Animation

Directed by Gerry Geronimi assisted by Jack Bruner. Laid out by Tom Codrick and Don Griffith. Secretary Marie Dasnoit.This Final draft dated 10/8/54.

Last week, I flew out from Los Angeles to New York to attend the annual Dusty animation screening at the School of Visual Arts. I watched forty thesis films from this year’s graduating class—a very solid year, I might add—and witnessed many of the students experience pre-show jitters and post-show relief. It was a fun night getting to see a lot of my old classmates, friends and teachers again, but most importantly it made me reflect on my own experiences since my own thesis screening two years ago. While graduation was a big deal, the thesis screening was really the big night for us. The films we put a year’s worth of blood, sweat and tears into were going to be shown in front of an audience on the big screen, and for most of us, that was a completely new experience. Some of us felt that our thesis films were like big flashy business cards or “HIRE ME” signs, so if there were any industry people in the audience that night, it just might be the ticket to having a job lined up after graduation. A few days later at the Dusty Awards ceremony, my film ended up winning the Outstanding Traditional Animation award (tied with my friend Zach Bellissimo’s Blenderstein, which was featured here on Cartoon Brew), so in a way I felt validated that I was a decent enough animator to go out and make a living after I left school. There were times that I felt my future was uncertain, and that having a career in this field might not work out for me. But after college, the excitement of working as a professional animator gradually began to fade. I went through many ups and downs (mostly downs). I had long periods of busy work, and even longer periods of unemployment. And some of the jobs I had, while keeping me busy, barely supported me. There were times that I felt my future was uncertain, and that having a career in this field might not work out for me. I became disenchanted with the medium, felt emasculated by my peers and started falling into a depression. And seeing a lot of my friends and classmates in equally dire straights filled me with even more trepidation about my career path. After dealing with this for over a year, I finally made a very big decision to pull up stakes, leave New York and move to LA. It was risky because I didn’t have a job lined up for me when I came out here. Luckily I had friends who found a place for me to live and I got a job in the industry almost immediately upon arrival. Even though I’ve been in LA for only three months, I consider it the best decision I’ve ever made. I feel like I’m in an environment where creativity and appreciation for the craft is never-ending, and I’m the happiest I’ve been since I graduated two years ago. Be hopeful, hone your craft, push yourself out there, and eventually you will find your place. And being back at the SVA Theatre watching these incredibly talented young animators go through the same reactions and emotions filled me with both excitement and concern. These students, as well as the hundreds upon hundreds of other graduates coming out of animation schools all over the country, will be put through the same paces as myself. After graduation, that safety net of college life is gone, and despite what your professors or friends tell you, nothing can really prepare you for what happens after you graduate. But the important thing that I want to express to these soon-to-be professional animators is to be hopeful, hone your craft, push yourself out there, and eventually you will find your place. Don’t let ANYONE or ANYTHING disenchant you. Everybody goes through these motions at one time or another after leaving school. Some of you might have jobs lined up right after school, and some of you might have to wait a little longer. It’s a very scary thing to go through, but it’s all part of the experience. You appreciate things more when you experience the bad alongside the good. It’s something you

May 21, 2013 Elliott Animation is hiring! We are looking for experienced Flash animators to join our team to help out with animation revisions. We are one of Canada’s few Artist owned and managed studio and are dedicated to creatively and technologically empowering our people. Our studio thrives on our innovative, entrepreneurial spirit and respect for talent and ability. We are looking for Flash animation revisionists to work out of the Toronto studio to start immediately; experience on a Flash series is preferred.  We offer very competitive rates and a great working environment.  Please email your resume and demo reel or online portfolio to; christineatelliott@gmail.com,fourwheelsturning@gmail.com and gelliott@elliottanimation.com. Ontario and Canadian residency restrictions apply.

May 21, 2013 Elliott Animation is hiring! We are looking for experienced Flash animators to join our team. We are one of Canada’s few Artist owned and managed studio and are dedicated to creatively and technologically empowering our people. Our studio thrives on our innovative, entrepreneurial spirit and respect for talent and ability. We are looking for a senior and intermediate Flash animator to start immediately to work out of our Hamilton studio; experience on a Flash series is preferred.  We offer very competitive rates and a great working environment.  Please email your resume and demo reel or online portfolio to; christineatelliott@gmail.com,fourwheelsturning@gmail.com and gelliott@elliottanimation.com. Ontario and Canadian residency restrictions apply.

In running this blog, I've generally taken an "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" approach. I've gone with the philosophy that every piece of work I cover - be it a lavish animated feature or a rather basic seventies cartoon telling people how to lift heavy objects - has some sort of aesthetic value and is worth celebrating. I've opted to generally ignore the flat-out disastrous animation, but this post well be an exception - Zit: The Video is a pretty awful piece of work.First, some background. When the comic Viz took off, it provided an easy template for imitators: parodies of traditional British children's comics shot through with blue humour, wrapped up in a magazine with a vaguely rude-sounding one-syllable title. Publications such as Gas, Spit and Ut attempted to steal some of Viz's thunder; most did not last long, but one, Zit, managed a respectable eleven year run from 1991 to 2002.So, with Viz taking steps into animation in the early nineties, it was only natural that the half-hour Zit: The Video would appear in 1993.Unfortunately, the results were really rather rotten. Tony Barnes' Viz animations, like South Park, found a crude visual style which complimented the crude humour; Zit instead ends up looking amateurish all round. The voice acting is also bad and - thanks to the questionable sound editing - is sometimes drowned out by the music and sound effects. The humour on offer is about what you'd expect, and isn't really enough to save the project.A thumbs down, then. So, why am I posting about Zit? Well, for all its failings, I can't help but feel somewhat supportive for the crew involved. As I have mentioned before, it is surprisingly rare for British comics to make the transition to animation; our animation industry has also generally stayed away from this sort of ribald adult comedy (indeed, as the video came out the same year as Beavis and Butthead and four years before South Park, the genre was only beginning to make inroads into American TV at the time as well). An animated Zit was a fairly bold move.I find myself wondering what would've happened if Zit: The Video had been a success. Would there have been a Gas: The Video and an Ut: The Video? Perhaps an entire genre of direct-to-video cartoons based on rude comics?This was not to be, however, and Zit's director - Keith Bateman of A.K. Music - instead entered the wonderful world of alien autopsy footage.

Continuing our week of looking at artists who worked on Epic, we focus on Sang Jun Lee. Sang Jun has designed characters and concepts for many blockbuster movie franchises including Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean and Men In Black. After a stretch of working in California on these live-action films, he moved to New York to work on Blue Sky features such as Horton Hears a Who, Rio, and most recently, Epic. Sang Jun’s website has a generous amount of drawings and digital paintings to explore. He also keeps a blog here.

- From 1983-85, Tissa David teamed with three other friends in Holland to begin work on an animated version of Mendelssohn’s Midsummer’s Night Dream. This film would introduce several animated characters from Shakespeare’s play over a live action orchestral performance of Mendolssohn’s music. These characters chased each other around the orchestra until, eventually, the animation took over, and the orchestra melted away. The tympanist, himself, melded into Bottom. This film was completely animated by Tissa, including all inbetweens and layouts. She was the film’s director, though in all the time she worked on this film, she never once described her role to me as such. She was just making a film she loved with several extraordinarily talented friends. Kalman Kozelka was a brilliant cameraman who shot the entire film in a home built multiplane camera. It’s unjust to call it simply photography, because every scene involved seven to ten exposures with mattes and special lighting. Half of the scenes combined live action with the animation, and all of the scenes involved multiple levels with back and front lighting. Ida Kozelka-Mocsary, Kalman’s wife, designed all the character coloring and colored all the cels . She worked closely in helping Kalman to prepare everything for the photography including mattes. Richard Fehsl was the brilliant designer who colored and, in many cases, animated the Bg’s. All of these Bg’s were painted with dyes on frosted cels under rather delicate inking. All four took story credit. I have a good handful of the overlarge cels and artwork from the film. Here are a few of those cels along with a number of representative frame grabs from the film. __ __________________(Click any image to enlarge.) __________________Titania, the drawing and the cel. __ __ __________________Three of Richard Fehsl’s Bg elements. These were back lit __________________and front lit and combined with other Bg levels. __ At times, Fehsl’s Backgrounds animated. __ ___I have so much more art from this film, that there’ll surely be more posts to come. This video (vhs) can still be located – used copies – on Amazon here. The film features a live-action orchestra with Shakespeare’s characters running wild over the footage. Eventually, the picture opens to an animated woods. It was photographed by Kalman Kozelka, color styled by Ida Kozelka-Mocsary, and Bg designs by Richard Fehsl. The film aired on the BBC in 1983 and was released on VHS by Goodtimes Video. (click any image to enlarge.) Bottom chases Titania in the woods. At one point the instruments of the orchestra take on an animated life of their own. The dark coloring loses some of the emotional delicacy of the drawing, but is appropriate within the context of the film. Titania catches Bottom in her arms. Three cels from a sequence. Titania dances with Bottom’s stool. (He’s brought it into the woods when he transformed from the tympanist to the animated character.)

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this is the title sequence for the Brazilian novela, Amor a Vida that I animated.Cast: Ryan J WoodwardTags:

Mirage is a 2D animation from a period of famous Chinese ancient history. The story is about a King who was troubled by a nightmare, because he killed so many innocent people. In his dream, he stranding in the ruins where many Chinese ghosts were walking around. And he saw himself was swallowed by a monster and made him become crazy insatiable and murderous. There was a hero named who went into the King’s dream to destroy the monster. The King realized the monster in the dream was him. It was his desires control him and make him change into a monster, murdering to satisfy his own desires at last. Finally, he became a true and good person.Cast: JIAxinTags: