Are you into animation? If yes, then you are up for a treat. I don’t know where to start or how to explain it but this piece animation is just simply brilliant; not to mention the intensity that went behind the animation work, the use music, and how each movement expresses its own way to tell the story. All I have to say is just watch it in order to believe what this is about because it’s that that amazing. Mathieu Labaye has done an excellent job in creating a tribute to his father if only I wish I could have such animation skills and knowledge like him. I have included the original English translation in this post, so read over it before viewing the animation although please be very patient, it may have a slow start at the beginning. Merci! (via)
Great tribute to his father Benoit Labaye, suffered from a multiple sclerosis at 29 years old. Benoit Labaye had been confined to a wheelchair since age 40 and died at 55 years old the 04.22.2006, as a result of a pneumonia.
"I think it's by the movement you appropriate your own life. By the freedom to come and go, to have gestures of love, tenderness, anger, whatever. When you are deprived of movements, as I am and as a lot of other people are, I think if you want to survive, you must reinvent the movement differently. And so what happens inside my head isn't purely brain, purely intellectual. It's a way of recreating an inner space which is also my freedom."
"When you live a severe handicap, when you live absolutely still, dependent, you live, in fact, something that can't be shared, that can't be easily expressed, which you can't easily talk about. Because when two people talk, to be able to understand each other, they need to have a minimum of common experience between them, to speak of something they both know from some form of experience."
"Sure, the stillness, the handicap, brings you to the conclusion and to the gradual acceptance that there's a certain number of things that you can't do. But conversely I think it opens a whole bunch of new possibilities, notably with inner freedom, inner space, but also with the way you can come in contact, in relation with others. I think there is in the handicap, in the disease, a lot of potentiality. The human being is inexhaustible at the level of desire, of energy, of inner strength. Ans it's something you discover with maybe more urge, more intensity, when you're deprived of movement." (via)
Delphine Hermans 's short-movie. Production : Camera-etc, Belgium (Liège) : http://www.camera-etc.be (Prix du Jury du Concours de Projets du Festival d'Annecy 2006 )
Anna vit seule avec son chien dans une petite maison de cité et s'ennuie. Elle espère rompre sa solitude avec Paul, une poupée gonflable. Pour sauver Paul des griffes de son chien jaloux, Anna est obligée de sortir de chez elle. Elle se rend compte que la poupée gonflable ne résoudra pas son besoin de contacts et parle enfin à quelqu'un: son facteur.
CREDITS : ------------- SCRIPT AND DIRECTION : Delphine Hermans ORIGINAL MUSIC : Garrett List PRODUCER : Jean-Luc Slock PRODUCTION : Camera-etc In partnership with Marc et Serge Umé (Digital Graphics)
Jean-Luc Slock is Belgian although he was born in 1956 in Köln, Germany. He founded and since 1979 has led the workshop "Camera Enfants Admis", nowadays "Camera-etc", based inLiège. This 10 people animation studio has been granted aid by the Cinema Department of the French speaking community in Belgium for over 25 years.
Jean-Luc Slock is producing animation films with beginners and young authors. The films develop mainly topical subjects like citizenship, environment, health, cultural heritage.
The "Camera-etc" productions allow the participants to express themselves in a creative process and to learn about media language. A fair number of the films are screened in international festivals, worldwide broadcasted, and even awarded.
Member of the ASIFA, "Camera-etc" takes part in international cooperation activities: exchanges, partnerships (Bosnia, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Canada, Brasil, Vietnam, Africa.), and coproductions with international television companies. Camera-etc has also created an sister association in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, called "Camera & Consorts".
That'd be me. I was born and raised in the south of the Netherlands where they actually do have hills. Later I crossed the border to study classical and experimental animation at KASK in Ghent, Belgium. During those years I did some internships on some feature projects and co-created some TV commercials. More important, I made my own movies and learned how to develop my personal sense of style and direction, as well as how to pronounce "croque monsieur" instead of "tosti". Currently I'm working at Volstok Telefunken as an animator. (via)
Julian Grey is a partner, director, and animator for Head Gear Animations. This is his biography in mostly incomplete sentences:
Montréal 1967: At Expo '67 Julian tours the US Pavilion's geodesic dome. He is wowed by the seamless convergence of art & design. And he likes the Lunar Lander. London 1973: Returns from North Africa. Enjoys drawing swords, castles, bloody things. Montréal 1974: Reads Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Watches drag-racing every Saturday. Draws stranger things. New York City 1980: Enjoys cannabis in Sheep's Meadow Central Park. Everything makes sense. Montréal 1987: Completes three years of pre-Apple era graphic design school. Gets Letraset stuck in eye. Montréal 1989: Studies printmaking & sculpture at Concordia University. Buys video camera. Makes art. Toronto 1994: Draws weird pictures for Shift Magazine. Meets Steve Angel. Toronto 1995: Discovers animation is the way to go. Amalfi, Italy: On holiday, has epiphany, joins up with Steve Angel to start Head Gear. Budapest is a poem written and read by former US poet laureate Billy Collins (via)
Writer and director of animated films, scenery designer; born in 1930 in Wilczogeby.
Szczechura studied for one year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (1951-52). In 1958 he graduated from Warsaw University with a degree in Art History. In 1962 he obtained a second degree, this time from the Cinematography Department of the Lodz Film School. He was one of the co-founders of the Studencki Teatr Satyrykow (STS - Student Theatre of Satirists) in Warsaw and designed the scenery for many of the group's theatrical productions. During the 1950s he made more than a dozen films on 16 mm stock. Of these a handful, including SPOJRZENIA / GAZES, made by Szczechura in collaboration with Andrzej Blasinski, brought the filmmaker awards at film competitions. His diploma film was KONFLIKTY / CONFLICTS (1960). In 1961 Szczechura began producing his films at the Studio Malych Form Filmowych SE-MA-FOR / SE-MA-FOR Studio of Small Film Forms in Lodz. In 1970 he became a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where he heads the animation workshop of the Graphic Design Department. He has also taught abroad, among other places at the Royal Academy of Art in Ghent and at Emily Carr College in Vancouver. A member of the Stowarzyszenie Filmowcow Polskich (Association of Polish Filmmakers), he was in this organization's National Board from 1970 to 1973. He is also vice president of ASIFA (Association Internationale du Film d'Animation - International Animated Film Association).
Daniel Szczechura has won numerous awards and distinctions for his animated films. These have included the Zlote Grono (Golden Grapes) medal for lifetime achievement at the 4. WYSTAWA I SYMPOZJUM PLASTYKI "ZLOTE GRONO" / 4TH "GOLDEN GRAPES" VISUAL ARTS EXHIBITION AND SYMPOSIUM in Zielona Gora (1969), the Zenon Wasilewski Award (1975) and the Award of the Minister of Culture and Art 2nd class for lifetime achievement in animated film (1975). In 1990 he also received the ASIFA Special Prize for "invaluable contributions to the art and development of animated film" and a Gemma Award (from the Italian Animated Film Association).
Szczechura's debut films borrowed from the aesthetics of Jan Lenica and Walerian Borowczyk. As he himself admitted: "I see no reason to hide that I was inspired by the films of Borowczyk and Lenica, which suggested the cut-out technique that allowed me to rid myself of the baggage of additional animators, phase designers, assistants. This technique generally revolutionized animated film, (...) because the subject scope of animations expanded with the introduction of cut-outs" (quoted from M. Gizycki, "Nie tylko Disney: rzecz o filmie animowanym" / "Disney Was Not Alone: On Animated Film," Warsaw, 2000). While classical animated film proved incapable of venturing beyond "cat chases mouse" situations, cut-out films allowed artists to broach issues that are far more important. In an interview with the editors of "Kwartalnik Filmowy" / "Film Quarterly," Szczechura said: "Their [i.e. Borowczyk and Lenica's] early animations made a big impression on me precisely because they were serious" ("Kwartalnik Filmowy" / "Film Quarterly," 19-20/1997). As Szczechura himself wrote in a different text in the same issue of the magazine, Lenica and Borowczyk and the cut-out technique they used 'imparted a wisdom on animated film.'"
"Dobranocka" (1997)
Szczechura created his debut film CONFLICTS (1960) almost accidentally, while completing an internship at the film school where he was studying to be a cinematographer. Although something of an afterthought, the film was in no way accidental in terms of technique. It combined cut-outs with live-action scenes, giving the artist an opportunity to play with the film's substance. One element of this game, embodied in scenes reminiscent of old film melodramas, involved using footage of live actors for the segments occurring 'on screen' while presenting the cinema audience as a cut-out, suggesting that the film being watched by the audience was more real than life. This was accurately read as an allusion to the realities of the 1960s, a time when political censorship of art was widespread in Poland, when authorities decided what would be shown to the public with most of their choices going completely against audience tastes and desires. The film was also in some way a product of Szczechura's experiences with the Student Theatre of Satirists and this group's contacts and relations with censors.
Daniel Szczechura's next films also in some way derived from his experiences with the satirical theatre. They included his professional debut MASZYNA / THE MACHINE, the film LITERA / THE LETTER made one year later, and above all FOTEL / A CHAIR (1963), which was his most renowned film of this period and remains Szczechura's best satirical film. In the first of these the filmmaker poked fun at the mania for giant projects that reigned in the Polish People's Republic, showing the construction of a vast and complicated machine designed for... sharpening pencils. In THE LETTER he directed viewers' attention to the concept of ideology, which, enigmatic as is the letter "N" in his film, attracts throngs of people only to prove a mockery, a joke, a prank. A CHAIR was, however, the strongest of his gibes at the system that reigned in Poland at that time. A treatise about methods of gaining power, the film features characters that are shown from a bird's eye view and resemble pawns on a chessboard more than they resemble people.
A CHAIR, THE MACHINE and THE LETTER all caused Szczechura to be compared to Slawomir Mrozek. Even today, some commentators (Jerzy Uszynski, "Film Quarterly," 19-20/1997) view the filmmaker as a chronicler of Polish reality, someone capable of accurately capturing and ridiculing the absurdities evident in abundance in the Polish People's Republic. As satirist Antoni Chodorowski once said in commenting on his own drawings of Warsaw's Palace of Culture and Science, in this country "everything was ridiculous." However, such a reading of Szczechura's films can be applied only to some of his works. Another of his celebrated achievements was HOBBY, a film he made in the year of the student revolt against totalitarian rule (1968). Though it can also be read as a metaphor of enslavement and liberation, it simultaneously surpasses any such interpretations and could do completely without them. Psychological or psychoanalytic interpretations that define the film as a picture of female predacity and male naiveté prove equally insufficient. The situation is quite similar with the somewhat earlier film WYKRES / A GRAPH, whose hero chases an undefined point, an unachievable goal. A GRAPH can easily be read as a satire - i.e. "this is how all of us, during Socialist Realist times, chased after the unattainable goal that was supposed to be the happiness of humankind under Communism." But the film can also be seen as expressing the hopelessness of human endeavor, i.e. read in a philosophical manner as possessing an existential message. "Daniel Szczechura's films began as descriptions of reality - satirical, overstated, sneering, but nevertheless descriptions. Soon thereafter the flippant tone was replaced by a perspective far more serious; the desire to document external reality gave way to explorations of issues hidden deep within us," wrote Jerzy Armata in summarizing the artist's creative development on the occasion of a screening of ten of Szczechura's films (HOBBY - DANIEL SZCZECHURA, 2002, in "Kino" monthly, 2/2002). The director himself had his fill of producing films that were purely satirical in spirit. "When I made 'A Chair' in 1963, I was inundated with requests for films that would continue to 'beat issues with the whip of satire' (...). Something prevented me from accepting them, and in retrospect I see that this helped me avoid the trap of off-handedness, illustration" ("Rezyser" / "Director" monthly, 1/1998). Kazimierz Zorawski ("Kino" monthly, 8/1971) created a classification of Szczechura's films in terms of their subject matter. He identified a group of works that explore mechanisms operating within human society (THE MACHINE, A CHAIR, KAROL / CHARLES), a series that illustrate operations of the human mind (A GRAPH and HOBBY) and finally those in which the director sought out new areas of interest (THE LETTER, PODROZ / THE VOYAGE, PIERWSZY, DRUGI, TRZECI... / FIRST, SECOND, THIRD... and DESANT / THE LANDING). It is difficult to agree completely with these choices, because THE LANDING or THE LETTER, and even FIRST, SECOND, THIRD... have more in common with THE MACHINE or A CHAIR than they do with THE VOYAGE. The latter film, in turn, has indubitably more to do with SKOK / THE LEAP, as both films attempt to illustrate the absurdity of life.
"Dobranocka" (1997)
Yet another reading emerges from the two-film series consisting of FATAMORGANA / MIRAGE and FATAMORGANA II / MIRAGE II (produced ten years later and thus not encompassed by K. Zorawski in his analysis), both of which feature stories that are Surrealist in spirit and governed by the logic of dreams. Finally, there is GOREJACE PALCE / BURNING FINGERS, also based on a dream-like concept, though one that is nightmarish rather than joyous. Titled DOBRANOCKA / A GOOD NIGHT STORY, Daniel Szczechura's last film also is strongly evocative of the dream world.
Fatamorgana I (1981)
The filmmaker himself strongly believes that animated film needs constantly to renew its narrations. Thus, in his later films he abandoned creating clear anecdotes with a punch line and a linear narration in favor of producing open-ended stories that were enigmatic. As he said of MIRAGE: "What did the poet mean by this? I'm incapable of verbalizing it" ("Kino" monthly, 11/12/1990 - in conversation with M. Gizycki). Daniel Szczechura has stated many times that his films resemble narrative features. He attributes this to his education: as someone who studied cinematography, he is less skilled than colleagues like Witold Giersz as a painter or graphic artist - a fact he readily admits. He exhibits a tendency to compose shots in a filmic manner rather than in a manner characteristic of the visual arts - as a cinematographer, not as a draughtsman. Szczechura believes that animated films are not visual art, because their individual scenes cannot be contemplated to infinity. "Films are series of images and each of these images as a meaning in its series," he said in an interview with the editors of "Kwartalnik Filmowy" / "Film Quarterly" (19-20/1997). He sees animated films as being closely related to poetry. "To me, a good animated film is the analogue of a good song, one by Agnieszka Osiecka, Wojciech Mlynarski or Brel. I would love it if animations were shaped just like that, if they were abbreviated, closed forms that included both content and emotion," Daniel Szczechura once said ("Film" monthly, 8/2002). Daniel Szczechura is one of Poland's most famous makers of animated films. His name evokes memories of greatest successes of Polish animated film, especially during the 1960s. He is also someone who placed emphasis on constantly investigating new avenues and who proved capable of abandoning developed formulas that brought him success in favor of exploring the unknown. PODROZ / THE VOYAGE, a kind of anti-film in which seemingly nothing happens, serves as an example. The focus in this film is falls on the rhythm of the telegraph posts that pass by, on the monotony of the sounds that customarily accompany travel. A leaf that falls to the ground in a park alley proves a special event. Marcin Gizycki believes that this film marked a turning point in Polish animated film, a turning point as significant as the debuts of Jan Lenica and Walerian Borowczyk. Gizycki writes that THE VOYAGE was a harbinger of "several other exceptional works that described phenomena as simple as that leaf that descended to the ground in the park alley" ("Film Quarterly", 19-20/1997). (via)
Ryszard Czekała born in Bydgoszcz in 1941. A director and a screenplay writer of animated and feature films. He finished the departament of Painting and Graphics at the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts in 1966, and department of Film Directing at State Film School in Lodz in 1976. He is a co-founder of Cracow Animated Films Studio. He is one of the most important artist of the Polish animation school.(via)
"APEL" (L'Appel) (1970)
Film noir et blanc, réalisé avec la technique de découpage, se rapportant à l'horreur de l'occupation hitlérienne: lors d'un rassemblement dans un camp de concentration, les prisonniers se révoltent contre leurs bourreaux. "C'est le premier film d'animation, et jusqu'à présent, l'unique film de ce genre qui traite du sujet de l'occupation, qui garde la poétique du grotesque et qui est, à la fois, profond et absolument sérieux. Déjà dans ses réalisations précédentes, Ryszard Czekala a montré qu'on pouvait parfaitement profiter des possibilités que présente le film d'animation pour parler de choses sérieuses. Mais ici, il a fait un pas plus loin - dans la problématique réservée au film documentaire et au film d'acteurs. Néanmoins, ce n'est pas le choix du thème qui fait que ce film est éminent. Ce qui fait sa valeur, c'est la narration laconique, le graphisme de découpage lapidaire, noir et blanc ou même gris, et la dramaturgie soutenue par les changements de points de vue de la caméra, et - comme d'habitude chez Czekala - la bande sonore s'harmonisant avec l'image." (Andrzej Kossakowski, "L'histoire du film polonais", v. 5, Varsovie 1994)(via)
Witold Giersz has made about 60 short animated films, for which he has received over 70 awards and distinctions at film festivals all around the world. Born in 1927 in Poraj, Poland. He graduated from the Lodz Film School. In the 1950’s he began working as an animator in a newly established animated cartoon co-operative ‘Slask’, known today as Animated Cartoon Studio.
In Warsaw in 1956, Giersz established and trained a group of artists that was restructured into the current Miniature Film Studio. Here, the Polish School of Animation was born in the 1960’s. Between 1985 and 1992 Giersz worked for Animated Films TV Studio in Poznan as a director and an artistic executive.
Giersz will instruct students in the teaching of all styles of classic animation from traditional ‘cel’ animation to stop motion and other experimental techniques.(via)
Founded in 1948 under the Stalinist maxim "Film helps the working class and its Party breed socialism in the working soul," Poland's Lodz Film School became, by the mid 1950s, the unlikely center of a Polish cultural renaissance. A whole generation of postwar filmmakers got their start here, including Wajda, Polanski, Zanussi, and Kieslowski. To mark the school's 50th anniversary, MOMA has assembled a program of 128 student films, many of which have never been screened outside of Poland.
The series's centerpiece, End of the Night, is a 1956 collaboration between eight student writers and directors that dared to tackle teenage sex, jazz parties, and criminal activity at a time when the Polish government denied the existence of juvenile delinquency and decried jazz as a form of enemy propaganda. A sort of Polish Mean Streets, with Polanski as a boyish thug scalping movie tickets, the film— in its depiction of violence and gloom— was a particular thrill for Polish filmmakers eager to buck the edicts of socialist realism.
Among scores of shorts, Polanski's Break Up the Party (1957) and Marek Piwowski's Fly Catcher (1966) are most true to their school. For Break Up the Party, Polanski apparently hired a street gang to crash a dance he had organized on the school grounds so he could film a brawl with a swing soundtrack. Piwowski's film, meanwhile, is a seamless combination of fact and fiction, a staged conversation piece in which eccentric nonactors carry on inside a café until things reach a fever pitch. On a more somber note, Kieslowski's The Office offers a glimpse of hell in the form of Soviet bureaucracy that seems lifted straight from Kafka's The Trial.
The films of Polish animator Stefan Schabenbeck are clever, passionate and often humorous condemnations of the absurd, dehumanized late 20th Century. While Schanbenbeck's work offers blunt critiques of communist bureaucracy within 1960's Poland, the themes of dehumanization that he expresses are as relevant today as they were 30 years ago. Although he only made six independent films, Stefan Schabenbeck's career certainly warrants more attention than it has been given. Schanbenbeck was born in 1940 in Zakopane, Poland. he graduated from the secondary School of Fine Arts in Warsaw, was trained as a cameraman in the Lodz filmschool. In the early 1970's, a combination of political and economic reasons led Schabenbeck to not only stop making personal films, but also flee Poland. Since then, Schabenbeck has continued to make commercial films in Germany. (via)
Gianalberto Bendazzi, conocido historiador del cine italiano, escribió que Schabenbecky era uno de los más grandes, y al mismo tiempo, menos conocido de los creadores de la animación polaca. Se dió a conocer en 1967 con "Todo es un número", una valiosa metáfora sobre el tema de alzamiento perdido del individuo en la sociedad totalitaria, y desde entonces toda su obra muestra la lucha del ser humano por defender sus valores como individuo y como ser social.
Lars Arrhenius is an artist based in Stockholm whose serial, graphic installations and animations merge a diagrammatic narrative with a social narrative. This exhibition, his first in the United States, will include several large works where small cibachrome prints mounted on panels are placed in puzzle or map-like configurations, as well as a new digital animation.
Arrhenius often uses pictographs, the kind of stereotypical figures and universal symbols seen on public information signs. A direct use of media, and a judicious blend of austerity and irony are typical of his work. The digital characters in his animation, The Street, create an exaggerated view of daily routines, where each individual contributes to keep things going like an anonymous cog in the machine of life. Arrhenius' hermetic but familiar world is propelled by a momentum of the mundane that insistently plods onward. In another work entitled Habitat, in which a five-floor house is represented by the stacked rows of 43 C-prints, we view a sequence in the lives of 10 people breaking down the archetypes and representing the possibility of personal choice and eccentricity.
Lars Arrhenius, "The Street"
By using impersonal, urban symbols to mirror our usually unexamined habits, Arrhenius draws attention to the fact that the world goes on, whether we participate in it or not. Following the logic of games or hypertext, some pieces offer multiple paths and outcomes depending on what chain of events one follows, as is illustrated in the branch-like circuitry of his The Man Without One Way.
Reminiscent of the work by his late fellow countryman and proto-Pop master, Öyvind Fahlström, the world map of Arrhenius' WWW is overlaid by a cast of players who are interconnected through a cacophony of cause and effect type dramas. Arrhenius' humorous use of onomatopoeia creates a chain of events that link the sounds we read to a series of actions and consequences. In another work titled A-Z, Arrhenius superimposed a progression of encircled and intertwined stories over an enlargement of the classic London street guide.
Whether looking at a street, an apartment building, a city, or pulling further back, Arrhenius focuses on the endless activities of urban life and offers a sociological view of the complexity and repetition of human behavior. Like a modern-day Bruegel, Arrhenius examines the tragi-comic in the world around him.
Lars Arrhenius is represented in the collections of the Moderna Museet and Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and Malmö Konstmuseum.(via)
Maureen Selwood lives in Los Angeles making films that incorporate drawing, live action, poetry, and narrative. Other titles of her work include: "Mistaken Identity" (2001), a cultural experimental narrative; "Hail Mary" (1999), a humorous tale of love with an obsession for numbers; "Flying Circus: An Imagined Memoir" (1995) drawn from a childhood memory; and "Odalisque: Three Fantasies of Pursuit" (1980), a film that reverses the traditional relationship between the artist and the female model. She currently teaches at California Institute of the Arts.(via)
"Flying Circus: An Imagined Memoir" (1995)
A leading figure in American Independent animation, Selwood makes films that display a joyous eroticism and buoyant wit. It is often highlighted by the dynamic use of hand drawn animation, live footage and the creative blending of words and images. Her newest work, As The Veil Lifts is a large-scale installation using animation and the voice of a woman performing a song of loss and suffering caused by the effects of war. Selwood's newest film, Mistaken Identity, is an experimental narrative using archival footage from Robert Aldrich's noir Kiss Me Deadly to create a special twist on the character of Velda and her relationship to the cool detective, Mike Hammer. All the Places I Have Ever was an architectural tour of Los Angeles sponsored by the MAKcenter for Art and Architecture.
Hail Mary uses a centuries' old prayer to tell a humorous tale of love lost among the flotsam of everyday life. Flying Circus: An Imagined Memoir evokes metaphoric allusions drawn from childhood memories. Pearls play with the music of Meredith Monk. This Is Just to Say produced by the New York Center for Visual History, is based on a poem by William Carlos Williams. The Rug is based on a short story by the Irish writer Edna O'Brien. Odalisque: Three Fantasies of Pursuit reverses the traditional relationship between artist and the female model.
Ms. Selwood has participated in a series of installations and performances. These include: As The Veil Lifts (American Academy in Rome), As You Desire Me (American Academy in Rome), This Is My House and All the Places I Have Ever Lived (MAK Center for Art and Architecture). She has been a recipient of grants from the John Solomon Guggenheim Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, The Jerome Foundation, The American Film Institute and a visiting artist residency at the MacDowell Colony. Most recently Selwood is a recipient of the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome (2002-03). She is currently on the faculty of the Experimental Animation Department at CalArts. (via)
The nation's first art institute to offer BFAs and MFAs in both the visual and performing arts, CalArts is dedicated to training and nurturing the next generation of professional artists, fostering brilliance and innovation within the broadest context possible. Emphasis is placed on new and experimental work and students are admitted solely on the basis of artistic ability. To encourage innovation and experimentation, CalArts' six schools--Art, Critical Studies, Dance, Film/Video, Music and Theater--are all housed under one roof in a unique, five-story building with the equivalent of 11 acres of square footage in Valencia, California, just 30 minutes north of downtown Los Angeles.
"The Rug" (1985)
También podemos contemplar fragmentos de su obra en la página de Duckstudios
"Blueberry Streets"
EL PROGRAMA DE ANIMACIÓN EXPERIMENTAL DEL CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS Por Maureen Selwood
Esta retrospectiva de la rica historia del Programa de Animación Experimental de CalArts nos permitirá examinar cómo nace en el artista joven el concepto de autoría individual. Diversos graduados salieron del programa con obras de carácter muy personal que acabaron convirtiéndose en los cimientos fundamentales para desarrollar las habilidades que más tarde demostrarían en sus exitosos trabajos para la industria. El programa pretende centrarse en algunos de esos trabajos a la vez que incluye otras piezas más actuales que representan a una nueva generación. A menudo los espectadores se sorprenden al ver lo únicas y personales que resultan esas primeras obras si se las compara con sus posteriores éxitos dentro de la industria. Esta retrospectiva nos permitirá volver atrás en el tiempo y ver algunas de esas piezas.
El Programa de Animación Experimental del California Institute of Arts (CalArts) nació hace treinta y dos años, con un puñado de estudiantes que estaban bajo la dirección de Jules Engel. Todo nació como un programa diseñado para ayudar a los estudiantes a establecer sus criterios estéticos y permitirles evolucionar en una forma que siempre implica una visión personal. A principios de los setenta, por todos los Estados Unidos había universidades e institutos que trataba de adaptar la enseñanza de las artas a un entorno académico. Pero Cal Arts era la única escuela que decidió crear un programa dedicado a la animación. No existía ningún antecedente concreto, de manera que intentó crear un territorio nuevo que permitiera nuevas aproximaciones al cine de animación.
Aquellos primeros estudiantes crearon un corpus de trabajos que se convertirían en los cimientos de un programa que guiaría los trabajos realizados por los estudiantes a partir de entonces. Con el paso de los años, el programa ha ido creciendo hasta abarcar las diferentes direcciones en las que avanza la animación independiente. Mirror People, de Kathy Rose, es un ejemplo temprano del trabajo individual de un estudiante que se encontraba bajo la tutela de Jules Engel pero que mantuvo toda la independencia y seriedad de cualquier artista en un entorno académico. Aquella primera obra de Kathy ayudó a Cal Arts a ganarse una reputación a nivel internacional. Kathy llegó a la animación tras haber trabajado y estudiado como bailarina. Como estudiante llevó a cabo varias obras seminales realmente impresionantes, y acabó llevando a cabo trabajos de instalación y representación aprovechando su educación, que la ayudó a descubrir una forma de combinar todos sus talentos.
El sistema de estudios de la industria de la animación de Los Ángeles coexistía con el fermento y burbujeo de nuevas ideas de Cal Arts. Como estudiante, Eric Darnell creó Filter Gallery , en el que experimentaba con la materia física de las películas y la vanguardia inspirada por las obras de Stan Brackage. Resulta maravilloso descubrir que la libertad de que gozó para desarrollar una visión tan única como la de Filter Gallery también pudiera abarcar una perspectiva centrada en los gráficos computerizados utilizados en el largometraje Hormigaz, con el que demostró su capacidad para comunicarse con el público general. La profundidad de comprensión de las técnicas experimentales con las que trabajó Eric Darnell le ayudaron a establecer su confianza en los gráficos computerizados con los que trabajaría más adelante. En espacial demostraba a los demás que en ocasiones un estudiante sí que sabe hacia dónde avanza, y que el profesor solamente es un testigo del proceso con el que se contacta únicamente cuando es necesario. (via)
As the quintessential independent American animator, George Griffin produces films which defy categorization. Part of what makes viewing a cross-section of Griffin films intriguing is the variety of approaches he takes to his subjects, rarely repeating a theme or style. In some of his earlier works, such as Head and Lineage, Griffin explores the depths and boundaries of his art, mixing animation with live action, flipbooks and trick photography. During the same period, however, he also produced strictly narrative films, such as the whimsically satirical The Club.
The Club, (1975)
Later, during the 1980s, Griffin ' s style changed; his films became less confrontational and subversive in their relationship to the audience, and more traditionally " cartoony and entertaining. " Nonetheless, he continued to examine his artistic heritage in works like Flying Fur, which entangles a cast of crazy animal characters in a frantic Tom and Jerry soundtrack. He also produced more narrative projects, such as It ' s an O.K. Life, done for PBS, and tackled intensely personal emotions in Thicket.
While busy with freelance commercial projects in the late 80s and early 90s, Griffin also made playful films such as Ko-Ko, which synchronizes a dancing collage of magazine art with a Charlie Parker recording, and the sarcastic New Fangled, a humbling caricature of advertising creativity.
Most recently, Griffin has returned to the traditional narrative in A Little Routine, which provides a charming and intimate glimpse into father/daughter bedtime routines. (via)
Rather than invoking a recurring style, all of these distinct films are linked instead by their personal expression of the artist ' s maturation. Griffin ' s body of work represents what it means to be an independent animator; his free experimentation with style and technique defines an art which is constantly in process and an artist who embraces his own evolution.
Created by Frank Mouris - This animated short features two soundtracks - in one, Frank narrates an autobiography,in the other, he reads off a list of words beginning with the letter "f." Tying the two soundtracks together and influencing their subject matter is the animated collage of photos collected from magazines - all arranged by theme and each theme merging into the next. Written by Heather McCabe (via)
Frank Film (1973)
"The financial benefits of winning the 1973 Oscar for Frank Film were more indirect than one might have expected. Our distributor sold and rented many prints to most of the major libraries, museums and universities, so we had a nice income supplement for a few decades, but it certainly wasn't enough to live on. Caroline and I, singly and/or together, did get a number of film grants over the years, enabling us to pay for most of the costs of Coney and Screentest (animated documentaries), impasse (abstract character animation), LA LA, Making It In L.A. (documentary with animated slide sequences), and now (at last, at length, finally...) Frankly Caroline (cutout animation again), but we certainly weren't paid for our considerable time. The commercial work offered right after the Oscar was either repetitious/simplistic (the titles for Rhoda), or risky (weekly bicoastal commutes for Bicentennial Minutes; helicopter footage of a trip across the USA), so we turned it down. Later, we enjoyed doing quickie television commercials (is there ever enough time?) for Levi's Shirts and Nickelodeon Toys, but mostly others just knocked off our style and did it for cheap. The Oscar probably helped us get freelance animation work (Sesame Street, MTV, VHI, HBO Comedy, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, Nighttime Entertainment, PBS, ITVS, Cartoon Network, PETA, Disney and Universal TV), but showing Frank Film and our evolving showreel was at least as important. Caroline and I did Frank Film just to do that one personal film that you do to get the artistic inclinations out of your system before going commercial. Then we planned to join the industry, as you call it, armed with her MBA and my MFA. Instead, we became fiercely independent filmmakers, only interested in doing new films, whatever the genre, and not just repeating ourselves in one area of film. You could say winning the Oscar gave us the courage to pursue this personal film quest, but in fact, Frank Film had previously won the Grand Prix at the Annecy International Animation Festival and most other foreign and domestic film competitions and festivals. John Hubley was kind enough to warn me at Annecy that it was hard to turn down commercial work once you got into it, and that he and Faith were lucky to get a personal film done every summer, so I should leave plenty of time for our own work. I guess I took him a little too seriously, but when he died early, unexpectedly, it was sobering. Caroline and I are thrilled to be back with another totally hand-made film, Frankly Caroline, coming out in a few months." (via)
Rein Raamat was the first Estonian animator to be really internationally recognized. He established the Tallinnfilm section for drawn cell animation in 1971. Until that, Estonian animation art had been only puppet or object animation.
As Robinson writes openly, Raamat was and is a controversial person in Estonian animation. He is the man behind the ascent of animation art, but also criticized for his way of working. The Estonian animators of today often downplay Raamat’s role, but Robinson gives him the place he rightly deserves.
Raamat’s strong side was to collect together the best possible artists to make the film and run the project through Soviet bureaucracy, stupid orders and censorship. Seventy percent of the animated films had to be done for children, but puppet film section Nukufilm already fulfilled this quota. Raamat could make films for adults.
Raamat even succeeded to make clearly nationalistic films in the Soviet Republic where anything other than Russian nationalism was considered the worst kind of crime. The best example is Suur Tõll (1980), a beautiful film with images of Jüri Arrak and music of Lepo Sumera. Another director of Raamat’s time was Avo Paistik. (via)
Jimmy Teru Murakami is an artist, animation director and producer who has made an exceptionally meritorious contribution to the film and television industry. His colleagues include Ernest Pintoff, George Dunning, Richard Williams and James Cameron.
In Bendazzi's book, One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation, he aptly describes Jimmy as - 'globe trotter of animation'. Over five decades, he has worked in California, New York, Japan, France, Italy, the Netherlands, England and Ireland where he has finally settled. Murakami's short films have been acclaimed around the world, including his animation feature-directing debut with When the Wind Blows in 1985.
Jimmy was born and brought up in America. His mother and father were first and second generation Japanese-Americans. In 1952 Jimmy was offered a scholarship to study at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. Mrs. Chouinard herself had followed Jimmy's progress from high school and said to him, "Jimmy, you must become an artist" to which Jimmy answered "but I want to become a doctor - a brain surgeon in fact" and he went to college for six months to study medicine before deciding that he might prefer to be an artist. It was during the years studying fine arts that he met fellow student and animator Chuck Jones who became famous for characters such as Road Runner, Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny.
Jimmy noted that Chuck created wonderful life drawings and would remind him whenever they met that he should have been a fine artist rather than an animator of bunnies and ducks. If Chuck was here today, - he might utter the immortal words from Bugs Bunny - "Jimmy….What's up Doc?"
Jimmy began work at United Productions of America (UPA) studios that was established by a group of Disney animators led by John Hubley who broke away from the Disney studios in 1941. He soon became a designer and storyboard artist with Ernest Pintoff and Fred Crippen and eventually worked as a layout artist on the first Mr. Magoo feature film, 1001 Arabian Nights, released in 1959.
He eventually set up his own studios with partner Fred Wolf and together they produced a huge amount of commercials. Murakami/Wolf Films became one of the biggest animation commercial production studios in America employing over a hundred artists.
Although the commercial business took precedence, throughout his career Jimmy has been dedicated to creating his own personal short films of unique and fascinating subjects and design. They include, The Insects, which won a BAFTA in 1965 for Best Animated Film. Breath which was awarded the Annecy International animation film festivals Grand Prix award in 1967 and in 1969 he was nominated for an Oscar for his short film, The Magic Pear Tree.
However, it was his involvement with the animated features, The Snowman and When the Wind Blows that helped him to become well known to a wider audience.
In 2005, The Animation Guild of America honoured Jimmy with 'The Golden Award' in recognition of his achievements as a veteran of the animation industry. The award is given exclusively to key artists who have contributed to the highest standards of animation production and is one of the most respected accolades to be presented from the industry. (via)
Ante la inminencia de una guerra nuclear, James y Hilda, una pareja de jubilados que vive una apacible existencia en la campiña inglesa, construye un refugio en su hogar siguiendo las instrucciones de los folletos que ha repartido el gobierno. Los anunciados misiles soviéticos caen y los alrededores de la casa son brutalmente devastados, pero los ancianos logran sobrevivir... Basada en el cómic de Raymond Briggs, autor también del guión, "Cuando el viento sopla" aborda el siempre sobrecogedor tema del holocausto nuclear, desde una perspectiva intimista. El director, Jimmy T. Murakami, renunció a las extravagancias de su anterior película -"Los siete magníficos del espacio" ("Battle beyond the stars", 1980)- y dejó los actores de carne y hueso para interesarse por la suerte de los Bloggs, una entrañable pareja de ancianos que, a pesar de su condición de dibujos animados, consigue transmitir al espectador sensaciones de emoción y ternura.
Los responsables de esta interesante producción renuncian a la espectacularidad y el tremendismo que propicia tema tan escabroso como el de la destrucción nuclear; en vez de mostrar la agonía colectiva, se centran en la tragedia cotidiana de sus viejos protagonistas para mostrar a través de ellos, con gran cariño y sensibilidad, las nefastas consecuencias de la estupidez humana. Así, sin grandes estridencias, el lento proceso hacia la muerte de los Bloggs logra interesar y hasta emocionar, y es la adecuada dosificación de los elementos dramáticos y no su indiscriminada acumulación -tentación fácil hábilmente evitada- la que consigue este efecto. "Cuando el viento sopla" es una película con dos únicos personajes que, por imperativos de la edad, se mueven trabajosamente y actúan poco; salvo los primeros minutos de metraje, el escenario se reduce al hogar de los Bloggs y su pequeño huerto; los diálogos, en cambio, son constantes incluso en los momentos de agonía física. La arriesgada premisa de trasladar al universo del dibujo animado una historia de concepción básicamente teatral funciona gracias al cuidado guión de Briggs. Otra de las grandes bazas es la banda sonora de Roger Waters y David Bowie, que sin ser nada excepcional sí posee el suficiente atractivo para enganchar a un sector del público. Por otra parte, la inclusión de secuencias especiales responde siempre a una función dramática y no a la simple experimentación visual: las fantasías heroicas de James y las dulces ensoñaciones de Hilda contribuyen a definir los personajes y los hacen aún más vulnerables e indefensos; la secuencia de la boda opone con admirable sensibilidad poética los apacibles años de juventud de los Bloggs al cruel destino que les reserva su vejez; otras veces se trata de aliviar con humor y fina ironía la creciente sordidez del relato.
En la versión original, "Cuando el viento sopla" cuenta con las voces de los oscarizados John Mills, como Jim, y Peggy Ashcroft, en el papel de Hilda. Este toque de prestigio se cuida también en la versión doblada al castellano, que cuenta con el buen hacer de los veteranos Fernando Rey e Irene Gutiérrez Caba. Gran Bretaña, 1986. Título original: When the wind blows. Director: Jimmy T. Murakami. Autor (novela gráfica): Raymond Briggs. Guionista: Raymond Briggs. Productor: John Coates. Productor ejecutivo: Iain Harvey. Música: Roger Waters. 80 minutos. Dibujos animados. (via)
Born in 1973 in Sierre. Studied illustration and infography at École Emile Cohl in Lyon. Received degree in anthropology and numerical images from Lyon. Studied images of synthesis at the ECAL (École Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne). Works as freelance illustrator in Geneva.(via)
"Le genie de la boite de raviolis" (2006)
Holly Beard (2007) directed by Cédric louis and Claude Barras
Following a degree in Graphic design, Luis has worked as an Art Teacher, Photographer, Art Director and Illustrator.
In 1992 he returned to study an MA in Animation at the Royal College of Art.
After a stint at the BBC, he joined Aardman Animations in 1994. Since then, Luis has directed many commercials, promos and idents. His creative work has been awarded D&AD, British Animation Awards, Royal Television Awards and a BAFTA.
The Pearce Sisters is his first non-commercial film for Aardman. (via)
"The Pearce Sisters"
Información detallada de esta producción el su propia WEB.
