How to use this Page

A South American film won the animated short for the first-time ever, and a woman won the visual effects category for the first-time ever.

The post ‘Bear Story’ and ‘Ex Machina’ Makes Animation History at the Oscars appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Acting instructor Ed Hooks explores the animated performances of this year's five feature animation nominees.

The post 2016 Oscar Nominations: Feature Animation Acting Analysis appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Tonight in London, Pete Docter continued making the rounds to pick up every possible animation-related award for his smash hit "Inside Out."

The post ‘Inside Out,’ ‘Edmond,’ ‘Star Wars’ Win Animation and VFX BAFTAs appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Low-budget features and South American contenders are competing alongside Pixar this year.

The post 2016 Oscar Nominations: Animation Analysis appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

It is Pixar's 7th Golden Globe win 10 years.

The post ‘Inside Out’ Wins Golden Globe appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

"Inside Out" gets a best screenplay nod, "Minions" gets its first major nomination, and Richard Williams's short "Prologue" is in the running.

The post BAFTA Nominations Announced: Animated Feature, Short, and VFX Nominees appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Hopefully Pete Docter has started clearing space on his mantel because the awards for "Inside Out" are going to pile up quickly this award season.

The post ‘Inside Out’ Named Best Animated Film of 2015 by New York Film Critics Circle appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Pete Docter's latest smashes opening weekend box office record for an original film.

"Inside Out" is already accumulating praise throwing around the word 'masterpiece' -- and it's well-deserved.

There are moments in life, for everyone, when sorrow creeps into our happiest memories. Time passes. We change. We lose things. We lose people. Our past experiences take on a new shape. Occasionally the shift is sharp and profound; an earthquake. Other times it’s gradual and unnoticed; erosion.

But sorrow isn’t always a burden. Sometimes it’s a salve.

Coming from a culture of children’s stories that focus on happy endings for the good guys, it’s a message that’s at once simple and unexpected. Inside Out isn’t concerned with saving the world or ridding it of evil. There are no villains and there is no hero. There’s simply a girl trying to learn the value of sadness and it’s ability to co-exist with joy; the undeniable collusion of the two.

Inside Out  follows 11-year-old Riley (Kaitlyn Dias), a happy child whose life is uprooted when her parents decide to move from the Midwest to California. While Riley is our protagonist, we spend most of the movie with Riley’s feelings, exemplified by colorful characters living in Riley’s head and controlling her reactions to the world around her. The leader of that crew is Joy, voiced appropriately by Amy Poehler. Joy is the cartoon embodiment of Poehler’s character from Parks and Recreation, the eternal optimist known as Leslie Knope. She wrangles a crew of Riley’s other emotions, including Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Anger (Lewis Black),  Fear (Bill Hader), and Sadness (Phyllis Smith). Kaling and Smith channel their characters from The Office, each with an edge towards their specific emotion. Black is, well… Lewis Black, and so on.

That’s honestly the whole external plot: Riley is shaken by the move and the loss of her friends, and suddenly Sadness begins to drive her reactions. But it’s what’s inside that counts here. When Joy attempts to take control of Riley’s reactions, Joy and Sadness butt heads and both end up accidentally being cast out of mission control entirely. The two feelings spend the movie trying to understand each other and make it back to mission control in one piece, but with Disgust, Anger and Fear too afraid to step up and take the wheel, Riley stops feeling anything. The word “depression” is never used, but it’s a clearly intelligent attempt to demonstrate what depression looks like to those who’ve never experienced it. Rather than an exaggerated or temporary dose of Sadness, depression is nothing.

Inside Out feels like a movie written by a parent who watched his or her child suddenly learn to deal with more complex emotions; a child learning how one thing can make you feel more than one way, rather than bouncing from one extreme to the next, and how confusing that can be. But it isn’t specifically a movie for children, either. In addition to a crew of fairly adult comedians and a mature message, the world-building is especially impressive, kids movie or not. We have the emotions “driving” Riley, core memories that shape her personality (they look like glowing bowling balls), and other colorful, physical representations of very abstract concepts.

As heavy as all of this sounds, it’s really the opposite – Inside Out manages to do all of this while being bright, fun, and a surprisingly hilarious movie. It’s fresh, clean air. The voice talent is a huge part of that, as well as the small moments we spend watching the emotional control centers of other characters (just imagine what the Emotional HQ of a hormone-driven teenage boy looks like and you’ll get the picture). But at the end of the day the credit is most likely down to Pete Docter, the film’s writer and director. Docter was the driving force behind Pixar’s 2009 feature, Up, which took home an Oscar for best animated feature.

It’ll be a huge shock if Inside Out doesn’t end up with similar accolades, and in my mind it’s a contender for best picture awards, animated or not. It’s not easy to pull off a movie that says something intelligent without being heavy-handed; that remains rooted in reality while living in imagination. But every now and then the planets align, the Movie Gods smile upon us, and we get a widely-popular, successful film that deserves every bit of it.

Here’s hoping (and knowing) that’ll be the case here.

"Pinocchio" screens this morning as part of the Academy's on-going Animation Showcase series.

Festival director Thierry Frémaux continues to show his love for animation.

The Pixar veteran will take to the stage in Toronto to talk about his career, including his latest film "Inside Out."

Disney's promotional campaign for "Inside Out" is heating up with the release of both a new trailer and commercial.

Disney-Pixar has debuted the first full trailer for its next film, "Inside Out," directed by Pete Docter.

This Disney France limited edition poster for Pete Docter's "Inside Out" (titled "Vice-Versa" in French) might just be the nicest piece of promo art for the film yet.

'Toy Story 4'. It's Happening.

The first teaser trailer is out for Pixar's next film "Inside Out" directed by Pete Docter.

If you were unable to attend the SIGGRAPH Keynote panel on Monday, featuring nine distinguished animation directors, you’re in luck because the 92-minute discussion is posted below.

The panel, entitled “Giants’ First Steps,” focused on the early careers of the following artists: Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc., Up), Eric Goldberg (Pocahontas, Fantasia/2000), Kevin Lima (Tarzan), Mike Mitchell (Shrek Forever After, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked), Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon), Henry Selick (Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline), David Silverman (The Simpsons Movie), Kirk Wise (Beauty and the Beast, Atlantis: The Lost Empire) and Ron Clements (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin).

SIGGRAPH attendees, mark your calendars for Monday, July 22. 11:30am. The SIGGRAPH 2013 Keynote Session is titled “Giants’ First Steps” and the ‘giants’ are all animation directors. The panel, which is co-presented with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, will feature eight animation directors—all male, by the way—who will “share their experiences along complex paths to filmmaking success.”

A ninety-minute session hardly seems long enough to contain the stories and thoughts of the distinguished group of filmmakers who will participate: Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc., Up), Eric Goldberg (Pocahontas, Fantasia/2000), Kevin Lima (Tarzan), Mike Mitchell (Shrek Forever After, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked), Chris Sanders (Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon), Henry Selick (Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline), David Silverman (The Simpsons Movie), and Kirk Wise (Beauty and the Beast, Atlantis: The Lost Empire).

Animation veteran Tony Bancroft (co-director of Mulan) has an interesting sound book in the works. It’s called Directing for Animation: Everything You Didn’t Learn in Art School.

The 246-page book will explore the directing process from start to finish, mixing personal stories and experiences with insights from top mainstream directors including Dean DeBlois, Pete Docter, Eric Goldberg, Tim Miller, John Musker, Jennifer Yuh Nelson, Nick Park and Chris Wedge. The book, which will be published in June, will retail for $34.95, and is currently available as a pre-order on Amazon for $21.68.

“Animation is a young man’s game,” Chuck Jones once said. There’s no question that animation is a labor-intensive art that requires mass quantities of energy and time. While it’s true that the majority of animation directors have directed a film by the age of 30, there are also a number of well known directors who started their careers later.

Directors like Pete Docter, John Kricfalusi and Bill Plympton didn’t begin directing films until they were in their 30s. Don Bluth, Winsor McCay and Frederic Back were late bloomers who embarked on directorial careers while in their 40s. Pioneering animator Emile Cohl didn’t make his first animated film, Fantasmagorie (1908), until he was 51 years old. Of course, that wasn’t just Cohl’s first film, but it is also considered by most historians to be the first true animated cartoon that anyone ever made.

Here is a cross-selection of 30 animation directors, past and present, and the age they were when their first professional film was released to the public.

1. Don Hertzfeldt (19 years old)
   Ah, L’Amour

The Archive Series—Walt Disney’s Nine Old Men: The Flipbooks will release on September 18. This pet project of UP director Pete Docter is among the more unique book concepts, and pays tribute to the work of the Nine Old Men in the best way possible: by displaying scenes their animation work. Amazingly, none of the Nine Old Men’s full animation scenes have been made available to the public before, which makes this both a valuable historical and educational project.

There’s no better choice than Docter to spearhead the project; he’s a big fan of the flipbook format and creates a flipbook ever year as his personal Christmas card. Here’s the official book description:

This box set of nine flip books pays tribute to Walt Disney’s original animators–the Nine Old Men: Les Clark, Eric Larson, Frank Thomas, John Lounsbery, Ward Kimball, Ollie Johnston, Mark Davis, Wolfgang Reitherman, and Milt Kahl. Each flip book features a scene from an animated Disney feature in its original line-drawn form, having been selected from among a wide range of films for great movement and classic characters. Such iconic clips from the reel of Disney animation history include: Lady and the Tramp’s moonlit spaghetti dinner; Sorcerer Mickey’s ordeal with a horde of mops; and Thumper’s announcement that a prince has been born! In addition to the flip books, the box will contain a booklet providing additional information about the artists.

List price is $60, but pre-order for $37.42 on Amazon.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Flipbooks, Nine Old Men, Pete Docter