Evangeline Than

Oh dear, another book to add to the giant wish list of Animation Books That I Must Have.

I will quote Stanchfield’s Wikipedia blurb here, because it will tell you all you need to know, much better than I could:

Walt Stanchfield (1919-2000) was an American animator.

Stanchfield was born in Los Angeles [1] and began his career in animation in 1937 at the Charles Mintz Studio. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, then worked at the Walter Lantz Studio prior to his lengthy tenure at The Walt Disney Studios. While at Disney, he worked on every full-length animated feature from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) through The Great Mouse Detective (1986).

In the 1970s, Stanchfield focused his efforts on establishing a training program for new animators along with veteran animator and director Eric Larson. Stanchfield held regular weekly drawing classes and lectures for the crew, and among his students were young talent that went on to become prominent figures within the animation industry: Brad Bird, John Lasseter, Don Bluth, Joe Ranft, John Musker, Ron Clements, Glen Keane, Andreas Deja, and Mark Henn, among others.

In the mid-1980s, Stanchfield taught weekly gesture drawing classes for the entire studio. At the end of each class, he grabbed a few drawings that inspired or challenged him, then pasted them up with his typewritten commentary as a handout for everyone in the class. These weekly lecture notes, along with his early writings for the animation training program, are now gathered and published in the two-volume collection entitled Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes which is published by Focal Press and edited by animation producer Don Hahn [2].

Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures can be found here at Amazon.

Sources: Wikipedia article found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Stanchfield on March 29th, 2009. I first read about this book at Cedric Hohnstadt’s blog, URL: http://cedrichohnstadt.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/walt-stanchfields-drawn-to-life/ (posted March 2nd, 2009).

I can’t claim to be an expert in this area, but I’ve seen a lot of animation and read a lot of books, and this appealing short has the following elements of a successful creative work:

• It all starts with a great story.
• Leave in only what’s necessary, nothing more.
• Show, don’t tell.

We also had a life drawing class at Perth Zoo recently, and it gives me a thrill to see the lemurs, penguins and bats again (and in cartoon form to boot)! Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to present Zoologic by Nicole Mitchell:

Sources: embedded video from Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePMK3FeyYxI. I first read about this film at Lost At E Minor, URL: http://www.lostateminor.com/2009/03/27/zoologic/ (posted March 27th, 2009).

Jan Stewart, Chief Executive Officer of LotteryWest, and Russell Woolf at the 22nd West Australian Screen Awards.

I was fortunate enough to attend the 22nd West Australian Screen Awards on Saturday night. Actually, my entrée to this glistering event was due more to sweat than luck: I volunteered to be a runner on the day, in the hope that I would be able to watch some of the ceremony while performing my duties.

So I ran errands in and out of the Octagon theatre, got soaked cleaning filthy 40-gallon drums that would be reborn as golden cocktail tables, and did some speed-typing on a Macbook (why is there no right mouse button, Apple? WHY?)

At the end of it all (including some exciting last-minute wrist-banding duties), I had a shiny WASA ticket (RRP $70, including two hours of quality booze and finger food) in my grubby little hand, and scrubbed up to watch the ceremony.

In the last-minute fracas before the show started, I also got to meet Diana Warnock, a gracious and charmingly un-snobby lady, who would present the Bill Warnock Award to Meg Shields later that evening. She looked very glamorous in a black and purple ensemble that she said she had just “thrown together”. I can only pray that I will look that good in a few years.

The show’s opener was a slick musical act by Matt Lovkis (I later discovered that my partner had been on a radio show with him once–Perth is a small town indeed!) and Ash Gibson-Greig. Matt and Ash also closed the ceremony with a number that I thought was a little risqué–boys have been beaten up behind the bike shed for less–but the audience were in good spirits, so all’s well that ends well.

You can read more about the 22nd West Australian Screen Awards at the FTI website, which also has a list of this year’s winners.

Here are Shani (in the right hand pic) and I posing in the picture area. Just practising for next year (we can dream, can’t we?)

If you’re racking your brains for film or illustration ideas, may I introduce you to the site F*** My Life? (Caution: site contains the F-bomb, and quite possibly a few other bombs as well.)

People post short anecdotes about some event in their lives that has gone horribly, or hilariously wrong, and end the story with the tagline, “FML”. If reading through the entries doesn’t make you think, hmm, I could totally steal that for my next film, at least you’ll get a laugh.

Source: I first read about this on Boobs, Injuries and Dr Pepper at http://boobsinjuriesanddrpepper.blogspot.com/2009/03/why-have-i-not-seen-this.html (posted March 18, 2009)

Brian and Eileen’s wedding music video, by LOCKDOWN projects.

A reminder that a film maker’s bread-and-butter work can still be creative and fun.

Sources: embedded video from Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCGCEbEreQw. I first read about this video on the Dancing with Frogs blog, URL: http://www.dancingwithfrogs.com/2009/03/14/watch-this-its-the-awesomest-thing-ive-ever-seen/ (posted March 16th, 2009).

While in (clay) modelling class yesterday, chit-chatting with our instructor (I could tell you his name but he might not like that), I found out that Ian Tregonning, who runs short courses at FTI, and is something of a Big Deal in Perth puppetry circles, was one of the puppeteers in Labyrinth!

For want of a better analogy, this is like someone telling the Archbishop of Canterbury that he knows someone who was at the Last Supper.

Actually, that’s a terrible analogy, because I am nothing like the head of the Church of England. At the age of 11, I tried to do an all-day fast for Good Friday and then had a breakdown at lunchtime.

As someone who grew up in the ’80s, Labyrinth is right up there with Pretty in Pink and Ghostbusters and the Breakfast Club and A-ha and Wham! and Michael Jackson when he was a good-looking black guy and Transformers (I could go on but I’ve mangled this sentence enough already), and all the cheesy, tacky, angsty, defining, delightful phenomena of that time, made even more perfect in my memory through the judicious application of nostalgia dust.

I remember Jennifer Connelly as Sarah, the girl who has to find her way out of the Goblin King’s labyrinth before midnight, or lose her baby brother, Toby, forever. Connelly’s acting at the beginning of the film was terrible, very stiff (it did get better as the movie progressed), but even then you could see she had a “something”, a lovely, innocent quality, that made her perfect for the role.

And then there was David Bowie. DAVID BOWIE. Rock legend. Who also looked damn good in tights. Enough said.

When Labyrinth came out in 1986, I was in Year 4 (feel free to do the maths and then mentally hand me a Zimmer frame) and that film made me love David Bowie with all of my twisted little heart. I truly admired the strength that it took for Sarah to resist the lure of the Goblin Kingdom (and the Goblin King–rawr) but naturally, that admiration was tinged with regret. Let me tell you right now: I could not have done it. Jareth would turn up in his black leather number and I’d be all, Toby? What Toby?

The masquerade ball in the movie is the scene that I remember the best. I made a mix tape (yes, that’s right, children, a mix TAPE) for my cousin with, “As the World Falls Down” on it, and her sister gave me a good telling off the next time she saw me. I ended up having to make the same mix tape about four times.

Apparently Ian will not divulge which goblin he worked with, but it meant spending a lot of time at the same height as David Bowie’s crotch. I will try to ask Ian for more details if I ever meet him, but I’m sure he’s quite sick of telling Labyrinth stories and will probably fling his pointiest puppet at me.

I went to a cocktail party after I learned about FTI’s association with Ian, and almost everyone I told squee-ed with excitement as well, except for one clueless 28-year-old who is now dead to me. HOW CAN SOMEONE HAVE NEVER HEARD OF LABYRINTH? Anyone else? Because if you haven’t, you’re dead to me too.

Ian was also a principal puppeteer on Little Shop of Horrors with Rick Moranis, and includes The Muppet Christmas Carol, Babe, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Dr Dolittle on his very impressive résumé. He will be holding a Puppetry for Television course on the 18th and 19th of April at FTI. For more details, please visit the FTI website.

This short film is what you might call highly stylised. Some people have a problem with this, but I don’t mind as long as it’s accompanied by a good story. And boy, is this a good story. Ida’s Luck was written and animated by Katy Towell, with fantastic narration by Tim Jones and haunting music by Kevin McLeod. (I found the singing a little hard to listen to, but maybe that was the point.)

You can view part 1 of Ida’s Luck below. To view part 2, visit Katy’s CHILDRIN R SKARY site at http://skary.net/movies/:

Sources: embedded video from Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0WOLzxxrYI. I first read about this film at Ticklebooth, URL: http://ticklebooth.com/2009/02/idas-luck/ (posted February 24th, 2009).