Last month’s special ASIFA-Hollywood online Q&A for the short film “Over the Moon” included Director Glen Keane, Producers Gennie Rim and Peilin Chou, Production Designer Celine Desrumaux, and Head of Character Animation Sebastian “Sacha” Kapijimpanga. The panel was moderated by Jerry Beck.
“Over the Moon” celebrates Chinese mythology as it follows a girl named Fei Fei (Cathy Ang), whose mother used to tell her tales of the Moon goddess, Chang’e (voiced by “Hamilton’s” Phillipa Soo). As Fei Fei is faced with changes in her life and her father is thinking of remarrying, Fei Fei decides to builds a rocket to the moon in her quest to meet Chang’e. Her determination fueled by the adults who tell her Chang’e isn’t real.
The voice cast includes Ken Jeong, John Cho, Margaret Cho and Sandra Oh
Last week’s special ASIFA-Hollywood online Q&A was with “Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous” executive producers Scott Kreamer and Aaron Hammersley, CG animation director Dan Godinez and art directors Christophe Vacher and JP Balmet, moderated by Aubry Mintz. If you missed it, the Q&A is now available on the ASIFA-Hollywood YouTube channel.
About Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous
“Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous,” an animated action-adventure series, will debut globally on Netflix in 2020 as part of an ongoing multi-year agreement with Netflix to produce original animated kids and family programming. Set within the same timeline as the 2015 blockbuster film, Jurassic World, the Netflix original series is inspired by the multi-billion-dollar franchise from Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment.
“Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous” follows a group of six teenagers chosen for a once-in-a-lifetime experience at a new adventure camp on the opposite side of Isla Nublar. But when dinosaurs wreak havoc across the island, the campers are stranded. Unable to reach the outside world, they’ll need to go from strangers to friends to family if they’re going to survive.
Scott Kreamer (Pinky Malinky) and Lane Lueras (Kung Fu Panda: The Paws of Destiny) serve as showrunners and executive producers. The series is executive produced by Steven Spielberg, Frank Marshall, and Colin Trevorrow. Zack Stentz serves as consulting producer.
Legendary Disney directors Ron Clements and John Musker (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Hercules, The Princess and the Frog, Moana) join ASIFA-Hollywood at Annecy online to discuss their careers and their views on the animation industry.
At this past Annecy, ASIFA-Hollywood hosted an informal Masterclass conversation with John Musker and Ron Clements. The conversation including anecdotes about their development as animation writers/directors, their history at the Walt Disney Studios, their animated features, and their views on the current animation scene, as well as projections on the future of the industry.
Last week’s special ASIFA-Hollywood online Q&A was with Jungle Beat: The Movie Founder/Executive Producer Phil Cunningham, Writer/Director Brent Dawes, Producer Rita Mbanga, and Producer Tim Keller. If you missed it, the Q&A is now available below and on our YouTube channel.
Video from the 2017 UCLA Festival of Preservation Event: “Classic Animated Shorts from Paramount” screening at the Billy Wilder Theater.
UCLA Film & Television Archive head of preservation Scott MacQueen, ASIFA-Hollywood president Jerry Beck and executive director Frank Gladstone discuss the animated shorts RAGGEDY ANN AND ANDY, THE RAVEN and DINAH, recently restored with funds provided by ASIFA-Hollywood in collaboration with the Archive.
About the UCLA Film & Television Archive
The UCLA Film & Television Archive is an internationally renowned visual arts organization focused on the preservation, study, and appreciation of film and television, based at the University of California, Los Angeles. It holds more than 220,000 film and television titles and 27 million feet of newsreel footage, a collection second only to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. It has more media materials than any other university in the world.
Also a nonprofit exhibition venue, the archive screens over 400 films and videos a year, primarily at the Billy Wilder Theater, located inside the Hammer Museum in Westwood, California. (Formerly, it screened films at the James Bridges Theater on the UCLA campus). The archive is funded by UCLA, public and private interests, and the entertainment industry. It is a member of the International Federation of Film Archives.
If you missed the Annie Awards online streaming, there’s no need to worry. You can now watch the Annie Awards show in it’s entirety on ASIFA-Hollywood’s YouTube channel!
ASIFA-Hollywood became a headlining participant at last month’s San Diego Comic-Con with a panel discussion that included a lively panel on the state of the animation industry. The panel included Rick Farmiloe, Careen Ingel, Camille Kanengiser, Peter Ramsey and Marlon West.
The panel included moderator Frank Gladstone, who led a spirited discussion on current trends of animation, as well as how the industry is changing due to animation being produced in many different countries and emerging technologies. The panelists discussed how animators fit into current business models of animation studios and the ever-changing landscape of motion pictures, television, and new media.
A special thank you to Danny Young for filming the panel.
2015 proved to be the biggest year of the annual event. In its 13th year, the contest included a record-breaking 525 students participating from 24 schools from around the world! Sponsored by ToonBoom, CSU Summer Arts, Digicel, Focal Press, Wacom, CTN, ASIFA-Hollywood, Stuart Ng Books, Dreamworks, Blue Sky, Laika, Animation Magazine and Film Roman/Starz, the event was kicked off with an introduction by event chairman Aubry Mintz, which included a role call of all the participating schools and an explanation of event rules.
The theme “Imagine if technology was introduced at the dawn of humankind” was announced, and Students immediately began working in teams of 5 to complete 30-second animated films from scratch.
The students’ marathon session was overseen by their instructors, who were allowed to observe their students, but not offer direct help other than finding ways to motivate the students to complete their films (and occasionally making runs to keep the creative binge fueled with pizza, snacks and energy drinks).
Judges for the event included Steve Hickner (DreamWorks Animation), Mike Roberts (Shadow Machine), Sam Michlap (DreamWorks Animation), Sarah LaPenna Onheiber (Rockstar Games), and Leasa Epps-Eisele (Film Roman). Films were evaluated on storytelling (was the story clear, entertaining and related to the topic), art direction/animation (how was the production quality of the film), creativity (how did the team creatively interpret the topic) and completion (was the film complete). Prizes from the sponsors were awarded to the 5 top scoring teams:
1st place – 36.8 point average – Potty Squad CSUF
2nd place – 36.4 point average – Oxizone Children Sheridan College
3rd place – 35 point average – Trinket Films – Sheridan College
4th place – 34.6 point average – Squad 69 – Ringling College of Art and Design
5th place – 34.5 point average– Cartoonista – Academy of Art San Francisco
To view the announcement of the winners, take a look at the video below.
“I find that some of my students work so hard for this contest that it opens their eyes up to their own potential and they inject this work ethic into the rest of their semester,” stated Mintz. “As long as they keep coming back, I’ll keep running the contest!”
The record-breaking year included 22 registered schools, 105 teams and 525 students! Participating schools included:
Academy of Art University (San Francisco , CA)
Columbus College of Art and Design (Columbus, OH)
CSUC (Chico, CA)
CSUF (Fullerton, CA)
CSULB (Long Beach, CA)
CSUN (Northridge, CA)
Griffith Film School (Queensland, Australia)
Kansas City Art institute, (Kansas City, MO)
Kendall College of Art and Design (Grand Rapids, MI)
MTSU (Tennessee)
Northeastern University (Boston, MA)
Queensland QUT (Brisbane, Australia)
Ringling College of Art and Design (Sarasota, FL)
Rowland High School (Rowland Heights, CA)
Sam Houston State University (Huntsville, TX)
SJSU (San Jose, CA)
Seneca College (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
Sheridan College (Toronto, Ontario, Canada)
South Dakota State University (Brookings, South Dakota)
UC Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)
USC (Los Angeles, CA)
Woodbury University (Glendale, CA)
The Genesis of The Annual Event
The 24 HOURS Animation Contest for students was created by CSULB Professor/Head of Animation, Aubry Mintz in an effort to motivate his students to work a little harder.
In 2002, he challenged his senior animation class to animate into the night and promised to stay until the last one remained. 5 tired students stayed through the night working hard on their animation assignments, and at 6am they all watched the sunrise. Mintz was so impressed with the accomplishments that his students were able to achieve in a condensed amount of time that he decided to make this an annual tradition and 24 HOURS was born.
Word traveled fast about this motivating contest and participation has grown every year. 24 HOURS is now a successful international competition with 525 students from 22 schools participating in the US, Canada and Australia in 2015. Mintz is now raising the funds to host an “iron chef” style final round where the finalists will compete under one roof. If all goes to plan, he hopes to have this competition in May 2016. More details of the contest can be found by joining the 24 HOURS Facebook group.
ASIFA-Hollywood is dedicated to preserving film so that we don’t lose the treasures from the past. To ensure this, we have inaugurated our Animation Preservation Project. Through it, ASIFA-Hollywood will seek out, find, preserve, and restore those cartoon “orphans.” We will endeavor to make animation fans and the general public aware of the need to for preservation. This video is presented as a part of an educational program by the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive.
To view more videos on ASIFA-Hollywood’s YouTube channel, click on the image below.
Please be advised that some of these early cartoons feature behavior, stereotypes and cultural references common to the time that they were produced, but may be interpreted as insensitive or derogatory by today’s standards. Nevertheless, in an effort to provide a look at our history and the evolution of our art form, we show these films uncensored and in their entirety.
Animation historian and Chair of the USC Animation Program, Tom Sito hosted a series of one-on-one interviews with animation’s movers and shakers back in the 1990s.
In this episode, Tom has a lively discussion with Floyd Norman, an American animator, writer, and comic book artist. Over the course of his career, Norman has worked for a number of animation companies, among them Walt Disney Animation Studios, Hanna-Barbera Productions, Ruby-Spears, Film Roman and Pixar.
