Women Pioneers of Animated Film honored at Annecy

Well, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival has come and gone. As part of the focus on women animators, this year the festival bumpers created by the students at Gobelins l'ecole de l'image shone the much deserved spotlight on five women whose contributions to the art form helped pave the way for generations of women animators:

Mary Blair
An animator for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the Ub Iwerks studio before hiring on with Walt Disney, Mary Blair would lend her experienced eye to many classic films like Dumbo, Lady and the Tramp, Cinderella, and Peter Pan before working on the "It's a Small World" attraction (which would eventually end up at Disneyland).

Evelyn Lambart
Animator and technical director for the National Film Board of Canada, Lambart's career spanned thirty years at the NFB where she worked with Norman McLaren on films like Begone Dull Care and A Chairy Tale.


Lotte Reiniger
Creator of The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the oldest surviving animated feature (and arguably the first), animator Lotte Reiniger created over forty films and wrote several books on her silhouette animation technique.

Claire Parker
M.I.T. graduate, engineer, and animator, Claire Parker co-directed animated films like Night on Bald Mountain using the pinscreen animation technique co-created with her husband, Alexandre Alexieff.

Alison de Vere
Worthy of special note, British animator Alison de Vere was the first woman to win the Grand Prix at the Annecy festival (for her film Mr. Pascal, ex æquo).

Embroidermation - Nina Paley and Theodore Gray

Y'know, just when you think you've seen it all, someone comes up with another brilliant merger of a traditional medium and digital tools--in this case, using vector files as a template to create embroidered animation "cels".

Image from Nina Paley's Blog post: Embroidermation: Tree of Life

Seen below, Nina Paley and Theodore Gray used this technique to assemble a test animation based off of a shot that Nina animated for her "Tree of Life" sequence in the film Kahlil Gibran's 'The Prophet'.


Embroidermation: Tree of Life from Nina Paley on Vimeo.

Then, they went on to create another, complete, animated short using this technique and based on a children's song from the Jewish passover. You can view this animation below and learn more about the technique on Theodore's blog: "Theodore Gray".


And if you read all the way to the end of his blog post, Nina and Theodore have released the embroidery files that they used to create the animation frames.

Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet" at the Detroit Institute of Arts

If you're in the Detroit area this Friday, June 5th, the Detroit Institute of Arts will be showing the animated feature film "The Prophet" based on the poetry of Lebanese author Kahlil Gibran.

The Prophet was produced by Salma Hayek and animated by Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells), Bill Plympton (Idiots and Angels), Nina Paley (Sita Sings the Blues) and Academy Award Winner Joan C. Gratz (Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase), among others.

This will be an outdoor screening, so bring a lawn chair or a blanket. Additionally, this is a free event! So there will be no charge to see the film.

Details on the screening can be seen on the DIA website. There is a Jazz performance at 7 p.m. followed by the screening at sundown--which they have listed at 9:30 p.m.




Hope to see some of you there. :)

Halas & Batchelor, 75 years young

As reported in the article "Halas and Batchelor - 75 Years Old today!" published by Skwigly Online Animation Magazine and written by Steve Henderson, today was the 75th anniversary* of the UK studio "Halas and Batchelor".

From the Skwigly article:

"To celebrate this anniversary of one of UK animation history’s most important studios, a new blog has been set up by Vivien Halas, manager of the Halas and Batchelor Collection, and Jez Stewart, animation curator at the BFI, that will chart the progression and selected highlights from the studio’s history over the next year."

The link to the new blog is here: halasbatchelor75.co.uk. However, be sure to take a moment and look over the rest of the article for more wonderful tidbits about the history of one of Britain's largest animation studios.

If you'd like to know more about Halas & Batchelor, there are many resources listed on the Halas & Batchelor Collection website. Two of my personal favorites are the mini documentaries published on YouTube by John and Joy's daughter Vivien Halas: "John Halas Remembered" (referenced in the Skwigly article),



and "Ode to Joy", which Vivien produced last year to commemorate what would have been her mother's 100th birthday.



You'll find these mini-documentaries as well as films produced by Halas & Batchelor on Vivien Halas' YouTube channel - the Halas & Batchelor Collection.

 *May 14, 2015

International Women's Month Interviews

It's March, and that means International Women's Day (or International Women's Month on my Smudge Animation blog).

If you don't want to wait for the interviews to be migrated over here, below are links to this year's interviews and information about Women working in the field of animation:

March 8
It's March, and that can mean only one thing: in honor of International Women's Day, I post interviews with women animators from across the wide spectrum of animated film. But there's a lot more going in the world of women in animation...

http://smudgeanimation.blogspot.com/2015/03/women-in-animation-2015.html

* * *
March 13
In the Fall of 2013, I met this vibrant young lady from Wisconsin through an e-mail that she sent to ASIFA/Central--inquiring about membership in our organization. With the core group of our members living in Michigan, she quickly became another one of our far-flung members. But Monica hasn't let distance separate her from being a part of the animation community. One of those rare individuals who immediately asks 'what can I do to help', Monica pounced on the chance to help make ASIFA a better organization--notably by volunteering to work on the recently relaunched ASIFA Magazine. During her interview, my expectations were immediately exceeded as I encountered someone with a wealth of experiences that you wouldn't expect to hear from someone so young. The interview only took thirty minutes, but before it was over, I was left wishing for more time to hear just one more story...

Kicking off 2015's interviews, it's a pleasure to introduce Monica Brujenes.

http://smudgeanimation.blogspot.com/2015/03/women-in-animation-monica-brujenes.html

* * *
March 24
I'm going to do something a little different this year. Several times a year, I am contacted by young ladies who have seen these interviews, or the posts on my sister site: 'the Women of Animated Film', or have sat through one of my history of women in animation lectures. They usually ask me for information regarding a specific woman animator for a report they're writing for school or are working on their own historical 'women in animation' sites and ask where I get my info...

http://smudgeanimation.blogspot.com/2015/03/women-in-animation-blue-sky-crew-stories.html