Animation &Daily post 10 Feb 2006 08:16 am
Crafts
– Congratulations to Lisa Crafts on the success of her animated short film, The Flooded Playground, which just completed its run at the Slamdance Flm Festival at Suede in Park City, Utah. The film is a stunningly attractive piece combining drawn, digital and pixillated animation with photo-montage and sheer filmaking virtuoso. Done by hand and finished in photoshop and after-effects the film has a unique look typical of Lisa’s art.
It presents a dark, surreal world where a child is forced on the journey through the complexities of childhood. There’s a short clip featured on Lisa’s site and a review at AWN.
- Congratulations also to Don Hahn for his promotion to the interim head of Disney Feature Animation. He will supervise things until the Disney/Pixar merger is finalized and John Lasseter will move into that role. Don has been a prime mover there for years producing many of the studio’s recent animated successes from Beauty and The Beast to The Lion King to Lorenzo The Cat. Don also has an interesting book out: Animation Magic 2001, and The Lion King : A Giant Leap
-The most outrageous bit of news yesterday was the trade of sportscaster, Al Michaels, from ABC/ESPN to NBC/Universal for a package of golf programming through 2014 and exchange of the copyright to Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit to Disney. This reverts the rights of the Disney-developed cartoon character stolen under his nose by Charles Mintz (along with a number of his animators) in 1928.
Al Michaels has this in proper perspective when he said, “I’m going to be a trivia answer some day.” It is interesting to see animation discussed on the sports pages of our newspapers!
- Curious George opened today to reviews like this ** star comment by the NY Daily News: “‘Curious George’ has long been a bedtime staple, but this animated film version may be the first time his story puts parents to sleep.” Or a more positive one from The NY Times: “A Cartoon Monkey With No Aspirations to Cultural Commentary”.
I guess it’s a children’s film, so it doesn’t have to entertain the adults.
