Adventure

No figure today in animation demands a documentary treatment more than Bill Plympton.

It could be argued that he's the most the important single figure in the past 25 years (moreso than Lassiter, Keane or MacFarlane) -the previous 25 belonging to Bakshi, the 25 prior Hubley, Walt Disney before him all the way back to Winsor McCay.

Adventures in Plymptoons had it's sneak premiere at the Museum of Moving Image yesterday before it's grand unveiling in Annecy next week.  There's plenty of material within the film to support the idea that the Plympton story needs to be told.

Beyond the technical issues -like it or not, fuzzy mattes and noisy audio which may be acceptable in an issue documentary become an issue in documentary about film -the serious flaw was hinted in director Alexia Anastasio's introduction.

She recounted a funny story about trying to "get" Kanye West for the film.  His appearance was foiled after his infamous Grammy Awards episode sent him to a self-imposed media exile.  Sure the pop star worked with the animator on a music video, but really, who cares?  What sort of insight could he offer on the man or the work?

There lies the fatal flaw in Adventures in Plymptoons, the viewer is treated to an constant stream of interviewees who seem chosen for some sort of celebrity appeal with few offering more than a line or two of hagiography.    Most stories are enjoyable -"Weird" Al Yankovic, for instance, is a personable and funny as you'd expect- but the cumulative effect is a white noise of talking heads.  Voices who might have otherwise broadened the scope of the film -Signe Baumane who senses a touch of misogyny in one particular scene, Ron Diamond on Bill's relationship to the commercial world -are given equal or less time than a voice actor who had maybe three hours interaction with the subject.

The talking head format fights the contrapuntal "quirky" approach.  Some of these segments are surprisingly rewarding -Bill Plympton serenading Troma's Lloyd Kaufman with "The Nose Hair Song" is one particular highlight.

Casual fans will likely enjoy some of the anecdotes (many are also recounting the excellent Independently Animated).  The uninitiated will see some great work though they might not fully understand why Bill Plympton is such a big deal.  Those looking for something more might be a little disappointed.

Horn Tooting: An Elevating Adornment

Here's a brief roundup of some reviews for "Carol Channing: Larger Than Life".

The film had it's premiere at The Tribeca Film Festival, placing third in the Audience Award and then went off to HotDocs in Toronto.

Variety says "The work by Asterisk Animation is an adornment, but somehow elevates the production."
Michael Musto in the Voice
Playbill
A few pictures with Ms. Channing at the her first screening and a review which calls our animation "One particularly brilliant highlight"
NY Press
NYC Cultural Review
Indiewire
A Canadian take from HotDocs.
DVD Talk which says "the bridging animations (adapted from Al Hirschfeld's drawings) are marvelous".

Carol Channing: Larger Than Life, TriBeCa Premiere

We did seven little animated inserts after a Hirschfeld illustration for Carol Channing: Larger Than Life which premiered at the TriBeCa Film Festival yesterday.

Very often we'll screen lots of different cuts on these sorts of projects, sometimes sitting in the editing room to offer thoughts on the overall structure and content of the film.   By the time of the premiere, it might be possible to recite the film line for line.

In this case, we pretty much stuck to our sequence only screening a very early cut.  So it was like seeing the film for the first time.

Tyne Daly delivers a note from the star who couldn't make the screening.  Director Dori Berinstein to her right.

Turns out to be a terrific film.

Dori Berinstein, the director, and Adam Zuker, her editor and co-writer, present a loving and layered portrait of an iconic performer.

One moment is particular touching (amongst many touching moments): with her stage performances numbering into the high thousands, Carol Channing has the reputation of having never missed a single show.  She steps into correct that, she did miss a show -the second act at least -after contracting food poisoning and vomiting all over the stage.  Even while taking treatment for ovarian cancer she would fly to New York after her Saturday show for therapy only to return to the stage in whatever city the tour had landed for Monday.

What I find particularly touching is her dedication -not so much to "craft", although her love of performing is contagious -but to her fellow performers, and moreover her audience.   She says something to the effect, people save up a lot of money and more importantly go to a show to have an experience they'll remember forever.  They're doing all of that to see her and she refuses to let them down.

She shows a commitment which we all should make to our work.

Carol Channing: Larger Than Life has three more screenings this week. And will next show at Hot Docs in Toronto.

Collaging A Collage

We've been contracted to do the graphic for the NEH/PBS initiative "Picturing America".

This has mostly been the title sequence and typesetting with a couple other things here and there. That's in addition to the handful of full subjects we've produced.

Last week we began discussing with Gail Levin a way to illustrate the construction of Romare Bearden's "The Dove".  The impetus behind this idea was the voice track of his niece describing the artist's thought process.

We thought it would be interesting to document the process as we go along.

Today we got the audio cut.

Step One: Listen to the voice over a few times.

Step Two: Type the transcript.

Step Three: Verbally run our idea by Gail.

This little bit is deceptively difficult.  When it's complete it should easy and obvious, but getting there might be tricky.

The primary concern in creating illustrative graphics about art is to be "true to the subject."  At least in these educational films.  Reverence is appropriate.

What is difficult here is that we'll need to show the construction of the collage without the benefit of pulling apart the layers from the original. 

Our next step will be to sketch a rough concept board.

Unfinished Animation Minute

Last year I had a few conversation with Dan Sarto at AWN.com about doing some video podcasts.

It's something I'd like to do, but would prefer to work with a good camera. This was a test of the idea that was shot at a Jimmy Picker talk. The 20th Century DVcam doesn't have the flexibility or the image quality to make this sort of thing easy.

And if it ain't easy...

Space Models

These are the design sheets for a few bits of animation we did for WGBH's Nova Science:NOW.

Above are the first drawings we presented.

Turns out they wanted him to look more like the segment's host.

That was pretty easy.

A little grey hair, voila! New guy.

These were designed by Zach Leo, a student at RIT who worked with us over the summer.

The full episode with our segments can be seen here.

Double Feature in the Future

Monday, February 7th, two documentaries we've worked on will make their US broadcast debuts.

At 9:00 on WLIW (channel 21 in the NYC area and Long Island) will premiere "Cab Calloway: Sketches". 

This picture was directed by Gail Levin and edited (and largely produced) out of our space.  We created the opening titles, the graphics package (lower thirds, etc) and an animated sequence in which a hand drawn Cab dances with an Alvin Ailey dancer.

The film was sponsored by European producers, ARTE leading the way, and created to air as part of a 25th anniversary broadcast of "The Blues Brothers".

Follow that up at 10:00 with a horse of a different color when National Geographic broadcasts "How To Build A Beating Heart" as part of their Explorer series.

This marks the second National Geographic program we've worked with Director Mark Manucci.  They are always great fun -for this we got to morph fetus arms into adult arms, project intestines on the leotard clad bodies of unsuspecting actors, a dozen or so animated shots and learn all about the exciting future of body part growing.

Another Programming Alert

NOVA was always a favorite show of mine as a kid.  There was something powerful in its presentation of knowledge -like "National Geographic", as well.  The universe contains these amazing things, and here they are, on display for you to try to understand.

We have some animation in a segment of NOVA: scienceNOW which airs tonight.

The segment was directed by Pamela Mason Wagner.

Christina Riley did all the animation and motion graphics.  There are six little clips within the piece.

The story concerns the development of suits suitable for long distance space travel -like a Mars mission.  The featured design uses tension within the fabric of the suit to apply pressure to the body along the specific points.  We had to illustrate this idea, amongst others.

NOVA: ScienceNOW airs at 8 PM on most PBS stations (check local listings).

Pan And Scan

The most rudimentary work animators have traditionally been called upon to produce is "pan and scan" of photos and artwork.

It's the simplest form of motion graphics, like motion graphics you use non-consecutive images sequenced to present an idea.

It's also an opportunity to put the Kulechov Effect to work.

Here's a sequence for the Jeff Bridges documentary.

We were basically given the soundtrack. The editor had slugged images which weren't usable for various reasons (many were repeats or just inappropriate) and only approximated the cuts.

We had to go through the photo archive and find the best images for the sequence.

It's making a little film with the barest resources.

I find motion graphics sequences like this oddly rewarding, maybe how a magician feels when he pulls a rabbit out of someone else's hat.

Tune In Tonight AND In The Future

First, a reminder that "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides" will broadcast on American Masters on most PBS stations tonight at 8:00.

We did over 30 sequences, most simple photo montages, but some more fine tune work as well -including a showcase of Bridges' extraordinary behind-the-scenes Widelux photo books which he makes for all of his films that we did in a funky under camera stop motion, the title sequence, and other bits of design here and there.

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Another documentary project we worked on, VEGUCATED, has just completed it's trailer.

Programming Alert

Working with Gail Levin is always a blast, and being associated with "American Masters" is a terrific honor -it's unquestionably the premiere venue for biographical documentary.


For the past few months we've been working with Gail on "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides". This will premiere in just a few days -Wednesday, January 12 at 8:00 PM on PBS (check local listings).

At 90 minutes it's longer than my attention span usually allows, but the scope of Bridges' film catalog can carry that duration impressively. Add his photography, painting and music into it and a complex portrait begins to emerge.

We did opening titles, graphics packaging (lower thirds, etc), a few photo montages, some pseudo paint on glass animation, and some under camera stop motion animation of books.

Last of Xmas

So this is the last of the Christmas related posts.

I'm not really into Christmas, honestly. So it was a great pleasure to get the call from Morgan Spurlock's production company a few years back to create some graphics for Rob VanAlkemede's "What Would Jesus Buy?"

The structure of the film changed towards the end of production and our sequences were cut, but it was still a great experience.

We don't do too much in the way of 3D graphics -maybe one or two projects a year. This was animated by Phil McNagny.

Monday Morning History Lesson

In case anyone didn't know, I went to "Commie College".  The Eugene Lang College of the New School for Social Research.  A much simpler name: "Commie College".

The curriculum there was extremely strong -relying on primary sources (no survey textbooks) and surprisingly broad for a commie school.  We studied Kropotkin AND Bakuhnin!

From my 3.5 year experience there (I loaded up on credits and AP transfers to finish early) I learned to wince a little at the word "herstory".

Kelly Gallagher worked with a us a few months last year.  All that time, I suspect she was working on this film.  Here's her website.


"The Herstory of the Female Filmmaker" by Kelly Gallagher from Kelly Gallagher on Vimeo.

"The Herstory of the Female Filmmaker".

It's created on 16mm Film and uses a whole variety of techniques: hand painted rotoscoping, claymation, scratching/coloring 16mm film, stop motion, cut-out animation.

The subject is exhaustive, pushing the length of the film upwards.

The graphics are raw and attractive and an upbeat energy is sustained throughout.

Monday Morning Movie Trailer

On my way to get my seat at "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" last year, I was stopped in the aisle.

I'd like to say that it's not uncommon for attractive young ladies to grab me in public -or suddenly give me flowers -but, sadly, it's a rare occurrence.

I was pulled aside by Ali Codina who worked the front desk at The Ink Tank many years ago (a position I had mangled so badly they stuck me in production).

In our brief chat before I had to rush to my seat, she neglected to mention that she had made a film and that film was going to be screening at the TriBeCa Film Festival.

"Monica and David" went on to win the documentary award at TriBeCa and is now airing on HBO.




It's a lovely film. Do yourself a favor and check it out.

Let Sleeping Hearts of Dogs Lie

Christina "painted" these models for a science show we're working on.

We'll post updates as it proceeds.

We're doing 30 or so shots for this film, only around a half dozen  will be this story, in this style.

The other segments are attractive in different ways.

I like how this is outside what we're used to seeing in science shows and like the other segments still "scientific".

Covers

A little while back we posted a few album covers we're referencing for a documentary we're doing a bit of animation for.

Here are some more.

We're animating Ros Serey Sothea for the film.

She was "The Golden Voice" and kind of like the Cambodian Nancy Sinatra -except without the famous dad.

She was born in a village and worked collecting shellfish from the shore until eventually convinced by the townsfolk to enter an American Idol style competition.

She was taken under the wing by Sinn Sisamouth (the Cambodian Phil Spector/Jerry Lewis without the domestic issues).

When the Khmer Rouge took power, she -like most artists and intellectuals -met with a bad end.  The regime not only had her killed but worked to eliminate all traces of her music.

Some Housekeeping

Here's where we ask for your money.

If not your money, your clicks.  Unfortunately, we don't actually get any of your money either way.

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First, please vote for our panel at SXSW.   I'd love the glamour of a free festival pass.

CLICK HERE to vote.

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Congratulations to John Pirozzi and Linda Saphan.  Their Kickstarter campaign for "Don't Think I've Forgotten" doubled their goal.




We've been working hard on a few minutes of animation for this remarkable film.

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Also on the Kickstarter front, our friends at Arts Engine are in the last week of a funding drive.




A few dollars can help finish this interesting film (and let them contract us for some graphics!).

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Netflix subscribers can stream The Buddha on demand.

CLICK HERE

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Moment of Death is now available on DVD from National Geographic.

CLICK HERE

We're currently in production a similar film for National Geographic, hopefully it'll turn out just as well.

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Another film we contributed to The Private Lives of Pippa Lee is available on DVD

CLICK HERE

The Buddha at The Asia Society

"The Buddha" had its New York premiere last night at The Asia Society in conjunction with the Pilgrimage and Buddhist Art exhibit and anticipation of April 7th's national broadcast.

David Grubin spoke a little afterward and had some interesting things to say about the idea behind the animation.



Documentary is about here "reality", he noted, animation is pure fantasy -it's whatever you can imagine.

First Peek At The Buddha

Just up on YouTube, about 1 month before the television premiere (4/8/10): the first few minutes of "The Buddha", the documentary by David Grubin for which we created 25 minutes of animation.

Christina Capozzi-Riley animated most of the "Birth" sequence in this clip.

Animator Gone Mad

Martha Colburn sent this "documentary" clip.



I haven't seen the film it refers to, but it doesn't matter.

The piece works as a parody because it's close enough to reality to resemble "truth", but pushed that little bit beyond.