Daily post &SpornFilms 07 Sep 2008 08:30 am
Out of Sight
Animators don’t always get the proper attention. Take these two examples I found this week:
Me
I found this article in Variety, this week; Tues. Sept. 2nd.
‘Man on Wire’ adds related shortJake Gyllenhaal narrates animated ‘Towers’
By BRIAN COCHRANE
“Man on Wire” is throwing out another line.
Beginning Friday, select screenings in L.A. and Gotham will be followed by animated short “The Man Who Walked Between the Towers,” based on Mordicai Gerstein’s Caldecott Award-winning children’s book.
The 2005 short is narrated by Jake Gyllenhaal and, like “Man on Wire,” centers on Philippe Petit’s 1974 wire walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
“The Man Who Walked Between the Towers” will screen after showings of “Man on Wire” at the Landmark Theater in Los Angeles and Landmark’s Sunshine Cinema in New York City.
Magnolia Pictures, distrib of “Man on Wire,” hopes the short will broaden the doc’s appeal to family auds. “Man on Wire” just topped $1.5 million at the box office, making it one of the top-grossing docs of the year to date.
It would have been nice for Weston Woods, who is distributing the film, to have told me about this. I’m pleased, obviously, that the films have been paired, but by being left in the dark I’m not very happy. Note that my name doesn’t appear in the article despite the fact that I made the film.center>
Bill Plympton
I found this picture in the Oscars magazine, Academy Report. The picture was taken for the Monday Nights with Oscar series they held back in June. John Canemaker hosted an event of WB cartoons.
Unfortunately, they cut Joe Kennedy (John’s companion) out of the picture
and mislabelled Bill Plympton as Joe.
They also make no attempt to say which one is which name.
on 07 Sep 2008 at 9:09 am 1.David Nethery said …
We (meaning us animator folk ) need better agents.
Jake Gyllenhaal’s agent made sure his name got in there .
This is typical . Until not too long ago IMDB listings for the animated features I worked on at Disney listed all the animators, clean-up artists, layout artists, background painters, etc. as “Other Crew” or “Misc” .
Animators on an animated film were “Other Crew” . But the voice actors who maybe did 4 hours of total work on the show are at the top of the list (not to disparage what voice actors bring to a movie at all. They deserve their recognition, too, but fair is fair … and there is no animated film without that anonymous bunch of “Other Crew” . )
That’s changed now on IMDB and the do have a category listing for Animation Crew.
But there’s a general attitude that tends to downplay the contribution of animation film makers. That you as the Director of “The Man Who Walked Between the Towers” were not even mentioned is absurd.
It does make me wonder if it has to do with PR and having an agent or PR person looking after your interests. But in this case it sounds like Weston Woods dropped the ball.
on 07 Sep 2008 at 9:32 am 2.Michael said …
Weston did, indeed, drop the ball. When I questioned them about my not being notified of the connection, they were all apologies but no real answer. Though, to be fair, my primary contact has been out recently with a broken arm. That’s no real excuse though.
Historically, all of Weston’s publicity material has tended to eliminate the directors’ names. (I was not included in most of Weston’s pub material for the Oscar nomination for Dr. DeSoto despite the fact that I did all the work to get it nominated.) I’ve often made sure it was in my contract that my name was always attached to the film, and I think I have that in the contract for this film. It’s a question of whether I want to cause a ruckus with a client or just tap knuckles.
on 07 Sep 2008 at 12:39 pm 3.Mark Mayerson said …
The feature is playing in a rep theatre in Toronto later in the month. I was planning on seeing it, so I’ll let you know if your film accompanies it.
If Weston Woods had any brains, they’d negotiate to include your film on the feature’s DVD release. You might want to suggest that and I hope that it would result in some income for you.
on 07 Sep 2008 at 12:41 pm 4.Michael said …
The feature is very interesting, particularly the last fifteen minutes. It suddenly turned my head around about Philippe Petit and my thoughts about him. Quite interesting. If there is any money made, I’ll get royalties.
on 07 Sep 2008 at 4:01 pm 5.Jenny said …
Thanks goodness I’m not insane or blind–I’ve only met Bill P. in passing(on the street in San Diego, actually!), but I just knew that was him. Tsk.
That aside-nice picture!
on 07 Sep 2008 at 9:01 pm 6.Fred Sparrman said …
Two observations:
In Variety, they didn’t mention the director of “Man on Wire” either.
In the Academy Report, they did make an “attempt to say which one is which name,” but they got it wrong. As the person on the far left, you’re pegged as being John Canemaker.
on 07 Sep 2008 at 9:28 pm 7.tom hachtman said …
As soon as I saw the review of ‘Man on Wire’ (in the NYT) I thought (not rocket science) they should show it with your film – CONGRATULATIONS.
I recall reading the entire review because I knew one of the people who helped Petit set up the wire between the Towers. When the reviewer finally did mention Petit’s assistants they were described as ‘two American goofballs’. The moral of my story: sometimes it is better not to be mentioned.