Deep in the Snow

So Slash Film (and other media) are catching on to what selected fanboy sites .. and a few commenters ... have known for some time:

Walt Disney Studios has announced the title for their Holiday 2013 movie — Frozen. All of the Hollywood trade papers are reporting that the movie in question is the Pixar film announced at D23 Expo: Bob Peterson’s “The Untitled Pixar Movie About Dinosaurs“. This is not the case. It seems that the confusion came as the Dinosaur project originally had the November 27th, 2013 date, and it appears Walt Disney Animation has now taken that date for their own release. What is the film? The project formerly known as The Snow Queen.

... When the project was last in development, it was set to be Disney’s next hand drawn animated film after The Princess and The Frog. We don’t know if that is still the case or if it is now a computer animated release. BleedingCool seems to think it will be hand drawn. ...

This is the problem with wandering around studios. You (sometimes) know what's going on but don't want the wrath of management to crash down on you. So you keep your mouth buttoned and wait for The Official Announcement.

So now the word has come that the feature following Wreck-It Ralph will be the Hans Christian Anderson tale. There's other pictures in development but SQ/Frozen is the farthest along. The movie got put up on story reels a long while ago; immediately thereafter, the Main Lot decided to place it on the backburner. (Wasn't Lasseter's idea to do this, but someone who wears a suit.) Then Tangled grossed a lot of money and Frozen got put on a front burner.

And here we are.

Judging from the article above, there are those who can't figure out if the oncoming feature is "hand drawn" or "C.G.I." Bleeding Cool thinks it's still in the hand drawn category. BC is certainly entitled to its opinion, but if anyone is still hazy regarding the movie's format, they can check recent box office grosses for animated features and do a bit of high school math.

And perhaps the clouds will dissipate.

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The tenth day of Ralph Hulett’s Christmas

A snow scene that contains quite a bit of green, for a somewhat different effect.

In 1946, Hulett went on a weeks-long painting (and sightseeing) sojourn through New England. Outside of that, there weren't a lot of trips to that part of the U.S.A. So if you look for images "drawn from life" in the Christmas cards, the one above would either be from '46, during his honeymoon vacation, or pulled from his imagination.

Probably the latter.

(As is often the case, there is foreground framing with birds and tree branch.)

See other Ralph Hulett Christmas cards on the TAG Blog

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Early Wednesday Numbers

A fine trade paper reports:

... Early projections show Alvin grossing $3.5 million-$4 million for the day, while Tintin was expected to gross $2.5 million-$3 million.

Tintin is tracking at 76% fresh over at Rotten Tomatoes, while Alvin and the Chipmunks is a tad lower. Yet the ever-popular rodents are outgrossing Europe's favorite boy reporter.

Only in America.

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Early Grim

Grim Natwick had a cartoon career only slightly shorter than his hundred-year life span. Mega Collecter has given us some of Mr. Natwick's early work ....

Mr. Natwick is known for Betty Boop, Snow White, and mentoring newbies to the animation business that included Marc Davis, Chuck Jones and Walter Lantz. (You could make a persuasive argument that Grim Natwick was more influential in furthering 20th century animation art than anyone this side of Walt Disney.)

Some more early thumbnails. Per Mr. Mega, they are from the mid to late twenties, and a long way from Grim's UPA work. (My camera picks up irritating oranges, for which apologies) ...

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Christmastime Mega

In the early sixties there was a new (but not overly loved) Disney character by the name of Ludwig Von Drake ...

Drake showed up in the Fall of 1961 to introduce color to Walt's revamped anthology show, then moving from ABC to NBC.

Drake continued showing up for some years thereafter, and I, a kid at the time, always found him irritating. (Maybe it was Paul Frees' fake German accent, maybe it was Von Drake's frenetic personality. But whatever the underlying issue, I found the fowl forced and unfunny.)

L.V.D. had a short-lived comic book (four issues), and he's appeared sporadically in various animated products throughout the years. Mega Collector -- who own the drawing up top -- doesn't know who did the thumbnail board, but speculates it was done early in Von Drake's professional life, probably '61 or '62. (By Ward Kimball? Ward once told me he animated Von Drake at a breakneck pace, drawing him small on the hole-punched paper so he wouldn't waste a lot of pecnil mileage on him.)

But I can understand why Mr. Kimball would work on L.V.D. has quickly as possible. The bird is something of a pain in the backside.

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Name Negotiation?

For the navel gazers among us, I offer this:

The Walt Disney Company and Atlanta National League Ball Club [otherwise known as "The Braves"] are reported to be in negotiations, trying to sort out a thorny trademark issue. They’ve reportedly been taking meetings for months, and still the dispute continues.

None of this would have happened had Pixar’s next picture not had a name change. ...

Ah, the litigous society in which we live.

One of the most lawsuit-ready corporations on the planet locks horns with Major League Baseball. My only disappointement with this will be if Bleeding Cool and Stitch Kingdom have this wrong. Otherwise, it's kind of a hoot.

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Movie Studios' Report Cards

The Mouse pares its budgets.

... Burdened the last few years by a flurry of ambitious films that were undermined by their costs -- "A Christmas Carol," "Prince of Persia" and "Tangled" -- Disney downshifted in 2011 to a lower-risk strategy. ...

Through last week, Disney's film slate had grossed $3.36 billion globally, down about 12 percent from 2010's $3.77 billion despite a 20 percent decline in the number of movies released.

Overall profit for Disney's studio entertainment operations for the fiscal year ending Oct. 1 -- a tally that also includes home video -- decreased 11 percent to $618 million on revenue of $6.4 billion. ...

It's been a rugged season for movie studios and film distributors.

Looks like Wall Street is reacting to a weak holiday season at the box office, judging by how the movie-exhibition stocks fared Monday.

Regal Entertainment shares dropped 9 percent Monday to $12.11 and are off 14 percent since Dec. 1. Carmike Cinemas, meanwhile, dropped 5 percent on Monday, while Cinemark Holdings was off 3 percent. ...

With tepid box office results and thinner profit margins, nobody seems able to catch a break.

Even when a company has a hit, there's somebody to point out that secondary markets are sucky, and that follow-up features should be making more money.

Disappointing DVD sales for Kung Fu Panda 2 and lower-than-expected overseas box office receipts for Puss in Boots has one analyst lowering his expectations for DreamWorks Animation. ...

Even if you rake in four or six hundred million dollars, the troubles just don't entirely go away. DVD sales will never be what they were a decade ago.

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Double Standards?

So then there is this from Marshall Fine in today's Huff Post:

As a member of the New York Film Critics Circle who voted in the Nov. 29 selection of awards for the best films of 2011, I naturally get questions about our results ...

This year, it was, "How come you didn't pick a best animated film?" ... The answer to that is, "Because the group voted not to give an award in that category this year." In the interest of full disclosure, I will confess to making the motion to vote on exactly that.

I made the motion because I didn't believe that any of the year's animated features deserved our award. ...

Now me, I thought there were a number of solid animated features. But I'm not a member of Marshall's posse, so I don't get a vote. However, the question I would like to ask is: How often do the New York Film Critics fail to gin up a "Best live-action feature?" I'd wager it would be something close to "never."

I mean, there's animation, and then there's all those real feature films ... like The Artist.

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The ninth day of Ralph Hulett’s Christmas

Here's a lot of the same elements we find in the previous card. The sleigh, the snow, and the dark trees. Only now Hulett adds a New England bridge and its reflection, so the card has a different character and mood. (He does a lot of New England bridges over slick, frozen bodies of water, only here he mashes up the elements a bit ...)

See other Ralph Hulett Christmas cards on the TAG Blog

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Dorse Lanpher, RIP

Dorse on the left; Mitch Rochon in the middle; Dave Brain on the right.

Dorse Lanpher was the Grand Old Master of effects animation. He'd (almost) worked on everything worth working on, and passed his knowledge on to others. Among his credits:

Sleeping Beauty

The Rescuers

The Secret of NIMH

The Land Before Time

Beauty and the Beast

Aladdin

Lion King

And a multitude of others ...

After a long and fulfilling career, Dorse hung up the nine-to-five routine half a dozen years ago, and went on to pursue other things. He stayed busy and engaged; he kept in touch with a wide circle of pals. I encountered him in any number of places, and he was always quick with a witty observation about life and the state of the industry.

About the Final curtain, he recently wrote this:

If I could die without my knowledge of the event, death would be nothing to fear. The avoidance of illness and pain, not the avoidance of death, is what motivates me to live a relatively healthy life style. Of course, death will eventually overcome me but knowing that my death will occur sometime in the future is not useful information ....

From reports from friends, Dorse died at home, getting ready to go out to eat with old effects crew buddies. (There was, I'm told, water running in the bathroom sink.)

So, although his passing leaves a lot of Dorse's friends sad and missing him, if you squint at his death in the right way, you could rationalize that Dorse got his wish: He died without knowledge of the event, and so moved on unafraid.

Travel well, Mr. Lanpher, you were one of the good guys here on the planet.

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The Foreign Steeple Chase

... belongs to Brad Bird.

... [T]he foreign theatrical circuit to some degree shook off its box office blahs with Paramount’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol taking the No. 1 weekend spot, gathering $68.2 million over five days ...

Meantime, the kitty cat with the sword has moved to Number Two.

... Foreign cume for the 3D animation spinoff [Puss in Boots] stands at $188.2 million, as per distributor Paramount. A muscular No. 2 opening in Italy registered $3.3 million from 385 locations. ...

No. 4 Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked ... drew $14.5 million from 3,815 situations. A No. 2 U.K. debut provided $4 million from 756 situations. ...

Ranking No. 5 was Sony's Arthur Christmas ... which grossed $9.7 million from 6,745 screens in 62 markets. Cume stands at $72.8 million. ...

The most interesting factoid gleaned from the above? A respected animation director has the Number One live-action feature, and the next three out of four positions are filled by animated long-forms.

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Tintin, the Adventures of

Over the weekend, I got a chance to see the flat-screen version of the new Spielberg opus ...

Watching it, I completely understood what the New Yorker was driving at in its review:

... The great thing about “The Adventures of Tintin” is that it never stops moving — and the terrible thing about it is that it never stops moving. ...

Frankly, it was like watching Michael Curtiz direct, if Michael Cutiz was directing on crystal meth.

In virtual camera-land, you don't need cuts! You don't need a dolly or steady cam or a platform on the camera truck! All you need is imagination and a strong stomach. If you possess both those things, you can pirouette the virtual wide-screen lense through time and space until vertigo sets in.

Which is what Mr. Spielberg often does.

Don't misunderstand me. I dig truck ins, pans, and truck outs. Up to a point. And for a while the incessant camera movement is zestful and uplifting, but ultimately it wears you out. (Okay, it wore me out.) In contrast, the plot is boy's adventure minimalist, but it's mostly there to provide a structure on which to hang all the action set-pieces. Since Steven Spielberg knows how to deliver action set pieces, this works out more than okay.

Despite my gripes, I can understand why overseas audiences have flocked to it, and critics have been more favorable than not. The virtual worlds and art direction are downright dazzling, and the "uncanny valley" fails to trap many of the characters, although the large, cartoon noses get distracting. (Some players are free of it altogether. Tintin's wily terrier Snowy is a downright hoot.)

My guess is that The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn will open respectably stateside, and have a decent run. A sizable part of its audience, taken up by the film's environments and slam-bang forward momentum, will recommend it to family and friends.

Who knows? It might even inspire people to go out and read the comic "albums" on which the movie is based.

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Middle December Derby

Nik (not Saint, but the other one) has the totals. ...

1. Sherlock Holmes: Game Of Shadows (Warner Bros) NEW [3,703 Theaters] Friday $14.7M, Estimated Weekend $40.8M

2. Alvin And The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (Fox) NEW [3,723 Theaters] Friday $6.8M, Estimated Weekend $24.2M

3. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol 3D (Paramount) NEW [425 Theaters] Friday $4.7M, Estimated Weekend $12M

4. New Year’s Eve (Warner Bros) Week 2 [3,505 Theaters] Friday $2.5M (-50%), Estimated Weekend $8M, Estimated Cume $25.2M)

5. The Sitter (Fox) Week 2 [2,752 Theater] Friday $1.4M (-61%), Estimated Weekend $4M, Estimated Cume $17.3

6. Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (Summit) Week 5 [2,958 Theaters] Friday $1.3M, Estimated Weekend $4.1M, Estimated Cume $266.2M

7 Young Adult (Paramount) Week 2 [986 theaters] Friday $1.1K, Estimated Weekend $3.5M, Estimated Cume $4M

8. Hugo 3D (Paramount) Week 4 [2,532 Theaters] Friday $1M, Estimated Weekend $3.5M, Estimated Cume $39M

9. The Descendants (Fox Searchlight) Week 5 [878 Theaters] Friday $930K, Estimated Weekend $3.5M, Estimated Cume $28M

10. The Muppets (Disney) Week 4 [2,808 Theaters] Friday $903K, Estimated Weekend $3.5M, Estimated Cume $71.1M.

Just out of the Top Ten we find Arthur Christmas at #11 and (sadly) in a death spiral, taking in $35.8 million after 24 days. And Happy Feet Two stands at #13 after 29 days, $58 million in its haversack.

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Mr. Tytla

"50 ... Influential Animators" profiles Vladimir.

... [U]nlike many animators who have great acting and emotions but limited draftsmanship or have excellent draftsmanship but less impressive animation and acting [Vladimir "Bill" Tytla] really was the big man on campus in both areas. ...

Mr. Tytla marks Numero Uno on "50's" Hit Parade, rolling out today.

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Our Fine Entertainment Conglomerates

... which rule everybody's lives. ...

Source: Frugal dad

Some years back I was working to organize a small animation studio.

The artist I was trying to convince to sign a representation card wasn't that interested. He said:

"Steve, I don't like working for big studios, not my bag. I enjoy the small places. I know I make less money and get worse benefits, but I'm okay trading that for working at a nice, Mom and Pop studio ...

At the time, his "Mom and Pop" studio was doing sub-contract work for Disney. I pointed out how, if he was going to work for a conglomerate anyway, even if indirectly, he should be better compensated for it.

He looked at me as though I'd just stepped off an interstellar starship from the Narbak star system.

We can all drift along, pretending that we have multiple decisions as entertainment workers about what which entity receives the fruits of our labor. But there are really only a handful of choices. At the end of the work week, most everybody who is not working for DreamWorks Animation is giving their brain and wrist power to one of the fine companies listed above.

(And how much longer will DreamWorks Animation remain independent? Even Pixar is part of the Big Company syndrome now, paying "Mom and Pop" wages still. Such a deal.)

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Ricky Garduno, 1976-2011

We have learned of the death of storyboard artist RICKY GARDUNO. Since 2001 he worked for Disney, Nickelodeon, Warner Bros., Fox and Cartoon Network.

Further details on Garduno's life at Cartoon Brew.

Services tomorrow at 3 pm at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, 6000 Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood. Here is a map.

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The Eighth Day of Ralph Hulett’s Christmas

Blacks, whites and grays with a splash of red. Hulett designs black trees in a world of white to suggest fresh snowfall, though we see no swirling flakes.

Add On: (Since this is from the original artwork, you will note the brown aging at the edges, the cropping/registration marks, writing, etc.)

See other Ralph Hulett Christmas cards on the TAG Blog

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More Fox Animation

Say what you will, Fox is the one broadcast network that keeps developing prime-time animated properties:

It’s been a busy day for Russell Brand. Fox has picked up an an animated comedy co-created and voiced by the British actor-comedian ...

Mr. Brand does live-action comedies. (Get Him to the Greek, Forgetting Sara Marshall.) Mr. Brand does live-action comedies that die quickly. (The Arthur remake.) And now Mr. Brand does animation. ...

Hopefully Russell's half-hour 'toon will fare better than his Greek co-star Johan Hill's short-lived series Allen Gregory.

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Spheres that Glitter

The Times asks:

Golden Globes: Can Pixar continue its winning streak with 'Cars 2'?

And we have an answer!

Doubtful.

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Joe Simon, RIP

The father of Captain America passes from the scene:

Joe Simon, a writer, editor and illustrator of comic books who was a co-creator of the superhero Captain America, conceived out of a patriotic impulse as war was roiling Europe, died on Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 98. ...

Mr. Simon, unlike some other creators of super heroes, ultimately hammered out an agreement to get royalties for the intellectual property that he authored.

Imagine, receiving actual money for the characters you bring to life. What a concept.

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New Member Orientation

For the past decade or so (give or take a few years), TAG has gathered its newest initiates in local restaurants to introduce them to the existence and inner workings of the Health and Pension plans. We do this to promote the best use of the plans so members can make better choices regarding their health care and retirement savings.

We hold these meetings for one studio at a time and when there are enough new members to warrant the meeting. For a variety of reasons, there are members who don't attend these meetings. For those members, and anyone interested in learning about the basics of the plans, the material we discuss is posted on a new page on our site.

http://animationguild.org/new-member/

Enjoy!

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Ghouls, Dead People

Before I crawl off to bed, the longer trailer from an Oregon studio.

LAIKA, the creator of this 2012 feature, has hired a number of L.A. based animation artists. And the studio has brought in a number of artists and stop motion animators from beyond the seas. (We know this because we review O-1 immigration visas and have seen a few with the studio's name on the application forms.)

We hope this second LAIKA feature is a success. Looks polished.

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Global!

Digital Domain said this today:

... The new Digital Domain - Galloping Horse Studio [in China] will provide visual effects, animation and production services for motion pictures, television and related media. The company expects that the facility in China will be comparable in scale to the company's nearly completed animation studio in Port St. Lucie, Florida, a facility that was funded by the city with an investment of approximately $50 million for land and building. ...

So you see? It isn't just going to India. It's also traveling to the Middle Kingdom.

Whether this will mean lots of domestic work will be going to the People's Republic, or that Digital Domain is catching the wave of expanding movie-making opportunities in China, will be known in the fullness of time.

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The Transitioners

The New York Times plays the game of, "Who's made the successful jump from animation director to live-action director. And comes up with its list:

Kevin Lima ...

The Times fails to note that Mr. Lima also director the two live-action entries of 101 Dalmations. Added to which, it says Rob Minkoff isn't a "successful" live-action director, conveniently overlooking that Stuart Little, Mr. Minkoffi's first live-action undertaking grossed $300 million.

And the NYT claim that Walt Disney didn't direct any animated features is technically correct, but there is this from feature director Wilfred Jackson:

... Well, the first couple of features we made, Walt was very actively interested, and in it up to his hilt. I think it was right after "Pinocchio" that Walt began to pull away from being so closely involved, so intimately involved with each little thing that was done.

Up until "Pinocchio," absolutely nothing happened without his being in on it. All the color models he saw before they got okayed. All the rough animation. We ran it for him before anything moved into cleanup, and ink and paint. Nothing happened without his having his finger on it.

The directors, to a limited extent, could check his own thing into it, but under Walt's very careful eye. Just as the story man, just as the animators themselves. Animation was probably the one end of it where Walt had to depend more on the animators themselves, than he did on the other functions. ...

So Walt was maybe a feature director without being credited as a director?

The Times also failed to note that Brad Bird is not the only Pixar alum who is making the transition to live-action. There is also feature director Andrew Stanton with John Carter of Mars.

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Dan Mills, 1931-2011

Dan Mills with Dora Yakutis at the TAG party, January 2011.

Animator and layout artist DAN MILLS died on December 5 at the age of eighty. From 1956 until his retirement in 2002 he worked for Disney, Snowball, Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, Hyperion, Universal and Fox Animation.

Services will be tomorrow, December 14, at 4 pm, at the First United Methodist Church, 18120 Saticoy St, in Reseda. Here is a link to a map.

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Feature Employment Factoids

I was at Disney Feature (aka "Walt Disney Animation Studios") yesterday. Wreck-It Ralph is going full bore, with a couple of supes telling me that there will be more hires in the near future. Another artist has a pretty strong idea about the next picture going into production after Ralph, but he informs me nothing has been officially greenlit yet. And of course, I won't reveal it here. (Besides, I've been inaccurate in some recent posts. Acch!)

More than one person said that the company plan is to get one animated feature out of each division (WDAS/Pixar) every year. My hope, as always, is that Disney ends up with a continuity of employment that gets it away from the "hire, layoff, hire" syndrome that it's followed of late.

I saw some interesting stuff now in work inside the Hat Building. Though the studio isn't totally walking away from hand-drawn features, there doesn't appear to be any features on the map that will look like the old-style, hand-drawn specimens we enjoyed in our youth. Executives look at theatrical grosses and draw their conclusions. And their conclusions are, based on all evidence, that c.g. style features are where audiences' enthusiasms are now centered ...

Meanwhile, at DreamWorks Animation, a number of laid-off staffers have returned to the campus, now that the work-flow has ticked up. (This isn't yet reflected in the chart below, as work status slips for December are now being processed.)

If you're wondering, feature employment at signator studios totals about half of employed TAG members.

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The seventh day of Ralph Hulett’s Christmas

A church bell in a nook of an adobe wall, so this isn't a new England Christmas scene, but something in the Southwest. As is often the case, compositional foreground elements are in strong evidence.

See other Ralph Hulett Christmas cards on the TAG Blog

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The Ed Ghertner Interview -- Part II

TAG Interview with Ed Ghertner

Find all TAG Interviews on the TAG website at this link

Although Ed Ghertner has produced and directed popular cartoon shows, he has also served as the supervising layout artist on well-loved animated features ...

Ed served as supervising layout artist on Beauty and the Beast, and continued working in similar capacities on the Disney features Lion King, Mulan and Hunchback of Notre Dame. He's written a book how-to about composing and designing environments for animated features, and today works on prime-time television shows.

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New Disney TV Series

I've been going over to Disney TVA's Yahoo location near the Bob Hope Airport, watching this series slowly develop:

... Disney will introduce a little girl princess to its celebrated legacy of princess fairytales in an animated television movie and series, "Sofia the First," premiering in fall 2012 and spring 2013 respectively, on Disney Channel and Disney Junior channels around the world. ...

They've had a mess of talent working on this puppy (Larry Leker and Linda Miller, among numerous others), and until today I kept being told "The Channel hasn't announced the project! Keep your mouth shut."

Good corporate shill that I am, I kept my mouth shut. But now the Channel has announced the Sofia, so I can talk about it. This half-hour has been in development some little while. Everyone was leaning forward in their chairs, waiting for higher ups to greenlight it to series. And now it's finally happened.

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The Ed Ghertner Interview -- Part I

TAG Interview with Ed Ghertner

Find all TAG Interviews on the TAG website at this link

Animation veteran Ed Ghertner has had a different animation career than most ...

Ed has worked extensively as a supervisor and lead on both top flight television projects and animated features. (More often than not, people in the cartoon biz spend most of their working lives on one side of the animation divide or the other.)

Mr. Ghertner, a graduate of Cal Arts, started his time in the industry working as an animator for Ralph Bakshi, then traveled to Disney where he worked as a layout artist on The Great Mouse Detective. From there, he segued into television work, being among the first hires at a new studio called Film Roman (the entity that produces The Simpsons.) He's been zig-zagging back and forth ever since.

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Kitty Cat Watch in Foreign Lands

The latest DreamWorks Animation feature keeps rolling along.

Seizing the No. 1 box office spot on the foreign theatrical circuit for the first time since its Oct. 27 overseas opening, DreamWorks Animation’s Puss In Boots purred all the way to $45.6 million. ... Offshore gross total stands at $142.3 million ...

It would seem that "animation domination" is more than a cute phrase of the Fox Broadcasting network. Especially when you consider some of the other wide releases now in play. For example:

... The weekend’s No. 3 is Sony’s Arthur Christmas, which collected $14.3 million ... Fourth was Warner Bros.’ release of Happy Feet Two. Overseas gross total to date stands at $49.2 million. ... [T]he cume for Steven Spielberg’s [Tintin] rose to $233.7 million. ...

Added to which, Lion King 3D is still out in theaters, rubbing up against $70 million. At the moment, overseas box office is a bit soft, but animated fare is comparatively robust. My guess is that our fine, entertainment conglomerates, never the kinds of persons to miss an obvious bet, will create a lot more animated product in the near and medium-length future.

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The Weekend Linkorama

Another of our intermittent Link Fests.

Genndy has some concept art from Star Wars, the Cartoons, and it shows up here. ..

Animated short morphs into long-form feature.

Hybrid Animation (of the older style):

The Reporter interviews Kung Fu Panda 2's Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Angelina Jolie.

Andy Young interviews animation veteran Jerry Rees.

TIME Magazine's Richard Corliss leaves animation off his "Ten Best Movies" list for the first time in years.

Women who make video games happen. (They are a whopping 12% of the development work force.)

While we're on the subject: The Reporter tells of the paucity of women in creative positiong in the Hollywood entertainment industry.

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Brave and Brenda

Blackwing Diaries Jenny Lerew writes of Brave and Brenda Chapman.

And Pixar Portal interviews Brenda about her animation career. (Something that TAG blog would like to do ... and hasn't.)

Five years ago, both Brenda and Jenny participated in a TAG panel discussion about women artists and directors in the cartoon industry. You can find a lengthy post about that panel here. Sadly, the audio link to that event has gone missing.

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Clearly A Commie

Fifteen or twenty years ago, I noticed an interesting thing about the American economy.

Whenever the Top Dogs end up with most of the money, the economy tends to crash.

Happened in the 1890s. Also happened at the end of the 1920s. Both times there was a sizable concentration of wealth, and soon thereafter a Major Depression came about, and social instability ensued.

Also appears to be happening now. But this isn't a recent phenomenon ...

Here's a Dead Historical Figure noting the same thing.

An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.

-- Plutarch

The man is clearly a Commie. But I happen to agree with him because I'm a Librul Socialist. (And you know how Librul Socialists are.)

So who was most responsible for our Current Troubles and the 2008 crash? Wasn't Bush. Wasn't Obama. And it wasn't Barney Frank.

It was This Guy.

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Weekend Derby For Early December

Now with blue-tinged Add On.

Two animated features in the Top Ten, but neither of them chart busters:

1. New Years Eve (Warner Bros) NEW [3,505 Theaters] Friday $5M, Estimated Weekend $14.5M

2. The Sitter (Fox) NEW [2,750 Theaters] Friday $3.7M, Estimated Weekend $10M

3. Breaking Dawn Part 1 (Summit) Week 4 [3,605 Theaters] Friday $2.4M, Estimated Weekend $7.7M, Estimated Cume $259.3M

4. The Muppets (Disney) Week 3 [3,328 Theaters] Friday $1.6M, Estimated Weekend $7M, Estimated Cume $65.7M

5. Hugo (Paramount) Week 3 [2,608 Theaters] Friday $1.5M, Estimated Weekend $6M, Estimated Cume $33.3M

6. Arthur Christmas (Sony) Week 3 [3,272 Theaters] Friday $1.4M, Estimated Weekend $6.5M, Estimated Cume $33.4M

7. The Descendants (Fox Searchlight) Week 4 [876 Theaters] Friday $1.3M, Estimated Weekend $4.3M, Estimated Cume $23.5M

8. Jack and Jill (Sony) Week 5 [2,787 Theaters] Friday $870K, Estimated Weekend $3M, Estimated Cume $68.4M

8. Happy Feet Two (Warner Bros) Week 4 [2,840 Theaters] Friday $840K, Estimated Weekend $4M, Estimated Cume $57.1M

10. Tower Heist (Universal) Week 6 [2,069 Theaters] Friday $734K, Estimated Weekend $2.3M, Estimated Cume $74.1m ...

Puss in Boots, bubbling at a low simmer underneath the top tier, now has $140.2 million in its domestic knapsack.

Add On: The Reporter gives us the bad news (as do some commenters):

New Year's Eve' Leads Worst Weekend Since 2008 With $13.7 Million. Jonah Hill starrer "The Sitter" comes in second with $10 million; weekend is down 15 percent from last year as a nervous Hollywood prepares for a make-or-break Christmas.

Yeowch.

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The sixth day of Ralph Hulett’s Christmas

The sixth day of Ralph Hulett’s Christmas 12/10/2011 The choir at winter's sunset (or perhaps sunrise.) A stylistic rendering of an exterior ... mimicking a cathedral's majestic interior. And one of the explicitly religious cards that were part of the fifteen or sixteen designs created each year.

See other Ralph Hulett Christmas cards on the TAG Blog

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Back in the Game!

He's been gone for a while, but now he's returned.

Andy Heyward and his wife Amy ... announced a joint venture with Indian mega-conglomerate Tata late Thursday to create, develop and distribute original entertainment for children, including animation, video games and consumer products. ...

One of the first projects expected to be made in India is Stan Lee’s first animated feature, which will be officially announced next year.

Andy was robustly non-union when he was the topkick of DIC. TAG made runs at it several times, and the last go-round the Animation Guild won a Nation Labor Relations Board election while DIC was a subsidiary of Disney. Before it happened, Disney Labor Relations passed along the word that DIC would sign a contract if TAG had a majority of the vote.

Well, we ended up winning. And DIC ended up fighting us in negotiations over a contract for a year before walking away from the table. When I complained to the House of Mouse about it, the company said: "Hmm. Guess Andy changed his mind."

Big companies. Always as good as their word.

But we wish Andy well with his new endeavor. And offer our condolences about The Governator project not working out.

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Candidates for The Visual Effects Oscar

The Long List:

“Captain America: The First Avenger”

“Cowboys & Aliens”

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2″

“Hugo”

“Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol”

“Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”

“Real Steel”

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”

“Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows”

“Sucker Punch”

“Super 8″

“Thor”

“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”

“The Tree of Life”

“X-Men: First Class”

In a month, the Academy whittles the Big Fifteen down to the Shortlist Ten, and then one of the survivors walks away with The Little Gold Man.

Having seen a minimal number of the named films, I wouldn't have the foggiest notion about which epic ultimately gets it. A half century ago, The Guns of Navarone beat out The Absent-Minded Porfessor for the vfx Oscar. We've traveled a bit of a ways since then.

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Bad News Nick ...

... and good news Disney Channel. As the Reporter reports:

... [Nickelodeon] is on track to surrender its ratings crown to rival Disney Channel for the year among the coveted demo of kids ages 6 to 11 for the first time since Disney Channel launched in 1983. ...

When the Disney Channel got started, most of us young, smart-ass WDP employees thought it was a really lame idea. The cable channel launched with a Winnie-the Pooh series produced for $25,000 per half-hour with actors in animal suits in front of a green screen, decades-old programming from out of the vaults, and cheap-jack documentaries. "This leadass turkey will never fly. What is Ron Miller thinking?"

Twenty-eight years later, it turns out that Chairman Miller was thinking clear and smart, and a lot of the twenty-something snot-noses (me included) had their heads embedded in their large intestines.

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Jerry Robinson, RIP

The father of a major live-action (and animated) villain has passed.

Jerry Robinson, a prolific comic-book artist, comics historian and editorial cartoonist who is credited with having created the Joker, the archenemy of Batman with devilish eyes and ghoulish smile, died on Wednesday at a hospice on Staten Island. He was 89 and lived in Manhattan. ...

“Villains, I always thought, were more interesting,” Mr. Robinson said last year ... “I think the name came first: the Joker. Then I thought of the playing card.” (His parents were bridge players).

The Joker made his debut in 1940 and has created havoc ever since, in print as well as on television ...

Seventy-one years on, the Joker remains a force in Batman's universe, whether that universe is in the live action or animated realm.

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Stating the Obvious

And the L.A. Times is good at it.

... "The Adventures of Tintin," which Spielberg directed and Jackson produced, is stretching the very definition of animation. ... "Tintin" makes the leap to the big screen via motion capture, with Jamie Bell as Tintin and Andy Serkis as his sidekick Capt. Haddock. Snowy, Tintin's canine companion, is a wholly animated character.

Gee. Sort of like the rotoscoped/motion-captured Snow White and Prince, existing side by side with the wholly animated Seven Dwarfs. ...

The tools Spielberg used to make Tintin are in many cases identical to ones James Cameron relied on for "Avatar," a movie treated by critics and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as live action.

Which would lead one to believe that the categories of "animation" and "not animation" are kind of ... what's the word? ... arbitrary. If an Important Person With Leverage wants it to be a cartoon, it's a cartoon.

And if a VIP wants it to be live action, it's live action.

The problem, you see, goes all the way back to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The Prince is not exactly the same kind of character that the Seven Little Men are. He's not conceived the same way, nor drawn (or moved) the same way. But the label for everything in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has been ... and will continue to be ... "animation."

So when you chew on that awhile, you start to see why, seventy-four years further on, there is a big fat Gray Area for Mr. Spielberg and Ms. Kennedy to drive their semi-trailers through.

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Oncoming Prime Time Toonage

The Nikkster's site informs us that new prime time animation is on the horizon.

The Office and Parks & Recreation executive producer Greg Daniels is teaming with a writer from each of his two NBC series to develop new animated comedy projects for the network. ...

First question: Will these be done under a WGA contract, no contract, or a TAG contract? (I'm guessing that it will be a Writers Guild collective bargaining agreement, since these are Writers Guild members were talking about here. But you never know. Never under-estimate the persuasive powers of our fine, entertainment conglomerates.)

Second question: Is there going to be an artist or three in the mix? Because prime time shows created by cartoonists and artists (along with a writer) have much higher success rates than ones solely created by writers.

Third question: What studio is going to be doing the boarding, designing, and production work? When we find out where it is, we'll run down there and work to organize the artists. (Because everyone needs to be warm and snuggly under a seamless cloak of benefits.)

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WGA Writing Awards

The Writers Guild of America nominates animation writers for some shiny trophies. (The Writers Guild Awards):

ANIMATION

“Bart Stops to Smell the Roosevelts” (The Simpsons), Written by Tim Long; Fox

“The Blue and the Gray” (The Simpsons), Written by Rob LaZebnik; Fox

“Donnie Fatso” (The Simpsons), Written by Chris Cluess; Fox

“Homer the Father” (The Simpsons), Written by Joel H. Cohen; Fox

“Moonstruck” (Ben 10: Ultimate Alien), Written by Len Uhley; Cartoon Network

“The Silence of the Clamps” (Futurama), Written by Eric Rogers; Comedy Central

Most of these shows were written under a WGAw contract (Simpsons, Futurama.) Nice to see that Ben 10: Ultimate Alien got in. That one was done under TAG's jurisdiction.

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The fifth day of Ralph Hulett’s Christmas

We go from panorama to still life. Usually in this kind of set-up you would find a mouse in a Santa hat, but not so here. Just objects of the holiday season.

See other Ralph Hulett Christmas cards on the TAG Blog

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Around DreamWorks Animation

I spent the morning at the Glendale campus, along the banks of the L.A. River. While there are empty cubicles, more were filled than a month ago ...

One artist had just returned from a months long hiatus, and a supervisor told me:

"There are a lot of projects lined up to go. They haven't all gotten greenlights, but we've been hiring because we've got to get ready."

Some experimental animation is happening on How to Train Your Dragon 2, The Guardians is reaching its production mid-point, and Madagascar 3 is going full tilt. (There's also The Croods and probably some others I'm forgetting.)

An animator speculated that, with the returning staff and new hires, the campus is "Maybe 10% under its peak?"

An educated guess.

Meantime ...

Shares of DreamWorks Animation Receive a Boost, Up 3.3% ...

Maybe the latest release has something to do with it.

Puss in Boots ... had a strong $9.4 million opening in France (a noteworthy improvement over Kung Fu Panda 2) and also got off to a solid start in Mexico ($3.7 million). The movie's impressive total in Russia passed $50 million, and it should wind up as the third highest-grossing movie ever ...

Domestically, the feature is bumping against $140 million. As one of the PiB crew members said: "I hope it keeps doing well." Maybe we'll see some bonus money."

Add On Factoid: Puss in Boots is the first Spanish language feature that Spanish speakers Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas have made together.

Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas have made six movies together. Not one has been in their native tongue, Spanish. ... "This is our Spanish language film we've done together!" Hayek screams. ... "We both dubbed it in Spanish. It's actually the first time we've both been in a film in Spanish, and it's odd that we were cats." ...

Pretty strange.

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3D (Un) Ending

During a long and busy day, this caught my eye:

Ever since ... Avatar squatted its bloated, blue, Na'vi ass on American cinema, every film that comes out with some semblance of special effects has "3D" pasted on top of it.

Most people know the drill by now: you go to a 3D movie, pay a little extra, chuckle at how stupid everyone looks wearing those glasses, and the film starts. For the first two minutes, it's impressive. Stuff pops out of the screen and it's pretty neat. For the remaining 118 minutes, however, you either forget you're watching a 3D movie or simply stop giving a shit.

And it only really works once ...

3-D appears to in decline across the fruited plain. The rest of the world still appears to love it, so maybe they are behind us ... or know something we don't.

I can take the Moving View Master or leave it alone. I've enjoyed the stereo versions of some DreamWorks movies; Jeffrey K.'s place seems to push the medium in entertaining directions. Still in all, as a DreamWorks animator remarked to me today:

"... I was watching a 3-D feature a couple of weeks ago, and the glasses everyone was wearing were really thick. Halfway through the movie I took mine off a minute and the colors were a lot more intense. Those goggles really subdue the brightness and colors ..."

3-D does, on occasion, add value. But generally not three or five bucks worth. And with some features, there is almost none at all. The "3-D" is so tepid, and the trade-off in screen brightness so pronounced, that it's really better to stare at the flat-screen version.

(When I saw a flat-screen version of Avatar, I liked it fine. This probably makes me some kind of visual Luddite. Sue me.)

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The Future?

Possibly ....

... Verbinski sees a new frontier in animation where audacious outlaws may finally win. He said R-rated animation projects (such as David Fincher’s discussed adaptation of “The Goon“) may be pioneer projects to watch.

“There’s so much you can do in animation, and maybe what’s interesting is a movie where you don’t bring your 6-year-old,” Verbinksi said, adding that the the animation legacy of Ralph Bakshi and “Heavy Metal” may be a compass point for Hollywood as far as mature audience ambitions. “You can tell so many stories. I think where it’s going is very interesting if we let it be.”

But I tend to think that Hollywood conglomerates will want to make features that make a good deal more money than Verbinski ... or Ralph Bakshi in his heyday ... pulled in with their animated creations.

Don't get me wrong. Some high-powered player will be able to get his pet "adult" animated project off the ground. But if the feature doesn't make a lot of swag, our fine entertainment conglomerates will quickly run away from it.

Disney, Viacom, Warners and the rest are not Renaissance art studios. They are in the game for profit.

(Even Johnny Depp, with all his power and influence, will be unlikely to get Rum Diaries II off the ground. Because RD Uno made pretty close to nothing.)

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The Anti-Piracy Thing

Hollywood players are working overtime to knock out pirate streaming sites and other rogue operations on the internet that infringe copyright. A Hollywood trade paper weighs in, wondering about the future if the MPAA, IATSE, SAG and other don't prevail in their lobbying efforts with congress ...

... Even if Hollywood fails to bring lawmakers on board to pass the latest anti-piracy measures, it's likely we'll see alternative attempts by copyright holders to attain injunctive relief against search engines, social media sites, advertising networks, and domain registrars. If the MPAA is successful in its lawsuit against Hotfile, for instance, the next step might be wiping off the company from the face of digital Earth. The MPAA is already collecting data on its many affiliates. The future of copyright cases looks to be a dragnet.

The way the internet usually goes, the next firewall put up will be countered by a new flame thrower. Then another barrier -- legal or logistical -- will be built and that too will be breached. People motivated by greed (and who among us doesn't have a bit of that disease?) will find a way to make money.

This fight is going to be a long one. And Switzerland has decided it doesn't want to participate:

... Based on a new report on the impact of unauthorized downloads, Switzerland seems to be saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The study, released by the Federal Department of Justice and Police, has concluded that piracy doesn’t have a negative economic impact on the nation and contends that the current legislation, which allows for copyrighted material to be downloaded for personal use, is sufficient. Chris Marcich, president of the Motion Picture Association, Europe, tells me it’s a “surprising and disappointing result.” ...

So I guess all the pirates in St. Petersburg, will be moving to Lausanne and Geneva. Such a deal.

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The Annies

Now with butter-flavored Add On.

ASIFA has rolled out its big list of nominees for the oncoming awards extravaganza. The Annie Awards cover 28 categories and include Best Animated Feature, Best Animated Special Production, Commercials, Short Subjects and Outstanding Individual Achievements.

And the nominees arrre ...

2011 ANNIE AWARD NOMINATIONS

PRODUCTION CATEGORIES

#1 - Best Animated Feature

A Cat in Paris – Folimage

Arrugas (Wrinkles) - Perro Verde Films, S.L.

Arthur Christmas – Sony Pictures Animation, Aardman Animations

Cars 2 – Pixar Animation Studios

Chico & Rita – Chico & Rita Distribution Limited

Kung Fu Panda 2 – DreamWorks Animation

Puss In Boots – DreamWorks Animation

Rango – Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies present A Blind Wink/GK Films Production

Rio – Blue Sky Studios

Tintin – Amblin Entertainment, Wingnut Films and Kennedy/Marshall

#2 - Annie Award for Best Animated Special Production

Adventure Time: Thank You – Cartoon Network Studios

Batman: Year One – Warner Bros. Animation

Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas – Blue Sky Studios

Kung Fu Panda – Secrets of the Masters – DreamWorks Animation

Prey 2 – Blur Studio

Star Tours – Industrial Light & Magic

# 3 - Best Animated Short Subject

Adam and Dog – Lodge Films

I Tawt I Taw A Puddy Tat – Warner Bros. Animation

La Luna – Pixar Animation Studios

(Notes on) Biology – Ornana Films

Paths of Hate – Platige Image

Sunday – National Film Board of Canada

The Ballad of Nessie – Walt Disney Animation Studios

The Girl and the Fox – Base14

Wild Life – National Film Board of Canada and Studio GDS

# 4 - Best Animated Television Commercial

Audi “Hummingbird” - The Mill

Geico “Foghorn” - Renegade Animation

McDonald’s “Apple Tree” Duck Studios/Kompost

McDonald’s “Suzi Van Zoom” Duck Studios/Kompost

Norton “Stuff”- Psyop

O2 “Niggles & Narks”- The Mill

Statoil “Good Night” - Studio AKA

“The Pirate” - Meindbender

Twinings “Sea” - Psyop

#5 - Best General Audience Animated TV Production

Archer – FX Productions

Green Lantern: The Animated Series – Warner Bros. Animation

Hoops & YoYo Ruin Christmas - Hallmark

MAD – Warner Bros. Animation

Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole Season 2 – Starburns Industries, Inc.

Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice – Walt Disney Animation Studios

Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Lucasfilm Animation, Ltd.

The Simpsons – Gracie Films

#6 - Best Animated Television Production - Preschool

Chuggington – Ludorum Pictures

Disney Jake and the Never Land Pirates – Disney Television Animation

Disney Mickey Mouse Clubhouse – Disney Television Animation

The WotWots Season 2 – Pukeko Pictures

#6A – Best Animated Television Production – Children

Fanboy and Chum Chum – Nickelodeon and Frederator

Kung Fu Panda – DreamWorks Animation

Penguins of Madagascar – DreamWorks Animation

The Amazing World of Gumball – Cartoon Network in Association with Dandelion Studios, Boulder Media & Studio Soi

#7 - Best Animated Video Game

Bumpy Road – Simogo

Catherine – Atlus

Gears of War 3 – Epic Games

Gesundheit – Konami Digital Entertainment

Ghost Trick: “Phantom Detective” – Capcom

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet – Shadow Planet Productions, Gagne/Fuelcell

Ratchet and Clark: All 4 One – Insomniac

Rayman Origins – Ubisoft Montpellier

Unchartered 3: Drake’s Deception – Naughty Dog

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT CATEGORIES

#8 - Animated Effects in an Animated Production

Can Yuksel “Puss In Boots” DreamWorks Animation

Chase Cooper “Rango” Industrial Light & Magic

Dan Lund “Winnie The Pooh” Walt Disney Animation Studios

Dave Tidgewell “Kung Fu Panda 2” DreamWorks Animation

Eric Froemling “Cars 2” Pixar Animation Studios

Jason Mayer “Kung Fu Panda 2” DreamWorks Animation

Joel Aron “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” Lucasfilm Animation, Ltd.

Jon Reisch “Cars 2” Pixar Animation Studios

Kevin Romond “Tintin” Amblin Entertainment, Wingnut Films and Kennedy/Marshall

Willi Geiger “Rango” Industrial Light & Magic

#9 – Animated Effects in a Live Action Production

Branko Grujcic “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” Industrial Light & Magic

Florent Andarra “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” Industrial Light & Magic

Gary Wu “Cowboys & Aliens” Industrial Light & Magic

Lee Uren “Cowboys & Aliens” Industrial Light & Magic

#10 - Character Animation in a Television Production

Chad Sellers “Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice” Walt Disney Animation Studios

Michael Franceschi “Kung Fu Panda” Nickelodeon

Rebecca Wilson Bresee “Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice” Walt Disney Animation Studios

Sihanouk Mariona “Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole Season 2” Starburns Industries, Inc.

Tony Smeed “Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice” Walt Disney Animation Studios

#11 - Character Animation in a Feature Production

Andreas Deja “Winnie The Pooh” Walt Disney Animation Studios

Dan Wagner “Kung Fu Panda 2” DreamWorks Animation

Jeff Gabor “Rio” Blue Sky Studios

Mark Henn “Winnie The Pooh” Walt Disney Animation Studios

Olivier Staphylas “Puss In Boots” DreamWorks Animation

Patrik Puhala “Rio” Blue Sky Studios

Pierre Perifel “Kung Fu Panda 2” DreamWorks Animation

#12 - Character Animation in a Live Action Production

Andy Arnett “HOP” Rhythm & Hues, Illumination Entertainment

David Lowry “Paul” Double Negative Visual Effects for Universal Productions/Relativity Media/Working Title Films/Big Talk Productions

Eric Reynolds “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” 20th Century Fox

Mike Hull “Paul” Double Negative Visual Effects for Universal Productions/Relativity Media/Working Title Films/Big Talk Productions

#13 - Character Design in a Television Production

Bill Schwab “Prep & Landing” Walt Disney Animation Studios

Carl Raggio “Disney Kick Buttowski” Disney Television Animation

Chad Hurd “Archer” FX Productions

Chris Battle “Dan Vs.” Starz Film Roman

Eric Robles “Fanboy and Chum Chum” Nickelodeon & Frederator

Gordon Hammond “TUFF Puppy” Nickelodeon

Mike Dougherty “TUFF Puppy” Nickelodeon

Robert Ryan Cory “Secret Mountain Fort Awesome” Cartoon Network Studios

#14 - Character Design in a Feature Production

Jay Shuster “Cars 2” Pixar Animation Studios

Mark “Crash” McCreery “Rango” Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies present A Blind Wink/GK Films Productions

Patrick Mate “Puss In Boots” DreamWorks Animation

Peter de Seve “Arthur Christmas” Sony Pictures Animation, Aardman Animations

Sergio Pablos “Rio” Blue Sky Studios

#15 - Directing in a Television Production

Brian Sheesley “Dan Vs.” Starz Film Roman

Chris Savino & Clay Morrow “ Disney Kick Buttowski” Disney Television Animation

Dan Riba “Ben 10 Ultimate Alien” Cartoon Network Studios

Duke Johnson “Community” 23 D Films, Inc.

Gabe Swarr “Kung Fu Panda” Nickelodeon

Ken Bruce “TUFF Puppy” Nickelodeon

Kevin Deters & Stevie Wermers-Skelton “Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice” Walt Disney Animation Studios

Matthew Nastuk “The Simpsons” Gracie Films

Mic Graves & Ben Bocquelet “The Amazing World of Gumball” Cartoon Network Europe in association with Dandelion Studios, Boulder Media & Studio Soi

Peter Hausner “Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu” Wil Film

Steve Loter, Christo Stamboliev, Shaun Cashman, David Knott “Penguins of Madagascar” Nickelodeon and Technicolor

Tony Craig “Hoops & YoYo Ruin Christmas” Hallmark

#16 - Directing in a Feature Production

Carlos Saldahna “Rio” Blue Sky Studios

Chris Miller “Puss In Boots” DreamWorks Animation

Don Hall & Stephen Anderson “Winnie The Pooh” Walt Disney Animation Studios

Gore Verbinski “Rango” Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies present a Blind Wink/GK Films Productions

Jennifer Yuh Nelson “Kung Fu Panda 2” DreamWorks Animation

Kelly Asbury “Gnomeo & Juliet” Touchstone Pictures

#17 - Music in a Television Production

Adam Berry, Bob Schooley, Mark McCorkle “Penguins of Madagascar” Nickelodeon and Technicolor

Ben Locket “The Amazing World of Gumball” Cartoon Network Europe in association with Dandelion Studios, Boulder Media & Studio Soi

Frederik Wiedmann “Green Lantern The Animated Series” Warner Bros. Animation

Grace Potter, Michael Giacchino “Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice” Walt Disney Animation Studios

Joel McNeely, Brendan Milburn and Valerie Vigoda “Pixie Hollow Games” DisneyToon Studios

Kevin Kliesch “Thundercats” Kliesch Music Inc.

Shawn Patterson, Zeb Wells “Robot Chicken” ShadowMachine and Stoopid Monkey in association with Adult Swim

#18 - Music in a Feature Production

Henry Jackman “Puss In Boots” DreamWorks Animation

John Williams “Tintin” Amblin Entertainment, Wingnut Films and Kennedy/Marshall

Mikael Mutti, Siedah Garrett, Carlinhos Brown, Sergio Mendes, John Powell, “Rio” Blue Sky Studios

Zooey Deschannel, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Henry Jackman, Robert Lopez “Winnie The Pooh” Walt Disney Animation Studios

#19 - Production Design in a Television Production

Mark Bodner, Chris Tsirgiotis, Sue Mondt and Daniel Elson “Secret Mountain Fort Awesome” Cartoon Network Studios

Peter Martin “Hoops & YoYo Ruin Christmas” Hallmark

#20 - Production Design in a Feature Production

Harley Jessup “Cars 2” Pixar Animation Studios

Paul Felix “Winnie The Pooh” Walt Disney Animation Studios

Raymond Zilbach “Kung Fu Panda 2” DreamWorks Animation

Tom Cardone, Kyle MacNaughton & Peter Chan “Rio” Blue Sky Studios

#21 - Storyboarding in a Television Production

Barry W. Johnson “Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice” Walt Disney Animation Studios

Benton Connor “Regular Show” Cartoon Network Studios

Brian Kesinger “Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice” Walt Disney Animation Studios

Dave Thomas “TUFF Puppy” Nickelodeon

Fred Gonzalez “TUFF Puppy” Nickelodeon

Joe Mateo “Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice” Walt Disney Animation Studios

Justin Nichols “Fanboy & Chum Chum” Nickelodeon & Frederator

Katie Rice “Fanboy & Chum Chum” Nickelodeon & Frederator

Rebecca Sugar “Adventure Time” Cartoon Network Studios

#22 - Storyboarding in a Feature Production

Bob Logan “Puss In Boots” DreamWorks Animation

David Gosman “Rango” Paramount Pictures & Nickelodeon Movies present A Blind Wink/GK Films Production

Gary Graham “Kung Fu Panda 2” DreamWorks Animation

Jeremy Spears “Winnie The Pooh” Walt Disney Animation Studios

Josh Hayes “Rango” Paramount Pictures & Nickelodeon Movies present A Blind Wink/GK Films Production

Kris Pearn “Arthur Christmas” Sony Pictures Animation, Aardman Animations

Nelson Yokota “Gnomeo and Juliet” Touchstone Pictures

Philip Craven “Kung Fu Panda 2” DreamWorks Animation

Scott Morse “Cars 2” Pixar Animation Studios

#23 - Voice Acting in a Television Production

Carlos Alazraqui as Denzel Crocker “Fairly OddParents” Nickelodeon

Dan Harmon as Jekyll “Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole Season 2” Starburns Industries, Inc.

Daran Norris as Cosmo “Fairly OddParents” Nickelodeon

Dee Bradley Baker as Obi-Wan “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” Lucasfilm Animation, Ltd.

Diedrich Bader as Batman “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” Warner Bros. Animation

H. Jon Benjamin as Sterling Archer “Archer” FX Productions

Jeff Bennett as Kowalski “Penguins of Madagascar” Nickelodeon and Technicolor

Jeff B. Davis as Victor Frankenstein “Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole Season 2” Starburns Industries, Inc.

Jessica Walter as Malory Archer “Archer” FX Productions

Judy Greer as Cheryl Tunt “Archer” FX Productions

Logan Grove as Gumball “The Amazing World of Gumball” Cartoon Network Europe in association with Dandelion Studios, Boulder Media & Studio Soi

Nika Futterman as Asajj Ventress “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” Lucasfilm Animation, Ltd.

Scott Adsit as the Creature “Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole Season 2” Starburns Industries, Inc.

Tara Strong as Timmy Turner “Fairly OddParents – Operation Dingleberg” Nickelodeon

#24 - Voice Acting in a Feature Production

Ashley Jensen as Bryony “Arthur Christmas” Sony Pictures Animation, Aardman Animations

Bill Nighy as Grandsanta “Arthur Christmas” Sony Pictures Animation, Aardman Animations

Gary Oldman as Shen “Kung Fu Panda 2” DreamWorks Animation

James Hong as Mr. Ping “Kung Fu Panda 2” DreamWorks Animation

Jemaine Clement as Nigel “Rio” Blue Sky Studios

Jim Cummings as Featherstone “Gnomeo and Juliet” Touchstone Pictures

Zach Galifianakis as Humpty Alexander Dumpty “Puss In Boots” DreamWorks Animation

#25 - Writing in a Television Production

Blake Lemons, William Reiss, C.H. Greenblatt, Derek Evanick, Diana Lafyatis, Neil Graf “Disney Fish Hooks – Fish School Musical” Disney Television Animation

Carolyn Omine “The Simpsons -Treehouse of Horror XXII” – Gracie Films

Dani MIchaeli, Sean Charmatz, Nate Cash, Luke Brookshier, Paul Tibbitt “SpongeBob SquarePants - Patrick’s Staycation” Nickelodeon

Josh Weinstein “Futurama - All The President’s Heads” The Curiosity Company in association with 20th Century Fox Television

Kevin Sullivan, Will Schifrin, Ray DeLaurentis “TUFF Puppy Thunder Dog” Nickelodeon

Matt Maiellaro, Dave Willis “Agua Unit Patrol Squad 1 – The Creditor” Williams Street Studios, Adult Swim

Ray DeLaurentis, Will Schifrin “Fairly OddParents “Invasion of the Dads” Nickelodeon

Steve Wermers-Skelton, Kevin Deters “Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice” Walt Disney Animation Studios

#26 - Writing in a Feature Production

Andy Riley, Kevin Cecil, Mark Burton, Kathy Greenburg, Emily Cook, Rob Sprackling, John R. Smith, Kelly Asbury, Steve Hamilton “Gnomeo & Juliet” Touchstone Pictures

Brian Kesinger, Kendelle Hoyer, Don Dougherty, Clio Chang, Don Hall, Stephen Anderson “Winnie The Pooh” Walt Disney Animation Studios

John Logan, Gore Verbinski and James Byrkit “Rango” Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies present A Blind Wink/GK Films Productions

Sarah Smith, Peter Baynham “Arthur Christmas” Sony Pictures Animation, Aardman Animations

Steve Moffat, Edgar Wright, Joe Cronish “Tintin” Amblin Entertainment, Wingnut Films and Kennedy/Marshall

#27 – Editing in Television Production

Garret Elkins “Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole Season 2” Starburn Industries, Inc.

Hugo Morales “Kung Fu Panda” Nickelodeon

Jason W.A. Tucker “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” Lucasfilm Animation, Ltd.

Paul D. Calder “Futurama” The Curiosity Company in association with 20th Century Fox Television

Ted Machold, Jeff Adams, Doug Tiano, Bob Tomlin “Penguins of Madagascar” Nickelodeon and Technicolor

#28 – Editing in a Feature Production

Clare Knight, A.C.E. “Kung Fu Panda 2” DreamWorks Animation

Craig Wood, A.C.E. “Rango” Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies present A Blind Wink/GK Films Productions

Eric Dapkewicz “Puss In Boots” DreamWorks Animation

Michael Kahn “Tintin” Amblin Entertainment, Wingnut Films and Kennedy/Marshall

Stephen Schaffer, A.C.E. “Cars 2” Pixar Animation Studios

JURIED AWARDS

Winsor McCay Award – Walt Peregoy, Borge Ring, Robert Searle

June Foray – Art Leonardi

Special Achievement – Depth Analysis .

There's a wide range of nominees this year, including hand-drawn, c.g. and mo cap animation.

There will be those who maintain that "Tintin" isn't genuine animation, because it's got, you know, those live actors in it. But since "Snow White," "Gulliver's Travels" and "Anastasia" also had live actors, also mo cap of the hand-drawn variety, yet were still considered animation, I would say that the debates over what is animation and what isn't were staged some years ago. And decided.

Add On: DWA's Bill Damaschke weighs in on the animation biz in general, and Kung Fu Panda Deux in particular.

... “The movie was built on, ‘Why is there only one panda in the village?’” he said. After the first film, he said, the question people had was, Why is the goose that panda’s father?" ...

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The Foreign Derby in Early December

The vampires shrink while the kitty expands.

Broadening its foreign run by openings in 13 new territories, Puss In Boots elevated its weekend gross to $23 million derived from a total of 2,740 venues in 26 markets. It finished No. 2 on the weekend.

... Third on the weekend was Happy Feet Two ... Weekend take registered $16.3 million ... No. 5 was Sony Animation’s Arthur Christmas opened in at least a dozen new markets, generating $11.4 million on the weekend overall from 5,720 situations in 52 markets. ... [The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn] has grossed a total of $221.6 million since it opened offshore on Oct. 26. ...

[Other entries:] Real Steel lifted its foreign gross total to $176.4 million thanks to a $5.3 million weekend ... Fox’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, $306.1 million; ... Disney’s The Lion King 3D, $68.8 million. ...

As previously noted, there are more animated features of various types earning heavy coin than at any time in history. Most are c.g., but even reconfigured hand-drawn features are doing business.

Disney is, naturally enough, looking to convert more of its animated catalogue into dimensional cinema. Whether this is a good idea aesthetically, we'll leave for others to debate. If it helps put people in jobs, we count it a good thing. The only fly in the ointment is that the Mouse could be weighing the idea of doing some of the conversion in India.

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The fourth day of Ralph Hulett’s Christmas

One of the foresty "landscape cards," this one a sweeping panorama of snowy wilderness. Mr. Hulett did a lot of painting in the Sierras using mostly watercolors. This work is a reflection of his time in the high country.

See other Ralph Hulett Christmas cards on the TAG Blog

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Reimagined Winnie

Disney's Don Hall talks about some of the creative choices made in the studio's most recent hand-drawn feature.

... The idea, however, was always to return [Winnie the] Pooh to his roots. The research trip we took to the real Hundred Acre Wood in East Sussex, England, was absolutely essential. The watercolor look of Pooh was already established, but we didn't want to just reuse old backgrounds. The result of that experience was a richer, more beautiful look than before because it was based on the real place. ...

As a veteran staffer explained to me while the WtP feature was being made:

"The marketing people told us that DVDs of all the television-based Winnie the Pooh material wasn't selling, but the old theatrical featurettes were. So the studio wanted a new theatrical feature ..."

Although the latest Pooh installment didn't burn up the world box office, it goosed toy sales and will no doubt do solidly in the DVD marketplace. Added to which, the production budget was in the $35 million range, so the studio wasn't putting a lot of money at risk.

Nevertheless, I don't think Disney will be doing hand-drawn features with the classical look of painted cels and painted backgrounds in the near future. Everything I've seen indicates that hand-drawn animation will be going in a different visual direction.

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The December Derby

As we wend our way to the Christmas holidays, the studios release no big new releases, and the list looks a lot like the previous one.

1. Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 1 (Summit) Week 3 [4,046 Theaters] Friday $5.5M, Estimated Weekend $16.8M, Estimated Cume $246.4M

2. The Muppets (Disney) Week 2 [3,440 Theaters] Friday $2.7M (-77%), Estimated Weekend $11M, Estimated Cume $56.3M

3. Hugo (Paramount) Week 2 [1,840 Theaters] Friday $2M (-56%), Estimated Weekend $7M, Estimated Cume $25M

4. Arthur Christmas (Sony) Week 2 [3,376 Theaters] Friday $1.6M (-64%), Estimated Weekend $7M, Estimated Cume $24.8M

5. Jack And Jill (Sony) Week 3 [3,049 Theaters] Friday $1.5M, Estimated Weekend $5.2M, Estimated Cume $64M

6. The Descendants (Fox Searchlight) Week 3 [574 Theaters] Friday $1.4M , Estimated Weekend $5M, Estimated Cume $17.9M

7. Happy Feet (Warner Bros) Week 4 [3,536 Theaters] Friday $1.4M, Estimated Weekend $5.7M, Estimated Cume $51.5M

8. Immortals (Relativity) Week 4 [2,627 Theaters] Friday $1.3M, Estimated Weekend $4.2M, Estimated Cume $75.4M

9. Tower Heist (Universal) Week 5 [2,404 Theaters] Friday $1.2M, Estimated Weekend $4M, Estimated Cume $70.6M

10. J Edgar (Warner Bros) Week 3 [1,985 Theaters] Friday $710K, Estimated Weekend $2.3M, Estimated Cume $32.5M

Arthur Christmas seems to be dying a rapid box office death, down 64% from its opening stanza.

Puss In Boots shows up in Box Office Mojo's Top Ten list, but not here on the Nikkster's. Mojo tracks Puss as earning only slightly less money on Friday thann J. Edgar ($700,000 vis $710,000), so I expect that the swashbuckling kitty will get within hailing distance of $140 million at the end of the weekend.

Foreign box office for PiB amounts to 31% of worldwide gross at this point in time.

Add On: And Puss ends up a smidge shy of $140 million, and ending the weekend in tenth place. (Or so says the Nikkster.)

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New Animation Studios

There's always room for another cartoon facility:

Stoopid Monkey Prods’ Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, creators/executive producers of Robot Chicken, have partnered with Buddy Systems’ John Harvatine IV and Eric Towner to launch Stoopid Buddy Stoodios, a stop-motion animation production facility for the quartet’s joint and individual animated projects ...

As I've mentioned before, television animation has been on an L.A. upswing the last couple of years. Existing studios have expanded -- Disney TVA is now in locations in two Southland cities, and Warner Bros. Animation has expanded from a set of trailers on the Warners Ranch to the trailers and four buildings.

We assume Stoopid Buddy Studios will be without benefit of union contract. Also on the non-union side, Wildbrain has relocated from San Francisco, MoonScoop is in a large building in Warner Center, Rough Draft still trucks along in Glendale, and Titmouse has uprooted from New York to plant itself in Holywood. (Two of these four studios have union subsidiaries.)

There's another studio cranking up in the first quarter of 2012. We have it on good authority it will be under an 839 contract.

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Twenty-Five Years of Christmas Cards

As we've done during previous Decembers, we've put up an array of Ralph Hulett Christmas cards in Gallery 839, and invite you to come have a look-see between the hours of 8:30 and 5:00 any weekday during the Christmas season. ...

Hulett created dozens of Christmas card designs annually from the late forties to the 1970s. They encompass a wide range of styles and media. And they're also larger than your standard-issue boxed card.

The short bio:

Ralph Hulett was born in Kankakee, Illinois in 1915. He came to California at the age of seven, attending public schools in Glendale. From a young age, his artistic talents were obvious and upon graduation from Hoover High School, he was awarded a four-year scholarship to study at the CHoinard Art Institute.

After graduation from Chouinard in 1938, he went to work full-time at Disney's Hyperion Studio. He did production work for Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. From 1943, he worked in the Disney background department, receiving screen credit for his work on most of the Disney animated features from the middle 1940s to the early 1970s.

Hulett was a prolific watercolorist and by 1937, was an exhibiting member of the California Water Color Society. In the 1940s, he was exhibiting in New York City. He produced watercolor illustrations that appeared in Ford Times, Westways and other magazines, and did commercial work for Swissair and KNBC, as well as album covers for Capitol Records. In the 1960s, he received acclaim for independent animated and live-action films which he produced. (One Got Fat is a long-time favorite on YouTube.)

Ralph Hulett passed away in 1974.

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We're ALL Visual Effx

The Reporter states the obvious:

For most of Academy Awards history, animation and visual effects have competed in separate categories. But as the line between VFX and animation gets increasingly blurry, animated films ... could emerge as contenders in the VFX category.

... Not since Tim Burton's 1993 stop-motion classic The Nightmare Before Christmas has animation earned a VFX Oscar nomination. This time, 2012 could be the year.

Animation as a visual effect? Seems right and natural to me. The sci fi live-actioner Forbidden Planet from M-G-M had a lot of its visual effects rendered by the (sub-contracted) Disney animation crew.

Can't get more animationy than that. Even Planet's star Leslie Nielsen later played the cartoon character Mr. Magoo.

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At DreamWorks Animation's Campanile Building

For a long while now, I've been tramping around the capacious Lakeside Building at DreamWorks, figuring that was where all the story artists and production people hung out.

Wrongo. ...

It had escaped my notice that story crews still inhabit other structures on campus. And I had the good fortune to visit with artists working like made on Sherman and Peabody and a few other features-in-work.

"Rob Minkoff is a mellow director, fun to work with. But we're up against deadlines for our sequences, have a bunch of pitch meetings coming up, so we can't spend a lot of time talking to you, Hulett."

There are a poop-load of features in various stages of becoming: The Croods is well into work, Rise or the Guardians is halfway through the production process at this point, and Madagascar the Latest is finishing up. (I was told: "Russia is hot to see it." Russia likes its animal pictures, I guess.)

There is a squadron of other features are lined up on the tarmac, but I won't bother rattling them off, since you can see most of them listed here. (It dawns on me that by 2014, DWA will have thirty animated movies out in the wider world. By contrast, Disney's fifty-first feature -- after 73 years, came out last Spring.)

Strangely, I ended up talking to various immigrants from other studios about:

1) The tight schedules and unpaid overtime in Televisionland.

2) That Arthur Christmas wasn't a half-bad movie. What's wrong with Sony management?

3) How you need to be focused and on-task doing boards for DreamWorks animated features. ...

Somebody invited me to lunch at the commissary, but I declined, electing to dine at a greasy spoon in nearby Burbank instead.

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The Short(er) List

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have whittled the roster of shorts candidates down a bit.

• “Dimanche/Sunday,” Patrick Doyon, director (National Film Board of Canada)

• “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore,” William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg, directors (Moonbot Studios LA, LLC)

• “I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat,” Matthew O’Callaghan, director and Sam Register, executive producer (Warner Bros. Animation Inc.)

• “La Luna,” Enrico Casarosa, director (Pixar Animation Studios)

• “Luminaris,” Juan Pablo Zaramella, director (JPZtudio)

• “Magic Piano,” Martin Clapp, director and Hugh Welchman, producer (BreakThru Films)

• “A Morning Stroll,” Grant Orchard, director and Sue Goffe, producer (Studio AKA)

• “Paths of Hate,” Damian Nenow, director (Platige Image)

• “Specky Four-Eyes,” Jean-Claude Rozec, director and Mathieu Courtois, producer (Vivement Lundi!)

• “Wild Life,” Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby, directors (National Film Board of Canada)

"Best Animated Short" is one category of movie-making that, more often than not, goes to the small studio. Not to say that our fine, entertainment conglomerates are always shut out, but they only occasionally emerge triumphant.

I'll be pulling for "Puddy Tat." Not only because I found the short funny and enjoyable, but because Matt O'Callaghan is a fine, talented human being.

So we'll soon see which pictures survive the next round of whittling.

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The third day of Ralph Hulett’s Christmas

Hulett always did several styles of Christmas cards. There were scenic designs (snowy New England, Christmas cityscapes, wintry pine forests), religious designs (angels, the three wise men, Joseph and Mary) and character cards (Santa, fat jolly friars and butlers, various animals, court jesters). The sample above is (clearly) a character card.

And some cards -- a few will be coming up -- are "mix and match."

See other Ralph Hulett Christmas cards on the TAG Blog

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