Channel Frederator Blog

You may not think of the Alliance Française as a place to go watch cartoons, but on November 1st, the New York branch will present Serge Bromberg’s 100 Years of Animation: Treasures from a Chest.

“A collector of more than 20,000 early movies and the artistic force behind Lobster Films, Bromberg has become one of the great champions of silent films and a master at recreating the initial rush audiences felt when first entering the cinema house.

Throughout this exceptional event, Bromberg will present animated shorts that he has discovered and restored, accompanying them with anecdotes and piano music…”

(Serge is also the Artistic Director of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival.)

The program will include Fantasmagorie (Emil Cohl), Cartoon Factory (Fleischer Brothers), The Sinking of the Lusitania (Windsor McKay), Egged On (Charley Bower and H.L. Muller), and George Pal’s Tulips Shall Grow.

Tickets are $10 ($7 for students). Go to this page for ticket information.

By the way, 2008 is the 100th anniversary of Fantasmagorie, one of the earliest examples of a fully-animated film. If you’ve never seen it, do so immediately!

After the jump, a low-res recording of Serge Bromberg’s live performance with Windsor McKay’s Gertie the Dinosaur (at Annecy 2008)…with tuba score! [Read more…]

This new clip from Disney’s “Bolt” is looking pretty nice. There have been layoffs at Disney recently, but it looks and sounds as though the work on the film is top notch. Hopefully the artists are all employed again real soon.

“Bolt” opens November 21st.

-Floyd Bishop

Rawwwwww!

Corey

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Thanks to Mark Mayerson for pointing out the presence of two George Pal shorts at Europa Film Treasures, an online archive of important European films. (Mark’s blog Mayerson On Animation is highly recommended, so check it out!)

The first film is “La Grande Revue Philips” (”The Great Philips Revue”). Made to promote the Philips brand of radios, this sassy, stop-motion extravaganza was produced at Dollywood Studio in Holland (where he worked with art director Joop Geesink). (Note: The portrayal of Harlem residents is definitely un-PC.)

Philip funded at least ten Puppetoons. The George Pal Site rounds them up here. (The information on the Pal website leads me to believe that the short on Europa is a combination of footage from “The Little Broadcast” (1935) and “The Big Broadcast of 1938″ (1937). Any experts out there to clear that up?)

Anyway, watch the film here and read more about it on this page.

The other Pal film posted for your viewing pleasure is “Tulips Shall Grow” (1942). It was made for Paramount after Pal fled WWII-era Europe for New York City. The evil Screwballs Army attacks a delightful, cheery, windmill-loving blond couple in a not-so-subtle bit of anti-Nazi animation propaganda. The hardware heavies are ultimately defeated and hardy flowers bloom. YEAH!

Watch it here and learn more on this page.

After the jump, a commercial from post-Pal Dollywood where coffee beans speak in a foreign tongue! [Read more…]

This cartoon short is The Interview (1961). The animated interviewee is Shorty Petterstein, a beatnik character/alter ego created by “sound artist” Henry Jacobs. Jacobs is an interesting and still rather obscure character who palled around with Lenny Bruce and Alan Watts, hosted one the world’s first “world music” radio programs, and experimented with audio collages and tape manipulation way back when such things were a time-consuming pain in the butt!

WFMU has posted MP3s of all the tracks from The Wide Weird World of Shorty Petterstein here.

Henry Jacobs has a website where you can purchase an autographed “Best Of” DVD. Listen to Henry’s 2005 interview for NPR here.

Ernest Pintoff directed The Interview; he’s best known in animation circles for his work at UPA, Flebus at Terrytoons, and his direction of Oscar winner The Critic —with voiceover by Mel Brooks. Len Glasser did the designs—he worked on Tom Terrific at Terrytoons.

Henry Jacobs also contributed to an early 70s oddball animated program called The Fine Art of Goofing Off, which used diverse animation techniques to illustrate meandering free association about the philosophy of pointlessness. 60’s counterculture figures including Alan Watts, Victor Moscoso, and comedy troupe The Committee also contributed to this artifact of Public Television’s early and experimental years.

After the jump, some excerpts from The Fine Art of Goofing Off: [Read more…]

RAW Art Friday!

SUNCHIRP

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“The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.” -Banksy

E3E/v

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RAW Art is for Lovers.

Trish

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The stop motion fantasy feature Coraline will be released February 6, 2009. Directed by Henry Selick, based upon the Neil Gaiman book, produced by Laika (formerly Will Vinton Studios), this promises to be an oddball animation classic.

It’s got a super solid voice cast that includes Dakota Fanning, John Hodgman, and Jennifer Saunders. And music by They Might Be Giants.

How much talent can you stuff into one animated film?

Anyway, a slew of sneak peek material has recently been released to the net. I thought it would be a good idea to round up the links for you:

Coraline photo gallery from LA Times

Sneak peek videos from Rotten Tomatoes

Oregonian article.

Image Gallery from IGN

Video gallery from IGN

Shock Til You Drop set visit and Selick interview

Original sculpted models for the movie displayed at Comicon here.

And a fun flashback: Selick’s Slow Bob in the Lower Dimensions (1990) for MTV:

—Anne D. Bernstein

This cut-out animation (in the style of JibJab) was made for the organization Birthright Israel. I think it’s worth watching just to see cartoon John McCain blow the shofar.

It was produced by Jewish Robot. Written and animated by William Levin. Voices by William Levin and Andrea Praet. Concept by Jesse Epstein.

Here’s an interesting article about William Levin (founder of Jewish Robot) and how he learned Flash during jury duty.

I’m off to eat pot roast. See you all Wednesday.

—Anne D. Bernstein