Published between 1982 and 1995
Filling a vacuum with a brand new concept, two studios have produced new syndicated programming for Sunday morning this past fall. The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera, distributed by Worldvision, contains three separate series, a group of tiny bears called The Paw Paws, Galtar and the Golden Lance and Yogi’s Treasure Hunt. Super Sunday, or Super … Read more
David Jefferson visits a toy manufacturer who is looking for an idea for an animated film they can back. A clever concept could make a fortune in royalties. The headquarters of Newfeld Ltd. is near the reservoirs on the outskirts of London’s Heathrow Airport. The building houses offices, a design studio, packing plant and a … Read more
Brian Sibley visited Disneyland in 1985, during its thirtieth year celebrations and discovered that the Magic Kingdom was created along the lines of a living animated film… PRE-TITLE SEQUENCE: The air is filled with a confusion of sounds. The clickerty-clack of turnstiles, the excited chatter of children (ranging from perambulated tots to very senior citizens), … Read more
Disneyland is like that too. Glancing at the upper storey windows on Main Street, I find them decorated with advertisements which incorporate the names of Disney artists and animators: ‘KEN ANDERSON Bait Co.’, ‘SHIPS MODELS – Bushman & DaGradi Mfrs.’ and in memory of his father, ‘ELIAS DISNEY Contractor Est. 1895’. Pure indulgence you might … Read more
On the rides in Fantasyland you can clearly see how the Disney ‘Imagineers’ (as Walt called them) have utilized the lessons they learned in animating film. Take, for example, ‘Peter Pan’s Flight’: boarding a model pirate-ship, I fly through the Darling children’s nursery, out of the window and into the night; dipping suddenly I find … Read more
Report by Neil Carstairs The main theme? Publicity for this year’s Festival stated that a theme running through many programmes would be ‘the rather neglected question of narrative and story telling in animation.’ Having seen over 100 films in five days of screenings the only conclusion I can come to is that neglected was the … Read more
Report from David Jefferson The Cambridge Animation Festival ran from the Tuesday evening to the Sunday evening. I went along for the weekend shows. The 1985 festival has been billed as the ‘new look’. Festival Director Irene Kotlarz said: “The aim of this new regime has been to make this year’s Festival entertaining and thought-provoking. … Read more
As the hype dies down Brian Sibley steps back and takes an objective view of the latest feature cartoon to come out of the Disney Studio. By a cunning ruse of counting The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh as if it were a feature film instead of a compilation of shorts, Walt Disney Productions were able … Read more
Not too surprisingly, the evil characters are far more interesting than the good ones, and the nasties in The Black Cauldron are the most gruesome to appear in any Disney movie since Fantasia. Especially grotesque is the cauldron-born army of skeletal warriors which come to life dripping rather more slime and gore than one normally … Read more
The Filmcraft 80 Rostrum is suitable for 8mm cameras and light 16mm cameras. In issue 14 we described how to build the main framework. David Jefferson continues with the base. As mentioned in part one of this article, the methods given are the ones I used. They are only intended as a guide and you … Read more
Rostrum base – materials. All sizes are in inches. Chipboard (Contiplas) 1 at 24 x 15” 2 at 16 x 12” Alloy 2 x ½” round tube at 14” 1 x ½” channel at 16” 1 x ½” channel at 12” 2 x ¾” channel at 16” 2 x ¾” channel at 12” 1 x … Read more
David J.M. Coleman describes a way of adding visual interest to a Plasticine puppet film with camera movement. I wanted to make a film of a legend… and after rejecting quite a few classical myths because they required too much specialist knowledge from an audience, I decided on the third part of the Old English … Read more
The next step in camera movement after this is to liberate the camera from its earthly existence altogether, and give it wings. This is achieved mind-bogglingly-well in the many adverts and title-sequences on television which now use sophisticated 3D computer animation: the Indesit advert, and the absolutely outstanding new title-sequence for Weekend World are the … Read more
Animator. Winter 1985. Issue number 14. Front cover illustrations: A Greek Tragedyby Nicole Van Goethem. Grand Prix winner at Annecy 1985.
Ken Clark pieces together a portrait of George Pal – in his ealy days – as seen through the eyes of a number of star witnesses. The 1947/48 edition of the American Motion Picture Almanac says of George Pal… “he devised the production system for his Puppetoons in London.” Even Bruce Holman, in his excellent … Read more
Our biggest problem with puppet film making was the lighting. This required a great deal more attention than live action filming because the little wooden figures were round, with painted eyes (sometimes mere dots), mouths were probably no more than straight lines. These were the factors which conveyed character and personality. A villain might have … Read more
KC.: You were with J. Walter Thompson at that time, weren’t you? G.H.: That’s right. I never worked for George Pal. When we made the Horlicks films in Eindhoven I was a Walter Thompson employee and had set up a films division within the organisation, a film-making and distributing division. The distribution half of it … Read more
Brian Sibly recalls the veteran Disney animator, Wolfgang Reitherman, who died earlier this year (1985). It is a great many years ago now that I played truant from school and sneaked into my local cinema to see Walt Disney’s Fantasia for the first time, yet I recall the occasion as if it were yesterday. Since, … Read more
Two years later saw the emergence of a very different style of animation in 101 Dalmations, co-directed by Reitherman with Hamilton Luske and Clyde Geronimi. Many of the elaborate techniques and artistic embellishments, which had been a feature of every animated film since Snow White, were now abandoned; but the revolutionary Xerox system of transferring … Read more
Now in its 25th year and with the prestige of being the birthplace of ASIFA which is also 25 years old, the Annecy Animation Festival had something to celebrate, writes David Jefferson. Last June’s festival was the biggest yet, and they had clearly put a great deal of work into staging it, but people were … Read more
The major Festival prizes were allocated by the international jury of six. The audience were also given a chance to vote for their favourite film. In the case of the film Een Griekse Tragedie both the public and the jury were in agreement. It won the Grand Prix and the Prix du Public. Een Griekse … Read more
Top left: Dalias Iook I Heroic Times. Jozsel Gdmes, Hongrie Middle left: The International Jury. Left to right: Stanislas Sokolov (USSR), Jan Svankmajer (Czech), Louise Beaudet (Canada), Michel Ciment (France), Benny Carter (USA), Michel Ocelot (France). Photo Banc-Tjtre. Bottom left: Gwen (Le Livre de Sable). Jean Francoise Laquione. France. Top right: Festival logo. Upper middle … Read more
Top left: Marie-Noëlle Provent, President of the International Animated Film Centre. Middle left: Phil Austin and Derek Hayes, Britain. Bottom left: An Annecy street scene. Top right: A Greek Tragedy by Nicole Van Goethem. Grand Prix winner at Annecy 1985. Middle right: The Festival hall. Bottom right: Carnival, Susan Young, Britain. page 1 | page … Read more
The Special Jury Prize was shared by two seasoned filmmakers, Ishu Patel of Canada and Rein Raamat of the USSR. Patel’s film Paradise is the tale of a rather ordinary looking blackbird who longs to be like the birds of paradise that live in a glittering palace. He dresses up to look like the birds … Read more
There was an air of incompleteness when the lights came up at the conclusion of the National Film Theatre’s programme of Animated Adverts on 8th July 1985 write Jane Henry and Charles Garvie. Although the event admitted to being only early animated commercials we were still left feeling cheated, as if we had only been … Read more
The Adventures of Andre and WaIIy B. recieved a Special Award from the 1985 Canadian International Animation Festival in Toronto. The whole film was generated by computer. David Jefferson reports on a talk given by two of the film’s makers at the Annecy Festival. Picture, if you can, a wide angle shot of a wooded … Read more
Using this method the computer only animates the background. All the characters are done by conventional animation. There for there is no time saving involved. The chances of wanting to do a whole story film by this method seem remote but it could be used for selected scenes in the same way that the multiplane … Read more
The general principles of inbetweening are given in a programme that can be adapted for most home micro computers. David Jefferson explains how it works. This programme will make inbetween drawings for two given drawings. It will do as many inbetween steps as you ask it. The way it works is to look at both … Read more
After 40 years in the animation business Arthur Humberstone is still going strong. He was involved with the feature films Animal Farm, The Yellow Submarine, Watership Down and The Plague Dogs. David Jefferson went along to Arthur’s home studio to find out more about his approach to animation. I first met Arthur Humberstone in 1977 … Read more
Arthur went on to become a valued member of the G.B. Animation Unit and when the studio closed, ex-Disney animator, David Hand presented Arthur with a personally signed photograph of Walt Disney, which is a very rare and treasured item. He went back to Derby and took a job as a newspaper cartoonist and his … Read more
Top: The unit of Watership Down. Bottom: Watership Down model sheets. page 1 | page 2 | page 3| page 4 | page 5
The Plague Dogs – a Martin Rosen Production. page 1 | page 2 | page 3| page 4 | page 5
When Martin Rosen, the producer of Watership Down, set up The Plague Dogs Arthur was again called upon to work as a senior animator. (George Jackson and Tony Guy also shared the same credit) This time he had to go to San Francisco. Says Arthur, ‘When we went to the States we thought we would … Read more
The Filmcraft 80 Rostrum is suitable for 8mm cameras and light 16mm cameras. David Jefferson tells you how you can build your own version of it. When I designed the Filmcraft 80 Rostrum in 1979 I had three basic criteria apart from the obvious one of it doing the job well. 1: It had to … Read more
The feet are attached in the same way. These are pre-drilled to take bolts but as I was standardizing on quarter inch whitworth bolts I found I had to drill these again to enlarge them. The uprights were also drilled a few inches from the top to take the bolts for the lighting bar. The … Read more
Cohn Pain tells how the film Animation My Way encouraged him to try his hand at cartoon animation. This led to his recent production about sub-standard housing. I bought my first cine camera when my first son was born 27 years ago. It was not until I joined the Whitehall Cine Society that I really … Read more
Animator. Summer 1985. Issue number 13. Front cover illustrations: Drawings from the Bananaman TV series.
In spite of the incredible range of animation effects that can be produced by ANTICS it is described as a Stone Age Machine by it’s inventor Alan Kitching. Ken Clark talks to the man behind the machine and finds out why. When I first met Alan Kitching, I have to admit, I was taken aback. … Read more
K.C.: So speaks the man who scratched designs on black 16mm film at the tender age of twelve. A.K.: Ah! Yes – but I spent a year in a professional animation studio run by Trevor Bond before going to university. That is how Trevor started. We had one desk and one rostrum camera. He sat … Read more
K.C.: To be fair, British animation has always attempted to find its own style. Very little of the earlier surviving material exhibit signs of Disney’s influence. A.K.: Yes, that’s true. But I mentioned the United Nations just now – we made a slick promotional short for the U.N. University. Yes! – the U.N. actually has … Read more