The guy on my plane ride home from New York yesterday didn’t take off his sunglasses the entire 6 hour flight. I guess that’s how I knew I was headed back to LA.
Ottawa was a blast! I know that Eric has mentioned some of his favorite shorts in a few entries, and I have a few more that I really enjoyed.
Keep your eye on Lauren Indovina and Lindsey Mayer-Beug. Their RISD undergrad film “Fish Heads Fuge and Other Tales for Twilight” was a beautiful film. When I was in college, I spent much of my free time napping and eating motzerella sticks. It’s apparent that these gals are much more intelligent than I was. I just found out this short won Best Undergraduate Film at Ottawa. Congrats!
Also topping my list of favorites was Ljubisa Djukic’s film, “Manege Frei”. In my opinion, this is a perfect example of what strong character is capable of doing for a film. No dialogue was necessary to make me want to see more of this bear. Check out the film here. Djukic received a Special Mention in the Interactive Animation category for “Manege Frei”.
After Ottawa, I was off to New York to pay a visit to more filmmakers, Fred Seibert, and also to MetroCAF, a Siggraph sponsored showcase of student work. I was very impressed! Ian Etra won an award for his film, “In-Out”, which was in the Nicktoons Film Festival. We know how to pick ‘em!
So here is a line up of the colored characters so far…We deepened Yumi’s main pinkish color and added some lavendar, and I think she looks grrrrreeeeat!! The kid on the left is an example of the look Paul has created for the incidental characters…isn’t it amazing??
Also this week, Jun, my fab director, and I sat down with our wonderful sound magician, Mr. Petak, and put together the voice takes that I picked. I now have a cd of the full episode put together. I LOVE listening to it! It just cracks me up..I will post some stuff for you all to listen to soon
Oh, and in case you were wondering, the final verdict on the Yumi’s hand style was a cross between the graphic one, with a little spongy-ness from the other hand.
Although he was an important character when I first devleoped Ivan long ago, Ingor never made the storyboard I pitched to Frederator because he was just too dang much for the cartoon. Ingor the Ruthless Savage, was to be Ivan’s father, but his role was quickly replaced by the loveable Ma! Which was a better choice anyway. Ingor is now serving a prison sentence in the Nordic penatentiary, where he awaits a possible role in future Ivan works.
Hornswiggle’s loyal companion is BIRDSDORF, an Oxpecker (Go on… Google that!).
Oxpeckers are known to “climb around on the bodies of large mammals, feeding on ticks and other parasites - and on cattle earwax”.
Oxpeckers are also known as “Tick birds”. However, Birdsdorf’s ticked-off attitude is evident because being attached to Hornswiggle can be very dangerous.
I’m going to wrap up tonight writing about my trip last week to the Ottawa International Animation Festival. There was way too much I enjoyed to allow me to write about even five percent of it. It’s been tough picking what I wanted to mention here. Melissa returns tomorrow to the big ol’ cartoon factory, and I’m sure she’ll blog about some of her favorite Ottawa moments.
First, a film I’d actually been well aware of: Xploding Plasitx ‘Joy Comes in the Morning’. Southern California-based Scott Friedman and Joe Ledbetter created this film inspired by the song by Xploding Plastix. It’s funny, attractive to look at, and exciting to listen to. You can watch it here.
Belgium’s Delphing Hermans’ Plan B was one of the many highlights for me at Thursday’s student screening. A wartime espionage film with a sci-fi twist. There’s not a lot I could find on the Web to link to, but if you get the chance, take a look at this film. Best of luck to Delphing and his animation career.
Today’s entries show the fault line that we’re all debating around our shop: do we continue in our ‘tradition’ of using “cartoon” in our name, or does it discourage more alternative filmmakers (like CG creators) from pitching us their storyboards? Any thoughts?
Thank you, Art Curry: The Cartoon Joyride Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! Cartoons
Thank you, Ben Perkins: Cartoon Bucket Apple Bob Cartoons Fred-a-toon Toonannigans Oven Fresh! Squeaky Clean Look! Cartoons! Watch out! Cartoons! Say Cheese! Cartoons Sketch to Success Pow! Cartoons! Animantronics Paper to Product Tracing to TV Power Up! Boo-yah! Boo-yah! Cartoons!
Thank you, Edward Webb: Compact CarToons Cartoon Short-Shorts Sell You Lloyd’s Shorts
I’ve been a huge fan of the cartoon music ever since I was a kid and realized there was a difference between Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera. I had an essay written once about the greatness of HB’s Hoyt Curtin (there was already plenty on Carl Stalling), and when I started making cartoons I vowed to pay special attention to the scoring, since I felt it was an essential ‘character’ in a film. So, every once in a while I’d like to pay homage to the great contemporary composers who work on Frederator cartoons.
Guy Moon has produced more scores for us than any other composer; we met through Bodie Chandler, Hanna-Barbera’s music director, a great champion of new artists. Starting with The Addams Family, Guy went on to really prove his chops on the deceptively challenging What A Cartoon! shorts, which led to Cow & Chicken and Johnny Bravo. When we moved over to Nickelodeon Guy would hold the record for the most scores for Oh Yeah! Cartoons, and those in turn led to the lead chair on The Fairly Oddparents and ChalkZone, in addition to one of our movies, The Electric Piper. And Guy’s been no slouch working on other shows and films either. Whew!
Growing up in Wisconsin, going to college in Arizona (loving Chick Corea’s Return to Forever), Guy and his family live in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley.
Here’s a look at MooBeard’s turnaround. I drew it, and Sam Bullock did the cleanups. Sam Bullock currently does cleanups on Danny Phantom, but back in 1998, he was my Animation Production II teacher at the Art Institute of Philadelphia!
I’m such a wuss that nothing I’ve ever been involved with could ever had a such a cool title. Until now!
Oh Yeah! Cartoons alumnus and co-founder (with Julieann Hartman) of the Hartman House Foundation, Butch Hartman has a new video game out. The Fairly Oddparents are at it again in the THQ/Nickelodeon video game Clash with the Anti-World. Butch has figured out the perfect balance between his love of comedy and his love of adventure comics.
I know we keep harping on how good Alex is, but really, have you ever seen such gloriously angry eels? What are eels doing in a short about a cow and an elephant you ask? Well we reckon yur just gonna have to wait and see aren’t cha?!!
