The recent passing of special effects animation master Ray Harryhausen has been widely noted. I must admit to having little to add to the many well-deserved hosannas. A disciple of Willis O’Brien, he was able to one up his mentor by gaining a measure of creative control that enabled him to produce a greater body [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Filmmakers'
Ray Harryhausen
May 14th, 2013 · No Comments · Filmmakers, Special effects, Stop motion animation
Tags: Adam Gopnik·Ray Harryhausen
Annie Awards Make History
February 12th, 2013 · No Comments · Animation history and criticism, Filmmakers, Producers
Perhaps historical would be a better word. I’m not talking about the winners in the competitive voting for ASIFA-Hollywood‘s Annie Awards proper (listed here), but rather for the juried awards, including the June Foray and Winsor McCay Awards. What was startling was the fact that three of these honors went to animation historians: Jerry Beck [...]
Tags: Annie Awards·ASIFA-Hollywood·Jerry Beck·John Canemaker·John Kricfalusi·June Foray Award
David Hand Collection to Animation Hall of Fame
August 28th, 2012 · No Comments · Animators, Film and television archives, Filmmakers, Producers
For my undergraduate History of Animation class, I’m obliged to give a pretest to judge my student’s knowledge of the topic. A favorite question is, “Who was the director of Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bambi?” Alas, no one has a clue, even though almost every student has seen these films [...]
Remembering John Halas
April 16th, 2012 · No Comments · Animation studios, British cinema, Documentary films, Filmmakers, Producers
Vivien Halas has posted this filmic remembrance of her father John Halas (1912-1995), who would have been 100 years old today. Halas, whose studio, Halas & Batchelor, made the first British animated feature, Animal Farm (1954), was obviously a seminal figure in British animation and also served as the founding president of ASIFA-International. The documentary [...]
Tags: ASIFA-International·Halas & Batchelor·John Halas·Vivien Halas
An Evening with Joanna Priestley
January 15th, 2012 · No Comments · Filmmakers, Independent animators, Screenings, Short films
For those in the Portland, Oregon area, the Northwest Film Center is hosting “An Evening with Joanna Priestley” on Saturday, January 28th. The event is part of the Center’s Northwest Tracking series celebrating its 40th anniversary. Priestley is one of my favorite filmmakers who I’ve written about before. (See my article I wrote for Skwigly [...]
Tags: Eye Liner·Joanna Priestley·Northwest Film Center·Out of Shape
Martin Scorsese’s Hugo
November 25th, 2011 · 4 Comments · American cinema, Film history and criticism, Filmmakers, French cinema, Special effects
Martin Scorcese makes a cameo appearance in Hugo. Right off the bat, let me say that Martin Scorsese’s Hugo is a wonderful film which I cannot recommend too highly. In a sense,it’s one of those generic, loving homages to the movies that come along every so often; though Hugo is in a class all by [...]
Museum of the City of New York’s Collections Portal
November 23rd, 2011 · No Comments · Filmmakers
The Biograph blog brought to my attention the Museum of the City of New York’s Collections Portal, which has been up and running since December and offers access to almost 100,000 images. The Biograph’s post focuses on photos relating to era of silent film. I did a somewhat broader search and immediately found pictures done [...]
Tags: Look magazine·Museum of the City of New York·Stanley Kubrick
Richard Williams’ and John Canemaker Pordenone Trailers
October 30th, 2011 · No Comments · Film and Television Festivals, Filmmakers, Short films
(Copyright: Richard Williams) Last year, I blogged about the premiere of Richard Williams’ short film Circus Drawing at the opening night of the Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (The Pordenone Silent Film Festival), in Italy, and his long-standing relationship with the festival. In reading about this year’s Pordenone Silent Film Festival on The Bioscope blog [...]
Tags: John Canemaker·Le Giornate del Cinema Muto·Pordenone Silent Film Festival·Richard Williamss
Chief Serenbe
July 12th, 2011 · No Comments · Filmmakers, Harvey Deneroff, Stop motion animation, Student films
I usually don’t take notice of student films here, but I understandably am making an exception for Evan Curtis’ Chief Serenbe, made last year at the Savannah College of Art and Design — especially since it was made in f my graduate-level Media Theory class. (He has been in three of my classes and I [...]
Tags: Cartoon Brew Student Animation Festival·Chief Serenbe·Evan Curtis·Savannah College of Art and Design·Toys and animation
Terry Gilliam Directs Berlioz at the ENO
March 9th, 2011 · No Comments · Filmmakers
English National Opera’s promo for Terry Gilliam’s Damnation of Faust production. It’s really not unusual for filmmakers to direct operas, but someone who started out as animator?
Tags: Damnation of Faust·English National Opera·Hector Berlioz·Terry Gilliam
Lucerne Animation Academy’s LIAA-TV
December 9th, 2010 · No Comments · Animation conferences, Filmmakers, Music and film, Screenwriting
About a year ago, the Lucerne School of Art and Design, in Lucerne, Switzerland, put on its first Lucerne Animation Academy (LIAA). The four-day event was publicized as a “a great opportunity for people from theory and practice to meet and share their views on the characteristics of dramaturgy in animation films, in all its [...]
Tags: Brothers Quay·David O. Reilly·Georges Schwizgebel·Jerzy Kucia·LIAA-TV·Lucerne Animation Academy·Norman Roger·Otto Alder·Priit Pärn·Yuri Norstein
Richard Williams’ Circus Drawings’ Silent Premiere
October 20th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Film and Television Festivals, Filmmakers, Short films
I must admit to being a bit surprised when I discovered that Richard Williams just premiered his long-dormant short, Circus Drawings on the opening night of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, XXX ed. (The 30th Pordenone Silent Film Festival) held October 1-8. Pordenone has long ranked as the world’s preeminent silent film event and Williams [...]
Tags: Circus Drawings (2010)·Le Giornate del Cinema Muto·Pordenone Silent Film Festival·Richard Williams
Max Fleischer Teaching Student Officers to Read Maps
September 22nd, 2010 · No Comments · American cinema, Animation history and criticism, Documentary films, Filmmakers
The above article from the December 1918 issue of Popular Science is about how a training film produced by “the Training Division of the War College, Mr. Max Fleischer, a former member of the Popular Science Monthly staff, devised for the General Staff the system that we illustrate.” During World War I Max Fleischer was [...]
Tags: Bray Studios·Max Fleischer·Popular Science Monthly·U.S. Army War College·World War I
Coming Events in Los Angeles: AniMazing Spotlight and A Fischinger Celebration
July 31st, 2010 · No Comments · Abstract films, Animation Festivals, Events, Filmmakers
Two forthcoming animation events in Los Angeles caught my eye. The first is the 2nd AniMazing Spotlight Animated Shorts Festival, which will be held Saturday and Sunday, September 4-5, at Woodbury University, Burbank, under the able direction of Tee Bosustow. (Tee is the son of UPA co-founder Stephen Bosustow; the festival website also hosts [...]
Tags: AniMazing Spotlight Animated Shorts Festival·Center for Visual Music·Elfriede Fischinger·Oskar Fischinger·Tee Bosustow
Ari Folman’s The Congress
March 19th, 2010 · No Comments · Animation and live action, Feature films, Filmmakers
Raz Greenberg, in a post on the Society for Animation Studies discussion group, pointed out the above Spanish-language clip from a Euronews report on Ari Folman’s new film, The Congress, which mixes animation and live-action. The movie is based on Stanislaw Lem sci-fi novel The Futurological Congress and is follow-up to Folman’s acclaimed animated documentary, [...]