Animated News: Kirsten Lepore interviewed on Skwigly

Kristen Lepore

Just in case you missed it, on March 19th, Laura Beth Cowley interviewed stop-motion animator Kirsten Lepore for Skwigly Online Animation Magazine.

Chock full of information on her process and punctuated by her short films (streamed through Vimeo), this interview is an inspirational resource for animators who are straddling the line between producing personal works of art and commercial art for clients.

Excerpts from the audio interview can be read on the Skwigly website at the following link. And the full audio interview can be heard in the second half of their audio podcast found at the following link. Kristen's interview begins around time marker 48:20 (after a short introduction).

Additionally, you can view more of Kristen's films (both personal and for clients) on her website at www.kristenlepore.com.

* photo from Skwigly Online Magazine article: http://www.skwigly.co.uk/interview-director-animator-kirsten-lepore/.

Animated News: Joy Batchelor at the Barbican

So back on April 13th, the Barbican Art Centre held a event on the career of Joy Batchelor as part of the Bird's Eye Festival.

The event "Joy Batchelor - An Animated Life" apparently showcased clips from films that Joy had a hand in during her time as the co-owner of the British animation studio 'Halas and Batchelor', followed by a panel discussion.

Well, Joy's daughter Vivien Halas has recently released two videos on her YouTube channel from this event. The first is a two minute introduction to the screening and the second is the almost hour-long panel discussion of Joy's career and influence featuring Brian Sibley, Clare Kitson, Jes Stewart and Vivien Halas--all contributors to the book "A Moving Image".

The introduction is below, and the panel discussion follows.





During this event, they released the book on Joy Batchelor's life and career titled: "A Moving Image - Joy Batchelor 1914-91 - Artist, Writer and Animator".

I recently bought my copy via Amazon for $25.23, which included the cost of shipping the book overseas. Amazon apparently doesn't have these in stock here in the USA, however they're being sold from a third-party seller in the UK. I can attest to the fact that the price was more than fair, the packaging excellent, and the shipping time was very fast (from the UK to Michigan).

While I've only just started reading it, I can state that it's a lovely book with a clean, easy-to-read presentation of Joy's history filled with her illustrations and pictures from her animations. The book is basically a collection of six essays written by six different authors--including Vivien Halas--that cover Joy's life and times. I'm not finished devouring this book yet, so I'd rather not go into too much detail, but suffice it to say, one of the things that I really appreciate is that on pages 80 to 84, Vivien has included a filmography/spreadsheet of Joy's body of work that details what role she played on each film production.

Animated News: Joy Batchelor's 100th Birthday

Joy Batchelor

100 years ago today, on May 12, 1914, Joy Batchelor was born. To commemorate this event, Skwigly Online Magazine has put together a wonderful article that collects photos of Joy, some shorts that she produced, a list of screenings of Joy's work, a link to the new 'A Moving Image: Joy Batchelor' book, and a short film produced by her daughter Vivian Halas and London Animation Club member Martin Pickles.

The video, 'Ode to Joy', is only four minutes long, but is a fantastic introduction to Joy's career in animation.

You can find the article here on their website:
http://www.skwigly.co.uk/happy-100th-birthday-joy-batchelor-ode-joy/

If you have a chance, it's well worth a look.



* photo from BFI website:
http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/born-1914-seven-great-filmmakers

Animated News: Lauren MacMullan and Dorothy McKim interviewed

Lauren MacMullan and Eric Goldberg
OIAF 2013

Just in case you missed it, Disney has posted an interview with "Get A Horse" animated short creators Lauren MacMullan, Dorothy McKim, Eric Goldberg, and Adam Green on the Disney Insider blog earlier this month.

Clocking in at almost four minutes long, among other things, the video discusses the challenges of editing Walt's dialog from previous recordings or 2D and 3D animation crews working together to make the two different visual sequences mesh seamlessly.

The video can be viewed at the following link: http://blogs.disney.com/insider/articles/2014/02/25/meet-the-creators-of-get-a-horse/.

Animated News: Nancy Beiman on NPR

Nancy Beiman (source: LinkedIn)

Working off of the Vanity Fair article on a group of graduates from CalArts' animation program in the 1970's--which included such notable animators as Tim Burton, Brad Bird, John Lasseter, and Disney's first female animation supervisor: Nancy Beiman--on Sunday, February 16th, National Public Radio posted an interview with Ms.Beiman on their website.

You can read the transcript on their website, however I highly encourage readers to listen to the entire interview with Ms. Beiman by either streaming audio or downloading the audio file off of the same page. During the interview, Ms. Beiman provides some insights on what it was like to be one of the few women studying to be an animator at CalArts at that time.

While only five-and-a-half minutes long, Ms. Beiman's interview is worth listening to for any girl who in interested in pursuing a career in animation. Starting at time marker 1:50, she discusses not just some of the male-centric humor she endured with grace (and countering with humor of her own), but also the hard work involved in learning the trade of animation with some notes on what she did to succeed in her field.

Ms. Beiman has published two books: "Prepare to Board: Creating Story and Characters for Animated Features and Shorts" (now in its second edition), and "Animated Performance: Bringing Imaginary Animal, Human and Fantasy Characters to Life". While I haven't yet read "Animated Performance", in my not-so-humble opinion, "Prepare to Board' is a must-read for any serious animation student.

For those who only wish to listen to the NPR interview, I've embedded NPR's Media Player below.

Animated News: Michaela Pavlátová interviewed on Skwigly

Michaela Pavlátová

Near the end of January, Skwigly Online Magazine posted animator Laura-Beth Cowley's interview with Michaela Pavlátová. Ms. Pavlátová is the director/animator of animated short films like "Carnival of Animals" and most recently the award winning "Tram", her bawdy tale of fantasy and romance on a street car. The interview can be found on the Skwigly website at the following link.

Additionally, Skwigly interviewed Ms. Pavlátová back in November at the Bradford Animation Festival and posted a mini-podcast of that interview on their website at the following link.

Ms. Michaela Pavlátová has posted trailers to the rest of her animations on her website, and you can see the trailer she created for "Tram" below.



Please Note: as some of Ms. Pavlátová's films contain some adult imagery, some of the videos and pictures on her website (including the trailer above) may be NSFW.

* image used from Michaela Pavlátová entry in Wikipedia.org

Animated News: Walt Disney Speech Controversy

Walt Disney

I first heard about the anti-Disney comments made by Meryl Streep when an article by Animation Magazine showed up in my e-mail's inbox the other day. At this point, I'm sure we've all heard about Meryl Streep's speech at the National Board of Review gala last Tuesday where she made some remarks about Walt Disney being a misogynist and an anti-Semite. If you haven't, go ahead and check out the Animation Magazine article for a quick summary--I'll wait.

Now rather than immediately react based upon excerpts from a speech and a blog post, I recommend first reading what she said at the event. After looking around on the Internet, I believe her speech is presented in its entirety on this Vanity Fair website article.

Next, the following are two rebuttal articles, the first from Floyd Norman, an African-American man who worked for, and knew, Walt Disney personally; the second is a point-by-point, "fact-checking" article from Amid Amidi, the owner/editor-in-chief of Cartoon Brew who, according to him, is the "family-approved biographer of Ward Kimball". You can read Mr. Norman's article here, and Mr. Amidi's article here.

Reading through the comments on this issue, there's a lot of vitriol being thrown about between the two camps. Personally, I carry very strong opinions on a great number of subjects and this one is no different, so it would be very easy of me to jump on the bandwagon and make a statement on what was said at the event--as well as what was written in the two rebuttal articles. However, I don't want to influence anyone's opinion either way on this subject. Rather, it is my hope that instead of getting caught up in the maelstrom of personal and public opinion, everyone would first read Ms. Streep's speech then read the rebuttal articles linked to in this blog post. Once you've done so, use them as a springboard to do your own research into the issues raised and come to your own conclusions regarding the validity (or lack thereof) of Ms. Streep's statements about Walt Disney.

No matter who you agree with, freedom of thought is the only real freedom we have. So do your homework and then, to paraphrase 'Brian', "think for yourselves!"

* image from Wikipedia entry on Walt Disney.