I would just like to give a quick report and say that the Academy’s Animated Feature Symposium was a great event. Wes Anderson was in London and couldn’t make it, but Henry Selick, John Musker, Ron Clements, Tomm Moore, and Pete Docter were all there. We saw clips from each of the films nominated for the Animated Feature Oscar for 2009 (2010 ceremony). I had already seen all the films, a few of them more than once, but it was a treat to see slices of them placed side-by-side on the big screen. It helped to remind me of each of their strengths.

As of this writing, the Oscars ceremony has already ended and we know that Up was the winner. A big “up” to Pete Docter and the many tremendous artists and technicians that went into its production. Watching the clips from Up on Thursday night reminded me yet again, just what a delightful film this is. I honestly do not say that to be popular, though I realize I’m in good company. One of the clips that was shown at the symposium was the sequence that takes us from Carl and Ellie as little kids to the beginning of Carl’s life as an elderly widower. It is such a profoundly well-crafted piece of film making and of animation. Anyone who disagrees, I’m inclined to set them up for an appointment at the nearest radiologist to see if they still have a heart.

However, I think perhaps the biggest winner in all of this is The Secret of Kells and its director Tomm Moore. I saw the film when it screened here as part of the Los Angeles Irish Film Festival and found it absolutely beautiful. Having visited Ireland for the first time only months prior and having had the opportunity to view the real Book of Kells in person certainly added a great deal to my experience of the film, as well. I’ve also had an appreciation for the Celtic Manuscripts since studying them in my college Art History class. But I think it makes an enjoyable film for anyone, regardless of their familiarity with Ireland or the Book of Kells. It is a visually rich and appealing experience. I loved the simplified, almost geometric designs tempered by fluid, expressive animation. I loved the warm-hearted, appealing characters. And I loved the playfulness with the picture plane and illusion of space. I do hope the nomination of The Secret of Kells brings it much-deserved attention and I hope we can get some more screenings of it in those big dark rooms we call theaters.

I have a great deal of admiration for all the directors who participated in the Symposium (and also for Wes Anderson). Henry Selick is a madman and a genius, whose happiest place is in the middle of production. When posed the first question of how the Coraline project began, he was quick to point out that someone (Neil Gaiman) actually looked in the credits of a Nightmare Before Christmas and saw that it was not directed by Tim Burton. John Musker and Ron Clements made a comic duo as they jokingly bickered about whether or not they bickered as co-directors.

I could go on, but I’ll try to cut this short. I’ll just say that it was a pleasure getting to see all of these guys together in person. Listening to their stories, perspectives, advice, opinions, etc., was inspiring. Thanks to the Academy for organizing events like this one and making them available to the public.

…sounds like a bizarro law firm.

I’ll be attending this event Thursday evening, March 4th 2010, at the Sam Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Schedules permitting, these guys (pictured below) will be there to talk about the big movies they made that are up for Oscars this weekend.

Tickets can be purchased here for the low low low price of $5, but don’t wait. it’s sure to be a hot ticket. If you see me there, please feel free to say hello.

Events like this are enough to make me post this classic from Randy Newman:

“Don’t startle ‘im, Joe — it’s almost full.”

In my previous post, I focused somewhat on the drawing, which I do think is great and the above image is a terrific example, but how about the comedy! The drawing really sells the joke with composition, expression, staging, environment, etc., and all that stuff that contributes to the tone, but if you just strip it down to the basic joke, it’s still a great cartoon and that’s really his genius, I think. Many of his cartoons don’t really make light of a bad situation, so much as they find the comedy amidst a miserable situation. It could also be said that some of the jokes are really low-brow… but they are played so smartly. There is a real joy in that sort of humor.

“Just give me the aspirin. I already got a Purple Heart.”

Why is it I never heard of this guy before? I’m seeing a strong stylistic resemblance to Will Eisner, who I also love. Check out the expressive lines. When I see how a squiggly line can just so perfectly describe something. It blows my mind. I love the rhythmic flow throughout and the mix of realism and caricature/cartoon — a mix of the tragic and the comic. Really fun stuff. I like his approach to the subject matter, too. I’m not big into war stories, per se, but I get the feeling that doesn’t matter in this case. He’s getting to the humanity of things — not glorifying the military industrial complex — and he was there. This isn’t some fantasy fan-boy stuff. He was cartooning about his own reality and of those around him. His honesty landed him a reprimanding or two from General Patton himself. Reading about Bill Mauldin here, here, and here. I’m going to enjoy looking into this further.

Trailer is available here: http://www.aerialcontrivanceworkshop.com/projects.html
Jim Capobianco has also kept a blog about the film making process here: http://leoanimation.blogspot.com

This screening was to qualify the film for Oscar consideration and so I also wish it the greatest success in that endeavor.

BEFORE

AFTER

In the spirit of fresh starts, I’ve revamped the ol’ bloggy-blog, peoples. In case you find yourself missing the old design, I’ve archived it at:
http://blog.artandstory.com/2008-prior

However, if you wish to see new posts, they will only appear here. I upgraded Wordpress 2.0.1 to 2.7 and gave the thing a makeover. I did a little custom stylesheet I like to call ‘Skine’ — perhaps for obvious reasons. I felt like the old design was getting pretty bland and oh so Bush-era. It’s time now to celebrate diversity and smarts and the arts. I got a little creative. I hope you like it.

Your friend,

Lee-Roy

p.s. Here’s the sketch I used to create the new header image:

So please, if you are going to be there, look for me and come up and say hello. Here’s what I look like:

Oops! Wrong picture. This one’s a little more accurate:

My wife Jamie will be there with me.

I realize this is very last minute, quite literally. It is almost 7pm now, but I figured I’d give it a shot anyway. Bye for now!

—Lee-Roy

I gave this as a housewarming gift to my friends Chris and Lindsey. It’s approximately 3 by 4 inches, or 2.75 x 3.75, if cropped to the pencil line.

Ink on Bristol.

Here I am traveling through time and space and thought.

Drawn with Photoshop on Cintiq.

I just watched the documentary film “Frank and Ollie” last week for the first time. I knew that these two guys (Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston) were legendary Disney animators and two of the “Nine Old Men.” I also had some idea that Frank and Ollie were good friends. I didn’t know just what good friends they were. What a very special friendship they had. A deep understanding of each other’s minds, immense wisdom and patience and love for life. It’s a wonderful story about two friends, really. And two great people. In addition, they created these wonderful works of animation that are and forever will be such huge contributions to our culture. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Pinocchio, Bambi, just to name a few examples. That’s big. And yet, their contributions were so often such little things when it came down to it. A slight change in expression. The shape of the eye changing, a lean of the body one way or another, beautifully pushed, yet understated mannerisms. And the feeling behind those movements so wonderfully conveyed so that we really feel there is a living entity there, even if only in our imaginations (which is a lot). All embodied by some lines drawn on a piece of paper.

After watching “Frank and Ollie,” which was produced in 1995, I was saddened to learn that Ollie’s wife and his best friend Frank had both since passed away. Saddened after seeing what beautiful relationships Ollie had with these two, I imagined him then quite elderly and alone, but at least he might still have those friends, the trains. I wondered if maybe he was too elderly to care for his trains anymore. Then I learned that his train, the actual, life-size, restored steam engine, had since been purchased by John Lasseter (a long-time friend of Ollie’s). Where was Ollie now? And was he happy? It seemed to me, or so I hoped, that in spite of the loss of loved ones and the difficulties that come with age, he might still find some solace in his living an exceptionally good life. Which means having dear friendships, making a contribution to humanity… and what I saw in that film was a radiant inner joy, peace, and spirit that Ollie seemed to have. Of course, I think it’s pretty unlikely that he was alone. He was living in a long-term care facility in Sequim, Washington. That’s on the Olympic Peninsula, not far from Seattle (where I lived for 8 years), and it’s a beautiful area. The Olympic mountain range is there, Hoh Rainforest, hot springs nearby, Pugent sound to the north and east, and further west is the Pacific Ocean.

Ollie died of natural causes on Monday, April 14th, 2008, at the age of 95.

We’ll miss you Ollie. Your passing puts a final page on the story of the Nine Old Men, but your work and your legend will live on forever in some of the finest animation that we have ever (and may ever) experience.

Here’s one of my first sketches on the Cintiq 12WX! I took a couple tries at drawing myself on the Cintiq before this one. I drew myself all bright and cheery, but it just didn’t look right. I felt like I was making myself look too good, and who wants to see that? So I pushed this one a little more and gave myself that look of desperation. This was an unscripted pose, but it seemed as though I might be in a confounded state of pleading or grasping to understand something fearful, so I added the “But…”

I purchased it within the first month of its release in September of 1999, and at that time it was considered so powerful that the U.S. Government declared it a “supercomputer.” Today, with a 400MHz processor and a 10GB internal hard drive, it’s anything but super, but this machine has held up surprisingly well over the years. It came with Mac OS 8.6 installed and has since been upgraded to OS 9, then to OS X 10.0 Cheetah, and finally 10.3 Panther. It was able to run all of the operating systems relatively smoothly, but I don’t know how it would’ve handled 10.4 Tiger and I think 10.5 Leopard simply would not have run on this machine. The limited hard drive space became an issue quickly and I added an 80GB external drive and then a 250GB external drive to hold all my applications and files. CD burning had only just come on the scene when I got the computer, so I’ve always had to do that with an external. I’ve had two external CD burners over the years and it looks like my second one is now broken. With all of these peripherals, it’s come to look as though it’s on a sort of life support.

About four to five years ago, when I had to color a storyboard assignment in Photoshop using only a mouse, the budding carpal tunnel that I felt in my wrist urged me to purchase a Wacom Intuos tablet. This streamlined my workflow in Photoshop a bit more. It gave coloring and pretty much everything a great deal more natural feeling, but I would continuously run into walls using Photoshop simply because my computer couldn’t handle the heft of the program, particularly when working on large files. At times I would have to wait minutes for it to complete a single action and saving large files could take ages. Anywhere from 15 minutes on, and in some rare cases, over an hour.

Well, no more. My new machine is a 15” MacBook Pro. The processor is 2.4 GHz. That’s six times the speed of my G4. The internal drive is 250GB, twenty-five times the size of the G4’s internal drive. It has wireless internet and bluetooth capability, a DVD/CD burner, a built in iSight camera, a nice video card, and comes with Leopard and lots of bundled apps, including iLife ’08, and on top of all that, it’s portable! I’ve gotten iWork, so there won’t be any need to install Microsoft Office on this machine, and now I have Photoshop, too, so I can get to work.

The Wacom Intuos has always been great and for a variety of things it is far far better than using a mouse, but drawing/painting on a separate surface and looking at another was always rather counter intuitive, no matter how well I may have adjusted to it over time.

I’m now able to work directly on screen with the Cintiq 12WX, a newer model of Cintiq that brought the screen size (and the price) of the Cintiq a little more into the realm of possibility. It’s still not a cheap item, by any stretch, but it’s a powerhouse of graphic potential. This should really streamline my storyboarding process, in particular. No more scanning necessary (while technically also true of the Intuos, I could never get the hang of drawing with that, even though painting seemed to work more or less okay, so I always had to draw on paper and scan it in). I have no intention of abandoning physical media entirely, because there’s really just no replacement for that, but this will be a lot of fun to experiment with and will certainly give a boost to some very key areas of my work.