Channel Frederator Blog

This piece of film, which was created around 1975, shows off the Synthavision process for creating an animated film. It was created by Larry Elin of Computer Visuals, Inc., of Elmsford, New York.

via Atari Archives 

The new animation technique is called Synthavision and is marketed commercially by Computer Visuals, Inc., of Elmsford, New York. Using the process, dimensional, shaded objects can be made to perform a countless variety of complicated movements and captured on film. Amazingly, the objects don’t have to exist. The need for art work, photographs or prototypes has also been eliminated, since Synthavision enables the animator to produce his ‘actors’ within the software of the computer mathematically

This incredible attribute is an offshoot from the work which inspired the development of Synthavision in the first place. Scientists at Mathematical Applications Group, Inc., Computer Visuals parent company, were conducting experiments in which whole environments were mathematically described to a computer [Read more…]

Ever since the release of “Toy Story” back in 1995, movie audiences seem to have been in love with all things Pixar. This goes for many animation fans as well, sometimes to the point of fanaticism. Is this a healthy thing? In this post, I’ll be asking some questions that challenge that fanaticism, and I hope that Pixar fans will try to provide some answers in the comments section.

When Dreamworks released “Shark Tale”, many people implied that Dreamworks was trying to follow in the footsteps of Pixar’s “Finding Nemo”. They are both films that are primarily based underwater. The similarities end there for me. When Pixar released “WALL-E” this year, no one seemed to remember either Blue Sky’s “Robots” from 2005, nor the design of Johnny 5 from “Short Circuit” (another robot who becomes self aware and gains a personality). Granted, the Pixar films were stronger films in both cases, but the similarities are there [Read more…]

Via E! and AOL
I knew that eventually the tabloid industry would begin their assault on folks in the Animation Industry and begin treating them like actual celebs. I just didn’t know how soon…
And I loooove how the press doesn’t even use their names in the titles.

[Read more…]

Via UTNE
UTNE’s Kari Volkmann-Carlsen has been noticing a rash of Facelift epidemics… on Eighties Cartoon Characters.

She also ponders:

“So why are companies reinventing old cartoon characters instead of designing new ones? According to Kolodenko, playing off of parents’ nostalgia has proven to be a safer investment than creating unknowns in our poorly functioning economy”

Sigh.
Go check out the rest of her article at UTNE.
-Jeaux Janovsky

The San Diego Comic Con has come and gone. It was pretty busy, with the entire show selling out. Preview Night was just as busy (if not more so) than any other day. I would love to see some sort of expansion of the Con to cut back on crowd size. Maybe a professionals only night, or perhaps making the Con a full week?

[Read more…]

In this intro from the Disneyland tv show spotlights a few of the lands in Disneyland. These included Frontierland, Tomorrowland, Adventureland, and Fantasyland. For some reason, Holidayland was never really promoted too often, and was closed in 1961. Other “lands”, such as New Orleans Square and Mickey’s Toon Town were added later.

In this intro, we see Tinker Bell act out a bit for each of the spotlighted lands. She zips in and out as the text introduces the next location. It is particularly interesting to see the level of the effects in this piece as well, from Tinker Bell’s pixie dust trail, to the take off of the Tomorrowland rocket ship.  Custom animated segments would be used often to promote the park, and eventually animators would begin designing parts of the park themselves…

-Floyd Bishop 

I’ll be away for about a week, so I won’t be posting. Wish me luck applying the sunscreen evenly. I’ll leave you with this shore-related music video, starring some Playmobil People. It’s “Like a Toy Lost In the Sand” by Graceful Storms, a project of the French singer Manu Servé.

—Anne D. Bernstein

On this date in 1954, construction began on Disneyland. Making animated films costs money, and it takes quite a while to make one. Walt Disney wanted to make a park for employees to go with their families, he needed a way to keep people interested in his projects, and he needed help funding the studio in between films.

Keep watching for posts related to each of the “lands”, bits of park history, and how animation drove the park while the park drove animation.

-Floyd Bishop

Nite Fite’s Terry the Producer made his first posting on Nite Fite’s Site today.
He sure did Unleash some Internet Truth! Make with some clickies and check it out.
Go Terry!
-Jeaux Janovsky

PictureBox has announced that they are working on a John Kricfalusi book, to be published in 2009. It will be “the definitive book of John’s work – from childhood through Ren and Stimpy to today.” I can’t wait for this to come out!

PictureBox puts out high quality art books, including the recent comprehensive and massively tasty Gary Panter tome. Click here to see the $95 version. And, if you can bear it, click here to see the $1000 “Hot Burrito Deluxe” version!

They also have a store in Brooklyn near the banks of the scenic Gowanus.

If you go to the PictureBox news page and scroll down (no direct link–look for June 13th) you will see photos from Dan Nadel’s recent visit to Los Angeles. There are some pix of John K’s studio (but none of the man himself).

Also, there’s a photo of some guys. Very cool guys. Who apparently had a very cool party at the Chateau Marmont. Which we can only dream about.

Can you identify them? Answer after the jump. [Read more…]