, and when the story’s written,we can push ahead with that kindof stuff. It’s just full of technical chal-lenges, which kind of interests me.We are planning an 18 monthshoot, which should start nextMarch.

AWM:What kind of audience areyou designing this film for?

PL: I’m told you must never say“family audience.” It’s a dirty word,the ‘F’ word, you know. Regardless,that’s the kind of film it will be,appealing to a wide range of peo-ple. Like on TV, where they makethese charts of the viewing profileflat between the age of 20 and theage of 80, Wallace and Gromit doit. Everybody watches it and enjoysit. That’s the goal. It’s not easy. Isuppose inexorably it will tend to


Twin brothers in Wat’s Pi

be marketed as if for children.

AWM:Why did you choose to goat it independently with so manyoffers from all the studios?

PL: Well, our big kick is inde-pendence. That’s what we’re after.Not that I think the studios want tocrush us at all, but it’s just that we’vegot different agendas. For example,the film will be extremely English insensibility. Now if that’s arrogant,that’s no different than the normalAmerican arrogance, assuming therest of the world wants to watch

their culture. But I think that eventhe most general American audi-ence will actually enjoy it because itwill be a great story.

AWM:Are all of your resourcesgoing to go into the feature?

PL: No. A lot of artists, as youcan imagine. But, there are some

people whosebest interests donot lie in the fea-ture. Six yearsago, Aardmanwas a companyof about 15 peo-ple doing a mix-ture of short filmsand commercialstogether. Andnow we’vegrown to bewhatever we arenow, about 50people . The wayI see it, in a year’stime we’ll havean enormouscrew on the fea-ture, and a small

g.

My advice to young animators?Tell a good story, for heaven’s

sake.

group of 15 or so dedicated todoing a mixture of short films andcommercials. That seems to be theway it’s going to go. What thatmeans in the long term intriguesme. This small group of people, inturn, may just grow out to be a dif-ferent company.

AWM:How many people do youevidently expect to have work-ing on the feature?

PL: I think about 120 or some-thing like that. I can tell you thatseeing what Henry Selick did hasbeen terribly helpful and educa-tional for us. Your animators areyour performers, and you have tokeep them performing as best aspossible. So the plan is to have twicethe number of units as we have ani-mators so that we’ll always beleapfrogging ourselves. . . .whileone team is working on Scene 1,the crew is setting up for Scene 2.So they’re not waiting around, thatkills animators. I know that you getsnarled, where the hapless anima-tor waits around all day while peo-ple, agonize over what they did yes-terday, check the rushes, thinkabout it, get off the set and tinkeraround. . . then the animator’s notshooting until four in the afternoon.This frequently happens, and if wecan avoid that, we hope to bemadly, madly efficient.

AWM:Speaking of Selick,do youexpect to be staffing up from therecent close of his TwitchingImages studio?

PL: No, not really. We have thistraining program, which works real-ly, really, well. It’s fascinating. A yearago we said, “Yikes! We don’t haveenough animators!” And we workwith and know a lot of the anima-tors in Britain, and all their strengthsand weaknesses. But we still need-ed more. We observed that the peo-

May 1997 35

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bTptssfttw

AyAi

WtbmhlocsPoShrc

Wat’s Pig.

ed more. We observed that the peo-ple coming out of college haven’tanimated enough, because collegesdon’t teach the craft skills to anyoneat all. There’s lots of talk of theory,and they may be happy to be mak-ing their own films, but they neverhand them anything to animate.Now that’s okay, I like brilliant youngdirectors, but, I also want brilliantyoung animators. But when youlook at the kids, you find, to yourhorror, that in their whole career,they’ve only animated about tenminutes of film! So, we started thistraining scheme with the localUniversity of the West of England,right in Bristol. The simple premisewas that everyone will be animat-ing every day. We got these handycomputer systems, and set up littlecubicles. We give each of them asimple puppet , and for four monthsthey animated every day. Theywould also do some life drawingand some life modeling, because Istill think that observation of thehuman figure is really important.Our teacher is a guy called LloydPrice. We took on five students tostart, and there are five more now.


I think that fourof those ten willbe key anima-tors.

AWM:Are theyall British?

PL: They’llall British.

AWM: So areyou open topeople fromelsewhere inthe world toapply?

PL: Y e s ,we are. It’sgoing to run

next year as well,ut it won’t be quite as intensive.his was just so intensive from ouroint of view. It’s been handed overo the university, now, but we willtill participate. It won’t be theame, however, it won’t be quite asocused. We can’t afford all thatraining time. We hope we’verained the university as much ase trained the students.

WM: Besides Lloyd Price, areou or any of the others on theardman staff doing any teach-

ng?PL: Yes, both me and Nick.

e’ve done “Master Classes,” ashey say. When the students cameack to the studio, they did a com-ercial project that wasn’t veryands-on but I was overseeing it,oking in on them as often as I

ould to jolly them along. And thetudents had input from me, Nickark and Steve Box, who was thether key animator on A Closehave and a couple of others. Wead lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky kids

eally who had the best training,ertainly in Britain.

AWM:There are so many peoplewho want so desperately to getinvolved in stop-motion, whilethere are fewer and fewer oppor-tunities out there.What advicewould you have for young, aspir-ing stop-motion animators?

PL: It’s an interesting question,because I do feel, and fear, that inthe States, stop-motion is dying outto CGI. For a young person, whichis more important—storytelling orcraft? I do believe that if someonecomes along who directs well, andcan tell a good story, then I per-sonally will forgive them any inad-equate animation, as a viewer, andas a potential employer of directors.So, if a young person in collegewants to make a name for them-selves, I would say get a great idea,a great story, and tell that. I’m notsaying forget about technique , butI’d rather see flair and energy andhumor (well, it doesn’t have to havehumor, even.) There are so few real-ly good films, that a good story witha good punch line just communi-cates so well, and makes the audi-ence wild. So, my advice to younganimators? Tell a good story, forheaven’s sake.

Wendy Jackson is Associate Editorof Animation World Magazine.

May 1997 36

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Cartoons On The Bayby Giannalberto Bendazzi

T he second edition ofCartoons on the Bay, the onlyfestival in the world devoted

entirely to television animation, tookplace last month (April 5-9) on thepicturesque southern Italian coastof Amalfi, near Naples. Only in itssecond year, this festival has becomean important event for the anima-tion world. It is at once a culturalevent for animators, film-makers, execu-tives, anima-tion criticsa n d

his-t o r i -ans, aprivileged cir-cle for discussingthe everlasting moral,psychological and educa-tional issues surrounding televisionand children; and, perhaps mostimportantly, an occasion for show-ing the little known treasures of thehistory of animation to a hungrypublic.

The professional attendance wasmainly from Italy, with a mix ofEuropean and American executivesparticipating in the seminars. It wasalso a treat to have the presence of


animation master Jimmy TeruMurakami (When the Wind Blows)visiting from Ireland. Italians BrunoBozzetto, Guido Manuli, GiuseppeLaganá, Pierluigi De Mas, MarcoPagot and Enzo D’Alò were all pre-sent, wise-cracking and discussingtheir new projects. Bruno Bozzettoconfessed that he is thinking of

developing a new feature film, hisfirst since Allegro non Troppo in1978.

As is the case with many ani-mation festivals, there are usuallymore events going on than any oneperson can keep up with. The 58films in competition and 56 in show-case were screened in the evoca-

The Amalfi coast, site of Cartoons on the Bay.

tive, although somewhat freezingsetting of the ancient Arsenali (ship-yards) hall, while the programs ofanimation previews and live-actionTV productions for children tookplace in the nearby village of Maiori.Meanwhile, a program on musicand cartoons was being presentedin Salerno, the biggest town of thearea. My feeling is that the festival

would have been bet-ter if it had been

more local-ized. But

it is

n e v e r -theless true

that this inherent flawis also the charm of the festival.

An important aspect of Cartoonson the Bay is its many conferencesand seminars, which were mainlydevoted to “children and television,”the theme of this festival. Also ofinterest were the seminars “Scalingthe Height of Animation,” which dis-cussed the limits of animation mar-ket, and “Writing for Animation”, aprofessional seminar for animationscriptwriters.

May 1997 37

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The Amalfi coast, site of Cartoonson the Bay.

And The Pulcinella Goes To. . . .The international jury was com-

prised of Marc du Pontavice ofGaumont Multimedia in France,Robby London of DICEntertainment in USA, TheresaPlummer-Andrews of BBC ChildrensProgrammes in U.K., Michael Schaakof Trickompany Filmproduktion inGermany, and Alessandra ValeriManera of Mediaset Networks inItaly.

Of the 58 films in competition,the top prizes were awarded toRotten Ralph by John Matthews ofUSA for the Best Childrens Seriescategory, and to Link by TapaniKnuutila of Canada for the BestAdult Series category. These weretwo well-deserved prizes, accord-ing to the general opinion of thefestivalgoers, who generally agreedabout the rest of the prizes as well.

After many years of honorablebut fragile craft, Italian anima-

tion is blossoming into anindustry.


The Sun is a Yellow Giraffe byFinland’s Elmer Diktonus of theEpidem studio brought home boththe UNICEF Award and the SilverPulcinella for Best European Series,while Moscow-based ChristmasFilms’ Testament: The Bible inAnimation, directed by AidaZiablikova, was awarded both theSilver Pulcinella for Best TV Movieand a special mention for BestDirection. The four other filmsawarded Silver Pulcinellas wereCosgrove Hall’s (U.K.) BramblyHedge for Technical Innovation,Hanna Barbera’s (USA) Dexter’sLaboratory for Best Script, GrandSlamm’s (U.K.) Percy the Park Keeperfor Best Series for Infants and WaltDisney’s (USA) The Lion King’s Timon& Pumba for All Audiences.

My favorites which were notawarded prizes include HannaBarbera’s Cow and Chicken, byDavid Feiss and Robert Alvarez,Nickelodeon’s Rocko’s Modern Lifeby Robert McNally-Scull, WarnerBros.’ Superman by ToshihikoMasuda, which is very faithful to theoriginal comic strip and very wellmodernized.

FeaturesEveryone was eager to see the

preview Disney’s latest feature film,Hercules, produced by Alice Dewey,and directed by John Musker andRon Clements (The Little Mermaid,The Lion King.) Roy Conly fromDisney’s Paris studio introduced theshow, explaining who was whoand what was going on betweenthe fragments screened. Ultimately,the preview left most of us guess-ing what the actual film will looklike when it premieres in June! Onething is certain about Hercules,though. . . . the film’s Greek heroine,Megara (her friends call her “Meg”)is saucier and more down to earththan any preceding Disney princess.

Other feature film screeningsincluded Japanese Osamu Dezaki’sBlack Jack, a film adapted from thecomic strip character created by thelate Osamu Tezuka, and GermanTrickompany’s Werner, Eat My Dust,the film that’s making history for out-grossing Disney’s Hunchback ofNotre Dame in the German domes-tic market.

Enzo D’Alò, who sold his LaFreccia Azzurra animated featurefilm to Miramax for distribution inthe U.S. and U.K., is preparing twonew animated features. Coming forChristmas 1998 is Storia di una gab-bianella e del gatto che le insegnòa volare, or, Story of a Little Seagulland of the Cat Who Taught HerHow to Fly a film adapted from thenovel by Luis Sepulveda. And forChristmas 1999, d’ Alo is workingon a new animated Pinocchio.

Keywords: Quantity andQuality

Of all of the events during theweek, there are two positive obser-vations I am taking from theseAmalfi days. As far as quantity is con-cerned, animation today looks like“the promised land” for employ-ment. Animated fare today accountsfor 25% of global audiovisual out-put, and during the last four years,worldwide animation productionhas increased 600%. In 1996,

Timon & Pumbaa. © Disney.

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Europe produced 750 hours of ani-mation, twelve times the output of60 hours in 1986. Secondly, theincreased quantity is also ofincreased quality than before. Or,at least it is much more creative, bril-liant and stimulating than onemight expect from a globalized mar-ket which could have aimed at thelowest common denominator inorder to please everyone’s tastes.Kate Fawkes, executive producer ofBritain’s HIT Entertainment, summedit up well when she said to TheHollywood Reporter, “Broadcastersnow have so many years worth ofjunk to recycle, that they are muchmore interested in quality.”

The Italian Animation IndustryAfter many years of honorable

but fragile craft, Italian animation isblossoming into an industry. Thepublic broadcaster RAI, which,through its acquisitions branch,SACIS, is the actual backer/organiz-er of Cartoons on the Bay, has set aschedule for financing pilots andseries. Some of them already in pro-duction are Albert the Wolf devel-oped from the comic strip Silver,and directed by Giuseppe Laganà.


Alfio Bastiancich, artisitic director for Cart

. . . La Pimpa, developed from thecomic strip Altan, and directed byEnzo D’Alò. . . . and Sandokan,developed from the novels bySalgari, and directed by MarcoPagot.

Many other Italian animatorsand cartoonists are at work. FrancoBianco, a young director, GuidoFavaro and Francesco Artibani,scriptwriters, and Luigi Zollo, pro-ducer, are creating a pilot, Giak and

Zac, the story of two crazy andinconsequent detectives. It is funny,fresh and features a perfect timing.The now privately-owned broad-caster Mediaset has announced pro-jects for financing animation series,good news because it will avoid anymonopoly, very dangerous for themany old and new firms that aredeveloping and investing into hard-ware and teaching. Among them Imust mention Laterna Magica, theproducer of La Freccia Azzurra,which has invested over

$590,000.00 intraining new ani-mation profession-als. Back to RAI,whose 1997 invest-ment into indepen-dent cinema isroughly 50 billionlire (a little less than3 billion dollars.) Ofthese monies, 14 bil-lion (approximately$823,600.00) willbe devoted to ani-mation. RAI execu-tives estimate that inone or two years,the annual Italianoutput of animation

oons on the Bay.

In one or two years, the annualItalian output of animationshould match Britain’s or

Germany’s, at about 200 hours.

should match Britain’s or Germany’s,at about 200 hours.

Discussions of turning Cartoonson the Bay into an official marketsuch as MIP or MIFA have been putaway for now, with an agreementbetween SACIS and MIFED, thefamous Italian film market. SACIS willinstead organize an animation“pavilion”-type exhibition packageand screening program at the 64thMIFED film market in Milan October19-24.

Giannalberto Bendazzi, a fre-quent contributor to Animation

World Magazine, is a Milan-basedfilm historian and critic whose

own history of animation,Cartoons: One Hundred Years of

Cinema Animation, was pub-lished in the US by Indiana

University Press and in the UK byJohn Libbey. His other books onanimation include Topoline e poi(1978), Due voite l’oceana (1983)and Il movimento creato (1993,

with Guido Michelone).

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WAC-a-WAC-a-WAC-aThe 1997 World

Animation Celebrationby Wendy Jackson & Harvey Deneroff

Attending the WorldAnimation Celebration inMarch was something like

running a six-day marathon, as onesprinted between festival screen-ings, a business conference, a tech-nology exhibit (and accompanyingclasses) and a job expo (with paneldiscussions), taking time out to par-ticipate in the making of a featurefilm, while refreshing oneself witha slew of late night parties. Thus,when the planned Sunday morn-ing screening of the best of the fes-tival was canceled at the lastminute, it seemed a huge sigh ofrelief was heard all aroundPasadena. The marathon aspectswere punctuated by a number of


Crowds lined up in front of the Pasade

top-notch events and plentifulopportunities to schmooze and net-work, but were also besmirched byan often confusing scheduling andother teething pains.

The Celebration itself waswrapped around a revival of the LosAngeles International AnimationCelebration (1985-91), a festival runby Terry Thoren on behalf ofExpanded Entertainment, distribu-tor of the International Tournée ofAnimation. Thoren eventuallybought Expanded and AnimationMagazine (which organized thisyear’s event); and now, in additionto these enterprises, Thoren func-tions primarily as CEO of KlaskyCsupo (Rugrats, Duckman, etc.).

na Civic, where most of the festival took place

The old Celebrations were mostlyheld in the Nuart Theater, a com-fortably run down revival house inWest Los Angeles, which lacked theluxurious ambiance of such festivalsas Cardiff and Ottawa. This timearound, though, the Celebrationwas ensconced in the elegant andspacious Pasadena Civic Center,which houses a 3,000 seat concerthall, along with two exhibitionspaces; Animation Magazine’sInternational Business Conferencefor Television Animation was heldin the nearby Doubletree Hotel, andthe Academy Theater was draftedfor additional screenings (includinga mini-anime festival).

May 1997 40

. Photo courtesy of Guillaume Calop.

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L-R: Richard Condie, Corky Quackenbush,Terry Thoren and Ron Diamond.

Photo courtesy of Guillaume Calop.

World’s Largest What?Touted as the “world’s largest

animation event,” it may seem iron-ic that the sheer magnitude of theevent was cause of its weaknesses.It was obvious that many of theproblems were associated with try-ing to do too much, especially giventhe fact that each of componentswere handled by separate organi-zations. There was the schedule ofscreenings, World AnimationCelebration, then there was theASIFA-Hollywood AnimationOpportunities Expo, Miller Freeman’sNew Animation Technology Expo(NATE, sounding suspiciously likeNATPE,) The International BusinessConference of Television Animation(IBCTVA,) the Women in AnimationSeminars, The Animation 2000, andmany other small events scatteredthroughout. People complained ofhaving five different schedules, andit was sometimes only after the factthat you realized what you hadmissed. The only sensible way tostay on top of it all, perhaps, would


Margaret Loesch moderates a paneldiscussion at the IBCTVA.

Photo © 1997 Elaina Verret.

have been to have a full-time per-sonal planner, or to clone yourself.

To compare WAC to establishedinternational fests like Annecy,Ottawa or Hiroshima seems unfair.WAC is not a festival, it is a “cele-bration,” and in that identity it ismost confident as a large network-ing, professional and educationalevent. Focusing on those strengths,there were several aspects of theCelebration that went off seamless-ly.

HighlightsThe International Business

Conference of Television Animation(IBCTVA) at the beginning of theweek went along smoothly andwas full of informative panel dis-cussions sprinkled with top-notchinternational executives, mixed inwith presentations by a variety ofinternational studios, as well as aneffective keynote address byNelvana’s Michael Hirsch.

The ASIFA-Hollywood JobOpportunities Expo, now in itsfourth year, benefited greatly frombeing part of a larger attraction.Taking place on the closing twodays, and in a central location, theOpportunities Expo rapidly becamethe place to meet people. It wasboth the most expansive andrelaxed version of the event, withelaborate booths instead of tables.But the number of exhibiting com-panies and attendees was downfrom the previous year, due to aquadrupling of the exhibition andincrease of admission prices.Perhaps it was also due to thedecline approaching the once-rav-enous recruiting efforts of the majorstudios. Eager portfolio-wielding stu-dents and aspiring animators weremet with friendly but un-promisingmeetings with the likes of Disney,Warner Bros., and Dreamworks,who are nearly staffed-up for their

feature film productions. Runningalongside the exhibitions were agrouping of 45 career-orientedpanel discussions, on everythingfrom principals of color keying tocareer opportunities for post-pro-duction personnel. It would per-haps be untoward of us to com-ment too much on the panels, aswe moderated one of each, butthey did seem highly productiveand quite well attended.

Among the outstanding filmprogramming events was a pre-sentation by Fox, which included alengthy panel discussion with keyplayers in various Fox Animationprojects. Moderated by Fox FamilyFilms president Chris Meledandri,the panel featured in-person MattGroening, creator and executiveproducer of The Simpsons, DavidSilverman, co-director of TheSimpsons, Kevin Bannerman, vp ofFox Family Films, Greg Daniels, co-creator and executive producer ofKing of the Hill, Maureen Donley,executive producer of Fox FeatureAnimation’s debut effort Anastasia,Ben Edlund, creator of The Tick(now being developed into a fea-ture film for Fox,) Margaret Loesch,chairman and CEO of Fox KidsNetwork and Mike Judge, creatorof Beavis & Butthead and King ofthe Hill. Bringing all of those cre-ative people together in one placewas a notable accomplishment inits own right, and the result was an

The ASIFA-Hollywood Job OpportunitiesExpo. Photo © 1997 Elaina Verret.

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The Fox panel discussion.L-R: Herb Scannell, president ofNickelodeon, Sumner Redstone,

Chairman and CEO of Viacom and AlbieHecht, senior vice president of worldwide

production and development forNickelodeon.


interesting and informative discus-sion which left the audience feelingpositively charged, and of course,scrambling for autographs andintroductions afterwards.

Another excellent program wasA Tribute to Aardman Animation,perfectly timed with the studio’s20th anniversary and Peter Lord’sOscar nomination for Wat’s Pig.Famed director Nick Park andAardman co-founders Peter Lordand David Sproxton were in person,and they spoke on-stage in an inter-view format with moderatorLeonard Maltin following a screen-ing of selected Aardman films andcommercials.

Viacom president and CEOSumner Redstone appeared for ahighly anticipated and well attend-ed keynote address on the closingnight of the festival. While it was aslightly inspiring endorsement ofcreator-driven animation, unfortu-nately, Redstone’s speech read likean expertly-crafted press release,marred by gloating over the very



The staff and volunteers of WAC

real accomplishments of MTV andNickelodeon. His presence,nonetheless, added an air of offi-ciality and importance to the pro-ceedings.

The CompetitionWith 40 awards categories, the

competition aspect of the festivalwas the least impressive, beingsimultaneously enormous anduneventful. Almost all of the inde-pendent films had already beenseen at other festivals during thepast two years, and the prolifera-tion of TV shows, commercials andhome video productions reallyclogged up the program. Peoplewere not talking about the films dur-ing social times as they usually do atfestivals, maybe because they’dalready seen them at other festivalsduring the year, and few peoplewere attending the daytime com-petition screenings in the uncom-fortable, makeshift upstairs theater.The presence of 40 separate awardscategories severely diluted theimpact of any one award, especial-ly during the final awards show,which turned out to be very anti-climactic and confusing, more like agraduation ceremony than a prop-er awards show. Ending the showwith Terry Thoren’s self-congratula-tory roll-calling of all festival staff andvolunteers on-stage took the focusaway from the filmmakers, a shiftfrom the usual “behind-the-scenes”

97. Photo © 1997 Elaina Verret.

invisible persona of festival organiz-ers.

Overall, the after-festival buzzabout Hollywood is positive;exchanges of impressions amongcolleagues ring with phrases like “Ihad more fun that I expected to,”and “It was great for networking.”Well, fun and networking are twogood things. The pressure andexpectation on WAC were particu-larly high, as this was somethingthat has been hyped-up relentless-ly in the industry for years withoutany results. Everyone was exhaust-ed at the end of the week, a goodsign that an event was appreciat-ed, or it could just ,mean that theclosing night Klasky Csupo day-gloparty got a little WAC-ky. . . .Organizers say that the festival willhappen again in 1998, so it lookslike those of us who went this yearwill get to enjoy another week insunny Pasadena, and those skep-tics who waited this year out willhave to come out from hiding intheir studios and join us.

See also the list of WAC Award win-ners on the World AnimationCelebration official web site, andHarvey Deneroff’s pre-festival inter-view with director Leslie Sullivan.

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The 21st HongKong Film Festival

by Gigi Hu

Hong Kong is living to thefullest and probably willcontinue to, right to the

very moment of the midnightchimes of June 30, 1997, celebrat-ing the imminent handover in July,by which Hong Kong will becomea Special Administrative Region ofChina. The 21st Hong Kong FilmFestival which took place March 25- April 9 is one gallant testimony,and the festival organizers haveobviously decided on a “big bang”approach. The science-fiction likecity-state of Hong Kong continuesto thrive, and it is no wonder that itforms the background landscape ofMamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell.

Spread over seven venues, TheHong Kong Film Festival is amarathon cultural event that hasgrown steadily through the years,attracting international and localcinephiles. Said one local spectator,“it can be annoying as it tends tofall over the Easter holidays, but Ican never get away as the pro-gramme is getting more interestingand varied every year.”

This year’s festival screened 288films from 42 countries. In addition,an interesting conference payingtribute to 50 Years of Hong KongCinema was held April 10-12, fea-turing contributions from local andoverseas film directors, critics andscholars. Other fringe activitiesincluded outdoor screenings andan exhibition on Hong KongProduction and DistributionIndustries 1947-97.


Hong Kong’s AnimationAppetite

Hong Kongers are no strangersto animation. The organizers wouldnot dare to leave out this categoryaltogether. Indeed, animation spec-tatorship is strong among the localpeople. A Japanese animation filmis known to run continuously for sixmonths, appearing daily in tenshows, screened in both Japaneseand Cantonese. In other words, thefilm festival has to compete withcommercial cinemas and local dis-tributors for screening rights. Cynicsmay frown at the idea of watching“small things move on the screen”but the visual appetite of HongKongers is amazing. They arrived introupes and individually: tertiary stu-dents, couples and working pro-

fessionals all queueing up in anorderly fashion to lap up theirfavourite film genre.

The festival began to feature ani-mation films in 1979. On the 11thHKIFF, it screened a record of fouranimation features: Vampires inHavana, When the Wind Blows,Nausicca in the Valley of the Windand Laputa. Last year, it was a“whooping harvest” according tosome animation fans, as threeJapanese feature-length animationfilms were shown together withanother 12 world animationdelights.

This year, the organizers couldnot find any strong animation filmsnot already in the hands of the localdistributors. One probable exampleis Hayao Miyazaki’s new theatricalrelease, Whisper of the Heart, whichis currently being shown in a localcinema. But Hong Kongers are notdiscouraged. They turned up in fullforce for the festival’s animationscreenings. The two animation ses-sions followed by another tworepeated sessions were all held atthe posh Hong Kong CulturalCentre Grand Theatre, which, atover 900 seats, is the largest venueof the festival. Over the weekend,free outdoor screenings of anima-tion were held at the piazza ofHong Kong Cultural Centre facingthe glimmering Victoria Harbour.Sensitive to the public, certainCategory III animation was notscreened in this program.

Many, as you can tell, are not

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Andrew Higgins’ The Gourmand.

Chang Tze-hin’s (#01).

first-timers to animation and wouldnot hesitate to comment or expresstheir viewing experiences. Forexample, the Cantonese expression,“qi xin,” (meaning madness/ridicu-lous), can be heard if viewers dis-like or do not understand the ani-mation shorts. “How could the pro-grammer has selected this?” theaudience could be heard whisper-ing. On the other hand, they didnot hesitate to clap or show a rup-ture of joy to express appreciation ofsome films. Among the 17 anima-tion films shown, Hubert Sielecki’sAir Fright, Janet Perlman’s DinnerFor Two, Andrew Higgins’ TheGourmand, Lasse Persson’s Hand inHand, Chris Backhouse’s Lovely Dayand Michaela Pavlatova’s Repetehad the audience chuckling loudlyand hungry for more. This year’sOscar winning film,Quest, was alsoshown to an eager audience whichgrinned, grasped and sighed at thesandman’s fateful end, while BillPlympton’s How To Make Love ToA Woman was very popular too.

The Brief Life of Fire, Act 2 Scene2: Suring and the Kuk-ok was theonly Asian/Southeast Asian entry.Directed by Auraeus Solito from


Philippines, the story is based on aPalawan myth. For once, city-slickHong Kongers are transported intoa tropical jungle of spells and plant-like creatures.

Local AnimationLocal animation appeared in the

Independent Film and VideoCategory. They were award winnersfrom the recent 1996 Hong KongIndependent Short Film and VideoAwards: Chang Tze-hin’s (#01), EllenYuen’s iD and Yuen Kin-to’s Foul Ball.Perhaps I am too new to HongKong’s cultural psyche, but I foundit hard to find the actual themes orcontent expressed in these films. Butin terms of technicality, there weresome lasting impressions. “They arenot perfect,” one local film critic putsit aptly, “but are a delight to theheart, each possessing a different

quality.”It is a covert knowledge that the

Hong Kong Film Festival has beeninstrumental in introducing non-Disney animation films to HongKongers. Animation director HayaoMiyazaki now has a huge followingin Hong Kong, since his films werefirst shown at the festival in 1987.

It is a covert knowledge thatthe Hong Kong Film Festival

has been instrumental in intro-ducing non-Disney animation

films to Hong Kongers.

Ironically, his films have recentlybeen acquired by Disney for videodistribution.

Supported by the UrbanCouncil, the film festival is efficient-ly run and lives up to its interna-tional reputation as a premier Asianfilm event. Pioneer managers andprogrammers are still holding on totheir torches with unflagging enthu-siasm. One can only congratulatetheir efforts in bringing in a widerepertoire of international and localfilms, old and new, archival or cen-sored, 35mm or Betamax, and ofcourse not forgetting the animationcategory.

The Brief Life of Fire

Gigi Hu is now a Ph.D. studentbased at the University of Hong

Kong, Department ofComparative Literature. Prior to

this, she was a media and culturalstudies lecturer at Temasek

Polytechnic, School of Design,Singapore. Last year, with LilianSoon, she organized Singapore’s

Animation Fiesta.

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Samurai from OuterSpace: UnderstandingJapanese Animation

k review by Fred Patten

T he publisher’s press releasesays, “Samurai from OuterSpace is the first book-length

discussion of the suddenly terrificallypopular genre of Japanese anima-tion.” That is misleading. In fact, thebook itself cites and highly recom-mends the earlier The CompleteAnime Guide. But the Guide con-centrates on individual anime titles,with a title-by-title history of thegrowth of anime in America from1963 to the present. Where Samuraifrom Outer Space breaks newground is that it is the firstdetailed discussion of the popu-lar-culture sociology of anime.

Author Antonia Levy is a for-mer resident of Japan who is aspecialist in its culture, with adoctorate in Japanese history.She has taught Japanese historyat American colleges, and hasactively participated in their cam-pus anime fan clubs. She is inter-ested in anime in its own right,but is also fascinated by the rea-sons for its enthusiastic accep-tance, despite a generalAmerican ignorance of the cul-tural background needed to fullyunderstand the stories. Samuraifrom Outer Space is primarily ananalysis of this phenomenon.

The book is skillfully writtento appeal to both the anime neo-phyte and the knowledgeable


fan. Levy’s introduction notes thespreading popularity of anime.“National video franchises likeBlockbuster Video devote an entiresection to anime even in small ruraltowns, and the number of theirofferings is growing fast. . . . Almostevery college campus has at least asmall anime club. Over four hun-dred of them maintain elaboratehome pages on the World WideWeb.” The reason, she quotes itsfans, is that, “anime’s charm lies in itsunpredictability, its off-beat weird-

Boo
ness that makes you stop and thinkabout things you never evennoticed before.”
The main text analyzes andexplains these weirdnesses in broadcategories. Chapter Two, “Disney ina Kimono,” covers the differences ingeneral movie and TV cartoon-artstyling between American andJapanese animation. Why Japanesecartoon characters have such bigeyes. Why they have pastel-coloredhair or otherwise “don’t lookJapanese.” The importance of the

fact that Japanese animationevolved from dramatic theaterand literature, rather than fromthe comedic as in America. “Incontent and style, anime alsodraws heavily on Japanese liter-ary traditions. This is particularlytelling in anime television series.Unlike American TV which isepisodic and fairly static in termsof character development, animecreated for Japanese televisionare serial and draw as much oftheir appeal from characterdevelopment as from plot. . . .the serial nature of television dra-mas . . . allow it ample time toexpand on character develop-ment. This also gives anime itsdistinctive moral ambiguity. Sincehuman beings change overtime, it’s only natural that somevillains will reform and become

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“Why do anime characters have such bigeyes?” and other such mysteries are

explained in Levi’s book.Image from Tenchi Muyo, © 1993

A.I.C./Pioneer LDC, Inc.

heroes, while some heroes will turnout to have feet of clay.” In otherwords, one of the main facets ofanime’s appeal is that much of it isaction-adventure soap opera. Is itreally news to anyone in Americathat soap operas can be very pop-ular?

Gods and DemonsChapters Three (“Other Gods,

Other Demons”) and Four (“OtherHeroes, Other Villains”) discuss theinfluences in anime of Oriental con-cepts of religion and mythology,and cultural attitudes toward hero-ics and villainy (which is subtly dif-ferent from right and wrong). Manyof the aliens and monsters in animescience-fiction adventures are thin-ly-disguised, well-known (in Japan)gods and demons. The Oriental tra-ditions of divinity are closer to theNorse or Greek pantheons, withmany gods who embody humani-ty’s personality flaws and often quar-rel among each other. The Japanese

Japanese animation evolvedfrom dramatic theater and lit-erature, rather than from the

comedic as in America.


are also accustomed to a society inwhich the government and the priv-ileged classes have traditionallybeen indifferent to or contemptu-ous of the masses. This is whyanime heroes usually pledge them-selves to abstract ideals such as loy-alty and self-sacrifice rather than toa divinity or to an individual leader.“Losing and therefore gaining noth-ing confirms the hero’s altruism andrenders his or her sacrifice all themore tragic. As a result, it is quitepossible to portray a youngkamikaze pilot as a hero withoutnecessarily endorsing the agendaof the Japanese fascists. Indeed,almost all Japanese portrayals of thewar include very unflattering depic-tions of the leadership.” There arecomparisons between the use ofsuch themes in anime titles and inpopular American movies and TVseries such as Star Trek to illustratethe subtle differences.

Other chapters examine robotsand similar science-fictional mecha,attitudes towards death (includingthe differences between honorableand dishonorable suicide), and theportrayal of women in leading rolesas either heroines or femmes fatale.A final chapter cites examples ofhow influences from anime arebeginning to show up in Americancomic books, TV and movies, asproof that anime is having animpact. “Trading comic books andcartoons may not be what educa-tors had in mind when they arguedin favor of multiculturalism. But it’s abeginning and it’s not a bad begin-ning at that.” The book concludeswith three appendices: one ofaddresses of anime specialty mag-azines, shops, and anime fan con-ventions; one of recommendedreadings of books on anime and onJapanese popular culture; and aglossary of anime terms. There isalso a detailed index.

Samurai from Outer Space isexcellent as both a primer on animefor those who are just being intro-duced to it, and as an explanationof the background to Japanese cul-tural stereotypes (such as those BigEyes) for the fans who are fascinat-ed by their exotic aspects and wantto know their significance. The onlyproblems are in small errors relatedto specific titles. Levi says that thefirst anime to appear on AmericanTV was Astro Boy in 1964, when itactually premiered in 1963. A cou-ple of minor titles are consistentlymisspelled. The color plates arebeautiful but notably pixillated, asthough printed from enlarged colorfaxes or “video screen captures”rather than from clear film trans-parencies. A book with so few flawsis close to perfect.

Samurai from Outer Space:Understanding JapaneseAnimation. by Antonia Levy.Chicago: Open Court PublishingCompany, 1996. 169 pages, illus-trated. Trade paperback, $18.95;ISBN: 0-8126-9332-9.

Anime’s charm lies in itsunpredictability, its off-beat

weirdness that makes you stopand think about things younever even noticed before.

Fred Patten has written on animefor fan and professional maga-

zines since the late 1970s. He cur-rently writes a regular anime col-

umn for Animation Magazine.

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Java Software Reviewsby John Parazette-Tillar

T he online world is saturatedwith the buzzword “Java.” Itseems if the site you’re view-

ing isn’t enhanced with a Javaapplet, it’s just another web page.I’ve recently been thrown to thelions of convention, and have start-ed looking at the various ways tomake a web site stand out in thesea of online publishing. Whenattempting to add interactivity to asite, one has various options, eachwith it’s trade-offs and limitations.Macromedia’s Shockwave forDirector allows one to re-purpose,compress and stream Director files,but a plug-in is required for view-ing. Previously, my level of interac-tivity was limited to Shockwave,HTML coding, and GIF animations.

Boy, have my eyes been openednow that I have entered the “Java-Zone!” Java and Java script allowthe implementation of cross-plat-form mini-applications called“applets” that allow users to inter-act with a web page, view anima-tions, receive feedback to theirinput, and generally create a moreintimate connection with the con-tent provided, but at the cost of timefor the downloading of the Javaapplication files. As a graphicdesigner and creative type, I shud-dered at the prospect of learning aprogramming language. My skincrawled at the sight of “IF-THEN…”statements! But, now there’s noneed to fear the “J” word anymore!There are a plethora of Java author-ing tools entering the market that


allow us graphically-inclined meremortals to create cool Java applets,without having to know the slight-est bit of code. This month, I’m test-ing out two products designed tomake Java accessible to the aver-age user, Aimtech’s Jamba(Windows only) and PowerProduction’s WebBurst (Mac only).

Jamba: Pour on the Java. . . .Hold the Programming

Jamba is a new software pack-age from Aimtech, a companywhose claim to fame is authoringapplications such as Icon Authorand CBT Express, known to manyfor the deployment of interactivemultimedia via CD-ROM, corporatebased training, and the Internet.Jamba gives web-developers a verypowerful tool to execute Javaapplets, and maintain the ability tostay at the forefront of the ever-changing technological Internet rev-olution.

Before you hard-core, bit-crunching, programmer types runfor the hills crying “Foul!,” let it beknown that Jamba will satisfy eventhe most hardy of you. Included inthe Java authoring environment arethe application, Jamba objects,Jamba templates, Java player, sam-ple Java applets, and Jamba tutori-al. My favorite feature is Imagelab,a stand-alone image manipulationprogram that I would be so bold asto call a mini-Photoshop, “RosettaStone” for online images. Imagelabhas the ability to view, resize, crop,reduce colors, rotate, flip, manipu-late palettes, create albums (groupsof images that represent bitmapgraphics,) display slide shows, andconvert 31 different file formats. Iteven slices, dices, and makes juli-enne fries! (well, almost.)

All in all, Aimtech has really triedto provide web authors with a com-plete “web authoring environment”.Creating a Java applet in Jamba is,to twist the old adage, “much eas-ier to do than say.” After openingthe application, and selecting the“create a new project” option, youare allowed to name and define thepage size, which Jamba then cre-ates as a start page. Double-click-ing on the start page icon opens

It seems if the site you’re view-ing isn’t enhanced with a Javaapplet, it’s just another web

page.

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the page layout editor, in which youthen create objects and set the para-meters for their actions/interactions.Objects are the main building blocksof a Jamba application. They canbe push-button objects (next, ok,go to,) graphic objects or displayGIF and JPEG graphics. Specialeffects enable wipes, dissolves, andcel-style animation. From fades toiris wipes, there are so many pre-defined object modifiers that appearin the various pop-up menus thatyou just have to see it to believe it.Two drawbacks of Jamba are thatthere is no way to move objectsalong a path, and that it does notinclude an HTML editor (but, beinga very personal choice, it was prob-ably a good idea to leave the HTMLeditor out.)

After you have finished creatingyour work of art, you select the fileoption “save all,” then “play appli-cation” from the toolbar button, andyour new application is played backin a separate window. Then it’sready to be distributed as-is, ordropped into an existing web page.In addition to viewing through anyJava-enabled web browser(Netscape, Internet Explorer,etc...)you can also distribute your appletwith Jamba’s proprietary applicationviewer, Jamba Java Player.

Bottom line: you’ve got to getthis application if you want to addserious Java interactivity to your website. Jamba truly is Java for us cre-ative types, without the limits of theusual wizard-based programs. AsAimtech says, this program lets you“Pour on the Java, hold the pro-gramming.” At a list price of$295.00, and seen available for aslittle as $189.00, Jamba is fairlyaccessible to web authors wantingto add these new-fangled optionsfor interactivity and multimedia to


their sites. Unfortunately, at thistime, Jamba v1.1.25 is available forWindows 95/NT only. Come on,Aimtech, this is a program that Macusers would love to have!

WebBurstCould it actually be? Creating

Java applets without the program-ming? Well, the people at PowerProduction Software seem to thinkthat this would be a boon to thenon-coding masses that want to usethe power of Java, yet circumventlearning a programming language.The product of this revelation isWebBurst, and if you want to easi-ly and quickly create interactionbetween you and John Q. Webuser,this might just be the ticket.

Installation of the software takesup only 2MB of your cherished harddrive space, and only a fewmoments of your time. Thanks to agreat little manual and an easy tocomprehend tutorial, you will graspthe fundamentals of the programin a matter of minutes. The easy-to-use, intuitive interface allows onewho is design, rather than pro-gramming-oriented to jump rightand get started. The display consistsof a menu bar, an applet frame win-dow, library and color palettes,action control, object and main toolbars, and a message window. Theapplet frame window is the heart

of the display, where you drag anddrop picture and sound files to puttogether your applet. Importable fileformats include graphic files in PICT(w/ alpha channel,) PICT series, GIF,series GIF, animated GIF, PICS andTEXT, and audio files in AIFF andSND. In a pinch, you can also usethe drawing tools in the main tool-bar to create new content.

Once your files are in the win-dow, the action control paletteallows you to activate and experi-ment with almost any action or con-dition that Java allows, assigningbehaviors such as animation paths,actions in the form of stern or stopsounds and animations, hide/showoptions, links, conditional branch-ing and data fields. The librarypalette, which gives you instantaccess to your artwork, is easy tocreate; dragging and dropping afolder of images on to the appletframe window creates a grid whichcan contain up to 120 images.These libraries save disk space,being stored only once, regardlessof how many times the images areaccessed in your project. You canalso substitute an image on the grid,and retain the attributes that wereapplied to the previous image.

Once you’re satisfied with itsaction, you then proceed to the fileoption “export to Java-poweredapplet.” This is where the truepower and ease of WebBurstbecomes apparent. Without any fur-ther efforts on your part, all of yourinteractivity is translated to Java bytecode, the images saved as com-pressed GIFs, and the sound files to

As a graphic designer and cre-ative type, I shuddered at the

prospect of learning a pro-gramming language.

May 1997 48

A

YYour our Ad Ad Could Be Could Be

HerHere!e!

For rate cards and additional information about

various opportunities for exposure at

Animation World Network, contact our Los Angeles

office at

213.468.2554

or e-mail any of our sales representatives:

North America:

Bart Vitek

[email protected]

U.K.

Alan Smith

[email protected]

Other Location:

[email protected]

AU format. To view your handiwork,just drag and drop the resultingHTML page onto your Java-enabledbrowser (Netscape, InternetExplorer) and “thar she blows!”

Overall, WebBurst is a great pro-gram for a designer who has betterthings to do than learn code. Yet itis also powerful enough for pro-grammers who want to quickly cre-ate a Java applet and retain the abil-ity to tweak code. In their inimitablewisdom, Power Production has alsoincluded in the WebBurst packagea “back door,” in the form of an APIthat allows a programmer to writeany Java code and run it as aWebBurst applet. The list price is$299.00, but it is being sold for aslow as $199.00. WebBurst version1.2 is a Mac-only product, but theforthcoming 2.0 version will becross-platform for Mac andWindows 95/NT with enhancedimage, text, and sound integration.Other features will include the abil-ity to use Adobe Photoshop plug-ins, more powerful animation con-trol, a new asset vault maker, moreinteractivity control, optimizedinstant Java output, more built-inCGI functionality, and easier toimplement database connectivity.

John Parazette-Tillar has a back-ground in multimedia graphicdesign. He studied at the AmericanFilm Institute and Cal State LongBeach. He has been known todream digitally, and can make anypixel “Twist and Shout!” When notjoined at the hip to his worksta-tions, he can be found hangin’ atthe park with his understandingwife, Kate, and his unusually coolson, Zachary.

May 1997 49NIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE




AN

Compiled by Wendy Jackson
Business
H ollywood Shuffle. AbbyTerkhule has beennamed president of MTV

Animation, a role in which he willoversee all operations of MTV’s NewYork animation studio, including TVseries, promotions and feature films.Terkhule was formerly executive vicepresident and creative director ofMTV Animation, a role in which hewas responsible for the develop-ment of Liquid Television and over-saw development of animatedproperties from “Beavis & Butt-head”to The Maxx.. . . . . Stephen Brandhas left his post as lead animator atWarner Digital to become 3-Dsupervisor at Four Media’s comput-er graphics arm, Digital Magic. . . .Henry Anderson has joined Blue SkyStudios as director of animation,leaving his position as consultantDigital Domain. A 1988 CalArtsgraduate, Anderson has workedpreviously with Rhythm & Hues,Brøderbund Software, PDI, Pixar,Disney, and Warner Bros. . . .Nickelodeon Productions has pro-moted three executives as part oftheir committment to creating orig-inal animated programming:Marjorie Cohn to vice president andexecutive producer of current series,Kevin Kay to vice president andexecutive producer of developmentand Brown Johnson to senior vicepresident of Nick Jr. . . . KarenFlischel has been promoted to man-aging director for NickelodeonEurope in London. She was for-merly CEO of Nickelodeon Australia.


Cinar Opens Euro Division.Canadian family entertainment com-pany, Cinar Films has launchedCinar Europe, a new division aimedto increase production and sales inEurope. The new London office willutilize FilmFair, the British animationstudio acquired by Cinar last yearfor $17 million. Heading up thenew division is Vice President DavidFerguson, who joins Cinar fromNelvana, where he was director ofinternational co-productions for fouryears. Meanwhile, Cinar is makingmoves to acquire an educationalpublisher, and have already bid ona U.S. publishing company, whichshall remain unnamed until an offi-cial acquisition is announced.

Humongous Development Deal.Seattle-based children’s softwarepublisher, HumongousEntertainment is partnering with

Abby Terkhule.

New York-based Lancit MediaEntertainment to develop their fam-ily of animated CD-ROM charactersfor television, motion picture, mer-chandising and home video. CD-ROM games featuring Humongous’original characters Putt-Putt, PajamaSam and Freddi the Fish have soldmore than 3 million units world-wide. Humongous Entertainmentis a division of GT Interactive, andLancit Media is a producer of chil-dren’s programming such as PuzzlePlace and Reading Rainbow.

Aardman Rakes It In Online.Aardman Animation has recievedmore than £200,000 (aboutUS$300,000) in orders for anima-tion-related merchandise soldthrough their World Wide Web site,proof positive that the Internet is aviable and profitable means forproduct distribution. Wallace andGromit figurines, toys and acces-sories can be purchased from any-where in the world at the AardmanWeb site, accessible through AWN(www.awn.com,) in the Companiessection of the Animation Village.

Features

Aardman’s On A “Chicken Run.”Oscar-winning Aardman Animationsis moving towards an anticipatedSeptember production startup ontheir first animated feature film, nowin development at their Bristol,England based studio. Chicken Runwill be a stop-motion animatedcomedy feature about two chick-ens, Rocky and Ginger, and theirattempt at a “prisoner of war” type

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Enzo D’Alò’s La Freccia Azzurra.

escape from a farm in the 1950s.The screenplay was written by JackRosenthal, and based on a storybeing developed by Peter Lord andNick Park since 1995. Chicken Runwill be co-directed by Lord and Park,and produced by Aardman in asso-ciation with Allied FilmMakers, withJake Eberts (James and the GiantPeach) as executive producer.Aardman is in the process of talkingto several U.S. studios about distri-bution for the film, which we canexpect to be released towards theend of 1998.

Blue Arrow Heads For Miramax.Disney-owned Miramax hasacquired all rights to Enzo D’Alò’sItalian animated feature film TheBlue Arrow (see review La FrecciaAzzura in 1/97 issue of AnimationWorld Magazine), as was recentlyannounced during Cartoons on theBay in Amalfi.. Miramax paid $1 mil-lion to control all rights for U.S., U.K.and other previously unsold territo-ries. Produced by La Laterna Magicalast year, The Blue Arrow is the firstanimated feature film produced inItaly in the past 20 years. It has notyet been announced when or howMiramax will release the film.


RAI To Animate Italian Pinnochio.Italian broadcaster RAI hasannounced plans to produce ananimated feature of Pinnochio, withLa Freccia Azzurra director EnzoD’Alò directing on the project. Thefilm is scheduled to premiere in Italyat the same time as the Italianrelease of Disney’s animated featureHercules. Meanwhile, RAI has alsoannounced that it will launch a chil-dren’s programming satellite chan-nel in Italy next September.

Goodtime Rudolph Feature IsGolden.Goodtimes Entertainmentand Golden Books FamilyEntertainment are teaming up toco-produce an animated feature filmmake of Rudolph The Red-NosedReindeer. The film is scheduled forDecember 1998 release, and pro-duction will begin this spring witha budget of $10 million. The twocompanies also plan to produce a“full range of products in all key cat-egories designed to reach con-sumer markets worldwide,” saysGoodtime president AndrewGreenberg. Golden Books alsoowns the rights to the classic Rankin-Bass television special of the same

name, which is the longest running,highest rated special on networktelevision.

Warners Options Nanobots.Warner Bros. has optioned therights to a feature film project bywriters Roger Soffer and ChristianFord. Nanobots, as the project iscalled, will be at least partially com-puter animated, and co-producedwith Left Bank Productions.

Merv Griffin Gets Huge Rights.Merv Griffin Entertainment hasacquired rights to the comic stripcharacter Howard Huge, createdby artist Bunny Hoest. The comicstrip Howard Huge has appearedin Parade magazine for over 15years. Griffin, currently looking for awriter hopes to develop the prop-erty into a feature film, although ithas not yet been determinedwhether it would be live action oranimated.

Television

K ids TV Audience Declining.Theresults of the February sweeps indi-cate a 4%-6% drop in viewing lev-els for children’s programming onnetwork television. Analysts say thatthis decline is most likely the resultof kids’ increased interest in homecomputers, as well as the domina-tion of cable channels such asNickelodeon, The Disney Channeland Cartoon Network. Withincreased cable and even Internet-based programming, this trend islikely to continue. Otherwise in thesweeps, national standings landed“The Simpsons” as the number six-rated show in the country, the onlyanimated series in the top ten.

Happily Ever After For HBO.Thesecond season of HBO’s multicul-tural children’s series Happily Ever

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Happily Ever After

SimGraphics’ animated character, Nasa.

After: Fairy Tales for Every Child start-ed on April 13, with 13 newepisodes of multicultural fairy talesfor modern day kids. Co-producedby Two Oceans Entertainment,Confetti Entertainment andHyperion Studio, the series was pro-duced by Libby Simon and direct-ed by Ed Bell. Episodes feature voiceparts by many well known actorssuch as Dean Cain, Wesley Snipesand Edward James Olmos. CulturalToys Co. is producing a line of mer-chandising for the series, andGryphon Software is producingrelated CD-ROM games, and KidRhino/ KIDS WB Music are releasinga soundtrack CD of songs from theseries.

UNICEF Developing TV Series.In collaboration with TFO, UNICEFis developing Generation 2000, anew animated TV series based onchild rights. The 13-part series willpresent personal stories of variouschildren throughout the world,focusing on such issues as childrenin war, hazardous child labor, childprostitution, girls’ education, andthe environment and health.Meanwhile, more than 60 compa-nies are in production on or havecompleted 30 second animated


public service announcements aspart of UNICEF’s InternationalAnimation Consortium for ChildRights.

Energee Eats Pudding. Australiananimation production groupEnergee Entertainment hasacquired exclusive developmentand merchanising rights to MagicPudding, a classic children’s bookby Norman Lindsay, first publishedin 1918. Contemporary children’sbook author Morris Gleitzman islined up to write the screenplayadaptation to make an animatedfeature. The rights acquisition comesafter five years of negotiations, andis presented to Energee, beating outDisney, Ralph Bakshi and JimHenson Productions, who had alsobid for the rights. Nomura/Jafcoinvestment owns a 40% stake inEnergee, who will be seeking inter-national investors and distributorsduring MIP TV in Cannes next week.

Real-Time Animated Malay Host.Pasadena-based SimGraphicsrecently presented their real-timeanimated character, Nasa, as hostof the 1997 Malaysian MusicAwards. The 2-1/2 hour program,broadcast through Asia’s Astro

Network satellite service, was host-ed entirely by the computer-gener-ated character, live and in real timeto the voice of singer Afdlin Shauki.

Bohbot’s Un-DangerousDinosaurs. Bohbot Enetrtainmentand Mattel Toys recently announceda name change for their new ani-mated series and accompanying toyline. The show formerly known asDangerous Dinosaurs is beingchanged to Extreme Dinosaurs. Thisis most likely an effort to make theproperties more marketable to awider group of kids and their par-ents, and is.similar to the namechange for the UK distribution ofTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toTeenage Mutant Hero Turtles a fewyears back. “The essence of thisproperty,” says Gene Garlock, vicepresident of entertainment & licens-ing at Mattel, “is not in the name,but rather in the unique characters,dynamic toy design, excellent sto-ries and superior animation.”Extreme Dinosaurs will be packagedas part of the “Extreme Hour” onthe Bohbot Kids Network, alongsideExtreme Ghostbusters. Bohbot hassigned up 104 station affiliates for

May 1997 52

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their Bohbot Kids Network programblock, covering 75% of the US mar-ket, and making them the sixthlargest supplier of children’s pro-gramming in the US.

Locomotion Adds NewPrograms.South American 24-houranimation cable channel,Locomotion has added four newanimated programs to its lineup,including Denver The Last Dinosaurand Dinky Dog, for family audi-ences, and Cool McCool and RedBaron. for more mature audiencesof teenagers and young adults.Cushioning the evening programsare a pair of new interstitial stationid’s created by animator WebsterColcord just before he started work-ing at Pacific Data Images.

Home Video

Mighty Ducks Movie Released.Walt Disney Home Video debutedthe Mighty Ducks the Movie: TheFirst Face-Off, in stores on April 8.Based on the Saturday morningABC animated series, the 66 minuteanimated “featurette” showcasescharacter voices by Tim Curry, JimBelushi and Ian Zierling. The ani-mation was created referencing live-action hockey footage, as well asthrough extensive use of CG


Mighty Ducks the Movie:The

imagery to recreate the interior ofa skating arena.

Manga Releases Macross Feature.

Worldwide anime distributor MangaEntertainment will release ShojiKawamori’s Macross Plus featurefilm, on video this month. The film,the latest in the Macross series, fea-tures traditional and computer-gen-erated animation, and is said to bethe most expensive direct-to-videorelease ever to come out of Japan.

Commercials

Cheese Head In An Olive Jar.Boston-based Olive Jar Animationrecently completed Cheese Head,a cel and cut-out animated com-mercial for Stella Foods, in associa-tion with the agency MargeoleosFertitta & Partners. The 30 secondspot has a bold graphic style, story

Olive Jar’s Cheesehead.

First Face-Off. © Disney

line and soundtrack inspired by 70surban action films such as Shaft, butwith a twist; the main character,named Cheese Head, is a stringcheese snack-cum superhero insearch of hungry kids. MatthewCharde was executive producer andthe director was Dan Sousa.

A Colossal Discovery. SanFrancisco-based (Colossal) Picturesrecently completed a set of threeanimated station IDs for TheDiscovery Channel, promoting theirSaturday morning kids program-ming block. Aimed at the “tween”audience ranging from age 8-13,the 15 second spots, titledExperiment, feature classroomscenes animated in a colorful, funstyle. The executive producer on thespots was Jana Canellos, the cre-ative director was George Evelyn,the animation director was TomRubalcava, and the ink and paintwas completed by Click 3 West.

Acme Goes To The Beach ForWeight Watchers. A third spot in

Weight Watchers’ high-profile ani-mated advertising campaign hasrecently been completed by AcmeFilmworks’ director Sue Loughlin forLowe & Partners/SMS agency inNew York. Brenda and Elaine at theBeach features the two signaturefemale characters afraid to go in thewater for fear of being seen in their

(Colossal) Pictures’ Experiment

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Curious Pictures’ Eenie, Meenie,

bathing suits. The 30 second spotpremiered nationally during theAcademy Awards ceremony broad-cast at the end of March.

Curious Gets Cheesy. New York-based Curious Pictures recently com-pleted a 30 second spot for KraftFoods through Foote, Cone &Belding. The commercial, titledEenie, Meenie, Minie, Oni, intro-duces the Kraft Macaroni & CheeseCG animated mascot, CheesasaurusRex, that was produced using SGIAlias Wavefront and Macintosh AfterEffects programs. Eenie was direct-ed by staple Curious director SteveOakes.

Perlman, Olive Jar Buzzing ForMCI. Boston-based Olive Jar Studiosrecently completed Bees, a com-mercial for MCI Cellular which isinspired by 1970s educationalnature films. The 30 second spotfeatures 2-D animation sequencesby animation director JanetPerlman, who is perhaps bestknown for her independent films.

Viewpoint On Toys. Boston-basedanimation/effects facility, ViewPointStudios recently created 3-D ani-mation and optical effectssequences for a series of commer-cials for Playskool’s “Makes it Magic”toy campaign. Animator MichaelLeonne created the 3-D animation

Minie, Oni.


for the project, which was pro-duced by Redtree Productions. Thespots will air in the U.S. this sum-mer.

Designfx Goes Bananas. Atlanta-based Designfx helped DoleBananas launch a new animatedadvertising campaign withBroadway and Skateboard, twonew 30 second animation/live-action spots featuring the compa-ny’s new spokesperson. . . . erspokesbanana, Bobby Banana.Featuring both cel and CG 3-D char-acter animation, the spots weredirected by Steve Walker, whoseproduction team used AliasWavefront’s PowerAnimator andVideoComposer.

Ink Tank In Outer Space. NewYork-based animation studio, TheInk Tank, created Spaceman, a 30second animated spot for BancoPopular. The commercial’s sharp,graphic style portrays a spaceshipcolliding with an asteroid, to thetune of Elton John’s Rocket Man.R.O Blechman directed for theBadillo Nazca/Saatchi & Saatchiagency.

Interactive & Internet

IDSA Reports Industry Growth.While competition is resulting in thedownsizing of the interactive enter-tainment industry, overall sales seemto be up. This is according to a new

Designfx’s Bobby Banana character for Dole.

report released by the InteractiveDigital Software Association (IDSA),the trade organization that presentsthe annual Electronic EntertainmentExpo (E3), which will take place thisJune in Atlanta. According to thereport, the interactive softwareindustry experienced a stronggrowth in 1996, with overall salesup 16% from the previous year,specifically video game softwaresales were up14% to $2 billion, andsales of games for personal com-puters up 19% to $1.7 billion. Thestudy, released by IDSA presidentDouglas Lowenstein, cites datagathered from NPD, a marketresearch company based in NewYork.

Electronic Arts Expands.California-based interactive enter-tainment giant Electronic Arts (EA)is expanding its development anddistribution efforts by acquiringrights and interests in several com-panies. EA has made an investmentin Accolade Inc., a privately-heldinteractive game publisher; this dealincludes a multiyear affiliated labelagreement, under which EA willhave exclusive distribution rights forall new and certain existing softwaretitles produced by Accolade. EA hassigned Colorado-based game devel-oper Anark to an exclusive distribu-tion agreement, as well as an affili-ated label agreement, which willbegin with this summer’s release ofGalapagos, Anarks’ first title. EA hasalso just signed an exclusive distri-bution deal with DreamWorksInteractive (DWI), specifically ofvideo game titles for SonyPlayStation, Nintendo 64 and SegaSaturn platforms. Microsoft will keepdistribution rights to DWI’s CD-ROMtitles (e.g., The Neverhood.)

Disney Invests In Starwave. TheWalt Disney Company has pur-

May 1997 54

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chased an interest in StarwaveCorp., a major Internet contentdeveloper. Approximately $100 mil-lion was paid by Disney for what isbelieved to be a one-third stake inStarwave, which is owned by bil-lionaire Paul Allen, who will remainthe biggest stockholder in the com-pany. Together with Netscape,America Online and ABC, they willlaunch a 24 hour Internet news net-work this month.

Disney Offers SubscriptionOnline Service. Disney Onlineunveiled their new Disney’s DailyBlast, a subcriber-based Web siteand Internet service, aimed at chil-dren ages 3-12. The comics, gamesand youth-oriented news providedthrough the service are available at$4.95 per month exclusivelythrough the Microsoft Network.

Pixar Closes Interactive Division.Pixar Animation Studios officiallyannounced that they will be get-ting out of the interactive business,shortly after the recent closing oftheir ten year, five picture deal withDisney. The division, which pro-duced two CD-ROM titles, Toy StoryAnimated Storybook and Toy StoryActivity Center, will “redirect its valu-able talent” into other areas of thecompany.

VRMLOCITY Conference. MillerFreeman, organizers of the recentNew Animation Technology Expo(NATE,) will present a full day sem-inar devoted to Virtual RealityModeling Language (VRML) imple-mentation, during their secondannual 3-D Design Conference inSan Francisco, June 2-6, 1997. Theseminar will cover technical topicsinvolved in creating virtual worlds,such as building avatars and envi-ronments with CGI programs.


Animation Art

Virgil Ross Honored In LimitedEdition. American Royal Arts hasannounced the release of a limitededition lithograph honoring veterananimator Virgil Ross, who passedaway last May. Hand-signed byVirgil Ross himself, the artwork fea-tures classic Looney Tunes charac-ters which Ross animated in morethan 230 cartoon shorts for WarnerBros. For information, call 1-800-888-9449.

Festivals & Events

ANIMEXPO Competition Open.The first International AnimationExpo will be taking place July 25 toAugust 3 in Seoul, Korea. In addi-tion to an international market andtrade fair exhibition, animationworkshops, and retrospectivescreenings, AnimExpo will includea competition of animated films.Prizes for award winning films willamount to $120,000.00. Entries arebeing considered for competitionuntil April 30, in eight categoriesincluding commercials, feature films,and a special category for thetheme of the festival, “Nature andDreams.” Entry forms can be down-loaded from the AnimExpo website,accessible from the AWN Calendarof Events.http://www.awn.com/awneng/vil-lage/calendar.html

Leipzig Call For Entries. The 40thInternational Leipzig Festival forDocumentary and Animated Films isscheduled to take place October 28-November 2, 1997 in Leipzig,Germany. Several prizes are award-ed for animation, including over27,000 DM in cash prizes. Entriesshould be sent on VHS video cas-sette by September 5 to DokfestivalLeipzig, Elsterstr. 22-24, 04109

Leipzig, Germany.

Animation Program AtPhiladalphia Fest.The PhiladelphiaFestival of World Cinema, takingplace in Pennsylvania, will present ascreening of animated films pro-grammed by animators/teachersDavid Fain and Sheila Sofian. Thehand-picked collection, entitledInvented Worlds, will include recentfilms by Piet Kroon, AleksandraKorejwo, Anthony Hodgson, AnnaDudek, Dominic Carola, Bill Lebeda,Paul Driessen, Yvonne Andersen,Tyron Montgomery, Tim Hittle andothers. Screenings are scheduledfor May 2 and 4 at the InternationalHouse theater. For information call(800) WOW-PFWC.

Richard Williams Masterclass.Richard Williams, regarded by manyin the industry as a modern masterof animation, will offer an“Animation Masterclass” June 6-8 inSan Francisco. The three day work-shop will teach the basics of classi-cal animation. Triple Oscar winnerRichard Williams has won over 250international awards including threeHollywood and three BritishAcademy Awards. His films includeWho Framed Roger Rabbit, TheChristmas Carol, and The Return ofThe Pink Panther, as well as the orig-inal Thief and the Cobbler animatedfeature.. Having trained many oftoday’s leading animators world-wide, Williams has passed on hisknowledge at master classes inLondon, Wales, Denmark,Vancouver and at Warner Bros inHollywood. Further information isavailable by phone (250)-653-4502.

Digital Seminar For Artists.Silicon Studio L.A., the SiliconGraphics training facility in SantaMonica, California, will address oneof the issues facing many tradition-

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AmpNYC’s Rupert the Grouper.

al animators today, by presenting adiscussion/seminar entitled “Paintto Pixels: Traditional Artists in theDigital Age,” as part of its’ “DigitalCoffeehouse” series. Aimed at help-ing artists make the transition to dig-ital, the seminar will feature variousindustry professionals experiencedin both traditional and digital media.The event will take place on June 5in Santa Monica, admission is $25 inadvance.

Awards

Svankmajer to Receive LifetimeAchievement Award.The San Francisco International FilmFestival will honor legendary Czechfilmmaker Jan Svankmajer with theGolden Gate Award for Persistenceof Vision on May 6. The award isgiven to directors who are notablefor “working outside the bounds oftraditional filmmaking,” whichdescribes Svankmajer well, as he isbest known for his surrealist mixed-media films, which range in tech-nique from stop-motion to cut-out,and most recently, live action. Hismost recent feature-length film, TheConspirators of Pleasure will bescreened during the award cere-mony taking place at the AMCKabuki theater. Tickets are availableby calling (415) 441-7373.

Cartoons on the Bay 2The animation business conferenceand competition which premieredlast year in Amalfi, Italy took placefor a second time April 5-9. Out of58 productions in competition, ninewere awarded with prizes, includ-ing the “Golden Pulcinella” grandprize for best series of the year toLink by Canada’s Animation CinéGroup, and for best character of theyear to Rotten Ralph by AmericanJohn Matthews Productions. A com-plete list of award winners can be


found on the Cartoons On The Bayweb site in the AWN AnimationVillage.http://www.awn.com/cartoonsbay

Discussions of turning Cartoons onthe Bay into an official market suchas MIP or MIFA have been put awayfor now, with a decision from eventorganizers (SACIS) to present an ani-mation-themed “sales showcase” atthe existing MIFED film market inMilan. A screening of the 1997Cartoons on the Bay competitionfilms will also take place as a side-bar event during MIFED, which willtake place October 19-24.

ASIFA-East Animation FestivalThe annual animation festival of theEastern U.S. chapter of ASIFA tookplace April 3 at New York’s NewSchool Tishman Library Theater.About 300 people showed up forthe ceremony, which was hostedby ASIFA-East president LindaSimensky. The winning films wereselected by a jury comprised of

approximately 50 ASIFA-East mem-bers who screened all of the entriesover a two-night period. Simenskynotes that “it’s really the only festi-val where the jury is comprised ofone’s peers.” And the winners are…

• Best Film: Champagne byMichael Sporn

• Best Film Under Two Minutes:Voice B Gone by David Wasson

Student Awards• First Prize : The Tapir by Raquel

Coelho• Second Prize: Season’s Greetings

by Michael Dougherty• Third Prize: The Stomach Pump

by Adam Dotson• First Honorable Mention:

Human Area - Slow Speed byPatty Yang

• Second Honorable Mention:Rain For Us by Glenn Hall

Professional Films Under TwoMinutes

Direction Category

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• First Prize: Rupert the Grouperby AmpNYC Animation Studio

• Second Prize: Smell the Flowersby Bill Plympton

• Third Prize: Sandwich byRaimund Krumme/AcmeFilmworks

Animation Category• First Prize: Three Little Pigs by

John Kricfalusi/Acme Filmworks• Second Prize: Monkey Business

by Christoph and WolfgangLauenstein/Acme Filmworks

• Third Prize: Season byAleksandra Korejwo/AcmeFilmworks

Design Category• First Prize: Singer by Carlos

Aponte/The Ink Tank• Second Prize: Zoom by Istvan

Banyai• Third Prize: Impressions by

Aleksandra Korejwo/AcmeFilmworks

Professional Films Two Minutes AndOver

Direction Category• First Prize: The Off-beats:

September’s Day Off by MoWillems

• Second Prize: Talking About Sex:A Guide For Families by CandyKugel and VincentCafarelli/Buzzco Associates

• Third Prize: The KitchenCasanova by JohnMc In t y re /Hanna -Ba rbe raCartoons

Animation Category• First Prize: Noodles and Nedd

by John Dilworth/Stretch Films• Second Prize: The Off-Beats:

Tommy’s Coat by Mo Willemsand Karen Villareal

• Third Prize: The Blind Men andthe Elephant, Debby Solomonand Ken


• Kimmelman/Pharoh Films

Design Category• First Prize: Menaseh’s Dream by

Maciek Albrecht/The Ink Tank• Second Prize: Troubles the Cat:

Cutey Kitty by SantiagoCohen/The Ink Tank

• Third Prize: Robot Rerun byDavid Ehrlich

Concept Category• First Prize: Girl With Her Head

Coming Off by Emily Hubley• Second Prize: State of the Union

by J.J. Sedelmaier Productions• Third Prize: Clinton/Dole by J.J.

Sedelmaier Productions

Soundtrack Category• First Prize: Once Upon a Time

by John Serpentelli and RobertMoran

• Second Prize: X-Presidents by J.J.Sedelmaier Productions

• Third Prize: Time Lapse by BobLyons

Special Awards• Charles Samu Award:Menaseh’s

Dream by Maciek Albrecht

• Charles Samu Award HonorableMention: Noodles and Nedd byJohn R. Dilworth

• Special Award for ContinuingSupport of IndependentAnimated Film: Adrienne Mancia

World Animation CelebrationThe World Animation Celebration(WAC) took place last week inPasadena, with an impressive inter-national attendance that includedall four Academy Award nominees.The enormous competition featured40 different categories, with filmsselected from more than 1,000 filmssubmitted from 93 countries. WhileAnimation World Magazine will pub-

lish a full WAC festival report in theMay issue, following is a list of thetop awards.• Grand Prize: Old Lady and the

Pigeons by Les ProductionsPascal Blais.

• Best Theatrical Feature Film:Ghost in the Shell by MangaEntertainment

• Best Use of Animation as aSpecial Effect in a Feature Film:Joe’s Apartment: Funky Towelby Blue Sky Studios.

• Best TV Commercial: Levi’s Primalby Karen Kelly.

• Best Animated Music Video:Music for Babies by Run Wrake.

• Best Showreel: Olive Jar Studios.• Best Animation Produced for a

Daytime Television Series: TheBilliards Pat & Mat Series byAlfons Mensdorff-Ponilly &Frantiseu Vasa.

• Best Animation Produced for aPrimetime Series: Pond Life:Holiday by Candy Guard.

• Best Direct to Home VideoProduction: Disney’s Aladdinand the King of Thieves by WaltDisney Television Animation.

• Best Animation Produced for CDROM: Squeezils: The Movies! byProtozoa, Inc.

• Best Animation Produced forGame Platforms: TheNeverhood by Douglas Tenaple,Edward Schofield, Mike Dietz,Dreamworks Interactive.

• Best Animation Produced for theInternet: Absolut Panushka byTBWA Chiat/Day and Troon Ltd.

• Best Computer AssistedAnimation Produced by aProfessional: The End by ChrisLandreth.

• Best Computer AssistedAnimation Produced by anIndependent: Law of Averagesby James Duesing.

• Best Stop-Motion AnimationProduced by a Professional: A

May 1997 57

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Close Shave by Nick Park,Aardman Animation.

• The Jim Henson Award for BestStop-Motion AnimationProduced by an Independent:Canhead by Timothy Hittle.

• Best Work Produced by aStudent: The Wooden Leg byDarren Doherty & Nick Smith.

• Best First Work Produced by anIndependent: Quest by TyronMontgomery.

• Best Animation Produced forChildren by a Professional:

• Under 30 Minutes: Jam theHousesnail by Fuji TV Network,Robot Communications andAnimation Staffroom.

• Best Experimental Animation:Processor by Jan Otto Ertesvaag.

• Best Animation Produced forEducational Purposes: GreatMoments in Science: Falling Catsby Andrew Horne.

• Best Animation Works ShorterThan 5 Minutes: Torero by


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Aleksandra Korewjo.• Best Animated Works Longer

Than 5 Minutes and ShorterThan 15 Minutes: Stressed byKaren Kelly.

• Best Animated Work LongerThan 15 minutes and ShorterThan 30 minutes: The GreyBearded Lion: The Long Journeyby Andrei Kharjanovsky &Tonino Guerra.

• Best Director of Animation foran Animated Theatrical FeatureFilm: Mamoru Oshii for Ghost inthe Shell.

• Best Director of Animation for aTV Commercial: Spike Brandt,Kathleen Helppie-Shipley forPepsi’s Wile E. Coyote/DeionSanders.

• Best Director of Animation for aDaytime Series: Norton Virgienfor Nickelodeon’s Rugrats:Naked Tommy.

• Best Director of Animation for aPrimetime Series: Candy Guard

ER with Animtwork TODA

animation News Flash via

of Animation World Netwo

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for Pond Life: Holiday.Best Director of Animation for aDirect to Home VideoProduction: Steve Moore forWalt Disney TV Animation’s LittleRedux Riding Hood.Best Director of Animation for aCD-ROM: Ted Mathot for Class6 Entertainment’s CreatureCrunch.Best Director of Animation for aGame Platform: Matthew Samia& Duane Stinnett for BlizzardEntertainment’s Star Craft.Best Performance Animation:The Boxer Trailer by PierreLaChapelle for TFX Animationand Taarna Studios.Best Animation Produced for aSimulation of a Theme Park Ride:Seafari by Rhythm & Hues.The UNICEF Award: Ex-Child byJacques Drouin.

May 1997 58

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On A Desert Island. . . Commercial Free?Compiled by Wendy Jackson

Paul Vester's favorites: 1. La Salla by Richard Condie.2. Toy Story by John Lasseter.3. Joie de Vivre by Tony Gross and Hector Hoppin.4. Baron Munchausen by Karel Zeman.5. Allegretto by Oscar Fischinger.6. The Wizard of Speed and Time by Mike Jitlov.7. A Dream Walking by max & Dave Fleischer.8. The Toy Soldier by Paul Grimault.9. Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions by Henry Selick.10. The Mighty River by Frederick Back.

Ron Diamond's picks:1. The Man Who Planted Trees by Frederic Back.2. Harpya by Raoul Servais.3. The Cat Came Back by Cordell Barker.4. The Wrong Trousers by Nick Park.5. Fantasia by Walt Disney.6. Mr. Hulot's Holiday by Jacques Tati.7. It's a Wonderful Life by Frank Capra.8. Woman Finding Love by Simona Mulazzani and Gianluigi Toccafando.9. The Monk and The Fish by Michael Dudok DeWit.10. Duck Amuck by Chuck Jones.

Darrel Van Citters' selections:1. 101 Dalmatians (animated) by Walt Disney.2. Coal Black by Bob Clampett.3. Duck Amuck by Chuck Jones.4. Pigs is Pigs by Walt Disney.5. Song of the South animated sequences by Walt Disney.6. Deputy Droopy by Tex Avery.7. Gerald McBoing Boing by Bob Cannon/UPA.8. Rooty Toot Toot by John Hubley/UPA.9. Red Hot Riding Hood by Tex Avery.10. Seaside Woman by Oscar Grillo.

This month we asked a few folks involved in animation commercials the classic question: "If you were strand-ed on a desert island, what ten (animated) films would you want to have with you?" Here's what Ron Diamond,Acme Filmworks' executive producer, Darrell Van Citters, Renegade Animation director, and Paul Vester, Rhythm& Hues director (formerly of his own Speedy Films in London,) came up with.

May 1997 59NIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE

May 1997 60ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE

AWNComics

The Dirdy Birdyby John R. Dilworth

ANIMATION WO

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Education

Comics

Compute

Television

The June 1997 issue will focus on three very hot topicsin the animation industry today; education, training andrecruiting. Steve Hulett will offer his view of labor trendsfrom the Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists' Union(MPSC Local 839,) and Tammy Glenn will report on whatthe state of California is doing about the "talent drought."Paul Driessen will present a profile of the Kassel schoolin Germany.We'll take a look at the Acme Virtual TrainingNetwork,Warner Bros. Feature Animations' answer tonationwide training.Also included in this issue will be sev-eral surveys of students, schools and recruiters. Topic-related letters to the editor are welcomed [email protected].

Highlights from the June Issue…

May 1997 61RLD MAGAZINE

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