The Don Bluth film Banjo the Woodpile Cat is now available on a special 30th anniversary 2 disc DVD set. Created in mostly spare time in Don Bluth’s garage, this is the film that helped launch Don Bluth’s post Disney career. Hopefully the DVD contains stories of the around the clock production schedule, tight deadline, and exodus of Disney artists to join Don as he started to get his studio off the ground.
During World War II, with Europe under the threat of Hitler’s Germany, much of the European theatrical market was cut off. One way the US studios made up for that loss of revenue was to create films for the US government, which hoped that using the popularity of American cartoons would gain support for the US and their wartime causes.Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, and many other cartoon stars of the day did their part.
While much of the material seems politically incorrect by today’s standards, at the time it was one of the best ways to visually distinguish between the US an its enemies. Physical and cultural differences were focused on and exaggerated to the point of extreme characture.
Not every wartime film was so literal in its story or imagery. A few films managed to get across complex ideas by using metaphors of classic stories to represent what they were seeing [Read more…]
I have read (and read, and read, and read again, thanks to my own kids) the book “1000 Times No” from Mr. Warburton. The book, published by Harper Collins, is a great book for kids, and I can honestly tell you that it is a B.O.O.G.E.R. : a Book Of Offspring’s Glorified Exclaimed Resistance (Tom Warburton is the creator of the long running Cartoon Network series Codename: Kids Next Door).
The book focuses on Noah, and his resistance to wanting to leave. Leave to go where? Noah doesn’t care, he just knows he doesn’t want to go. His refusals range from a stern “No”, to spelling it out with sky writing. Noah is also fluent (or just fluent enough) in many different languages. Kids will enjoy trying to read each of the languages, often in different silly voices.
To help promote the book, Mr. Warburton has created this promotional trailer:
I’m wondering if there are [Read more…]
The Hollywood Reporter is reporting (imagine that) that Nickelodeon has ordered a pilot from DreamWorks Animation based on Monsters Vs Aliens.
DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg announced the news at the 37th Annual
J. P. Morgan Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in Boston.
DreamWorks and Nickelodeon announced last week their collaboration on
KUNG FU PANDA: THE SERIES and Nick is currently airing THE PENGUINS OF
MADAGASCAR, another collaboration.
DreamWorks will also have two TV specials in 2010 on NBC, a SCARED
SHREKLESS Halloween special and a KUNG FU PANDA holiday special.
Here is a first look at A Christmas Carol, directed by Robert Zemeckis. Jim Carrey will appear as four different characters: the old Scrooge and three ghosts.
Disney has released the poster for The Princess and the Frog. The first real trailer was released last week, and the reception was mixed.
Some people call it groundbreaking, while others call it a pale imitation of a tired formula. For their part, Disney has tried to put this film up on a pedestal, placing it alongside some of their best films. In fact, the whole 30 second beginning of the trailer is a montage of “remember when we made this movie and this movie?”
We’ll have to wait until the end of this year to see if the film is actually any good, but the stage is set for either a great cinematic triumph, or a huge let down. I think the film has potential, but there are some weird things in the trailer that don’t get my hopes up. I’m looking at you, baby armed prince.
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that a new museum will open in the Presidio of San Francisco. The museum will focus on Walt Disney the person over Walt Disney the company and corporate entity.
Diane Disney Miller says “My father’s name is probably one of the most well-known names around the world, but as the ‘brand’ or trademark has spread, for many, the man has become lost.”
Based on what I have seen so far, the museum should be a pretty nice visit.
Joe David Torres recently let everyone on RAW know about an awesome art show he’s putting together. From Joe’s post:
A bunch of us are doing a group art show called “Mawnstirrs and Rowboughts” aka Monsters and… ROBOTS!!! Yes I said it, robots!!!
The artists participating in the show will convey just how those two icons of human culture (monsters and robots) touched their personal lives and helped inspire and shape them as artists. They show will not be one versus the other, or one with the other. ( but we don’t discourage pieces containing a versus theme or a companion ship between the two) but we do encourage our artist participants not to use any known characters of storylines, but to show us how they feel about the subjects!!! It will be a very unconventional show, that’s one reason we chose to spell it so weird as well. “Mawnstirrs and Rowboughts!!!”
We have a [Read more…]
Over on Cartoon Retro’s Blog, Shane Glines has posted links to a great tutorial called “How to Draw Caricatures”. The piece is broken up into several parts, but it’s a great post and definitely worth reading.
Part One: Basic Theory and the Five Shapes
Part Two: Relationship of Features
Part Three: The Importance of Head Shapes
And, just in case you missed it, HERE is our interview with Shane Glines.
You have probably already heard about the plans for a Disney/Pixar Vancouver studio. I’ve been trying to find out more about the studio, and I have found that some of the information in the newspaper article was factually inaccurate and a bit misleading. Over on Mark Mayerson’s blog, he has a quote from someone at Pixar (south):
The Vancouver studio will only be producing ancillary work with legacy characters, like Cars and Toy Story. All the stuff that Pixar doesn’t have the time or money to do to keep the franchises alive. The original shorts and DVD shorts will still be done in Emeryville. As I understand it, Pixar will still generate all the stories for the ancillary work, and the Vancouver studio will be strictly for production.
So it would seem that, in regards to outsourcing, Canada is to Pixar what India and Korea are to Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. It would also seem that [Read more…]
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