Channel Frederator Blog

Aussie animator and director Darcy Prendergast’s film, “Ron the Zookeeper”, is featured this week on Cartoon Hangover. Finally, a quality stop-motion about panda masturbation.

Cartoon Hangover: Where did you study animation?

Darcy Prendergast: RMIT, Melbourne. That said, there was no clay animation class there at the time, so I was largely self taught. The ol’ trial and error… Errors-plural would be more fitting.

CH: Who are your favorite artists?

DP: Jim Henson, Jean Pierre Jeunet, Jeff Soto, Joe Sorren. I didn’t intentionally choose artists that all start with J. It just happened that way.

CH: I saw in another interview that Ron is based on your father who was a zookeeper. What does he think of your film?

DP: He absolutely loves it. I was shooting this film in my uncles Garage, and no one was more supportive than my old man. He’d bring down changes of clothes, meals… Everything. Mum hardly ever ventured down, and as such, [Read more…]

Channel Frederator fans are in love with this weeks episode featuring “Moonboy” by Adam Calfee. Calfee, along with Gus Trauth, Jordan Held, and Ron Levellie have established MoreFrames Animation, a collective offering various creative services within the realm of animation, illustration, and design.

Channel Frederator: Where did you study animation?

Adam Calfee: I (and the rest of the fellows at MoreFrames Animation) studied at and graduated from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, which is where “Moonboy” was completed during the final semester of my senior undergrad year.

CF: Who are your favorite artists?

AC: MoreFrames is inspired by too many artists to name. But we are big fans of (in no particular order) James Jean, Katsuhiro Otomo, Ashley Wood, Jamie Hewlett, Frank and Ollie, Sylvain Chomet, P.T. Anderson, Hayao Miyazaki, everyone involved with the absolutely beautiful little shorts produced by Les Gobelins, Bobby Chiu…

CF: For such a short piece, the content in “Moonboy” is pretty epic. [Read more…]

“Meatwaffle” is a strange, mixed media animation that has polarized audiences everywhere - from the CF YouTube page to Sundance. Take a look at what the the film’s director, Leah Shore, has to say about her work… plus the heartwarming adjective she invented.

Cartoon Hangover: Where did you study animation?

Leah Shore: I went to RISD for my undergrad and majored in Film, Animation and Video.

CH: Who are your favorite artists?

LS: SOOOO many artists… from off the top of my head - Ralph Steadman, Eric Fishl. Jan Svankmajer, My Mom, Dali,Tom Waits, Matthew Barney, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe. and many many mooore..

CH: What gave you the idea for “Meatwaffle”?

[Read more…]

Jaromír Plachý’s film “The Clod” is short, sweet and comes to us aaaaaall the way from the Czech Republic.

Channel Frederator: Where did you study animation?

Jaromír Plachý: I still study at Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, Czech Republic.

CF: Who are your favorite artists?

JP: Because I also deal with making comics, I have to name two contemporary authors of comics, who have worked in the animation field too - Max Andersson and Lewis Trondheim. Otherwise, there are some old masters of course, from Hieronymus Bosch to M. C. Escher.

CF: What gave you the idea for “The Clod”?

JP: At the beginning, there was a little drawing which came into being during my leisure time. There was a big creature against a tiny being. Then came the idea to animate it and find out how the situation will work out. And that’s all.

CF: Who does the voice of the little screaming dot?

JP: Me, personally.

CF: Yeah! [Read more…]

Whaddya say to the Academy’s picks for Best Animated Feature? We say there’s a lot of them this year, and that’s radical! This week you get to watch a fun little film, plus Carl gets your take on the animated Oscar noms. Cartoon Hangover features a festival flick from Sundance! Animation that is both Hangover worthy and Sundance worthy? You bet.

“The Clod” (”Hrouda”) by Jaromír Plachý: A giant becomes a big nuisance as it slowly approaches a tiny home.

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*New episode of Cartoon Hangover this Friday! “Meatwaffle”! Follow CH on Twitter! Be our friend on Facebook! WOO!

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WARNING: Channel Frederator is rated EXPLICIT. Man, awards season is so *bleepin’* excellent! Oops. Sorry. Some content on CF is pretty grown up. If you’re under 18, get a parent’s permission prior to viewing.

-Bailee DesRocher

Daisy Edwards, a New York animator by way of Australia, brought us this weeks film, “Without Thunder”. Below she discusses heartbreak, romance, and why NYC sucks in the rain.

Channel Frederator: Where did you study animation?

Daisy Edwards: I went to the Queensland College of Arts, Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.

CF: Who are your favorite artists?

DE: I am one of those people who easily falls in love with art and artists all the time…so I have a lot of favourites! But a few to name would be Pascal Campion (I met him at Comic Con, very much a fangirl moment), Mary Blair, Lauren Child, Van Gogh, Monet, Degas…and as for animation artists I cant go past Tim Burton (his MOMA retrospective is awe inspiring), Henry Selick (another ridiculous fangirl moment) and pretty much all the designers for Nick cartoons in the 90s (Aah! Real Monsters, Rocko’s Modern Life, etc)

CF: What gave you the idea [Read more…]

The absurd, ‘violence for violence’s sake’ antics of Mr. Broose are causing a stir this week on Cartoon Hangover. Here, SG from Zillis Media discusses his new venture into animation and alternative media.

Cartoon Hangover: Where (if at all) did you study film/animation?

SG: I have no formal training in art or animation. Any similarities between my work and professional animation are purely coincidental [Read more…]

Kevin McCullough and his fellow student animators are responsible for this week’s awesome film “Electropolis”. Below is a little insight into the collaborative process and what we can expect from the class in 2010.

Channel Frederator: Where did you study animation?

Kevin McCullough: All 13 students that participated in the creation of the film attend Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, Canada in the BAA Animation Program. “Electropolis” was created during our 3rd year of the program, and was our major assignment for the year. We are all still currently in the program, and will graduate in April of this year.

CF: Who are your favorite artists?

KM: The artists that inspired us the most for this film were from Sylvain Chomet’s animated film “The Triplets of Belleville,” but we also took inspiration from the concept artists from some of the bigger studios like Disney and Pixar.

[Read more…]

Animator/director Chris Conforti’s “Frog” is a Cartoon Hangover favorite, only a few hours after the episode was posted! Below, Chris tells us about screaming, eating live animals, and candy mishaps.

Cartoon Hangover: Where did you study animation/film?

Chris Conforti: School Of Visual Arts (SVA).

CH: Who are your favorite artists/animators?

CC: Tex Avery, Bill Watterson, Shannon Wheeler, Don Hertzfeldt, Nicolas Marlet, Christy Karacas, Mark Van Orman.

CH: What gave you the idea for “Frog”?

CC: Spending a summer at my parents home in Florida. It was always crazy hot and frogs were everywhere - in the pool, in the car, in the cat’s mouth.

CH: What is your favorite sequence in the film?

[Read more…]

Filmmaker Sally Andersen Ward’s “Left Brained Larry & Right Brained Rachel” is a favorite on the internet. Here, the writer/director tells us about the creative process. It’s a rather unique one, since the school she made the film at doesn’t have an animation program.

Channel Frederator: Where did you study animation/film?

Sally Andersen Ward: From September 2008 till May 2009 I attended the European Film College (EFC), an 8½ month foundation course in film making. During my stay I had many great courses, where scriptwriting was definitely my favourite. I ended up having it twice, both as a regular and masterclass.

It was during the masterclass that I finally decided to write “Left-brained Larry & Right-brained Rachel” (L&R), an old idea I had been carrying around, but that I didn’t think would be possible to make with my level of experience. The amazing thing about L&R is that almost none of the people who worked [Read more…]