Not too many folks in animation caught this great story. Check out the Ain’t It Cool News interview with Jon Favreau about his Genndy Tartakovsky fandom and how it ended up with Genndy and his Orphanage Animation team bringing their cartoon sensibility to Iron Man 2.
“Dear Nightie, I’ll admit it, I really thought I was in love way back when I first got to know you.”
Well, I’ll admit it, I really love artist Alex Kirwan. Completely aside from the fact that he’s one of the best animation art directors of this generation (read a couple of interviews here and here), he’s one of the great fans of the world. Of cartoons sure, of monsters yeah, of all sorts of stuff. And, as I’ve found out from Alex’s new blog, The Happening Stunk, some of the films of M. Night Shyamalan. Find out for yourself when Alex tells you “Why I am breaking up with you, M. Night Shyamalan“.
As usual, I’m very late to the party, but I wanted to say a few words about Floyd Bishop’s fabulous Pixar debate.
(Immediate background: I just returned from seeing WALL-E with my family. My 13 year old was somewhat bored but appreciated the theme; my 11 year old saw it for the second time, surprised how much he loved it the first time out; my wife loved it both times she saw it; I was way impressed but not deeply engaged.)
I love everything Pixar does, for every reason imaginable, not the least being it’s the only studio (Frederator excluded, of course) that relies on animator trained folks as their primary writers (Lasseter, Stanton, Doctor, Bird, et al). And it really shows in the unique quality of the movies. And, of course, [Read more…]
Everyone at Frederator Studios has been busy with shorts, series, and now, movies.
Lots of you know how much we admire Genndy Tartakovsky. He created Dexter’s Laboratory, the first series to come out of our first shorts program, before breathing life into The Powerpuff Girls and Clone Wars. And, of course, creating and directing the semial Samurai Jack. I’d always felt it would make an awesome movie, and thanks to the good graces of the folks at Cartoon Network, who saw clear to letting it into our careful hands, that awesome feature film might have a chance of seeing the light of day.
It’ll be written, directed, and creatively overseen by Genndy in glorious, un-PC, 2D.
Doug TenNapel has been a powerful creative force in comics, videogames, and TV series, and Kevin Kolde, always the videogame fan, introduced us to the creative opportunities in Doug’s innovative (“wacky and quirky animation”) back-to-the-future claymation game The Neverhood.
Doug will be writing and directing.
Dan Meth wrote a post about the movie he’s writing and directing based on the Seven Deadly Sins. What we hadn’t mentioned is the involvement of the inimitable Don King. In the year Dan’s been associated with Frederator he’s seen the release of his first big YouTube hit, and the first festival recognition of one of his productions. Seven Deadly Sins will be his first feature.
Our logo’s been designed by Floyd Bishop though I’ve been too busy to get back to him to finish it and even to negotiate a fair price. Of course, he’s been busy having a new baby in his family and moving cross country. Please don’t mention it to him.
That’s it for now. It’s an honor that these world-class creative people would be interested in working with our company. I hope we can live up to their expectations. We’ll be posting more information as we’ve got it for you.
Frederator Films Comes to Life in 2 Dimensions
FRED SEIBERT AND Producers KOLDE AND GARDNER OPEN FILM DIVISION; ANNOUNCE FIRST THREE FILMS IN PRODUCTION SLATE
LOS ANGELES, June 26 /PRNewswire/ — Frederator Studios founder Fred Seibert announced plans today to launch Frederator Films, an animated feature film company with a mission to produce 2-D animated genre movies budgeted below $20 million. Seibert is launching the company with Kevin Kolde and Eric Gardner, with all three acting as producers on the projects.
Frederator Films has over a dozen projects on its initial development slate, the first three of which were announced today, each representing a different genre:
– A feature based on Samurai Jack, with original creator Genndy Tartakovsky attached to write and direct. The seminal, Emmy-Award winning, animated TV series aired on Cartoon Network from 2001 until 2004. The Russian-born American animator is also renowned for the series Dexter’s Laboratory and Star Wars: Clone Wars.
– The Neverhood, a film based on the cult favorite claymation PC-based computer adventure game created by Doug TenNapel and released by Dreamworks Studios in 1996. TenNapel has signed on to write and direct the feature length film, which will be painstakingly shot in Claymation. TenNapel is an Eisner award-winning graphic novelist, has created a number of computer and video games including Earthworm Jim and Skullmonkeys, and the animated series Earthworm Jim and “Catscratch” for Nickelodeon.
– The Seven Deadly Sins is a hip-hop animated feature. The film will be written, designed, and directed by flash animator Dan Meth. Renowned personality and boxing promoter Don King is the first voice actor attached to the project.
Production on the first film, Seven Deadly Sins, is expected to commence in the fall of 2007. Frederator plans to produce two films a year.
Principal production will be located in Hollywood and New York.
“Our studio’s successes have been built on the best creative talents in the animation business. Genndy Tartakovsky, Doug TenNapel, and Dan Meth are continuing a tradition of original cartoons we began in 1998 and moving it
into feature films,” explains Seibert.
Gardner added, “Fred is the master at identifying voids in the
marketplace and filling them with paradigm-shifting content– there has been a dearth of both 2D and genre animated feature product which Frederator Films will be rectifying, much to the delight of young males everywhere.”
Frederator Films’ producers each bring a unique range of capabilities and experience to the company. Fred Seibert, the former president of Hanna-Barbera and the original creative director of MTV, opened Frederator Studios in 1998, an independent American animation studio producing original cartoons. Seibert’s debut production for Cartoon Network was What A Cartoon!, which spun off a number of hit series including Cow & Chicken, Dexter’s Laboratory, and Powerpuff Girls. Moving to Nickelodeon, he continued his streak with The Fairly OddParents, ChalkZone, and My Life as a Teenage Robot. Kevin Kolde is a veteran producer who ran Spumco, John Kricfalusi’s (”Ren & Stimpy”) company, for over a decade. Gardner is Chairman/CEO of Panacea Entertainment, a talent management and production company he founded 36 years ago, repping such diverse clients as Donny Osmond, Richard Belzer, Paul Shaffer, The Sex Pistols, Elvira, Timothy Leary, and members of the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and The Who. He has produced over 100 hours of televsion and several features.
SOURCE Frederator Films
Writer Warren Ellis has more on the Rule of 3 on the Castlevania blog.
I looked for a picture of Tom Freston smiling, since it’s the state one would most often find him. But he takes his job seriously, so most often the pictures you find are him with a very earnest expression. He’s been tops in the media culture for almost 30 years, but has always kept his kindness, his people, and his mission, front and center.
The reason I mention this is that Tom resigned his positions at Viacom today after 26 years with the company. And the reason I mention that is without Tom Freston I would have no career and no Frederator. Tom and I started together at MTV Networks together in the spring of 1980 and served together at the dawn of MTV: Music Television. When I left to form my consulting/ad agency/production company in 1983 Tom was my client and great supporter. He kept in touch during my years at Hanna-Barbera and then asked me to come back to work with his teams at the end of the 90s.
Tom was a one of a kind of leader. A man who only got better in each succeeding job, he not only kept the profits humming, but, against all odds, kept a unique culture alive in what was essentially a creative company. Since we focus on cartoons here, just look at his tenure: Liquid Television, Beavis & Butthead, Ren & Stimpy, Rugrats, Spongebob Square Pants, South Park, and of course all of our stuff. That’s just in one area of entertainment. He willed Comedy Central into being, he supported Logo, MTVN’s gay & lesbian network, long after the politics shifted against it, and because of his vision MTV is the world’s most distributed television channel in more than 27 different countries.
Thanks for a great ride Tom. We’ll all miss you.
