Fred Seibert's Blog

It’s always a good day when artist/director Kevin Lofton comes by Frederator/NY. Carrie and I got to talk to him about his plans for feature films, TV series, and web shorts.

Thanks for Kevin’s kind permission to post some of his development artwork.

Charles K kindly reminds us that our friends at Cartoon Saloon are opening their much anticipated feature film in the US this weekend.  The Secret of Kells premieres at The IFC Center in New York this Saturday. Get your tickets here.

Check out the Secret of Kells Blog by director Tomm Moore with Nora Twomey as his co-Director.

From Larry Huber and Sylvia Edwards:

Join us for a celebration of the life and work of Jaime Diaz

JAIME REYES DIAZ
January 6, 1937 - June 20, 2009

Where: Nickelodeon Gym, Burbank, California
Date: Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Time: 6pm

Apex Cartoon Props & Novelties 1998 (Oh Yeah! Cartoons, Nickelodeon)
Art director/Director

Kameleon Kid 2000 (Oh Yeah! Cartoons, Nickelodeon)
Co-creator with Russ Mooney, Art director, co-Director

Dr. Froyd’s Funny Farm 2008 (Random! Cartoons, Nickelodeon)
Co-creator with Bill Burnett, Art director, Director

Gaucho Pampa 2006 (Jaime Diaz Studios Argentina/GIMC Korea/Animotion Works, Inc.)
Creator, Art director, Director

There’s a ton of Marv Newland news in the hopper.

Tomorrow night, Marv’s got a gallery opening of postcards in Serignan, France. If you can’t make it, you can check out some of the cards at his Marvcards site (and those who know Marv best can marvel at the fact that there’s a website!).

We’ve mentioned before that Frederator was producing a short film of Marv’s over the last couple of years, and, lo and behold, the subject matter is… postcards! Well, Postalolio is finished (complete credits are below the fold) and started it’s festival run. It started at the Edinburgh International Film Festival this past Saturday, and continues on to Brazil’s Anima Mundi Festival throughout July.

Postalolio (sample #1), by Marv Newland from fredseibert on Vimeo.

I wanted to give a taste of what you’re missing, and assure you I’ll let you know the rest of the worldwide screening schedules where you might see the film yourself in person.

Go Marv!

[Read more…]

Jaime Diaz, self portrait, 2008

We just got the sad news that our old friend Jaime Diaz passed away this Saturday.

His daughter Claudia wrote:

“My dad was born on Jan. 6th, 1937, and passed away on Jun 20th on the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. His full name is Jaime Reyes Diaz; born in Saenz Pena, Chaco Argentina. He married Maria Ines Aguero on June 8, 1961. Children: Claudia Zambon, Annabelle Diaz and Bill Diaz. Grandchildren: Nicholas Lalli, Andres Diaz, Amanda, Clara and Felix Tonconogy, Rocio Belen Diaz, Bryana Diaz, Steven, Anne Marie and Michael Zambon.

“He arrived in the States in Nov. 1963. Please ask to pray for his soul. He was a hard working talented man who provided for is family all his life. He was passionate about cartoons and was highly creative. He will be deeply missed by his wife, her first and only love, and by his children who are still living.”

As you can tell by looking over his incredible resume on imdb, Jaime was an active and passionate part of the cartoon industry for over 40 years, from Hong Kong Phooey to Duckman. What a list can’t tell you is what a sweet, wonderful guy he was, with a completely puckish sense of humor. And talented, way talented. In addition to working on a lot of our series over the years, Jaime created shorts for Frederator; an Oh Yeah! cartoon with Russ Mooney, and a Random! cartoon with Bill Burnett.

Gaucho Pampa by Jaime Diaz from fredseibert on Vimeo.

We were introduced by his close friend and my long, close colleague, Larry Huber, who writes this moving tribute at his blog. He also produced Jaime’s cartoon, Gaucho Pampa (above), which was screened at the Taiwan International Film Festival.

Adios Jaime, we’ll miss you.

Kameleon Kid, 2000, Created & directed by Jaime Diaz & Russ Mooney

Bambi Meats Anime Hell from tohoscope on Vimeo.

I found this over at the RAW blog, and since Marv Newland is my hero (and he’s mentioned a lot on our blog)…

A video flier for the May 2009 Anime Hell shows. Inspired by Marv Newland’s Bambi Meets Godzilla.

If you’ve never seen Marv Newland’s Bambi Meets Godzilla then this will mean nothing to you. In this age of youTube I’d be surprised. After all, it’s only been around since 1969. Here’s the Wikipedia entry…

Posted by Tohoscope

We all fell in love with Kirsten Lepore’s work when she was the first “featured filmmaker” on Channel Frederator a few weeks ago.

It came at a great time; we need a new HD production tag for the posting of the first episodes of Fanboy & Chum Chum. I thought it would be fun to have Kirsten make us a claymation tag (don’t want to be biased toward 2D, flash, or CG, do we?). Here’s a few of the Fredbot sample stills she sent over.

The other day I was enjoying some of the interviews Eric and Bailee have been posting, which kicked me to reading some of Jeaux’s and Mike Milo’s and Floyd’s, and it got me wondering. I know we’ve run almost 400 films on Channel Frederator and that we’d interviewed a lot of under exposed filmmakers and artists… But, how many exactly?

One hundred and forty five. Right, 145. And they keep on coming.

There aren’t too many places that play such close attention to the people making animated films, unless they’re Walt Disney or John Lasseter (not that there’s anything wrong with that). And while we can’t begin ton compare our archive to some of the in depth work done by folks like Michael Barrier, Amid Amidi, Jerry Beck, and others, it’s a darn good start I think.

We’re going to keep it up. In addition to the weekly Channel Frederator animated filmmakers, I’ve always thought the dedicated folks who work day to day in our crews deserve a spotlight, and we’ve started that up with the Fanboy & Chum Chum crew. Adventure Time’s crew will be coming up, and we’re going to try and backtrack into our shows like The Fairly Oddparents and Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!

And don’t be surprised when you start reading interviews with some of the (truly) misunderstood production crew and network executives that work on our shows. It takes a lot of people to make even one film, and I think we should try and get to know a little more about them all.

If you’re interested in getting in on the action, we’re always looking for new interviewers too, it’s a lot of work to keep this effort going. If you’re interested, just drop a note to our New York producer Carrie Miller, and she’ll try and get you going.

Our friend Nina Paley got a great article in The New York Times yesterday highlighting her independent (really independent) movie “Sita Sings the Blues” and it’s public television debut in NY on March 7. Amid Amidi writes a little about the music copyright issues Nina’s encountering (and solving it seems).

Many of us know the difficulties and sacrifices necessary to make our own films. Shorts are hard enough, dontcha think? Now, imagine Nina’s Herculean efforts to make a feature. And a wonderful feature people love. Check out her movie, you’ll have a grand time watching.

Eric, Kevin and I went over the Casa Butch at Nickelodeon Studios where Butch Hartman told us a little about some of the movies he’s been developing. Thanks Butch.