by Brendan Burch

After dialing up Martha Baxton to get a ticket, I was asked if I would be attending last month’s CalArts Producer’s Show as “an alumnus” or as “a studio representative.” Either would’ve been the truth, as I’m a proud graduate of the Character Animation School, but for the last 7 years I’ve been heading up Six Point Harness Studios in Hollywood. After considering my options, I decided to attend as a “studio rep” that night, and in hindsight, I’m glad I did. I doubt that was a proud night for any CalArts alumni.

I’ve got some new projects coming up, so I was attending primarily to find artists. After a long day of work, I was tired (as I’m sure many of the DreamWorks, Disney and Fox representatives were as well), and I wasn’t thrilled to see that the event had started late. Once things got underway, there were programming issues with nearly everyone on stage; notes were lost, the presenting order wasn’t followed, the department director was chewing gum, and a stream of CalArts-themed inside jokes were presented to an audience comprised of animation professionals. Not a great start.
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Meet Brock Lee (brocc-oli? get it?), a video game drive who isn’t satisfied with his lot in life. He stars in this new spot for Activision’s Blur driving game. The effort was led by Droga5 and directed by Darren Walsh.

In the mid-90s I was working at The Walt Disney Company as an assistant. I actually held that title 3 different times on the Burbank lot, but the most rewarding experience was working alongside Dan Wolf. At the time, Dan was the speechwriter for a number of the senior executives at the company, including then-CEO Michael Eisner and Roy E. Disney, who passed away yesterday. As a go-between and support person, my understanding of Roy was witnessed by way of Dan’s thorough process; interviewing Roy, exchanging notes and often accompanying him to the speaking event. On occasion, I worked directly with Roy, and in those rare moments, he lived up to everything I’d heard about him (see below). Roy was thoughtful, humble and full of immense passion for Disney animation and the medium as a whole. Dan remains a close friend of mine, and he was in touch with Roy in his final days. He sent me a few comments that we’d like to share with you:

I worked with Roy Disney for 20 years. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the man is that everything that’s being written about him is true. He really was shy and unassuming, but very determined once crossed. He really did save Disney animation and, in doing so, saved animation as an art form. He really did have Walt Disney tell him the story of Pinocchio sitting on his bed when he had chicken pox. And he really did care, passionately, about all things Disney, something he insisted was much more than a “brand,” but a proud name that stood for “family” and “quality.”

Roy’s death truly marks the end of an era… and the end of the link to an earlier era. He was the one person who was close to the first golden age of animation and was key to the creation of the second golden age. His passing is painful for anyone who loves animation, and especially painful for anyone who had the privilege of talking to the one person for whom Uncle Walt was truly Uncle Walt. — Dan Wolf

By Keith Staskiewicz

The season of animation is upon us. The hotly-anticipated new feature 9, not to be confused with the upcoming musical Nine nor the German negative “Nein!” arrived yesterday in theaters on 9/9/09, making it the most numerologically apt release date since the June 6, 2006 unleashing of the Omen remake.

And after 9, the deluge. From now until the end of the year we’ll be seeing an unprecedented avalanche of animation hitting mainstream American cinemas, and one that demonstrates just how many formats can huddle in under the medium’s single umbrella. We’ll see a not-so-classic adaptation of a much-adapted classic, an eagerly awaited return to form, the ambitious realization of a long-gestated original vision, and a live-action auteur’s first foray into animation, among many others, brought to us via CGI, stop-motion, traditional hand-drawn cel, and the latest performance-capture technology. It’s a good time for animation fans.

9

Focus Features and Starz Animation
September 9

In between putting finishing touches on orcs and trolls for the Lord of the Rings at Peter Jackson’s famed Weta Workshop, Shane Acker worked for over four years on a short film that would eventually be nominated for an Academy Award in 2005. Now, another four years later, his meticulously imagined world of ragdoll protagonists, apocalyptic malaise and an entire mechanical ecosystem of things that go bump in the night, is coming to the big screen. 9 is produced by Tim Burton, a man who also likes his fairy tales on the darker side, and Timur Bekmambetov of Wanted fame, and features the voices of Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer and John C. Reilly. Expanding on the mythology established in the 11-minute short and giving vocal cords to the once silent characters, Acker follows nine sentient dolls as they try to unravel their own existence as well as the terrible fate that has befallen humanity, both of which might be tied together in what Acker has dubbed “a Geppetto/Oppenheimer figure.”

Expect the film to be dark and genuinely scary. I had the opportunity to speak with Acker a number of months ago and he emphasized his desire to lend the film a genuine aura of fear and peril: “What I’m trying to evoke here is fairy tales, the real ones. They were moral tales and there needed to be severe consequences to teach those lessons. (In) some of these animated films nowadays, you don’t feel like there are any stakes. It’s set up so much as a series of gags. You don’t really feel the nature of the threat. But I tried to make that threat present in 9.” The TV ads have warned that 9 is “definitely not your little brother’s animated movie,” which sucks for my little brother, because he, like myself, thinks it looks totally badass.

This spot for Coca-Cola was directed by Punga’s Tomi Dieguez, the spot integrates CG animation with live action footage. The Madrid-based agency Sra. Rushmore oversaw the production of the ad, which is titled Wrestler.

For a while there, Up was basking in perfect “freshness,” holding steady at 100% over at RottenTomatoes.com. But with 2 negative reviews submitted, a little air has leaked from the balloon. You can’t please all the people all the time, or so the saying goes, but what I’ve found even more interesting is how the critical community over at RT has leaped to defend the film’s honor. The New York Press’ Armond White, who didn’t care much for WALL-E either, picked Up to pieces, calling it “sentimental” and a “rip-off.” The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern lobbed in the second rotten grenade, writing that “I admired the film much more than I enjoyed it.” Subsequently, White and Morgenstern were drawn and quartered in the comments section at RT; dismissed as heartless villians bent on ruining Up’s grand reception.
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Not satisfied with a simple BLT, McDonald’s has gone and created their own acronym sandwich…. the CBO. Sounds like Chief Burger Officer to me, but it actually stands for Chicken, Bacon, and Onion. To help promote the new sandwich in countries like Switzerland, France and the Czech Republic, McDonalds teamed up with DDB Prague and director Wolfberg at Stillking Films to create a website and this stylish, sci-fi TV spot, titled Heavenly Steak: