keyleedaud (REAL ESTATE)

The new issue of Flip is online and the lead article is a look back at Filmation by three artists who worked there: Tom Sito, Bronwen Barry and Tom Mazzocco. The piece highlights two paradoxes that are common within the animation industry. The first is that it's possible to work at a studio that has a comfortable environment and a friendly crew while turning out work that is, to put it charitably, of little value. Filmation is best remembered for shows like He-Man , She-ra and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids . While those series may produce a nostalgic glow for a generation of children, a dispassionate look at them shows them to be low budget formula cartoons. While artists would prefer to work on good projects, the truth is that a comfortable environment is perhaps as valuable as the quality of the finished work when the project takes up most of an artist's waking hours. The other paradox is that artists tend to be judged by the projects they work on, and that's a fal...

(There are spoilers below.) When I first watched Hayao Miyazaki's latest feature Ponyo , I thought it was another of Miyazaki's ecological fables. Based on Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke , it wouldn't be surprising to once again see Miyazaki dealing with humans' relationship to the environment. However, a second viewing and much thought has led me to the conclusion that the ecological elements are something of a MacGuffin, Hitchcock's term for an excuse to set the characters in motion when the director's real interest is somewhere else. Miyazaki's subject here is love, though not romantic love and certainly not sexual love. What the characters in this film are missing is devotional love. Just about every character in this film has been abandoned in one way or another. The nursing home that Sosuke's mother Lisa works at is next door to a school (or is it a pre-school?). In each case, the old and the young have been isolated from the world of adults....

Issue 88 of Alter Ego , a magazine devoted to comic book history, has a lengthy article on Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, an early comic book publisher whose company was taken over and eventually became DC comics. What's interesting from an animation standpoint was this page from the first issue of New Fun Comics published in 1935. The illustration is credited to Dick Loederer. When I saw this, I instantly recognized the character from The Sunshine Makers , a 1935 cartoon directed by Ted Eshbaugh that was released by Van Beuren. Here's a poor frame enlargement, but hopefully it makes the resemblance plain. Both images are from 1935, so it's not obvious which came first. While there is some information about Dick Loederer, it doesn't mention any animation experience. There is no mention of Loederer on Alberto Becattini's index of animators. Neither is there a mention of Loederer in Talking Animals and Other People , Shamus Culhane's autobiography which ...

Independent animator Bill Plympton will appear at The Royal Theatre (608 College St, 5 blocks west of Bathurst) on Friday, Aug. 14 to screen his latest feature Idiots and Angels . The screening is at 7 p.m. The film, without Plympton, will continue to screen through Aug. 20.

Dan Merisanu, proprietor of Labyrinth Books in Toronto, devotes part of his store space to exhibiting art of various kinds. His latest project is inviting people to contribute art inspired by Brad Bird's The Iron Giant , which was released 10 years ago this month. If you'd like to know more about this exhibit, or perhaps contribute, you can find out the details here . You can see sample artwork and follow the progress of the exhibit as it comes together here .

I'm posting this for Ken Walker, the technologist of the post-grad CGI program. Here are the details: Hey All, Three years have gone by so fast!!! It is time again to sell off all of our current workstations to make room for the new ones for the next 3 years. We are only selling the workstations not the monitors. We are using the Monitors for next year so we can have Dual monitors to work with for all machines in the lab. Note: These workstations have been very well cared for. They have been cleaned every 6 months. All the dust bunnies blown out. They have been the most reliable equipment we have used to date. Here is the config of the workstations we are selling: IBM model: 6217-pju IBM A-PRO series IntelliStation Nvidia Quadro FX 3450 video card - is open GL and Direct X compatible (works great with Maya and for playing Games) 4 gigbytes RAM 2 - Dual Core AMD Opteron model 280 @ 2.4 Ghz 80 Gbyte SATA Hard Drive - note the mother board is a server mother board and has RAID ...

I wrote about Eve , a 1943 pantomime graphic novel by Fleischer/Famous animator/director Myron Waldman here . It's going to be reprinted in The Comics Journal #299 with an introduction by cartoonist Mark Newgarden. The reprint will be reduced in size compared to the original, but it's great that this hard-to-find work will be in print once again. The Comics Journal #299 should be in comics shops on August 19 or you can order it here .

Sheridan student Andrew Murray interned this summer at Ireland's Cartoon Saloon. While in Ireland, Andrew saw Bugs Bunny on Broadway , where Warner Bros. cartoons are accompanied by a live orchestra. While this production is not new, Andrew's experiences while watching it caused him to think about the future of drawn animation. Here are his thoughts: I was in Dublin this weekend and saw Bugs Bunny on Broadway and I just wanted to share my experience regarding it. Because I was blown away by its reception. I wasnt sure what to expect but the show was sold out and litterally every age group was there. Where I was sitting, to my left there were a group of 90 year old women and my right, there was a family whose kids were in their 20s. Smaller kids were there and just adults in their 20s, 30s, 40s were out on dates and of course the single people like me. But what was amazing was how well received these shorts were. They played Baton Bunny , Feed the Kitty , kill da wabbit ( I...

(Thanks to Behram Khoshroo for pointing this out to me.)

Didier Ghez informs me that the 8th volume of Walt's People , a book series featuring interviews with people who worked with and were associated with Walt Disney, has now been published. Here's a list of the contents: Foreword: Paula Sigman-Lowery Dave Smith: Ruth Disney Beecher Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston: Les Clark Richard Hubler: Harry Tytle Milt Gray: James Bodrero Robin Allan: Theo Halladay about Sylvia Holland Robin Allan: Retta Scott Jim Korkis: Retta Davidson Floyd Norman : Retta Davidson Steve Hulett: Mark Kirkland about Moe Gollub Richard Hubler: Ben Sharpsteen David Tietyen: Lou Debney David Tietyen: Jim Macdonald David Tietyen: Charles Wolcott Richard Hubler: Bill Cottrell Richard Hubler: Herb Ryman Richard Hubler: Donn Tatum Richard Hubler: Card Walker Richard Hubler: Bob Sherman Richard Hubler: Dolores Voght Richard Hubler: Tommie Wilck Richard Hubler: Welton Becket John G. West: Bill Anderson Richard Hubler: Robert Stevenson Christopher Finch and Linda Rosenk...

I use Google Alerts to see if this blog is referenced elsewhere. Today, I received an email pointing to this link . It appears to be a government of Ontario site, though on the web you can't really be sure. One thing is for sure, whoever or whatever referenced my original did an amazingly poor job. It looks like automatic translation software has taken the original into some other language and then re-translated it back to English. Here's my original paragraph: The Globe and Mail has an interesting article about the state of the videogame business in Canada, including a detailed look at the Ontario government's actions to bring a game publisher to Toronto. And here's the government of Ontario version: The Globe and Mail has an captivating article here the delineate of the videogame guinea-pig in Canada, including a unconditional look at the Ontario government’s actions to in a mangle publisher to Toronto. For your enjoyment, here's another comparison. The or...

The Globe and Mail has an interesting article about the state of the videogame business in Canada, including a detailed look at the Ontario government's actions to bring a game publisher to Toronto. The Vancouver video game business began organically. Distinctive Software Inc. was founded in the early 1980s and scored success, and in 1991 was bought by Electronic Arts. From this foundation, about 60 companies – employing 6,000 or so people – now call the city home, according to numbers from an industry association report published in March. Video games aren't a particularly big business, with about $1.7-billion in annual revenue in Canada, a fraction of what Royal Bank of Canada or Research In Motion Ltd. generate. However, the industry captures the imagination of politicians, who see high-paid, high-tech jobs. Ontario has been specifically inspired by the “creative cities” thesis of Richard Florida, a University of Toronto professor and consultant to Queen's Park. The su...