How to use this Page

'Trolls' director Mike Mitchell and co-director Walt Dohrn talk to Cartoon Brew about creative freedom, how Genndy Tartakovsky and Phil Lord helped out, and making cg look more handmade.

The post ‘Trolls’ Director Mike Mitchell: There Was No Mythology to These Things…I’ve Never Felt So Free appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Tartakovsky says he got an idea for a third "Hotel Transylvania" film that "made it irresistible to return" and direct again.

The post Genndy Tartakovsky Isn’t Done With ‘Hotel Transylvania,’ Will Direct Third Film in Franchise appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Directed by Doug Sweetland and Nicholas Stoller, the film will debut next September.

The post Warner Bros. Unveils ‘Storks’ Teaser appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

A leaked Sony email reveals part of the decision-making process that led Sony executives to hire Kristine Belson as the head of their animation division.

A barbarian warrior would rather wage animated war than work a real-world office job in the forthcoming animated/live-action comedy, 'Son of Zorn.'

The film already has a release date.

In the role that he held for seven years, Osher oversaw Sony Animation and Sony Pictures Imageworks.

"The LEGO Movie," "The Bigger Picture," and "Interstellar" won BAFTA Awards tonight.

This year's topsy-turvy animation award season shows no signs of letting up; after being shut out of the Oscars, 'The Lego Movie' won the Critics' Choice Movie Award tonight for best animated feature.

Not every animation director won a Golden Globe last night, but they all had a good time.

"LEGO Movie" Phil Lord and Chris Miller turned down an offer to run Sony Animation because "it’s too hard to do great work there."

Five animated features have been nominated for a Golden Globe in the best animated feature category.

The National Board of Review named 'How to Train Your Dragon 2' the best animated film of the year.

The New York Film Critics Circle named "The LEGO Movie" the best animated film of the year.

"The LEGO Movie," directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, picked up the feature film prize at the BAFTA Children's Awards.

While Fox’s Sunday night lineup was dubbed Animation Domination in May 2005, it did not officially become all-animated until 2010. Now, the announcement of their fall 2014 schedule reveals that the cartoons will be ceding some of their Sunday night territory to live-action comedies "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" and "Mulaney," which will be taking over the 8:30 and 9:30 time slots, respectively.

Continuing the inexplicable trend of people named Chris directing animated features, Chris McKay, the animation co-director of "The LEGO Movie," will direct the film's sequel, which is currently set for a May 26, 2017 release.

Whether it be for lack of budget or a desire to take center stage, series creators lending their own voices to their animated television shows has always been fairly commonplace – Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill), John Kricfalusi (Ren and Stimpy), Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy) and Trey Parker and Matt Stone (South Park) immediately spring to mind. However, in recent years, more and more feature directors have started getting in on the trend. From throwaway one-liners to continuous roles throughout entire franchises, here is a list of some animation directors and the characters they brought to life in their own films.

1. Eric Goldberg

As the animation director for Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), Goldberg not only supervised the animation of the WB’s classic characters but he voiced some of them as well. Goldberg recorded the dialogue of Marvin the Martian, Tweety Bird and Speedy Gonzalez.

2. Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud

The distinctive sputters, spurts and high-speed mutterings of The Minions in Despicable Me (2010) and Despicable Me 2 (2013) belong to the films’ co-directors Pierre Coffin (above left) and Chris Renaud. And as the character’s popularity grows, so does their vocal commitment, as the two will reprise their roles in next year’s prequel Minions.

3. Ralph Bakshi

In his debut film Fritz the Cat (1972), director Ralph Bakshi voiced one of the boorish antagonist Pig Cops, who is also referred to as “Ralph” multiple times in his scenes.

4. Brad Bird

Agnes Gooch, Edith Head, Patricia Highsmith, Linda Hunt – when it comes to figuring out who inspired the character of Edna Mode, people love to toss out many names, but in the end, the cutthroat designer of superhero fashion was brought to life by The Incredibles (2004) director Brad Bird.

5. Rich Moore

Rich Moore, director of Wreck-It Ralph (2012) provided the dreary monotone of acidic jawbreaker Sour Bill, the henchman to the bombastic King Candy.

6. Richard Williams

Even to this day, the toon celebrity cameos in Who Framed Roger Rabbit(1988) remain some of the best nods to the golden age of cartoons, especially that of Droopy Dog, who gets his opportunity to best Eddie Valiant with some traditional ‘toon high-jinks as a tricky elevator operator, sluggishly voiced by the film’s animation director Richard Williams.

7. Chris Wedge

What began as the high-strung snivels and snarls of Scrat in Ice Age (2002) has become a second career for director Chris Wedge who has gone on to vocally personify the prehistoric rodent in 3 sequels, 6 short films, 2 video games and in a walk-on role in an episode of Family Guy.

8. Chris Miller

Royal messengers, tower guards, army commanders, friars and penguins, story artist Chris Miller has lent his voice-over skills to numerous animated films, most notably his returning roles as Geppetto and The Magic Mirror in the Shrek franchise, including Shrek the Third (2007), which he co-directed.

9. Mark Dindal

The often ignored and underrated animated film Cats Don’t Dance (1997) features some beautiful hand-drawn work and stellar vocal performances, including that of director Mark Dindal as the tight-lipped bodyguard/butler Max.

10. Joe Ranft

Pixar story artist, the late Joe Ranft, brought a handful of memorable animated characters to life, including Heimlich (A Bug’s Life), Wheezy the Penguin (Toy Story 2) and Jacques the Cleaner Shrimp (Finding Nemo). But it was in Cars (2006), which he co-directed, that he voiced three characters including the semi-truck Jerry Recycled Batteries.

11. Chris Sanders

In Lilo & Stitch (2002) co-director Chris Sanders takes on the nuanced role of Alien Experiment 626, aka “Stitch,” who escapes from an intergalactic prison only to find himself trapped on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

12. Nathan Greno and Byron Howard

Nathan Greno (above right) and Byron Howard not only paired up as co-directors of Tangled (2010) but also doubled as duos of Thugs and Guards in the animated picture.

13. John Lasseter

With five features under his belt, John Lasseter has had plenty of opportunity to throw himself behind the microphone, however upon review of his filmography, you’ll find he has chosen his roles very carefully, as the role of John Lassetire in Cars 2 (2011) and the hilariously bug-zapped Harry the Mosquito in A Bug’s Life (1998).

Pop culture references abound in the new teaser trailer for The LEGO Movie directed by the creative team of Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Clone High TV series, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 21 Jump Street). Warner Bros. will release the film in the U.S. on February 7, 2014. The highlight in this teaser is the animation, which has the chunky staccato rhythms one might expect of LEGOs animated in stop motion though it is actually achieved through computer animation.

In a rare trifecta, animation artists ruled the top three spots at the box office this weekend. The number one spot, with an estimated $35 million, belonged to the TV adaptation of 21 Jump Street. It heralded the live-action feature directing debut of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who were the co-creators of MTV/Teletoon’s Clone High and the directors of Sony’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Second place went to Illumination Entetainment’s The Lorax which earned an estimated $22.8M in its third weekend, pushing its total to a robus $158.4M. Rounding out the top three was Andrew Stanton’s John Carter, which dropped 55% from its first weekend to an estimated $13.5M. The Disney flop’s two-week total is $53.2M and is headed to a final domestic tally of $90-100M.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: 21 Jump Street, Andrew Stanton, Chris Miller, Illumination, John Carter, Phil Lord, The Lorax