Play this video at 11:59:54 PM
and hope everyone has a happy new year!!!!!!!!
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Happy New Year!!!!
Play this video at 11:57:20 PM
Play this video at 11:59:54 PM
and hope everyone has a happy new year!!!!!!!!
Play this video at 11:59:54 PM
and hope everyone has a happy new year!!!!!!!!
RIP Christine Cavanaugh (1963-2014)
I just heard yesterday that veteran nineties voice actress Christine Cavanaugh passed away over a week ago on December 22. It's so sad because I really loved her work. She was born in Utah and moved to California after college to pursue her acting career. Probably best known as the voice of Chuckie from Rugrats, Babe the Pig from Babe and Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory, she also worked on Darkwing Duck, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Critic, Cave Kids, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, 101 Dalmatians: The Series and others. She retired in 2001 at age 38 to be closer to her family and was never heard from again until now. A long and prolific voice career, but 51? Way too early to go. She did not have any children and divorced her husband whom she met in college at University of Hawaii. Her friends are paying their respects including Tara Strong, Candi Milo, Bill Farmer and EG Daily. Tad Stones, producer of Darkwing Duck, said this about Ms. Cavanaugh:
Christine Cavanaugh was the heart of my most popular series. Without Gosalyn, Darkwing Duck would not have sold. And without Chrissy, Gosalyn wouldn't have had the balance of sweet and mischievous that made her such a memorable character.
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Leonard Maltin Co-Hosts TCM's Treasures from the Disney Vault
Tonight, Turner Classic Movies is pleased to present a new recurring on-air showcase series of Treasures from the Disney Vault. Several times a year, hosted by Ben Mankiewicz and Leonard Maltin, TCM will introduce a wide array of Disney classics for the entire family to enjoy, including animated shorts, feature films, live-action movies, documentaries, nature films and made-for-television movies.
The opening evening will feature three classic Silly Symphonies shorts Santa's Workshop (1932), On Ice (1935) and Chip An' Dale (1947); followed by the first episode of Walt Disney's long-running weekly TV series introduced by Ben and Disney Imagineer Gary Landrum, The Disneyland Story (1954). The night will also include the wonderful behind-the-scenes film that combined a live-action tour of the Walt Disney Studios facility with animated shorts featuring Robert Benchley, The Reluctant Dragon (1941); a personal favorite of mine, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1955); the Oscar-winning True Life Adventure The Vanishing Prairie (1954); another film I like, Third Man on the Mountain (1959) starring Michael Rennie, James MacArthur, Janet Munro, and Herbert Lom; and Perilous Assignment, an hour long behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of the movie on location in Switzerland.
The fun begins at 8 pm. There will be more to come in the new year, including live-action Disney features Treasure Island (1950), Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) and Pollyanna (1960); animated films The Three Caballeros (1944) and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949); classic nature documentaries The Living Desert (1953) and The African Lion (1955); made-for-television classics the Davy Crockett series; special episodes from Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color; documentaries about the studio, Walt & El Grupo (2009) and Waking Sleeping Beauty (2010); and 1932 Oscar-winning animated short Flowers and Trees.
The opening evening will feature three classic Silly Symphonies shorts Santa's Workshop (1932), On Ice (1935) and Chip An' Dale (1947); followed by the first episode of Walt Disney's long-running weekly TV series introduced by Ben and Disney Imagineer Gary Landrum, The Disneyland Story (1954). The night will also include the wonderful behind-the-scenes film that combined a live-action tour of the Walt Disney Studios facility with animated shorts featuring Robert Benchley, The Reluctant Dragon (1941); a personal favorite of mine, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1955); the Oscar-winning True Life Adventure The Vanishing Prairie (1954); another film I like, Third Man on the Mountain (1959) starring Michael Rennie, James MacArthur, Janet Munro, and Herbert Lom; and Perilous Assignment, an hour long behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of the movie on location in Switzerland.
The fun begins at 8 pm. There will be more to come in the new year, including live-action Disney features Treasure Island (1950), Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) and Pollyanna (1960); animated films The Three Caballeros (1944) and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949); classic nature documentaries The Living Desert (1953) and The African Lion (1955); made-for-television classics the Davy Crockett series; special episodes from Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color; documentaries about the studio, Walt & El Grupo (2009) and Waking Sleeping Beauty (2010); and 1932 Oscar-winning animated short Flowers and Trees.
Sunday, December 14, 2014
RIP, Martha Sigall (1917-2014)
Martha Goldman Sigall was born on April 17, 1917 in New York. She spent much of her life in the animation business mainly working in the ink and paint department and other associated activities at various studios, eventually compiling over fifty years in the Hollywood industry.
Moving to California in 1926 where by chance living around the corner from Leon Schlesinger's Pacific Title and Art company, she ran errands for the staff at around the age of 12. On July 13, 1936, she became a painter at Leon Schlesinger Productions (Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies), starting out at $12.75 a week, then later an inker. After leaving Schlesinger, she worked at Graphic Films (a small Hollywood animation house which served as a precursor to UPA) and MGM studios in the Cartoon Department unit as an assistant in the camera room, as well as free-lanced on numerous projects from The Pink Panther to Garfield and ink and paint artist on Animalympics and Snoopy: The Musical.
She has received a Golden Award from the Animation Guild in 1989 and the June Foray Award from ASIFA-Hollywood at the Annies in 2004, and she was a guest of honor at the San Diego Comic Con in 2005. Martha has contributed to commentary on several Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVDs and documentaries reminiscing her memories at Termite Terrace.
Martha had every animation history book and a private collection of every Warner Bros. cartoon on VHS. Sigall not only worked with, and knew, many of the greats in the industry: Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, Mike Maltese, Frank Tashlin, Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, Leon Schlesinger, Irv Spence, and so on, but was personal friends with all of them, their wives, and their families. She loved talking about stories of how fun animation was and her days at Schlesinger's studio (she had co-edited the in-house newsletter in the early 40s!) and her later jobs during the golden age, that she wrote an autobiography/memoir, Living Life Inside the Lines: Tales from the Golden Age of Animation (I highly recommend her book for those who love those old, black-and-white cartoons). In it, she reveals Leon Schlesinger was a genuinely nice man with a sense of humor and talks about Mel Blanc and many other people, some of whom, like assistant animator Harold Soldinger, no stories had ever been written. She has had wild experiences working and laughing with the Looney Tunes crew, partying with them on bowling and baseball nights and weekend scavenger hunts, and performing in the company's theatrical troupe.
She loved listening to light classical music, reading WatchWorks comics, and is a fan of Netherlands artist Edo Draaijer. She spent her final years of retirement in Culver City and was friends with many people in the animation community, such as Jerry Beck, Keith Scott, Stan Freberg, June Foray, Art Leonardi, Willie Ito, Dan Haskett, Nancy Beiman, Floyd Norman, Ken Duncan, Bob Kurtz, Tom Warburton, Jenny Lerew, Steve Hulett, Tom Sito, Mike Peraza, and Tom Ruegger.
Martha was more than an ink and paint girl. She was a bright link to animation's past. Someone who was there near the beginning. She cared for the work, she cared for her fans, she cared for the history that she embodied. She was a great person and will be truly missed. Now she is off to heaven to join her husband Sol and the rest of the Schlesinger staff.
Rest in Peace and thanks, Martha.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Animation Basics: Breaking Down the Magic (Part 2 - Character)
Five days ago, I went back to the Walt Disney Family Museum for the second part of the Animation Basics seminar series. The second class was about design and character development, the use of maquettes, and casting and voiceover for the role. The guest speakers were Ricky Nierva, production designer; Matt Nolte, an animator; Jerome Ranft, character sculptor; Kevin Reher, casting director/feature producer; and Natalie Lyon, casting manager.
Ricky Nierva describes his role as Pixar production designer as the person in charge of the overall look of the film and makes sure it fits the director's vision. When he graduated from CalArts, he worked in the clean-up department for The Lion King. After working as a storyboard artist for Dexter's Laboratory at Hanna-Barbera, he left with Ralph Eggleston to Pixar where he became a storyboard artist on Toy Story 2, lead character designer on Monsters Inc, character art director on Finding Nemo, and production designer of Up and Monsters University. Ricky showed us some early drawings of Sulley to his final look and how the character transformed; in the early stages, some of the drawings had Sulley skinny with tentacles for legs and was originally a terrible scarer. He presented a quote by Steve Jobs that helps him with his work, "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." In the first seminar from an earlier post, Ronnie explained storyboarding is RE-storyboarding. Ricky explains designing is similar, as in designing is RE-designing. He showed a page from Illusion of Life (an animation book by veteran Disney animators, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, that both he and I highly recommend) drawings of realistic snakes and how they evolved to become Kaa from The Jungle Book. Part of working as a designer is doing a lot of research. For example, he and several artists visited a university ichthyology research center to study what a fish looks like, how they move and what their personalities are like. He later showed many beautiful drawings he did for Finding Nemo; thousands of drawings were made during production, since "everybody has a million bad drawings in them and the only way to make a good drawing is to draw them out." However, Ricky taught that you are your worst critic and it is best to work with a team. He recounted one drawing of Bruce the shark he thought was terrible and wanted to throw it in the garbage, but some other artist insisted the drawing was great and wanted him to hold onto it. When designing, Ricky looks for simplicity. When designing Carl, Ricky shaped his head like a square because a square represents immobility and someone stuck in his ways, which described Carl himself, and was influenced by Spencer Tracy. For Russell, he drew a circle for his head because a circle represents someone who is dynamic. Ricky showed an animation test and many drawings of Carl and how he evolved to his final design, while trying to see how he can be improved; there were these drawings of Carl doing various things, such as balancing spoons on his face and just trying to find his personality. Ricky also told us how he received an amazing photo of a man who looks just like Carl!!
He also was told by a person who watched Finding Nemo that Dory looks like Ellen DeGeneres. Although she voiced her, Ricky didn't think Dory looked anything like her, but he was really glad that Dory's character portrays Ellen's characteristics. Lastly, Ricky taught us a few things about art and design: find character and essence, not a beautiful drawing; explore; inspiration is everywhere; and draw like a child.
Matt Nolte has been working at Pixar for ten years. When he graduated from CalArts, he saw Toy Story and was entranced by the animation and his desire to work at Pixar, but also scared at having to work with computers. He is a big fan of Bill Peet, who worked in the story deparment at Disney in the forties and fifties and later wrote and illustrated his own books. Matt spent the the second half of his discussion describing his job as character art director and work on Brave. He works drawing the characters, finding their personalities, relationships with other characters, and how they fit into each scene. He likes to listen to music while drawing fit to the assignment and noted numerous times to working closely with production designer Steve Pilcher while working on Brave, as well as director Brenda Chapman. Matt showed us a drawing of Merida giving Elinor the cake and how she slowly transformed into a bear. However, the transformation was too cartoony and silly, he was told to look up the works of animator Jiri Trnka (I plan to post something about him in the future) for inspiration, which shows a lot of power to make the movie like a dark fairy tale. When designing Elinor as a bear, Matt looked up many different species of bears, particularly polar bears. Matt patterned a polar bear's mannerisms to Elinor as a bear because Elinor is proper and elegant (she hasn't changed on the inside) and polar bears are regal. Matt explained it is a long process drawing up the characters because you usually don't find out who the character is until the end. When Brave was complete, he related to Merida and her horse Angus to him and his mountain bike. He has three children and lots of pets.
Jerome Ranft grew up in Whittier and loved going to Disneyland. After studying sculpturing, his first job was a sculptor on The Nightmare Before Christmas and his first job at Pixar was a freelance sculptor for A Bug's Life. Some years later, Pete Docter called him at Las Vegas to work on Monsters Inc and worked on many more films later. Jerome often builds his sculptures out of steel and his greatest influence is sculptor Herbert Haseltine. He also works with Imagineering when statues of Pixar characters are being built for amusement parks, consulting with the employees on keeping the character's essence.
Kevin Reher and Natalie Lyon, Pixar casting directors who have been working together for several years, explained the process of casting actors for animated movies. Once a script has been approved, a team of story artists create drawings of the characters and the casting director tries to think actors who would be a perfect candidate to do the voice. Casting directors are usually provided a voice sample of an employee giving the casting director an idea of what the character should sound like. Sometimes, it isn't temporary. Examples include Edna (Brad Bird), Squishy (Peter Sohn), Eve (Elissa Knight), Crush (Andrew Stanton), Roz and Dug (both Bob Peterson), Linguini (Lou Romano), and Heimlich (Joe Ranft). When finding a possible actor to hire, they have a character sketch with audio clippings of the actor to see if the actor is a good choice. A sketch of Lord Macintosh, MacGuffin and Dingwall were attached to audio clips from movies and interviews of their respective actors Craig Ferguson, Kevin McKidd and Robbie Coltrane (one line was from Hagrid of the Harry Potter films). Kevin and Natalie recommended tips on finding actors: no Saturday morning cartoon voices (too cartoony, exageratted); funny is money (find actors who bring comedy to the character); and a casting director needs to find animate-able voices, a voice that can help the artists flesh out the character. Casting directors want to find people who can evoke a character and animators study the voice and personality. They also recommended to not hold auditions or cast actors too late (originally Pixar tried to get Fran Drescher to voice Rosie the spider from A Bug's Life) or too early (in many of their past movies, there were too many actors to choose on to voice one character). Although Kevin and Natalie prefer having the actors stick to the script, they do sometimes allow opportunities for them to improvise, like Billy Crystal for example ("I'm giving you gold here"). They showed a clip of Tom Hanks on Bravo talking about his experience voicing on Toy Story, which he explained he would be sitting in a booth running through his lines or saying a single line in different ways in front of the casting director and several people who looked like "East German Communist judges." Lastly, they showed some behind-the-scenes clips of actors from Monsters University performing their lines.
During the Q&A, there was one person who talked about how much she loved and really connected to the movie Brave (this is because they had such a strong director) and another person talked about John Ratzenberger's roles (who is their good luck charm and has voiced in all of the Pixar films). At the end, I got to meet all five speakers and sign my sketchbook; I was able to talk to Jerome about his relationship with his brother Joe. The remaining three seminars are all happening in the spring back-to-back with the animation seminar at the end of February, the music seminar in March, and the lighting seminar in April. Purchase your ticket at www.waltdisney.org
Ricky Nierva describes his role as Pixar production designer as the person in charge of the overall look of the film and makes sure it fits the director's vision. When he graduated from CalArts, he worked in the clean-up department for The Lion King. After working as a storyboard artist for Dexter's Laboratory at Hanna-Barbera, he left with Ralph Eggleston to Pixar where he became a storyboard artist on Toy Story 2, lead character designer on Monsters Inc, character art director on Finding Nemo, and production designer of Up and Monsters University. Ricky showed us some early drawings of Sulley to his final look and how the character transformed; in the early stages, some of the drawings had Sulley skinny with tentacles for legs and was originally a terrible scarer. He presented a quote by Steve Jobs that helps him with his work, "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." In the first seminar from an earlier post, Ronnie explained storyboarding is RE-storyboarding. Ricky explains designing is similar, as in designing is RE-designing. He showed a page from Illusion of Life (an animation book by veteran Disney animators, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, that both he and I highly recommend) drawings of realistic snakes and how they evolved to become Kaa from The Jungle Book. Part of working as a designer is doing a lot of research. For example, he and several artists visited a university ichthyology research center to study what a fish looks like, how they move and what their personalities are like. He later showed many beautiful drawings he did for Finding Nemo; thousands of drawings were made during production, since "everybody has a million bad drawings in them and the only way to make a good drawing is to draw them out." However, Ricky taught that you are your worst critic and it is best to work with a team. He recounted one drawing of Bruce the shark he thought was terrible and wanted to throw it in the garbage, but some other artist insisted the drawing was great and wanted him to hold onto it. When designing, Ricky looks for simplicity. When designing Carl, Ricky shaped his head like a square because a square represents immobility and someone stuck in his ways, which described Carl himself, and was influenced by Spencer Tracy. For Russell, he drew a circle for his head because a circle represents someone who is dynamic. Ricky showed an animation test and many drawings of Carl and how he evolved to his final design, while trying to see how he can be improved; there were these drawings of Carl doing various things, such as balancing spoons on his face and just trying to find his personality. Ricky also told us how he received an amazing photo of a man who looks just like Carl!!
He also was told by a person who watched Finding Nemo that Dory looks like Ellen DeGeneres. Although she voiced her, Ricky didn't think Dory looked anything like her, but he was really glad that Dory's character portrays Ellen's characteristics. Lastly, Ricky taught us a few things about art and design: find character and essence, not a beautiful drawing; explore; inspiration is everywhere; and draw like a child.
Matt Nolte has been working at Pixar for ten years. When he graduated from CalArts, he saw Toy Story and was entranced by the animation and his desire to work at Pixar, but also scared at having to work with computers. He is a big fan of Bill Peet, who worked in the story deparment at Disney in the forties and fifties and later wrote and illustrated his own books. Matt spent the the second half of his discussion describing his job as character art director and work on Brave. He works drawing the characters, finding their personalities, relationships with other characters, and how they fit into each scene. He likes to listen to music while drawing fit to the assignment and noted numerous times to working closely with production designer Steve Pilcher while working on Brave, as well as director Brenda Chapman. Matt showed us a drawing of Merida giving Elinor the cake and how she slowly transformed into a bear. However, the transformation was too cartoony and silly, he was told to look up the works of animator Jiri Trnka (I plan to post something about him in the future) for inspiration, which shows a lot of power to make the movie like a dark fairy tale. When designing Elinor as a bear, Matt looked up many different species of bears, particularly polar bears. Matt patterned a polar bear's mannerisms to Elinor as a bear because Elinor is proper and elegant (she hasn't changed on the inside) and polar bears are regal. Matt explained it is a long process drawing up the characters because you usually don't find out who the character is until the end. When Brave was complete, he related to Merida and her horse Angus to him and his mountain bike. He has three children and lots of pets.
Jerome Ranft grew up in Whittier and loved going to Disneyland. After studying sculpturing, his first job was a sculptor on The Nightmare Before Christmas and his first job at Pixar was a freelance sculptor for A Bug's Life. Some years later, Pete Docter called him at Las Vegas to work on Monsters Inc and worked on many more films later. Jerome often builds his sculptures out of steel and his greatest influence is sculptor Herbert Haseltine. He also works with Imagineering when statues of Pixar characters are being built for amusement parks, consulting with the employees on keeping the character's essence.
Kevin Reher and Natalie Lyon, Pixar casting directors who have been working together for several years, explained the process of casting actors for animated movies. Once a script has been approved, a team of story artists create drawings of the characters and the casting director tries to think actors who would be a perfect candidate to do the voice. Casting directors are usually provided a voice sample of an employee giving the casting director an idea of what the character should sound like. Sometimes, it isn't temporary. Examples include Edna (Brad Bird), Squishy (Peter Sohn), Eve (Elissa Knight), Crush (Andrew Stanton), Roz and Dug (both Bob Peterson), Linguini (Lou Romano), and Heimlich (Joe Ranft). When finding a possible actor to hire, they have a character sketch with audio clippings of the actor to see if the actor is a good choice. A sketch of Lord Macintosh, MacGuffin and Dingwall were attached to audio clips from movies and interviews of their respective actors Craig Ferguson, Kevin McKidd and Robbie Coltrane (one line was from Hagrid of the Harry Potter films). Kevin and Natalie recommended tips on finding actors: no Saturday morning cartoon voices (too cartoony, exageratted); funny is money (find actors who bring comedy to the character); and a casting director needs to find animate-able voices, a voice that can help the artists flesh out the character. Casting directors want to find people who can evoke a character and animators study the voice and personality. They also recommended to not hold auditions or cast actors too late (originally Pixar tried to get Fran Drescher to voice Rosie the spider from A Bug's Life) or too early (in many of their past movies, there were too many actors to choose on to voice one character). Although Kevin and Natalie prefer having the actors stick to the script, they do sometimes allow opportunities for them to improvise, like Billy Crystal for example ("I'm giving you gold here"). They showed a clip of Tom Hanks on Bravo talking about his experience voicing on Toy Story, which he explained he would be sitting in a booth running through his lines or saying a single line in different ways in front of the casting director and several people who looked like "East German Communist judges." Lastly, they showed some behind-the-scenes clips of actors from Monsters University performing their lines.
During the Q&A, there was one person who talked about how much she loved and really connected to the movie Brave (this is because they had such a strong director) and another person talked about John Ratzenberger's roles (who is their good luck charm and has voiced in all of the Pixar films). At the end, I got to meet all five speakers and sign my sketchbook; I was able to talk to Jerome about his relationship with his brother Joe. The remaining three seminars are all happening in the spring back-to-back with the animation seminar at the end of February, the music seminar in March, and the lighting seminar in April. Purchase your ticket at www.waltdisney.org
Friday, December 5, 2014
It all started with a mouse! Happy Birthday, Walt!!
Walt Disney (1901-1966) is without a doubt one of the most influential and significant figures of the twentieth century. What child doesn't grow up watching Disney films?
Walt Disney is an American hero - the creator of Mickey Mouse - and a man who has made a lasting impact on the art of the animated film. His success story is like none other: a cartoonist from Kansas City who went bankrupt on his first movie venture but later became the creative genius who produced unmatched works of animation.
I have been wanting to do a post on him for a long time, which is why I decided to do that today because it is Walt Disney's 113th birthday.
It would be unthinkable to do this blog and not once mention him. He is the reason why people got interested in animation in the twentieth century and why we still love it today. His animation did more than change it into an art form, he forever changed the entertainment world and the lives of many people, including mine.
To celebrate his legacy, here are some pictures to enjoy. I had so many that it was hard to only pick a few.
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| This photo is © LIFE |
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| This photo is © LIFE |
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| This photo is © LIFE |
Monday, December 1, 2014
Toy Story Christmas Special Airs Tomorrow on ABC @ 8pm
Mark your calendars for Tuesday December 2nd, tomorrow, because ABC will premiere the half-hour Pixar special, Toy Story That Time Forgot. Starring Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Kristen Schaal, Wallace Shawn, Timothy Dalton, Don Rickles, Joan Cusack and introducing Kevin McKidd and Emma Hudak, the holiday special will be directed by Steve Purcell, produced by Galyn Susman, and composed by Michael Giacchino. Taking place after Christmas, Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the rest of the gang find themselves lost in an uncharted territory when the coolest set of action figures ever turn out to be dangerously delusional. It is up to Trixie to help the toys in hopes of returning to Bonnie's room.
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Animation Basics: Breaking Down the Magic (Part 1 - Story)
Last week, I went to the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco for a five-part series seminar about the basics of animation. The first class was about story presented by Ronnie del Carmen, an animation story artist and designer who first became known as a director for a Warner Bros animated television show, Freakazoid.
He explained the story process is often moody, temperamental and messy. This is partly because every writer writes his or her own story differently. You can look it up online and see charts and graphs or read books about the process of writing stories, but it does not define what exactly goes on into making one.
"Stories create experiences." Ronnie told us that when writing stories, our lives work themselves into the stories we work in. Even the littlest events that happen in our lives are somehow implanted or symbolized in the plot because they are the most important stories we tell. Authors and directors do this many times in their books and movies. We did a fun exercise where we told our partner next to us a story of a time the person got lost.
In animated movies, stories are told through storyboards, which were invented by Walt Disney. Walt said, "In our studio, we don't write our movies. We draw them." Story is probably one of, if not the, most important aspects in movies. Animated movies may have a great cast and animation, but, if it does not have a good story, it's not going to be a good movie. If the audience does not feel connected to the story or relate to the characters, they won't understand the movie and it will be just plain boring.
There is no particular path on how to become a story artist. We all come from different backgrounds; we each have our own story. So, Ronnie told us his story:
Ronnie del Carmen is a Pixar storyboard artist. He was born on December 31, 1959 in a small town in the Republic of the Philippines with his parents and two brothers and sister. He was not doing regular things boys do like playing sports; he was constantly drawing (even on the walls) and reading comic books at an early age. He loved watching Disney films (especially Fantasia and Bambi) and cartoons (especially Donald Duck), sci-fi and monster movies, Alfred Hitchcock, and reading Carl Banks comics; he was influenced by Disney animator Ollie Johnston and artist Mary Blair. He was always sick due to the bad weather, but he loved watching the rain at the window by his bed, which he incorporated into a short animatic film he showed us. When he was a child, his father, who was praised for his handwriting, despised Ronnie's. With a bachelor's degree in advertising from the University of Santo Tomas, he came to America almost 30 years old to pursue his dream to work in movies. He started out as a storyboard artist on Widget, the World Watcher and Where's Waldo?. When he was a kid, he always wished he would someday work on Batman. In 1992, his wish came true when he was hired as a storyboard artist for Batman: The Animated Series and was involved in storyboard for Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. He later moved to DreamWorks where he was story supervisor for The Road to El Dorado (with Jeff Snow) and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, which he won the 2003 Annie Award for Outstanding Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production, and worked on The Prince of Egypt, as well as Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. He would eventually land at Pixar where he became story supervisor of Finding Nemo, my favorite animated film from 2003 (but Ronnie honestly doesn't remember most of the movie), and Up, which became the second animated film to be nominated for Oscar for Best Picture, and worked on story for Ratatouille and WALL-E, in addition to Brave and Monsters University. He is currently serving as co-director for Pixar's next film Inside Out set to premiere on June 19, 2015.
His brothers are in the animation business as well. Louie works for DreamWorks as a storyboard artist for theatrical films and Rick works for Fox Animation as a storyboard artist on Family Guy.
Ronnie showed us how Pixar comes up with their story by showing "behind the scenes" of Up and how it came to be. It started with Pete Docter talking to Ronnie about the idea of how sometimes people wish to get away from their stresses in their everyday lives and the main character Carl, who was voiced by Ed Asner, came from a sketch of an elderly man in Pete's sketchbook he drew at CalArts. During auditions for the character Russell, Hunter Nagai came and brought his younger brother Jordan (who wasn't auditioning) with him, but Pete Docter and the casting directors loved watching Jordan just being himself that he was chosen. Dug, my favorite character from the movie, came from Bob Peterson, who voiced him, when he was a camp counselor and a kid came up to him and told him that although he just met him, he instantly likes him. The filmmakers wanted a character like that and a dog was the perfect choice. Director Pete Docter was the tallest Pixar employee, so that's how he was chosen to do the voice of the bird Kevin. When South America was chosen for the setting of the movie, Pete, Ronnie, Bob and other crew members travelled there and took pictures to get an idea of the movie's backgrounds and layouts for the artists.
For every sequence of the movie and eventually the complete movie, there would be a company screening of reels, featuring animatics of storyboards. Then, the Brain Trust would hold note sessions, which usually consist of John Lasseter, the directors, the producers, the writers, the story supervisor, and many others, because "you can be wrong." Ronnie taught how an artist shouldn't be too attached to their ideas because there needs to be room for new and better ideas. He presented an inspiring excerpt of author/educator Ken Robinson explaining a quote Ronnie loves, "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original."
During that time, Ronnie was visiting his dad who was growing old and showed him clips of the movie on his computer. Ronnie's dad passed away before he saw the finished film, but he thought he showed him enough of the movie in storyboard that he knew what the movie was about and he seemed to love it. Ronnie even told him that all of Ellie's handwriting was his due to his dad not liking his penmanship.
During the Q&A, he talked about how he was re-storyboarding the sequence of Carl and Ellie's married life during production. Original drawings showed them before they were married, such as when they were in high school. However, the movie had to be so many minutes that it had to be edited and re-boarded to only show scenes that were story-relevant.
At the end of the seminar, Ronnie signed my ticket and I am planning to attend the second seminar on character development in December. You can purchase your ticket at:
www.waltdisney.org
Here are sites that feature Ronnie's work:
Old website: www.ronniedelcarmen.com
Blog: www.ronniedelcarmen.blogspot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/paperbiscuit
Tumblr: www.ronniedelcarmen.tumblr.com
He explained the story process is often moody, temperamental and messy. This is partly because every writer writes his or her own story differently. You can look it up online and see charts and graphs or read books about the process of writing stories, but it does not define what exactly goes on into making one.
"Stories create experiences." Ronnie told us that when writing stories, our lives work themselves into the stories we work in. Even the littlest events that happen in our lives are somehow implanted or symbolized in the plot because they are the most important stories we tell. Authors and directors do this many times in their books and movies. We did a fun exercise where we told our partner next to us a story of a time the person got lost.
In animated movies, stories are told through storyboards, which were invented by Walt Disney. Walt said, "In our studio, we don't write our movies. We draw them." Story is probably one of, if not the, most important aspects in movies. Animated movies may have a great cast and animation, but, if it does not have a good story, it's not going to be a good movie. If the audience does not feel connected to the story or relate to the characters, they won't understand the movie and it will be just plain boring.
There is no particular path on how to become a story artist. We all come from different backgrounds; we each have our own story. So, Ronnie told us his story:
Ronnie del Carmen is a Pixar storyboard artist. He was born on December 31, 1959 in a small town in the Republic of the Philippines with his parents and two brothers and sister. He was not doing regular things boys do like playing sports; he was constantly drawing (even on the walls) and reading comic books at an early age. He loved watching Disney films (especially Fantasia and Bambi) and cartoons (especially Donald Duck), sci-fi and monster movies, Alfred Hitchcock, and reading Carl Banks comics; he was influenced by Disney animator Ollie Johnston and artist Mary Blair. He was always sick due to the bad weather, but he loved watching the rain at the window by his bed, which he incorporated into a short animatic film he showed us. When he was a child, his father, who was praised for his handwriting, despised Ronnie's. With a bachelor's degree in advertising from the University of Santo Tomas, he came to America almost 30 years old to pursue his dream to work in movies. He started out as a storyboard artist on Widget, the World Watcher and Where's Waldo?. When he was a kid, he always wished he would someday work on Batman. In 1992, his wish came true when he was hired as a storyboard artist for Batman: The Animated Series and was involved in storyboard for Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker. He later moved to DreamWorks where he was story supervisor for The Road to El Dorado (with Jeff Snow) and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, which he won the 2003 Annie Award for Outstanding Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production, and worked on The Prince of Egypt, as well as Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. He would eventually land at Pixar where he became story supervisor of Finding Nemo, my favorite animated film from 2003 (but Ronnie honestly doesn't remember most of the movie), and Up, which became the second animated film to be nominated for Oscar for Best Picture, and worked on story for Ratatouille and WALL-E, in addition to Brave and Monsters University. He is currently serving as co-director for Pixar's next film Inside Out set to premiere on June 19, 2015.
His brothers are in the animation business as well. Louie works for DreamWorks as a storyboard artist for theatrical films and Rick works for Fox Animation as a storyboard artist on Family Guy.
Ronnie showed us how Pixar comes up with their story by showing "behind the scenes" of Up and how it came to be. It started with Pete Docter talking to Ronnie about the idea of how sometimes people wish to get away from their stresses in their everyday lives and the main character Carl, who was voiced by Ed Asner, came from a sketch of an elderly man in Pete's sketchbook he drew at CalArts. During auditions for the character Russell, Hunter Nagai came and brought his younger brother Jordan (who wasn't auditioning) with him, but Pete Docter and the casting directors loved watching Jordan just being himself that he was chosen. Dug, my favorite character from the movie, came from Bob Peterson, who voiced him, when he was a camp counselor and a kid came up to him and told him that although he just met him, he instantly likes him. The filmmakers wanted a character like that and a dog was the perfect choice. Director Pete Docter was the tallest Pixar employee, so that's how he was chosen to do the voice of the bird Kevin. When South America was chosen for the setting of the movie, Pete, Ronnie, Bob and other crew members travelled there and took pictures to get an idea of the movie's backgrounds and layouts for the artists.
For every sequence of the movie and eventually the complete movie, there would be a company screening of reels, featuring animatics of storyboards. Then, the Brain Trust would hold note sessions, which usually consist of John Lasseter, the directors, the producers, the writers, the story supervisor, and many others, because "you can be wrong." Ronnie taught how an artist shouldn't be too attached to their ideas because there needs to be room for new and better ideas. He presented an inspiring excerpt of author/educator Ken Robinson explaining a quote Ronnie loves, "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original."
During that time, Ronnie was visiting his dad who was growing old and showed him clips of the movie on his computer. Ronnie's dad passed away before he saw the finished film, but he thought he showed him enough of the movie in storyboard that he knew what the movie was about and he seemed to love it. Ronnie even told him that all of Ellie's handwriting was his due to his dad not liking his penmanship.
During the Q&A, he talked about how he was re-storyboarding the sequence of Carl and Ellie's married life during production. Original drawings showed them before they were married, such as when they were in high school. However, the movie had to be so many minutes that it had to be edited and re-boarded to only show scenes that were story-relevant.
At the end of the seminar, Ronnie signed my ticket and I am planning to attend the second seminar on character development in December. You can purchase your ticket at:
www.waltdisney.org
Here are sites that feature Ronnie's work:
Old website: www.ronniedelcarmen.com
Blog: www.ronniedelcarmen.blogspot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/paperbiscuit
Tumblr: www.ronniedelcarmen.tumblr.com
Monday, October 20, 2014
Disney XD Airs Kirby Buckets Tonight at 8pm
The animation is provided by Freddy Cristy (Animation Character Designs and Supervision) of Titmouse, Inc. founded by Chris Prynoski. Among some of Kirby's characters are Tri-Butt, Dr. Gut-Punch, Macho Taco, Octo-Stache, Scrunch Face and Dawnzilla.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
SF @ SF
Today, I attended the Satire Fest, a conference where cartoonists, artists and writers mingle and special guests host seminars to discuss their work and methods on creativity, at the Marines' Memorial Theatre in San Francisco. I would have taken pictures, but the camera on my iPad has terrible quality. I stayed for an event presented by Lalo Alcaraz and David Silverman.
Lalo Alcaraz is an award-winning artist, cartoonist, writer, and the creator of La Cucaracha, the first nationally-syndicated, politically-themed Latino daily comic strip. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the LA Times, Variety, Rolling Stone Magazine, LA Weekly and many international publications. He has also been featured on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, Univision, Telemundo, PBS and other media. Lalo is currently a faculty member at Otis College of Art and Design, teaching illustration and communication arts. He has written books and co-hosts an LA satirical radio talk show.
Lalo first talked about La Cucaracha. Although it has been one of the most controversial in the history of American comic strips and received mixed feelings from readers, La Cucaracha is still going since its syndication on 2002. At the same time, he showed samplings of his previous work in editorial cartoons. During the second half the discussion, he talked about how he got a call from Fox network to talk to the show runner of Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane. Lalo said yes, but asked why. What he didn't know was that the phone call was a job interview for Bordertown, a new animated show MacFarlane is executive producing with creator Mark Hentemann. The show is about two racist families in "Mexi-fornia," a fictional Texas desert town on the US-Mexico border starring Hank Azaria as Bud, a border agent, and Nicholas Gonzales as Ernesto, a Mexican immigrant. Alex Borstein is voicing Janice, Bud's wife, and remaining cast include Missi Pyle, Judah Friedlander, Jacqueline Pinol, and Efren Ramirez. Alcaraz is one of fourteen writers, only five of them are Latino. He auditioned "for four voices, but didn't get" any of them. The sitcom is set to premiere in spring 2015. It is the first show with a half Latino, half Mexican-American cast and being part of this project has had him feeling awkward since he had no human contact as a cartoonist for twenty years. Culture Clash was said to be his first primetime writing job and once developed a show for Disney Channel, but didn't get green-lit.
David Silverman has been with The Simpsons since the beginning and has directed numerous episodes and The Simpsons Movie. He also co-directed Monsters Inc. and is recently playing in a jazz band Vaudevillains. He discussed about how he got started with The Simpsons back in 1987 when they were just shorts for the Tracey Ullman Show. He went to UCLA with Gary Baseman and graduated with a master's degree in animation. Gary seemed like he was doing great as an artist, while David thought he was not getting anywhere. He wasn't even sure if he should stay with The Simpsons. During that time, he thought about getting into commercial art and had a brief stint on a show produced at the old studio where Bob and Sody Clampett did the Beany and Cecil Show that didn't even last a month. Silverman presented a montage of the old Simpsons shorts set to music. He also showed clips of a new Simpsons episode being developed. It's about Bart becoming a jazz drummer; one of the clips is Krusty the Clown announcing several jazz performers. The artists had fun designing caricatures for the musicians and Richard Sakai, one of the names Krusty announces is a Simpsons producer. I really loved what he showed us; I was laughing so hard and can't wait to see the full episode when it airs. During the Q&A, David noted that Matt Groening still attends almost every table read, giving creative feedback and design notes. The crew really lost his input when he was too busy with Futurama. During the early seasons, all of the cast members use to record their lines together, but, as time went by and technology changed, they now do their lines separately. However, they still do it together when they choose.
Satire Fest continues tomorrow. Check the website for the program and buy your ticket. It's for cartoonists, satirists, and just creative people who love art. (Between you and me, I was able to sneak into this event for free!)
http://satirefest.com/
Lalo Alcaraz is an award-winning artist, cartoonist, writer, and the creator of La Cucaracha, the first nationally-syndicated, politically-themed Latino daily comic strip. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the LA Times, Variety, Rolling Stone Magazine, LA Weekly and many international publications. He has also been featured on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, Univision, Telemundo, PBS and other media. Lalo is currently a faculty member at Otis College of Art and Design, teaching illustration and communication arts. He has written books and co-hosts an LA satirical radio talk show.
Lalo first talked about La Cucaracha. Although it has been one of the most controversial in the history of American comic strips and received mixed feelings from readers, La Cucaracha is still going since its syndication on 2002. At the same time, he showed samplings of his previous work in editorial cartoons. During the second half the discussion, he talked about how he got a call from Fox network to talk to the show runner of Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane. Lalo said yes, but asked why. What he didn't know was that the phone call was a job interview for Bordertown, a new animated show MacFarlane is executive producing with creator Mark Hentemann. The show is about two racist families in "Mexi-fornia," a fictional Texas desert town on the US-Mexico border starring Hank Azaria as Bud, a border agent, and Nicholas Gonzales as Ernesto, a Mexican immigrant. Alex Borstein is voicing Janice, Bud's wife, and remaining cast include Missi Pyle, Judah Friedlander, Jacqueline Pinol, and Efren Ramirez. Alcaraz is one of fourteen writers, only five of them are Latino. He auditioned "for four voices, but didn't get" any of them. The sitcom is set to premiere in spring 2015. It is the first show with a half Latino, half Mexican-American cast and being part of this project has had him feeling awkward since he had no human contact as a cartoonist for twenty years. Culture Clash was said to be his first primetime writing job and once developed a show for Disney Channel, but didn't get green-lit.
David Silverman has been with The Simpsons since the beginning and has directed numerous episodes and The Simpsons Movie. He also co-directed Monsters Inc. and is recently playing in a jazz band Vaudevillains. He discussed about how he got started with The Simpsons back in 1987 when they were just shorts for the Tracey Ullman Show. He went to UCLA with Gary Baseman and graduated with a master's degree in animation. Gary seemed like he was doing great as an artist, while David thought he was not getting anywhere. He wasn't even sure if he should stay with The Simpsons. During that time, he thought about getting into commercial art and had a brief stint on a show produced at the old studio where Bob and Sody Clampett did the Beany and Cecil Show that didn't even last a month. Silverman presented a montage of the old Simpsons shorts set to music. He also showed clips of a new Simpsons episode being developed. It's about Bart becoming a jazz drummer; one of the clips is Krusty the Clown announcing several jazz performers. The artists had fun designing caricatures for the musicians and Richard Sakai, one of the names Krusty announces is a Simpsons producer. I really loved what he showed us; I was laughing so hard and can't wait to see the full episode when it airs. During the Q&A, David noted that Matt Groening still attends almost every table read, giving creative feedback and design notes. The crew really lost his input when he was too busy with Futurama. During the early seasons, all of the cast members use to record their lines together, but, as time went by and technology changed, they now do their lines separately. However, they still do it together when they choose.
Satire Fest continues tomorrow. Check the website for the program and buy your ticket. It's for cartoonists, satirists, and just creative people who love art. (Between you and me, I was able to sneak into this event for free!)
http://satirefest.com/
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Introducing my first Post!
Hello and welcome….
I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time. Well, one of my friends suggested this and I think I waited long enough. It’s time.
I am going to start…
…wait for it…
For you readers, here is what to expect:
I will try to keep you updated on recent news in the animation world and intend to write reviews for cartoons and films or just short bits of commentary for a particular scene. (Blogs tend to evolve and I also want to review other films besides animated.)
Sometimes, I’ll post thoughts and share work of other artists who influenced me, such as Heinrich Kley, TS Sullivant, Dr. Seuss, Ronald Searle, William Steig and others.
I am totally new at this and feel free to comment if there’s something you’d like to discuss, but please be nice.
If you love this stuff as much as I do, bookmark the page and join the Facebook page too! Hope you check regularly as I guide on a journey into this magical art and please – spread the word! So bring out your laptop, go to a computer, look at your smartphone or tablet or whatever; have a snack or drink if you want; tell your parents that you’re doing something important; remove your brain (assuming you can find it); and enjoy!
I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time. Well, one of my friends suggested this and I think I waited long enough. It’s time.
I am going to start…
…wait for it…
…a blog!
This blog celebrates classic cartoon history with an
emphasis on the golden age of Hollywood animation. I
thought having this would be cool because animation has helped shape me into
the person I am today (hey, everybody needs a hobby) and was important to
making not only my childhood happy, but also yours. :DFor you readers, here is what to expect:
Rough animation drawings, visual development art, thumbnail
sketches and character designs; I’ll be devoting the space mostly to the work
of Disney’s Nine Old Men, Warner Bros Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies
directors, and MGM (mostly Tex Avery and Tom & Jerry), as well as Pixar and
DreamWorks. I plan to display artwork from other studios.
Stories of the animators. The Nine Old Men were
masters in their craft, but it’s interesting to observe their human side. A lot
of what I’ll talk about this group will refer to John Canemaker’s “Walt
Disney’s Nine Old Men and the Art of Animation,” an incredible and insightful
book that I highly recommend.I will try to keep you updated on recent news in the animation world and intend to write reviews for cartoons and films or just short bits of commentary for a particular scene. (Blogs tend to evolve and I also want to review other films besides animated.)
Sometimes, I’ll post thoughts and share work of other artists who influenced me, such as Heinrich Kley, TS Sullivant, Dr. Seuss, Ronald Searle, William Steig and others.
I am totally new at this and feel free to comment if there’s something you’d like to discuss, but please be nice.
If you love this stuff as much as I do, bookmark the page and join the Facebook page too! Hope you check regularly as I guide on a journey into this magical art and please – spread the word! So bring out your laptop, go to a computer, look at your smartphone or tablet or whatever; have a snack or drink if you want; tell your parents that you’re doing something important; remove your brain (assuming you can find it); and enjoy!
And if you’re going to take your pants off to relax
while you’re reading, please do it in the decency and privacy of your home (and
this includes girls too).
The
author is not in any way responsible for the punishment of those who refuse to
obey the important message in the previous paragraph or to put on their rash
ointment regularly.
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