From this week’s edition of The New Yorker. (Click on image for larger view.)

A free preview screening of Waking Sleeping Beauty, Don Hahn’s documentary on the Disney animation renaissance that started in the 1980s will be held at the Atlanta campus of the Savannah College of Art and Design, 1600 Peachtree St., in Event Space 4C, on Wednesday, April 14th, at 7:00 PM. The film will be presented by Peter Schneider, the film’s producer and former President of Disney Feature Animation.

I just got my copy of the latest issue of the nice little French fanzine, Oxymore, which is a special Fleischer issue, to which I contributed “Max Fleischer & les studios Fleischer.” The other featured piece is Leslie Carbarga’s “L’histoire des Fleischers.” In addition, there is an interview with comic artist Kim Deitch, who talks about animation, including the work of the Fleischer Studios. Oxymore editor David Amram wanted to focus on Fleischer since he felt the studio’s contributions to animation were not really appreciated in France. The issue, which is priced at 10€, can be ordered from the publisher’s website here. Needless to say, I can’t help recommend it.

This is by way of an overdue update on Tinga Tinga Tales, the Kenyan animated TV series I reported here on June 30th. The series (see trailer above) has begun broadcasting on the CBeebies,(Children’s BBC) (those living in the UK can see past episodes here). In the meantime, check out this BBC story on the studio here.

Thanks to Cartoon Brew.

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archives has recently been posting a slew of wonderful material from their Clair Weeks collection, including this entry on Weeks’ role in jump starting the Indian animation industry. Weeks’ career is a fascinating one, as after 16 years at Disney (where his credits ranged from Snow White to Peter Pan), he went to India as part of the American Technical Co-Operation Mission, where he set up the country’s first animation studio for Information Films of India. The image above shows Weeks at work during the production of the studio’s first effort, The Banyan Deer. The posting also includes a Quicktime version of a silent film showing the studio (and Weeks) at work on the film.

Weeks was born and raised in India the son of missionaries; and because of this he apparently felt more at home there than in the United States.  Given this background, it is probably no surprise that:

What started as a one year project expanded into almost a decade of service abroad working for the US Agency for International Development. Weeks toured Southeast Asia and headed up a [communications] office in Katmandu, Nepal. He made films and audio-visual programs that aided in the social development and economic growth of third world countries.

The Joe in question is my father, Joe Deneroff, and the drawing by cartoonist and illustrator Gilbert Bundy was apparently done in 1943 when both were working in the US Army Air Force’s fabled First Motion Picture Unit FMPU),  based at Fort Roach (i.e., the Hal Roach Studio, Culver City, California). My mother said my father was hired by the Unit to work at their New York City facility in 1942;  in 1943, both units were consolidated in Culver City and my father moved out there, leaving his family behind. He only stayed for six months for reasons which are not entirely clear; a letter written during the time he was there indicated he was somewhat homesick for New York, but I suspect his health problems (which eventually led to his death in 1946) were a major factor in his return.

When he returned to New York, he became an animator with Famous Studios (he had previously worked for Fleischer from 1932-40), where he worked alongside his friend Jack Ozark. When he died, Jack kept the drawing, which my father kept in his desk, and gave it to me when I got to know him in the 1980s. Jack said that my father and Bundy worked together at the FMPU and that the drawing perfectly captured  the way my father acted and dressed.

In doing some admittedly cursory research. I could not find anything on Bundy and the FMPU; for instance, David Apatoff’s Illustration Art blog does note that:

… when World War II came along, Bundy decided for some reason to leave it all behind and volunteer to work as an artist in the South Pacific for Hearst newspapers.

In 1944, Bundy was accompanying the Marine invasion of Tarawa when a Japanese shell exploded in his small landing craft. …

Bundy returned to the U.S. but never recaptured the joy in his pre-war art. On the anniversary of his ordeal Bundy committed suicide, thereby rejoining his fallen comrades.

I would, of course, be delighted to hear from anyone who has any additional information on the matter.

It is with some regret that the Animation Studio Links portion of this site is being discontinued. These links were initiated when the site was first started under the name Animation Consultants International in 2001. It was something of a labor of love, which has become increasingly hard for me to keep up. I appreciate the kind words about the Links I have received and though the librarian in me wants to go on, its continued maintenance is simply no longer possible.

Jerry Beck has this fascinating item at Cartoon Research on Yip Harburg and his work at the Fleischer Studios in the early days of talking pictures.  Harburg, of course, was one of America’s finest lyricists, whose work includes the words for two of the most memorable songs  of the Great Depression — “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” and “Over the Rainbow” (from The Wizard of Oz).

The caption in the Life/Google archive for the photo above (by Allan Grant) reads: "Carlo Vinci, artist drawing cartoon at Hanna-barbara [sic] productions." Taken in 1960, the year Hanna Barbera became the force in television animation with The Flintstones, when it debuted on the ABC network on prime time.  The image below has the caption: "Joe Barbera (R), [with] partner Bill Hanna (L), creators of animated cartoons."

The Nitrate Film Interest Group of the Association of Moving Image Archivists‘ has a Flicker site where archivists post frame scans (and clips) of unidentified films. The above "frame scan is from the end of the film when the audience realizes that Krazy has been eating his furniture in his sleep."

David Bordwell recently noted that,

The submissions have tended towards silent films and nitrate prints, but sound films and safety elements are welcome as well. The page is also set up for short video clips, and the first video post has just been uploaded from a new scan of a 28mm print in the Academy Film Archive’s collection. This is also a good resource for anyone out there seeking help in identifying film elements, and you do not have to be a member of AMIA to submit images.

The Krazy Kat is one of the few animation items posted so far and is from the original series done at Hearst’s International Features Service; there is also this film clip identified only as, "Based on the character name Courandair, it is probably a film by Henry Monnier.

I must admit to knowing little about Monnier, other than he seemed to have been active in France after World War I. However, the Hearst studio, which Gregory La Cava ran from 1916-1918, was an important player in early American animation; it was the studio where the likes of Walter Lantz and Grim Natwick began their careers in animation. As Joe Adamson wrote in The Walter Lantz Story, the studio was responsible for several technical and stylistic innovations, including the development (by La Cava) of the storyboard, which was not picked up by others until Disney rediscovered it later on. (La Cava ended his animation career at the Bray Studios in the 1920s before going into live action, directing such movies as Gabriel Over the White House [1933], My Man Godfrey [1936] and Stage Door [1937]).

Below is what is identified as the "Opening credit and first shot of the [Krazy Kat cartoon]. "

Whenever I lecture about UPA, I almost always mention the Life magazine story about Gerald McBoing Boing as an indicator of how popular the film was. Thus, it was no surprise to find a whole slew of images from the film in the Google/Life magazine archives. What is interesting is that they were apparently photographed by Peter Stackpole specifically for Life from specially done cel setups, as normally only a few publicity stills would have been made for each cartoon. (The peg bars are clearly evident in a number of the pictures, including the one above.)

Life magazine’s photo archives are in the process of being posted online, thanks to Google.  The magazine was the picture journal of its day and was published weekly from 1936-1972, and continued to be issued in various stand alone forms until 2000. And its roster of photographers reads like a Who’s Who of Photo Journalism during the middle part of the 20th century.

Needless to say, Life‘s coverage of the arts, especially film and television, was extensive. The images being posted include photos never published before, along with production stills and posters not easily found elsewhere online. The high resolution (300 dpi) images are apparently free for nonprofit use.

My first instinct was to search for animation-related material and, naturally, Disney-related material, such as the 1938 photo of Disney by Alfred Eisenstaedt above , were most easily found. Much of the material I initially looked at lacked full identification; e.g., a picture of Gore Vidal and Melvyn Douglas only named Vidal, and some photos of live TV shows from the 1950s I looked at were not identified in any way, other than that they were TV shows. Anyway, here are some images of interest I came across, starting with  several by Hart Preston of Disney’s 1941 South American tour, which he embarked upon after the Bank of America told him to settle the strike by the Screen Cartoonists Guild:

This is identified as "Disney artist Mary Blair (R) working in Brazil w. company founder Walt Disney (L)," with Sugarloaf in the background; however, that’s doesn’t look like Disney to me.

"Artist Franklin Thomas (L) standing with Walt Disney (C) on Brazilian beach."

"Audiences gathered outside theater for the Brazilian premiere of Walt Disney’s ‘Fantasia’."  Brazil’s President Vargas was in attendance.

"NBC TV actor Sid Caesar (2nd R) rehearsing the Saturday night show with actress Janet Blair (2nd L), Carl Reiner (C) and others." The Saturday night show was, of course, Caesar’s Hour, which along with Your Show of Shows, was an incubator for a whole generation of comedy writers and comedians, including Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Danny Simon, and Larry Gelbart.  I’m not sure who the woman on the left is, but the man in the center is Carl Reiner and Howie Morris is on the right. Photo: Gordon Parks.

"Scene from the play ‘No Time For Sergeants’." The 1955 Broadway play was inspired by the popular live TV adaptation of the Mac Hyman novel, and also starred Andy Griffith, who later went on to also star in the movie version. On the right is Don Knotts, who had been a mainstay on The Tonight Show with Steve Allen, made his Broadway debut in the show. Photo: Yale Joel.

The recent news that Playhouse Disney has joined with Britain’s Tiger Aspect Productions is co-producing a new animated TV series, Tinga Tinga Tales for preschoolers with Kenya’s Homeboyz Entertainment. The show, which revolves around African animals and is just starting animation,  is based on the Tinga Tinga art of Tanzania and was commissioned last year by CBeebies,(Children’s BBC).  What’s interesting is that the animation will be done in a studio  set up by Homeboyz in Nairobi.

A C21Media.net story notes that, “After production is completed in 2010, the studio will continue to provide jobs for the new animation industry in East Africa.” In addition,

Andrew Zein, Tiger Aspect’s MD, said: “This is one of the most ambitious projects we’ve ever taken on. On top of everything else it is truly inspirational to think that 50% of Tiger Aspect’s profits from the show will help make a real difference in improving the educational needs of children in East Africa.”

What interests me is what this may mean for animation in sub-Saharan Africa — will this really jump start animation in East Africa, or is just a one off deal?

Overseas animation studios have been around since the dawn of American television animation, when Jay Ward sent work on Rocky and His Friends to Mexico; in the process, it seems to have given a boost to the local Mexican animation.  However, Mexico did not last long as an destination for American TV work and, over the years, work flowed to countries as varied as Spain, Poland, Argentine, Japan, Taiwan, China and, more recently, India. The one continent that has been largely unaffected by this constant search for lower cost facilities has been Africa.

A small animation industry does exist in South Africa, though the only African outpost for overseas production I know of has been Pipangai Production on the island of La Réunion, a French colonial outpost off Madagascar. (Pipangai’s success seems due in large part to its political status as an overseas department of France, which allows for various financial incentives.) If Homeboyz can pull off its part of the bargain, and if Kenya can maintain some political stability, and if the show is a success, perhaps there might be some hope that East Africa can join the international animation fraternity.

P.S.: An update on Tinga Tinga Tales can be found here.
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Animation Unlimited 2008 is the name of this year’s Society for Animation Studies conference at the Art Institute at Bournemouth, which is in the English seaside resort town. The Society is very close to my heart, having founded the international membership organization in 1987 and served as its first president. SAS, I am happy to say, has survived very nicely without me, with my main duties these days is acting as Editor of its Animation Bibliography project.

This year’s conference kicks off with a keynote address by Esther Leslie, author of Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory, and the Avant-Garde, who will be speaking on “‘The Flux and Flurry of Animated Worlds — On Stillness and Hypermovement.” However, the core of the event will be papers presented by a wide variety of international scholars and filmmakers on various aspects of animation history and theory. For instance, the opening set of panels are devoted to The Simpsons and Japanese animation. Later that day, I will be talking about “The Movie Brat Generation and the Animation Renaissance,” while my co-panelists will be discussing “The Fleischer Advertising Cartoons” (Mark Langer), Shamus Culhane’s Woody Woodpecker cartoons (Tom Klein), and “Floyd Norman’s Story” (Musa Brooker).

Other panels will be devoted to the “Animated Documentary”  and “Interdisciplinary Currents in Animation Studies,” in addition to those on more traditional topics, including animation theory, digital animation and teaching animation. In addition, there are two other keynote addresses and the Art Institute’s Gallery will be hosting a “Bob Godfrey Retrospective Exhibition” from July 14-August 22. This exhibit of original animation art, by that icon of British animation, is being curated by Suzanne Buchan and draws upon the Godfrey Collection at the University of the Arts’ Animation Research Centre, at Farnham.

All in all, it is something I very much look forward to attending, especially after I had to cancel my trip to last year’s conference,  held Portland State University, in Portland, Oregon,  in conjunction with the first Platform International Animation Festival.

In January, I commented on Blue Sky Studios’ announced move from one New York suburb to another, i.e., from White Plains, New York, to Greenwich, Connecticut. The main reason for the move was because of Connecticut’s lucrative tax credit program. It seemed to give Connecticut a successful animation house, proved again by the subsequent release of Horton Hears a Who! However, in the Please sir, can I have some more department, Blue Sky doesn’t seem satisfied with the original deal and, according to Connecticut newspapers, is trying to squeeze even more out of the state.

Such negotiations are probably not unusual, except that they do involve an animation studio, which is yet another indication on how far the industry has come over the past few decades. And to prove the point, the Muscatine (Iowa) Journal reports (here and here) that,

A family-owned animation company servicing the entertainment industry has moved to Winfield from Los Angeles after Iowa legislators created new tax incentives for film companies locating in the state.

The Iowa Film, Television and Video Project Promotion Program was passed in 2007 to provide tax incentives to attract the film industry, job diversity, and talent to the state. The Iowa Film Office of the Iowa Department of Economic Development operates the program.

“It created fertile ground for companies to relocate to Iowa,” said Stephen M. Jennings, founder and co-president of Grasshorse Technologies Inc. “It was the deciding factor in our transition to Iowa.”

Grasshorse, a digital animation and special effects subcontractor, is obviously not in the same league as Blue Sky, but the story was nevertheless picked up by Fortune Small Business (here and here), which noted that,

In recent years the economic corridor that stretches from Iowa City to Cedar Rapids has emerged as a powerful locus of economic growth, not only in film but also in computer simulation, bioengineering, and renewable energy. … The falling dollar helps Iowa companies compete globally, as do generous local incentives such as a state tax exemption on profits from overseas sales.

“A key factor,” says Jennings, “was being able to compete with animation studios in Korea and India.”

I suspect studios in Korea and India are not exactly quacking in their boots about what Iowa (or Connecticut) are doing. Small regional studios, such as Grasshorse have been around for quite a while, including several which have done work for major Hollywood companies. (For example, much of the animation for the animated The King and I and special effects for Independence Day were widely subcontracted out to smaller studios and individuals.) Though trying just to compete solely on a cost basis is something of a fool’s errand.

As to the situation in Connecticut, Greenwich Time reported on Friday, March 28th, that,

The chief operating officer of Blue Sky Studios Inc. was at the capitol yesterday lobbying lawmakers to support millions of dollars worth of financial incentives to move the company to Greenwich.

… The proposal, circulated by the architect of the tax credits, House Speaker James Amann, D-Milford, has raised concerns because it would require lifting the annual cap on the credits from $15 million to $25 million.

Amann has said that although the digital animation production credits passed last year are open to all takers, the $15 million annual cap was tailored to attract Blue Sky for a 10-year commitment. The company underestimated how much it would need, which is why he wants to lift the cap to $25 million, Amann has said.

The New York Times, on Saturday, put the battle between New York and Connecticut in some perspective, reporting that,

With a proud film history dating back almost a century, to D. W. Griffith’s creation of a 28-acre production lot in Mamaroneck, Westchester County is increasingly watching production companies be lured across the border to Connecticut, which now offers them a 30 percent tax credit, compared with New York State’s 10 percent.

Since the Connecticut tax credit took effect in July 2006, that state has gone from playing host to the occasional film shoot (remember “Mystic Pizza”?) to attracting 66 feature films, television shows and commercials with a collective $400 million in production costs, the majority of it in the Fairfield County suburbs of New York.

At the same time, similar suburbs across the border in Westchester County have seen their film shoots shrivel. In 2006, Westchester was the setting for scenes from 14 big-budget features, as well as numerous independent films; last year, two movies were partially shot here.

The story goes on to say that even New York City, which has been somewhat insolated from these bidding wars, is starting to lose business to several other neighboring states. The state legislature will undoubtedly respond with its own set of incentives. I’m sure the film industry will be delighted. After all, it’s nice to be wanted.